Hebrew Bible And Ancient Versions: Selected Essays of Robert P. Gordon (Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS) monograph series)

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Robert Gordon gathers together his most important essays on the Old Testament and on the ancient versions, adding an introduction which gives background comment and reflections on each essay. The Old Testament essays are divided into three groups: “The Narrative Tradition”, “Prophecy from East to West”, and “Across, Behind and Beyond the Text”. The essays on the ancient versions are divided into two sections: “The Text and the Versions” and “The Targums, Chiefly to the Prophets”.

SOCIETY FOR OLD TESTAMENT STUDY MONOGRAPHS Series Editor Margaret Barker Series Editorial Board Katharine J. Dell; Paul Joyce; Edward Ball; Eryl Davies Series Advisory Board Bertil Albrektson; Graeme Auld; John Barton; Joseph Blenkinsopp; William Johnstone; John Rogerson Ashgate is pleased to publish the revived Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS) monograph series. The Society for Old Testament Study is a learned society based in the British Isles, with an international membership, committed to the study of the Old Testament. This series promotes Old Testament studies with the support and guidance of the Society. The series includes research monographs by members of the Society, both from established international scholars and from exciting new authors. Titles in the series include: Isaiah as Liturgy Michael Goulder Mythology and Lament Studies in the Oracles about the Nations John B. Geyer Samuel at the Threshold Selected Works of Graeme Auld Graeme Auld Wisdom: The Collected Articles of Norman Whybray Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Margaret Barker

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Versions Selected Essays of Robert P. Gordon

ROBERT P. GORDON

University of Cambridge

© Robert P. Gordon, 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Robert P. Gordon has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hants GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Gordon, R. P. Hebrew Bible and ancient versions: selected essays of Robert P. Gordon. – (The Society for Old Testament Study monographs) 1. Bible. O.T. – Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. – Versions I. Title II. Society for Old Testament Study 221.4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gordon, R. P. Hebrew Bible and ancient versions: selected essays of Robert P. Gordon p. cm. – (Ashgate contemporary thinkers on religion) (Society for Old Testament Study) Includes index. ISBN 0-7546-5617-9 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T. – Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. – Versions – History. I. Title. II. Series. III. Society for Old Testament Study monographs. BS1171.3.G67 2006 221.6–dc22 2005031989 ISBN-10: 0-7546-5617-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5617-3 Printed on acid-free paper Typeset in Times New Roman by IML Typographers, Birkenhead, Merseyside Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin

For Ruth Graham and Ruth Claire and Alasdair

This page intentionally left blank

Contents Preface

ix

Place of Previous Publication

xi

Abbreviations

xiii

Introduction

xix I

Hebrew Bible

The Narrative Tradition

3

1

David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24–26

5

2

Simplicity of the Highest Cunning: Narrative Art in the Old Testament

22

3

Word-Play and Verse-Order in 1 Samuel xxiv 5–8

33

4

Covenant and Apology in 2 Samuel 3

38

5

Compositeness, Conflation and the Pentateuch

47

6

Who Made the Kingmaker? Reflections on Samuel and the Institution of the Monarchy

57

7

A House Divided: Wisdom in Old Testament Narrative Traditions

70

8

Gibeonite Ruse and Israelite Curse in Joshua 9

80

Prophecy from East to West 9

99

A Story of Two Paradigm Shifts

101

10

From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel

120

11

Where Have All the Prophets Gone? The “Disappearing” Israelite Prophet Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

132

Present Trends and Future Directions

149

12

Across, Behind and Beyond the Text

155

13

The Ideological Foe: the Philistines in the Old Testament

157

14

A Warranted Version of Historical Biblical Criticism?: A Response to Alvin Plantinga

169

vii

viii

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

15

“Comparativism” and the God of Israel

180

16

Better Promises: Two Passages in Hebrews against the Background of the Old Testament Cultus

197

II

Ancient Versions

The Text and the Versions

211

17

The Second Septuagint Account of Jeroboam: History or Midrash?

213

18

Source Study in 1 Kings XII 24a–nα

233

19

The Variable Wisdom of Abel: the MT and Versions at 2 Samuel xx 18–19

242

The Syriac Old Testament: Provenance, Perspective and Translation Technique

250

21

“Converse Translation” in the Targums and Beyond

263

22

The Legacy of Lowth: Robert Lowth and the Book of Isaiah in Particular

278

20

The Targums, Chiefly to the Prophets

293

23

Alexander Sperber and the Study of the Targums

295

24

The Targumists as Eschatologists

303

25

Terra Sancta and the Territorial Doctrine of the Targum to the Prophets

317

26

Targum as Midrash: Contemporizing in the Targum to the Prophets

327

27

Dialogue and Disputation in the Targum to the Prophets

338

28

The Ephraimite Messiah and the Targum(s) to Zechariah 12.10

347

Index of Biblical References

357

Index of Authors Cited

367

Preface It has been an “interesting” – slightly chastening, in fact – exercise to have to closeread twenty-eight of one’s own essays written over a thirty-year period and relive what one then thought in the words that one then chose. In the choice of items I have occasionally tolerated a small amount of overlap (or “repetition”), and I hope that the reader will be similarly indulgent. I could see no way of avoiding a dull, workaday title for the volume, since it is important to make clear that the collection brings together essays on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and on the ancient translations, and not simply essays on the ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible. Bible and versions represent the two wings on which I have attempted to fly, throughout my teaching and writing careers. Some of my postgraduate students may be amused to find that I have not been able to resist inserting the odd comma in my own work. Other than that, only very occasional rewordings have been introduced where the intended sense plainly had not been best served. The original items appeared, of course, in a variety of places, using varying fonts and formats. I therefore decided that all the material should be scanned so that it could be standardized in these two respects, even if the individual house styles remained more or less intact. Scanning is a tremendously helpful facility, but it introduces its own batch of errors into a text, albeit some of them are recurrent and predictable. The one thing of which I am certain is that, despite my concentrated efforts, a number of mainly minor (I hope) such inventions remain undetected. I am indebted to Leslie McFall for his help with both the scanning and the indexing of the volume, and to Claire Dickerson for help with indexing. Copyright holders have mostly responded promptly and accommodatingly to my permission requests. Where a publisher has asked for a specific form of acknowledgement, this has been honoured in the list entitled “Place of previous publication”; otherwise, the standard bibliographical references to publishing houses in the same list serve the same purpose. My thanks, as always, go to my family, and especially to my wife Ruth, for their ready forbearance and understanding when workload has required some quiet thieving from family time. This collection is dedicated with deep gratitude to, and for, them all. Soon we shall have our first wedding within our immediate family, and so it is also a pleasure to include “Graham’s Ruth” in the dedication. Their Order of Service has mingled briefly and pleasantly with the other proofing that has occupied recent weeks. Comberton, Cambridge 28 July 2005 ix

This page intentionally left blank

Place of Previous Publication 1 2 3 4 5 6

7

8

9 10

11 12 13 14

15

16 17

Tyndale Bulletin 31 (1980), 37–64 Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 6 (1988), 69–80 Vetus Testamentum 40 (1990), 139–44 (reprinted by permission of Brill, Leiden) Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 13 (1990), 24–34 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 51 (1991), 57–69 Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in its Near Eastern Context (ed. A. R. Millard, J. K. Hoffmeier, D. W. Baker; Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 1994), 255–69 Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton (ed. J. Day, R. P. Gordon, H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), 94–105 Covenant as Context: Essays in Honour of E. W. Nicholson (ed. A. D. H. Mayes, R. B. Salters; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003), 163–90 (reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press) “The Place Is Too Small For Us”: The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship (ed. R. P. Gordon; Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–26 Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour of R. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (ed. H. A. McKay, D. J. A. Clines; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1993), 63–79 Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995), 67–86 “The Place Is Too Small For Us”, 600–605 Biblical and Near Eastern Essays: Studies in Honour of Kevin J. Cathcart (ed. C. McCarthy, J. F. Healey; London, T. and T. Clark International, 2004), 22–36 “Behind” the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 4; ed. C. Bartholomew, C. S. Evans, M. Healy, M. Rae; Carlisle, Paternoster, 2003), 79–91 (reprinted by permission of the British and Foreign Bible Society) The Old Testament in Its World: Papers Read at the Winter Meeting, January 2003, The Society for Old Testament Study, and at the Joint Meeting, July 2003, The Society for Old Testament Study and Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België (ed. R. P. Gordon, J. C. de Moor; OS 52; Leiden, Brill, 2005), 45–67 Templum Amicitiae: Essays on the Second Temple presented to Ernst Bammel (SJSNT 48; ed. W. Horbury; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1991), 434–49 Vetus Testamentum 25 (1975), 368–93 (reprinted by permission of Brill, Leiden) xi

xii 18 19 20

21 22

23 24 25 26

27 28

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 25 (1973–74 [1976]), 59–70 Vetus Testamentum 43 (1993), 215–26 (reprinted by permission of Brill, Leiden) Interpretation of the Bible: International Symposium on the Interpretation of the Bible on the Occasion of the Publication of the New Slovenian Translation of the Bible (ed. J. Krašovec; Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 355–69 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999), 3–21 (reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd) Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Texts: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman (SJSOT 333; ed. A. Rapoport-Albert, G. Greenberg; Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 57–76 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context (SJSOT 166; ed. D. R. G. Beattie, M. J. McNamara; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1994), 92–102 Congress Volume: Göttingen 1977 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 29; ed. J. A. Emerton; Leiden, Brill, 1978), 113–30 Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal (ed. J. A. Emerton, S. C. Reif; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), 119–31 Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Panel Sessions: Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (ed. M. Goshen-Gottstein; Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1988), 61–73 Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (1994), 7–17 (reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press) Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J. A. Clines (SJSOT 373; ed. J. C. Exum, H. G. M. Williamson; London, Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 184–95

Abbreviations AASF AB AnBib AEM AGAJU AJSL AkuG ALUOS ANEP ANET AfO AnOr Ant. AOAT ARM ATD BA BARev BASOR BBB BBR BDB BETL BHS BHT Bib BibOr BibS BIOSCS BJRL BJS BKAT

Annales Academiae Scientificarum Fennicae The Anchor Bible (also AncB) Analecta Biblica Archives épistolaires de Mari Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Archiv für Kulturgeschichte Annual of the Leeds University Oriental Society J. B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East in Pictures (1954) J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd edn, 1969) Archiv für Orientforschung Analecta Orientalia Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities Alter Orient und Altes Testament Archives royales de Mari Das Alte Testament Deutsch Biblical Archaeologist Biblical Archaeology Review Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bonner Biblische Beiträge Bulletin for Biblical Research F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906) Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (also BEThL) Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Biblica Biblica et Orientalia Biblische Studien Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament xiii

xiv BN BO BSOAS BT BWANT BZ BZAR BZAW CAD CAT CBET CBOT CBQ CCSL CSCO CTA CUP DJD ErIs EvQ ET EvTh ExpTim FAT FzB FRLANT GK

HALAT HAT HeyJ HbNT HdO HKAT HS HSM HTR HUCA ICC

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Biblische Notizen Bibliotheca Orientalis Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Babylonian Talmud Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Commentaire de l’Ancien Testament Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series (also ConBOT) Catholic Biblical Quarterly Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium A. Herdner (ed.), Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques I–II (1963) Cambridge University Press Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Eretz Israel Evangelical Quarterly English Translation Evangelische Theologie Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forschung zur Bibel Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (as edited and enlarged by E. Kautzsch; 2nd English edn, revd in accordance with the twenty-eighth German edn by A. E. Cowley, 1910) L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner (eds.), Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament I–VI (3rd edn, 1967–96) Handbuch zum Alten Testament Heythrop Journal Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Handbuch der Orientalistik (also HO) Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Hebrew Studies Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual The International Critical Commentary

ABBREVIATIONS

IEJ IOS JANESCU JAOS JB JBL JCS JEA JJS JNES JQR JSem JSJ JSNT JSOT JSP JSS JTS KAI KAT KEKNT KHAT KTU

LXX MT NCB NEB NICOT NIV NRSV NS NovT OrAnt OBO OTG OTL OTS OTS PAAJR PEQ PG PIBA

xv

Israel Exploration Journal Israel Oriental Studies Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Jerusalem Bible Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal for Semitics Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften I–III (1962–4; 2nd edn 1966) Kommentar zum Alten Testament Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Kurzer Handkommentar zum Alten Testament M. Dietrich et al. (eds.), Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit (1976); The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (1995) The ‘Septuagint’ Greek Version of the Old Testament Masoretic Text New Century Bible New English Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Version New Revised Standard Version New Series Novum Testamentum Oriens Antiquus Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Old Testament Guides Old Testament Library Old Testament Studies Oudtestamentische Studiën Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research Palestine Exploration Quarterly J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association

xvi PL PRU PTMS RA RB RHPR RHR RQ RSO RTP SAA SBL SBLDS SBLSCS SBT SEÅ ScHier SJLA SJOT SJSOT SJT SMSSA SNTSMS SOTSMS SSN ST STDJ SUNT SVT TB TCS TDNT THAT TLZ TNTC TOTC TSAJ TU TWAT TWNT

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina Le palais royal d’Ugarit Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale Revue Biblique Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses Revue de l’histoire des religions Revue de Qumran Revista degli studi orientali Revue de théologie et de philosophie State Archives of Assyria Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Studies in Biblical Theology Svensk exegetisk Årsbok Scripta Hierosolymitana Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Supplements to Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (also JSOTSup and JSOTS) Scottish Journal of Theology Series Minor: Seminario di Studi Asiatici Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Society for Old Testament Study Monograph Series Studia Semitica Neerlandica Studia Theologica (also STh) Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments Supplements to Vetus Testamentum (also VTSup) Babylonian Talmud Texts from Cuneiform Sources G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (ET by G. W. Bromiley) E. Jenni and C. Westermann (eds.), Theologisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament I–II (1971–6) Theologische Literaturzeitung Tyndale New Testament Commentaries Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (1970–) G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament

ABBREVIATIONS

UBL UF USQR UT VT WBC WCB WMANT WUNT ZAW ZDMG ZTK

xvii

Ugaritische-Biblische Literatur Ugarit-Forschungen Union Seminary Quarterly Review C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (1969) Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary A. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (2000) Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction The essays assembled in this volume represent two contiguous areas of study that have occupied me for a good many years: the literature of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the ancient translations of that literature into Greek, Aramaic and Syriac. For the present purpose, I have excluded a number of shorter studies of a textual or philological nature that are too specialized and that, though enjoyable to do at the time, are of a type not to be recommended to younger academics trying to make their way in this era of government-induced tally sheets and threats of bibliometric assessment. “The Philistines are upon you, O Samson!” (Jdg.16:20). All but a handful of the items that have been included were written in response to invitations to lecture or to contribute to Festschrifts or similar endeavours. A couple of others that depended too much on negative evaluations of the work of other scholars have been omitted. That still leaves me plenty of scope for being tedious. I have divided the Old Testament essays into three groups, dealing with the narrative tradition, the prophets, and matters more general, theoretical and, as they say nowadays, ideological.

The Hebrew Bible The Narrative Tradition There is a simplicity of style, and even a measure of lexical impoverishment, about Hebrew narrative writing that is deceptive. The title of the second essay reproduced here recalls the novelist Thomas Hardy’s verdict that a high degree of literary sophistication lies under the unprepossessing surface of Old Testament narratives. The extent of this sophistication is apparent in the earliest essays in this section dealing with the books of Samuel, on which I wrote a commentary published in 1986. In “David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise”1 I took up the parallel traditions of David’s sparing of Saul in the cave (1 Sam. 24) and in the camp (1 Sam. 26) principally to test the claim of a brace of literary critics that, in Hebrew narrative writing, character portrayal is “flat” and “static” rather than dynamic and progressive. The essay follows David’s portrayal across three chapters, paying special attention to the articular ch. 25, which deals with Nabal – here functioning as 1

Reprinted in G. N. Knoppers and J. G. McConville (eds), Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 8; Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 2000), 319–39.

xix

xx

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

a surrogate for Saul – and his demise. The older concern with the stories in chs 24 and 26 as duplicates tended to stop at decisions in favour of one or other as the more original account. In a well-wrought narrative such we as have in these chapters, however, this is inadequate as an approach. It can result in quite improbable sounding conclusions if we exclude a priori any notion of circumstances repeating themselves in Saul’s cat and mouse pursuit of David around the Judean countryside. And while we cannot prove or disprove the historicity of the narratives, that need not specially concern us; but we can attempt to do justice to them as crafted narratives tracing character development in their hero as he repeatedly evades Saul’s attempts at apprehension on his way, ultimately, to Saul’s throne. And what applies to 1 Samuel 24–26 applies more widely, for the presentation of David in the highly apologetic section of Samuel sometimes known as the “History of David’s Rise” merits description as a Bildungsroman, and is not just a series of tableaux that happen to be striving after the same general effect. “Simplicity of the Highest Cunning” offers a display board for some examples of the artistic devices and techniques by which the Hebrew narrative writers plied their trade, viz. structure, inclusion, narrative analogy and word-play. These and their like feature regularly in recent writing on literary aspects of the Hebrew Bible, but it is noted that, even where the historical-critical method has dominated, such interests have not altogether disappeared from consideration. Nowadays, with the increased emphasis on narratology the danger regularly confronting the critic is that of claiming signs of narrative creativity in the text for quite casual or adventitious features in it. The items entitled “Word-Play and Verse-Order” and “Covenant and Apology” are both interested in the internal dynamics of narratives whose perspicuity has been called in question. In the first instance, some scholars have regarded the text of 1 Sam. 24:5–8(E. tr. 4–7) as having suffered dislocation, and this view influenced the translators of The New English Bible into reordering the text. There is also the question of the meaning of the verb shãsa‘ (“cleave”) in verse 8(7). A figurative sense for this word can be justified, and the word-play to which it contributes within the section is but one of several reasons – grammatical, logical and analogical – why the MT version of the episode is to be preferred. In “Covenant and Apology” it is the stance of 2 Samuel 3 on David’s conduct at the time of Abner’s assassination that is under scrutiny. The sequence of events in this chapter can best be explained on the supposition of flashback in verses 17–19, which allows the whole of the Abner story in this chapter to be read in the light of his covenant with David, and of the covenant curse concept that traditionally was associated with covenant-making. The general plausibility of other aspects of the narrative is enhanced once the covenant is given its proper place: features associated with Abner’s visit to David in Hebron, as also David’s exuberant curse laid upon Abner’s killer, make best sense in a covenant setting. Insofar as distinguishing between the apologetic “History of David’s Rise” and the more openly critical “Succession Narrative” may still be appropriate, the stance of 2 Samuel 3 firmly links it with the former. The tendency of narratological study is to find evidence of coherence and less of disorder in narratives, including Hebrew narratives. “Compositeness, Conflation and

INTRODUCTION

xxi

the Pentateuch” does not dispute the general usefulness of such findings, but confirms that the splicing of texts to form composite narratives, as is assumed in the classic Pentateuchal “Documentary Hypothesis”, reflects a widely and variously attested practice in the ancient near east. Supporting evidence had desultorily been brought forward since the late nineteenth century, and more recently in J. H. Tigay’s Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (1985). Readers of the Hebrew Bible and of the New Testament Gospels had long been aware of compositeness as a feature of some biblical narratives. The present writer’s acquaintance with Targumic “centos”, or pastiches of biblical and related quotations, gave further reason to cast the net abroad, and a wide range of close, and not so close, parallels to what is described for parts of the Pentateuch was assembled. It is also suggested that Numbers 16, on Korah, Dathan and Abiram, provides an example of composite writing within the Pentateuch that can be demonstrated independently of the standard Pentateuchal source-critical approach. Much of the narrative in the Hebrew Bible is concerned with historical people and historical events. It is, nevertheless, obvious to even a confessional reader of the text that this is a particular kind of history-writing, often dealing with private and personal experiences not open to the verification tests beloved of professional historians. Moreover, the biblical writers habitually assess what they describe from a religious and theological perspective, which again sets them apart from the modern secular historian who sets the rules for admissible evidence. In the circumstances, modern historical accounts of ancient Israel range from simple reproductions of the biblical storyline to radical rewriting of pre-exilic times (to go no further) on the basis of archaeological, sociological and other “methods” that operate independently of “text-based history”. “Who Made the Kingmaker?” looks at the story of the prophet Samuel in the early chapters of 1 Samuel – in other words, at chapters that purport to describe developments at a very early stage in Israelite history – to see whether anything in the text itself suggests that it is other than a late account of how it might have been in earlier times. The amount of verification achievable in this way is limited, nevertheless the role of the Philistines in these chapters and observations based on the application of the “criterion of dissimilarity” to the narratives suggest that we are in the presence of something more solid than free composition devoid of a basis in either history or tradition. “A House Divided” began by examining the case for a genre of “wisdom narrative” in Old Testament writing and concluded somewhat negatively. Even in the Solomonic chapters of 1 Kings the wisdom theme is less prominent than might be expected. This becomes all the more noticeable when the accounts of the building of the tabernacle and the temple are compared, for it is the former that makes more of wisdom as a charisma granted to native-born Israelites to enable them to construct a sanctuary for their God. The building of the temple is a secular operation by comparison. In 1 Kings 2–3 Solomon’s wisdom may even be cast in a negative light, for after using his “wisdom” to settle old scores at the start of his reign, he is commended at Gibeon for asking for wisdom to rule rather than for long life or wealth or the death of his enemies. Significantly, he is promised the first three of these (1 Kgs 3:12–14); what he had refrained from requesting he had already

xxii

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

secured. The Gibeon narrative shows how an Old Testament writer, in a manner worthy of Ethan the Ezrahite in Stefan Heym’s The King David Report, contrives to undermine (deconstruct!) the vengeful and violent elements in his account of a king of Israel. The book of Joshua has been overlooked to a surprising degree in the narratologyfest of recent decades, as is noted in “Gibeonite Ruse”, which deals with ch. 9. This chapter has been compared to a well-made tapestry, which figure more than hints at the likelihood of literary “strands” having been woven together to make up the present text. Many commentators have at any rate pointed to seams in the fabric, for example the mentions of multiple parties – Joshua, “the Israelites”, “the leaders of the assembly” and “the whole assembly” – involved on the Israelite side. The narrative perhaps needs to be treated less flat-footedly and with more regard for the most basic rule of literary criticism: to read a text first for coherence, before searching for signs of incongruence. “Gibeonite Ruse” has a shy at a more sensitive reading of this curious episode in the Israelite conquest tradition. Then, in a virtual excursus to the main discussion, the existence of the “effeminacy curse” in the near east generally is documented and its relevance to the sentence passed on the dissembling Gibeonites (hewers of wood/drawers of water) is noted. Such curses most often occur in connection with warriors and warrior groups such as the Gibeonites (cf. Josh. 10:2). Prophecy from East to West “A Story of Two Paradigm Shifts” reviews prophets scholarship from 1875 onwards, covering the first hundred years under the headings “Prophetic Psychology”, “Prophecy and Cult”, “Prophetic Speech” and “Prophetic Books”. This period saw the first of the paradigm shifts, in the recalibration of the Old Testament canon to make the prophets older than “Moses” (the Pentateuch) and thus more in the guise of creators of tradition than of inheritors of already-formed tradition. However, increased knowledge of the background against which Israelite prophecy developed and the forging of a new set of questions and of approaches to the subject have resulted in altered perspectives during the past three decades, and thus the talk of a second paradigm shift. The range and variety of approaches to Old Testament prophecy – as indeed to other parts of the Hebrew canon – that have come into play in the past several decades is nothing short of kaleidoscopic. Sociology, anthropology, the “new archaeology”, inner-biblical interpretation, intertextuality, rhetoric, speech-act theory, dialogism, canon, language event, structuralism, deconstruction, and all that is represented by “reader response” have helped to enrich, diversify and complicate our engagement with the prophetic books. The discussion of prophecy in “From Mari to Moses” and “Where Have All the Prophets Gone?” leans heavily on the near eastern counterparts to Israelite prophecy that are known from places such as Mari and Hamath. It has been suggested that Mesopotamian prophecy actually originated among the West Semite Amorites and so manifested itself at (for example) Mari in the early second millennium, but this has been challenged, and it remains a fact that the trajectory actually visible to the inquirer

INTRODUCTION

xxiii

into prophecy in the ancient near east runs from east to west. Various features of the biblical phenomenon, ranging from witnessing the Divine Council, through symbolic act, dream and ecstasy to the glimmerings of an ethical concern, are all present at Mari. The Mari texts are, of course, separated by a thousand years from the “classical” prophets of Israel, and since the article was published attention has partly switched to the “Neo-Assyrian Prophecies” long known but only properly accessible to nonspecialists in Akkadian in relatively recent times. Still, it can fairly be claimed that the evidence from Mari is more substantial and is more illuminating for the study of the biblical material than are the Neo-Assyrian texts, for all their contemporaneity. “Where Have All the Prophets Gone?” begins where “From Mari to Moses” left off, by addressing the question of the loss of status suffered by the Israelite prophets in some recent Old Testament study. The tendency to reduce the amount of material in the prophetic books that may legitimately be traced back to the named prophet has been at work for over a century, but more recent emphases on the prophetic books as “books”, that is, as literary compositions, has inevitably detracted from the sense of the individuality of the prophets associated with the books. To the extent that the prophets are seen also as spokesmen for groups rather than for the deity – in other words, as sociology digs deeper in – their status as charismatic, authority figures within, or on the periphery of, society has been further eroded. There is also the question of nomenclature, for it has been suggested that the pre-exilic prophets were not originally viewed as “prophets”, functioning, rather, as poets who did not conform to the kinds of expectations later associated with the prophetic office. That there were prophets outside Israel, and some for whom cognate forms of the Hebrew nãbî’ (“prophet”) were used, would certainly have provided grounds for avoidance of the title by the more self-conscious spokesmen for YHWH. Nevertheless, too much can be made of the presence or absence of titles. The evidence from Amos and, especially, Hosea strongly suggests that their rejection of a certain type of prophet did not prevent them from seeing prophets and prophesying in a very positive light. Hosea’s references to the more honourable prophet-figures whom he mentions are surely better than “neutral” in tone, and Amos’s disclaimer at Bethel (7:14) is as much an eschewal of a type of prophecy as of the title “prophet”. If he was in no sense a prophet, he immediately goes on to report his commissioning by God to “prophesy” to Israel, and there is not much doubt what the verb implies. If the argument depends finally upon distinguishing between a noun and a verb, not much light on the true state of affairs is likely to be forthcoming.2 More important than the use of the term is the conception of prophecy, and indeed the self-understanding, that is displayed in the likes of Amos or Hosea. “Where Have All the Prophets Gone?” therefore considers briefly self-consciousness among the Israelite prophets and the kinds of experience special to them as prophets. Even when we allow for individualism among these most unclubbable of men, there is a prophetic role that is discernible within the several prophetic books, and it exists independently of whether they courted the title “prophet” or avoided it as unworthy of their calling. 2 If Amos 7:9–17 is held to have originated later than Amos himself, then, of course, Amos’s denial that he was a “prophet” cannot be cited in illustration of the eighth-century prophet’s attitude to “prophets”.

xxiv

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Finally, in this section, “Present Trends and Future Directions” accepts that talk of a “paradigm shift” in the study of the prophets is appropriate. In this context the term is F. E. Deist’s, and he uses it to describe the newer emphases and approaches that are being brought to bear upon the biblical texts. According to Deist, it is the fields of sociology, anthropology and the “new archaeology” that are setting the newer agenda. But, to judge from Deist’s sample questions, it is still a matter of providing basically historical answers to historical questions. On the other hand, for many students of the prophets the new era represents a change of paradigm as much or more because of the text-immanent approaches to the text that are in vogue. These non-referential readings of the text characteristically bypass historical questions but, while their concerns may be legitimate, they cannot so readily reach out beyond themselves in the way that the older paradigms were capable of doing, given that Hebrew prophecy, like the Old Testament generally, is ancestral to other streams of tradition, both Jewish and Christian, that simply by their existence will keep historical and developmental questions to the fore. Across, Behind and Beyond the Text This third section is more general and more theoretical in its interests. “The Ideological Foe”, which can be traced back to my Samuel commentary-writing days, operates in the area of ethnicity, group characterization and typology. A minor trend towards study of this sort has developed in the Old Testament area, doubtless encouraged by the current widespread interest in ethnicity, identity and the like. “The Ideological Foe” discusses the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible as symbols of opposition rather than simply as enemies of the Israelites during an early period in their history. The Philistines came from outside Canaan, just as is said of Israel in the biblical tradition. As neighbours of Israel on her western flank, they were in competition for land and resources. In the Hebrew Bible they acquire a symbolic status as archetypal enemies of Israel, even to the extent of being classed with the original Canaanite inhabitants of the land. And, whereas the Genesis “Philistines” have often been hailed as more peaceable than those of Judges–Samuel, it is suggested that the “patriarchal Philistines” conform to the general Philistine typology as being Israel’s inveterate enemy and “ideological foe”. The Philistines are quite consistently subjected to the Verspottung (“derision”) treatment in Old Testament narrative texts, which is largely explained by their symbolic status. Their territory and their religion are of almost equal interest to the biblical writers: the narrative books especially lampoon their religion, while the prophets covet their land for Israel and envisage its eventual annexation. There is scope for further “ethnic” studies of this sort, where the emphasis is not on the reconstruction of the historical role of the group in question but on their portrayal within the various departments of biblical literature. In his book Warranted Christian Belief, the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga describes a role for biblical criticism within the Christian church’s response to the biblical message. It is a circumscribed role for “biblical criticism” that he commends, having much more in common with traditional biblical study than with the dominant model of historical biblical criticism (HBC) still practised in most

INTRODUCTION

xxv

academic institutions where biblical studies are on the curriculum. In my response to Plantinga, in a paper presented at a symposium in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2002, and represented here in “A Warranted Version”, I engaged to a limited extent with his approach, and principally with the implications of his idea of a “Principal Author”. This moved on to a consideration, substantially from a personal perspective amounting to an apologia pro vita mea, of the uses and limitations of HBC. It was argued that the practice of HBC, in some form or other, is the right and responsibility of every academic student of the Bible; that it can be a healthy corrective to uncritical acceptance of traditional readings and explanations that actually misrepresent the text or the circumstances in which the text came to be what it is; but that HBC is not a competent critic of the higher realities of the faith to which Scripture testifies and to which believing readers aspire. It was specially noted that the very character of the Bible itself prompts many questions of an HBC sort, and even suggests lines of approach to the required solutions. It may be added as a kind of footnote that, when Plantinga dealt with HBC in the course of a series of lectures delivered in Cambridge in Michaelmas Term 2004, his appreciation of HBC had not noticeably altered from his stated position in Warranted Christian Belief. “‘Comparativism’ and the God of Israel” starts from the recognition that the polarized conceptual worlds of the Hebrew Bible and the wider near east have, with our expanding knowledge of the ancient world, come much closer together. In four key areas – divine action in history, prophecy, national covenant and aniconism – the relativizing of the claim to uniqueness on the biblical side is noted, as also is the incompleteness of the overlap in each case. However, perhaps the issue is not whether the Hebrew Bible stands unique, whatever that may mean in a world of interpenetrating cultures, but what it does with the raw material of inherited concepts and common cultural forms as it establishes its own claims to religious truth. In this connection, what I call “‘Reverse’ Comparativism” is introduced. This is “comparativism” turned back on the Old Testament and issuing the counterclaim that Deuteronomistic theology and monotheistic editing have spoiled the colourful plumage of popular Israelite polytheism. A contrary position is defended with the help of four representative topics that are developed at varying length to show that the Hebrew Bible, even when being monotheistic and in part because it is so, works creatively, imaginatively and anthropomorphically with a common stock of ideas and traditions in order to portray adequately the God of Israel. Here the emphasis is not on uniqueness as such, but on the creativity and originality that make the Hebrew vision so manifestly transcend the world-views of its neighbours. As a parting shot, it is suggested that the search for signs of uniqueness within the Hebrew Bible is, in fact, perfectly valid. The same holds for any people, culture or religion, and the fact that the Judaeo-Christian tradition has a soaring vision and multitudinous adherents is no reason for denying the Hebrew Bible its rights. In “Better Promises”, I venture into the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews, anticipating themes developed in a short commentary on this book, published in 2000.3 Two passages, in chs 6 and 9, are examined in the light of Old Testament texts 3

Hebrews (Readings: A New Biblical Commentary; Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).

xxvi

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

and subsequent translations and interpretations of them. In the one case, a metaphor is illumined by reference to an Old Testament institution and a couple of narrative texts that presuppose it; in the other, the meaning of a phrase and the logic of the writer’s argument in the second half of Hebrews are clarified with the help of an Old Testament passage and Targumic texts that have been influenced by it. In this latter section, the extent of the New Testament writer’s scaling down of the importance and efficacy of the “Day of Atonement” in the course of his exposition of the significance of Christ’s death becomes very striking.

Ancient Versions This section brings together a number of studies of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and of the major ancient translations of it into Greek, Syriac and Aramaic. This is where my career in researching and writing began, with postgraduate work on the Targum to the Prophets. However, the first published articles of any substance were on the Septuagint of 1 Kings/3 Reigns. The Text and the Versions The so-called “Jeroboam Duplicate” in LXX 1 Kings 12:24a–z has been the subject of an impressive list of studies attempting to assess the historical worth of this alternative account of Solomon, Jeroboam and Rehoboam. My interest started with a suggestion by distinguished Septuagintalist David W. Gooding, who himself had written on the “Duplicate”, that I should give it further attention. His own conclusion was that the “Duplicate” is a pastiche of material largely culled from here and there in a text very similar to the standard Hebrew text (MT), and that its genre inclines more towards midrash than historiography. There is also a question of Tendenz, and Gooding argues that this Greek confection displays a clear bias against Jeroboam. The conclusion of “The Second Septuagint Account” is that there are indeed midrashic elements in the “Duplicate”, and that some features have been wrested from their original setting and referred to Jeroboam in such a way as to vilify him more than is the case in the MT. A second attempt is made on the “Duplicate” in “Source Study in 1 Kings XII 24a–nα”, which offers further comment on 12:24a–f but particularly focuses on the story of the visit by Jeroboam’s wife to the prophet Ahijah in 12:24g–nα (cf. 1 Kgs 14:1–18). It is good that this second piece is reproduced in this volume in view of its relative inaccessibility heretofore, and additionally because the article and the journal issue in which it first appeared had suffered from a plague of misprints that, in the absence of proofs, could not be rectified. The conclusion on 12:24g–nα is much as for the preceding section (12:24a–f). The two versions of Abijah’s illness, in the MT and in the “Duplicate”, are self-consistent, but the “Duplicate” falters in allowing Abijah to be mourned as a prince, which is appropriate in the MT but is excluded by the sequence of events in the alternative version, where Abijah dies while Jeroboam is still in obscurity and before he reaches the throne of the northern

INTRODUCTION

xxvii

kingdom. In the period since these two articles were written the significance of the Qumran biblical texts has become more widely appreciated. They have confirmed the existence in antiquity of Hebrew texts sometimes agreeing with the Septuagint against the MT, so that a generally more positive attitude towards Septuagint “variants”, including larger pluses, has resulted. In subsequent studies, the “Duplicate” has had its defenders, although the one monograph devoted entirely to it, by Zipora Talshir,4 weighs in heavily on the side of midrash and historical reconstruction as best accounting for many of its features. “The Variable Wisdom of Abel” looks at the renderings by all three of the major versions of 2 Sam. 20:18f., where the MT is usually considered problematic. From time to time where the MT has a textual crux the effect on the ancient translators seems to have been that of driving them into rather individualistic renderings of their Vorlagen. In such circumstances they therefore contribute more under the heading of “History of Interpretation” than of “Textual Criticism”. At 2 Sam. 20:18f. the Septuagint’s contribution is to introduce the city of Dan, a near neighbour of Abel Beth Maacah, as also being a source of authoritative tradition in early Israel, alongside Abel. The Targum introduces the siege law of Deut. 20:10f., with implications for the status and political affiliation of Abel, while the Peshitta presents a rare instance of narrative analogy in translation when it mentions “the child and his mother” in apparent dependence upon another story involving a wise woman, in 2 Samuel 14. As the concluding adjudicatory comments suggest, this kind of study need not be without text-critical implications. The one essay dedicated specifically to the Syriac Peshitta version (“The Syriac Old Testament”) was read at a symposium held in Ljubljana in 1996 to mark the publication of the new translation of the Bible into Slovenian. The article, which was in part a survey, discussed the old issue of the provenance of the Peshitta in terms of the traditional alternatives of Jewish and Christian backgrounds. The evidence oscillates between the two, but there are some indications that Christian elements in the text may have been introduced secondarily, as in the perhaps special case of the books of Chronicles. At 1 Chron. 5:2 there are alternative readings involving the verb nepaq (“come forth”), and the more likely explanation is that the Targumic-sounding statement, “The King Messiah will come forth from Judah”, is original, while the variant in Ms 9a1, in introducing a past reference (“The King Messiah has come forth from Judah”), represents a Christianizing of the text. The second section, on “Translation Technique”, selects four features of the Peshitta Old Testament as translation: use of standard terms, converse translation, omissions and narrative analogy, with the third item perhaps more deserving of being described as “practice” rather than “technique”. The third section is headed “Present Consensus/New Directions” and notes the growing recognition that the evidence of the earliest Peshitta Mss “strongly suggests a movement from the relatively literal to the more free and expansive”. It is also noted that, with the clearer picture that is emerging, the editors of the “diplomatic” edition published by the Peshitta Institute in Leiden 4

The Alternative Story of the Division of the Kingdom: 3 Kingdoms 12:24a–z (Jerusalem Biblical Studies 6; Jerusalem, Simor, 1993).

xxviii

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

envisage the eventual possibility of attempting a reconstruction of the original form of the Peshitta text. In an article published in 1976 Michael L. Klein drew attention to the phenomenon of “converse translation” in the Targums, noting that this occasional practice of saying the opposite of what the Hebrew original appeared to indicate had been observed several centuries earlier by Elias Levita. Klein’s coinage gave formal recognition to tendencies in the Targums that I had been noting in my own work on them. Subsequently, I collected examples not only from the Targums but also from the other major versions of the Hebrew Bible, where occurrences of the same phenomenon had seldom been commented upon. The tendency on the part of the Septuagint translator of Isaiah to controvert the Hebrew text out of exegetical necessity had been reported by R. R. Ottley and I. L. Seeligmann, but they made no attempt to organize or analyse what they were finding. “Converse Translation” therefore has two principal aims: first, to extend discussion to include the Peshitta, the Septuagint outside Isaiah and the Vulgate; and, secondly, to introduce a distinction between “formal” converse translation, where there is only the appearance of contradiction of the assumed Hebrew Vorlage, and actual instances of the same. It is recognized that the growing amount of material in the ancient versions that is discussable under the heading of “converse translation” represents a spectrum of possibilities, with only those at the far end properly describable as “converse”. There is much more collecting, describing and analysing of data to be undertaken, and one result will be progress in the profiling of the individual versions considered. There is the further point that isolated instances of the tendency are arguably present in the New Testament and are represented in modern Bible translation. This suggests what we might otherwise divine anyway, that “converse translation”, or something like it, is a translation ploy that holds potential attraction for any Bible translator who has to deal with a Hebrew text that appears to express a particularly improbable sentiment. The name of Robert Lowth is specially connected with his demonstration of parallelism as a feature of Hebrew poetry in his De sacra poesi hebraeorum: Praelectiones academicae oxonii habitae (1753), and with the application of his insights to the book of Isaiah in his commentary published in 1778. “The Legacy of Lowth” offers a brief account of Lowth and of his approach to textual criticism, as prologue to a discussion of two Isaianic texts where he reconstructed the Hebrew with the claimed support of the ancient versions. Since in both instances Lowth has had his successors, a close investigation of translation practice and other relevant factors is desirable, and the results show that Lowth and company may have been too undiscriminating in their use of the versional evidence. Poetic parallelism, by which Lowth made his name, can sometimes also be an aid in text-critical restoration. It seems to have played a part in Lowth’s two emendations, but misleadingly, if so. The necessity of knowing the characteristics and tendencies of a version before one can use it for text-critical purposes is much more widely appreciated now than in the eighteenth century, and indeed more than it was a mere fifty years ago. By the same token, the need for often detailed, and sometimes tortuous, exploring of relevant or possibly relevant factors before a prima facie variant can be judged as having been

INTRODUCTION

xxix

properly evaluated will always be present. The essay is thus a contribution to the study of textual criticism insofar as it involves the citing of the ancient versions of the Old Testament in support of emendations of the Hebrew text. The Targums, Chiefly to the Prophets It is right that a subsection dealing with the Targums should begin with “Alexander Sperber and the Study of the Targums”.5 Sperber’s labours to produce texts of the various Targums have helped greatly to spark interest in these, the most paraphrastic of the ancient versions, since the 1950s. Fortune conspired in that the publication of the first volumes of The Bible in Aramaic coincided with the identification of Codex Neofiti 1 as a Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch. “Alexander Sperber and the Study of the Targums” recalls the circumstances in which Sperber’s work developed, the consequences of its mostly having been completed early in his career, and Sperber’s influence on the Targum citations in Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica (3rd edn). Despite his awareness of the non-literal tendencies of the Targums that diminish their importance as textual witnesses, Sperber oversaw the introduction of a surprising number of Targum-based variant readings into the BH apparatuses. Moreover, he was not consistent in his approach to the question of non-Masoretic readings in the Pentateuchal and prophetic Targums, and this too is reflected in the apparatuses of Biblia Hebraica. On the other hand, Sperber rightly appreciated the importance of the inner-Targum variae lectiones for the history of the Targum text – though they are not well served in the main apparatus of The Bible in Aramaic. Their importance for the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible – albeit extremely limited in comparison with the Targum’s sister version the Septuagint – and for the light that they shed on the developing Targum tradition itself, is illustrated in the concluding section of the essay. If the Targums’ importance for textual criticism is limited, their main contribution lies in the area of the history of interpretation, for it was their business to interpret as much as to translate, and to interpret in keeping with certain “theological” norms and according to the perceived needs of the target audience in synagogue or school. In the first centuries of the common era, when the Targums were acquiring something like their present form, the doctrine of “last things” had acquired a certain shape, and this “eschatology” naturally left its impression upon the Targums. “The Targumists as Eschatologists” covers a wide spread of features relating to the future and the eschaton as these feature in the Targums. Biblical texts that denied the afterlife were made to conform to the clear expectations of the times,6 and whereas the Hebrew Bible has only a few references to the physical resurrection of individuals, the Targums supply this omission at regular intervals from Adam onwards, with the same inconclusiveness as to who would be raised – the righteous, Israel, humanity? – as in the rabbinic literature generally. Messianism also forms part of the Targumic 5 Similar ground is covered in my foreword written for the reprint of Sperber’s The Bible in Aramaic (vols I–IVb; Leiden, Brill, 1992 [see “Foreword to the Reprinted Edition” in vol. I]). 6 Something akin to “converse translation” (see above) operates in some of these texts. It is “translation by neutralization”; there is further work to be done in this area.

xxx

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

picture of the end-time in a way that is not true of the Hebrew Bible, again with some diversity of outlook on such issues as the role of the messiah(s) and the relation of the messianic age to the “world to come”. The moralizing tendencies of the Targums also assure the topics of reward, retribution, Gehenna and the Second Death of a lively representation in them. Nor would it be surprising that, since such matters gave rise to sectarian dispute, the fault lines of the dispute appear occasionally in the Targums, this perhaps even giving a glimpse of the period in which parts of the Targum tradition were crystallizing. The Targumic “theology” had much to say about the land of Israel, its status and its role in the end-time. The possibility of cultic activity, especially the offering of sacrifices, other than on the temple site in Jerusalem is consistently discountenanced, and textual manipulation brings the biblical data into line with Targumic requirements. So also “land theology” dictated the proper locale for prophesying: prophets had to cut their teeth professionally in the “holy land”, and only then might they function legitimately beyond its borders. There is also a land dimension to Targumic thinking about the future: Israel would exist in purified separation from the rest of humanity, and both Israel the land and Jerusalem the capital city are expected to extend their boundaries in the future. If in the one case the motivation is at root imperialistic, in the other it is the religious expectation of an efflorescent holiness that bestows its blessings far beyond the holy city. The “land theology” of the Targums deserves further investigation. More than most translators, the Targumic paraphrasts to whom we owe the Targums regarded it as their duty to update the biblical texts in ways that exceeded mere word-for-word equivalence to the Hebrew Vorlage. “Targum as Midrash” discusses a number of ways in which the contemporizing tendency expressed itself in the Targums, beginning with the kind of language used, for “the contemporizing of Scripture carried with it as corollary the simplification of Scripture”. It is argued that, in prophetic texts, this Targumic hermeneutic was not predicated upon the Targumist’s having acquired a prophetic status supposedly indicated in the recurring Targum rubric “the prophet said”. It is also argued that the Targums are less eschatologically “fraught” than the imminent-sounding translation of the periphrastic catîd le by “about to” would suggest, and that they do regard the historical flow of events between the biblical past and the eschaton, in which they themselves are caught up, as also the theatre of divine action. Sometimes the Targums may be seen developing a tendency in the act of Targumizing that is already visible in the MT. The rubrication referred to in the preceding paragraph is but one facet of the Targums’ approach to speech and dialogue in the biblical text, the subject of “Dialogue and Disputation”. On occasion the Targumic rubrication of the text sets up a dialogue or formalizes a dialogue that is implicit in the text. Jer. 8:18–23 is a particular example of the practice. The recognition of dialogue in the biblical text itself has been variously pursued in the past, and claimed as an interpretive key for a variety of passages and even for whole books. The marked (“rubricated”) examples in the Targums, and sometimes the rabbinic traditions underlying them, should perhaps stimulate further this line of approach to the biblical text. The “translational protasis” also has its place here, as

INTRODUCTION

xxxi

reflecting situations of dialogue, typically between a prophet and his audience. This particular feature, shared by Targum and Peshitta, prompts the suggestion that there are “trans-versional” features or tendencies that are not limited to a single version and that deserve study within the wider framework of the ancient versions generally. Given the degree of Jewish influence upon even those versions that, like the Vulgate, are Christian in origin, commonality of this sort should not surprise us. The phenomenon of “converse translation” noted above is a good example of the “transversional” feature at work. The “trans-versional” also has some slight potential as an heuristic tool insofar as it may encourage the recognition in one version of a translation feature more obviously present in another. Targumic messianism has been much written about in the modern period, and for obvious reasons. Usually it is Davidic messianism that is represented in the Targums, but there is also the figure of the “Ephraimite Messiah”, who is much less prominent in rabbinic literature in general and is discussed very infrequently in the secondary literature. A Targumic variant in the margin of Codex Reuchlinianus at Zech. 12:10 mentions this usually passive counterpart of the Davidic messiah. The main Targum text of this verse poses its own problems, and so discussion of these two Targumic responses to the “pierced one” of the biblical text is called for. The influence of Ezekiel 38–39 upon the implied sequence of events in the marginal text is clear, though this does not square with the Ephraimite messiah’s death at the hand of Gog; in Ezekiel it is Gog’s own defeat and death that are predicted (cf. 39:4). The figure of the Ephraimite messiah has tended to be explained as a rationalizing of the defeat of the messianic pretender Bar Kokhba or as a response to Christian preaching of Jesus as messiah. The evidence remains inconclusive, nevertheless the death of the Ephraimite messiah at the gate of Jerusalem in the Codex Reuchlinianus marginal reading offers a parallel to Christian tradition about the crucifixion of Jesus “outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12), at the same time as it conflicts with rabbinic tradition about the location of Bar Kokhba’s last stand.

This page intentionally left blank

Part I Hebrew Bible

This page intentionally left blank

The Narrative Tradition

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 1

David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24–26 The narrative segment which is the subject of this paper belongs to the so-called “Story of David’s Rise”, to use Leonhard Rost’s title for the second of the three major compositional units that he detected in the books of Samuel.1 In the event, the world of Old Testament scholarship was much more interested in Rost’s arguments for the existence of an originally independent Narrative of Succession – 2 Samuel 9–20; 1 Kings 1–2, according to the classic formulation. When, in the late 1950s, the unitary potential of David’s Vorgeschichte began to be recognized – witness the monographs by Nübel (1959), Mildenberger (1962), Ward (1967) and Grønbaek (1971)2 – Rost’s starting-point for it was advanced from 1 Sam. 23:1 to 16:14, or, with Grønbaek, to 15:1, and his fragmentary approach gave way to a more positive evaluation of the material making up the narrative.3 Even so, “David’s Rise” does not represent the same homogeneous blending of sources as is the case with the Narrative of Succession.4 As we read, we are more conscious of the individual narrative blocks making up the whole, and of the tensions which their conjoining has imposed on the composite work.5 But this is not the whole 1 L. Rost, Die Überlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (BWANT III, 6. Stuttgart, 1926) 133–5 (= Das kleine Credo und andere Studien zum Alten Testament [Heidelberg, 1965] 238–41). It is now of no more than antiquarian interest that Rost himself excluded 1 Sam. 24–26 from his hypothetical source, even though it comprised various pericopae and fragments from 1 Sam. 23 through to 2 Sam. 5. 2 H.-U. Nübel, Davids Aufstieg in der Frühe israelitischer Geschichtsschreibung (diss. Bonn, 1959); F. Mildenberger, Die vordeuteronomistische Saul-Davidüberlieferung (diss. Tübingen, 1962); R. L. Ward, The Story of David’s Rise: A Traditio-historical Study of I Samuel xvi 14 – II Samuel v (diss. Vanderbilt, 1967; Ann Arbor: Univ. Microfilms); J. H. Grønbaek, Die Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids (1 Sam. 15 – 2 Sam. 5) (Copenhagen, 1971). Cf. also A. Weiser, “Die Legitimation des Königs David. Zur Eigenart und Entstehung der sogen. Geschichte von Davids Aufstieg”, VT 16 (1966) 325–54; R. Rendtorff, “Beobachtungen zur altisraelitischen Geschichtsschreibung anhand der Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids”, in Probleme biblischer Theologie (Fest. G. von Rad), ed. H. W. Wolff (München, 1971) 428–39; J. Conrad, “Zum geschichtlichen Hintergrund der Darstellung von Davids Aufstieg”, TLZ 97 (1972) cols. 321–32; F. Schicklberger, “Die Davididen und das Nordreich. Beobachtungen zur sog. Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids”, BZ 18 (1974) 255–63; N. P. Lemche, “David’s Rise”, JSOT 10 (1978) 2–25. 3 Weiser, art. cit. 344, claimed further territory for the Aufstiegsgeschichte, arguing that 2 Sam. 6 functions ad majorem gloriam David. He also regarded 2 Sam. 7 as the keystone of the whole narrative, noting in particular the interaction between 1 Sam. 25:28, 30 and 2 Sam. 7 (art. cit. 348). 4 At the same time we note Conroy’s conclusion that “the current state of research no longer justifies an automatic and uncritical acceptance of 2 Sam 9–20; 1 Kgs 1–2 as a fully rounded literary unity with a clearly defined theme”: C. Conroy, Absalom Absalom! Narrative and Language in 2 Sam 13–20 (Rome, 1978) 3. 5 Ward, op. cit. 197f, suggests that, to some extent, the state of the narrative reflects David’s circumstances while on the run from Saul; there was “no order or pattern in David’s existence”.

5

6

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

story. For whether or not we subscribe to the theory of a large narrative unit separable from the rest of 1 and 2 Samuel, we have to reckon with a high degree of interplay among the various sub-units contained in these chapters. J. T. Willis’s study of “comprehensive anticipatory redactional joints” in 1 Samuel 16–18 neatly illustrates the point: even 16:14–23, which has stoutly defied attempts at harmonization with 17:1–18:5, can be shown to function programmatically in relation to the larger context of the struggle between Saul and David.6 In other words, some of the principal elements in the story are passed in review before the account proper gets under way. Since agreement about the existence of an independent, self-contained account of David’s early career is not crucial for our study, we shall use “David’s Rise” simply as a convenience-term. It is in any case indisputable that the second half of 1 Samuel is focused principally on David: “the stories of Saul and David are really stories about David”.7 Humphreys’ portrayal of 1 Samuel 9–31 as a three-part story about Saul highlights a subsidiary theme, but makes a useful point at the risk of distorting the image which the section seems more naturally to project.8 The motif to which all else in these chapters is subservient is that of David’s progress towards the throne. And, in the way of biblical narrative, the question is not whether he will become king, but how he will become king.9 He is from the outset God’s nominee, and therefore the rightful claimant; Jonathan early acknowledges the fact and so, eventually, does Saul. The “how” of David’s accession comes to the fore at that point where the initiative seems to be passing from Saul to his fugitive servant. From chapter 24 on, the narrator is at pains to show that, despite the opportunities given, David did not take the law into his own hands. He emphatically was not implicated in Saul’s death, nor in the deaths of Abner and Eshbaal. And it is not difficult to discover a likely reason for this emphasis. Sympathy for Saul and his house did not die easily in Israel, and certainly not during David’s reign. The Gibeonite episode recounted in 2 Samuel 21 offers one reason, and there must have been many who agreed with Shimei’s denunciation of David as a “man of blood”: “Begone, begone, you man of blood, you worthless fellow! The Lord has avenged upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead you have reigned” (2 Sam. 16:7f). As late as 2 Samuel 20 we read of a revolt of the men of Israel under the leadership of the Benjaminite Sheba ben Bichri. That this was an attempted coup by the pro-Saul faction seems more than likely.10 At a later stage Solomon’s maladministration can 6 J. T. Willis, “The Function of Comprehensive Anticipatory Redactional Joints in 1 Samuel 16–18”, ZAW 85 (1973) 294–314 (especially 295–302). 7 G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology I (ET, London, 1962) 324. Cf. idem, “Zwei Überlieferungen von König Saul”, in Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament II (München, 1973) 202. 8 W. L. Humphreys, “The Tragedy of King Saul: A Study of the Structure of 1 Samuel 9–31”, JSOT 6 (1978) 18–27. 9 Cf. P. D. Miscall, “The Jacob and Joseph Stories as Analogies”, JSOT 6 (1978) 32. Miscall distinguishes in this connection between divine word and human; the latter does not necessarily achieve fulfilment. 10 Sheba was perhaps even a kinsman of Saul; cf. J. Bright, A History of Israel2 (London, 1972) 205.

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

7

only have given credibility to the Saulide cause. It is small wonder, then, that David’s non-complicity in the deaths of Saul and his family has been given such coverage in these chapters,11 and still less wonder if “David’s Rise” was produced under royal auspices and “represents the official interpretation of the Jerusalem palace”.12 Nowhere is this question of David’s avoidance of blood-guilt addressed more directly than in 1 Samuel 24–26.

The Narrative Unit I began by referring to 1 Samuel 24–26 as a “narrative segment”, though strictly speaking the “wilderness cycle”, as the “segment” may fairly be called,13 begins at 23:14. It is a beginning which, to quote Klaus Koch, “is not markedly typical of the start to a Hebrew story”,14 but that need not detain us. The issue of blood-guilt is first raised at 24:lff and it is from this point on that the narrator applies his skills to the development of his all-important theme. On almost any analysis of these chapters 26:25 marks the closing bracket; Saul, having blessed David, “returned to his place”.15 27:1 reports David’s decision to take refuge with the Philistines, and we enter a new phase in his story. Further justification for treating 23:14 (effectively 24:1)–26:25 as a narrative unit would therefore appear unnecessary. Hitherto most treatments of 1 Samuel 24–26 have concentrated on the question of the relationship between chapters 24 and 26, usually to demonstrate that these are sibling accounts of a single incident. Literary criticism attributed the accounts to separate written sources.16 Form criticism, on the other hand, envisages a period of separate development within the oral tradition.17 But whereas Koch, who holds that we have “two versions of the same story”, appeals to oral tradition in order to account for the differences between them,18 Grønbaek maintains that we are dealing with two originally independent traditions whose similarities are best explained as having arisen during a period of parallel development within the oral tradition.19 The similarities certainly call for some explanation, though, it need hardly be said, this is but one aspect of a more general problem of parallel accounts in 1 Samuel. In what follows we shall not be discussing the origin or life-setting of the individual units, but rather their function within the narrative composite of “David’s Rise”. 11

Cf. Conrad, art. cit. 325; Lemche, art. cit. 12f, 15. Ward, op. cit. 216. Ward thinks that “David’s Rise” was composed as early as Solomon’s reign, when the hope of reconciliation between the Davidides and Saulides was still alive. 13 So Ward, op. cit. 50. 14 K. Koch, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method (ET, London, 1969) 137. 15 Grønbaek, op. cit. 183, is an exception. 16 Cf. K. Budde, Die Bücher Samuel (Tübingen/Leipzig, 1902) 157; H. P. Smith, The Books of Samuel (ICC. Edinburgh, 1912) 216. 17 Cf. Koch, op. cit. 132–48. 18 Ibid. 143. 19 Op. cit. 169 (cf. 180f). 12

8

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Narrative Analogy At some point the traditions relating to David’s early career were brought together to form a connected narrative corresponding grosso modo to what we have in the MT. In this connection we can hardly avoid talking of an “editor”, however we envisage his role. By his shaping and deployment of the material available to him this editor has infused his own spirit into the stories that he recounts. It is to him that we owe the overarching themes and dominant emphases which give the narrative its connectedness, and not just at the lowly level of topical or chronological arrangement. Current interest in “the Bible as literature”, with attention being paid to the larger narrative unit, the development of plot, characterization and the like, has ensured for the editor a more honourable status than heretofore. And rightly so, even if we do not subscribe to the view that the Old Testament is “a large chiasmus constructed one New Year’s Day in the Exile”.20 One of the outstanding features of biblical narrative, and perhaps the one which is most open to misinterpretation, is its tendency to laconicism, just at those points where the modern reader looks to the author to spell out his intention or, maybe, to moralize on the action of the story.21 Where the reader’s sensibilities are offended this taciturnity may be put down to moral indifference on the part of the author, or simply – and this has special relevance to “David’s Rise” – to undisguised heroworship. But Hebrew narrative is much more subtle than that, using a wide range of narrative techniques to perform the functions of the explicit commentaries in the more transparent narrative types. Prominent among these techniques is that of narrative analogy. Narrative analogy is a device whereby the author can provide an internal commentary on the action which he is describing, usually by means of crossreference to an earlier action or speech.22 Thus narratives are made to interact in ways which may not be immediately apparent; ironic parallelism abounds wherever this technique is applied. Narrative analogy, we submit, provides an important clue to the relationship between 1 Samuel 25, which tells the story of Nabal, and the contiguous chapters, which treat of David’s sparing of Saul. The point can be expressed in the simple equation: Nabal = Saul. Saul does not vanish from view in 1 Samuel 25;23 he is Nabal’s alter ego. Predisposing Factors Why should Nabal serve as a narrative function of Saul? Several predisposing factors are suggested by a surface reading of 1 Samuel 24–26, but by far the most important is the shared motif of David’s magnanimity towards his enemies: “In each case, 20

If the author may be permitted to quote from somewhere in the oral tradition. Cf. R. Alter, “A Literary Approach to the Bible”, Commentary 60 (1975) 73. 22 Cf. Alter, loc. cit. 23 Pace Humphreys, art. cit. 19. A rough parallel is provided by Jobling’s suggestion of rôle identification between David and Jonathan earlier in 1 Samuel: D. Jobling, The Sense of Biblical Narrative (SJSOT 7. Sheffield, 1978) 4–25. 21

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

9

David perceives a powerful advantage in killing, but is restrained by a theological consideration.”24 Nabal, no less than Saul, poses the question, Will David incur blood-guilt on his way to the throne? Considerations such as that Nabal is not “the Lord’s anointed” and that to kill him would not be a violation of royal sacrosanctity are temporarily set aside. The point is made in Abigail’s speech that blood-guilt for anyone – even for a Nabal – could cast a shadow over David’s throne at a later stage (25:30f). Time and place are also enabling factors in the rôle-identification of Nabal with Saul. While the Nabal story is in its proper setting inasmuch as it recounts an episode from the period of David’s outlawry in the Judaean wilderness,25 it is also significant that the two places mentioned in 25:2 in connection with Nabal have strong associations with Saul. Maon is named three times in 23:24f as the area where David hid and where Saul came within an ace of apprehending him. Carmel, where Nabal had his estate, was the place where Saul erected his stele in celebration of his victory over the Amalekites (15:12).26 Then there is Nabal’s social status. He was a wealthy individual whose style of life could even have been the envy of Saul; he is therefore fit to stand as a narrative surrogate of Saul. Levenson, in declaring him “no commoner”, ventures the opinion that he was “the rõ’š bêt ’ãb or the nãśî’ of the Calebite clan, a status to which David laid claim through his marriage to Nabal’s lady”.27 And were we to indulge Levenson a little further in his speculations we should discover that the correspondence between Saul and Nabal does not end there, for Levenson surmises that the Ahinoam mentioned in 25:43 is none other than Saul’s wife, the only other bearer of the name in the Old Testament. But perhaps it is too much a flight of fancy to imagine that “David swaggered into Hebron with the wife of a Calebite chieftain on one arm and that of the Israelite king on the other”.28 Depiction Psychologically Saul and Nabal are geminate. They refuse to know, in particular to acknowledge David for what he is, and they are alienated from those about them. Jobling brings out well this epistemological aspect of Saul’s “rebellion” as it is depicted in earlier chapters of 1 Samuel.29 Saul has it on the authority of no less than Samuel that he and his house have been rejected by God, but he will stop at nothing in order to frustrate the divine purpose. Jonathan, by way of contrast, “receives no revelations, and yet he knows”.30 As for alienation, it is not only Saul and Jonathan who are polarized in their attitudes to David (cf. 20:30–34). Michal, Saul’s daughter 24

J. D. Levenson, “1 Samuel 25 as Literature and as History”, CBQ 40 (1978) 23. W. Caspari, Die Samuelbücher (KAT VII. Leipzig, 1926) 311, thought that the Nabal story belonged with chapters 27–30 and David’s stay at Ziklag, but there is little or nothing to commend this view. 26 Cf. Grønbaek, op. cit. 172. 27 Art. cit. 26f. 28 Ibid. 27. 29 Op. cit. 20f. 30 Ibid. 21. 25

10

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

become David’s wife, works against her father to prevent David’s arrest; she would rather lie to Saul than see David fall into his hands (19:11–17) . At best, too, there is ambiguity about the attitude of Saul’s servants to their master. On one occasion he complains because they withhold intelligence about David’s movements: “You have all conspired against me, and no one informs me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse, and none of you feels sorry for me or informs me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as at the present time” (22:8). Only by appealing to their self-interest – would David exercise his powers of patronage in favour of Benjaminites as Saul had done? – can he hope to obtain information. But even then it is the Edomite Doeg, described as “standing with the servants of Saul”, who steps forward. Later, when Saul orders his servants to put the priests of Nob to the sword, their refusal means that Doeg again has to oblige (22:17–19). Nabal reads like a diminutive Saul when viewed in this light. In his eyes David is just a fugitive slave, and there are far too many of them about the countryside these days. However, his acid dismissal seems to be more than an expression of contempt for a local condottiere: “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?” (25:10) sounds like an echo of Sheba’s rebel-cry in 2 Samuel 20:1: “We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.” Nabal even talks like a Saulide sympathizer.31 In his relations with his wife and his servants Nabal again reads like a reflex of Saul. Abigail has no confidence in him: “But she did not tell her husband Nabal” (25:19); “she told him nothing at all until the morning light” (25:36). Nor is it just that she acts independently of her husband: she is unable to say anything positive about him. For her he is a paradigm of reprobation, and her desperate errand is, not to save his life, but to save David from catching a blot on his escutcheon. And nowhere is the difference between “the lady and the fool” so marked as in their respective attitudes to David; Abigail is as perspicacious as Nabal is obstinately blind. If Abigail cannot speak well of her husband it is not surprising that his servants think ill of him. There is no denying his cantankerousness, so that one of the servants can remind his mistress – apparently with impunity – that Nabal is “so much a man of Belial that one cannot speak to him” (25:17). David’s hot-blooded response to Nabal’s incivility is to mobilize his entire band of six hundred followers, deploying them exactly as he does later in the recovery operation against the Amalekites: four hundred go into attack and two hundred stay by the baggage (cf. 1 Sam. 30:9f, 2l–25). On this occasion the scale of the operation certainly encourages us to see Nabal in larger-than-life terms. Perhaps, too, there is double entendre – a hint at the fate of the Saulide house? – in the servant’s warning to Abigail in 25:17: “evil is determined against our master and against all his house”. Be that as it may, when Abigail returned from entreating David she found her husband 31

Levenson, art. cit. 24, links 1 Sam. 25:10 with Sheba’s revolt: “1 Samuel plants an ominous seed, which sprouts in the doomed rebellion of Sheba, but matures in the days of David’s grandson Rehoboam, when the Northern tribes raise the identical cry, with a momentous effect on David’s ‘secure dynasty’ (1 Kgs 12:16–17).”

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

11

celebrating the wool-clip in right royal manner. His symposium is said to have been “like the feast of a king” (25:36), which may be an unsubtle way of drawing attention to the rôle-identification with which the author has been operating.32 Word-reprise For specificity and directness, Hebrew narrative, particularly in the aspect of narrative analogy, relies heavily on word-repetition. It is through “the repetitive use of key verbal stems”33 that the narrator lays the hermeneutical markers which impart some measure of objectivity to our attempts to understand his viewpoint. The study of word-repetition therefore has an assured place in narrative analysis; for even our present fascination with multiple readings and open-ended analyses must leave us free to regard as our primary interpretive objective the elucidation of the meaning which the original writer intended to convey.34 The beauty of this device of wordrepetition is that it enables the narrator to make his point with an absolute economy of words, whether it be to highlight parallelism, contrast, or development, across the contextual divide. There are instances of the phenomenon in 1 Samuel 24–26 which help to lay bare the narrator’s intention in these chapters: chapter 25 contains verbal echoes of chapter 24 and is in turn echoed, briefly but distinctly, in chapter 26. 24//25 In 25:8 David instructs his young men to go to Nabal and ask him to “give whatever you have available to your servants and to your son David”. David, in fact, makes a show of being deferential to Nabal, and it is important for the narrator, in view of the sequel, that there is no excuse for Nabal’s rudeness. However, “your son David” may also be seen as a deliberate echo of 24:16(17), where Saul addresses David as “my son David”. The latter expression occurs three times in the parallel narrative in chapter 26 (vv. 17, 21, 25) and is peculiar to Saul in the books of Samuel.35 The second instance of significant word-repetition involves the contrasting pair “good” and “evil” – and it is noteworthy that of the approximately eighty occurrences of the roots ‫טוב‬/‫ יטב‬and ‫ רע‬in 1 Samuel fully one third are to be found in chapters 24–26. In 24:17(18) Saul is in a repentant mood and confesses to David, “You are more righteous than I; for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil.” This point is developed in verses 18ff (19ff) with further occurrences of the root ‫טוב‬. When we pass on to the Nabal story and to David’s meditation on the insult 32 The same expression occurs in 4QSama, LXX at 2 Sam. 13:27, possibly “suggested by a reminiscence of I 25, 36”: S. R. Driver, Notes on … the Books of Samuel (Oxford, 1913) 302. Driver also allows the possibility that the words may have been omitted from MT 2 Sam. 13:27 by homoioteleuton. Cf. E. C. Ulrich, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus (Missoula, 1978) 85. 33 M. Fishbane, “Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle”, JJS 27 (1975) 21; cf. R. Alter, “Biblical Narrative”, Commentary 61 (1976) 63. For word-reprise as a poetic device see J. Muilenburg, “A Study in Hebrew Rhetoric: Repetition and Style”, SVT 1 (1953) 97–111. 34 “It is what the author wants to get across to his readers or listeners that should be the concern of every teacher of the Old Testament”: J. F. A. Sawyer, From Moses to Patmos (London, 1977) 9. For further discussion of authorial intention see H. W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven/London, 1974) 73–85, 250–66, 301f. 35 Cf. also David’s use of “father” in his address to Saul in 24:11(12).

12

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

to his men the parallel with Saul is hard to miss: “Surely in vain have I protected all that belongs to this fellow in the wilderness, with the result that nothing has been lost of all that belongs to him; and he has returned me evil for good” (25:21). And with this the servant’s report to Abigail is in agreement: “the men were very good to us and we suffered no harm” (25:15). Thirdly, the figure of the ‫ ריב‬makes its appearance in chapters 24 and 25. In his exchange with Saul outside the cave David expresses his confidence that God will interpose on his behalf: “May the Lord be judge and give sentence between me and you, and may he see and plead my cause, and deliver me from your hand” (24:15[16]). The metaphor is picked up again in 25:39 when David receives the news of Nabal’s death: “Blessed be the Lord who has pleaded the cause of my reproach at the hand of Nabal and has kept back his servant from evil.” These are the only occurrences of the root ‫ ריב‬in its forensic sense, in 1 Samuel. 36 25//26 The most striking case of word-repetition comes in 26:10 in David’s rebuttal of Abishai’s suggestion that he finish Saul off with one thrust of his spear. Said David, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will smite him; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go down into battle and perish.” This seeming vagueness as to the manner in which Saul would die is deceptive, for two of these statements have a direct bearing on Saul’s fate. At the purely historical level, Saul went into battle against the Philistines and perished on Gilboa (1 Sam. 31:6). But, seen from the perspective of the wider narrative context, it is the first clause that carries the accent: “the Lord will smite him”. The possibility of Saul’s death at the hand of someone other than David does not arise in chapter 24, yet it forms the point d’appui of David’s argument against Abishai in chapter 26. Whence, therefore, this conviction that Saul’s death would come as an act of divine judgment? We need only look back to the Nabal story for the answer. When Nabal heard from Abigail about the fate which she had so narrowly averted on his behalf, the shock was too great for him, with the result that “his heart died within him and he became like a stone” (25:37). About ten days after this “the Lord smote Nabal and he died” (v. 38). “Smote” here, as in 26:10, translates the verb ‫נגף‬, the mere repetition of which is sufficient to point up the comparison between Saul and Nabal. The manner of Nabal’s death provides the key to David’s confident assertion in 26:10 and herein, as we shall presently suggest, lies also a pointer to the whole narrative thrust of 1 Samuel 24–26. This adumbration of Saul’s death in the judgment on Nabal may also be significant for the interpretation of 25:26, where Abigail expresses the hope that David’s enemies will “be as Nabal”. Since Nabal appears to have been fit and well when Abigail set out, her words can only amount to an imprecation of wrong-headedness on those who sought David’s life – unless, that is, verse 26 anticipates Nabal’s untimely demise.37 The obvious difficulty with this interpretation is that it assumes 36 The verb is used in 1 Sam. 2:10 (“those who oppose the Lord will be shattered”). ‫ וירב‬in 1 Sam. 15:5 represents a defective spelling of the verb ‫)ארב‬. 37 Cf. W. McKane, I and II Samuel (TC. London, 1963) 151; J. Mauchline, 1 and 2 Samuel (NCB. London, 1971) 170; H. J. Stoebe, Das erste Buch Samuelis (KAT VIII/I. Gütersloh, 1973) 449.

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

13

prophetic powers for Abigail and does little for the verisimilitude of the story. This, however, has to be balanced by the consideration that the whole of Abigail’s speech portrays her as a woman of uncommon, even prophetic, powers of discernment. Since on other grounds the connection between the deaths of Nabal and Saul has been established we may the more confidently interpret 25:26 as a wish that Saul – for who else seeks David’s life? – may suffer the same fate as Nabal (cf. 2 Sam. 18:32). Word-play The rôle-identification of Nabal with Saul is, arguably, canonized in Saul’s final exchanges with David in 26:21–25, where we find Saul at his most conciliatory: “I have done wrong; come back, my son David, for I will never again harm you, because my life was precious in your eyes this day; behold, I have played the fool (‫ )הסכלתי‬and have erred exceedingly” (v. 21). On any reckoning ‫ הסכלתי‬is a loaded word.38 This is the verb with which Samuel launches into his denunciation of Saul at Gilgal: “You have acted foolishly (‫ ;)נסכלת‬you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God which he commanded you” (1 Sam. 13:13); now in the presence of the successor to whom Samuel’s speech makes allusion Saul pronounces judgment on himself. But it is also worth considering whether ‫ הסכלתי‬has special significance within the more immediate context. In other words, does the admission “I have played the fool” point back to chapter 25 and the figure of Nabal? A definitive answer would require an excursion into the semantic field of “folly” in Biblical Hebrew, and, in particular, a discussion of the merits of “fool” as a translation of BH ‫נבל‬.39 S. R. Driver favoured the translation “churl” in 25:25, and this is the way of NEB: “‘Churl’ is his name, and churlish his behaviour”.40 James Barr, on the other hand, opts mediatingly for “churlish fool”, though he does not regard this as the original meaning of the actual name “Nabal”.41 There is indeed strong versional support for locating BH ‫נבל‬ within the semantic field of “folly”, evidence which extends to the Hebrew-Greek equivalences in Ecclesiasticus.42 If “Nabal” has some connotation of “folly” then, as Gemser has noted, there is a handy Akkadian analogue in the personal name Saklu (“foolish”).43 It is also a matter of some relevance that the Hebrew root ‫ נבל‬denotes more than folly if by that we mean stupidity or imbecility. The folly in the moral realm which BDB associates with the root brings it within striking distance of BH ‫נבל‬ and ‫נבלה‬.44 38 R. A. Carlson, David the Chosen King (Uppsala, 1964) 207f, regards the use of this verb as characteristic of the Deuteronomistic group. 39 See the studies by W. M. W. Roth, “NBL”, VT 10 (1960) 394–409, and T. Donald, “The Semantic Field of ‘Folly’ in Proverbs, Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes”, VT 13 (1963) 285–92. 40 Driver, op. cit. 200. 41 “The Symbolism of Names in the Old Testament”, BJRL 52 (1969–70) 21–8. 42 E.g. Ecclus. 4:27; 21:22. 43 B. Gemser, De Beteekenis der persoonsnamen voor onze kennis van het leven en denken der oude Babyloniërs en Assyriërs (Wageningen, 1924) 192f. I owe the reference to Prof. Barr’s article. 44 BDB, 614f.

14

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Word-play on Nabal’s name is in any case a feature of 1 Samuel 25. It comes, explicitly in verse 25 already quoted: “‫ נבל‬is his name and ‫ נבלה‬is with him.” There would seem to be another instance of play on the name in verse 37 which, in talking about the wine “going out of Nabal”, seems momentarily to think of him as a ‫נֵבֶל‬, a wine-skin. (The commentators’ silence at this point could be attributable to myopia or to powers of restraint which this writer obviously lacks.) Finally, when the narrator describes Abigail as “of good understanding” (‫טובתשכל‬, v. 3) is he not saying that she was all that her husband, so aptly named, was not?

Function of Nabal Interlude A more exact statement of the function, or, perhaps more correctly, of one of the functions, of 1 Samuel 25 can now be undertaken. It is unlikely that the Nabal incident has been included merely to show us how David and his men fared in the wilderness,45 or even to relate how David acquired Abigail as wife. Nor are the mines of authorial intention exhausted, if they are touched at all, by Miscall’s proposal to read the chapter as an oblique commentary on chapter 14, in virtue of the fact that it is also concerned with a vow rashly uttered: “1 Sam. 25, the Abigail and David episode, stresses the rashness of Saul’s vow and his obstinacy in needlessly trying to fulfill it.”46 In fact, most are agreed that the centre of gravity in the Nabal story lies in Abigail’s speech and the main issue which it confronts, namely the necessity of David’s avoiding blood-guilt. 1 Samuel 25 is therefore of a piece thematically with the adjacent chapters which tell of David’s avoidance of blood-guilt for Saul. This is not journey’s end, however, for we must look more closely at the way in which Nabal contributes to the exposition of the theme. And first we shall take issue with Levenson who, while agreeing that there is a thematic relationship between chapter 25 and the adjoining chapters, nevertheless sees its main function in another direction. The difference between 1 Samuel 25 and its neighbors is that in the latter, David seeks out Saul solely in order to demonstrate his good will, whereas in our tale, only the rhetorical genius of Abigail saves him from bloodying his hands. In short, the David of chaps. 24 and 26 is the character whom we have seen since his introduction in chap. 16 and whom we shall continue to see until 2 Samuel 11, the appealing young man of immaculate motivation and heroic courage. But the David of chap. 25 is a man who kills for a grudge. The episode of Nabal is the very first revelation of evil in David’s character. He can kill. This time he stops short. But the cloud that chap. 25 raises continues to darken our perception of David’s character.47

Levenson then sums it up in a sentence: “1 Samuel 25 is a proleptic glimpse, within David’s ascent, of his fall from grace.” So, for Levenson, the shadow of Bathsheba and Uriah, and of all the ugly entail of that episode, falls over this chapter. 45 46 47

Cf. Mauchline, op. cit. 171, on chapter 25 as only incidentally a source of sociological information. Art. cit. 30 (narrative analogy “is not limited to texts in close proximity”). Art. cit. 23.

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

15

The attractions of Levenson’s thesis notwithstanding, there are good grounds for thinking that the Nabal story functions nearer home. In the first place, Levenson’s exposition betrays a doubtful interpretation of David’s behaviour in the cave at Engedi. This is a point to which we shall return; suffice it to say just now that it is very doubtful whether the narrator would have viewed chapter 25 as giving “the very first revelation of evil in David’s character”. It is even more to be doubted that it was the narrator’s intention that this chapter should discord with his otherwise “tendentious” – so Weiser48 and most – account of David’s rise. According to another, and perhaps more satisfactory, reading, the account of David’s honourable acquisition of Abigail stands self-consciously in contrast with the sordid matter of 2 Samuel 11–12. “Honourable” is, of course, a relative term here, though not necessarily as relative as Lemche implies when he accuses David of “frightening a man to death and stealing his wife”.49 All this, however, is only to disregard the function of 1 Samuel 25 within its immediate narrative setting. For from 24:1 to 26:25 we have a three-part plot in which there is incremental repetition of the motif of blood-guilt and its avoidance.50 Scene One (24:1–22 [23]): David, incited to avenge himself on Saul, performs a symbolic act which is of sufficient gravity to cause him immediate remorse. He then berates his men and states the theological grounds for not striking Saul down. Scene Two (25:2–42): David, outraged by Nabal’s rudeness to his men, sets out with the intention of destroying him and every male belonging to him. His anger is assuaged by Abigail’s intervention; Nabal comes under divine judgment. Scene Three (26:1–25): David is again incited against Saul, this time by Abishai. Saul and his men are in a deep sleep, as helpless before David as was Nabal when “his heart died within him and he became like a stone” (25:37). David unhesitatingly rejects Abishai’s suggestion; Saul is “the Lord’s anointed” and God will deal with him (vv. 9f). “Incremental repetition”, in the sense in which I use it here, means the development or modification of a motif through repetition in separate narrative sequences. The changes and variations thus introduced “can point to an intensification, climactic development, acceleration of the actions and attitudes initially represented, or, on the other hand, to some unexpected, perhaps unsettling, new revelation of character or plot”.51 In the setting of 1 Samuel 24–26 we have to do with the maturation of an idea in David’s mind, the progress being unfolded in three episodes each of which has its own point of resolution without prejudice to the coherence of the larger narrative unit. 48 49 50

Art. cit. 354. Art. cit. 12. For comment on ternary structure in biblical narrative see Humphreys, art. cit. 19; Miscall, art. cit.

31f. 51

Alter, “Biblical Narrative”, 63.

16

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Manifestly, the suggestion that there is incremental repetition in these chapters assumes that David’s actions in relation to Saul in the first and third scenes are qualitatively different. Koch does not agree: In both narratives David takes a token with him. Yet in chapter xxiv he only removes the skirt of Saul’s robe, whereas in chapter xxvi he also (sic) takes Saul’s weapon. Here also B (i.e. ch. 26) must be the later version. The story is lent a more soldierly aspect if the adversary is robbed of his weapon and not merely of a piece of his apparel.52

Koch, like most, regards chapters 24 and 26 as variant accounts of the same incident. But this monistic view need not lead automatically to the conclusion that David’s actions are meant to be accorded the same status. (Of course, if the accounts answer to two separate occasions when David spared Saul there is even less reason to force the parallel.) On a straightforward reading of 24:1–7(8) – and I am not among those who hold that the MT is in need of reordering in this section53 – David’s excision of a piece of Saul’s robe stands for more than the procuring of a token in proof of his good-will toward the king. The fact that attempts have been made to illuminate the act from this and that source is immaterial, for in each case it emerges with an impressive, if not altogether uniform, symbolism. Symbolism there certainly is if 24:4f(5f) is meant to be read in the light of 15:27f, where the tearing of a robe – whether Samuel’s or Saul’s is disputed54 – signifies the forfeiture of Saul’s kingdom: “And Samuel turned to go, and he seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. Samuel said to him, ‘The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and will give it to your neighbour who is better than you.’” According to this interpretation, then, David, the “neighbour” in question, staked his claim to the kingdom that day in the cave when he removed a piece from Saul’s robe. The narrative complementarity of the two passages is also suggested by the occurrence in both of the expression ‫( כנף מעיל‬15:27; 24:4[5]), since it is not found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.55 References to Akkadian texts from Alalakh and Mari illustrate the possibility that David’s was a calculatedly symbolic act at En-gedi. Since grasping the hem of a superior’s cloak was a common expression of submission, it has been surmised that David’s cutting of Saul’s hem amounted to a declaration of revolt.56 Actual cutting of 52 Op. cit. 143. R. C. Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Philadelphia, 1976) 49–54, represents a similar evaluation of David’s behaviour in the two accounts. 53 Reasons were given in a short paper (“1 Samuel 24:7(8) and the Dichotomized Servant in Q”) read at the joint meeting of the British and Dutch Old Testament Societies in Cambridge, July 1979. 54 Grønbaek, op. cit. 164, thinks that it is Samuel’s cloak which is torn – in which case compare Ahijah’s tearing of his own robe in 1 Ki. 11:30f. Cf. also R. A. Brauner, “‘To Grasp the Hem’ and 1 Samuel 15: 27”, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 6 (1974) 35–8. According to Brauner, Saul took hold of Samuel’s cloak – an act symbolic of supplication – but inadvertently tore it; Samuel thereupon attached the symbolism to the tearing of the robe. 4QSama, LXX read “(and) Saul laid hold” for MT “(and) he laid hold”; cf. Ulrich, op. cit. 54. 55 Grønbaek, op. cit. l64f. 56 D. J. Wiseman in Archaeology and Old Testament Study, ed. D. W. Thomas (Oxford, 1967) 128. For text, see idem, “Abban and Alalah ”, JCS 12 (1958) 129; see also CAD 16, 223. ˘

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

17

a garment is mentioned in the Mari texts in connection with the immobilizing of a “prophetess”. In one letter Bah di-Lim, administrator of the Mari palace, informs Zimri-Lim that “Ahum the priest˘ has removed the hair and the hem of the cloak of the muhhutum”.57 This˘evidently was thought to bring the muhhutum under the control of ˘ ˘ ˘ parallel with 1 Samuel the˘ king to whom the hair and hem were forwarded. The 24:4f(5f) is sufficiently close for Noth to conclude that “David, by cutting off the hem of the garment, does evil to Saul”.58 Without committing ourselves to any of these explanations, we can still admit the probability that David’s act was symbolic, and even grave in its implications. Some corroboration of this view comes in the statement in verse 5(6) that “David’s heart smote him because he had cut off Saul’s skirt”. This is a strong statement which is used on only one other occasion – that of the census in 2 Samuel 24 – to describe David’s feelings of remorse (2 Sam. 24:10). Now one of the outstanding features of the census narrative is that David’s action had deeper implications than were at first apparent. Such, it would seem, is the case in 1 Samuel 24:5(6). If our interpretation of the incident in the cave is correct, then the contrast with the similar-sounding episode in 26:1–12 is not to be missed. David, having once violated the sanctity of the king’s person – to put it no higher – shows not the slightest sign of weakness on the second occasion. Standing between these two accounts is chapter 25, in which the whole issue of grievance, revenge and blood-guilt is played through to its conclusion. Thus David is given a preview of what will happen if he commits his case to God and leaves Saul unharmed. 1 Samuel 25 is therefore “proleptic” – it has “an inner significance which runs ahead of the external appearances”59 – not so much in relation to the more distant events of 2 Samuel60 as to its immediate context.

Redundancy vs. Development This positive appraisal of 1 Samuel 24–26 as narrative is greatly at variance with Jobling’s verdict on the same chapters. The attempt is made … to show Saul both as the rejected one and as willingly abdicating to David. In ch. 24, he begins by seeking David’s life, and ends by confessing David’s future kingship (vs. 20). Their next encounter, in ch. 26, is a “redundant” repetition of this cycle, though without the specific confession. … But in the very next verse (27:1) David complains of the continuing danger to his life from Saul. The attempt fails; the theological aim is here pursued at the cost of narrative coherence, and even of psychological conviction; at no level does the account make sufficient sense.61 57 ARM VI, 45, 7ff; cf. VI, 26, r. 8f. Cf. E. Noort, Untersuchungen zum Gottesbescheid in Mari: Die “Mariprophetie” in der alttestamentlichen Forschung (AOAT 202. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1977) 84–6. 58 M. Noth, “Remarks on the Sixth Volume of Mari Texts”, JSS 1 (1956) 330. 59 Thus Jobling, op. cit. 12, on the function of 1 Sam. 14:1–46 and 18:1–5 within the story of Saul. Cf. also Fishbane’s remarks, art. cit. 22f, on proleptic elements in the Jacob cycle in Genesis. 60 Pace Levenson (vid. supra). 61 Op. cit. 22.

18

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

For Jobling, the “theological aim” of 1 Samuel 13–31 is to “make theologically acceptable the transition from Saul’s kingship to David’s”,62 an aim which he regards as capable of fulfilment only with Jonathan’s mediation, and this pivotally in 18:1–5 where, according to Jobling, we have Jonathan’s virtual abdication in favour of David. If this be the yard-stick, then 1 Samuel 24–26 must indeed be judged a failure in narrative terms. However, as we observed at the outset, the legitimacy of David’s claim to the throne is not the issue in this section; it is, rather, a question of how David is to appropriate what is legitimately his by divine decree: blood-guilt for Saul or no? Jobling, more than most, should have recognized this in view of the fact that Jonathan, on whom he pins so much, makes his most explicit statement about David’s future kingship in 23:17, i.e., just as the “wilderness cycle” gets under way. Far from being a “redundant” repetition of chapter 24, chapter 26 builds on the earlier account and, through its speeches, points forward to the next phase of David’s life on the run. 27:1, instead of destroying the coherence of the narrative, as Jobling alleges, strikingly emphasizes David’s determination not to lift his hand against Saul; his magnanimity puts him in danger, so that he has to take refuge with the Philistines. Jobling is looking for a narrative coherence which makes no concessions to historical reality, for Saul never did deliver his kingdom to David on a plate – of that much we may be certain. In short, Jobling has imposed his own stereotype on the narrative and castigated it for vacuity. Narrative and Speech The discussion so far has scarcely begun to do justice to the fact that each of the component narratives in chapters 24–26 climaxes in an exchange of speeches,63 and if we were attempting a final analysis of the section – as if there could be such a thing – this would undoubtedly be a serious defect. It could be argued, on the other hand, that our approach will help to correct a prevailing imbalance. Certainly, if the narrative is judged solely in terms of the ideology of the speeches, chapter 26 falls flat on its face. Such is the criterion usually applied, which explains why Koch is not the only one to have expressed puzzlement about the present function of the chapter.64 Saul’s speeches in chapter 26 are anti-climactic when set alongside his affirmations at En-gedi. The most that he can manage is, “Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will have success” (26:25). There may be hints of David’s future regal status when he pronounces Abner and the rest worthy of death (v. 16), or when Saul confesses to him that he has “sinned” (v. 21),65 but none of this matches the full-blooded affirmation of 24:20(21): “I know that you will certainly be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand”. 62

Ibid. 21. Cf. von Rad, Theology I, 54 (“the dialogues between David and Saul are the highlights to which the external events lead up”); so also Koch, op. cit. 150. 64 Op. cit. 147. 65 Cf. Koch, op. cit. 141n., 142. 63

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

19

Indeed, it is hard to imagine how chapter 26 could have capped this, if that had been the intention. But to judge the speeches of chapter 26 by the canons of chapter 24 is to fail to recognize that they are animated by other considerations, namely, the irreconcilability of David and Saul, and David’s imminent withdrawal to Philistia. Chapter 26 recounts the last confrontation between the two, and the narrator makes the most of the fact:66 “Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of the hill at a distance, a great space being between them” (v. 13). The “distance” and “space” are surely not just physical here; in outlook and destiny the two are poles apart and already, even before the speeches, the gulf is fixed. Nothing that Saul can say will change the situation. To his invitation – or is it a plea? – to come back David merely replies, “Here is the spear, O king!” (v. 22).67 David knew, and Saul knew, the significance of the spear in their relationship (cf. 18:10f; 19:19f). In 26:13–25, then, the way is being paved for David’s initiative announced in 27:1, the initiative which brought him into vassalage to the Philistines and saw him far from Gilboa when his people were deep in trouble. The subject is introduced by David in verses 19f (“they have driven me out this day so that I should have no part in the heritage of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods’”), Saul’s invitation to return (v. 21) – not paralleled in chapter 24 – has to be read in the light of it, and David’s committal of his future into God’s hands in verse 24 probably has it in view. In its own way, the altercation between David and Abner, who does not figure in chapter 24, also contributes to the forward thrust of chapter 26. There is just a hint of historical allegory about David’s upbraiding of the man who was to survive Gilboa and become the mainspring of Saulide resistance to David’s rule over a unified kingdom of Israel: “Abner you cannot even guarantee the king’s safety, and how are you going to ensure the survival of his house?” (cf. 26:15f). So, then, the speeches in chapter 26 are oriented to the future, and herein lies their justification. The author who used the action of chapters 24–26 to put across a theological point now uses speech to fuel the development of the next stage in his story. Characterization Small slice of narrative though it is, 1 Samuel 24–26 does permit us to speak of character development in connection with David. As the action unwinds we can see the evidence of an inward change. But, according to Scholes and Kellogg, “characters in primitive stories are invariably ‘flat’, ‘static’, and quite ‘opaque’”.68 This applies as much to the Old Testament as to the rest of ancient literature: “The inward life is assumed but not presented in primitive narrative literature, whether Hebraic or Hellenic.”69 And for good measure the story of David and Bathsheba is 66 67 68 69

Cf. Humphreys, art. cit. 24. So the Ke-t îb; the Qerê is, “Behold the king’s spear.” R. Scholes and R. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (New York, 1966) 164. Ibid. 166.

20

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

cited for its opaqueness: situations are described in a detached, impersonal way, and without reference to the mental processes of those involved. The “wilderness cycle” in 1 Samuel certainly does not fit so comfortably into this pre-Christian mould of Scholes and Kellogg. At a crucial point early in the story we have a very clear indication of David’s state of mind: “And afterwards David’s heart smote him because he had cut off Saul’s skirt” (24:5[6]). Thereafter the inward change is expressed in plot rather than in overt character formulation. Plot formulation, if I may now quote approvingly from Scholes and Kellogg, “involves seeing the character at long range, with limited detail, so that his change against a particular background may be readily apparent”.70 This could have been written with the “wilderness cycle” in mind. It is precisely because the stage-settings in chapters 24 and 26 are so similar that we are able to perceive the difference in the actor.

Narration – History Theology, narration – but how fares “David’s Rise” as history? Some “concluding historical postscript” seems called for. For most of the modern period, and especially since Rost’s work in the 1920s, the Succession Narrative has enjoyed recognition as the earliest, and also the foremost, example of Hebrew historiography. The lot of “David’s Rise” was to endure regular comparison, inevitably unfavourable, with its prestigious rival. The Succession Narrative was “history” in the strict sense; “David’s Rise” was not. It was its transparent theological–propagandist slant even more than the thorny problem of the duplicates – though the two issues may be connected – which decided the fate of “David’s Rise”. Koch’s use of “saga” in connection with 1 Samuel 24 and 26 would also seem to reflect a negative view of the Davidic Vorgeschichte: “Sagas are reality poeticised.”71 But Koch’s position is just a little more complicated than this. He regards chapter 24 (“account A”) as deriving from a written source which described David’s rise to kingship. “The complex literary type to which A belongs is therefore historical writing, for only a writer of history has as his theme the rise of a monarch’s power over a particular nation and its persistence in face of external and internal danger.”72 He does not see the presence of heroic sagas in this earlier account as diminishing its status as history-writing, inasmuch as the historian has to make the best of the sources available to him. The compiler of “A” was no less a historian than Herodotus or Thucydides who make frequent use of saga. A question of more direct relevance to the bulk of this paper is whether literary artistry and narrative technique are compatible with the interests of history-writing. 70

Ibid. 168. Op. cit. 156. 72 Ibid. 145. For further discussion and interaction with Koch see H. J. Stoebe, “Gedanken zur Heldensage in den Samuelbüchern”, in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort (BZAW 105; Fest. L. Rost; ed. F. Maass. Berlin, 1967) 208–18. 71

DAVID’S RISE AND SAUL’S DEMISE

21

In his highlighting of themes and causal relationships is the author not taking us ever further away from the original events and circumstances – assuming that such there generally are – and should we not be going in that other direction in any case? The short answer to the first part of the question is that it is doubtful whether any selfrespecting historian could operate without adopting a viewpoint or without introducing theme(s), with all that this implies for the selection and arrangement of material. Obviously the extent of our sympathy with the viewpoint may be influential in our evaluation of the work as “history”, “story”, or something else. As for the second part of the question: I cannot see that we have any choice but to be interested in the historical dimension of Scripture, however great the strains such an interest may impose at times. Of course we must appreciate the significance and value of “the tradition”, with proper regard for the metamorphosis of history in tradition, and of tradition as history. Nevertheless, it is hopelessly and unnecessarily reductionist to conclude that our study of the Old Testament can only produce a history of ideas.73 Even to produce a “history of ideas” requires that we know when the ideas came into vogue and when they were superseded. And what is that but to treat the Old Testament as a document which bears witness to history? It may be that at some point we shall take refuge in analogy; if so, we must select with care. Is it to be Shakespeare, with R. J. Coggins? We should laugh out of court anyone who approached Hamlet, primarily with a view to improving his knowledge of Danish history, or Henry V as a source of knowledge of fifteenth-century England; yet a very similar approach to many an Old Testament book is regarded as entirely natural and proper.74

There are indeed better sources for an understanding of Danish history and of fifteenth-century England, but the analogy could easily mislead. Hamlet and Henry V are not even history-like in the sense in which Coggins himself would apply the term to Old Testament narrative. To many the analogy of Herodotus and Thucydides may be no more satisfactory, though I am bound to say that I think it somewhat nearer the truth. To be sure, there is a danger that immersion in the quest for “historicity” may actually cut us off from the thought-world of the Old Testament, but the danger is in the excess. The peril of the opposite extreme is the unwarranted assumption that Israel’s self-understanding was a self-misunderstanding. And that is a conclusion fraught with consequences for us all.75

73 As is suggested by N. Wyatt, “The Old Testament Historiography of the Exilic Period”, STh 33 (1979) 66n. 74 R. J. Coggins, “History and Story in Old Testament Study”, JSOT 11 (1979) 43; in similar vein D. Robertson, The Old Testament and the Literary Critic (Philadelphia, 1977) 5. 75 Cf. M. H. Woudstra, “Event and Interpretation in the Old Testament”, in Interpreting God’s Word Today, ed. S. Kistemaker (Grand Rapids, 1970) 58f.

Chapter 2

Simplicity of the Highest Cunning: Narrative Art in the Old Testament* David L. Edwards observed some years ago that the Israelite monotheistic ban on images “was the ruin of their art, but the making of their religion”.1 He was talking about the plastic arts, which was as well since the book in which he expressed this opinion itself comes close to being an anthology of Old Testament poetry and prose. Moreover, one of the theses of Robert Alter’s already influential volume on biblical narrative is that Hebrew narrative writing owes its existence to the Israelite monotheistic “discovery”.2 For if Yahweh is sovereign in all history then that history may express unity and a sense of directedness. In short, there is a story to be told: there is historiographical potential around. And if Yahweh is free and innovative and not always predictable in his actions, so too, to a degree, are the human beings whom he has made. “I will be what I will be” may also be predicated of them. Thus Hebrew narrative characterization may not be reduced to the level of the “flat” and “static”, as at least one generalizing comment from outside the world of Old Testament study would encourage us to believe.3 In the Old Testament, as Alter has noted, there is no room for the Homeric-type fixed epithet, for Hebrew characters cannot be pinned down like that.4 Such fixity (as in “the wicked Esau said”) is characteristic of Targum, but that is pronouncedly in the post-biblical period when, for whatever reason, jejuneness became a virtue in the rendering of Scripture. The contrast with Homer runs much deeper, for the Old Testament has no place for epic, even though that might at first seem a natural vehicle for some of what now appears as narrative. Nor is it simply a question of genre suitability or flexibility. So often Hebrew laws, institutions and modes of expression have to be seen as reactions against prevalent norms and forms. There is a kind of “unsaying” going on, as in the general account of creation in Genesis 1, or in the concept of after-life represented in shadowy Sheol, which appears to derive some of its shadowiness, not from a lack of * Delivered at the 1986 conference of the Scottish Evangelical Theological Society. The title of the paper is inspired by a diary entry of Thomas Hardy for 1885 in which he observes of biblical narratives, “They are written with a watchful attention (though disguised) as to their effect on their reader. Their socalled simplicity is, in fact, the simplicity of the highest cunning.” See J. Moynahan, “The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Old Testament’s First Book of Samuel: A Study of Some Literary Relationships”, in R. Bartel et al. (eds.), Biblical Images in Literature, Nashville/New York, 1975, p. 85. An earlier form of this lecture was delivered in an Open Lecture series in the University of Cambridge in 1985. 1 A Key to the Old Testament, London, 1976, p. 35. 2 The Art of Biblical Narrative, London, 1981. 3 See R. Scholes and R. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative, New York, 1966, pp. 164, 166. 4 The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 127ff.

22

SIMPLICITY OF THE HIGHEST CUNNING

23

ideas or speculation, but because in the religious tradition crystallized in Scripture there is a moratorium placed on prying into the after-life in the manner of other peoples. It may be, then, that the same outlook is at work in the Hebrew preference for narrative, as Shemaryahu Talmon has argued.5 Epic in the Levant was associated with polytheism, crudity and bestiality (Ugarit is an obvious provider of examples), it featured in the ritual re-enactment of cosmic events, and it was basically ahistorical. Talmon concludes: In the process of total rejection of the polytheistic religions and their ritual expressions in the cult, epic songs and also the epic genre were purged from the literary repertoire of the Hebrew authors. Together with the content, its foremost literary concretisation fell into disrepute and was banished from the Israelite culture. The epic elements which did survive – preponderantly in the literature of the monarchic period, i.e. from a time when the prophets were active – were permitted to infiltrate as building blocks of other forms of biblical literature, because they had lost their pagan import and had been neutralised (p. 354).

When, therefore, an Old Testament narrative begins to lilt, exhibiting poetic structure and rhythm, we should not assume that we are reading (hearing) vestigial epic. What is more likely is that we have versifying in the strict sense, of prose tending to verse, in order to emphasize, formalize or heighten effect.6 So a good proportion of the Old Testament is story-telling in prose; it is narration and it is accessible to inquiry by the methods and approaches appropriate to the study of narrative prose. This last point bears repetition since some readers of the Old Testament, while able to appreciate such an obvious literary feature as the repetition of keywords, have reservations about applying the ordinary rules of literary criticism to sacred scriptures. And if we run our eye over a hundred years of Old Testament scholarship we may conclude that here also properly literary concerns have often been neglected. Concern about units of tradition, sources and the like – Englishspeakers looking for information about history, German-speakers for information about Israelite beliefs7 – all this has meant that too little attention has been paid to the finished literary artefact. There is substance to this criticism, but it is not the whole story, for the quality of the literature keeps asserting itself despite the fissive effects of some of the “critical” approaches. Moreover, even under critical examination and the demands of doctoral dissertations it remains the case that not all the narratives of the Old Testament have taken on the appearance of smashed mirrors. The so-called “Succession Narrative” within II Samuel 9–I Kings 2 is a case in point. In discussion of this sort notice should also be taken of what might simply be called a “psychological factor” which impinges upon the awareness of both the scholarly and the general (or “lay”) reader of the Old Testament. We have difficulty 5 “The ‘comparative method’ in biblical interpretation – principles and problems”, in Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, XXIX, 1978, pp. 352–6. 6 On this aspect of Hebrew prose see J. L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History, London, 1981, pp. 59–95. 7 J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament. Method in Biblical Study, London, 1984, p. 162.

24

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

in deciding how imaginatively a text should be read. How seriously should we take the presence or absence of a detail in a narrative? It is a question which often presses itself upon writers of biblical commentaries, if my experience permits that kind of generalization. Nowadays, when imaginative reading of biblical texts is widely practised and commended by those who emphasize the literary character of the Bible, even the biblical critic whose interests extend beyond mere textual stratigraphy may still be left bewildered by the uninhibited display of the outright literary practitioners. It is not necessarily the case that the biblical critic did not notice what his literary colleague proudly holds up to view. It may be that he has noticed and has immediately repented of his consorting with that underworld of undisciplined typology and allegory, and of limp parallelism, which it is his life’s ambition to avoid. Again, the tendency of modern literary criticism to talk of levels of meaning, to the extent of playing down authorial intention,8 may alienate the biblical critic who, while aware of the significance of ambiguity and polyvalence in (some) Old Testament texts, knows well that there is usually an intended and, for the most part, recoverable meaning in what lies before him. He may even be using genreterms like “apology”, “apologetic” or “propaganda” in relation to some of the texts which he is studying. Even so, it is widely acknowledged that much more could have been done for Old Testament narrative by modern critical scholarship. The historical-critical approach, its shortcomings notwithstanding, has yielded much that is good and positive, and will continue to do so, but there is obvious need for other approaches, including the literary, to be exploited more fully. It is also a fact that, in the last twenty years or so, a steady flow of books and articles has appeared to fill the gap.9 Interestingly, the point is made often enough in such writings that there are many literary insights to be culled from writings of the pre-critical period (which, after all, is most of human history). Writers who “consort with the underworld” might better do justice to aspects of narrative which have tended to be overlooked by modern excavative activities. Alter, in illustration, reports the observation of the Jewish mediaeval commentator Rashi on the irony of “We are all sons of one man” (Genesis 42:11), spoken by Joseph’s brothers to their as yet unrecognized sibling when they appeared before him in Egypt with a request for corn.10 “The holy spirit was kindled within them, and they included him with themselves as also being a son of their father,” says Rashi. Perhaps we shall wish to banish this observation to the underworld, or perhaps not. Certainly, of the several commentaries which I have consulted none has anything to say on the matter. The foregoing comments will suffice by way of Lucan prologue. In what follows I want to say something about several of those features or techniques of Hebrew narrative-writing which justify the use of the word “art” in the lecture title. I take “art” to imply the self-conscious and intentional, even if that is a limiting definition. On the encephalographic probings of structuralism I shall have nothing to say. The 8

Cf. Barton, Reading the Old Testament, pp. 147–51 (discussing “New Criticism”). In addition to the works mentioned in this article see in particular M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, 1985. 10 The Art of Biblical Narrative, p. 164. 9

SIMPLICITY OF THE HIGHEST CUNNING

25

gamut from “soft” to “hard” may be experienced with profit in, for example, David Jobling’s The Sense of Biblical Narrative (1978).11 At the same time, it is true that, “much that goes under the name of ‘biblical structuralism’ could be paraphrased without using any structuralist terminology, to everyone’s gain”.12 “Structure” in what immediately follows is, of course, used with a very different (architectonic) sense. Structure It is the Old Testament that gives us such an artificial construction as the alphabetical psalm, most conspicuously in the case of Ps 119, which consists of twenty-two octaves each of which begins its lines with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The same concern for form and structure is apparent, even if not normally so emphatically, in Hebrew prose writing, from Genesis 1 onwards. The first chapter of Genesis has been subjected to much structural analysis, and rightly so. In the first place there is the division of the divine activity among six days; there are the punctuating occurrences of “And God said”; and it is evident that there is an internal correspondence between days one to three on the one hand, and days four to six on the other, so that, for example, day one corresponds to day four as light corresponds to luminaries. The chief effect of such a telling of the story of creation is to show that indeed God did not make the world a chaos (cf. Is. 45:18). The ordered character of creation is reflected in the structured nature of the account. And given the rival cosmogonies and cosmologies developed in the ancient near east, this is a point of considerable theological import. How much further the structural dimension should be pursued becomes, however, a moot point. Michael Fishbane claims that the chapter is pyramidical in construction, with each day having more space allocated to it than the preceding. On this reading day six is climactic because of word-count, apart from anything else. But in that case not only is Fishbane’s an inverted pyramid, it is more like an unsuccessful attempt at a step pyramid since day five is described with fewer words (57) than day four (69).13 Another approach to the structuring of Genesis 1 is presented by Paul Beauchamp, who is impressed by the fact that days four and six talk about “rule”.14 He concludes that day four, referring to the rule of the heavenly bodies, marks a high point in the progression of the creation narrative. Thus it is “astres gouvernant” and “hommes dominant” in Genesis 1.15 This treatment of the days in the creation narrative is greatly influenced by Beauchamp’s view of the priestly calendar and the importance therein of the fourth day, but that is not our present concern. What is of interest is that this reading of the creation of sun, moon and stars conflicts with another which is 11

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series VII, Sheffield, 1978. Barton, Reading the Old Testament, p. 134. 13 Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts, New York, 1979, pp. 8f. Fishbane (p. 9) claims that the “minimal aberration” between the word totals for the fourth and fifth days is of no account. 14 Création et séparation: étude exégétique du chapitre premier de Genèse, Paris, 1969. 15 Ibid., p. 68 (cf. p. 116, etc.). 12

26

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

more familiar and more convincing, namely that the failure to call the sun and moon by their usual names (rather than “greater light” and “lesser light”, as in the text), in a chapter which has naming as one of its more significant features (see vv. 5, 8, 10), is probably deliberate and even polemical in intent. These heavenly bodies, of whose supposedly divine status Israel’s neighbours made so much, are here restricted to their proper function of light-bearing. As for the stars, they are mentioned almost as if they are an afterthought, and as if the author’s intention is to strike a blow against near eastern astral worship. It will be obvious that this anti-mythical interpretation, favoured by, for example, Gerhard von Rad in his commentary on Genesis, does not easily coexist with the more individualist explanation by Beauchamp.16 Genesis 1 apart, the search for structures exhibiting internal coherence has become a major industry within the world of Old Testament study. “Concentric”, “ringstructured”, “introverted” are the kinds of terms that are used to describe what structure-conscious critics bring to light. Chiasmus – the correspondence of items one and four and two and three in a verse such as To you, O men, / I call out I raise my voice / to all mankind (Proverbs 8:4)

– is often highlighted at the microtextual level, and was evidently as much a feature of biblical compositional style as of other literature ancient and modern. At the macrotextual level, chapters and whole books are now, virtually as a matter of course, subjected to analysis of this sort. Sometimes the result is reasonably satisfactory, and as a possible example of such “purposeful symmetry” II Samuel 21–24 could be cited. There the accounts of famine and plague, in chapters 21 and 24 respectively, form the outer layer, lists of heroes and heroic deeds the subcutaneous layer (21:15–22; 23:8–39), while making up the “core” are two poetic pieces glorifying the God of David (22:2–51; 23:1–7). The effect of this symmetry, once it is discerned and interpreted, is to give prominence to the psalm and poem at the centre, and thereby to God and his beneficent activity on behalf of the David who is harassed and threatened in the flanking sections of this “Samuel Appendix”. Unfortunately, in most such exercises there is a high degree of subjectivity involved, and the discovery of patterns in the text can depend in substantial measure on the discoverer’s decisions as to what is, and what is not, significant. There are also questions of a practical nature that require airing. What do we know about “essay planning” by ancient writers? And how practicable or effective were macrotextual structures likely to be, given that the ancient writers were normally writing on scrolls, and that without the use of the headings and such like that are characteristic of modern narrative writing? There is also a problem on the side of the biblical interpreter who, having discovered a pattern which accounts for a portion of text, may be seduced into thinking that he has in some sense gained control of the text. Whereas, if the truth be acknowledged, one of the most unsatisfactory aspects of the 16 Genesis: A Commentary (Eng. tr.; revd ed), London, 1972, pp. 55ff. Beauchamp (p. 102) explicitly rejects such an anti-mythical view.

SIMPLICITY OF THE HIGHEST CUNNING

27

pattern quest is, for all the appearance of science and savoir-faire, its low level of cerebral engagement with the biblical text. Inclusio(n) One of the set texts for Hebrew Paper III in the Cambridge University Theological and Religious Studies Tripos ends at II Samuel 19:9 (Eng. 8), until recently, indeed, at v. 9a (Eng. 8a). This point marks the end of the Absalom rebellion. David has lamented Absalom’s death, has been rebuked for his excessive grieving, and then we read: “Then the King arose, and took his seat in the gate. And the people were all told, ‘Behold, the king is sitting in the gate’; and all the people came before the king.” This examination prescription, which, for aught I know, may go back to the “preliterary” days of Old Testament study, exhibits a sound instinct. If we look at II Samuel 15 and the account of the beginning of the rebellion, we shall find that the trouble started in the gate, where Absalom used to stand in the early morning and sow seeds of disaffection in the minds of those who had come to Jerusalem seeking redress for wrongs suffered. And furthermore, the weakness in David’s administration, according to Absalom at least, was neglect of the business of the gate, the administration of justice for aggrieved citizens. David’s sitting in the gate in chapter 19 therefore takes us back to the beginning; it is an “inclusio(n)” rounding off a narrative segment by taking the reader back to the beginning of the story. Sometimes the repetition of a word used at the beginning will suffice to round off and refer back; sometimes words and themes, as in the present case, may be involved. In II Samuel, then, David’s sitting in the gate has a symbolic function in that it marks the end of the rebellion and a return to normality. Which city gate is not stated; presumably it was the gate of Mahanaim, David’s headquarters during the rebellion. That it was not the gate of Jerusalem is immaterial; what matters is that David was sitting in the gate. Anyone with an interest in the English essayists may well be reminded of Thomas de Quincey’s “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth”, the point of which is that this mundane detail of the knocking at the gate represents a return to normality: It makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced; the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish: the pulses of life are beginning to beat again: and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had suspended them.

These words have an aptness in relation to the Absalom rebellion and the king’s sitting in the gate at the rebellion’s end. But the biblical narrative has the added factor of inclusio(n) to reinforce this idea of return to normality. De Quincey’s discovery inspires him to doxology (“Oh! mighty poet! Thy works are not those of other men”). Presumably some praiseful conclusion about the biblical writer’s skill would not be out of place.

28

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Narrative Analogy Narrative analogy is a technique whereby episodes which may be basically unrelated are made to resonate with each other through the reprise in one of words or ideas which belong in the first instance to the other. In this way it is possible to draw comparisons or contrasts between one character or situation and another, or between the responses of the same character in different sets of circumstances. Sometimes a relatively minor event may assume unsuspected significance by association with one of greater moment, while still more complex goings-on are also possible through the use of this technique of writing.17 Abraham Malamat’s study of the Danite migration in the book of Judges provides a good example of the relatively minor being drawn into the orbit of the comparatively major.18 Malamat argues that in various points of detail the story of the Danite tribe’s migration to the Laish area, as told in Judges 18, corresponds to the account of the national conquest and settlement as it is reported elsewhere in the Old Testament. Malamat himself speaks of a typology of conquest accounts, but the usefulness of this particular term is questionable since we are restricted (by definition) to two conquest accounts. Thus narrative analogy seems a better description of what Malamat has observed. The enhancing of a tribal tradition by presenting it sub specie totius gentis would be very much in keeping with the general approach in the book of Judges. Three examples of the same phenomenon from the book of Exodus deserve brief comment. When we read in Exodus 1:7 that the Israelites living in Egypt “were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied”, the collocation of verbs used suggests a comparison with the creation ordinance (“Be fruitful and multiply”, Gen. 1:28), which may indeed have influenced the Exodus narrator’s choice of words. As the human family is to “fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28), so the Israelites fill “the land”, whether the land of Goshen or the whole land of Egypt (Ex. 1:7). If in Exodus 1 we can see the influence of Genesis 1, then the verbal echoes may be intended to suggest that the Hebrews’ prolificity in Egypt is a sign of divine blessing, no matter the reaction of the Pharaoh and his people.19 There may be a second instance of narrative analogy in Exodus 1, for, in a section which talks of cities, mortar and bricks, the Pharaoh says, “Come let us … lest” (v. 10), using the uncommon expression which comes in Genesis 11:7 in another section about a city, mortar and bricks. In both cases the issue is self-preservation, whether by the Babel-builders concerned with overcoming the centrifugal effects of appearing in the “primeval history” or by the Egyptians in the face of Israelite proliferation. The oblique commentary of the Genesis story may also encourage the reader to see the assault on the Hebrew community as being on a par with the Babelbuilders’ implied rebellion against God. 17 Cf. the author’s “David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24–26”, Tyndale Bulletin XXXI, 1980, pp. 37–64 (42ff.). 18 “The Danite Migration and the Pan-Israelite Exodus-Conquest: a Biblical Narrative Pattern”, Biblica LI, 1970, pp. 1–16. 19 In source-critical terms both Gen. 1 and Ex. 1:1–7 are “Priestly”, so that the analogical comparison is valid from either a “final form” or a “source-critical” point of view.

SIMPLICITY OF THE HIGHEST CUNNING

29

At the far end of the book of Exodus the influence of Genesis, or, strictly, of the cosmic creation narrative therein, is again in evidence. As the tabernacle construction is brought to its conclusion we read, “Thus was all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation finished” (Ex. 39:32 // Gen. 2:1), and then we are told that Moses looked on all that the Israelites had done and blessed them (Ex. 39:43 // Gen. 1:28, 31). A comparison is thus made between the making of the earth for man and the making of the tabernacle for God. Much more may be involved, of course. Are we being informed that the man-made tabernacle is up to standard? Do we now have an established order of things as basic to (Israelite) life as the original creation? There is scope for reflection here. Others see a hint of the old mythic connection between creation-from-chaos and sanctuary-building, with the “message” that the divine presence is not merely on an ethereal, cosmic plane but is historically present to Israel. Word-play Word-play features in the Old Testament narrative in Shakespearian proportions. It is impossible to do justice to all that might be included under this catch-all title, but there are three variations on the theme to which attention will be drawn. 1

Leitwort. Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig used the term to describe situations in which a word or root recurs, in any of its possible grammatical forms or derivatives, throughout a narrative.20 By this means a theme is introduced and sustained as the keyword echoes at one point and another in the developing story. One of the best-known examples is the occurrence of berãkâ (“blessing”) and the root bãrak (“bless”), as also of bekõrâ (“birthright”), in the Jacob cycle in Genesis. The occurrences of the word nãgîd (“prince, leader”) and of the apparently cognate verb higgîd (“tell”) in the account of Saul’s anointing as nãgîd by Samuel (I Samuel 9–10) are of a similar order.21 There is thereby produced a stereophonic effect: we remain aware that the sinuous story is first and foremost about the appointing of a nãgîd for Israel threatened by the Philistines.

2

Pun. There are puns in plenty in the Old Testament. Pun is responsible for a kind of “gallows humour” creeping into the account of the interpretation of the dreams of the butler and baker in Genesis 40. The butler is assured that the Pharaoh will “lift up his head” and restore him to his former position, but to the doubtless optimistic baker who (presumably) has heard this comforting message Joseph says that the Pharaoh will also “lift up his head” – from off him! Another pun in similarly playful vein comes in I Samuel 25 in the story of Nabal who celebrated 20

On this see Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 92f. Cf. M. Buber, “Die Erzählung von Sauls Königswahl”, Vetus Testamentum, VI, 1956, pp. 6, 142; S. Shaviv, “nãbî’ and nãgîd in I Samuel ix 1–x 16”, Vetus Testamentum, XXXIV, 1984, pp. 108–13. 21

30

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

his sheep-shearing with excessive zeal. There is serious word-play on his name in the chapter (v. 25), but a less-observed and less serious instance of the same occurs in v. 37 in reference to Nabal’s recovery from his indulgence: “And in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal…” Since Hebrew has a noun nēbel meaning “wine-skin, bottle”, it is not difficult to appreciate that here Nabal is being treated as a wine-skin. Moreover, the verb is well suited to the pun, for if bread may be said to “go from the bag” (i.e. “run out”, I Samuel 9:7) it seems idiomatically correct to say that wine “goes out” from the wine-skin. 3

Ironic repetition. The ironic repetition of words or phrases is relatively common in the Old Testament and is a kind of word-play easily distinguished from Leitwort and pun. An example from II Samuel 11 will make the point clear. As a result of David’s instructions to Joab, Uriah the Hittite has been put in a position of danger and has lost his life. When the report reaches David he replies (literally): “Do not let this matter be evil in your eyes” (v. 25). Of course not, for now the king is able to take Bathsheba as his wife. Two verses later, however, it is disclosed that “the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord”. The contrast is pronounced and deliberate. Now, granted that if the two statements were not in such a close relationship we might well render them by idiomatically distinct English equivalents, nevertheless is there not a case here for preserving the literal correspondence of the Hebrew? Is not some of the force of the concluding statement lost if with, for example, RSV we read in the one verse, “Do not let this matter trouble you”, and in the other, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord”?

We have already heard the Babel-builders of Genesis 11 rouse themselves with “Come let us …”, which expression they utter twice, in vv. 3 and 4 of this compact, mordant satire on Babylon and what it represented to Israelite minds. But how ironical that when God decides to give the project its quietus, he stirs himself with the same rallying-call, “Come let us … (lest)” (v. 7). The Babel-builders’ attempt to “make a name” for themselves is treated even more derisively in the Genesis narrative. A name? But the name which they acquired for themselves was “Babel”, derived for the purposes of the narrative from the Hebrew verb bãlal, meaning “confuse”. And the sense of irony is increased when so soon afterwards we read of God’s promise to make Abram’s name great in pursuance of a divine initiative which emerges against the background of the chaos of Babel. No ultrasound is needed to detect such ironies, and they are far more decisive for our reading and interpretation of the story than are any structural patterns that are suggested for it.22 Finally, we shall consider the possibility that ironic repetition is a factor in a problem passage in I Samuel 16. At the end of chapter 15 the prophet Samuel has announced God’s rejection of Saul, and he has the task of anointing a successor even 22 E.g. J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis. Specimens of Stylistic and Structural Analysis, Assen, 1975, p. 22.

SIMPLICITY OF THE HIGHEST CUNNING

31

while Saul is still de facto king. Samuel, aware of the risk involved in this enterprise, points out that Saul will kill him if he goes to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons, as God has commanded him; and then comes the problematical sentence which is a certain contributor to most discussions of Old Testament ethics: “And the Lord said, ‘Take a heifer with you, and say, “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord”’.” Which is what Samuel did; a sacrifice was arranged. Even so, the real business of the story is the choosing of one of Jesse’s sons. Is God then encouraging Samuel to tell a half-truth? That is the problem. One recently published volume on Old Testament ethics expresses well the dilemma in noting that, whereas Saul had forfeited his right to know all the truth, Samuel did not have the right to deliver himself of an untruth.23 It may be, however, that the mention of the sacrifice involves ironic repetition of a key element in Saul’s own self-defence before Samuel in the narrative immediately preceding in chapter 15. There prophet and king are found in serious disagreement as to whether Saul has discharged his responsibility to prosecute the exterminatory “ban” on the Amalekites. Samuel says that the king has disregarded his instructions, and Saul insists that he has complied with them. The weakness in Saul’s case consists, in part, of the animal noises in the background. “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” asks Samuel in lilting Hebrew (v. 14). Saul has an explanation: They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God (v. 15).

Samuel does not accept this self-regarding account of what has taken place, so Saul repeats his defence a few verses later: The people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal (v. 21).

Is it possible, then, that when dealing with I Samuel 16:2 we should be looking the verse up under “irony” rather than “ethics”? That in this case the fool is being answered according to his folly, in a manner which recalls the “deceiver deceived” motif that appears elsewhere in the Old Testament? Perhaps we can occasionally be too solemn in our discussion of Old Testament problem texts. One of the great benefits of the “literary approach”, and one which its exponents early appreciated, is its ability to make common ground for readers of whatever theological persuasion as they encounter the biblical text. For the orthodox believer a “docetic” view of Scripture is something of an occupational hazard, and is exemplified in an extreme manner in the conviction in “pre-papyri” days that the non-classical Greek of the New Testament was a special “language of the Holy Ghost”. The “literary approach” is a gentle pointer to the advantages to be found in a 23

W. C. Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics, Grand Rapids, 1983, p. 95.

32

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

more realistic view of Scripture. The “kenoticist”, on the other hand, finds that in order to hear and interpret Scripture aright he must suspend disbelief, reading the narrative both sympathetically and imaginatively. On issues of historicity or hermeneutic paths may thereafter diverge, but we can at least be thankful for small mercies.

Chapter 3

Word-Play and Verse-Order in 1 Samuel xxiv 5–81 There are two main points of discussion in relation to these verses, viz. the meaning of wayešassa‘ in v. 8, and the arrangement of vv. 5–8. This short article will discuss both questions.

I The section describes how David and Saul came unexpectedly close in a cave near En-gedi where David and his men had been hiding. Spurred on by his companions David rose, as if convinced by their argument for killing Saul on the spot, but instead of dealing the king a deadly blow he merely cut off the skirt of his robe. Even this comparatively trivial act, however, brought him pangs of conscience for having put forth his hand against the Lord’s anointed. The editorial comment is that, in reminding his men of Saul’s sacrosanct status, David “cleft his men with words and did not permit them to rise up against Saul” (v. 8). “David cleft his men with words” is a literal rendering of the MT wayešassa‘ dãwīd ’et-’anãšãyw baddebãrîm, but because of this singular use in Biblical Hebrew of šãsa‘ the expression has had its share of indifferent treatment at the hands of translators and commentators, some of whom have concluded with BDB (p. 1042) that the MT “gives too violent a meaning”. The ancient versions were obviously in difficulties, with translations ranging from “persuaded” (LXX, Targum) to “deceived” (Theodotion). Only Aquila and Jerome (Vulg. confregit)2 venture anything like a literal rendering. Several emendations have been tried in the modern period, but none of the forms proposed is sufficiently close to the MT to be persuasive.3 Nor has G. R. Driver’s attempted homonymic explanation met with much enthusiasm. In a short article entitled, “Two Forgotten Words in the Hebrew Language”, JTS 28 (1927), pp. 285–6, he argued for a second Hebrew verb šãsa‘, cognate with the Akkadian šasû, “to call”. But “David called (or 1 This is a revised version of a short paper which was read at the joint meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Cambridge in July 1979. 2 Aquila’s reading is συνε ´κλασεν according to F. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum Quae Supersunt I (Oxford, 1875), p. 531. The reading given in A. E. Brooke, N. McLean, and H. St J. Thackeray (ed.), The Old Testament in Greek, II.1: I and II Samuel (Cambridge, 1927), p. 82, is συνεκα´ λεσεν (“summoned”). 3 Examples in S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text … of the Books of Samuel (2nd edn; Oxford, 1913), p. 193.

33

34

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

‘summoned’) his men with words” is not a satisfactory reward for augmenting the stock of Hebrew verbs by one. Even if baddebãrîm were regarded as a gloss the sense yielded is still poor. J. Wellhausen wisely eschewed emendation on the ground that the presence of baddebãrîm showed that šãsa‘ is here used figuratively.4 Presumably this is the view reflected in most modern English Bible translations, though there is sometimes room for doubt: “persuaded” (Revised Standard Version), “gave strict instructions” (Jerusalem Bible), “restrained” (New American Bible), “reproved severely” (New English Bible), “rebuked” (New International Version). In any case, whatever the previous uncertainties, there are good reasons for seeing in wayešassa‘ the ordinary Hebrew verb šãsa‘, used with a figurative sense: (i) There is a kind of parallel to this use of šãsa‘ in Hos. vi 5: Therefore I have hewn (h. ãs.abtî) them by the prophets, I have slain them (haragtîm) by the words of my mouth. Despite the fact that Hosea has proved too colourful for some modern interpreters,5 there is no reason to query the text, and 1 Sam. xxiv 8 might even be cited in support of it. Hosea’s bicolon presents a figurative use of “hew” and “slay” similar to the occurrence of “cleave” in the Samuel reference. (ii) This figurative use of šãsa‘ may correspond to the occurrences of the Greek διχοτοµειˆν in the Q parallels at Matt. xxiv 51 and Luke xii 46. The passages in question describe the fate of the wicked servant who, in his master’s absence, takes to beating his fellow-servants: his master will come unexpectedly and, having “dichotomized” him, will appoint his place with the hypocrites. A literal interpretation of διχοτοµη´σει is possible in the sense that rough parallels could be adduced, but it is unlikely and is not generally favoured. Again, several explanations assuming a misrendering into Greek of an Aramaic original have been attempted.6 The assumption of mistranslation also lies at the root of Otto Betz’s invoking of a passage in the Qumran Community Rule in which both aspects of the judgement of the wicked servant seem to be paralleled.7 According to 1 QS ii 16–17 the transgressor against the community covenant “will be cut off from the midst of all the sons of light because he has turned aside from God on account of his idols and his stumblingblock of sin; his lot will be appointed among those who are cursed for ever”. Betz fairly draws attention to the correspondence between the last clause and the fate of the wicked servant whose place is appointed with the hypocrites (Matt. 4

Der Text der Bücher Samuelis untersucht (Göttingen, 1871), p. 130. Cf. BH 3 and see also G. R. Driver, “Hebrew Notes”, VT 1 (1951), p. 246. 6 For a survey of previous discussion of διχοτοµη ´σει see I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke. A Commentary on the Greek Text (Exeter, 1978), pp. 543–4. 7 “The Dichotomized Servant and the End of Judas Iscariot”, RQ 5 (1964), pp. 43–58. 5

WORD-PLAY AND VERSE-ORDER IN 1 SAMUEL XXIV 5–8

35

xxiv 51) or unbelieving (Luke xii 46), but he is less convincing when he argues from the earlier part of the quotation that Q presents a mistranslation of the familiar Old Testament formula of judgement, “he shall be cut off from (the midst of) his people”. Moreover, as Betz acknowledges, it is probably an Aramaic source with which his hypothesis should be dealing, and so he attempts, with the help of the Aramaic verb qes.as. (“cut”), to reconstruct such a source over several words, even while maintaining that it is really the Hebrew kãrat (“cut [off]”), as in a Hebrew curse formula used by the early church, which accounts for the occurrence of διχοτοµειˆν in Q. It may be, then, that the evangelists’ use of διχοτοµειˆν – declared by F. C. Burkitt to be “one of the strongest arguments that the common source of Matt and Lk was in Greek”8 – simply reflects an Aramaic version of the idiom appearing in Hebrew garb in 1 Sam. xxiv 8. The idiom is of a type shared by any number of languages (cf. English “tear to shreds”, “excoriate”, etc.), so that, strictly speaking, it should not even be necessary to postulate a Semitic original for its occurrence in Q. At any rate, the common feature, in 1 Sam. xxiv 8 and Matt. xxiv 51/Luke xii 46, of excoriation of a subordinate by a superior is also worthy of note. Furthermore, the combination of excoriation and handing over to judgement, as suggested for the Q passages, is suitably illustrated in the parable of the unjust servant in Matt. xviii 23–35 (32–4). (iii) There is a possibility of word-play, involving šãsa‘, within vv. 5–8. In the cave David cuts off the skirt or “wing” (kãnãp) of Saul’s coat, but he afterwards proceeds to “cleave” his men verbally because of their inciting him against Saul.9

II The possibility of word-play in vv. 5–8 may be relevant to the question of the proper order of events in these same verses (see below). A large number of writers have expressed the opinion that the sequence of events in the MT does not conform to logic and that there has been dislocation of the narrative. The MT order is as follows: David is incited to kill (v. 5a) Cuts off skirt of Saul’s robe (v. 5b) Feels remorse (v. 6) Berates his men (vv. 7, 8a) In the most commonly-advocated reordering of the text, as exemplified in the NEB, this becomes: 8

Evangelion Da-Mepharreshe II (Cambridge, 1904), p. 296. Cf. already R. L. Ward, The Story of David’s Rise: A Traditio-Historical Study of I Samuel xvi 14–II Samuel v (diss. Vanderbilt, 1967; University Microfilms, Ann Arbor), p. 84. 9

36

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

David is incited to kill (v. 5a) Berates his men (vv. 7, 8a) Cuts off skirt of Saul’s robe (v. 5b) Feels remorse (v. 6) This is preferred because v. 7 is thought to provide an immediate and more appropriate response to the encouragement to kill in v. 5a, “this thing” (v. 7) being regarded as more naturally referring to the henchmen’s incitement to regicide and the “lifting up of the hand against” as properly denoting a serious act of violence rather than the removal of a piece of cloth from Saul’s garment. There is no versional support, on the other hand, for this or any other rearrangement of the text, nor is there any obvious reason why such a dislocation should have taken place.10 Moreover, there are other good arguments in favour of the MT, as noted briefly in what follows: (i) In the reordered text David reacts to his men’s suggestion by stating the theological case for not harming Saul, and then berates them for inciting him against the king. Thereafter he removes a piece of Saul’s cloak. However, this act at this stage represents nothing more than the acquisition of a token, in proof of his good intent in relation to Saul; and yet, according to this revised version, David’s “heart smote him”.11 Comparison with the only other occurrence of this expression, in 2 Sam. xxiv 10, would suggest that it is appropriate to an act of notably more gravity than the reordered text would allow (cf. “I have sinned greatly”, 2 Sam. xxiv 10). (ii) It is an advantage of the MT, though not a definite indication of its superiority, that it agrees with 2 Sam. xxiv to the extent that the reference to the stricken conscience is followed by a short utterance in which David expresses his view of the situation.12 Not too much should be made of this point; nevertheless, 1 Sam. xxiv and 2 Sam. xxiv are both “incitement stories” revolving around the figure of David.13 (iii) The presence of wayehî ’ah.arê kēn at the beginning of v. 6 also has a bearing on the discussion. This expression is peculiar to the Deuteronomic History (and Chronicles parallels) and normally introduces a new section or, at the least, a new stage within a narrative.14 C. Conroy questions whether 1 Sam. xxiv 6 conforms to the general rule, but this is perhaps a harsh judgement.15 What we should note in 10

See the discussion by H. J. Stoebe, Das erste Buch Samuelis (Gütersloh, 1973), pp. 438–9. Cf. W. McKane, I and II Samuel (London, 1963), p. 148. 12 Cf. M. H. Segal, “Studies in the Books of Samuel, II: The Composition of the Book”, JQR NS 8 (1917–18), pp. 80–1. 13 See R. A. Carlson, David the Chosen King. A Traditio-Historical Approach to the Second Book of Samuel (Stockholm, 1964), p. 208. 14 C. Conroy, Absalom Absalom! (Rome, 1978), p. 41. 15 p. 41, n. 2. 11

WORD-PLAY AND VERSE-ORDER IN 1 SAMUEL XXIV 5–8

37

connection with the present discussion is that in the rearranged version the expression begins the concluding sentence of the paragraph, hence the necessity of the NEB’s minimizing, and unsatisfactory, “but when”.16 (iv) The reordering of vv. 5–8 has the effect of reducing David’s cutting of Saul’s robe to the same level of innocuousness as his removal of the king’s spear and waterjug in xxvi 11–12. On one view of the two accounts of David’s sparing of Saul, in chs. xxiv and xxvi, this may appear desirable, that is, if the accounts are duplicate versions of a single tradition about David’s refusing to kill Saul. But it is possible to read these two accounts differently, as I have argued elsewhere, and to see the David of ch. xxiv as both more open to incitement and also responsible for an act which symbolized his laying claim to Saul’s throne.17 If such were the case, moreover, we should have sufficient explanation within the MT, as at present arranged, for the references in v. 7 to doing “this thing” and to stretching out one’s hand against the Lord’s anointed. (v) The view that vv. 5b–6, 12 are secondary in 1 Sam. xxiv, having been added to provide the narrative with a counterpart to the spear and water-jug of ch. xxvi (cf. H. P. Smith,18 P. K. McCarter19), assumes a degree of incompetence on the part of the interpolator which, while not necessarily disproving the theory, is certainly not the best argument in its favour. If the significance of the spear and water-jug in ch. xxvi is as of tokens of David’s innocence in relation to Saul, the effect of the “interpolation” in ch. xxiv is to make the excising of the piece of garment the antecedent of the “this thing” of which David repents. In other words, the interpolator defeats his own purpose in the very act of interpolating. (vi) The rearranging of the MT more or less rules out the possibility of word-play in the section. The possibility exists so long as the text has David resisting the temptation to kill Saul, merely cutting off a piece of the king’s robe, and then subjecting his men to verbal “cleaving”. Word-play is much less likely if “cleft with words” comes before the robe-cutting since, for the word-play to be effective, the literal sense should precede the figurative, as in the MT.20

16 The NEB is also deficient in that it translates a difficult clause in v. 10 (Heb. 11) by “I had a mind to kill you”, though such an idea is not at all evident from the reordered text adopted for vv. 5–8 in the NEB. (LXX has, per contrast, “I was unwilling [wã’amã’ēn for MT we’ãmar?] to kill you.”) 17 “David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24–26”, Tyndale Bulletin 31 (1980), pp. 37–64. 18 The Books of Samuel (Edinburgh, 1899), pp. 217-18. 19 I Samuel (Garden City, 1980), pp. 384, 387. 20 Note also the reference to the tongue “like a sharpened razor” in Ps. lii 4. I am grateful to Professor J. A. Emerton for suggesting this comparison.

Chapter 4

Covenant and Apology in 2 Samuel 3 2 Samuel 3 comes within what is widely known nowadays as the “History of David’s Rise” (HDR), though some scholars (e.g. D. M. Gunn, J. B. van Seters, J. C. VanderKam1) prefer to associate most of 2 Samuel 2–4 with the “Court History of David”, alias the “Succession Narrative”. Since I do not find the division of the David tradition into these two blocks particularly helpful, from a compositional point of view, I shall not comment on this aspect of the chapters. What can be said with more confidence is that, inasmuch as HDR is a scarcely disguised piece of apologetic on David’s behalf, 2 Samuel 3–4 makes enthusiastic contribution to the cause in the way that it deals with the deaths of Abner and Eshbaal. We shall return to ch. 3 later. There is not, of course, a universally accepted view of HDR and its presentation of David as innocent of complicity in the deaths of the leading figures in the house of Saul. As is well-known, Tomoo Ishida thinks that the author of HDR “doth protest too much”, and that, even in the act of whitewashing David, he supplies ample evidence of the latter’s determination to oust Saul by whatever means necessary.2 The existence of the band of six hundred, David’s defection to the Philistines, and his protracted contention with Eshbaal (and Abner) after Saul’s death are among a number of incriminating fingerprints to which Ishida draws his readers’ attention.3 J. C. VanderKam has a similar estimation of HDR. He is mainly interested in David’s role in relation to the deaths of Abner and Eshbaal, but he prefaces his discussion with some comment on the credibility of HDR in general. He does not doubt, for example, that David became a vassal of the Philistines, but he questions whether Saul’s harassing of him is a likely explanation. At the same time, like Ishida, he makes much of David’s private army and of his transparent designs on Saul’s kingdom, but not to the extent of conceding that this is precisely the kind of situation in which a robust reaction from Saul would be very much to be expected. VanderKam also interprets 1 Samuel 29:1–11 to mean that David was ready to go into battle on the side of the Philistines: “the relevant texts say nothing of his feigning loyalty at this time”.4 That is true of ch. 29, but since VanderKam is talking about texts it should be admissible to consider 27:1–12, according to which David’s wont was to deceive Achish, his unsuspecting Philistine benefactor, as to the purpose of his various razzias. Is ch. 29 not to be read in the light of David’s previous 1 See J. C. VanderKam, “Davidic Complicity in the Deaths of Abner and Eshbaal: A Historical and Redactional Study”, JBL 99 (1980) 522n.4. 2 The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel. A Study on the Formation and Development of Royal-Dynastic Ideology (BZAW 142; Berlin, 1977) 60. 3 Ibid 57 (55–63). 4 JBL 99 (1980) 526.

38

COVENANT AND APOLOGY IN 2 SAMUEL 3

39

dealings with the Philistines? VanderKam, however, follows J. Grønbaek in treating 27:1–12 as largely editorial invention because of the need to justify David’s defection to Philistia in the first place,5 so he will not be impressed by this point. Since at one time we were educated to believe that the first account of David’s visit to Achish in 21:11–16 (Eng. 10–15) was written as a corrective to, or even a midrash on, 27:1–12,6 this is a particularly sad conclusion to reach on the later passage. VanderKam sees the pact between David and Jonathan – “an astonishing alliance between the crown prince and his father’s sworn enemy”7 – as sure indication that David was basically disloyal to Saul. Jonathan acted as he did because he “correctly discerned the signs of the times”. But another possible reading of the special relationship between David and Jonathan is that Saul had undergone a psychological breakdown sufficient to alienate his own son from him in the way that HDR indicates. This siding of Jonathan with David is one of the most remarkable features of the story, and the nearer the account is brought to David’s reign (cf. H. A. Hoffner, P. K. McCarter8), the more difficult it is to see it as merely a literary or apologetic device. At the least we should note that Ishida and VanderKam are arguing for the incrimination of David from mutually contradictory positions. For the one, Saul is a popular king who has no need to envy David,9 though he may be in physical danger from him; for the other, David is moving so irresistibly on that even the king’s son abandons any thought of succession and must aspire to be second-in-command in the new reign. Two further points making up the charge against David call for brief mention. The fact that he is said to have reigned in Hebron for seven and a half years (2 Sam 2:11; 5:5) provokes interest in view of the allocation to Eshbaal of a mere two years in 2 Samuel 2:8–10. Of the possible explanations, VanderKam prefers that which sees David as king of Judah in Hebron during the last five and a half years of Saul’s reign. “It is understandable that a pro-Davidic editor, who desired to portray his king as a faithful but hounded subject of the previous monarch, would wish to obscure the fact that David had actually assumed office during Saul’s lifetime.”10 If this is the case, not much obscuring has gone on, for the figures of two years for Eshbaal and seven and a half years for David in Hebron occur cheek by jowl in 2 Samuel 2:10f. My own view is that the statement that David “was king over the house of Judah in Hebron for seven years and six months” (v. 11) sustains the Judean bias of the previous verse (“but the house of Judah followed David”; cf. 2 Sam 20:2; 1 Kgs 12:20) and does not exclude the possibility of David’s having ruled (all) “Israel” from Hebron for all or most of the five and a half years unaccounted for. The presentation of the same basic data in 2 Samuel 5:5 is perfectly compatible with this view. Secondly, VanderKam 5

Ibid 525n.15. Cf. P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB 8; Garden City, 1980) 358f. 7 JBL 99 (1980) 526. 8 H. A. Hoffner, “Propaganda and Political Justification in Hittite Historiography”, in H. Goedicke, J. J. M. Roberts (eds), Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (Baltimore, 1975) 49–62; P. K. McCarter, “The Apology of David”, JBL 99 (1980) 489–504. 9 Ishida, The Royal Dynasties 57f. 10 JBL 99 (1980) 528. 6

40

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

picks up J. Levenson’s suggestion that, since 1 Samuel 14:50 gives Ahinoam as the name of Saul’s wife, the bearing of the same name by David’s first wife (2 Sam 3:2) may mean that the two women are one and the same, with the corollary that David may have acquired his predecessor’s wife in declaration of his own new kingly status in Hebron. Of course, if Ahinoam was Saul’s only wife – and 2 Samuel 12:8 (“I gave you your lord’s house, and your lord’s wives into your bosom”) must not be overlooked – we would have the unusual consequence that David married his mother-in-law, since he had previously married Saul’s daughter.11 We might also wonder why David made such a point of retrieving “Michal, Saul’s daughter” before making his pact with Abner. If it was political capital that he sought from the recovery of Michal, as VanderKam and others allege, would not the possession of Saul’s wife have taken care of that? When we turn to the story of Abner’s visit to Hebron, his recall, and then fatal stabbing by Joab, it is to find that Ishida leaves David out of the reckoning: “although he could well be suspected (cf. 3:37), it is unlikely that he wanted Abner’s death at that stage; Abner, like Amasa, was killed by a Joab jealous of David’s attention to others (cf. 1 Kgs 2:5–6, 31–33)”.12 The motivation factor accounts for this assessment and it is as strong as it is obvious. If Abner was in the process of turning the northern tribesmen over to David, why should David risk destroying the whole effort by having Abner killed just when the negotiations were so delicately poised? Such reasoning does not count with VanderKam, who says that this assessment “fails to reckon with the character of David and with the power-politics that were the mark of the day; furthermore, it is apparently more optimistic about David than were some of his contemporaries”.13 VanderKam reckons that David regarded Abner as potentially a dangerous rival in a unified kingdom and so engineered his death simply by bringing him within reach of Joab. He assumes that Abner had been promised Joab’s position as army commander and that this, coupled with Joab’s undoubted desire to avenge Asahel’s death, made Abner’s elimination a certainty, and without the inconvenience of implicating David. Unfortunately for the theory, there is no basis in the biblical text for the supposition that Joab’s position was on offer to Abner. Furthermore, if Joab was so obviously going to take revenge on Abner, the conclusion would be that David should never enter into negotiations with Abner; yet that would have been a remarkably self-denying ordinance in the circumstances. That 2 Samuel 3 was written in order to demonstrate David’s innocence in relation to Abner’s murder, in the face of charges to the contrary, is plain. It is stressed that after their parley the two parted on friendly terms, that David did not know that Joab had called Abner back to Hebron, that Abner’s death was a revenge killing (vv 27, 30), and that David made ostentatious lamentation when he learned what had happened. The notable sevenfold occurrence of “all the people” in verses 31–37 labours the point that no-one who witnessed it doubted the genuineness of David’s 11

If David’s marriage to Michal does not take place until 2 Sam. 3:13–16 (cf. VanderKam 530n. 28) then there is the possibility that he marries his step-daughter. 12 The Royal Dynasties 73. 13 JBL 99 (1980) 531.

COVENANT AND APOLOGY IN 2 SAMUEL 3

41

disclaimer or his grief. And on this general theme of good-will and grief the whole section from verse 12 onwards has something to contribute. The apologetic force of the section, moreover, is enhanced to the extent that we recognize the making of a covenant or pact between David and Abner not long before the latter’s death. Little or nothing is said of such a covenant in many discussions of 2 Samuel 3. W. McKane sees it as “just a private bargain”, but he at least acknowledges its existence.14 There are different possible reasons for the frequent silence on the subject. In the first place, despite Abner’s invitation (v. 12) and David’s response there is no mention of pact-making when the two actually meet. Secondly, there is also talk of a covenant between David and the men of Israel, and such comment as is offered usually centres on this instrument by which David won the allegiance of the one-time followers of Eshbaal. The making of this covenant is noted at 5:3: So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and king David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.

Thirdly, the issue is obscured by interpreters’ uncertainty, or sometimes their lack of attention, in regard to Abner’s travel arrangements between the time when he sent his message to David (v. 12) and the reception for him and his twenty associates (v. 20). It will be advisable to treat this point first. Most English Bible translations assume a straightforwardly sequential narrative in verses 12–21, and this is superficially attractive.15 In that case, however, we have to conclude either that Abner made two trips to Hebron within a relatively brief period or that on the first occasion he went a good part of the way and then returned to base. According to verse 16 he travelled at least as far as Bahurim with Michal, whom he was in the process of returning to David. It seems unlikely that he would have turned back at some point on this journey, if only because he would not have been fulfilling David’s stipulation that he bring Michal to him, or never see his face (v. 13). The sequential approach represented in most translations therefore appears to indicate two separate visits by Abner to Hebron – first to return Michal to David and thereafter to arrange the transfer of the allegiance of Israel to David. Both NEB and NAB actually take pains to emphasize the “sequentiality” at verse 17, which begins in NEB, “Abner now approached the elders of Israel and said …”, and in NAB, “Abner then said …” It is, nevertheless, very unlikely that we are to think of two visits by Abner to Hebron. Joab’s reaction (v. 24) to the news that Abner had visited David’s 14

I & II Samuel. Introduction and Commentary (London, 1963) 191. A. A. Anderson, 2 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary 11; Dallas, 1989) 60, is not convinced that the arrangement between David and Abner at this point was in the nature of a (private) covenant, though he notes the more favourable view of D. J. McCarthy, “Compact and Kingship: Stimuli for Hebrew Covenant Thinking”, in Studies in the Period of David and Solomon (ed. T. Ishida; Tokyo, 1982) 79. 15 The “problem” of vv. 17–19 is discussed by T. Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie. David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (AASF B 193; Helsinki, 1975) 60–2.

42

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

headquarters makes little sense if this was his second visit in the recent past. The accusation of spying by Abner would also sound odd if Abner had recently been in Hebron. Could he not have done his reconnaissance on the earlier occasion? Again, we should almost certainly have to assume that Joab was absent on the occasion of the first visit as well as the second, otherwise he could have been expected to take his revenge on Abner earlier than he did. It is not impossible to imagine him being otherwise engaged on two occasions when Abner visited David, but the requirement that this be so would do little for the interpretation that required it. It is also reasonable to assume that if Abner had come to Hebron once, news of his impending return would not, or could not, have been kept from Joab. The verisimilitude of the narrative is therefore not well served if it is treated as purely and simply sequential. In these circumstances the simple expedient of giving the main verbs in verses 17 and (possibly) 19 a pluperfect sense commends itself: “Abner had conferred with the elders of Israel” (v. 17); “Abner had also spoken to the Benjaminites” (v. 19).16 This is, then, a piece of “dischronologized narrative”17 in which the narrator describes the steps taken to fulfil David’s requirement, sets Michal well on the way to the reunion with David at Hebron, then back-tracks to show how Abner had prepared the ground among his own supporters, who themselves had for some time been expressing interest in converting to David’s cause (v. 17). We conclude, therefore, that verse 20 reports Abner’s first and only visit to David in Hebron, and the occasion of their making a compact. Reasons have already been suggested for the tendency to overlook or to play down this compact between David and Abner. But it is also the case that the narrative contains a couple of features which in a general context of covenant-making could scarcely be read any other way. The statement that David “made Abner and the men that were with him a feast” (v. 20) is offered by the narrator as transparent evidence that Abner was received cordially by David and those about him. By itself, of course, it could be seen as part of an attempt to put Abner off his guard and also to provide David with a defence once the murder had become public knowledge. If the narrator is talking about a covenant meal, on the other hand, the apologetic value of the reference would be so much the greater. The sharing of a meal as a feature of covenant-making in the ancient near east is too well-known to require much comment here. We have, for example, the prohibition on treaty-making in the Esarhaddon vassal texts, “by setting a table, by drinking from a cup”,18 and, though there are few clear examples in the Old Testament, the episode of the covenanting Gerarites who feasted with Isaac in Genesis 26:26–31 and the story of Jacob and Laban eating “by the Heap” after they had made their agreement, in Genesis 31:43–54 (46), are a sufficient attestation. 16 Cf. S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text … of the Books of Samuel (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1913) 249; P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB 9; Garden City, 1984) 104, 108; Anderson, 2 Samuel 51. 17 The term is applied to various Old Testament texts by W. J. Martin, “‘Dischronologized’ Narrative in the Old Testament”, SVT 17 (1969) 179–86. 18 See S. Parpola and K. Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (State Archives of Assyria I; Helsinki, 1988) 35 (line 154).

COVENANT AND APOLOGY IN 2 SAMUEL 3

43

The second indication that David and Abner entered into a covenant agreement at Hebron comes in the thrice-repeated statement, in verses 21–23, that Abner left “in peace” (bešãlôm). The expression has an undoubted apologetic function in the emphasis which it places upon the good-will existing between the principals in the story: David was on excellent terms with Abner and had no interest in harming him. From a small number of passages it may also be concluded that the expression has a covenantal connotation here. The already-mentioned Gerarites departed from Isaac “in peace” (Gen. 26:31), while in 1 Samuel 20:42 Jonathan says to David, “Go in peace (lešãlôm), forasmuch as we have both sworn in the name of the Lord …” This is not to suggest that “in peace” normally implies a covenant situation, for it patently does not. Rather, this is just one of a number of ways in which the contiguity of the berît and šãlôm concepts becomes apparent. The expression “covenant of peace”, occurring several times in the Old Testament (Num 25:12; Is 54:10; Ezek 34:25; 37:26), neatly illustrates this relationship.19 As well as the three occurrences of “in peace” in verses 21–23, the Septuagint has the phrase in its report of Joab’s indignant outburst on learning that Abner had visited David. “Why did you let him go and he has departed in peace?” asks Joab in the Greek version of verse 24, and NAB follows its lead with, “Why did you let him go peacefully on his way?” But this further repetition by the Septuagint lacks the subtlety of the MT version in which Joab follows up the finite verb with the infinitive absolute: “How could you let him go and get clean away?” (REB). Robert Alter sees the MT’s change to the infinitive absolute at this point sub specie “varied repetition as a foreshadowing device”: After three occurrences in rapid succession of a departure in peace, Joab’s substitution of an intensifying infinitive, to go, halokh, for beshalom, in peace, falls like the clatter of a dagger after the ringing of bells.20

Joab, in short, cannot bring himself to say that Abner has left “in peace”, and if the expression has covenantal significance in this context we can the more easily appreciate why he avoids it, for a covenant with Yahweh as witness should have been Abner’s guarantee against what Joab was now planning for him. It is very evident, then, that the pact between David and Abner forms an important element in the defence of David in respect of his alleged culpability for Abner’s death. By emphasizing the covenant dimension the narrator seeks to outface the implication in the charge against David, that he was, of all things, a covenantbreaker. It is Joab who chooses to disregard the pact, for his own ends. Moreover, the part that covenant has played in the account so far leads to a further consideration. When David hears of Abner’s murder he demonstratively separates himself from the evil act, calling down retribution upon Joab and his house: “Before the Lord I and my kingdom are forever innocent concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner. May his blood fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his father’s house” (vv. 28, 29a). Then 19 20

Cf. D. J. Wiseman, “‘Is it Peace’ – Covenant and Diplomacy”, VT 32 (1982) 323–5. The Art of Biblical Narrative (London, 1981) 102.

44

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

he utters a fivefold curse against Joab and his family, a curse which loses nothing in significance by appearing in the wake of an account of pact-making by David and Abner, for such a pact would ordinarily involve an oath or curse, as may be seen from that made by David and Jonathan (1 Sam 20:17, 42), and from the occasional use of Hebrew ’ãlâ (“curse”) as a surrogate for “covenant” (e.g. Gen 26:28; Deut 29:11, 13). Before we proceed further we must, however, take note of the view of a number of writers that verses 28f (and 38f) are a Deuteronomistic insertion into the narrative. If we take T. Veijola as their spokesman we shall find that the chief arguments are: (1) a certain amount of verbal agreement with 1 Kings 2:5f, 31b–33; (2) the isolation of verses 28f in relation to the surrounding material; (3) the criminalization in verses 28f of what otherwise in context and in law was Joab’s right to exact bloodvengeance; (4) the introduction of the dynastic dimension in verse 28.21 It is not possible to give these points the extended discussion that they deserve. Nevertheless, it may be observed that in relation to the verbal agreement with 1 Kings 2 no account is taken of the considerable differences, nor of the part that standard, not to say legal, turns of phrase may have to play in narrative of this sort. Dictional correspondences involving words such as “innocent” (so Veijola, but erroneously), “bloodguilt”, and “forever” are not at all impressive given the subject-matter. Nor is it necessary to attribute such parallels as exist to Deuteronomistic intervention in both passages; one passage may have influenced the other with or without Deuteronomistic assistance. It is also far from clear that Joab was entitled to exact vengeance for family blood spilt in time of war, and even the revised text with which Veijola works (i.e. omitting vv. 28f, 38f) has as part of David’s lament, “You fell as one falls before wicked men” (v. 34) – which hardly suggests that in the original account David uncritically mourned the death of a man whose life was legally forfeit anyway. As for the reference to David’s kingdom, this may simply reflect a post-Davidic date of composition (or editing) for the narrative. It is difficult to challenge Veijola as vigorously as one might on this point since he neutralizes the potentially hostile evidence of the like of 1 Samuel 20:42 – the sworn friendship between David and Jonathan and their respective descendants – by finding here also the hand of the Deuteronomist.22 However, it is the second of the points listed above, the isolation of verses 28f, which I wish particularly to address. These verses are arraigned because they are introduced by the “general” mē’ah. arê kēn (“afterwards”) and stand in isolation, addressing no-one in particular, whereas by verse 31 David has at least found an audience in “Joab and all the people with him”. But how wondrous calm is the David of the shorter original posited by Veijola! After the statement that “[Joab] stabbed [Abner] there in the stomach, and he died” (v. 27) we have David telling Joab and company to tear their clothes, don sackcloth and “walk in mourning in front of Abner” (v. 31). The bathos is only matched by the apologetic flatfootedness of this improbable sequence. Verses 28f are addressed to no-one in particular because they are meant for anyone in general who will take notice, and especially, we may judge, 21 22

Die ewige Dynastie 30–2, 46. Ibid 83f.

COVENANT AND APOLOGY IN 2 SAMUEL 3

45

are they intended for the ear of God. This outburst comes from one who feels indirectly responsible for the death of the man with whom he had so recently made a pact of peace. A not wholly rational fear of religious and political consequences is therefore understandable. Furthermore, even if verses 28–29a were to be conceded to the intervention of a later editor, there remains the fivefold curse in verse 29b, which parallels nothing in 1 Kings 2 and which should not be jettisoned with the rest. There has been some discussion about the third element, most often as to whether it means “one who leans on a crutch” or “one who takes hold of a spindle”, but there are strong grounds for preferring the latter sense and seeing it as one more instance of the near eastern effeminacy curse23 which, from the known examples, is especially at home in military contexts, and for reasons which can easily be appreciated. The fivefold curse in verse 29b is all the more clearly, then, a soldier’s curse, and it fits ideally into its present setting so as to suggest that it has always been there. It would be a peculiarly appropriate utterance for David if he had placed himself under a curse of this kind in the event of his dishonouring his agreement with the now deceased Abner. The psychological effect of the curse is to transfer from David to Joab any responsibility for Abner’s murder that might attach itself to him as his covenant partner. The oath of verse 29b, it is therefore suggested, is in narrative apologetic terms the reflex of the covenant or pact of verses 12–21. It draws attention to the fact – if ever it were in danger of being overlooked – that David and Abner were covenant partners, and it thus reinforces the narrator’s point that David was so bound by his covenant undertaking as to be incapable of plotting Abner’s death. It is ironic, therefore, that K. W. Whitelam, who assumes a covenantal basis for the relationship between David and Abner at this point, tries to use the covenant in order to incriminate David.24 Since Abner’s killing of Asahel happened in war-time, Whitelam holds that the case came within David’s jurisdiction and was not simply a matter of family law. He also maintains that David as the senior partner in the covenant agreement would have been responsible for Abner’s protection from harm by David’s own followers. That David merely utters a tirade against Joab is therefore interpreted as evidence of his complicity in Abner’s death. If he had brought Joab to justice that would have furnished the proof of his innocence. (It is noteworthy, nevertheless, that even though David passes the death sentence on the murderers of Eshbaal in 2 Sam 4, Whitelam finds it impossible to decide whether or not he was implicated in the death of his rival.) Whitelam thus accepts the covenantal relationship between David and Abner as historical but, whereas we have sought to invest it with a strongly apologetic significance, he argues that its existence actually helps to inculpate David. However, this is an unnecessary and almost certainly false inference from David’s limited response to Joab’s deed. If we keep the discussion at the purely narrative level for the moment, the calling down of a curse on Joab and his house is hardly, in an oriental context, the appropriate response of someone tacitly in 23 See D. R. Hillers, Treaty Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (BO 16; Rome, 1964) 66–8; S. Clayton, “A Chain Gang in 2 Samuel iii 29? A Rejoinder”, VT 39 (1989) 81–6. 24 The Just King. Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (JSOT Suppl 12; Sheffield, 1979) 105–9. I am grateful to my colleague Dr H. G. M. Williamson for drawing my attention to Whitelam’s discussion.

46

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

agreement with what has taken place. The narrative must be interpreted in keeping with its own psychology. The reason which it gives for David’s inaction, that he was not as tough an operator as were the sons of Zeruiah, explains plausibly enough his reluctance to deal with his formidable kinsman as the circumstances required. At the same time, we should not be lured into accepting that David’s covenant with Abner, made in the absence of Joab and on terms that are not known to us, rendered him personally responsible for anything that might befall Abner then or thereafter. Nor should the concern with bloodguilt in 1 Kings 2, in the context of Joab’s death early in Solomon’s reign, be interpreted as if Abner’s death had brought bloodguilt upon David’s house because of the covenant with Abner.25 In the two references to Joab’s crimes in 1 Kings 2 it is his killing of both Abner and Amasa, in peace-time, that David and Solomon recall and that is regarded as having in some sense brought bloodguilt upon the house of David (vv. 5, 31–33). There is no mention of a covenant, and in Amasa’s case such would be inappropriate. We are also cautioned against too much theorizing about bloodguilt by the simple fact that Joab’s removal comes as a matter of political expediency and of old-fashioned revenge for his part in Adonijah’s coup, rather than out of any consideration for legal technicalities. In conclusion: far from providing evidence of David’s involvement in the death of Abner, the covenant factor in 2 Samuel 3 is best interpreted as an indication of the contrary, just as the author of HDR intended. It is not clues, whether intentional or unintentional, that have led to the more sceptical interpretations of the narrative. It is the cui bono? argument, as ever, that seems to put David in the dock; but that argument, as our narrator would surely remind us, could apply as much to Joab as to David, whether we stay within the text or step outside it.

25

Pace Whitelam, The Just King 107.

Chapter 5

Compositeness, Conflation and the Pentateuch1 I When J. H. Tigay’s Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism was published in 1985, one appreciative reviewer declared that no one “should claim again the absurdity of compositional techniques deduced by last century’s biblical critics lacking parallel in the biblical world”.2 A hundred years and more of disagreement about the plausibility of the Pentateuchal documentary hypothesis, when matched against what is known about the literary artefacts of the ancient Near East generally, lay behind the reviewer’s fervent hope, but there is no certainty that his wish will be granted. With the appearance, two years after Tigay’s publication, of R. N. Whybray’s The Making of the Pentateuch3 has come one of the more searching critiques of the documentary hypothesis to have been published this century. What little Whybray has to say about Near Eastern analogues is pointedly negative, and even though he might have been expected to refer to Tigay’s work published in advance of his 1985 volume,4 it is a moot point whether he would have been any more impressed by it than he was by earlier attempts to draw Near Eastern parallels into the debate. Tigay refers (pp. 2–3) to the circumstances in which the Syriac Diatessaron became “Exhibit A” for the source critics almost exactly one hundred years ago. Professor C. M. Mead had protested in the New York Independent (7th November, 1889) that no such “crazy patchwork” could be found in all literature as that which the source critics thought to have discovered in the Pentateuch. It seemed a safe and worthy thing to say, but an answer was soon forthcoming in an article published by G. F. Moore the following year.5 Moore cited Tatian’s second-century harmony of the Gospels, the Diatessaron, as a near-perfect parallel to what was envisaged in the documentary hypothesis, and he proceeded to enlarge upon the principles according to which Tatian wove the several Gospels into a single narrative fabric. He showed that chronology was an early casualty in Tatian’s work because, having begun with 1 This is a considerably revised and updated version of a paper which was read at a meeting of the Cambridge Old Testament Seminar several years ago. 2 A. G. Auld in The Society for Old Testament Study Book List (1987), p. 79. 3 JSOTSup, 53; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987. 4 J. H. Tigay, “An Empirical Basis for the Documentary Hypothesis”, JBL 94 (1975), pp. 329–42; idem, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982). 5 “Tatian’s Diatessaron and the Analysis of the Pentateuch”, JBL 9 (1890), pp. 201–15. This article is reprinted as an appendix to Tigay’s 1985 volume (pp. 243–56).

47

48

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Luke’s nativity account, he followed it through to the end and then, with the mere addition of “after this”, embarked upon Matthew’s account – with the unfortunate consequence that, for example, the wise men visited the holy family in Bethlehem after they had returned to Nazareth. Moore observed that Tatian’s policy was to incorporate as much as possible from the several Gospel sources in his conflate narrative, and that he added nothing that was not found in the Gospels themselves. This was not strictly true, as was pointed out by I. H. Hall in the next volume of JBL, for in assigning the Baptist a diet of milk and honey Tatian was making a concession to his own Encratite vegetarianism.6 But already in the 1890 volume of JBL, Mead had gone into print acknowledging that he had spoken out of turn, and that the two cases were “remarkably analogous”.7 Nor could there be any denying that this exercise in pastiche by a Christian Semite had been conducted on Scripture and had been so successful that for a time the new work ousted the Mepharreshe (“Separate”) Gospels in some areas of the Syrian church. Up to this point there had been occasional citings of possible parallels to the conflate Pentateuch of the source critics, from both Israelite (i.e. biblical) and nonIsraelite literature, but Moore’s article effectively marks the beginning of an intermittent search for analogues that continues to this day. It will be useful to group the relevant material according to some obvious categories, with the addition of a few texts that have not previously figured in discussion. Biblical and Apocryphal (i) The books of Chronicles represent a blending of source material in the version of Samuel-Kings available to the Chronicler together with his own distinctive contribution.8 (ii) The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are composed in part of preexisting documents.9 (iii) W. Robertson Smith10 and, more recently, E. Tov11 have instanced the MT version of the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17(18) as conflate narrative, with the shorter Septuagintal version preferred as representing the 6 “A Pair of Citations from the Diatessaron”, JBL 10 (1891), pp. 153–55. (See also R. J. H. Gottheil, “Quotations from the Diatessaron”, JBL 11 [1892], pp. 68–71.) On “milk” for “locusts” see S. P. Brock, “The Baptist’s Diet in Syriac Sources”, Oriens Christianus 54 (1970), pp. 113–24. 7 “Tatian’s Diatessaron and the Analysis of the Pentateuch: A Reply”, JBL 10 (1891), pp. 44–54. 8 Cf. R. de Vaux, “A propos du second centenaire d’Astruc: Réflexions sur l’état actuel de la critique du Pentateuque”, VTSup 1 (1953), p. 186 (ET in The Bible and the Ancient Near East [London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972], p. 35). See also W. Johnstone, “Reactivating the Chronicles Analogy in Pentateuchal Studies, with Special Reference to the Sinai Pericope in Exodus”, ZAW 99 (1987), pp. 16–37. 9 Cf. de Vaux, ibid. 10 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (London: Adam and Charles Black, 2nd edn, 1892), pp. 119–24. 11 “The Composition of 1 Samuel 16–18 in the Light of the Septuagint Version”, in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (ed. J. H. Tigay; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), pp. 98–130. See also the differing evaluations in D. Barthélemy–D. W. Gooding–J. Lust–E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath. Textual and Literary Criticism. Papers of a Joint Research Venture (OBO, 73; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1986).

COMPOSITENESS, CONFLATION AND THE PENTATEUCH

49

original account. (iv) There are indications of composite origin in the Levitical psalm in 1 Chron. 16.8–36,12 and some of the compositions in the Psalter betray a similar origin. (v) Other books in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Deuteronomy, Jeremiah13) have been brought into the discussion. (vi) The book of Baruch has been described as “a mosaic of Biblical passages”.14 Mesopotamian (i) In 1898 Morris Jastrow published a study of the Gilgamesh story, in the late version then available to him, and found evidence of compositeness.15 With the benefit of earlier texts in the Gilgamesh tradition that have since come to light, Tigay has attempted to chart the stages by which the tradition developed from its earlier Sumerian form.16 (ii) The version of “The Myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal” from Sultantepe includes incidental conversation and other elements which are not present in the Amarna version of the myth, but which may be traced to other literary sources. If the Amarna text represents an abbreviated local version, as may be the case, there is no reason to think that the interpolations were made at a late stage in transmission.17 Ancient Versions (i) Tigay has drawn attention to the conflate tendencies of the Samaritan Pentateuch at a number of points.18 (ii) Conflation of narratives occurs in the Septuagint version of Esther,19 and arguably in the alternative Greek version of Jeroboam’s rise to power in 3 Reigns (= 1 Kgs) 12.24a–z.20 Mention may also be made of the Septuagintal miscellanies in 3 Reigns 2.35a–k, 46a–1 studied by D. W. Gooding.21 12

Cf. F. F. Bruce, “The Earliest Old Testament Interpretation”, OTS 17 (1972), pp. 37–52 (45). Cf. E. Tov, “The Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah in the Light of its Textual History”, in Tigay (ed.), Empirical Models, pp. 212–37. 14 E. Tov, The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch. A Discussion of an Early Revision of the LXX of Jeremiah 29–52 and Baruch 1:1–3:8 (HSM, 8; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), p. 111. 15 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston: Athenaeum Press, 1898), pp. 467–517 (513); cf. M. Jastrow and A. T. Clay, An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic (Yale Oriental Series, Researches IV.3; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1920). 16 Tigay, The Evolution; idem, “The Evolution of the Pentateuchal Narratives in the Light of the Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic”, in Empirical Models, pp. 21–52. 17 O. R. Gurney, “The Sultantepe Tablets. VII: The Myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal”, Anatolian Studies 10 (1960), pp. 105–31. 18 Tigay, “An Empirical Basis”; idem, “Conflation as a Redactional Technique”, in Empirical Models, pp. 61–83. 19 Tigay, Empirical Models, pp. 57-61. See further, D. J. A. Clines, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (JSOTSup, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984). 20 D. W. Gooding, “The Septuagint’s Rival Versions of Jeroboam’s Rise to Power”, VT 17 (1967), pp. 173–89; R. P. Gordon, “The Second Septuagint Account of Jeroboam: History or Midrash?”, VT 25 (1975), pp. 368-93. For a different approach, see J. C. Trebolle-Barrera, Salomón y Jereboán: Historia de la recensión y redacción de I Reyes, 2–12,14 (Institución San Jerónimo, 10; Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia, 1980). 21 Relics of Ancient Exegesis. A Study of the Miscellanies in 3 Reigns 2 (SOTSMS, 4; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 13

50

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

(iii) Pastiche is also a feature of Targum on occasion, perhaps most strikingly in a passage of “Additional Targum” published by A. Sperber in the third volume of The Bible in Aramaic.22 Arabic and Syriac Histories (i) R. de Vaux23 has drawn attention to Ignazio Guidi’s study of Ibn al-Athîr’s Alkâmil fı’l-ta’rîk and his demonstration that the work has been composed largely from the writings of Tabari, Mubarrad and Balâdhurî, with minimal contribution from Ibn al-Athîr himself.24 (ii) Eugène Tisserant’s examination of an anonymous Syriac chronicle from the twelfth century bore out Guidi’s claim that pastiche was as much a feature of Syriac history-writing as of Arabic.25 Here the Genesis story is retold with the aid of Jubilees and, for the earlier sections, the “Cave of Treasure”. Qumran Literature (i) There are fragments of anthologies of biblical texts, notably 4Q174 and 4Q175. (ii) The Temple Scroll (11QTemple) exemplifies the kind of editorial techniques which have been attributed to the redactors of the Pentateuchal sources.26 New Testament (i) The canonical Gospels are cited almost as often as Tatian’s Diatessaron in view of their “conflation” of sources.27 (ii) Catenae of biblical verses (e.g. Rom. 3.10–18) provide a distant parallel. (iii) The “Secret Gospel of Mark” is, despite its impressive patronage, a scarcely disguised miscellany based mainly on Mark and incorporating smaller amounts of material from the other Gospels.28 Graeco-Roman The composing of poems using phrases and verses from Greek and Roman poets seems to have begun in the Hellenistic period when the Homeric songs were adapted for this purpose. There even arose a Christian cento-industry which retold biblical 22 The Bible in Aramaic. III. The Latter Prophets according to Targum Jonathan (Leiden: Brill, 1962), pp. 479–80. 23 De Vaux, “A propos du second centenaire”, p. 185 (ET in The Bible and the Ancient Near East, p. 34). 24 I. Guidi, “L’historiographie chez les Sémites”, RB ns 3 (1906), pp. 509–19. 25 “Fragments syriaques du livre des Jubilés”, RB ns 18 (1921), pp. 55–86, 206–32. 26 Cf. S. A. Kaufman, “The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism”, HUCA 53 (1982), pp. 29–43. 27 See, for example, T. R. W. Longstaff, Evidence of Conflation in Mark? A Study in the Synoptic Problem (SBLDS, 28; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). 28 M. Smith, The Secret Gospel. The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel according to Mark (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). For critical assessment, see F. F. Bruce, The “Secret” Gospel of Mark (Ethel M. Wood Lecture, University of London, 1974; London: Athlone Press, 1974).

COMPOSITENESS, CONFLATION AND THE PENTATEUCH

51

stories in the words of classical poets, with viability often depending upon small modifications in, for example, place-names.29 This is confessedly a rag-bag assortment of material ranging from the remotely ancient to the post-biblical, and from the roughly comparable to the distantly relevant. Moreover, two main objections to the admissibility of this kind of evidence have been made: first, that the claimed analogues do not represent the conflation of commensurate parallel sources as in the case of the Pentateuchal documents, and secondly that the analogues would indicate that, if anything, the sort of redactional activity envisaged by the source critics tended to be practised on texts when they had achieved authoritative status. Whybray – who, although he does not mention Tigay’s work, is aware from de Vaux of some of the comparative material – presses the first point. He insists that in none of the cases listed by de Vaux (Arabic and Syriac histories, biblical books, Gilgamesh) did the author “conflate continuous sources, each covering the entire series of events and the entire period covered by the final work”.30 Such comparisons as are justified are, in his view, headed in the direction of the Fragment and Supplement hypotheses. Tigay, for his part, is well aware of the distinction between composite and conflate, and of the composite, as distinct from conflate, nature of the Gilgamesh epic.31 But when he gives examples of conflate texts they noticeably involve short stretches of text (Deut. 5.12-15 in 4QDeutn and the Septuagint, a passage in the Greek Esther, and three passages in the Samaritan Pentateuch).32 And if we turn our attention to the books of Chronicles or the canonical Gospels – which might at first blush seem to offer hope of a Diatessaron-type analogue in which there is splicing of coterminous parallel sources – it may well be argued that what they exemplify is literary compositeness rather than conflation in the strict sense. At the same time, sufficient questions have been raised about the status of source “E” and the nature of source “P” for the model of coterminous Pentateuchal sources to risk being an overstatement of the parallelism existing among the putative documents. In that case we should be talking of compositeness rather than conflation in the Pentateuch. And so we may be cast back upon the Diatessaron for a full-fledged comparison with what has been commonly entertained on behalf of the Pentateuch. Samuel Sandmel, however, objected to the use of even this analogue on the ground that Tatian was dealing with “virtually canonized” Gospels and could understandably function as a mute redactor of the text.33 That the supposed redactor of the J and E sources should have operated in the same way, without communicating either motive or viewpoint in his splicing of his uncanonized sources, made little sense to Sandmel. Essentially the same point is made by Adele Berlin in response to Tigay’s approach: “Judging from the evidence of The Gilgamesh Epic, verbal duplicates in the Bible 29 See J. R. Harris, The Homeric Centones and the Acts of Pilate (London: C. J. Clay, 1898). I am grateful to Professor F. F. Bruce for drawing my attention to this study. 30 The Making of the Pentateuch, p. 46. 31 See Empirical Models, p. 53. 32 Ibid., pp. 55–83. 33 “The Haggada within Scripture”, JBL 80 (1961), pp. 106–107.

52

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

(like Ps 14 and 53, etc.), and the Samaritan Bible, redaction of the kind described in the Documentary Hypothesis occurs only after the sources have become authoritative texts – i.e. at a relatively late stage in the history of the text.”34 This is certainly true (by definition) with regard to the ancient versions and some (at least) Bible texts. In fairness to Tigay, we should note that he was more interested in establishing a general principle – weighted, if I judge correctly, on the side of compositeness rather than conflation – and his 1985 volume includes contributions by A. Rofé on Joshua 20, illustrating the supplementation view of textual development, and by Y. Zakovitch, showing how assimilation may occur in the transmission of similar-sounding accounts of distinct events. For the present, as far as the documentary hypothesis is concerned, the external data permit us to talk of conflation of a more limited extent, of discrete narratives rather than of whole books or a complete Tetrateuch. The merits of the hypothesis will continue to be determined by criteria and arguments much nearer home. Nevertheless, any evidence of splicing of sources to make up individual narratives would be important in itself, and would have potential significance for the larger work in which the narrative is incorporated. In the second main part of this article we therefore look at Numbers 16 with the single question “Why composite (or conflate)?” uppermost in mind. Since this chapter has been chosen principally for its illustrative potential, no attempt has been made to trawl the extensive secondary literature dealing with it.

II Numbers 16, the account of the rebellion by Korah, Dathan and Abiram, has been described by R. E. Friedman as “one of the most complex literary conflations in the Torah”,35 and with adequate reason. According to the conventional source-critical analysis, traditions concerning separate rebellions, a lay rebellion led by Dathan and Abiram (JE) and Levite opposition headed by Korah (P), have been fused into a single account. Amplification of the basic P constituent by a later priestly hand is a further refinement entertained within the standard analysis of the chapter, and it is also assumed by many writers that inner-priestly squabbles from a much later period have been retrojected into a narrative episode in the “wilderness period”. The problematical nature of the chapter is signalled by the first word in it, viz. wayyiqqah. (“and [Korah] took”), since it lacks an object. To take it as elliptical for “and [Korah] took men” (e.g. RSV) is inadmissible, and the parallel in 2 Sam. 18.18 offered by Wilhelm Gesenius36 is no help, for the complicated syntax of Num. 16.1–2 is not in evidence there. A philological solution was attempted earlier this century by I. Eitan, who postulated a Hebrew verb yqh. cognate with the Arabic 34 35

Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983), p. 134. R. E. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative (HSM, 22; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), p.

109. 36 W. Gesenius, Thesaurus Philologicus Criticus Linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti (Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1835), p. 760.

COMPOSITENESS, CONFLATION AND THE PENTATEUCH

53

waqih. a and meaning “disobey” and hence “rebel”.37 This is reflected in, for example, NEB (“challenged the authority of Moses”) and NIV (“became insolent”), and the proposal was declared “very attractive” by James Barr in his 1968 volume.38 However, as Barr observed in an article published in 1974, the evidence to support the existence of such a Hebrew verb yqh. is meagre; and he saw fit to commend the older view that no philological expedient is required, but just the recognition that the object of “and [Korah] took” was a casualty when JE and P were joined together.39 Clearly there are other reasons for regarding Numbers 16 as composite. In the first place it may be argued that Korah on the one hand and Dathan and Abiram on the other are motivated by different considerations. Korah and his company are for the priesthood of all Levites (v. 10), whereas Dathan and Abiram offer a challenge to Moses’ secular authority over the people of Israel. Moreover, the grievances are treated separately, so that although the trio are introduced as making their representation in vv. 1–3, it becomes clear in vv. 12–14 that Dathan and Abiram were sulking in their tents and refused to “go up”, whatever that may mean (see below). Then, when Moses and Aaron intercede on behalf of the community (v. 22), the basis of their plea is that God should not punish the entire assembly “when (only) one man sins”. There is no doubt who the one man is, nevertheless the chapter is dealing with the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Again, when the divine judgment falls (vv. 25–35) there is no specific reference to Korah’s fate. This leads to a further consideration. In the two references to the events of this chapter elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Dathan and Abiram are mentioned, but not Korah (Deut. 11.6; Ps. 106.16–18). And so it has frequently been deduced that these texts knew only the JE tradition, and hence that Numbers 16 represents a splicing of sources. At the same time, Ps. 106.18 mentions fire that blazed among “their followers” and destroyed them, and, so far as Numbers 16 is concerned, this strictly relates to the two hundred and fifty followers of Korah who were consumed by fire from the Lord (v. 35), even though such an allusion to Korah’s people in the Psalm would have one or two serious objections to overcome.40 As to the fate of Korah himself, the chapter is surprisingly uncommunicative. According to v. 32, when the earth swallowed up Dathan and Abiram, “all Korah’s men” suffered the same fate (though v. 35 says that the two hundred and fifty were consumed by fire), and the cautionary words of v. 40 (Heb. 17.5) (“lest he become like Korah and his company”) could be taken to mean that Korah died with the incense offerers. In 26.10, however, we are told that Dathan and Abiram were 37

I. Eitan, A Contribution to Biblical Lexicography (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), pp. 19–20. 38 Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 17–19, 271. Barr noted that the reading huperēphaneuthē cited in the Hexapla (ho hebraios), and meaning “was arrogant”, might support Eitan’s explanation. 39 “After Five Years: A Retrospect on Two Major Translations of the Bible”, HeyJ 15 (1974), pp. 389, 398; idem, “Semitic Philology and the Interpretation of the Old Testament”, in Tradition and Interpretation (ed. G. W. Anderson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 49–50. 40 See G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968), p. 176 note.

54

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

swallowed up “along with Korah”. It is easy to appreciate, then, why the Talmud debates the manner of Korah’s death (b. Sanh. 110a). And it could be argued that the references in Deuteronomy 11 and Psalm 106, rather than pointing to a separate Dathan–Abiram source, merely reflect the indecisiveness of the tradition as to Korah’s fate, as in Numbers 16. The discussion thus far has focused on evidence of compositeness in Numbers 16, but Robert Alter takes note of the “careful aesthetic and thematic structuring in the story”.41 He has in mind the reprise of a clause like rab lãkem (“you have gone too far”), which is addressed by the dissidents to Moses and Aaron in v. 3 and then by Moses to “Korah and all his followers” in v. 7 (cf. v. 5). In similar fashion, hame‘at. (kî) (“Is it a small matter [that] …?”) introduces a question from Moses to Korah in v. 9, and a question from Dathan and Abiram to Moses in v. 13. In this case, interestingly enough, the expression straddles the JE/P divide,42 which would require that an editor/redactor had engaged very freely and creatively with the material available to him. When Dathan and Abiram answer Moses, they begin and end their response with lõ’ na‘aleh (“we will not go up”, vv. 12, 14). It is possible that ‘ãlâ is here used of approaching a justiciary or place of judgment, as very occasionally in the Hebrew Bible. But it is sometimes suggested that “go up” refers to the Israelites’ proceeding to Canaan: the Reubenite leaders are refusing to go up to the promised land with Moses as their leader. However, even if this were the case, it would not necessarily prove that the Dathan–Abiram material derived from a separate source, since refusal to decamp for Canaan could be regarded as merely one facet of the Reubenites’ rebellion against Moses. Probably more significant in the long run is the incidence of the verb ‘ãlâ (with also its antonym) in the chapter as a whole. Having refused to “go up”, Dathan and Abiram complain that Moses has brought (them) up (v. 13) out of a land flowing with milk and honey. Then, when the rest of the Israelites are told to move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in preparation for the judgment, they are told to “get themselves up” (hē‘ãlû, v. 24), with the result that they obediently “got themselves up” (wayyē‘ãlû, v. 27). Finally, the fate of the men who refused to “go up” was, of course, that they “went down” (vv. 30, 33); and it is possible that the conclusion of the story encouraged the choice of ‘ãlâ earlier in the narrative. So is Numbers 16 a composite narrative? It is clear enough that the two “rebellions” – if they may be distinguished thus for the moment – have quite distinct motivations, as was noted above. Korah and his followers are against Aaron (“Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?” v. 11); insofar as opposition to Moses exists, it is because he is the guarantor of Aaron’s privileged position. Dathan and Abiram, on the other hand, are simply opposed to Moses for failing to provide adequately for his flock and for lording it over them. They are distinguished from the rest in their specific opposition to Moses, and even the apparent reference to their supporters, in v. 14 as generally understood (“Will you gouge out the eyes of these 41

The Art of Biblical Narrative (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981), p. 136. Cf. G. J. Wenham, Numbers. An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1981), p. 142. 42

COMPOSITENESS, CONFLATION AND THE PENTATEUCH

55

men?”), is almost certainly nothing of the sort. “These men”, as NEB (“men like us”) appears to have grasped, is euphemistic for “us”.43 This is the view of a couple of the ancient versions, and there is a parallel in 1 Sam. 29.4 which is picked up in 1 Chron. 12.19: “the heads of these men” (Sam.) becomes “our heads” (Chron.). The two grounds of opposition, then, are distinct and are treated accordingly throughout the chapter. In terms of historical verisimilitude it is possible, of course, for rebels against authority to unite their grievances and reinforce their respective prejudices. Nevertheless, at the literary level the simple fact is that the text poses the greatest problems when the name of Korah is linked with Dathan and Abiram. The difficulty presented by vv. 1–3a has already been noted; there is also the oddsounding reference to the “tent” (miškãn) of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in v. 24 – even though two different tribes are involved. (There is something attractive about the suggestion that this miškãn had a religious purpose, as normal usage would require; Korah has already been credited with a “congregation” [‘ēdã], which word most often has a cultic significance. However, miškãn may possibly parallel “tents” in v. 27.) As well as the previously mentioned debate about Korah’s personal fate, there is a question about the identity of “all Korah’s people” (kol-hã’ãdãm ’ašer leqõrah., v. 32), who, since they were swallowed up with Dathan and Abiram, cannot be the same as the two hundred and fifty who were consumed by fire. Things are not simplified in this regard by the note at 26.11 to the effect that the sons of Korah did not suffer the judgment by fire (this in contrast with the families of Dathan and Abiram; cf. 16.27, 32). The best that can be done is to make “Korah’s people” the servants of Korah, on the assumption that he had such. Despite, therefore, the possible counterarguments, it is quite reasonable to conclude – and without reference to the documentary hypothesis – that Numbers 16 is a composite narrative. Two related topics are largely handled separately, and it is when they are not that we encounter problems of interpretation that can scarcely be put down to accidents of scribal transmission. But even the hypothesis of composite narrative falls far short of being a panacea, and in the end we are bound to agree with Alter that “there are aspects of the composite nature of biblical narrative texts that we cannot confidently encompass in our own explanatory systems”.44 As to the wider enterprise, the observable fact that composite narratives need not necessarily bear signs of their compositeness, and that what may appear to signify compositeness may have a quite different explanation (may even, perversely, be present already in an underlying source),45 shows the extent to which we are caught between science and surmise. Abstract Interest in the possibility of finding suitable analogues for the documentary sources envisaged by modern Pentateuchal criticism continues alongside current “final form” 43 See C. McCarthy, The Tiqqune Sopherim and Other Theological Corrections in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament (OBO, 36; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1981), pp. 179–82. 44 The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 136–37. 45 Cf. Kaufman, “The Temple Scroll”, p. 34.

56

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

investigations. The first part of this article, which includes an augmented list of most of the analogues that have been proposed, considers the relevance of this material, and especially in the light of the distinction that is properly made between “composite” and “conflate”. In the second section, Numbers 16, which has claims to be regarded as a prime example of a composite narrative within the Pentateuch, is discussed from the sole perspective of the question, “Why composite?”

Chapter 6

Who Made the Kingmaker? Reflections on Samuel and the Institution of the Monarchy Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, thought Alice; but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!

So, with due acknowledgement of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, begins an undergraduate lecture of mine entitled “Samuel and the Cheshire Cat”. The point of this curious association is, of course, that, as modern research into the Samuel narratives has developed, the substantial figure of this man of several parts has tended to be reduced to grin-like insubstantiality. Just over fifty years ago W. A. Irwin was lamenting that we are “in the disturbing position of possessing not a single narrative of Samuel’s activity that merits respect as good source material”,1 and if that sounds extreme it is also fairly representative of a widespread and developing scepticism about the historiographical worth of the early Samuel narratives in general. Not so W. F. Albright, who, in his Goldenson Lecture published in 1961, found little difficulty in discovering a figure of flesh and blood behind the narratives and even managed to delve into the psyche of the sometime acolyte of Shiloh, whose sterner, ungrinning, character traits Albright attributed to “unhappy experiences as a boy in Shiloh”.2 From our vantage-point over thirty years later, Albright, not for the first time, gives the appearance of an egregious optimist. The underlying problem with which we are engaged is partly the complex tradition-history often envisaged for the early chapters of 1 Samuel and partly the fact that we are dealing with narrative texts that are governed by interests other than the simply historiographical and that are therefore suspected of providing an inadequate basis for historical reconstruction. In such circumstances a wide epistemological gulf opens up between those who accord the biblical narratives referential status and those who do not. “How can we approach the social world of Iron Age I as biblical historians and still retain intellectual respectability?” asks J. W. Flanagan as he unveils his “social world”, or “comparative sociological”, approach to the study of this period.3 Others also warn against the dangers of “text-based 1

W. A. Irwin, “Samuel and the Rise of the Monarchy”, AJSL 58 (1941) 134. W. F. Albright, Samuel and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1961) 18. 3 J. W. Flanagan, David’s Social Drama: A Hologram of Israel’s Early Iron Age (The Social World of Biblical Antiquity 7; Sheffield: Almond, 1988) 22. 2

57

58

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

history”, perhaps not so much because of antipathy to texts as out of frustration at being restricted to the theologically-filtered texts of the Old Testament so much of the time. Even such wary practitioners as J. M. Miller and J. H. Hayes, who recognize at least some kernel of historical truth in the Samuel narratives,4 come under the condemnation of B. O. Long, who chides them for imagining that “holy books yield real history” and goes so far as to stigmatize their approach as “fundamentalist”.5 But Long, who is in turn labelled “fundamentalist” by Miller,6 confuses the issue with his talk of “holy books”, since it is difficult to keep the term free of ideas of canonicity and sacred scripture. The historical books of the Hebrew Bible were written to describe and account for the historical experience of the community of Israel; they became “holy”, “canonical”, “scripture” at a later stage.7 Or perhaps we must add to Long’s “holy books” the category of “holy stelae” to take in such hitherto respectable historical sources as the Mesha Stele and the Zakir Inscription, which mix in a little divine activity with their historical reminiscences. That the Old Testament historical books are theologically motivated is an argument against simplisms, but not against the entire historical quest. In this paper I wish to consider briefly the historical backcloth to the emergence of the monarchy and then in more detail, but still selectively, the narrative traditions associated with Samuel of Ramah, whom I have dignified as “kingmaker” in keeping with his portrayal in the biblical text.

The Philistines and the Monarchy K. W. Whitelam’s characterization of 1 Samuel’s explanation of the rise of the monarchy as “monocausal” is not far from the truth even if it fails to take account of the charge of maladministration by the sons of Samuel as mentioned in 8:1–5.8 In the biblical texts it is principally the external pressure exerted by the Philistines to the west, with some Ammonite input from the east, that brings the monarchical question to the fore (8:20; 9:16; 10:1 [LXX], 5–7, and 27). For this reason I think that it is a mistake to divide too sharply between chaps. 7 and 8, for the account of “Samuel’s victory” over the Philistines in chap. 7 offers a context for, and an implicit commentary on, the elders’ request in 8:20 for a king “to go out before us and fight our battles”. There is nothing improbable about the Samuel storyline as far as it goes, and scarcely anyone would wish to deny that external factors such as Philistine pressure from the west impelled Israel towards its acceptance of monarchy; nevertheless, a 4 See J. M. Miller and J. H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (London: SCM/Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 134–35. 5 B. O. Long, “On Finding the Hidden Premises”, JSOT 39 (1987) 10–14. 6 J. M. Miller, “In Defense of Writing a History of Israel”, JSOT 39 (1987) 54. 7 See J. Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), 115–16, making a similar point in connection with the recognition of “inspired prophecy” in the post-prophetic era. 8 K. W. Whitelam, “Recreating the History of Israel”, JSOT 35 (1986) 62.

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

59

number of recent studies of so-called “secondary states” have called in question the adequacy of the external (“exogenic”) factor as an explanation of how Israel became a monarchy. The “secondary state” normally emerges as internal factors, such as social stratification, social conflict, population increase, and administrative needs, become agents for social and political change.9 Of such there is little mention in the early chapters of Samuel, with the possible exception of the already-mentioned maladministration of Samuel’s sons, cited as the ostensible reason for the elders’ request for a king in 8:1–5. But to claim that the anthropological approach flies in the face of the literature and of the archaeology of the period would be an inappropriate response, and one that might be contested at either level. A more likely way forward is to consider why, from an internal Old Testament point of view, the Philistines are given such prominence as they are in 1 Samuel. Also involved, though I shall not dwell much on the point, is the question of what constitutes history-writing. Reaction against event-laden, personality-focused, “Flavian” history-writing is understandably strong in the guild of modern historians. Accounts of peoples and periods that pay attention to social structures, the role of the ordinary citizen and the family unit are currently enjoying enhanced status. The names of various recent scholars (notably F. Braudel10) are associated with this approach, though the Britishbased historian from the previous generation Lewis Namier exemplifies an earlier preoccupation with history of this sort.11 Now one of the most obvious things to be said about biblical history is that much of it is event-laden and personality-orientated, if this is not to misrepresent narrative characteristics that are found to some degree in most historical writing. Reading between the lines is often necessary before social, not to say sociological, inferences can be drawn. In the early chapters of 1 Samuel the narratives revolve around Eli and his sons, Samuel and his parents, and then Saul. To these it would be reasonable to add the Philistines as a kind of corporate persona also participating in events, and especially in the so-called “Ark Narrative” in 1 Samuel 4–6. That they were involved in some way in the events that precipitated the crisis whence emerged the Israelite monarchy is, as I have noted, not an issue for most students of the period. But what of the “monocausality” of the biblical text? The answer appears to lie, at least partly, in the typological function of the Philistines within the Old Testament. Émigrés from the Mediterranean region (see Amos 9:7), they are indigenized Canaanites in the narrative texts of the Old Testament, where their extraneous origins would seldom be suspected. This presentation of them accords with their status as the archetypal enemy of Israel, for as quasi-autochthonous inhabitants of Palestine they inherit the mantle of the “inhabitants of the land”, which in other Old Testament traditions is worn by the preIsraelite peoples of Canaan. It is impossible to do justice within the limits of this 9 See the chapter entitled “The Formation of the Davidic State”, in The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (ed. R. B. Coote and K. W. Whitelam; The Social World of Biblical Antiquity 5; Sheffield: Almond, 1987) 139–66. 10 F. Braudel, On History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson/Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 11 On Lewis Namier, see A. Cook, History/Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 207–10.

60

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

paper to what is a major topic in itself, but we must develop this aspect of the typological Philistines a little further. Wherever the Philistines appear in the biblical narratives, the territorial issue is likely to be present. This applies not least to the Philistines of Genesis, who are not quite so irenic as they are sometimes made out to be. The disputes over wells in Genesis 26 raise already in a patriarchal context the issue of territorial possession, for Isaac is told in a vision to remain in Philistine Gerar during a famine, in the following terms: Stay in this land and I will be with you and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands (26:3).

He stayed there (v. 6) and planted crops and reaped a hundredfold “because the Lord blessed him” (v. 12). It is difficult to avoid the suggestion that claims to sovereignty over Philistine territory in the later period are being voiced already in the patriarchal traditions, just as they will be in some of the prophets (see Zeph 2:7; Zech 9:7). The Israelite claim to Philistine territory on an equal basis with (other) Canaanite land is also expressed in Josh 13:2, where the regions of the Philistines head the list of territories still to be taken over by the Israelites. Philistine cities are, accordingly, included in the tribal allocations of Joshua 13–19 (see 15:45–47). The Old Testament presentation of what I have called the quasi-autochthonous Philistines is assisted by their association with gigantism, which finds parallels in the traditions relating to the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan. We are familiar with the figure of Goliath of Gath and with certain Philistine “descendants of Rapha” with whom David’s men were in contention (2 Sam 21:15–22). The Rephaim are included among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land in Gen 15:20 and are associated with gigantism partly through Og king of Bashan who, interestingly in view of the later Samuel references, is described as one of the last of the Rephaim (see Deut 3:11; Josh 12:4, and 13:12). The conflation with pre-Israelite tradition is further expressed in the association of the Philistines with the tall Anakim, descended from the Nephilim according to Num 13:33 (see Deut 1:28; 2:10, 21; and 9:2). In Josh 11:22 it is stated that there were no Anakim left in the land of Israel apart from those in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, while by a presumed misreading on the part of the Septuagint or its Vorlage the same relationship is indicated at Jer 47:5 (LXX 29:5): Baldness has come upon Gaza; Ashkelon has perished. O remnant of the Anakim [MT ‘mqm “their valley”] how long will you gash yourselves?

The typological role of the Philistines as Israel’s chief opponent in the land and as her ideological foe (another aspect that cannot be developed here) puts into perspective the depiction of them in 1 Samuel as a perpetual threat to the well-being of Israel and a primary cause of the political démarche that brought the monarchy into being. In all of this the three chapters of the so-called “Ark Narrative” (1 Samuel

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

61

4–6) are of crucial importance.12 Their theological and ideological thrust is everywhere evident, and the significance of the issue being played out in this way at this point is quite strikingly apparent when one considers the low-key treatment of the decisive encounters of David with the Philistines in 2 Sam 5:17–25. The chapters of the “Ark Narrative” bear witness to this ideological concern in their various references and allusions to the Exodus tradition; David Daube found them a fruitful field for his The Exodus Pattern in the Bible.13 But what are these Exodus references and allusions saying if not that the crisis described is serious enough to recall that in which the nation had its birth? A. F. Campbell’s talk of a “caesura in the saving history” is, from this standpoint, words well spoken.14 So far I have concentrated on the possibility that the almost monocular view of the origins of the Israelite monarchy in 1 Samuel derives in part at least from the ideological significance given to the Philistines within the Old Testament, but that is not the same as parting company with the biblical tradition of Philistine hostility and its consequences. History and typology have both contributed to the proportions of 1 Samuel. And, since historical developments are in question, we may, at the same time as being grateful for sociological insights, look to our archaeologists in a reasonable expectation of further illumination. Such has recently been proffered on the monarchical issue by Israel Finkelstein, whose concern is with “settlement pattern” in the central hill country of Palestine.15 His conclusion is that settlement in the western part of the area was a secondary development that resulted in friction with the Philistine inhabitants of the coastal plain.16 If this were so, then Israelite expansion westward as well as Philistine interest in their neighbours’ territory to the east would have made for the kinds of situations described in Judges and 1 Samuel. The monarchy emerged first in Benjaminite territory, says Finkelstein, because the population of this area suffered most directly from Philistine encroachments. Thus, for Finkelstein, the stimulus of Philistine aggression, facilitated by Israelite expansion, contributed to the circumstances in which Israel discovered its need of a monarchy. Obviously, Finkelstein’s work will be subject to review and perhaps even reassessment, but it does illustrate the way in which the inexact science of surface archaeology may supplement or subvert the nebulous sciences of sociology and literary criticism. Samuel in 1 Samuel It is not possible to look at each of the several narratives in 1 Samuel in which Samuel features, nor, let it be said at the outset, is it my intention to try to prove the historicity 12

Whether there ever was an “Ark Narrative” as such and whether, if there was, 2 Samuel 6 formed part of it are questions that need not be addressed here. 13 D. Daube, The Exodus Pattern in the Bible (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press/London: Faber and Faber, 1963) 73–88. 14 A. F. Campbell, The Ark Narrative (1 Samuel 4–6; 2 Samuel 6): A Form-Critical and TraditioHistorical Study (SBLDS 16; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975) 212. 15 I. Finkelstein, “The Emergence of the Monarchy in Israel: The Environmental and Socio-Economic Aspects”, JSOT 44 (1989) 43–74. 16 Ibid., 59–61, 63.

62

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

of any of the events associated with the name of Samuel. Our task and our best hope is to consider the nature of the traditions that relate to the eponymous prophet in partial determination of the question, “Can any good thing come out of Ramah?” The one biographical datum that most often manages to survive the sifting process where the Samuel narratives are concerned is the reference to “Samuel’s circuit” in 7:15–17. Here, it is reckoned, is a credible picture of a minor judge operating within a restricted sphere, largely within Benjaminite territory.17 On the other hand, the depiction of him as prophet, judge, and kingmaker to all Israel from Dan to Beersheba (cf. 3:20) is thought to have come about as the interests of prophetic circles and Deuteronomistic editors fashioned the narratives according to their own image. It is this impression of developing literary creativity and theological reflection that makes it difficult for many critical readers of these chapters to feel confident that what they read approximates to historical realities in the eleventh century BC. There have been attempts to push behind the present form of the individual narratives or to establish features that, from a common cultural point of view, deserve recognition as being, at the least, pre-Deuteronomistic. The account of the call of Samuel in chap. 3, recatalogued by Robert Gnuse as “an auditory message dream” and negatively assessed as to its historical worth,18 was earlier defended by R. R. Wilson, on the basis of anthropological comparison, as perhaps being more than mere literary invention.19 However, Wilson’s observations do not take us very far, since, as he himself recognizes, a correct description of an experience of “spiritpossession”, as he terms it, is as much within the competence of a writer of fiction as of a history-writer. P. Weimar has argued in connection with chap. 7 that a preDeuteronomistic “Yahweh War” tradition underlies the account of Samuel’s victory over the Philistines,20 and, as is well known, I. Mendelsohn sought to show that Samuel’s portrait of a king in 8:11–18 better suited the period in which it is located than the later settings that are sometimes suggested for it.21 And finally, T. Ishida holds that the narrative of Saul’s meeting with Samuel in 9:1–10:16 is fundamentally a unity and originated in the lifetime of Saul.22 For all that, each of these conclusions and the inferences drawn from them would be challenged by many or even, in one or two cases, by the great majority of scholars who have looked into them. 17 See A. D. H. Mayes, “The Period of the Judges and the Rise of the Monarchy”, in Israelite and Judaean History (ed. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller; London: SCM/Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977) 321. 18 R. Gnuse, “A Reconsideration of the Form-Critical Structure in I Samuel 3: An Ancient Near Eastern Dream Theophany”, ZAW 94 (1982) 379–90; idem, The Dream Theophany of Samuel: Its Structure in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Dreams and Its Theological Significance (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984). 19 R. R. Wilson, “Anthropology and the Study of the Old Testament”, USQR 34 (1979) 178–81. 20 P. Weimar, “Die Jahwekriegserzählungen in Exodus 14, Josua 10, Richter 4 und 1 Samuel 7”, Bib 57 (1976) 63–69. 21 I. Mendelsohn, “Samuel’s Denunciation of Kingship in the Light of the Akkadian Documents from Ugarit”, BASOR 143 (1956) 17–22; cf. A. F. Rainey, Ras Shamra Parallels II (ed. L. R. Fisher et al.; AnOr 50; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1975) 93–98. 22 T. Ishida, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel: A Study on the Formation and Development of Royal-Dynastic Ideology (BZAW 142; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977) 43.

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

63

Some of the detail in the Samuel narratives plainly did not arise in the latest phase of the writing of the Old Testament books. Samuel’s sleeping arrangements in the Shiloh sanctuary are no more likely to have appealed to Deuteronomistic editors and priestly tradents than they did to the punctuators of the Masoretic Text or the Targumic paraphraser who put the fledgling priest to bed in the Court of the Levites (3:3).23 Again, the association of Samuel with the high place of Ramah (9:12–14) would have gained him instant dismissal from Jer 15:1 if he had been a seventhcentury frequenter of Judean high places. The plurality of offices held by Samuel also provides a contrast with what was possible at a later date and has been cited in support of the basic genuineness of the traditions about him. To argue thus is, of course, to invoke the “criterion of dissimilarity” which, for present purposes, means the presence of features in a narrative despite their conflicting with what would be regarded as normative or appropriate in the period when the traditions crystallized in more or less their final literary form. The reasoning of the “criterion of dissimilarity” may also be seen in James Barr’s evaluation of the title “Anointed of Yahweh”, as used of Saul in Samuel. In asserting that the title was already current within the lifetime of the first king of Israel, Barr is swayed by the fact that the term recurs in passages (e.g. 16:6 and 24:6) that are not obviously favourable towards Saul, and so “the very negativity of the picture of Saul which our sources give, rejected by Yahweh and rather a failure among men, makes all the more emphatic the fact that David still calls him ‘the anointed of Yahweh’”.24 As, however, the David traditions have been pushed more and more into the category of political propaganda, so the inclination to interpret Saul’s designation as “Anointed of Yahweh” in this way has diminished. The propagandistic interpretation relates the expression only indirectly to Saul, to whom it is conveniently attached in order to teach the higher truth that David as the “Anointed of Yahweh” enjoys in his turn the sacrosanctity of one who rules by divine appointment.25 In this case the historical value of the term as used of Saul would be nil, but if Barr were right then there would be a place for Samuel as the one who did the anointing. Of course, the currency of the term in Saul’s lifetime would not by itself authenticate Samuel’s part in the anointing, but who better? The texts generally are insistent that Samuel was involved in the process by which Saul became Israel’s king, yet this evidence is interpreted in strongly contrasting ways. The univocality of the narratives on the matter most naturally points to the conclusion that Samuel dominates the tradition because it was his role historically that gave rise to the tradition. Others, however, argue that Samuel makes his 23 The anomalous positioning of the athnach at šõkēb (“was lying down”) in the MT of the verse probably indicates unhappiness with the thought of Samuel sleeping “in the temple of the Lord”. Note also the Qumranic fragment of “The Vision of Samuel” (4Q160), according to which Samuel “lay in front of Eli” (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan, vol. 5: Qumrân Cave 4 [ed. J. M. Allegro; Oxford: Clarendon, 1968] 9). 24 J. Barr, “Messiah”, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (ed. F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963) 648. 25 See F. H. Cryer, “David’s Rise to Power and the Death of Abner”, VT 35 (1985) 391; Miller and Hayes, History, 155.

64

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

appearance in the installation narratives by courtesy of later prophetic circles for whom kingship under other than prophetic auspices was unacceptable. Yet this kind of argument can be double-edged when Saul is the king in question, since its effect is to tie Samuel, however reluctant his involvement, to a failed and rejected monarch. Would not Samuel’s anointing of David have satisfied the prophetic coterie’s craving for retrospective recognition? It is certainly not easy to imagine a northern prophet like Hosea contending for the inclusion of Saul’s inauguration under the prophetic umbrella, but that is doubtless to venture too far into speculative realms.

The Birth and Dedication (1 Samuel 1–2) In the remainder of this paper I shall concentrate on one facet of the Samuel tradition, in which Samuel and Saul have all unwittingly had their fates tangled together. A succession of writers on 1 Samuel have conjectured that the fourfold association of the Hebrew verb šã’al (“ask”) with the name of Samuel in 1:17, 20, 27, and 28 (cf. 2:20) is not original but has come about because a tradition about the birth and dedication of Saul has been expropriated and put to Samuel’s account; and it is certainly true that šã’al provides a more satisfactory etymological basis for Saul’s name than for Samuel’s. We shall not detain ourselves with discussion of the detailed and, in my opinion, improbable hypotheses constructed on this observation by I. Hylander and J. Dus.26 A modified version of their basic position is adopted and defended at some length by P. K. McCarter in his commentary on 1 Samuel. He offers three main arguments in support of the theory: the repeated wordplay involving šã’al, the formal similarity between 1:1 and 9:1, and a degree of correspondence between 1 Samuel 1 and Judges 13 that is sufficient to create the expectation that the former, like the latter, is intended to introduce a warrior figure of heroic dimensions.27 The second of these points requires little comment since the form of introduction, of Elkanah and Kish respectively, has parallels elsewhere (see Judg 13:2; 17:1), and only the presence of the genealogical matter is worthy of note. Whether there is any value at all in McCarter’s second observation therefore depends a great deal on the validity of the other two arguments that he advances. With regard to the wordplay on šã’al, the point that by Old Testament canons the root provides a passable etymology for the name Samuel has been sufficiently stated by a number of writers to require no further comment here. McCarter tries, however, to introduce a refinement when he argues that the purpose of 1 Sam 1:20 “is not to reinforce the etymological play on š’l but, on the contrary, to eclipse it or at least to modify it to the requirements of the name Samuel”.28 The justification for this 26 I. Hylander, Der literarische Samuel-Saul-Komplex (I. Sam. 1–15) traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1932) 9–62; J. Dus, “Die Geburtslegende Samuels, I. Sam. 1 (Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu I. Sam. 1–3)”, RSO 43 (1968) 163–94. 27 P. K. McCarter, I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB 8; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980) 62–63, 65–66. 28 Ibid., 62.

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

65

conclusion is found in the word-order of the MT: “‘Samuel’ because, ‘From Yahweh I requested him’”, and according to McCarter “miyyahweh stands in the emphatic first position suggesting that it and not the verb is the intended referent of the etymology”. If, however, we compare the naming of Moses and the accompanying explanation in Exod 2:10 we find precisely the same sort of word-order and without any special emphasis such as McCarter reads into 1 Sam 1:20. McCarter’s attempt, therefore, to catch an editor or compiler in the act of adapting a Saul etymology to suit Samuel’s name is to be rejected as over-subtle. In developing his third point, McCarter assumes that 1 Samuel 1 is about the birth and dedication of a Nazirite. There is, of course, no explicit reference to Naziriteship in the chapter in its Masoretic version, yet there are points of parallel that should not be overlooked (see especially 1:11), and we have also to take into account the direct references to Samuel’s Nazirite status in the LXX at 1:11 (cf. 4QSama) and in 4QSama at 1:22.29 I shall not, therefore, contest the description of Samuel in the MT as a Nazirite. There are correspondences between 1 Samuel 1 and Judges 13, which describes Samson’s birth in terms of Nazirite dedication, and so the case for viewing 1 Samuel 1 as originally dealing with a Samson-like warrior figure begins to take shape. Because references to Nazirites are rare in the Old Testament, it is possible to exaggerate the links between 1 Samuel 1 and Judges 13 to the level of an almost exclusive relationship, with obvious consequences for the reader’s expectations about 1 Samuel 1. It is important, then, to establish the fact that the links are mainly with Nazirite status in general rather than with Judges 13 in particular. Indeed, McCarter himself may be found rejecting the LXX variant “until the day of his death” in 1:11 on the ground that it “shows the influence of Judg 13:7”.30 Literary readings of 1 Samuel 1 also have a bearing on the question. Read with an eye on intertextual concerns, this chapter could be understood to be setting up a contrast with Judges 13. In particular, Hannah’s reference to the razor in v. 11 may be expressing the conviction that the same depilatory disaster as befell Samson (Judg 16:17–21) will not overtake the son whom she so earnestly seeks from God. Proceeding along similar lines, André Wénin sees in this verse, by what it says and what it omits saying about Samuel’s being a Nazirite, an attempt to relativize the analogy between Samson and Samuel, even while drawing attention to it.31 Furthermore, even if 1 Samuel 1 is talking about full-blooded Naziriteship, it would not follow that a prophet figure like Samuel would fail to meet the expectations created by the narrative. It is true that the Nazirite of Judges 13 is a warrior figure, but then one of the few remaining Nazirite texts, namely Amos 2:11–12, links prophets and Nazirites in poetic parallelism and implies a close connection between the two groups. (Josephus’s use of the term prophet for Samson, 29 See E. C. Ulrich, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus (HSM 19; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978) 39, 165. 30 McCarter, I Samuel, 54. 31 A. Wénin, Samuel et l’instauration de la monarchie (1 S 1–12): Une Recherche littéraire sur le personnage (Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XXIII 342; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988) 50.

66

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

on the other hand, is of little significance in view of his fairly loose descriptions of other Old Testament worthies as prophets.) 32 There is thus no reason to dispossess Samuel of the narrative of birth and dedication as it now stands in 1 Samuel 1, and we are spared the more extreme consequences of the rejected theory. For if the šã’al theme originally belonged to Saul, the logic of the section that culminates in 1:28 (“he is lent [šã’ûl] to the Lord”) would require that Saul spent his youth in the service of the Shiloh sanctuary. Since such an association between Saul and Shiloh is very difficult to square with the biblical data, McCarter’s solution, following Dus, is to separate the Nazirite tradition from the Shiloh elements in the story: “So the Shilonite apprenticeship is not an original element from the tradition but, like the transferral of Saul’s birth narrative, an innovation in the prophetic revision of the material which works to the aggrandizement of Samuel, who will become heir to the lost authority of the house of Eli.”33 Now this reconstruction of McCarter’s is based on the premise that Shiloh no longer functioned as a cult centre by the time of Saul, but even this assumption has been challenged by J. M. Miller and J. H. Hayes34 and, in a major way, by D. G. Schley, whose published dissertation on Shiloh was written under the guidance of these same two specialists in Israelite history.35 Schley makes much of the šã’al theme in 1 Samuel 1–2 as evidence that Saul was the original referent in the narrative and that the tradition linked him, and not Samuel, to Shiloh.36 He also lays great emphasis on the references to Ahijah (from the Shilonite connection), who is with Saul in the battle preliminaries as reported in 14:3, 18, and he expresses a strong preference for the MT of v. 18, according to which the ark of God was with Saul and his army at the time of the battle of Michmash.37 Thus, Schley regards Saul as having had close links with the stillfunctioning priesthood of Shiloh through Eli’s descendant Ahijah. For all this to be possible, of course, the tradition of the capture of the ark of God by the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4, as of the downgrading or even destruction of Shiloh that many have thought is implied in the narrative, has to be drastically reinterpreted. Schley and his mentors reject as an inference incorrectly drawn from 1 Samuel 4 and from the possibly related references to Shiloh in Psalm 78 and Jeremiah 7 (cf. Jeremiah 26) the idea that the ark of God was captured and Shiloh was destroyed in the period represented by 1 Samuel 4.38 Instead, they relocate the events of 1 Samuel 4 in the aftermath of Saul’s defeat by the Philistines at Gilboa. Schley notes that Aphek, where the Israelites were defeated according to 1 Samuel 4, is mentioned in 29:1 as the muster-point for the Philistine contingents that proceeded to Gilboa, whence he finds encouragement for his reinterpretation of the earlier battle 32

See L. H. Feldman, “Prophets and Prophecy in Josephus”, JTS n.s. 41 (1990) 389–91. McCarter, I Samuel, 66. 34 Miller and Hayes, History, 125, 133. 35 D. G. Schley, Shiloh: A Biblical City in Tradition and History (JSOTSup 63; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). 36 Ibid., 152–53. 37 Ibid., 153–54, 159–60. 38 Ibid., 157–60, 167–83. 33

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

67

accounts.39 Miller and Hayes are so sold on the same procedure in their 1986 volume that they refer at one point to Saul’s defeat near Aphek, though an Aphek in the Jezreel area is otherwise unknown.40 Finally, it should be noted that the supposed replacement of Saul by Samuel in 1 Samuel 1–2 is attributed by Schley to proDavidic editors of the account of David’s rise: “the entire tradition of Samuel at Shiloh appears to have been theologically formulated rather than historically based”.41 Schley and his colleagues are right when they say that 1 Samuel 4 does not expressly indicate that Shiloh was destroyed on the occasion described and that Ps 78:60–72, which Schley accepts as referring to the events of 1 Samuel 4, is likewise silent on this point. It seems to be generally agreed, moreover, that the archaeological evidence of destruction in the early Iron Age would as easily suit a date in Saul’s reign as in the earlier period. But the abandonment or destruction of the Shiloh sanctuary before the rise of Saul is certainly not excluded by the evidence and may even be judged to be the more likely of the options. Schley is impressed by the absence of Shiloh from the list of places on Samuel’s circuit in 7:15–17, as if this indicates that there never was a link between Samuel and Shiloh, yet the absence is adequately explained if by this time Shiloh had ceased to function. The apparent continuation of the Elide priesthood at Nob may still be explained satisfactorily in terms of the succession having perforce passed from Shiloh to Nob because of the Philistine depredations; no other special explanation is called for.42 (Schley accepts the fact that 14:3 links Shiloh and Nob, but sees this as a secondary feature “tying the Aaronite line of Eli to the independent line of Ahitub at Nob”.43) The reference in the MT of 1 Sam 14:18 to the ark of God as being in the Israelite camp conflicts with the other relevant data in 1 Samuel and is an old crux on that account. Schley prefers the MT reading to the LXX’s mention of the ephod, regarding the information that the ark was in Kiriath-jearim all the days of Saul (cf. 1 Sam 7:2; 2 Sam 6:2) as having been secondarily introduced into the Samuel tradition.44 This is a brave assumption as far as the text of 1 Sam 14:18 is concerned, for the MT, as much as the LXX, is talking of an aborted oracular consultation, for which the ephod was usually the appropriate instrument, as even the associated vocabulary of 14:18–19 would suggest. It should not require stating that the mention of Ahijah in 14:3, whether as grandson45 or great-grandson of Eli “the priest of Yahweh in Shiloh”, does not imply anything about the continuing function of the Shilonite sanctuary; nevertheless, Schley chooses to see Ahijah as “a younger priest of Shiloh, who serves as oracular priest of the ark”.46 There is a further point to be made in relation to Ahijah. Schley 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Ibid., 160, 195. Miller and Hayes, History, 130, 133. Schley, Shiloh, 156. Pace Schley, ibid., 139–40. Ibid., 159. Ibid., 157–59. Ibid. Ibid., 195.

68

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

makes much of Saul’s links with the Elides as legitimizing his rule and equally as something to be played down by the “Davidic editors” of the Saul tradition. He refers to their needs to “separate Saul’s monarchy from its very real association with the sanctuary at Shiloh, the ancient Aaronite priesthood of Eli, and the ark”.47 The needs, as we can easily agree, were not that pressing when 14:18 (MT) was allowed to slip through, but a couple of other points deserve highlighting. First, there would have been at least as much propaganda value for David if the story of the fortunes of the ark of God had told how it had been lost in battle by Saul at Gilboa and then recovered by David, which is basically what happens in Schley’s revised version of events. As things are in the MT, the ark is recovered from the Philistines and lodged in a halfway house before ever Saul or David appears on the scene. If it really was lost at Gilboa, why did the “Davidic editors” not ensure that the narrative recounted how, to his eternal glory, David recovered the ark for Yahweh and for Israel? All Schley has to offer on the circumstances of the recovery is that David “was somehow able to secure the return of the ark from Kiriath-Jearim”.48 He explains the “massive revision” of the Saul traditions in terms of David’s need of sacral legitimacy, which the extant narrative achieves for him by obliterating Saul’s connection with Shiloh and by showing how David reestablished the Shiloh tradition. But one is entitled to ask whether this legitimacy based on Shiloh finds support in the text. At best it is a thin line that connects Shiloh with Jerusalem; by the time of David’s reign Shiloh is a distant memory. And again, would not the account of David’s recovery of the ark from the Philistines have worked wonders as regards his sacral legitimation? Furthermore, even if the narratives are relieved of every trace of misdemeanour on the part of the Elides, the historical reality is of a priesthood and sanctuary that, on either reading of the data, had been eclipsed by the time David became king. In that case, any attempts by Davidic editors to distance Saul from Shiloh become acts of significant kindness; they are rescuing him from a sinking ship. The significance of 14:3 is, I believe, better grasped by David Jobling: Saul is accompanied by Ahijah, a member of the rejected priestly house of Eli (14:3), and this first mention of an Elide after the disasters which befell Eli’s family in ch. 4 triggers the response “rejected by Yhwh.” His own royal glory gone, where else would we expect Saul to be than with a relative of “Glory gone”?49

Before we take leave of 1 Samuel 1–2, there are other aspects of the question that merit mentioning at the least. First, it is interesting to find so many scholars assuming that there was a birth narrative for Saul when no one in biblical antiquity seems to have thought to devise one for David. Secondly, there exists in 9:1–10:16, according to a common view, a legendary tale of Saul’s introduction to his kingly destiny through his meeting with the prophet Samuel. Indeed, a more complicated version talks of two Saul narratives that have been conflated, the one about a visit to an 47

Ibid., 160. Ibid., 198. 49 D. Jobling, “Saul’s Fall and Jonathan’s Rise: Tradition and Redaction in 1 Sam 14:1–46”, JBL 95 (1976) 368. 48

WHO MADE THE KINGMAKER?

69

anonymous seer and the other involving Samuel. None of this has a direct bearing on our discussion of 1 Samuel 1–2, yet it becomes clear that the argument about the fate of the once-favoured, then rejected, Saul is pulling in opposite directions: he loses his birth story because of his fall from grace, yet he is awarded a royal anointing narrative or two (honoris causa) under the prophetic auspices of Samuel. In this section I have argued that the Samuel traditions of 1 Samuel 1–2 have no prehistory of attachment to the figure of Saul and that they bind Samuel to the cultcentre of Shiloh. At the same time, it should be recognized that sometimes strange and peculiarly effective narrative ploys are used by Old Testament writers, so that one should not reject a priori the possibility of a reworking of a Saul birth tradition in favour of Samuel. What could more powerfully make the point that, despite his position and achievements, Saul had to give place to Samuel in the judgment of God and of history? Yet that does not seem to be the way in which the author of 1 Samuel 1–2 crafted his account.

Chapter 7

A House Divided: Wisdom in Old Testament Narrative Traditions Wisdom Texts and Wisdom Criteria The credit (or otherwise) for setting the hare of Old Testament “wisdom narrative” running must go to Gerhard von Rad, though in his Theologie des Alten Testaments he notes that Johannes Hempel had already suggested a link between narrative and wisdom back in 1936.1 Von Rad’s short essay on the Joseph narrative in Gen. xxxvii–1, published in 1953,2 sought to demonstrate that these chapters were heavily influenced from Egyptian sources and were to be recognized as a form of early Israelite wisdom writing. The story of how the branches of the Joseph “wisdom narrative” ran over the wall to affect other areas of Old Testament narrative is sufficiently well known to require only the briefest recapitulation here. In his 1944 essay on historical writing in early Israel von Rad had developed the view that the reign of Solomon marked the beginning of a new phase in Israelite historical consciousness, and he had highlighted the (so-called) “Succession Narrative” – “the oldest specimen of ancient Israelite historical writing” (p. 12 [E. tr., p. 176]) – as exemplifying this new outlook.3 In short, the author of the “Succession Narrative” commends a more secular view of history according to which God remains involved in human affairs, but in a less visibly interventionist kind of way than had previously been imagined. Von Rad’s 1953 essay on the Joseph narrative located these chapters in the same general period of the early monarchy and also, as we have already noted, sought to demonstrate links between the narrative and Israelite wisdom traditions. Ten years later, in 1963, S. Talmon was characterizing the book of Esther as an “historicized wisdom tale”,4 a term which B. S. Childs was soon happy to apply also to the story of the birth of Moses in Exod. i–ii.5 Even more directly in the line of succession from von Rad stands R. N. Whybray’s monograph 1 Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1 (Munich, 1958), p. 64, n. 24 (E. tr., Old Testament Theology, I [Edinburgh and London, 1962], p. 56, n. 30). See J. Hempel, Gott und Mensch im Alten Testament (2nd edn, Stuttgart, 1936), p. 65. 2 “Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokma” (SVT 1, 1953), pp. 120–7 (E. tr., “The Joseph Narrative and Ancient Wisdom”, in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays [Edinburgh and London, 1965], pp. 292–300). 3 “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel”, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 32 (1944), pp. 1–42 (E. tr., “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel”, in The Problem of the Hexateuch, pp. 166–204). 4 “ ‘Wisdom’ in the Book of Esther”, VT 13 (1963), pp. 419–55. 5 “The Birth of Moses”, JBL 84 (1965), pp. 109–22.

70

A HOUSE DIVIDED

71

on the “Succession Narrative”, published in 1968, in which the dual hypotheses of Egyptian influence and wisdom affiliation are again in evidence.6 Not surprisingly, the account of Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings iii–xi, with its emphasis on Solomonic wisdom, has also been subjected to the pull of the wisdom-circle approach.7 The early chapters of Genesis8 and the prophetic narrative of the book of Jonah9 have also at one time or another had the wisdom rule run over them.10 However, this expansion of the surface area has not necessarily been matched by a consolidation of the underlying thesis of a category of wisdom-influenced narrative (whatever that may mean) within the Old Testament. If we take the supposed wisdom affinity of the Joseph narrative, for example, we shall find that D. B. Redford11 and J. L. Crenshaw12 dismiss the wisdom connection as unsustainable, though G. W. Coats manages to salvage a wisdom-influenced core in Gen. xxxix–xli which he thinks may have originated in the Solomonic period, or even in Egyptian court circles prior to the reign of Solomon.13 Crenshaw, in point of fact, fails to find any evidence of “wisdom narrative” among the various candidates that have been proposed. He argues that some of the defining characteristics such as observation based on experience of life or belief in providence are too much a feature of other strands of Old Testament thought to support a special classification of “wisdom narrative”. The only possible basis of recognition is the presence of stylistic or ideological particulars found peculiarly or primarily in the “wisdom corpus”.14 Whybray, whose own study of the “Succession Narrative” had come under Crenshaw’s strictures for alleged methodological weaknesses, seeks in his 1974 volume to establish terminological criteria by which wisdom writing may be identified.15 But it is clear from Whybray’s discussion that the vocabulary test can be used only with extreme caution. Only occurrences of the basic root h. km (“[be] 6

The Succession Narrative. A Study of II Sam. 9–20 and I Kings 1 and 2 (London, 1968). See, for example, G. E. Bryce, A Legacy of Wisdom. The Egyptian Contribution to the Wisdom of Israel (Lewisburg and London, 1979), pp. 172–88; D. F. Morgan, Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions (Oxford, 1981), pp. 52–3. 8 Cf. L. Alonso-Schökel, “Motivos sapienciales y de alianza en Gn 2–3”, Biblica 43 (1962), pp. 295–316 (E. tr., “Sapiential and Covenant Themes in Genesis 2–3”, in J. L. Crenshaw [ed.], Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom [New York, 1976], pp. 468–80); W. Brueggemann, In Man We Trust (Atlanta, 1972), pp. 54–60; G. E. Mendenhall, “The Shady Side of Wisdom: The Date and Purpose of Genesis 3”, in H. N. Bream, R. D. Heim, C. A. Moore (eds.), A Light unto My Path. Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers (Philadelphia, 1974), pp. 319–34. 9 Cf. E. Sellin – G. Fohrer, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (10th edn, Heidelberg, 1965), pp. 485–6 (E. tr., Introduction to the Old Testament [London, 1970], p. 442). For a negative assessment see G. M. Landes, “Jonah: A Mãšãl?”, in J. G. Gammie et al. (eds.), Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien (Missoula, 1978), pp. 137–58 (149–50). See also J. Day, “Problems in the Interpretation of the Book of Jonah”, OTS 26 (1990), p. 39. 10 See J. L. Crenshaw, “Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon ‘Historical’ Literature”, JBL 88 (1969), pp. 129–42 (= pp. 481–94 in Crenshaw, Studies). 11 A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50) (SVT 20, 1970), pp. 100–5. 12 JBL 88 (1969), pp.135–7 (= pp. 487–9 in Crenshaw, Studies). 13 “The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal”, CBQ 35 (1973), pp. 285–97. 14 JBL 88 (1969), pp. 132, 136 (= pp. 484, 488 in Crenshaw, Studies). 15 The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament (Berlin and New York, 1974). 7

72

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

wise”) offer much hope of discovering wisdom-influenced material outside the traditional “wisdom corpus”, and even ‘ēs.â (“counsel”) is set aside as being used too frequently in non-wisdom sources to be much help (pp. 132–3). And so Whybray composes his list of passages representative of the Old Testament wisdom tradition largely on the basis of the occurrence of the h. km root, with occasional assistance from other terms deemed to be particularly characteristic of wisdom writing. The methodological stringency advocated by Crenshaw, and by Whybray in his 1974 volume, undoubtedly courts the risk of overlooking wisdom-influenced or wisdom-related writing in the Old Testament, yet it is doubtful whether there is any realistic alternative. Moreover, since Crenshaw’s pointed criticisms of the main attempts to identify “wisdom narrative” within the Old Testament seem to the present writer to be fully justified, in what follows wisdom will be discussed principally as a theme within certain Old Testament narratives and mainly to the extent that the terminology suggests the presence of the theme. There are three main narrative sections in the Old Testament in which the theme of wisdom may be judged to play an important role, namely, the chapters dealing with the making of the tabernacle, the “Succession Narrative” and the account of Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings iii–xi. The Joseph narrative, whose entitlement to inclusion is rightly challenged by Crenshaw on ideological grounds,16 does not even score well in the vocabulary test. “Wise” occurs twice in connection with Joseph’s promotion (Gen. xli 33, 39), but the only other occurrence of the h. km root is in reference to the wise men who could not help Pharaoh with the interpretation of his dreams (xli 8). On the other hand, while it may be true that the incidence of h. km references in Exod. xxv–xl owes something to the repetitive style of the section,17 the importance of divinely given wisdom in the tabernacle tradition is self-evident and will be noted again in the second main part of this article dealing with the topic of Solomonic wisdom. First, however, there is the question of wisdom and the “Succession Narrative”. Several of the characters in the “Succession Narrative” are characterized as “wise”. However, one of the problems confronting any theory of wisdom influence is that not all the manifestations of wisdom in the “Succession Narrative” are commendatory of the virtue. This applies especially to the “wise” Jonadab’s feeding of Amnon with ideas on how to seduce Tamar (2 Sam. xiii 3–5) and, less conclusively, to the exercise of wisdom by the wise woman of Abel in order to have the rebel Sheba beheaded and the city of Abel saved from destruction for having harboured him (2 Sam. xx 14–22 [16, 22]).18 The two references to Solomon’s wisdom in 1 Kings ii 6, 9 will be discussed later, but because of their frequent association with the “Succession Narrative” it will suffice here to note that the biblical text itself seems to pose a question in the following chapter about the 16 JBL 88 (1969), pp. 136–7 (= pp. 488–9 in Crenshaw, Studies). Cf. S. Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom (Oxford, 1994), pp. 92–109. 17 Cf. Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition, p. 109. 18 The “ruinous” effect of the contributions of wisdom representatives in the “Succession Narrative” is noted by Crenshaw (JBL 88 [1969], pp. 139–40 [= pp. 491–2 in Crenshaw, Studies]).

A HOUSE DIVIDED

73

exercise of wisdom in the vindictive way of 1 Kings ii. A more positive attitude to wisdom may be seen in the story of the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam. xiv 2) who, at the end of her skilful performance, effusively credits David with “wisdom like that of an angel of God” (xiv 20). But, taken overall, this scarcely adds up to a terminological banquet. It is also striking that the two leading “exponents” of wisdom in 2 Samuel are women living away from Jerusalem – one of them at a considerable distance from the capital (cf. 2 Sam. xx 14). This does not easily inspire thoughts of a wisdom circle active in the Jerusalem area and purveying narratives reflecting their own image to a greater or lesser degree. The occurrences of the y‘s. root in 2 Sam. xv–xvii also have a bearing on our inquiry about wisdom and the “Succession Narrative”. The story of the clash between the sound counsel of Ahithophel and the ruinous, for Absalom, advice of Hushai is told amusingly and with great skill in xvi 15–xvii 14. Hushai won the debate, it is observed in xvii 14, because “the Lord had determined to frustrate the good counsel of Ahithophel in order that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom”. If “counsel” is a wisdom term within a wisdom-influenced “Succession Narrative” then “deconstructionism” would scarcely provide a term strong enough to describe what the narrative is doing to itself in 2 Sam. xvii. It would not just be a case of a wisdom narrative recognizing the possibility of bad counsel being ineffective, but of a wisdom writer describing powerfully and at length how in a particular instance the wisdom and good counsel of a foremost exponent of wisdom ran contrary to the divine purpose and were humbled by Hushai’s patter. This goes far beyond the pithy truism of Prov. xxi 30. In his monograph on the “Succession Narrative” Whybray argues for a general wisdom influence upon the narrative, and he notes two features of 2 Sam. xvii which point to the same source of inspiration, namely the cluster of similes on the lips of the two counsellors Ahithophel and Hushai (verses 3–13) and the author’s evident ability to argue both sides of a case, for which Whybray finds a basic text in Prov. xxvi 4–5.19 Whybray is still committed to the wisdom classification of the “Succession Narrative” in his 1974 volume: the eight occurrences of the h. km root “can hardly be put down to coincidence” (p. 89). However, the key term in the three chapters 2 Sam. xv–xvii is not “wisdom” but “counsel” (xv 31, 34, xvi 20, 23, xvii 7, 14, 23), and Whybray’s vocabulary study now leads him to the conclusion that “counsel”, especially in Samuel–Kings, Isaiah and Jeremiah, has a political rather than a general wisdom connotation.20 If this were so, we should have to concede that the story of the downfall of Ahithophel and his counsel would not be subversive of the wisdom theme in the “Succession Narrative” in the way that might otherwise apply. However, Whybray’s previous characterization of the whole narrative as primarily a political document intended to support the Solomonic régime21 makes it difficult to maintain the distinction between “wisdom” and “counsel” in this particular instance. The “wisdom” seen in action in the “Succession Narrative” has, 19 20 21

Whybray, The Succession Narrative, pp. 81–3. Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition, pp. 132–3. Whybray, The Succession Narrative, p. 55.

74

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

in any case, a distinctly political flavour in at least three of its occurrences (cf. 2 Sam. xiv 20; 1 Kings ii 6, 9). Moreover, in the earlier round Whybray found ample evidence of political counsel in Proverbs, whether in specific references or in more generalized statements capable of being applied to political situations (p. 60). It is arguably legitimate, therefore, to treat “wisdom” and “counsel” in the “Succession Narrative” on a roughly equal basis. They both illustrate the ambiguity – or worse – of wisdom as a principle by which to determine human behaviour. In respect of Old Testament narrative, therefore, wisdom’s house (cf. Prov. ix 1) is divided, as the remainder of this study will also seek to show.

Solomon and the Temple As far as the h. km root – the primary item of wisdom vocabulary – is concerned, the largest concentration of occurrences in Old Testament narrative comes in the account of Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings ii(iii)–xi. While the various occurrences may be grouped according as they reflect particular aspects of wisdom, whether political astuteness (ii 6, 9), judicial insight (iii 16–28) or “encyclopaedic” knowledge (v 9–14 [iv 29–34]), from the standpoint of the biblical writer(s) this is insignificant as compared with the headline contribution that they make to the theme of the wisdom, divinely given, by which Solomon established his kingdom and won an international reputation for himself as an uncommonly wise and successful ruler (iii 12, v 9–14 [iv 29–34], x 1–13). The account of what is, from the biblical perspective, Solomon’s crowning achievement – the building of the temple – makes interesting reading in the light of this general emphasis on wisdom in the Solomon narrative. First, we must note that the only occurrence of the h. km root in 1 Kings vi–vii, which deals with the construction of the temple and related matters, is in vii 14, and that it concerns Hiram, whom the king of Tyre seconded to Solomon because of his rare skill in bronze work. At first it appears, therefore, that the wisdom and temple themes are not much connected in 1 Kings, and this is partly true, as we shall see. There is, nonetheless, some attempt on the part of the biblical writer to place the building of the temple in the context of Solomonic wisdom. This appears to be the case when the king of Tyre, on hearing of Solomon’s plan to build the temple, blesses God for giving David “a wise son” to rule over Israel (v 21 [7]). Some writers, of whom Gosse is the most recent, relate this description of Solomon to his negotiating skills in the commercial field, but Kalugila has rightly questioned whether this is what it means in context.22 Again, the treaty regulating relations between Israel and Tyre, and so ensuring the provision of materials and personnel for Solomon’s building projects, is linked with God’s endowment of Solomon with wisdom (v 26 [12]). Since, then, Tyre features in the Solomonic narrative to the extent that it assists the 22 See B. Gosse, “La Sagesse de Salomon en 1 Rois 5, 21”, BN 65 (1992), pp. 15–18 (17); L. Kalugila, The Wise King. Studies in Royal Wisdom as Divine Revelation in the Old Testament and Its Environment (Lund, 1980), p. 119.

A HOUSE DIVIDED

75

realization of Solomon’s building plans, these wisdom references in ch. v are rightly seen as providing a context for the account of the building and furnishing of the temple in chs. vi–vii. A different angle on Solomon’s temple-building is suggested, on the other hand, by a comparison with the account of the construction of the tabernacle in Exod. xxv–xl. As already noted, there are various occurrences of the h. km root in these chapters, all of them relating to the skills required for the making of the tabernacle and its effects. But these all have to do with Bezalel and Oholiab, and with the rest of the people who were involved in the construction work. As in 1 Kings vi–vii, the verbs describing the construction are very often in the third person singular (literally “and he made”), but there is never any question of their having Moses for subject, despite his special role in relation to the erection and inauguration of the tabernacle. Specifically, in Exod. xxxvi 8 it is “all the skilled men” who make the tabernacle curtains, while in xxxvii 1 Bezalel makes the ark of the covenant (cf. xxxviii 22, and contrast Deut. x 1–5). At the end, Moses inspects the work, blesses the people and sets up the tabernacle (xxxix 43, xl 1–33). The situation is different in 1 Kings vi–vii. Here the third person singular verbs, with the exception of those in the Hiram section (vii 13–45), have Solomon for subject, and the whole account of the construction work contributes in this way to the glorification of Solomon, who “built the House” (vi 1; cf. vi 2, 14, vii 51) and who is specifically credited with covering the inside of the temple with gold (vi 21) and with making all the temple furnishings (vii 48). This focussing upon Solomon as the wise master-builder in 1 Kings vi–vii permits a further contrast with the Exodus account of the tabernacle. In the latter the construction of the tabernacle is accomplished by means of wisdom specially granted to Bezalel, Oholiab and the rest for this specific undertaking (see Exod. xxviii 3, xxxi 3, 6, xxxv 31, 35, xxxvi 1, 2). The basic skill of spinning yarn is exercised in the ordinary way (xxxv 25–6), but other skills are subsumed in the main action of the making of the tabernacle in accordance with divine ability specifically given (xxxv 34–5). This is, moreover, an inner-Israelite affair: the generation of the wilderness are the ones who are equipped for the making of the tabernacle. Bezalel is from the tribe of Judah and Oholiab from Dan (xxxi 2, 6); everyone else involved is Israelite. The narrative of the Solomonic temple, by contrast, knows nothing of a selfsufficient Israelite community provided with the requisite skills for the construction of the divine abode. The Tyrian king is asked to provide lumberjacks for Solomon because “we have no-one so skilled in felling trees as the Sidonians” (v 20 [6]). According to v 32 (18), craftsmen from Israel, Tyre and Byblos prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple. Finally, Hiram is brought from Tyre to use his skill in bronze for the making of various temple artifacts. Hiram’s father was Tyrian, but his mother is linked with the tribe of Naphtali (vii 14) – though it has been suggested that this latter datum represents an attempt to domesticate Hiram within Israelite tradition.23 There is, at any rate, no talk of divine inspiration or equipping of those directly involved in the building of the temple. To that extent the account of Solomon’s activities is “secular” as compared with the “sacral” emphasis 23

See M. Noth, Könige (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1968), p. 148.

76

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

of the priestly tabernacle account; but the appearance of secularity may be owing, in part, to the writer’s desire to magnify Solomon as the conduit of the divine wisdom and practical skill required for the building of the temple. A similar kind of point is made by Gosse in a recent note, when he argues that Solomon’s employment of international labour is presented as another illustration of his wisdom.24 It is evident, then, that, in comparison with the account of the tabernacle in Exodus, the report of the building of the temple in 1 Kings vi–vii gives only limited attention to the wisdom theme.

Solomonic Wisdom and Retribution If wisdom’s role is implied more than expressed in the building narratives of 1 Kings vi–vii, there is some evidence of a more radical questioning of an aspect of Solomonic wisdom in 1 Kings ii–iii, in relation to Solomon’s conduct early in his reign. First, we shall have to look at ch. ii, where the subject of Solomonic wisdom first appears, in what has become known as “David’s Testament” (verses 1–12). Here David is depicted as encouraging Solomon to find opportunity to remove two men who had done much harm to David during his reign. The charge against Joab is that he killed Abner and Amasa in peacetime and thereby involved the royal house in bloodguilt (verses 5–6), while Shimei’s sin had been to call down curses on the hapless David as he fled from Jerusalem during the Absalom rebellion (verses 8–9). Shimei, however, had been promised on oath that he would not suffer for his opportunistic abuse of David (2 Sam. xix 16–23), and David now counsels Solomon to find a way out of this undertaking. In both cases, moreover, Solomon is charged to act according to his wisdom in order to relieve himself of these two potentially destabilizing elements within the kingdom (“according to your wisdom”, verse 6; “you are a wise man”, verse 9). On the surface, it looks as if 1 Kings ii is offering a defence of questionable actions by Solomon early in his reign, and this is how the chapter is often read: the removal of such as Adonijah, Joab and Shimei was necessary for the establishing of the kingdom under Solomon’s rule (verses 12, 46).25 T. Ishida goes so far as to identify the author of the “Succession Narrative”, including 1 Kings ii, as a supporter of Solomon and possibly an associate of the prophet Nathan.26 Quite the opposite view of the authorial stance of 1 Kings ii has also been represented, however, notably by Tendenz critics such as L. Delekat, who interprets the account of the Solomonic 24 B. Gosse, “La Sagesse et l’intelligence de Salomon en 1 Rois 5, 9”, BN 65 (1992), pp. 12–14; V. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House. Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings (Sheffield, 1992), pp. 207–10, notes references to foreign peoples bringing building materials for the construction of various near eastern temples, their involvement usually being cited to indicate the superiority of the monarch engaged in the building. 25 Cf. P. K. McCarter, “ ‘Plots, True or False.’ The Succession Narrative as Court Apologetic”, Interpretation 35 (1981), pp. 359–61; R. D. Nelson, First and Second Kings (Louisville, 1987), p. 30. 26 “Solomon’s Succession to the Throne of David – A Political Analysis”, in T. Ishida (ed.), Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays (Tokyo, 1982), p. 187.

A HOUSE DIVIDED

77

purges in verses 13–46 as frankly anti-Solomonic.27 J. P. Fokkelman, representing a different type of literary criticism, suggests that the existence of verse 12 (“So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his rule was firmly established”) is meant to indicate that the killings reported in the rest of the chapter were not necessary for the consolidation of Solomon’s rule.28 B. O. Long, however, treats verse 12b as an opening bracket which, with verse 46b, frames the account of Solomon’s elimination of dangerous opponents in order to secure his rule in Jerusalem.29 It is indeed difficult, as most critics sense, to read 1 Kings ii as other than basically protective of Solomon’s reputation. Even the incidental-sounding reference to “three years later” in verse 39 chimes in very well with the statement in vi 1 that Solomon set about the construction of the temple in his fourth year – as if to say that the bloodletting had all been completed before the construction work was undertaken. In the near east temple building was commonly undertaken by a king in his first year.30 And yet there are indications in the chapter that this is not an unquestioning apologetic on Solomon’s behalf. The give-away consists in the fact that so much of Solomon’s activity relates to Adonijah’s failed coup. Thus Adonijah is executed and Abiathar rusticated (ii 25–7), even though neither action is called for in “David’s Testament” in verses 1–12.31 The failed coup also explains the linking together of the names of Adonijah, Abiathar and Joab in verse 22. Again, whereas the stated grounds for Solomon’s obligation to dispose of Joab had been the latter’s treachery towards Abner and Amasa (verse 5), Joab’s flight to the altar in search of sanctuary comes directly upon his hearing of Adonijah’s death and Abiathar’s banishment (verse 28). The biblical writer makes the connection explicit and seems almost to put in a good word for Joab when observing that he “had sided with Adonijah, though not with Absalom” (verse 28). After all, he has just told us in verse 26 that Abiathar escaped execution because of his previous association with the ark of the covenant and in consideration of his having shared David’s privations, doubtless during Absalom’s rebellion when Abiathar (like Joab) remained loyal to David. But Solomon was determined to have Joab’s life and ordered that he be struck down beside the altar, seeing that he would not come away from it.32 The original grounds for eliminating Joab are restated (verses 31–3), but the reader knows by now that there is more to the execution of Joab. 27 “Tendenz und Theologie der David-Salomo-Erzählung”, in F. Maass (ed.), Das ferne und nahe Wort. Festschrift L. Rost (Berlin, 1967), p. 27; cf. F. Langlamet, “Pour ou contre Salomon? La rédaction prosalomonienne de I Rois, I–II”, RB 83 (1976), pp. 330–7. 28 Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel, 1, King David (II Sam. 9–20 and I Kings 1–2) (Assen, 1981), pp. 390, 409. 29 I Kings with an Introduction to Historical Literature (Grand Rapids, 1984), p. 47. 30 Cf. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, pp. 226–7. 31 Cf. J. Kegler, Politisches Geschehen und theologisches Verstehen (Stuttgart, 1977), p. 198. Even if ii 1–12 does not presuppose the Adonijah coup as regards its content, its contextualizing between the account of the coup (i 5–53) and Adonijah’s request for Abishag and his consequent death (ii 13–25) is what makes the silence of “David’s Testament” significant. 32 Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, p. 400, notes the contrast between the treatment of Adonijah and Joab, both of whom sought sanctuary at the altar.

78

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Pretext also figures in the treatment of Shimei, who promises on oath (verses 38, 42–3) that he will limit his movements to the environs of Jerusalem. Since David had given Shimei his oath that he would not be punished for his raucous disloyalty during Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam. xix 23), Solomon’s tactic is obviously to supersede his father’s oath with a commitment of comparable gravity from Shimei.33 There is the impression given, therefore, that the killings of 1 Kings ii have an element of legal pretext about them. The fact that the same verb (pg‘) is used for Benaiah’s killings on Solomon’s orders (verses 25, 29, 31, 34, 46) as for Joab’s crimes (verse 32) may also hint in this direction. The relevance of all this to the role of wisdom in the Solomon narrative of 1 Kings ii–xi will now become apparent as we consider a feature of ch. iii. When, in his dream at the high place of Gibeon, Solomon is invited by God to make one request for himself, he asks for the gift of discernment so as properly to rule the people of Israel (iii 9). To this God replies: Since this is what you have requested, and not longevity or wealth for yourself, and since you have not asked for the death of your enemies … I shall do what you have asked. (iii 11–12a)

In point of fact, Solomon is given not only the discerning heart that he requested, but also riches and conditional longevity (verses 12–14). In other words, all the elements of verse 11 are represented in verses 12–14, with the exception of the death of Solomon’s enemies. Since the death, or removal otherwise, of his enemies is precisely what Solomon has been achieving in ch. ii, in the cases of Adonijah, Abiathar, Joab and Shimei, it is easy to read this reference in iii 11 to the king’s not seeking the death of his enemies as some kind of oblique commentary on his previous actions. As a reading strategy this is certainly unexceptionable, but it is also a fair question whether the narrative itself is implying criticism of the earlier killings. And if it were to be argued that the inclusion of the death of the king’s enemies with riches and long life in verse 11 assumes that one request is as legitimate as another, it remains the case that only the other two items are picked up in verses 12–14, and that this reference to enemies comes after the killings reported in ch. ii. At this point, however, questions about source delimitation begin to affect the issue of reading strategy, for according to a widely held view the “Succession Narrative” ends somewhere in 1 Kings ii, and 1 Kings iii 1 marks the beginning of a major new narrative segment.34 This largely accounts for the tendency to treat the wisdom references in ii 6, 9 separately from those in the following chapters, sometimes with the additional justification that the “wisdom” in ii 6, 9 is of the calculating, political sort and different from other manifestations of Solomonic wisdom in succeeding chapters, or even that Solomon does not officially acquire his wisdom until ch. iii.35 But the discussion about the narrative affiliation of 1 Kings i–ii 33 J. S. Rogers, “Narrative Stock and Deuteronomistic Elaboration in 1 Kings 2”, CBQ 50 (1988), p. 410, suggests that David’s oath may have been reckoned to last only as long as David himself. 34 Cf. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, p. 410; K. K. Sacon, “A Study of the Literary Structure of ‘The Succession Narrative’”, in Ishida, Studies in the Period of David and Solomon, p. 52. 35 See S. J. DeVries, 1 Kings (Waco, 1985), p. 36.

A HOUSE DIVIDED

79

is by no means unidirectional. Over twenty years ago J. W. Flanagan argued that what appears as a “Succession Narrative” was originally a “Court History” to which has been added the “Solomonic” material in 2 Sam. xi 2–xii 25 and 1 Kings i–ii.36 P. K. McCarter has described 1 Kings i–ii as “an apologetic document composed in reference to materials in Second Samuel”,37 which would apparently leave open the possibility of a Janus-like function of the chapters in relation to what precedes and what follows. Furthermore, in her unpublished dissertation, G. Keys has advanced strong stylistic arguments against including 1 Kings i–ii in the “Succession Narrative” which she is happy to recognize within 2 Samuel.38 Finally, in this brief selection of alternative estimations of 1 Kings i–ii, we should note K. I. Parker’s discussion of 1 Kings i–xi as a rhetorical unit which, by its use of “repetition as a structuring device”, allows the reader to focus more sharply upon the two sides of Solomon’s character.39 For Parker, chs. i–ii and xi 14-43 function as “frame stories”, both having to do with the question of royal succession (pp. 21, 24–5). It must now be evident that the hermetic sealing off of ch. ii from ch. iii is justified neither by the texts themselves nor by the state of recent opinion. And even if the conventional kind of boundary is retained we might still, with B. Halpern, regard chs. i–ii as “skillfully resculpted to fit with the rest of the reign”.40 Part of the “resculpting”, we suggest, actually takes place in ch. iii in an implied criticism of the vindictive actions by which Solomon secured his position as king. For all that he is glorified in chs. iii–xi as the ruler who saw the fulfilment of the Israelite imperial dream (iv 20–v 14 [iv 20–34]), there is elsewhere a hint of embarrassment at his corvée policy (ix 22–3; cf. v 27–31 [13–17]), while a candid account of his failings and their consequences is given in ch. xi. Indeed, our last sight of Solomon, apart from the standard concluding formula (xi 41–3), is of him reverting to the activity of ch. ii as he seeks the life of his rival Jeroboam and forces him to flee to Egypt (xi 40). This is a “neat inclusio” to the story of a king who established his rule by such means and who, in the estimation of the biblical writer, came to undo much of his own and his father’s achievements. The result was that his house too, like wisdom’s, became divided (1 Kings xi 39, xii 1–24).

36 “Court History or Succession Document? A Study of 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2”, JBL 91 (1972), pp. 172–81. 37 Interpretation 35 (1981), pp. 361–2. 38 The So-Called Succession Narrative. A Reappraisal of Leonhard Rost’s Interpretation of II Samuel 9–20 and I Kings 1–2 (Ph.D. dissertation, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1988), pp. 66–90. See now Keys, The Wages of Sin: A Reappraisal of the “Succession Narrative” (Sheffield, 1996). 39 “Repetition as a Structuring Device in 1 Kings 1–11”, JSOT 42 (1988), pp. 19–27. 40 The First Historians. The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco, 1988), p. 146.

Chapter 8

Gibeonite Ruse and Israelite Curse in Joshua 91 The Book of Joshua begins by noting that Moses has died and that Joshua, until now Moses’ subaltern, will be the one to lead the Israelites across the Jordan and into Canaan. The divine commissioning of Joshua for this role includes the instruction to comply with all the laws that Moses had passed on to him. These would be accessible in “this book of the Law” (1:8; cf. 8:34), which is to be Joshua’s vade mecum from this point on. In the context, the book in question is most naturally identified with Deuteronomy, or core legal material within it, including the instructions about the treatment of the Canaanite peoples who were about to be dispossessed of their land. In this regard Deuteronomy expounds a policy of annihilation that leaves no room for treaty-making or any attempt at assimilation or absorption (see Deut. 7:1–6; 20:16–18; cf. Exod. 23:31–3; 34:11–16). Josh. 1 continues on the theme of the invasion of Canaan and reports the acceptance by the Israelites – here represented by the two-and-a-half Transjordanian tribes – of Joshua’s leadership (1:16–18). It is all the more striking, therefore, that the next chapter, and the first conquest narrative in Joshua, describes how Israelite spies extended to the prostitute Rahab and her family a conditional guarantee of physical safety during the forthcoming attack on Jericho (2:14). This undertaking, moreover, is given in the form of an oath (vv. 12, 17, 20), to which the whole Israelite community are bound on the say-so of the two spies who accepted Rahab’s hospitality. The oath secured by Rahab is expressed in terms of “loyalty” and “faithfulness” as in other references to covenant-making in the Old Testament (v. 14), even though no specific word for covenant occurs in the chapter.2 Given the severity of the institution of the “ban” as it is outlined, and sometimes operates, in the Old Testament, this authorial act of deconstruction of conquest ideology so early in the conquest section of Joshua is theologically very suggestive. Avoidance of the destructive “ban” by a whole community, this time as a result of an elaborate deception, is described in Josh. 9, which tells how the Gibeonites inveigled the Israelites into making a treaty with them. Fittingly, this account is preceded in 8:30–5 by a pericope describing a ceremony of covenant ratification at Mount Ebal. Now, in 9:6 the Israelites are at Gilgal, which would require some 1

The main draft of this article was written in the library of Ora Lipschitz and Simcha Friedman in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, in September 2001. Their generous hospitality, interest, and assistance are recorded here with deep gratitude. 2 As is well-known, there is no word for “covenant” in 2 Sam. 7, where the subject is precisely that of covenant. For the oath sworn to Rahab as having covenantal significance, see Kalluveettil (1982), 87–8.

80

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

81

backtracking on their part if the sections 8:30–5 and 9:1–27 are in strict chronological order and if this is the Gilgal in the vicinity of the River Jordan (cf. 4:19).3 However, the strong thematic links between 8:30–5 and 24:1–27 (on the covenant-making at Shechem) are widely interpreted as indicating that 8:30–5 has been moved to its present location for a specific editorial reason.4 Coming after the debacle at Ai, and the subsequent Israelite recovery, this block of verses brings the Israelites face to face once more with covenant law, and offers the possibility of reintegration into a covenant relationship with their God. But ironically, the section has been placed immediately before the account in chapter 9 of the Israelites’ failure to observe the law relating to “horizontal” treaty-making with its neighbours in the land. That the place of the “strangers” in the community is highlighted in 8:33, 35 is, at the least, appropriate in view of the status of “stranger” that effectively is conferred upon the Gibeonites when they obtain their treaty from an (apparently) off-guard Israelite leadership. Josh. 9 belongs within the larger narrative unit Josh. 1–12, and more immediately with chapter 10 and the story of Israel’s fulfilment of its obligations to its newly contracted treaty partner. Strictly, 9:1–2 sets the scene for developments in chapter 10, rather than leading directly into 9:3–27. 9:3, on the other hand, shows the redactor’s awareness of the Jericho and Ai traditions that account for Josh. 6:1 to 8:29.5 Rösel has compared Josh. 9 to a well-made tapestry,6 and there is no question that the chapter has stimulated the reconstructive juices of the source critics, who have especially been influenced by a certain variability in the Israelite representation in the narrative: Joshua, “the men of Israel”, and “the leaders of the community” are all involved in negotiations at one point or another.7 In his study of the chapter, Sutherland uses the “principals” criterion to identify three layers corresponding to the political outlooks of the groups responsible for the layers during the long period in which the text was developing.8 The role of Joshua in the negotiations has specially engaged some writers, whose assumption is that, since Joshua is associated here with a treaty agreement that contravenes Pentateuchal and, more specifically, Deuteronomic law, some of the “non-Joshua” material may represent an editorial attempt to relieve him of the blame for this ill-advised contract with the Gibeonites.9 So verses 18–21 in particular are regarded as a later addition, possibly of priestly origin.10 3 Deut. 11:30 appears to mention a Gilgal near Shechem, but the verse raises more than one problem of topography (cf. Mayes [1979], 218–19). On the problems of identification associated with biblical places bearing the name Gilgal see Finkelstein (1990), 203–5. 4 See Butler (1983), 94–5. The verses appear at a different point (before ch. 5) in a Qumran fragment of Joshua (4QJosha), again suggesting that the question of their proper context was one that exercised editorial minds in antiquity; see Ulrich (1994), 98. 5 Cf. Briend (2000), 362. 6 Rösel (1985), 30. 7 For discussion of problems of composition see Rudolph (1938), 200–4; Blenkinsopp (1966), 209–10; (1972), 32–3. 8 Sutherland (1992), 65, 73; cf. Briend (1990), 130. 9 Cf. Rudolph (1938), 200–1; Kearney (1973), 4. 10 Cf. Mayes (1985), 321; Rösel (1985), 33. See also Halbe’s discussion of criteria for the separation of verses 18–21 from the rest of the narrative (Halbe [1975], 613–16); cf. Briend (1990), 131 (Briend discusses priestly additions on pp. 133–5, and Deuteronomistic redaction on pp. 135–42).

82

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

In some analyses of the chapter, verses 16–27 as a whole are relegated to the status of secondary composition. Thus Boling declares that we may jump from 9:15 to 10:1 “with no sense of a gap”.11 Rösel, on the other hand, argues for the basic integrality of verses 16–27 with the first half of the chapter,12 even while holding that the whole comprises a number of disparate elements.13 Rösel defends his position on three grounds. First, anyone hearing the story will want to know what happens to the Gibeonites once the truth is “out”. Secondly, the Israelite suspicion that the Gibeonites may actually have come from nearby (v. 7) shows that the truth cannot be concealed for long. Thirdly, the Gibeonites’ reference to themselves as “servants” of the Israelites in verse 8 anticipates the formalizing of their status as such in verse 23. Rösel notes that in verse 11 the elders of the Gibeonites are said to have instructed the delegates to address the Israelites with “We are your servants”, and he sensibly observes that the elders are not simply educating the emissaries in the art of polite conversation. If we enquire after the purpose of Josh. 9:3–27, it can easily be appreciated why the term “aetiological” comes regularly into use to describe the story in its present form. The depiction of the Gibeonites as in some subservient, yet apparently privileged, position within Israel evidently answered to the perception of them as different – as not being original – within the community. Regardless of when verse 27 began life, the formulaic “to this day” could serve a broadly aetiological function,14 though the expression can function in a non-aetiological way.15 That there is more to the Gibeonite saga than simple aetiology is suspected by a good number of writers. For some, the reference in 2 Sam. 21:2 to a prior covenant between the Israelites and the Gibeonites is a decisive argument in favour of the historicity of the treaty described in Josh. 9.16 An apologetic explanation of the Gibeonite treaty has also enjoyed good support. Whereas the books of Samuel–Kings witness to the Israelites’ harsh treatment of the Gibeonites specifically, in the reign of Saul (2 Sam. 21:1), and of the native Canaanite population generally, in Solomon’s reign (1 Kgs. 9:20–1), it has been argued that Josh. 9 was written, or was rewritten, to justify such treatment by showing how the Gibeonites had tricked their way into the Israelite community in the first place.17 So Blenkinsopp suggests that, with the building of the temple in Solomon’s reign, the Gibeonite question “became of increasing polemical interest” and Josh. 9 was rewritten to stigmatize the Gibeonite treaty as having come about by Gibeonite deception.18 Kearney, by contrast, thinks that there is too much irony, and even 11

Boling (1982), 262; cf. p. 266 on verses 16–27 as “[t]his supplement to the first edition”. Rösel (1985), 31. 13 Indeed, Rösel holds that there is more evidence for the complexity of the compositional history of the chapter than is usually recognized (Rösel [1985], 34). 14 So Rudolph (1938), 205. 15 Cf. Childs (1963), 292, and McCarthy (1971), 169, on the essentially non-aetiological character of the Rahab story, despite the use of the so-called “aetiological formula” in 6:25. 16 Cf. Soggin (1972), 113; Halpern (1975), 303; Boling (1982), 262. Liver (1963, 234–5) takes Josh. 10 as an independent witness to the basic historicity of the Gibeonite treaty. 17 So Butler (1983, 100) on Solomon’s treatment of the foreigners whom he pressed into corvée labour; cf. Halbe (1975), 633–4. 18 Blenkinsopp (1966), 212–13. 12

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

83

whimsy, in Josh. 9 for it to be offering a serious defence of the harsh policies of Saul and Solomon.19 Less obviously, the lowly function appointed the Gibeonites in relation to the sanctuary has been explained with reference to the temple Nethinim, mentioned in Chronicles and Ezra (e.g. 1 Chr. 9:2; Ezra 7:7; 8:17; cf. Ezek. 44:6–9) as temple auxiliaries. The Nethinim, however, belong to the post-exilic period,20 and the gap between the Gibeonites of Joshua and Samuel and the later Nethinim is too wide to encourage the connection.21 Moreover, it is not clear that the “altar of the Lord” mentioned in Josh. 9:27 points directly to the Jerusalem temple. In view of the importance of Gibeon as a sanctuary centre in 1 Kings 3, some writers have thought in terms of an annexation of the Gibeon sanctuary for Yahweh-worship, with the Gibeonites continuing in attendance.22 There is an obvious point of parallel between Josh. 9 and Deut. 29 in the occurrence of the expressions – unique to these two passages – “hewers of wood” and “drawers of water” (Deut. 29:10[11]; Josh. 9:21, 23, 27). The nature of the relationship (if any) between the two texts is not so easy to define, but the relationship itself is confirmed for some scholars in the Gibeonites’ use of old clothes, cracked wineskins and mouldy bread in order to convince the Israelites that they had travelled a long distance to meet them (Josh. 9:4–5, 12–13). This part of the story is thought to derive its colours from the Deuteronomic idealization of the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites, when “your clothes did not wear out, nor did your sandals on your feet” (Deut. 29: 4[5]). Schäfer-Lichtenberger, for the same reason, describes the Gibeonites of Josh. 9 as a Gegentypus of the Israelites.23 Kearney, on the other hand, argues that Josh. 9 predates Deut. 29 in respect of the apparent Gibeonite allusions in the latter: “there has been a special tailoring of the language in Dt 29 to fit what is to come later in Jos 9”.24 He interprets the Deuteronomy chapter generally as making the point that Israel’s history was one of infidelity from this encounter with the Gibeonites right down to the exile.25 Similarly, Mayes thinks that Deut. 29 “may in part at least be read as a comment on the tradition of the covenant between Israel and the Gibeonites”.26 Viewed from this perspective, the mention of the “hewers of your wood” and “drawers of your water” in Deut. 29:10(11) refers specifically to the Gibeonites and, in the context, establishes them as “strangers” (gērîm) and participants in the covenant between the Israelites and their God. Moreover, Deut. 29 would be uncoupling them from service in the Jerusalem sanctuary, which function goes unmentioned in the chapter. Such table-fencing is thought to have been also the concern of the presumed priestly editor 19

Kearney (1973), 5. Apart from 1 Chr. 9:2, all explicit references to the Nethinim are in Ezra-Nehemiah. 21 Cf. Haran (1961), 166. Haran allows the possibility that descendants of the Gibeonites were absorbed into the Nethinim. 22 Cf. Haran (1961), 161; Hess (1996), 183. 23 Schäfer-Lichtenberger (1986), 65, citing Deut. 8:4; 29:4(5). 24 Kearney (1973), 1–8 (2). 25 Kearney (1973), 7. 26 Mayes (1985), 322. 20

84

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

responsible for Josh. 9:18–21, where the Gibeonites are hewers of wood and drawers of water for the whole congregation (cf. Ezek. 44:6–9).27 If, as has been suggested, Deut. 29 is to be credited to the Deuteronomistic historian,28 the detection of resonances between this chapter and Josh. 9 would make particularly good sense. At the same time, it is the quality of the evidence that advises caution. It consists essentially of the occurrences of the expressions “hewers of (your) wood” and “drawers of (your) water” in both chapters. But the attempt to line up commodity durability in the wilderness tradition (Deut. 29:4–5[5–6]) with details of the Gibeonite ruse is far from convincing, and nowhere less so than when the cracked wineskins and mouldy bread of the Gibeonites are interpreted as reflexes of the Deuteronom(ist)ic statement that, in the wilderness, the Israelites “ate no bread and drank no wine or other strong drink” (Deut. 29:5[6]). Nor can the case be improved by appeal to cumulative evidence, since what is usually offered consists of little more than casual word-associations that individually or in aggregate do not count for very much. The next section will look at Josh. 9 from a narratological point of view. The chapter has been studied many times from the point of view of source analysis and historicity, but seldom as a narrative composition with its own artistry and internal dynamics. When this writer sampled about thirty monographs dealing with the Old Testament from a modern “literary” perspective it was to find no more than half a dozen references to Josh. 9, almost all of them in the nature of passing allusions and rarely of significance for Josh. 9 itself. Frequently the indexes, where they existed, jumped from Numbers (or Deuteronomy) to Judges without referring to Joshua at all. Joshua is obviously not regarded as providing such good narrative matter as its canonical neighbours.29 The Ruse Before we look at the detail of the narrative there are more general points that deserve stating. First, the theme of deception is intrinsic to Josh. 9, to the extent that there is little point in trying to reconstruct a hypothetical original in which it had no part. Deception, if perhaps not so pervasively, is also a feature of the Rahab narrative in Josh. 2, where Rahab hides the Israelite spies and protects them from the attention of the king of Jericho (2:2–7).30 However, although Younger has no difficulty in finding parallels in Near Eastern conquest accounts for the motif of “hearing and fearing” that is present in both these narratives (see 2:9–11; 9:24),31 true parallels to the Gibeonite ruse hardly exist in the same sources.32 No doubt this relates in part to 27

Cf. Mayes (1985), 322–3. See Nicholson (1967), 35–6. 29 A notable exception is Hawk (1991). 30 For parallels between the Rahab and Gibeonite stories see Hess (1996), 177. 31 Younger (1990), 200. 32 Two or three possible instances of deception in this kind of context are cited by Younger (pp. 201–3). 28

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

85

the fact that the Old Testament deals in storytelling that is meant to engage as well as instruct. Secondly, the Joshua narrative is far from unfavourable towards these nonIsraelites, despite the concluding indignity that is imposed on them. Hertzberg even entertained the possibility that the story originated with the Gibeonites.33 Thirdly, the narrative assumes the existence of Israelite laws against making treaties with the Canaanite peoples, or so much as sparing them alive.34 Fourthly, it also depends upon a shared recognition of the inviolability of oaths sworn in the name of one’s god. That alone suffices to explain the Gibeonites’ eagerness to enter into a treaty relationship with the Israelites. The point is not that a treaty between the Israelites and a supposedly distant people would have no special advantage for the latter,35 but that, on the contrary, the oath obtained by the deception guaranteed the Gibeonites a secure future in Israel. The Gibeonites’ stratagem, devised after they learned of the fates of Jericho and Ai (v. 3),36 is introduced in verse 4 with the statement that “they also” acted cunningly. Here the use of the verb ‘śh (“acted”) may be intended to correspond to the occurrence of the same verb in the preceding verse (“what Joshua had done”).37 We may then be obliged to look for a previous act of cunning in the Joshua narrative, and the obvious candidate would be Joshua’s stratagem by which he tricked the people of Ai into evacuating their city, thus leaving it at the mercy of Israelite units concealed at its rear (8:3–25). Some such comparison is implied in NEB’s “they adopted a ruse of their own”. This would suggest a not totally dismissive approach to the Gibeonites’ behaviour here. However, it is probable that gam has the force of “on their part”,38 in which case it is not so much a comparable action as a corresponding action that is now being described.39 The Gibeonite ploy involved “forming a delegation” (so apparently MT, v. 4) or “preparing provisions” (Heb. MSS, LXX) in readiness for their bold attempt. The difference between the two readings is that between a daleth and a resh, i.e., graphically minimal. But if the MT reading is retained, an interesting situation arises, for it would be strange indeed if this chapter included both the only biblical occurrence of the verb s.yr (hithpael), meaning “form a delegation”, and, in verse 12, the only attestation of the verb s.yd (hithpael), meaning “prepare provisions”. It is a fairly safe conclusion that the latter should be read in verse 4 as well as in verse 12: the Gibeonites prepared food for the journey. The text makes a clear syntactical 33

Hertzberg (1954), 68. The Gibeonites may even be represented as being aware of Deuteronomic law relating to the conduct of war, as in Deut. 20:10–18 (cf. Schäfer-Lichtenberger [1986], 76; Ahituv [1995], 149). 35 Pace Soggin (1972), 111; cf. Liver (1963), 227. 36 Whereas the MT has “what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai”, the LXX has “everything that the Lord had done to Jericho and Ai”, as if to give the credit where it properly belonged. 37 Cf. Briend (1990), 146. 38 Cf. Labuschagne (1966), 197–8; see also van der Merwe (1990), 149, 187. 39 The Gibeonites acted “on their part”, in contrast to the Canaanite tribes who assembled to fight Joshua and Israel (v. 1), but it is not obvious that gam in verse 4 is meant to function beyond the unit verses 3–4. There would then also have to be less emphasis on the corresponding occurrences of ‘śh in verses 3–4. (It is sometimes difficult to decide between word-play/leitmotiv and lexical impoverishment in the reading of biblical narrative; literary readings of biblical texts habitually opt for the former.) 34

86

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

distinction between what they prepared and what they “took”, and the food prepared (lh.m s.ydm) is first mentioned specifically at the end of verse 5 (“and all their provisions were dry and mouldy”), which presupposes the verb s.yd in verse 4. When they arrive at the Israelite camp (v. 6), the Gibeonites announce with some emphasis, as reflected in the word-order, “From a far country we have come”, and they ask, bluntly and without further preamble, for a treaty with Israel, using the expression kãrat le, which occurs in Deut. 7:2 in the ban on the making of treaties with such as the Gibeonites (cf. also Exod. 23:32; 34:12). They are described by their tribal affiliation of “Hivite” in verse 7, doubtless to emphasize the fact of their ineligibility for such treatment (cf. v. 1). It may, or may not, be significant that there is no reference to language differences between the two parties. Josh. 9 would not, in any case, be exceptional among the narratives of the Old Testament in remaining silent about the language factor. We are simply not to know whether, on their own description of themselves, the Gibeonites should have spoken in a language unfamiliar to the Israelites. The Israelites’ response in verse 7 and Joshua’s more direct questioning in verse 8 raise the possibility of detection. Joshua’s question noticeably never does get a straight answer. Thereafter the Gibeonites unravel their fictive skein (vv. 9–13). First they emphasize that they have come from a very distant land (v. 9; cf. v. 6). Like Rahab and the inhabitants of Jericho (2:9–11), they have heard of the discomfiture of the Egyptians and the defeat of the Amorite kingdoms of Heshbon and Bashan, and are alarmed. (In 2 Sam. 21:2 the Gibeonites themselves are described as belonging to “the remnant of the Amorites”.) Whether their failure to update the story to include Jericho and Ai is part of the act – in verse 3 it is when they hear what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai that they take action (v. 4) – or simply reflects the importance of Sihon and Og in the conquest tradition40 must be left an open question. The political set-up implied in their statement in verse 11 does not involve a monarchy41 – contrast the references to Canaanite kings in 9:1 and in chapter 10 – and, with its elders and popular representation of some sort (“all those living in our country”), might even fetch a parallel with premonarchical Israel as described in Joshua–Samuel.42 They may, according to Schäfer-Lichtenberger, be wanting to bring the comparison to the Israelites’ attention in order to win their sympathy.43 At the least, they succeed in making themselves sound different from the Canaanites.44 Presumably, by implying that their elders had remained at home (v. 11) they seek to reinforce the impression of distance travelled: elders would normally be expected to form at least part of such a delegation,45 but elders might not be expected to travel such a long distance as these people have come. 40

Cf. Deut. 1:4; Ps. 135:10–12; 136:18–21. Cf. 10:2 (“like one of the royal cities”). 42 Cf. Briend (1990), 152–3, who also suggests that the Gibeonites were genuinely isolated in Canaan. 43 Schäfer-Lichtenberger (1986), 67–8: “wir sind euch gesellschaftlich ähnlich” (68). 44 Cf. Hawk (1991), 84. 45 For example, the Hittite king Muršiliš reports how the elders of Azzi came in delegation asking for their people to be taken into servitude and thus avoid being slaughtered by the Hittites (cf. Götze [1933], 138–9). 41

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

87

One of the most obvious features of the narrative is the amount of overkill attributed to the Gibeonites in their desperation to avoid the exterminatory “ban”. This applies specially to their appeal to their food supply which, surprisingly, they have not been able to replenish en route. They still have the bread baked for them at home before they set out (v. 12)! And when they quote their elders back home as having said that they should “take provisions for the journey” (v. 11), this is almost a give-away. If they were setting out on a journey of the length that they suggest, the advice is superfluous. The closest phraseological parallels are in the Joseph story in Genesis, but these occur in statements of fact (45:21, 23) or in a command from Joseph to his servants to provide his brothers with food for their journey home (42:25). Here in Josh. 9 the elders’ advice serves to draw attention to the food that will prove crucial in their deceiving of the Israelites (see v. 14). Without much hesitancy the Israelites respond to this plea for a treaty; two or three features of a typical treaty may be represented in verses 14–15.46 The chief uncertainty in the text relates to the Israelites’ “taking (some) of” the Gibeonites’ food (v. 14). Is this the Israelites testing their claim to have come from a distance? Or is it a symbolic act of sharing food, amounting at its most formal to a covenantal meal (cf. Gen. 26:30–1)?47 Tasting bread that was obviously “dry and crumbling” would have added nothing to what the Israelites knew, or at least thought they knew. On the other hand, if this was a sharing of food as part of a treaty ratification ceremony, the Israelite participants are not being shown in their best light. Intertextual reading of verse 14 with Gen. 3 might even suggest comparison with the guilty eating of Eve who “took (some) of” the fruit of the tree in the middle of Eden (Gen. 3:6). At any rate, the use of the term “peace” and the ratification of the treaty by oath – as also the implied agreement on mutual assistance against enemies (cf. 10:6) – are conventional aspects of treaty- and covenant-making, and their significance in verse 15 is uncontroversial. The prior statement in verse 14 that the Israelites “did not ask instruction from the Lord” is obviously intended to carry a lot of weight in the narrative. From this oversight, it is implied, the Israelites dug a pit for themselves by carelessly entering into a treaty arrangement contrary to their own law. This is very interesting when put alongside the Rahab narrative, which is also about “keeping [Canaanites] alive” (2:13; cf. 9:15, 20, 26) and allowing them a place “in the midst of” Israel (6:25; 9:7, 16, 22). As we have already noted, nowhere in the Rahab story is there mention of the spies having been authorized to promise Rahab and her family exemption from the “ban” that was to be inflicted on Jericho. The spies take it upon themselves to give Rahab what amounts to a covenant undertaking that she and her family would be spared (2:14). For all that, Joshua confirms the agreement, and the promise is kept (6:17, 25). There are, to be sure, fundamental differences between the two stories, notably that Rahab assisted the spies, exercised 46

See Fensham (1964), 96–100; Kalluveettil (1982), 117–19, 121; Howard (1998), 219. Note that the meal precedes the oath-taking in Genesis 26, just as it would in this instance. Cf. also the treaty clause in the Esarhaddon vassal-treaty texts: “you will not make a treaty by serving food at table, by drinking from a cup …” (Wiseman [1958], 40 [ll. 153–4]). For the view that the eating in Josh. 9:14 is not covenantal see Schmitt (1970), 34–5. 47

88

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

her guile in favour of, rather than against, Israel, and offered a more comprehensive acknowledgement of Israel’s God (2:9–11). Occasionally it is suggested that in Josh. 9 the Israelites collude in their own deception, presumably to avoid having to apply the “ban”.48 However, the writer has not left us any clues that would support such an interpretation. In part, responses will depend on how the composition of the chapter is envisaged. The second half (vv. 16–27) clearly does not support the idea of collusion. When the truth is discovered, there is a strong inclination on the part of the mass of the Israelites (“the whole assembly”, v. 18) to take revenge for the deception, which still leaves the leadership, but only the leadership, as possibly having been tempted into collusion. Nor does the statement that Joshua made a treaty with the Gibeonites “to let them live” (v. 15) imply that this was consciously in breach of the law of Deut. 20:16, according to which nothing that breathed was to be left alive in the Canaanite cities. The decision is made to “keep alive” the Gibeonites before their ruse is discovered, and the term by itself does not suggest a policy the opposite of what was supposed to be followed.49 It occurs in the Rahab story, which has none of the complications of the Gibeonite account as regards the bona fides of the other covenant party (see 2:13; 6:25).50 When the Gibeonites’ deceit is discovered it becomes clear that they occupy a tetrapolis (v. 17); the Israelites have been even more generous than they realized. The rank and file of Israel complain against their leaders, and a resolution of sorts is achieved by imposing on the offenders a menial function in relation to the Israelite community (v. 21). The fact that the leaders propose a role in relation to the community, whereas Joshua rules that they will be in service to the Israelite sanctuary (v. 23), is commonly taken as evidence of composite authorship. There is, nevertheless, a consistency about the leaders’ seeking to pacify the “community” with an offer of domestic service, and Joshua’s formalizing of the decision as a curse binding the Gibeonites to menial duties at the shrine of the God whose displeasure has been incurred (v. 23). That the curse relates directly to woodcutting and waterdrawing is hardly in doubt. However, if the MT vocalization is followed in verse 21, a translation such as that of NRSV follows: “So they became hewers of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, as the leaders had decided concerning them”,51 and this could be taken to imply that the Gibeonites’ subservient role was decided at the time of the original treaty-making (cf. Deut. 20:11; Josh. 16:10; 17:13; 1 Kgs. 9:21).52 Even if this is the case, Joshua’s pronouncement in verse 23 still 48

Liver (1963), 227; cf. Hawk (1991), 85. Pace Hawk (1991), 85. 50 Grintz (1966, 124 n. 47) compares an occurrence of “live” in the Karatepe texts (“I have let the Danunaites live”) where it virtually means “prosper”, but in Josh. 2:13; 6:25; 9:15 the word is used in conscious distinction from the alternative possibility of death and destruction. 51 NIV “but let them be woodcutters and water-carriers”, with revocalization of the MT, appears to make this judgement an innovation at this point in the narrative. For comment on the vocalization of the MT see Ahituv (1995), 152. We might also enquire whether “This is what we will do to them” in verse 20 implies some action or decision beyond the mere injunction “Let them live”, but it is a difficult question to answer. 52 Liver (1963, 232) thinks that “as the princes had spoken to them” (v. 21) means that the princes had promised only subservient status because they saw through the ruse from the start. 49

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

89

amounts to a formal curse in which the sentence consists of the subservient business of woodcutting and water-drawing. Verse 27, whatever its vintage, binds the decisions in verses 21 (“for all the congregation”) and 23 (“for the house of my God”) together in its summarizing comment on the episode and its after-effects. The significance of the imposed sentence and the curse will be the subject of the next main section of this study. Finally, the Gibeonites’ response to Joshua (vv. 24–5) does indeed differ from Rahab’s in putting stress on the “word” of God and not just the acts by which his dread had fallen on the population of Canaan.53 However, the truly significant point is that, whereas at their first encounter with the Israelites they could not confess their fears, since ostensibly they had no reason for such, once their trick was uncovered they could own up to the real cause of the deception: the knowledge that the Israelites were set on the eradication of the Canaanite tribes. Once the confession was made, they could entrust their fate to Joshua (v. 25), comfortable in the knowledge that their ill-gotten treaty would save them alive. As a narrative, Josh. 9 is not without its structural tensions. In particular, the way in which Joshua, “the men of Israel”, and the leaders of the community feature in the story will continue to invite questions about the compositional history of the narrative, though in such matters the critical reader can easily turn consistency into a procrustean liability. To take a simple example: according to verse 7 the men of Israel suggest to the Gibeonites that they may, in fact, be living in their midst, whereas in verse 8 the Gibeonites respond by addressing Joshua. One could attribute this “tension” to editorial interference in the text, but it does not require much imagination to see how an embarrassed delegation might avoid an uncomfortable suggestion from one source by addressing themselves to someone else who happened to be the leader of the host community. There is scope for further work from a narratological perspective on Josh. 9, and it deserves such, but here we turn to another aspect of the story.

The Curse The Gibeonites are sentenced to the servile tasks of hewing wood and drawing water (vv. 21, 23, 27).54 Moreover, the sentence takes the form of a perpetual curse (v. 23). Their appointed tasks are menial, but part of the sting is that they are tasks usually performed by women. Women in the biblical world were the drawers of water at the local wells, which is reflected in the temporal expression used in Gen. 24:11: “at the time when women go out to draw water”. The same two tasks as in Josh. 9:23 are associated with women in the Ugaritic Legend of King Keret (ll. 111–14).55 The text appears to depict the panic in the fields around ’Udm when King Keret’s troops approach: 53 54 55

Cf. Schäfer-Lichtenberger (1986), 75. Cf. Grintz (1966), 121, on the punitive aspect of the treatment of the Gibeonites. Cf. Clines (1976 [1977]), 23–6.

90

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

The wood-cutting women56 rush from the fields, from the threshingfloors those who pick straw; The women drawing water rush from the well, from the spring those who fill jars.

These lines reflect the daily concerns of women with fuel and water. As several writers have noted, the terms h.at.t.ãbe and mallãye, “wood-gatherer” and “waterdrawer”, have been used for young women by Palestinian Arabs down to modern times.57 The same idea of a demeaning sentence to women’s work can be seen in biblical and extra-biblical references to grinding at the mill, a task most commonly associated with women and slaves.58 This was the fate of both Samson (Judg. 16:21) and, according to the Septuagint, Zedekiah (Jer. 52:11). Lam. 5:13, which describes the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, says that “young men toil at the millstones”59 – as if the pride of Jerusalemite or Judean youth has been reduced to labour fit only for women, or slaves. As van der Toorn has shown, the practice of employing both prisoners of war and common prisoners in this fashion was wellknown in Mesopotamia.60 Lam. 5:13 also complains that “boys stagger under [loads of] wood”, which provides a point of direct contact with Josh. 9. The linkage between a sentence to menial, women’s work and an outright curse as in Josh. 9:23 can be illustrated from both the Israelite and non-Israelite worlds, and in a variety of forms. As the examples show, a curse of this sort was especially common in military contexts, and Josh. 9 comes into that category. First we should note a range of biblical texts that describe men as behaving or becoming “like women”, normally in extreme circumstances of attack and war, or that threaten such a fate, in ways that suggest comparison with outright curses. Several such references occur among the foreign nations oracles in Jeremiah. Thus Jer. 50:37 says of elements in the Babylonian army that they “will become women”,61 and this is reported as fact in 51:30. The same taunt is issued against Nineveh in Nah. 3:13. Other unfavourable comparisons between warriors and women are found in Jer. 48:41 and 49:22 (cf. Isa. 19:16).62 Such expressions in the Hebrew prophets can be compared, then, with a certain type of curse found in other Near Eastern literature. Hillers, in his study of treaty curses in the Near East, has already drawn attention to some examples.63 In the treaty of Ashurnirari V with Mati’ilu of Arpad we have “may his warriors become women” 56 The translation “wood-cutting women” is assisted by the emendation of htbh to htbt. Several scholars .. .. emend thus (e.g. Gray [1964], 47; Gibson [1978], 85); the parallel text (Keret, 1. 214) has h..tb. 57 In addition to the references in Gray (1964, 47), see the poem “On marrying peasant girls. A lampoon on a breach of convention”, in Clinton Bailey (1991), 186 (English), 187 (Arabic), 1. 9: “She brings no wood nor waters, nor sees the flock be grazed …” 58 For its association with women see Exod. 11:5; Isa. 47:2; Job 31:10; Eccles. 12:3; Matt. 24:41. 59 For the sense of the Hebrew here see Albrektson (1963), 201–2. 60 Van der Toorn (1986), 248–53. 61 The New Jerusalem Bible has “may they be like women!”, which approaches the force of a curse. 62 Cf. Crawford (1992), 191, 223 n. 285. 63 Hillers (1964), 66–8.

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

91

(v. 9) and “may the Mistress of Women take away their bow” (v. 12–13), which euphemism amounts to much the same thing.64 Hillers also cites from the Erra epic a reference to male prostitutes and sodomites whom Ishtar had turned from men into women in order to induce awe in the general population (iv. 55–6), although it is not clear that a curse is involved in this instance.65 He also notes one of Esarhaddon’s inscriptions which threatens any disturber of the monument with the fate of effeminacy at the hands of the goddess Ishtar.66 The Hittite “Soldiers’ Oath” also has examples of the effeminacy curse. In addition to that cited by Hillers, there appears to be a further instance in the next paragraph which describes a ritual in which a blind and deaf woman is paraded in front of the soldiery in order to illustrate the penalties that will be inflicted for disloyalty to the monarch. These include the turning of a man into a woman. This is not apparent from the translation of the text in Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts,67 but is corroborated by Oettinger in his 1976 volume on the Hittite soldier oaths.68 A case of what is, in effect, an effeminacy curse is reported by Herodotus in his History, I. 105, when he recounts how the Scythians advanced on Egypt, were bought off by Psammetichus, and returned home via Ashkelon. A few of their number who lagged behind unfortunately looted the temple of Aphrodite Urania in Ashkelon and were afflicted by the goddess with “the female sickness” (thēlean nouson) which, says Herodotus, “still attaches to their offspring”.69 This, according to Herodotus, was the explanation given by the Scythians themselves; and the name by which those so afflicted were known was enareeis, probably compounding two Indo-European elements meaning “without man[ly characteristics]”.70 Hippocrates comments on this aspect of Scythian pathology thus: “the rich Scythians become impotent and perform women’s tasks on an equal footing with them and talk in the same way. Such people are called anandrieis.”71 Hippocrates assents to the idea of divine causation in this case, but – typically – in such a way as almost to negate it.72 Aristotle also has a passing reference to the hereditary effeminacy of the Scythian royal family.73 The language of formal curse is not used here, but a curse, and an 64

Text and German translation in Weidner (1932–3), 22–3. See Cagni (1977), 52–3. 66 See Borger (1956), 99 (Reverse 55–6). 67 Pritchard (1969), 354. 68 Oettinger (1976), 13 (Reverse 3.7: “und sie sollen ihn aus einem Mann zu einer F[rau mac]hen …”). This is the passage by which Yigael Yadin (1963, 267–70) sought to illuminate the reference to the blind and the lame in the account of David’s capture of Jebus (2 Sam. 5:6–8), conjecturing that there was a treaty between David and the Jebusites, and that the Jebusites’ parading of the blind and the lame was meant to instil in David fear of the oath by which the treaty had been ratified (cf. Brunet [1979], 65–72). 69 History, 4.67. 70 Cf. Van Groningen (1959), 58. It is worth mentioning here the Nartä texts recorded from oral recitation in the North Iranian Saka dialects of Ossetia, representing nomadic traditions indirectly connected with the Scythians: “The Skuthai (Scythians) of Herodotos [sic] are similar in their nomadic life, but do not seem to have precise identity with Nartä traditions” (Bailey [1980], 266). Bailey notes an association of Nartä with the verbal base nar- (“be skilful, active, virile”). 71 Airs, Waters, Places, 6.108. 72 See Thomas (2000), 33, and esp. 178–80. 73 Ethics, 7.7. 65

92

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

effeminacy one at that, is what it essentially is. Moreover, it is inflicted on warriors, and it is associated with Ashkelon, which keeps us in the Levantine area. Other examples of the effeminacy curse in the ancient Near East involve the spindle in a way that connects with a biblical text that belongs in the same world as that of the Gibeonite “hewers of wood and drawers of water” (see below). Work with spindles is, of course, associated with women in the ancient texts, as may be illustrated from the case of the virtuous woman in Prov. 31:19 and from a good number of sayings, references, and representations from the general area of the Near East.74 In the Ugaritic literature even the goddess Asherah is associated with a spindle.75 An example of a spindle featuring in a treaty curse comes in the Esarhaddon vassal treaty texts, where we have the two lines: kî pilakki lu-šá-as.-bi-ru-ku-nu kî sinništi ina pan nakrikunu li-pa-šú-ku-nu.

Wiseman translates: [As (with) a spindle-whorl] may they cause you to be pinned down. May they treat you [like a woman in the presence] of your enemy.76

In his comment on lu-šá-as.-bi-ru-ku-nu Wiseman notes the possibility that s.abãru may, in this occurrence, have the meaning “seize”, so permitting the translation “may they make you hold as it were a spindle-whorl”,77 which would bring the curse into the effeminacy category. However, Akkadian s.abãru occurs in various texts with the meanings “flit”, “move quickly”, and the š-stem in the Esarhaddon reference can operate comfortably with such a meaning. For example, the expression s.abãru ša pilakki in the Nabnitu lexical series (x 50) indicates that the verb denotes characteristic action of, or with, a spindle. CAD translates the Esarhaddon couplet: may (the gods) have you oscillate like a spindle, may they make you like women in the eyes of your enemies …78

There is an accompanying note in CAD to the effect that the vassals may have been required to hold a spindle while taking the oath. Holloway picks up this Esarhaddon reference and says that the curse “involves neither the magical transformation of men into women nor a pars pro toto symbolization process”.79 However, the point of 74 See the references in Hoffner (1966), 331–3; Holloway (1987), 370–1, 374; Layton (1989), 83, 85; Frymer-Kensky (1989), 189; Vanstiphout (1990a, b); Kassis (2000), 259 n. 2. For the goddess Inanna’s capacity to “put spindles into the hands of men . . . and to give weapons to women” see Brown and Zólyomi (2001), 153. For classical references see Brown (1995), 279, and for a claimed parallel in Linear B see Brown (2000), 31. 75 The Palace of Baal, 4.2.3–4 (see Gibson [1978], 56). 76 See Wiseman (1958), 76 (ll. 616–17). 77 Wiseman (1958), 89; cf. von Soden (1951), 158, on possible meanings of the verb(s) sabãru . (including “wegraffen”). 78 CAD 16 (1962), 4 (par. 5a). 79 Holloway (1987), 374 n. 10.

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

93

interest here is not literality or magicality but the use of the idea of effeminacy in a context of curse. It would appear that, whatever the precise nuance of s.abãru here, an effeminacy curse is involved – just as the second line (“make you like women”) would suggest. Other parallels involving the spindle could be adduced from the Hittite region. For example, the already-mentioned Hittite Soldiers’ Oath includes a reference to a spindle in its description of oath ritual.80 The case of the mh.zyq bplk in David’s curse on Joab in 2 Sam. 3:29 is also relevant. At least three explanations of the expression have been offered, as flagged in the title of an article published by Holloway in 1987: “Distaff, crutch or chain gang: The curse of the House of Joab in 2 Samuel III 29”.81 There are serious problems with the third suggestion,82 and very good reasons for preferring one of the other two above its rival. One line of approach is represented by the Septuagint, which translates by “one taking hold of a staff”, attributing to MT pelek a sense not attested in biblical Hebrew and interpreting David’s curse on Joab as one of lameness.83 How the Greek and those who follow its lead achieve “staff” from pelek is a fair question, for pelek properly denotes a spindle and could only by (literal) extension be made to mean “staff”.84 On the whole, translators have tended to be happy with “spindle”, as already in the Vulgate and Peshitta,85 but in recent times the translation “staff” has enjoyed the advocacy of, among others, NIV (“or who leans on a crutch”) and P. K. McCarter in his influential Anchor Bible commentary on Samuel.86 McCarter’s declaration in favour of “crutches” appeals to the Karatepe inscriptions, where there is a sentence containing what has been supposed to be an analogous occurrence of Phoenician plk: [bymty] ’št tk lh.dy dl plkm.87 McCarter does not discuss the meaning of the Phoenician, but a look at his bibliography suggests a probable source of his confidence. Listed there (p. 49) is R. S. Tomback’s A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Languages (1978), on p. 264 of which the sentence in question is translated, “a woman walked by herself without supports”. In the same entry, the Hebrew pelek is given the two meanings “spindle” and “support”. Lines 5–6 of column 2 of the Karatepe A text have been described by François Bron, who published his Recherches sur les Inscriptions Phéniciennes de Karatepe the year after Tomback’s volume, as the principal crux of the Karatepe inscriptions, and he devotes several pages to merely listing, with brief discussions, the many 80

Translation in ANET, p. 354. Holloway (1987). 82 See Layton (1989). 83 Cf. also the Targum in this respect. The Sperber and Lagarde editions have ’gr, evidently for ’gd, “staff”, “pole”. 84 Driver (1913, 250) raises as a difficulty the extension of meaning from “spindle-whorl” to “staff”, on the ground that the characteristic feature of the whorl would be lacking in the staff. However, Wolters (1994, 96–7) shows good reason to translate pelek by “spindle” rather than “spindle-whorl”. He notes especially the hieroglyphic sign in the Hittite text corresponding to the Phoenician plkm in the Karatepe bilingual, which “consists of a pictogram clearly representing a spindle” (96). 85 The Syriac mw‘zl’ can also mean “beggar’s bowl”, which would be contextually appropriate; nevertheless, it is better to assume a literal equivalent to MT pelek, as at Prov. 31:19. 86 McCarter (1984), 104, 118. 87 Col. 2, ll. 5–6. 81

94

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

attempts that have been made on the several words in question.88 Of these all, however, he has to note that they either appeared before the publication of the parallel Hittite hieroglyphic text or failed to take it into account.89 As it happens, the hieroglyphic text agrees in talking about women and spindles.90 Moreover, an important step in the understanding of the Phoenician has been the recognition that the word dl means “with”, not “without”.91 If this is applied to Tomback’s translation, women were able to walk “with supports”, which would scarcely be a compliment to conditions under King Azitawada. If, then, Karatepe does not encourage the translation of pelek by “support” or “staff”, there is no reason, Septuagint and Targum notwithstanding, for translating thus in 2 Sam. 3:29. We are therefore sent back to the spindle and the effeminacy explanation.92 Finally, a ninth-century Arabic text calls for mention, despite its lateness. In the Kitãb al-Ahbãr at.-t.iwãl by Abū H.anīfa ad-Dīnaweri the Sassanid king Hormuzd ˘ of his generals of having purloined some of the spoils of war that should suspects one have come to the king.93 Hormuzd sent the general a necklace, a woman’s belt, and a spindle, because he had acted deceitfully, in a manner worthy of a woman. There is no question of a curse here, but warrior effeminacy is again the issue. And what specially links the text with the much earlier Gibeonite story is the shared element of deceit. Not much should, however, be made of the point, since in the Hebrew Bible deceitfulness is not particularly a feminine trait, being associated with a number of the male characters who predominate in the storyline. As we have been noting, effeminacy, whether as taunt, threat, or curse, is closely linked to warrior function in most of our texts.94 This applies no less to the Joab curse in 2 Sam. 3:29, even though it is Joab’s family that are to bear the effects of the curse. The Gibeonites are warlike (cf. 10:2, “and all its [= Gibeon’s] men were warriors”) and potential enemies of Israel, and so they are drawn into this world of the warrior curse when they are sentenced, not to “effeminacy” as such, but to women’s work, as “hewers of wood” and “drawers of water”. Whether we are intended to see the curse as reflecting the terminology of the treaty that they have just secured from the Israelites is impossible to judge. It may have been so with the Joab curse, which came in the wake of a covenant between David and Abner whom Joab murdered.95 The Gibeonite and Joab curses are in any case linked in one other way: their use of the formulaic “there shall not be cut off” (l’ ykrt mn) to reinforce the perpetual nature 88

Bron (1979), 78–83. Bron (1979), 83. 90 Cf. Laroche (1960), 157. 91 Bron (1979), 84. 92 Malul (1992, 49–67) argues that to “take hold of the spindle” in 2 Sam. 3:29 implies a lack of sexual potency, involving certain sexual deficiencies and preferences, thus bringing public disgrace on Joab’s house (p. 56). For Malul, all five curses in 2 Sam. 3:29 have as their common theme the loss of social and legal status in both this world and the next (p. 64). 93 For the text see Guirgass (1888), 84–5 (Arabic); see also Oettinger (1976), 75. 94 This seems highly relevant when considering Malul’s contention that effeminacy references of the sort that we have been discussing are concerned with the mixing of categories rather than the inferiority of womanly tasks (Malul [1992], 53 n. 28, 67). 95 Cf. van der Toorn (1985), 180 n. 104; Gordon (1990), 31. 89

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

95

of the curse imposed. Elsewhere (10x) the formula occurs in contexts of covenantal promise (e.g. Jer. 33:17). It is a pleasure to contribute this short study in honour of Ernest Nicholson, whose distinguished contributions on a number of central Old Testament topics have so helped to shape and enrich the general discussion. References Ahituv, S. (1995), Joshua (Miqra Le Yisrael; Tel Aviv: Am Oved). Albrektson, B. (1963), Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations, with a Critical Edition of the Peshitta Text (Studia Theologica Lundensia 21; Lund: Gleerup). Bailey, C. (1991), Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Bailey, H. W. (1980), “Ossetic (Nartä)”, in A. T. Hatto (ed.), Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry, i: The Traditions (London: Modern Humanities Research Association), 236–67. Blenkinsopp, J. (1966), “Are there traces of the Gibeonite covenant in Deuteronomy?” CBQ 28, 207–19. ———— (1972), Gibeon and Israel: The Role of Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Political and Religious History of Early Israel (SOTSMS 2; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Boling, R. G. (1982), Joshua: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (AB 6; Garden City: Doubleday). Borger, R. (1956), Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien (Archiv für Orientforschung 9; Graz: Weidner). Briend, J. (1990), “Israël et les Gabaonites”, in E.-M. Laperrousaz (ed.), La Protohistoire d’Israël: De l’exode à la monarchie (Paris: Éditions du Cerf), 121–67. ———— (2000), “The sources of the Deuteronomistic history. Research on Joshua 1–12”, in T. Römer and J.-D. Macchi (eds.), Israel Constructs its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research (JSOTS 306; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 360–86. Bron, F. (1979), Recherches sur les Inscriptions Phéniciennes de Karatepe (Centre de Recherches d’Histoire et de Philologie, ii: Hautes Études Orientales 11; Geneva: Librairie Droz). Brown, D., and Zólyomi, G. (2001), “‘Daylight converts to nighttime.’ An astrologicalastronomical reference in Sumerian literary context”, Iraq 63, 149–54. Brown, J. P. (1995), Israel and Hellas, i (BZAW 231; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). ———— (2000), Israel and Hellas, ii (BZAW 276; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Brunet, G. (1979), “Les aveugles et boiteux jébusites”, SVT 30, 65–72. Butler, T. C. (1983), Joshua (WBC 7; Waco: Word). Cagni, L. (1977), The Poem of Erra (Sources and Monographs: Sources from the Ancient Near East 1/3; Malibu: Undena). Childs, B. S. (1963), “A study of the formula, ‘Until this day’”, JBL 82, 279–92. Clines, D. J. A. (1976 [1977]), “KRT 111–114 (I iii 7–10): Gatherers of wood and drawers of water”, UF 8, 23–6. Coats, G. W. (1968), Rebellion in the Wilderness: The Murmuring Motif in the Wilderness Traditions of the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon). Crawford, T. G. (1992), Blessing and Curse in Syro-Palestinian Inscriptions of the Iron Age (American University Studies VII: Theology and Religion 120; New York: Peter Lang).

96

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Driver, S. R. (1913), Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (2nd edn.; Oxford: Clarendon Press). Fensham, F. C. (1964), “The treaty between Israel and the Gibeonites”, BA 27, 96–100. Finkelstein, I. (1990), “Excavations at Khirbet Ed-Dawwara: An Iron Age site northeast of Jerusalem”, Tel Aviv 17, 163–208. Frymer-Kensky, T. (1989), “The ideology of gender in the Bible and the ancient Near East”, in H. Behrens, D. Loding, and M. T. Roth (eds.), DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A. Studies in Honor of Åke W. Sjöberg (Philadelphia: University Museum), 185–91. Gibson, J. C. L. (1978), Canaanite Myths and Legends (2nd edn.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Gordon, R. P. (1990), “Covenant and apology in 2 Samuel 3”, PIBA 13, 24–34. Götze, A. (1933), Die Annalen des Muršiliš (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisch-Aegyptischen Gesellschaft (E.V.) 38: Hethitische Texte 6; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs). Gray, J. (1964), The KRT Text in the Literature of Ras Shamra: A Social Myth of Ancient Canaan (2nd edn.; Leiden: Brill). Grintz, J. M. (1966), “The treaty of Joshua with the Gibeonites”, JAOS 86, 113–26. Groningen, B. A. Van (1959), Herodotus’ Historiën met Inleiding en Commentaar, iii: Commentaar op Boek I–III (2nd edn.; Griekse en Latijnse Schrijvers met Aantekeningen 51; Leiden: Brill). Guirgass, V. (ed.) (1888), Abû H.anîfa ad-Dînaweri: Kitâb al-Ah bãr at. -T.iwâl (Leiden: Brill). ˘ Halbe, J. (1975), “Gibeon und Israel: Art, Veranlassung und Ort der Deutung ihres Verhältnisses in Jos. IX”, VT 25, 613–41. Halpern, B. (1975), “Gibeon: Israelite diplomacy in the Conquest Era”, CBQ 37, 303–16. Haran, M. (1961), “The Gibeonites, the Nethinim and the sons of Solomon’s servants”, VT 11, 159–69. Hawk, L. D. (1991), Every Promise Fulfilled: Contesting Plots in Joshua (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox). Hertzberg, H. W. (1954), Die Bücher Josua, Richter, Ruth (ATD 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Hess, R. S. (1996), Joshua: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press). Hillers, D. R. (1964), Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (BibOr 16; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute). Hoffner, H. A. (1966), “Symbols for masculinity and femininity: their use in ancient Near Eastern sympathetic magic rituals”, JBL 85, 326–34. Holloway, S. W. (1987), “Distaff, crutch or chain gang: The curse of the House of Joab in 2 Samuel iii 29”, VT 37, 370–5. Howard, D. M. (1998), Joshua (New American Commentary 5; Nashville: Broadman & Holman). Kalluveettil, P. (1982), Declaration and Covenant: A Comprehensive Review of Covenant Formulae from the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East (AB 88; Rome: Biblical Institute Press). Kassis, R. A. (2000), “A note on ‫( שלל‬Prov. xxxi 11b)”, VT 50, 258–9. Kearney, P. J. (1973), “The role of the Gibeonites in the Deuteronomic History”, CBQ 35, 1–19. Labuschagne, C. J. (1966), “The emphasizing particle GAM and its connotations”, in W. C. van Unnik and A. S. van der Woude (eds.), Studia Biblica et Semitica Theodoro Christiano Vriezen . . . Dedicata (Wageningen: Veenman & Zonen), 193–203. Laroche, E. (1960), Les Hiéroglyphes Hittites, i: L’écriture (Paris: Éditions du CNRS). Layton, S. C. (1989), “A chain gang in 2 Samuel iii 29? A rejoinder”, VT 39, 81–6. Liver, J. (1963), “The literary history of Joshua IX”, JSS 8, 227–43.

GIBEONITE RUSE AND ISRAELITE CURSE IN JOSHUA 9

97

McCarter, P. K. (1984), II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB 9; Garden City: Doubleday). McCarthy, D. J. (1971), “The theology of leadership in Joshua 1–9”, Biblica 52, 165–75. Malul, M. (1992), “David’s curse of Joab (2 Sam 3:29) and the social significance of MH.ZYQ BPLK”, Aula Orientalis 10, 49–67. Mayes, A. D. H. (1979), Deuteronomy (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott). ———— (1985), “Deuteronomy 29, Joshua 9, and the place of the Gibeonites in Israel”, in N. Lohfink (ed.), Das Deuteronomium, Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft (BETL 68; Louvain: Leuven University Press/Uitgeverij Peeters), 321–5. Merwe, C. H. J. van der (1990), The Old Hebrew Particle gam: A Syntactic-Semantic Description of gam in Gn-2Kg (Arbeiten zu Text und Sprache im Alten Testament 34; St Ottilien: Eos Verlag). Nicholson, E. W. (1967), Deuteronomy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell). Oettinger, N. (1976), Die Militärischen Eide der Hethiter (Studien zu den Bogˇazköy-Texten 22; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Pritchard, J. B. (1969), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd edn.; Princeton: Princeton University Press). Rösel, H. N. (1985), “Anmerkungen zur Erzählung vom Bundes-schluß mit den Gibeoniten”, BN 28, 30–5. Rudolph, W. (1938), Der “Elohist” von Exodus bis Josua (BZAW 68; Berlin: Töpelmann). Schäfer-Lichtenberger, C. (1986), “Das gibeonitische Bündnis im Lichte deuteronomischer Kriegsgebote: Zum Verhältnis von Tradition und Interpretation in Jos 9”, BN 34, 58–81. Schmitt, G. (1970), Du sollst keinen Frieden schließen mit den Bewohnern des Landes. Die Weisungen gegen die Kanaanäer in Israels Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung (BWANT 91; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Soden, W. von (1951), “Zum akkadischen Wörterbuch, 41–49”, Orientalia NS 20, 151–65. Soggin, J. A. (1972), Joshua: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press). Sutherland, R. K. (1992), “Israelite political theories in Joshua 9”, JSOT 53, 65–74. Thomas, R. (2000), Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Tomback, R. S. (1978), A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Languages (SBLDS 32; Missoula: Scholars Press). Toorn, K. van der (1985), Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia: A Comparative Study (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 22; Assen: Van Gorcum). ———— (1986), “Judges xvi 21 in the light of the Akkadian sources”, VT 36, 248–53. Ulrich, E. C. (1994), “4QJoshuaa and Joshua’s first altar in the Promised Land”, in G. J. Brooke (ed.), New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris 1992 (STDJ 15; Leiden: Brill), 89–104. Vanstiphout, H. L. J. (1990a), “A double entendre concerning Uttu”, NABU 1990/2, 40–4. ———— (1990b), “Once again: sex and weaving”, NABU 1990/2, 45–6. Weidner, E. F. (1932–3), “Der Staatsvertrag Aššurnirâris VI. [sic] von Assyrien mit Mati’ilu von Bit-Agusi”, AfO 8, 17–34. Wiseman, D. J. (1958), “The vassal-treaties of Esarhaddon”, Iraq 20, 1–100. Wolters, A. (1994), “The meaning of Kîšôr (Proverbs 31:19)”, HUCA 65, 91–104. Yadin, Y. (1963), The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Younger, K. L. (1990), Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (JSOTS 98; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).

This page intentionally left blank

Prophecy from East to West

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 9

A Story of Two Paradigm Shifts From 1875 to 1975 If we follow the story-line of the Old Testament, the prophets may be seen as representing a second phase in the development of Israelite religion. Many, and certainly the “classical” prophets, come from the period beginning in the mid-eighth century and ending with the Babylonian exile. In the late nineteenth century, however, nothing less than a paradigm shift – the first of two possible candidates that we shall observe in this review – occurred when the so-called Graf–Wellhausen hypothesis on Pentateuchal origins began to establish itself as the new orthodoxy. Now, following the earlier observations of scholars such as W. Vatke,1 the law of Moses was seen as the starting-point for post-exilic Judaism rather than for the religion of pre-exilic Israel. The law was later than the prophets2 and could not fulfil the role traditionally ascribed to it. Since the Psalter was not immune to the same centrifugal forces, with late and even Maccabean dates being proposed for many psalms, the overall effect was to leave the classical prophets in splendid isolation. They were no longer inheritors of long-established traditions of belief which it was their task to amplify and apply to the needs of their own generation. Rather, they were men of vision, the truly creative element in the development of Israelite religion, and those responsible, in particular, for the emergence of “ethical monotheism” in Israel. Two excerpts from Wellhausen’s Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels will express this view in characteristically vivid terms: After the spirit of the oldest men of God, Moses at the head of them, had been in a fashion laid to sleep in institutions, it sought and found in the prophets a new opening; the old fire burst out like a volcano through the strata which once, too, rose fluid from the deep, but now were fixed and dead (Eng. trans., p. 398). It is a vain imagination to suppose that the prophets expounded and applied the law … the voice of the prophets, always sounding when there is need for it, occupies the place which, according to the prevailing view, should have been filled by the law: this living command of Jehovah is all he knows of, and not any testament given once for all (Eng. trans., p. 399). 1 Cf. his Die biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich dargestellt, vol. I: Die Religion des Alten Testamentes nach den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt (Berlin: Bethge, 1835) 204, where the traditional role of the Pentateuchal laws in the establishing of Israelite religion is discounted. 2 Cf. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh, 1885) 1 (Eng. trans. of Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels [2d ed.; Berlin: Reimer, 1883], which first appeared as Geschichte Israels, vol. 1 [Berlin, 1878]).

101

102

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Wellhausen’s interest in Hebrew and the Old Testament owed much to the influence of Heinrich Ewald (1803–75), under whom he studied at Göttingen.3 Ewald’s views were given literary form in the two volumes of his Die Propheten des Alten Bundes (1840–41) and in his Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1843–59). Another student of Ewald’s at that time was Bernhard Duhm, and, while Wellhausen may be regarded as the apostle of the new dispensation, his Göttingen contemporary was first into print on a major Old Testament theme – Wellhausen’s earlier preoccupations were with the text of the books of Samuel (1871) and the Pharisees and Sadducees (1874) – and he also subsequently made more of the study of the prophets than did Wellhausen. Duhm’s volume on prophecy, published in 1875, would have been not unworthy of Wellhausen. The prophets are here presented as seeking to break the cultic bonds which held Israelite religion prisoner, while Mic 6:1–8, with its apparent repudiation of the cult in favour of a kind of ethical idealism, is regarded as the most important section in all the prophets. Here we are permitted a glimpse into the innermost character of the Israelite prophetic movement.4 Religion was about ethics and morality before God and in the life of the community. With Micah, Hebrew prophecy began to emphasize morality as a requirement laid upon the individual Israelite, and in that respect it anticipated the Christian emphasis on right relationship with God.5 Duhm’s portrayal of the prophets as self-consciously “theologians”, as implied in the title of his book, is seriously overstated in this regard, but it is characteristic of the newer approach to prophecy. At about the same time the Dutch scholar Abraham Kuenen was writing in similar vein: What did the Israelitish prophets accomplish? What was the result of their work, and what value are we to assign to it? Ethical monotheism is their creation. They have themselves ascended to the belief in one only, holy, and righteous God, who realises his will, or moral good, in the world, and they have, by preaching and writing, made that belief the inalienable property of our race.6

This lionizing of the peerless prophets inevitably gave way to more realistic assessments of their importance for Israelite religion. For even if, for the sake of argument, the historical traditions of the Old Testament are not invoked, it remains clear that the eighth-century prophets are already acknowledging traditions and standards, to which, indeed, they appeal in their critique of contemporary social and religious practice. To that extent they are self-confessed inheritors of established tradition. Moreover, the discounting of priestly law as being largely post-prophetic – a truly self-denying ordinance in the light of our present understanding of priestly tradition – still leaves other representatives of Israelite law (in particular the Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant) that are capable of fulfilling the required 3 See W. Zimmerli, The Law and the Prophets: A Study of the Meaning of the Old Testament (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965) 19–22. 4 Die Theologie der Propheten als Grundlage für die innere Entwicklungsgeschichte der israelitischen Religion (Bonn: Marcus, 1875) 183. 5 Ibid., 188. 6 The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel: An Historical and Critical Enquiry (London: Longmans, Green, 1877) 585 (Eng. trans. of De Profeten en de Profetie onder Israël [2 vols; Leiden: Engels, 1875]).

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

103

role.7 Again, various modern approaches to Old Testament study (e.g. traditionhistory, form-criticism, archaeology) have sought to recover some of the geographical features lost to sight when the historical reliability of the pre-prophetic traditions came into question. While it is impossible to do justice to all the aspects of modern prophets study that would rightly claim mention in a survey chapter of this kind, some attempt will be made to highlight the main developments since the late nineteenth century, and this by way of background to the presentation [in this volume] of a sampling of the more illuminative approaches to the subject that have been published since 1975. Prophetic Psychology The considerable interest in “prophetic psychology” that developed in the early decades of the twentieth century marked a shift from the more recent emphasis on the prophets as theologians and moralists. Of the several reasons for this concern with what might be regarded as one of the more eccentric aspects of prophecy, the first is provided by the biblical texts themselves in that they associate a variety of conditions and experiences – for example ecstasy, dream, vision, translocation – with the exercise of prophecy. Even the Hebrew verb usually translated “prophesy” (nb’) occasionally denotes some kind of ecstatic behavior (see 1 Sam 10:5–13; 18:10; 19:20–24), while in three places prophesying is even linked with madness (2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26; Hos 9:7). Now, since ecstasy was evidently a common characteristic of Canaanite “prophecy”, as is suggested by the story of the contest between Elijah and the Baalistic prophets in 1 Kings 18, the possibility of a Canaanite derivation for Hebrew prophecy had to be considered. Again, if ecstasy was a distinguishing feature of prophetic behaviour, perhaps the explanation of the special insights associated with the prophets lies here? And, on the other hand, the fact that ecstasy figures little among the “classical” prophets – and not at all in some cases – would perhaps support a distinction between ecstatic prophets and “reform” prophets? While the period 1914–50 may be seen as the heyday of the “prophetic psychology” quest, interest in the subject extends back into the previous century. In his 1892 commentary on Isaiah Duhm had given greater prominence to the inner life of the prophet(s) than he had allowed in his theologically focused study of seventeen years earlier.8 Gustav Hölscher’s 1914 volume on the prophets, influenced by the Physiologische Psychologie and Völkerpsychologie of Wilhelm Wundt, paid special attention to the question of prophetic psychology.9 Hölscher regarded the whole Israelite prophetic tradition as exhibiting in various degrees the characteristics of ecstatic-mantic prophecy. Prophets, generally speaking, uttered their oracles while in a trance, which was sometimes brought on with the help of music (cf. 1 Sam 10:5; 2 Kgs 3:15) or mantic rites. Hölscher knew of the Egyptian Wen-Amon text, first 7

Cf. Zimmerli, The Law and the Prophets, 30. B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (HKAT 3/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892 [5th ed. 1968]); cf. H. Gunkel, The Expositor 9/1 (1924) 357 (see n. 13 below), commenting on this aspect of Duhm’s commentary. 9 Die Profeten: Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte Israels (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1914). 8

104

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

published by W. Golénischeff in l899, which recounts an ecstatic experience by a servant of the king of Byblos in the eleventh century BC,10 and he was encouraged to think that the origins of Israelite ecstatic prophecy could be traced to Syria and Asia Minor. Israel therefore came upon “ecstasy” after the settlement in Canaan, and that is why we hear of the “sons of the prophets” from the eleventh century onward. But the same movement gave birth to the higher forms of prophecy associated with the “classical” prophets. In a volume published in 1924 Hölscher applied his insights to Ezekiel who, as a good example of an ecstatic prophet, was believed to have expressed his ideas in poetic metre and so was credited with only a small proportion of the material in the canonical book.11 For Hermann Gunkel the essential element for the understanding of the prophets was an insight into the private, mystical experiences which they mediated to their hearers. Already in 1888 Gunkel had published a dissertation on conceptions of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, in which he discussed the relationship between the “pneumatic” dimension of apostolic Christianity and the formation of early Christian doctrine.12 In three essays published in 1914 on the subject of “the secret experiences of the prophets” Gunkel argued that ecstasy is basic to prophecy in all its manifestations, though he divided between the non-communicative ecstasy represented in a passage like 1 Sam 10:5–13 and more profound experiences which enabled prophets to deliver informative oracles on request or, at a still higher level, to speak in the manner of the classical prophets.13 In the latter case, what a prophet announced as the word of God was first encountered in a mystical experience and then communicated in appropriate language to the prophet’s hearers. A succession of scholars pursued the psychology quest in the following decades. In the United Kingdom the names of T. H. Robinson14 and his namesake H. Wheeler Robinson15 are especially noteworthy. The former has also given us “a day in the life of a prophet”: He might be mingling with the crowd, sometimes on ordinary days, sometimes on special occasions. Suddenly something would happen to him. His eye would become fixed, strange convulsions would seize upon his limbs, the form of his speech would change. Men would 10 See W. Golénischeff, “Papyrus hiératique de la Collection W. Golénischeff contenant la description du voyage de l’égyptien Ounou-Amon en Phénicie”, in Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes 21 (n.s. 5) (ed. G. Maspero; Paris: Librairie Emile Bouillon, 1899) 74–102. 11 Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch: Eine literarkritische Untersuchung (BZAW 39; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1924). 12 Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschauung der apostolischen Zeit und nach der Lehre des Apostels Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1888). 13 “Die geheimen Erfahrungen der Propheten”, pp. xvii–xxxiv of the Einleitungen written by Gunkel for H. Schmidt, Die grossen Propheten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914 [2d ed. 1923]). The section was published as three essays, in English translation, in The Expositor 9/1 (1924) 356–66, 427–35; 9/2 (1924) 23–32. 14 Prophecy and the Prophets in Ancient Israel (London: Duckworth, 1923 [2d ed. 1953]). 15 See his chapter entitled “The Psychology of Inspiration”, in Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946) 173–86.

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

105

recognise that the Spirit had fallen upon him. The fit would pass, and he would tell to those who stood around the things which he had seen and heard.16

In various studies published in the 1930s and 1940s Johannes Lindblom attempted to unravel the term “ecstasy” in relation to Israelite prophecy. In an article published in 1939 he distinguished between two kinds of religious experience.17 The “introspektive” is characteristic of the mystic, but the experiences of the Israelite prophets, for which Lindblom uses the term “zirkumspektive”, differ in that they do not involve the same merging of the subject with the divine, being open to “objective” divine revelation which may work through external agents such as sacred texts or historical events. Various distinguishing features between the mystical and the prophetic are listed. Scholars like Sigmund Mowinckel,18 H. H. Rowley19 and G. Widengren20 gave the subject their attention in the same period, but interest began to wane thereafter, so that when Lindblom’s 1962 volume devoted its first 65 pages to a discussion of the psychology and mechanics of prophecy, drawing upon many extrabiblical comparisons, from Julian of Norwich to the “sleeping preachers” of Finland, it came as a belated summary of a phase that seemed to have run its course.21 Throughout the period of the “prophetic psychology” quest there were those who, like Rowley, denied that there was any significant ecstatic dimension to the bulk of classical biblical prophecy. And it has to be conceded that, when prophets are represented as sometimes pleading and even arguing with God, the usefulness of ecstasy as an explanation of their experience becomes questionable. Even so, there has been, since the 1980s, a renewal of interest, on the part of some scholars, in psychological aspects of prophecy,22 and to the extent that this may challenge a growing tendency to approach the subject of prophecy in terms of prophetic books only, and to the exclusion of flesh and blood prophets, on the ground that their ipsissima verba are no longer identifiable within the books, the interest may confer a more general benefit. Prophecy and Cult It appears from the prophetic books of the Old Testament that the prophets could be extremely critical of the cultic observances of their contemporaries (cf. Isa 1:11–17; Jer 7:21–28; Hos 6:6; Amos 5:21–27; Mic 6:6–8). On the other hand, 1 Sam 10:5 clearly links its band of ecstatic prophets with a cult centre at Gibeath-elohim. 16 T. H. Robinson, Prophecy, 50. I owe this reference in the first instance to J. H. Hayes, An Introduction to Old Testament Study (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979) 255–56. 17 “Die Religion der Propheten und die Mystik”, ZAW n.s. 16 (1939) 65–74. 18 “‘The Spirit’ and the ‘Word’ in the Pre-exilic Reforming Prophets”, JBL 53 (1934) 199–227. 19 “The Nature of Prophecy in the Light of Recent Study”, HTR 38 (1945) 1–38. Rowley plays down the psychological factor in prophecy: “What is really vital is the relation of the prophet and of his word to God” (p. 38). 20 Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1948). 21 Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962); cf. his earlier Profetismen i Israel (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1934). 22 See below (“The New Generation”, pp. 114–19).

106

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Isaiah’s “call” is located in a temple setting (Isa 6:1), and the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel are given priestly pedigrees in the books that bear their names (Jer 1:1; Ezek 1:3). Moreover, some of the prophets, and not least their post-exilic representatives, were very interested in the well-being of the temple and its worship (Hag 1:7–8; Zech 2:14–16[10–12]; Mal 1:6–2:9). There therefore seem to be grounds for questioning the simple prophet–priest polarity that has often been assumed on the basis of the prophetic diatribes against the cult. Again Hermann Gunkel made a decisive contribution when he observed the presence in certain psalms of oracularsounding features more characteristic of the prophetic writings, though his conviction that the psalms were used mainly in private devotions prevented him from drawing conclusions about Israelite cultic praxis.23 The point was, however, taken up by Mowinckel who provided a theoretical basis for the view, already expressed by William Robertson Smith and Hölscher,24 that there were cult prophets in ancient Israe1.25 Mowinckel noted that in a number of psalms God speaks in the first person, in a manner reminiscent of the prophetic oracle (e.g. Psalms 60, 82), and he connected these first-person pronouncements with cult-prophets who addressed individuals or congregations of worshippers in the name of God on occasions of personal or national crisis or on festal and royal occasions.26 (A narrative illustration of the function envisaged is provided by 2 Chr 20:14–17 where the Levite Jahaziel delivers an oracle of salvation in a time of national crisis.) Mowinckel went on to identify certain of the “writing prophets” such as Habakkuk, Haggai and Zechariah as cultic prophets. Alfred Haldar, in his 1945 monograph, not only assumed the existence of cultic prophecy in Israel but also presented this as part of a “fundamentally homogeneous phenomenology” in the ancient Near East.27 Ivan Engnell’s study of the call of Isaiah, published in 1949, found supporting evidence for the view that the prophet’s call is set in the context of the New Year festival, as this had been envisaged by a number of scholars.28 The call of Jeremiah was treated in a not dissimilar fashion by H. Graf Reventlow fourteen years later when he argued that a cultic ceremony of ordination is reflected in Jeremiah 1.29 In 1971, G. W. Ahlström argued that the book of Joel represents a collection of sayings by a cult-prophet living at the end of the sixth century BC.30 The cult prophets have also been a major theme for A. R. Johnson who contended that they functioned in the dual role of intercessors for the congregation and as spokesmen for Yahweh.31 Johnson’s earlier views are rehearsed and developed in his 23 H. Gunkel, “Psalmen”, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart ([1913]; 2d ed.; Tübingen: Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1930) vol. 4, cols. 1609–27. 24 Cf. W. H. Bellinger, Psalmody and Prophecy (JSOTSup 27; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 13. 25 Psalmenstudien, vol. 3: Kultprophetie und prophetische Psalmen (Kristiania: Dybwad, 1923). 26 See also Mowinckel’s The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962) 2.53–73 (Eng. trans. of Offersang og Sangoffer [Oslo: Aschehoug, 1951]). 27 Associations of Cult Prophets among the Ancient Semites (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1945). 28 The Call of Isaiah: An Exegetical and Comparative Study (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1949). 29 Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963) 24–77. 30 Joel and the Temple Cult of Jerusalem (VTSup 21; Leiden: Brill, 1971). 31 The Cultic Prophet in Ancient Israel ([1944]; 2d ed.; Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1962) 58–59.

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

107

1979 volume where, as previously, he is mainly interested in cultic prophecy as it is reflected in the Psalter, rather than in drawing the “writing prophets” into the cultic orbit. Here he argues for pre-monarchical (“Settlement”) dates for Psalms 81 and 95 and so makes the cultic prophet a functionary already in the earliest phases of Israelite history.32 Interest in cultic prophecy persists, albeit on a limited scale, for, although the direct evidence in the form either of narrative attestation in the historical books or of clear rubrication in the Psalter is inconclusive, it remains the case that some features in the Psalter, for example the dramatic switches in mood in some psalms (cf. Pss 6:8/9[7/8]; 22:22/23[21/22]), are very satisfactorily explained by this hypothesis. Bellinger’s 1984 monograph illustrates the point, for, in concentrating upon the “certainty-of-hearing” sections in certain individual and community laments in the psalms, Bellinger argues quite plausibly that a prophetic oracle is generally presupposed.33 At the same time, he stresses that the title of the functionary is of little account in such cases; it is the function that is important. A cultic connection along another plane has been envisaged by those scholars who have seen the “national covenant” between God and Israel as a major structuring feature of prophetic thought. The hypothesis of a pre-monarchical tribal amphictyony in Israel, as first propounded by Martin Noth,34 and the supposition that second millennium treaty texts offer a secular analogue to the Israelite covenant concept, and notably in its Sinaitic form, helped restore covenant for a time to its preWellhausenian position at the head of the religious and theological traditions of Israel.35 Despite the fact that specific references to a covenant between God and Israel are rare in the pre-exilic prophets, there is much else that could with goodwill be read against such a background. Taking Deut 18:15–19 as their basic text, a number of scholars have postulated the office of prophetic covenant mediator (or “law speaker”) for the pre-monarchical period. The covenant mediator was thought to function in relation to the whole of the tribal federation as guardian of its legal traditions deriving from its covenant with Yahweh. The exercise of the office was specially linked with an annual covenant renewal festival. Some sort of cultic involvement on the part of this Mosaic prophet (cf. Deut 18:15) was therefore envisaged, and the residual evidence of this long-standing connection was found in various speech-forms that were identified in the books associated with the classical prophets. As partial compensation for the absence of explicit covenant references in these books, the so-called “prophetic law-suit” (cf. Isa 1:2–3, 10–20) was held to presuppose a national covenant to which the prophets made appeal as they called their hearers back to the requirements of the covenant faith. Current scholarship, however, has little space for the Nothian amphictyonic idea, and the relevance of the second-millennium Near Eastern treaties is widely regarded as having been somewhat neutralized in the course of further research which has given more 32

The Cultic Prophet and Israel’s Psalmody (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1979) 5–22. Bellinger, Psalmody and Prophecy, 78–82. 34 Das System der zwölf Stämme lsraels (BWANT 4/1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1930). 35 For general discussion and evaluation see D. J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (2d ed.; AnBib 21A; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978) 1–24. 33

108

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

attention to the treaties of the first millennium for the light that they may shed on the biblical covenant traditions. Such covenant presence as there may be in the prophets has even been attributed to Deuteronomistic theologizing, which itself is said to have taken inspiration from the secular treaty-making of the neo-Assyrian period.36 Generally speaking, the notion of a fundamental opposition between prophecy and cult has fallen into disfavour in modern Old Testament scholarship, even if a clearly defined figure of “cult prophet” has not been universally recognized. (Even so, already in 1951 Otto Eissfeldt was deprecating a tendency in some quarters to treat all the biblical prophets as cultic officials.37 ) The “writing prophets” have, in any case, been perceived as probably more closely linked with the cult than their anti-cult utterances would suggest, since these are interpreted more correctly as denunciations of malpractice than as expressions of outright rejection of the cult as such. On the other hand, the mere use of liturgical forms by prophets is now less likely to be regarded as, by itself, the proof of a prophet’s close cultic attachment. Prophetic Speech It was Robert Lowth (1710–87), sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford and Bishop of London, who demonstrated that Hebrew poetry has a basic parallelistic structure,38 and also that the prophetic books are largely poetic in form.39 Others had made observations of the sort before him,40 but it was Lowth who convincingly demonstrated the case and so exercised a decisive influence upon the study of Hebrew poetry in modern biblical scholarship. And if modern scholarship has regressed into a deep uncertainty as to how to describe Hebrew poetry or how, indeed, to distinguish Hebrew poetry from Hebrew prose,41 it is instructive to note that, whereas some nineteenth-century scholars were happy to follow Lowth in his conclusions about the prophets – as, for example, Wilhelm Gesenius in his threevolume commentary on Isaiah42 – others in the same period were disinclined to do so. In the 1880s T. K. Cheyne was not sufficiently persuaded by Lowth’s insights to 36 See L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (WMANT 36; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969) 282–83; R. E. Clements, Prophecy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975) 8–23, 41–57; E. W. Nicholson, God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986) 83–117. 37 “The Prophetic Literature”, in The Old Testament and Modern Study (ed. H. H. Rowley; Oxford: Clarendon, 1951) 159. 38 De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum: Praelectiones Academicae Oxonii Habitae (Oxford: Clarendon, 1753). 39 Isaiah: A New Translation; With a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes Critical, Philological, and Explanatory (London: Nichols, 1778); see also lectures 18–21 of De Sacra Poesi (= pp. 166–215). For a biography of Lowth see B. Hepworth, Robert Lowth (Boston: Twayne [G. K Hall], 1978). 40 See R. P. Gordon, “‘Isaiah’s Wild Measure’: R. M. McCheyne”, Expository Times 103 (1992) 235–37 (235). 41 Cf. J. L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). 42 Der Prophet Jesaia: Philologisch-kritischer und historischer Commentar über den Jesaia (Leipzig: Vogel, 1820–21).

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

109

let them affect his commentary on Isaiah.43 Nor were the scholars responsible for the revision of the Old Testament in the Revised Version of 1885 convinced that Lowth’s “poetry” was more than the elevated prose to which biblical speech tended to resort in its more exalted phases: In the poetical portions, besides the division into paragraphs, the Revisers have adopted an arrangement in lines, so as to exhibit the parallelism which is characteristic of Hebrew Poetry. But they have not extended this arrangement to the prophetical books, the language of which although frequently marked by parallelism is, except in purely lyrical passages, rather of the nature of lofty and impassioned prose.44

The field that Lowth had ploughed in parallel lines lay fairly fallow as far as the prophets were concerned until Duhm produced his commentary on Isaiah, in which he was able to apply his ideas on the metrical nature of Hebrew poetry to the demarcation of speech units and especially to the separation of what he deemed to be original and secondary material.45 Joseph Blenkinsopp, in paying tribute to Duhm’s skill, describes this volume as “the first genuinely modern commentary on a prophetic book”.46 Gunkel’s contribution in this area started with the simple observation that prophecy was originally spoken; figures like Elijah and Elisha are not associated with writing. Originally, the prophets were not writers, but became such towards the end of their history. They were originally orators, as can be seen from the expression “Hear!” with which their speeches begin. . . . Their public was the people, either in the market place or in the forecourt of the temple (Jer 7:2).47

The prophets received their messages by means of visions and “verbal revelations” (Wortoffenbarungen), these latter being expressed in terse and sometimes almost Delphic utterances such as “Lo-ammi” (“Not my people”) and “Immanuel” (“God with us”). “In such mysterious words”, says Gunkel, “the literary prophets, imitating the cries of the ancient ecstatics, summed up their ideas.” 48 From these laconic beginnings, prophecy developed into the well-fashioned oracles of the canonical books, and many different speech-forms, from the fields of law and liturgy especially, were subsequently taken up by the prophets and used for the conveying of their message. Already the basic distinction between promise (Verheissung) and threat (Drohung) is apparent in Gunkel’s discussion. The addition of the reproach 43 The Prophecies of Isaiah: A New Translation with Commentary and Appendices (2 vols; London: Kegan Paul, 1880–82); see G. B. Gray, Isaiah I–XXVII (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912) lix–lx. 44 “Revisers’ Preface to the Old Testament”, The Holy Bible: The Revised Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885). 45 Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (5th ed.), 10–15. 46 A History of Prophecy in Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983) 13. 47 “Propheten”, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (1913; 2d ed.; Tübingen: Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1930), vol. 4, col. 1546 (Eng. trans. in Twentieth Century Theology in the Making [ed. J. Pelikan; London: Fontana/New York: Harper & Row, 1969] 1.61). 48 Gunkel, “Propheten”, col. 1548 (Eng. trans., 65).

110

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

(Scheltrede) in explanation of the threat he regarded as a separate line of development which reflected the increasing prophetic preoccupation with the moral basis of God’s dealings with Israel.49 An influential observation of a different kind was made, apparently independently, by Ludwig Köhler50 and Johann Lindblom51 in studies published in 1923 and 1924. These two scholars identified the frequently occurring “Thus says the Lord” as a messenger formula whose regular occurrence in the prophetic writings derives from the conception of the prophet as a (royal?) messenger announcing the decrees of Yahweh to his people. The significance of this observation is reflected in von Rad’s comment that, though the messenger formula may not have been first in time, it is first in importance among the many forms of prophetic speech.52 The idea was taken a step further by J. S. Holladay in 1970 when he sought to draw a comparison between Assyrian imperial protocol (including treaty-making) in the late ninth century BC, and subsequently, and prophetic forms of address in Israel.53 On this view, the custom of the prophets from Amos onward of addressing not only the king and court but also the general populace reflects a change in Assyrian imperial policy, beginning in the late ninth century, whereby the emperor, through the royal heralds, addressed his demands both to the vassal kings and also to the subject peoples whom they represented. Among those who have contributed most significantly on the subject of prophetic speech since Gunkel are C. Westermann,54 K. Koch55 and G. M. Tucker.56 Much effort has gone into attempts to refine Gunkel’s observations on the basic oracle form. Westermann, for example, avoids the use of “threat” because he regards the slight implication of hope suggested by the word as unwarranted. His preferred term is Gerichtsankündigung (“announcement of judgment”). This, of course, touches on a basic question about the intentions of the prophets: whether in their preaching they offered their hearers any possibility of avoiding the judgment that they habitually announced in the pre-exilic period. The recognition of basic patterns of prophetic speech, as described by Westermann and Koch especially, has its uses, but the advantage is lost when oracles are bound too closely to form-critical stereotypes, for 49

Gunkel, “Propheten”, col. 1553 (Eng. trans., 74). Deuterojesaja (Jesaja 40–55) stilkritisch untersucht (BZAW 37; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1923) 102–5. 51 “Die prophetische Orakelformel”, appendix in Die literarische Gattung der prophetischen Literatur: Eine literargeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Alten Testament (Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift, Teologi 1; Uppsala: Lundequistska, 1924) 97–115. 52 The Message of the Prophets (London: SCM, 1968) 18 (Eng. trans. of Die Botschaft der Propheten [Munich: Siebenstern-Taschenbuch, 1967]). At the same time, G. M. Tucker notes that the use of the formula is not restricted to “messages”, and that messages do not necessarily begin (or end) with it (“Prophetic Speech”, in Interpreting the Prophets [ed. J. L. Mays and P. J. Achtemeier; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987] 30–31). 53 “Assyrian Statecraft and the Prophets of Israel”, HTR 63 (1970) 29–51. 54 Grundformen prophetischer Rede (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1960 [2d ed. 1964]) (Eng. trans. Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech [London: Lutterworth/Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967]). 55 Was ist Formgeschichte? Neue Wege der Bibelexegese (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag [1964; 2d ed. 1967]; 3d ed. 1974) 223–70 (Eng. trans. The Growth of the Biblical Tradition [London: A. & C. Black/New York: Scribner’s, 1969] 183–220). 56 Form Criticism of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). 50

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

111

only a minority within the basic types conform to the original pattern as this is envisaged by the form-critics. The view that oracular forms develop from simplex to complex is the kind of assumption often made in the study of linguistic and literary units, but, as Tucker notes, this does not apply in the case of the “threat” since the “reproach” is a feature of the “threat” in all periods of prophecy.57 Moreover, the “reproach” sometimes features as part of the divine speech, and so cannot simply be regarded as the prophet’s own explanation of the judgment threatened.58 Again, the tendency to limit oracles of salvation to the exilic and post-exilic periods has been a Procrustean commonplace upon which Westermann himself has more recently commented.59 Questions may also legitimately be asked about the significance of a prophet’s use of this or that form of speech. In particular, does the use of a cultic lament make a prophet a cultic figure any more than his composing of a dirge makes him a professional wailer?60 However, much more significant than all this is the way in which the form-critical approach, while not restoring the prophets to their “precritical” position of inheritors and interpreters of the Mosaic tradition, has helped to locate them within the socio-religious traditions of Israel, from which they borrowed and upon which they built as they developed their great religious and social themes. Prophetic Books There are few clues in the Old Testament as to how the prophetic sayings and traditions were brought together to make up the canonical books with which we are familiar. Somewhat cryptically, Isa 8:16 talks about “fastening up the message” and “sealing the oracle”, which may imply the committal to writing of certain of Isaiah’s sayings at an early stage (cf. 30:8). Jer 36:1–2 has Yahweh tell Jeremiah to take a scroll and record on it all the oracles that he had received since his commissioning in the reign of Josiah. Thus, on the one hand the Jeremiah text is talking about the writing down of oracles, while on the other it implies that Jeremiah had not done this during his previous twenty years as a prophet. So how did prophetic books achieve their present shape? The question was addressed by T. H. Robinson in his 1923 volume, in which he envisaged four stages of development beginning with short oral units and progressing to “little booklets of oracular matter” (e.g. oracles against foreign nations) and thence to larger units comprising sayings and also traditions about the prophet in question, and finally to the canonical books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, “The Twelve”).61 This is, then, a process of accretion or aggregation in which the prophetic oracles and traditions are assembled in increasingly large units 57

Ibid., 63. Cf. Hayes, An Introduction, 277. 59 See his Prophetische Heilsworte im Alten Testament (FRLANT 145; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987) 5 (Eng. trans. Prophetic Oracles of Salvation in the Old Testament [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991] 7). 60 Cf. W. McKane in Tradition and Interpretation (ed. G. W. Anderson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979) 168–69; G. Fohrer, “Die Propheten des Alten Testaments im Blickfeld neuer Forschung”, in Studien zur alttestamentlichen Prophetie (1949–1965) (BZAW 99; Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1967) 20. 61 T. H. Robinson, Prophecy, 50–59. There are close similarities between Robinson’s approach and that outlined in Gunkel, “Propheten”, col. 1547 (Eng. trans. 63–64). 58

112

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

of text. Scandinavian scholars especially emphasized the role of oral tradition in the process. Mowinckel’s 1926 essay on Isaiah and his disciples assumed both a longlived Isaiah tradition involving various of the other named Old Testament prophets, and a longish period of oral tradition during which the prophet’s words were preserved and refashioned according to later circumstances and needs.62 When he returned to the subject in 1946 Mowinckel reaffirmed the importance of the traditiohistorical approach, but he also argued that oral tradition was complemented by written transmission, as in the case of Jeremiah (cf. chaps. 36, 45).63 This latter view was confirmed by Widengren in his study of literary and psychological aspects of prophecy, now on the basis of comparisons with preIslamic and early Islamic oral tradition and literary composition.64 Engnell also found a place for written transmission of prophetic traditions.65 He divided the prophetic literature into two main types, the liturgical and the diwan, the former representing books which give evidence of having been artistic compositions from the beginning. His examples include Joel and Nahum, and also “Deutero-Isaiah”, about which Westermann later concluded that the chapters as we have them may go back basically to the prophet himself, and that certain longer poems such as 49:14–26 may have been literary productions from the beginning.66 A. H. J. Gunneweg maintained the distinction between oral and written by treating them as separate lines of transmission to be attributed to different loci: oral transmission of prophetic sayings was “private” and home-based, while written transmission was “official” and cult-based.67 Traditio-historical study of the prophets, tracing the prehistory of prophetic themes and traditions, sometimes to particular places or circles of influence, continued in the third quarter of the twentieth century with the German scholars Gerhard von Rad68 and Hans Walter Wolff 69 prominent in the field. Attention has also concentrated more recently, per redaction criticism, on the later editing of prophetic collections to reflect the concerns and interests of the receptor community. Discussion is then more likely to be in terms of strata, representing levels of intervention in the text whereby the original material is expanded and adapted to meet the needs of later generations. In his commentary on Amos, Wolff distinguishes three eighth-century literary strata – “all of which for the most part derive from Amos 62

Jesaja-Disiplene: Profetien fra Jesaja til Jeremia (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1926). Prophecy and Tradition: The Prophetic Books in the Light of the Study of the Growth and History of the Tradition (Oslo: Dybwad, 1946) 60–62. 64 Widengren, Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets, 11–56. 65 Engnell, The Call of Isaiah, 60–61; idem, “Profetia och tradition: Några synpunkter på ett gammaltestamentligt centralproblem”, SEÅ 12 (1947) 94–123 (112–13). 66 C. Westermann, Das Buch Jesaia, 40–66 (ATD 19; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966) 26 (Eng. trans. Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary [London: SCM, 1969] 28). 67 Mündliche und schriftliche Tradition der vorexilischen Prophetenbücher als Problem der Prophetenforschung (FRLANT 73; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959) 77–81. 68 Von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, vol. 2: Die Theologie der prophetischen Überlieferungen Israels (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1960) (Eng. trans. Old Testament Theology, vol. 2 [Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1965]); idem, Die Botschaft der Propheten. 69 Amos’ geistige Heimat (WMANT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1964) (Eng. trans. Amos the Prophet: The Man and His Background [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973]). 63

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

113

himself and his contemporary disciples” – and three additional strata which are recognizable “by their distinctive language and different intentions” and derive from the following centuries.70 These last-named comprise Josianic (anti-Bethel) and Deuteronomistic levels of redaction and a post-exilic “eschatology of salvation”, chiefly in 9:11–15. A similar redactional concern marks W. Zimmerli’s two-volume commentary on Ezekiel in which much is made of a “school of Ezekiel” that is credited with the transmission and augmentation of the original prophetic core.71 These two commentaries by Wolff and Zimmerli are representative of a wider interest in the redactional history of the prophetic books. The redactional afterlife of a prophecy becomes important inasmuch as it helps to explain how a prophet’s words retain their relevance for generations following that to which they were first addressed. Thus, for example, the Assyrian prophecies of Isaiah are applied to the circumstances of the Babylonian exile,72 and the message of Hosea to the Northern Kingdom is redirected towards the people of Judah after the fall of Samaria.73 In certain respects the approach differs little from the long-established scholarly concern with separating prophetic core from scribal husk, but the difference consists in the higher valuation accorded the “husk”. This altered outlook is fittingly summed up by W. McKane: “Disciples are also prophets and so the tradition is indivisible, and a prophetic book is the record of the on-going life of a prophetic community.”74 Concern with redactional history also has the obvious attraction of enabling the student of the prophetic books to keep faith with the final form of the biblical text over against the hypothetical reconstructions, on whatever scale, that may also have to be considered. In the modern period there have been major developments in the study of individual prophetic books, notably in the separation of Isaiah 40–66 from (most of) the earlier chapters of Isaiah and therefore from the prophetic activity and utterances of the eighth-century Isaiah of Jerusalem. Plural authorship has been argued from the late eighteenth century by scholars such as J. B. Koppe and J. G. Eichhorn.75 Duhm’s isolation of the so-called “servant songs” within Isaiah 40–55 has also been determinative in much discussion of the identity of the servant and of related issues in these chapters.76 Likewise, the observations of Mowinckel on the diverse material in Jeremiah, formalized in his main “sources” A, B and C, representing the poetry, 70 Dodekapropheton 2: Joel und Amos (BKAT 14/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969) 130 (2d ed. 1975) (Eng. trans. Joel and Amos [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977] 107). 71 Ezechiel, vols. 1–2 (BKAT 13; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969) (Eng. trans. Ezekiel, vols. 1–2 [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979–83]). 72 Cf. R. E. Clements, “The Prophecies of Isaiah and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC.”, VT 30 (1980) 421–36. 73 Cf. G. I. Emmerson, Hosea: An Israelite Prophet in Judean Perspective (JSOTSup 28; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 56–116. 74 McKane, Tradition and Interpretation, 186. Cf. also G. I. Davies, Hosea (Old Testament Guides; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 102: “These later voices, too, are part of the prophetic tradition of Israel, and without them we should probably not have had the prophetic books at all.” 75 See J. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (London: SPCK, 1984) 23. 76 Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (5th ed.), 14–15, 311, etc. See, however, T. N. D. Mettinger, A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1983).

114

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

biography and prose speeches in the book, have been constitutive of the main stream of Jeremiah scholarship ever since.77 In Mowinckel’s 1946 volume the Deuteronomistic sermons are, however, explained in traditio-historical terms, not now as representative of a source but as the product of a circle of traditionists who transmitted sayings of Jeremiah in their own Deuteronomistic idiom: “they represent exactly a circle of tradition of their own, within which certain of the sayings by Jeremiah have been transmitted and transformed according to the ideas and the style which prevailed in the circle, exactly the deuteronomistic ideas and forms of style and interests.”78 The assumptions and methods of literary criticism and traditionhistory still feature prominently in prophets study, but they have been supplemented by another generation of approaches, some of them originally developed outside the biblical field, as we shall see in the next section. The New Generation The face of prophets scholarship has altered substantially in the past couple of decades. It is not simply that older preoccupations have been abandoned and brash new approaches installed in their place. Not all the newer emphases could be claimed as complete innovations as compared with previous work, if only because the texts remain the same and must to some significant extent determine the approaches that are appropriate and the questions that are worth asking. Rather, the limitations of the older methods are more frankly acknowledged and the desirability of a more sophisticatedly flexible approach to the biblical texts is being recognized. The status of “the text”, no less in religious than in secular literature, has also been radically revised, with a greater general awareness that the individual reader, by his or her interaction with the text, is involved willy-nilly in the creation of meaning. However, none of this means that the more excavative approaches to prophetic texts are rendered redundant. Indeed, it is noticeable that, as well as the current spate of “literarily correct” studies that deal in nothing but the final form of the text, there are many others that involve historical reconstruction and/or the recreation of the social milieu in which prophets lived or in which their words were transmitted – though such are the penalties attaching to historical reconstruction in the present climate of academic scepticism, and so privileged is the final-form reading of biblical texts, that even excavative studies may be seen courting respectability in final-form dress. We begin, then, by observing that, the newer emphases notwithstanding, the student of Israelite prophecy is obliged nowadays to take account of new information. The new “technology” must still include things like tablets and inscriptions, and even comparative philology, thanks to the ever-increasing number of relevant prophetic texts coming to light at various ancient Near Eastern sites.79 77

Zur Komposition des Buches Jeremia (Kristiania: Dybwad, 1914). Mowinckel, Prophecy and Tradition, 62. 79 See R. P. Gordon, “From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel”, in Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages (ed. H. A. McKay and D. J. A. Clines; JSOTSup 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 63–79. 78

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

115

These permit a very fragmentary account of a widespread phenomenon justifiably described as “Near Eastern prophecy”, and one which gives evidence more and more of its cultural consanguinity with its Israelite counterpart. The main site is Mari in Syria, with its royal archive dating back to the national dynasty there in the eighteenth century BC.80 This is not the place to describe or even to summarize the contents of the several dozen Mari tablets from the period that attest the existence of oracular prophecy in Mari and related centres. But the profile of prophecy that is emerging from the growing number of published texts draws Mari ever nearer to Israel. At Mari the ideas of prophetic access to the divine council and of the prophet’s messenger status vis-à-vis the commissioning deity are firmly established, and already there are intimations of the concern of the Israelite prophets with justice and ethics in national affairs.81 Furthermore, the recently-discovered existence of cognates, at Mari and also at thirteenth-century Emar, of the primary Hebrew term for “prophet” (nãbî’) requires that Israelite prophecy be viewed in the context of Syro-Mesopotamian prophecy.82 These extra-biblical texts, moreover, tend to support the idea of a western origin for their “nabū-prophecy”. So despite the geographical and chronological gaps separating Mari and Israel, the points of contact are too substantial to be set aside. Prophecy at Mari, as at the other Near Eastern centres referred to above, can illuminate Israelite prophecy (and vice versa), and, with its named prophets and sometimes very specific historical settings, may even serve as a useful reminder that behind prophetic oracles and even prophetic books stand flesh-and-blood prophets. Interest in the prophets as prophets, and not just in prophecy as a literary phenomenon, is also reflected in a number of studies published in the 1970s and 1980s dealing with prophetic psychology.83 R. R. Wilson, who is mainly interested in the sociology of prophecy, refers to passages in Jeremiah as evidence of the ecstatic nature of some prophecy (4:19; 23:9; 29:26).84 As he notes, anthropologists now prefer to speak of “trance” rather than “ecstasy,” and as a way of describing not a process of communication but the behaviour of the “entranced” prophet. “Possession behaviour” is also regarded as fairly stereotypical within particular groups or societies. The continuing publication of texts relating to ecstatic prophecy at Mari may help keep the subject alive, even though its importance in prophets studies “in real terms” is greatly reduced as compared with the first half of the twentieth century. The danger to be avoided, as Petersen notes, is that of turning the 80 Cf. A. Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1984; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 81 Cf. Gordon, “From Mari to Moses”, 71–79. 82 Ibid., 65; for Emar see D. E. Fleming, “Nãbû and Munabbiãtu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel”, JAOS 113 (1993) 175–83; idem, “The Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nãbî’: The One Who Invokes God”, CBQ 55 (1993) 217–24. 83 Cf. S. B. Parker, “Possession Trance and Prophecy in Pre-exilic Israel”, VT 28 (1978) 271–85; R. R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination”, JBL 98 (1979) 321–37; B. Uffenheimer, “Prophecy, Ecstasy, and Sympathy”, in Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 40; Leiden: Brill, 1988) 257–69; P. Michaelsen, “Ecstasy and Possession in Ancient Israel: A Review of Some Recent Contributions”, SJOT 2 (1989) 28–54. 84 “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination”, JBL 98 (1979) 323.

116

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

prophets generally into ecstatics such that they become isolated to an unjustifiable extent from the society of which they formed a part.85 Though productive of less historically specific evidence than the archiva1 and epigraphic material considered above, the sociological-cum-anthropological study of prophecy as it has developed in the past twenty years nevertheless makes its own oblique kind of contribution to the profile of prophecy in Israel. Interest here focuses on the titles and roles of prophets, the authority by which they were able to function, and such other matters as the role of support groups, audience response, the distinction between “true” and “false” prophets, and the problem of unfulfilled prophecy.86 In such studies, whether they are basically sociological or anthropological in their approach, society’s familiarity with, and expectations of, the prophet figure are of crucial importance, and on at least two different levels. First, the success or failure of the claimed prophet relates closely to his fulfilling the prophetic stereotype as this is perceived by the society in which he operates – and here “stereotype” should perhaps apply as much to a solitary or “peripheral” prophet as to an official or “central” one. If a prophet does not conform in some way to the popular conception of a prophet his credibility will diminish. Secondly, the social expectation that produced the formulation of the prophetic role in Israelite society should be a datum in the modern scholar’s investigation of prophecy in Israel. The biblical and extra-biblical information alike indicates societies in the Near East in which prophetic modes of behaviour were well-known and easily recognizable, and this applies no less to Israel in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. When, therefore, it is questioned whether the “classical” prophets of Israel self-consciously functioned as prophets and were known by the term nãbî’,87 the response to the first limb of the question may properly include, in addition to the internal evidence of prophetic books such as Amos and Hosea, the collateral evidence of the socially defined role of the prophet in pre-exilic Israel. This, and not the mere use of a term for “prophet”, is the deciding factor; there may indeed be evidence of a restrained use of the term for the like of Isaiah and Amos in their own time, and it would not be difficult to think of good reasons for its avoidance.88 At the same time, it would be truer to the genius of Hebrew prophecy to put the accent upon the self-awareness of the prophets rather than upon any social role thrust upon them, and the more so when the latter conflicted with the higher purpose to which they felt called. Much current discussion of Israelite prophecy is, for all that, predicated on the understanding that the prophets functioned self-consciously as such throughout the period of the monarchy and on into the post-exilic era. They called their contemporaries to observe ethical standards of behaviour in a God-conscious kind of way, and they issued warnings of judgment in the event of their message being rejected. Recent studies still seek to do justice to this “theological” dimension of the 85

D. L Petersen, The Roles of Israel’s Prophets (JSOTSup 17; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981) 27. The volume from which this chapter is reproduced contained a section entitled “Prophecy and Society” (pp. 273–412). 87 Cf. A. G. Auld, “Prophets Through the Looking Glass: Between Writings and Moses”, JSOT 27 (1983) 3–23. 88 Cf. R. P. Gordon, “Where Have All the Prophets Gone? The ‘Disappearing’ Prophet against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy”, Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995) 67–86. 86

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

117

prophetic message, and they enjoy representation [in this volume].89 There has, at the same time, been a very considerable interest in the ways in which prophecy, whether in its oral or its written phases, is crafted. Classical terms like rhetoric and drama will mingle with the more biblical-sounding “inner-biblical interpretation” and the modernisms of “language-event”, “speech-act theory” and “audience reception” in any serious overview of recent prophets study. The prophets as undoubted poets deployed the skills of the poet, with serious rhetorical intention. Recent studies seek to do justice to this aspect of prophecy, whether by rhetoric we mean the linguistic and structural features of a finely-wrought composition or, as more in keeping with its original Aristotelian emphasis, the suasive effect that poets seek to achieve through their use of language.90 To skill with words is sometimes added skill with texts, when later sections of the Old Testament use and adapt older texts to produce a kind of “inner-biblical exegesis”. This can sometimes happen in a distinctly ironic way when an older text is turned against those who are all too complacently familiar with it.91 While in theory such reworking of texts may be possible at either the oral or the written stage, the latter seems more likely for some of the more extended examples of this biblical phenomenon.92 There is also an increased awareness in recent prophets study of the way in which the dialogue between a prophet and his audience may be reflected in the biblical text, where it may appear in the form of unrubricated dialogue, as evidently in the case of Jeremiah.93 The not unrelated speech-form of the “prophetic disputation” implies such dialogue without necessarily itself being reportage of literal exchanges between a prophet and his audience.94 Thus prophetic speech does not function simply as declamatory monologue, proceeding from prophet to hearer, but also involves quotation of, and response to, the questions and denials of the target audience. Text dynamics operate at other levels, as recent prophets scholarship has sought to demonstrate. As in literary studies generally, so also in the biblical field there has been an increased tendency to accord special significance to the final form of texts, even if they are assumed to be of composite authorship. This involves a willingness to recognize in the final arrangement of material within the larger unit new structural 89 The volumes by K. Koch (Die Profeten [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1978]; Eng. trans. The Prophets [2 vols., London: SCM, 1982–83]) and J. Blenkinsopp (A History of Prophecy in Israel: From the Settlement in the Land to the Hellenistic Period [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983]) deserve special mention for their attention to the theology of the prophetic books of the Old Testament. 90 Cf. Y. Gitay, Prophecy and Persuasion: A Study of Isaiah 40–48 (Bonn: Linguistica Biblica, 1981); idem, Isaiah and His Audience: The Structure and Meaning of Isaiah 1–12 (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1991). 91 Cf. M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 332–34. 92 Cf. J. Day, “A Case of Inner Scriptural Interpretation: The Dependence of Isaiah XXVI. 13–XXVII. 11 on Hosea XIII. 4–XIV. 10 (Eng. 9) and Its Relevance to Some Theories of the Redaction of the ‘Isaiah Apocalypse’”, JTS n.s. 31 (1980) 309–19. 93 See J. T. Willis, “Dialogue between Prophet and Audience as a Rhetorical Device in the Book of Jeremiah”, JSOT 33 (1985) 63–82; J. R. Lundbom, “Jeremiah and the Break-Away from Authority Preaching”, SEÅ 56 (1991) 7–28. 94 Cf. A. Graffy, A Prophet Confronts His People: The Disputation Speech in the Prophets (AnBib 104; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1984); D. F. Murray, “The Rhetoric of Disputation: Reexamination of a Prophetic Genre”, JSOT 38 (1987) 95–121.

118

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

patterns and phraseological relationships that by definition could not exist in the constituent texts. Since these relationships of meaning may easily exceed anything intended by the original authors, their operation tends to be described in accordance with the looser canons of “intertextuality”, where assumptions about authorial intention do not necessarily apply. Where the situation is one of a developing tradition in which original words and phrases are repeated and adapted in order to apply to new situations, as is commonly envisaged nowadays for the book of Isaiah,95 the question remains, of course, very much one of authorial intention, however else the phenomenon may be described. Something comparable to the situation in Isaiah seems to be implied in McKane’s concept of a “rolling corpus” in Jeremiah, according to which texts generate other texts phraseologically or ideologically similar, though McKane does not see the process in Jeremiah as particularly skilful or coherent.96 And, when once a collection of texts is viewed as a “canon” of authoritative scripture, the emphasis may again be not so much upon the internal development that has produced the final form of the text as upon the “canonical” meaning that may emerge from the finalized text. Moreover, the canonical perspective makes it possible to treat not only the arrangement of the individual books but also their several relationships one to another as interpretively significant. Thus the fact that the Christian canon of the Old Testament differs from its Jewish counterpart in that it ends with the prophetic books, climaxing with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, is plausibly explained as the result of a deliberate striving after an “eschatological canon” which, because of the expectations of the Christ-event perceived in Zechariah 9–14 and Mal 4:1–6, is intended to function as a praeparatio for the developments recounted in the New Testament. If such is the case, as it seems to be, “canon” functions here as a significant interpretive factor not just in the way of a reading strategy but also as a pointer to objective realities in the final form of the biblical text.97 The final form of the text of the prophets has also been examined from a number of other perspectives developed in general literary studies, notably structuralist,98 which concerns itself with patterns of human thought present but not expressly so in texts, deconstructionist,99 which seeks to demonstrate that there are internal 95 The volume from which this chapter is reproduced contains an assemblage of essays under the heading, “The Developing Tradition” (pp. 413–522). 96 Jeremiah (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986) l.1–lxxxiii. In his view of Jeremiah, McKane stands somewhere between R. P. Carroll (From Chaos to Covenant: Uses of Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah [London: SCM, 1981]; Jeremiah: A Commentary [London: SCM, 1986]), who thinks that certain identification of words of the historical Jeremiah is extremely difficult, and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah 1 [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986]; Jeremiah 2 [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989]), who reconstructs the career of the prophet on the basis of the data in the biblical book. 97 On this latter point as it affects the structuring of prophetic books, see R. E. Clements, “Patterns in the Prophetic Canon”, in Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Authority (ed. G. W. Coats and B. O. Long; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 42–55. 98 Cf. Y. Mazor, “Hosea 5:1–3: Between Compositional Rhetoric and Rhetorical Composition”, JSOT 45 (1989) 115–26. 99 Cf. F. van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Imagination of Power and the Power of Imagination. An Intertextual Analysis of Two Biblical Love Songs: The Song of Songs and Hosea 2”, JSOT 44 (1989) 75–88; D. J. A. Clines, “Haggai’s Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed”, SJOT 7 (1993) 51–77.

A STORY OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

119

contradictions in any text and that these are subversive of the authority of texts as such, and “reader-response”,100 of which feminist studies may be seen as a subcategory.101 “Reader-response” is a catch-all term for reading strategies in which the participation of the reader is held to have a formative effect on meaning – regarded not as intrinsic to the text but as the product of interaction between text and reader. Legitimation of readings tends to be associated with interpretative communities, and indeed “reader-response” often functions in the way of a group hermeneutic meeting the needs of communities of interest, whether religious, social, ethnic or something else. Advocates of the approaches noted in this paragraph have generally, it should be said, found the narrative sections of the Old Testament more congenial to their interests. This is true not least of feminist studies. The title of this introductory chapter refers to paradigm shifts in the study of the Israelite prophets. The first occurred in the later nineteenth century when the prophets were raised to new heights of eminence on account of their reconstructed role in the development of Israelite religion. The second is much more recent and will require further discussion, about how best to define it, in the chapter entitled “Present Trends and Future Directions” in this volume. But, whereas both developments have occasioned fresh and insightful approaches to the prophetic traditions of the Old Testament, it is important not to overestimate their significance or their achievement. In the one case we have seen that the “splendid isolation” to which the prophets were elevated by the advocates of the newer approach in the late nineteenth century came to be recognized as an overstatement of the prophetic contribution to the formation of the Israelite ethico-religious consciousness. The overstatement was largely owing to an underestimation of what had preceded the great classical prophets in respect of both law and religion. The newer multifaceted approach to the prophetic books which warrants talk of a second paradigm shift bears its own testimony to the richness of the Israelite prophetic tradition. But it would be a pity if doctrinaire dismissals of older approaches were to turn the idea of “paradigm shift” into a euphemism for a neologistic tyranny which, in the familiar way of some Old Testament scholarship, assumed far more about what cannot be known about the workings of Israelite prophecy (for example) than the evidence justifies.

100

Cf. Y. Gitay, “Isaiah and His Audience”, Prooftexts 3 (1983) 223–30; E. W. Conrad, Reading Isaiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); F. O. García-Treto, “A Reader-Response Approach to Prophetic Conflict: The Case of Amos 7:10–17”, in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup 143; ed. J. C. Exum and D. J. A. Clines; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 114–24. 101 See K. P. Darr, “Ezekiel’s Justifications of God: Teaching Troubling Texts”, JSOT 55 (1992) 97–117 (esp. 114–16), for discussion of the kind of issue that engages feminist (and other concerned) biblical criticism.

Chapter 10

From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel Modern study of near eastern (non-Israelite) prophecy, whether as a subject in its own right or (usually) as background to the more lavishly illustrated Israelite phenomenon, begins with Golénischeff’s publication in 1899 of the Egyptian Wen Amon text which relates an occurrence of ecstatic prophesying in a temple at Byblos in the eleventh century BCE.1 Since 1899 a number of texts illustrative of ancient near eastern prophecy, and confirming that “prophecy” in some sense is indeed involved, have been forthcoming from a number of near eastern sites, Mari in the midEuphrates region being pre-eminent among them. In this study attention will focus on texts from the second millennium that might be regarded as precursors (if not progenitors) of the Israelite phenomenon. Strangely, the Ugaritic texts, which have shed light on many other features of Israelite religion, have little to say on prophecy.2 There are a couple of uninformative references to “seers”,3 and, in a text written in Akkadian, there is a mention of “ecstatics” (see below). To relieve some of this dearth, Ringgren quotes, from the Baal epic, a speech by Kothar wa-Hasis to Baal, in which he finds prophetic oracular form: ˘ I tell you, O Prince Baal, I repeat, O Rider of the Clouds: Behold, your enemy, O Baal, Behold, your enemy you shall smite, Behold, you shall destroy your foes. You shall take your eternal kingdom, Your dominion for generation after generation.4 (CTA 2.4.7–10) 1

W. Golénischeff, “Papyrus hiératique de la Collection W. Golénischeff contenant la description du voyage de l’égyptien Ounou-Amon en Phénicie”, in Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes 21 (NS 5) (ed. G. Maspero; Paris: Librairie Emile Bouillon, 1899), pp. 74–102 (text and translation into French, pp. 76–102). See also A. Erman, “Eine Reise nach Phönizien im 11. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 38 (1900), pp. 1–14 (translation into German, pp. 4–14). For a still earlier publication relating to Assyrian prophecy see G. Smith, “Addresses of Encouragement to Esarhaddon”, in H. C. Rawlinson (ed.), The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 4 (London: 1875), no. 68 (cuneiform text only); translation by T. G. Pinches in S. Birch (ed.), Records of the Past, vol. 11 (London: 1878), pp. 59–72 (61–72). 2 Cf. J. Gray, The Legacy of Canaan (VTSup, 5; Leiden: Brill, 2nd edn, 1965), p. 217. 3 See A. F. Rainey, “The Kingdom of Ugarit”, BA 28 (1965), p. 123. 4 H. Ringgren, “Prophecy in the Ancient Near East”, in Israel’s Prophetic Tradition. Essays in Honour of Peter R. Ackroyd (ed. R. J. Coggins, A. Phillips and M. A. Knibb; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 9.

120

FROM MARI TO MOSES

121

This oracle from a god to a god is therefore given the status of a heavenly story with an earthly meaning in a way broadly comparable with Thorkild Jacobsen’s transposing of Sumerian mythical references to the gods in council into political reality (“primitive democracy”) in the city-states of ancient Sumer.5 The Western Hypothesis There has been a sustained interest in the prophetic texts from Mari since the first publications. Further attention is guaranteed by the appearance in 1988 of volume I/1 of Archives épistolaires de Mari (= ARM 26/1), which, as well as the new material, includes a number of previously published texts.6 In addition, an ãpilum text is included among the letters of Yarīm-Addu published in volume I/2 of the same series.7 The most notable feature of the newly published texts is the occurrence of an Akkadian cognate of the Hebrew nãbî’ (“prophet”) in text 216 (A. 2209), in which Tebī-gērī-šu reports on his consultation of Hanaean prophets about the safety of the ˘ king of Mari.8 Tebī-gērī-šu says that he assembled the lúna-bi-imeš ša ha-na-meš the ˘ safe for the day after he arrived at Ašmad in order to discover whether it would be king to engage in a ritual lustration outside the walls of his city. It is only in recent years that such possible cognates of the Hebrew nãbî’ have begun to be canvassed. Apart from the claimed existence of a cognate at Ebla,9 there are occurrences of a form munabbītu in thirteenth-century texts from the Syrian city of Emar. Each of the three occurrences of the word is associated with the goddess Išhara, and one ˘ suggestion (which still requires corroboration) is that the word means 10 “prophetesses”. The description of the prophets in text 216 as “Hanaean” seems to link this particular form of prophecy with the West Semites, ˘since the Hanaeans are well ˘ 11 At first sight, known as an Amorite element within the population of Mesopotamia. therefore, there appears to be evidence of the western origin of at least some elements 5 T. Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia”, JNES 2 (1943), pp. 159–72 (= pp. 157–70 in Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture [ed. W. L. Moran; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970]). 6 J.-M. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari, I/1 (ARM, 26; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988), pp. 375–452 (= AEM). The texts discussed in this study follow Durand’s numbering, but normally they also carry the older classification. 7 D. Charpin et al., Archives épistolaires de Mari, I/2 (ARM, 26; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988), pp. 177–79 (text 371 [A. 428]). 8 AEM I/l, p. 444 (line 7). See also D. E. Fleming, “LÚ and MEŠ in lúna-bi-imeš and its Mari Brethren”, NABU (1993/1), pp. 2–4. 9 See G. Pettinato, “The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla”, BA 39 (1976), p. 49. 10 See D. Arnaud, Recherches au pays d’Aštata Emar. VI/3. Textes sumériens et accadiens (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1986), texts 373 (line 97), 379 (line 12), 383 (line 10). Cf. A. Tsukimoto, “Emar and the Old Testament: Preliminary Remarks”, Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute 15 (1989), pp. 4–5. 11 Cf. M. Anbar, hšbt ym h’mwryym bm’ry whtnh lwt bny-ys ´r’l bkn‘n (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, . . 1985), pp. 72–74, 149–61; A. Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1984; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 38–39, 99, etc.

122

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

of Mesopotamian prophecy. This case has already been put by Malamat in relation to what he calls “intuitive prophecy”, and without the benefit of text 216. Malamat observed that there are more West Semitic idioms and linguistic forms in the prophecies as compared with the other Mari texts, and he surmised that the original messages may have been in Amorite and subsequently rendered into Akkadian, “the language of the chancery”.12 This Hanaean connection was anticipated by J. F. Ross in an article published in ˘ now deserves a fresh inspection in the light of text 216.13 Ross sought to 1970 which establish a common background for prophecy at Hamath and in Israel, with Mari and its satellite tribespeople, the Hanaeans, supplying that background. The eighth˘ Hamath is crucial for Ross’s theory.14 Ilu-wer in century Zakkur inscription from line 1 of the inscription is identified by Ross with the god Itur-mer who was worshipped at Mari and, after the downfall of Mari, at Hana. Moreover, Ross thought that Zakkur’s reference to himself as an ’š ‘nh (side A,˘ line 2) should be understood to mean “man of Hana”, thus establishing a link between Mari and Hamath via ˘ Amorite Hana. However, it remains more likely that ’š ‘nh in the Zakkur inscription ˘ should be translated by “humble man”: “I was a humble man, but the lord of heaven [rescued] me” – and this despite Ross’s defence of the h /‘ equation on the ˘ questionable analogy of h a-bi-ru = ‘pr. ˘ The West Semite hypothesis on the origins of Mari prophecy is, for that matter, not uncontested in recent discussion of the subject. Malamat himself had to acknowledge that four of the muh h ûm prophets who are named in the Mari texts have ˘ ˘ to explain this as the result of assimilation to the Akkadian names, though he tried dominant language of the region.15 The hypothesis is seriously questioned by Maria deJong Ellis in a recent article in which she suggests a connection between traditional Babylonian divinatory practices and Old Babylonian prophecy.16 Such a link is already suggested by the Old Babylonian bãrûm text published by Goetze in 1968, which has the diviner praying to Shamash in the following terms: O Shamash, I am placing in my mouth pure cedar … Being now clean, I shall draw near to the assembly of the gods for judgment (a-na pu-h u-ur ì-lí e-t. e-eh -h i a-na di-nim) ˘ ˘ ˘ (lines 1, 9–10).17

Access to the divine council provides, as we shall see, a point of substantial contact between divinatory and prophetic experiences. 12

Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience, pp. 84–85. J. F. Ross, “Prophecy in Hamath, Israel, and Mari”, HTR 63 (1970), pp. 1–28. 14 Text in H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, I (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1966), p. 37. 15 Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience, p. 86. 16 M. deJong Ellis, “Observations on Mesopotamian Oracles and Prophetic Texts: Literary and Historiographic Considerations”, JCS 41–42 (1989), pp. 138–39, 145–46. 17 A Goetze, “An Old Babylonian Prayer of the Divination Priest”, JCS 22 (1968), pp. 25–29 (25). Cf. also text A (HSM 7494) published by I. Starr in The Rituals of the Diviner (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica, 12; Malibu: Undena Publications, 1983), pp. 30–36, esp. lines 13–19 (pp. 30–31). 13

FROM MARI TO MOSES

123

DeJong Ellis finds further evidence of the link in an oracular text from Ishchali that is presented in the form of a letter addressed by the goddess Kititum to King Ibalpiel of Eshnunna.18 There is no direct mention of the divine council in the text; nevertheless the goddess’s claim that she has been regularly communicating the secrets of the gods to the king appears to assume such a background. Thus, whereas Malamat contrasted the bãrûm with the prophet, with the former viewed as an urban phenomenon and the latter as semi-nomadic tribal in origin,19 deJong Ellis argues for a bãrûm-prophecy continuum within Babylonia which, if it involved a West Semitic connection, should at best be associated with West Semitic elements within the Old Babylonian population.20 Ecstatic Prophecy The two most frequently mentioned terms for “prophet” at Mari are, of course, ãpilum and muh h ûm, and much has been written already about their functional and ˘˘ social significance. The newer texts from Mari shed further light on both 21 categories. As noted above, Ugarit provides one of the most striking references to the muh h ûm type, in an Akkadian text dating approximately to 1300 BCE. ˘˘ ah u-ú-a ki-ma mah -h e-e [d]a-mi-šu-nu ra-am-qu ˘ ˘ ˘ “my brothers like ecstatics (in) their (b)lood washed” (RS 25.460)

The possibility of comparison with the self-lacerating Baalistic prophets of 1 Kgs 18.28–29 and with the prophet of Zech. 13.5–6 is obvious enough.22 Durand thinks that the Mari texts give a further indication of the life-style of the average muh h ûm in the fact that the word etqum (basically “fleece”) is used of the ˘ ˘ h ûm in preference to the more common and less expressive šãrtum hair of a muh ˘˘ 23 (“hair”). However, the matter is not as simple as that. As Durand himself notes, etqum is also used by the high official Sūmū-Hadû in reference to his own hair in text 182 (A. 2135). This balances the fact that in the Gilgamesh Epic Enkidu in his uncivilized phase sports an etqum (I, ii 37). Moreover, it is only text 215 (A. 455) that uses etqum to describe the hair of a muh h ûm.24 The more usual term šãrtum occurs in ˘˘ 18 M. deJong Ellis, “The Goddess Kititum Speaks to King Ibalpiel. Oracle Texts from Ishchali”, in Mari. Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires, V (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1987), pp. 235–57. 19 A. Malamat, “A Forerunner of Biblical Prophecy: The Mari Documents”, in Ancient Israelite Religion (Festschrift F. M. Cross; ed. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson and S. D. McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 37. 20 Mari. Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires, V, p. 257. 21 For comment on the ãpilum, see the concluding section of this article. 22 Cf. J. J. M. Roberts, “A New Parallel to 1 Kings 18.28–29”, JBL 89 (1970), pp. 76–77. 23 AEM I/l, pp. 387–88. 24 Text 234 (= ARM 13.112), which Durand includes in his section on dreams, also uses etqum, though, as generally with dream reports, there is no mention of a muh h ûm. ˘˘

124

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

relation to a muh h ûm in texts 200 (M. 6188) and 201 (A. 368), just as it does in ˘ ãpilum (texts 204 [A. 2264], 219 [M. 13496 + M. 15299]), connection with˘ an assinnum (text 213 [A. 100]) and qammatum (text 203 [A. 963]).25 The occurrence of etqum in text 215 should perhaps also be seen in the light of certain “irregularities” in this text, as Nakata has described them.26 In particular, text 215 reverses the usual order of “hair and hem” as compared with other dream reports that deal with the authentication of a prophet through the familiar method of checking a lock of hair and a hem belonging to the individual concerned.27 The idea of the hirsute prophet also surfaces in Durand’s discussion of the qammatum in text 203 (A. 963). Durand insists that the usually preferred form qabbâtum (“speaker”?) cannot be supported, and that qammatum indicates the hairy condition of the “prophetess”.28 More illuminating than any of this crinal curiosity is text 206 (A. 3893) in which a muh h ûm devours a raw (balt. ūssu) lamb and announces a “devouring” (ú-ku-ul-tum) that˘ ˘threatens the country.29 The acted parable-cum-wordplay is of a kind familiar in the Hebrew Bible, but the crudity of the action exceeds anything attributed to the Israelite prophets. Prophecies and Dreams At this point we have to confront the question of definition raised by Nakata, who has argued that prophecies and dreams in the Mari texts should be sharply distinguished.30 He makes a number of points chiefly concerned with the identity of the sources and of the recipients of the communications, the presence or absence of patterns of reporting, and the content of the messages reported. An additional reason given for the clear differentiation between the two types of report is the belief that prophecy belongs to the cultural sphere of the West Semites, while communication by dreams and visions is a concept widely diffused throughout the ancient near east.31 Durand observes this distinction in AEM I/l, except that ARM 10.9 (A. 2233) is included in his section on prophetic texts (no. 208). Whether, in the end, the distinction between prophecy and dream/vision is useful is a good question. It is noticeable that Durand thinks that in most cases the second group could be entitled “dreamed prophecies” (prophéties rêvées).32 Moreover, as we have seen, the 25

See also the short list in F. Ellermeier, Prophetie in Mari und Israel (Theologische und orientalistische Arbeiten, 1; Herzberg: Verlag Erwin Jungfer, 1968), pp. 98–99. 26 I. Nakata, “Two Remarks on the So-Called Prophetic Texts from Mari”, Acta Sumerologica 4 (1982), pp. 144, 147 n. 11. 27 The order “hem and hair (etqum)” also occurs in text 234r. (= ARM 13.112), lines 12–13. 28 AEM I/l, p. 396. Malamat (“A Forerunner of Biblical Prophecy”, p. 38) argues for the older explanation from qabû (“speak”). 29 AEM I/l, pp. 434–35. 30 Acta Sumerologica 4 (1982), pp. 143–44. 31 Cf. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (rev. edn; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 221. 32 AEM I/l, p. 459.

FROM MARI TO MOSES

125

assumption of a West Semitic matrix for prophecy is open to question, and it is certainly not a very secure plank in the case for dividing between Mari prophecies and dreams. Furthermore, if we look more closely at the dream reports we shall find that, whatever the differences from the prophecies, there are significant points of parallel and overlap, which is partly why none of Nakata’s criteria enjoys absolute status: there are always exceptions and qualifications to be entered. The closeness of the two categories of prophecy and dream is also suggested by the way in which they are associated in a couple of the texts. Thus Durand’s text 227 (M. 9576) recounts a dream experienced by a woman whose name is only partly preserved; in it she sees the muh h ûm prophets Hadnu-El and Iddin-Kubi “alive” and reports what they said.33 In text˘ ˘237 (A. 994 = ARM 10.50) Addu-dūrī recounts two disturbing dreams that she had, relating to the fall of Mari, while the same text reports an oracular utterance of a muh h ûm warning Zimri-Lim to remain at Mari.34 It ˘ ˘ this into three sections (10.50 a–c), as does is all very well to divide a text like Nakata, but this categorizing should not be allowed to obscure the fact that dreams and prophetic oracle coexist in the one text. It is also the case that the familiar “hair and hem” authentication of the person mediating the communication applies to the dreamers as well as the prophets (texts 226 [M. 9034], 229 [A. 222], 234 [M. 13841], 237 [A. 994]). The mention of the fact that the “hair and hem” had not been obtained in one instance (text 233 [A. 15]) also attests their importance, even in relation to dreams. Finally, text 240 (A. 3424) appears to conclude with a request for a present, and, as we shall see, there was a practice of giving presents to prophets out of palace resources. The Divine Council One of the distinguishing features of Hebrew prophecy in its most developed phase is the sense of prophetic vocation exemplified in, for example, the books of Hosea and Jeremiah – and, we need not doubt, in the individuals whose careers lie behind the books. Some hint of this outlook is found in the first canonical occurrence of “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible, at Gen. 20.7, where Abraham is so described because of the intercessory function that he is capable of discharging on behalf of the king of Gerar. This vocational aspect of prophecy comes specially to prominence in the idea of the “divine council”, rejected as part of the polytheistic “old order” in Psalm 82,35 but a productive source of imagery for a number of Old Testament texts.36 In Babylonian parlance this is the puh ur ilī, heavenly counterpart of the earthly citizen assembly. The idea of the divine ˘council assumes an important role as regards the 33

AEM I/l, p. 467. AEM I/l, pp. 478–79. 35 See, for example, C. H. Gordon, “History of Religion in Psalm 82”, in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies (Festschrift W. S. LaSor; ed. G. A Tuttle; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 129–31. 36 Cf. E. T. Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (HSM, 24; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980). 34

126

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

authentication of Hebrew prophets (see especially Jer. 23.9–40), but it has become increasingly clear that, far from the idea of prophetic participation in the divine council being unique to Israel,37 non-Israelite prophecy could be represented within a similar framework. We have already noted the Old Babylonian bãrûm text published by Goetze as relevant also to Mesopotamian prophecy. In Mari text 208 (A. 2233) someone – possibly Qišti-Dīrītim, the ãpilum of the obverse – reports a discussion among the gods of the circle of Ea. Despite the fragmentariness of the text, it appears that the prophet is witnessing a session of a divine council. Durand’s text 196 (A. 3719) also deserves inclusion here.38 Again the text is incomplete, but it is evident that what is being described is a session of a divine council. Dagan summons Tišpak, the god of Eshnunna, in order to pass judgment upon him: his day (?) has passed, and he will “meet his day” just as had the city of Ekallãtum.39 The god Yakrub-El is also mentioned, as is the city-god Hanat who asks ˘ is deficient Dagan not to forget the judgment that he has delivered. Although the text at the precise point where the session of the gods is introduced, the preceding references to Šamaš-nas.ir’s waiting for an oracle in Dagan’s temple in Terqa make it possible that what follows is a dream report. This is clearly the case in the much later Balaam text from Deir ‘Alla in Transjordan (c. 700 BCE), according to which the seer Balaam wept after hearing the decision of the gods meeting in council.40 There is no explicit mention of the council in the Ishchali text published by deJong Ellis, but, as was noted above, the disclosure of the secrets of the gods to Ibalpiel is read by deJong Ellis against such a background. This is probably to go beyond the evidence, even though it may be granted that the concept of prophetic access to the divine council could have been sufficiently familiar not to need spelling out every time it was a factor in prophetic or quasi-prophetic contexts. This may apply particularly to text 233 (A. 15) which reports the dream experience of Malik-Dagan in the Dagan temple at Terqa: Now go! I send you (a-li-ik áš-ta-pa-ar-ka). Thus shall you speak to Zimri-Lim, saying …41

37 Pace Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods, p. 218 (esp. n. 181 on Mari, “no concept of the prophet standing in the assembly of the gods is to be found in this material”); similarly M. E. Polley, “Hebrew Prophecy within the Council of Yahweh, Examined in its Ancient Near Eastern Setting”, in Scripture in Context. Essays on the Comparative Method (ed. C. D. Evans, W. W. Hallo and J. B. White; PTMS, 34; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1980), p. 151. 38 AEM I/l, pp. 422–23. 39 There is some uncertainty about ú-ud-ka (lines 8–9 [rev.]), here translated “day”, following Durand. Durand (p. 411) also refers to the occurrence of u4–mu-šu qé-er-bu (“his days are near”) in text 212 (A. 3217 = ARM 10.6). Cf. the discussion by J.-G. Heintz, “Aux origines d’une expression biblique: ūmūšū qerbū, en A.R.M. X/6, 8?”, VT 21 (1971), pp. 528–40. 40 For the text see J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, Aramaic Texts from Deir ‘Allã (Leiden: Brill, 1976); J. A. Hackett, The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Allã (HSM, 31; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984). On the divine council in the Deir ‘Alla text, see M. Weippert, “The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Allã and the Study of the Old Testament”, in The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated (ed. J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij; Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 151–84 (169–74). 41 AEM I/l, p. 473 (lines 32–33).

FROM MARI TO MOSES

127

There is an obvious parallel with Isa. 6.8 (“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”), where also a meeting of the divine council provides the context for Isaiah’s commissioning. It will have been noted that our evidence for the non-Israelite, and especially Mari, prophets’ experience of the divine council comes from texts that report dreams. If the already discussed distinction between prophecy and dreams/visions were maintained, then, strictly speaking, the admission of prophets to the divine council might still have to be regarded as a biblical idea, so far as the present evidence goes. However, it is probably in the nature of things that explicit mention of the divine council – not to speak of descriptions of its proceedings – should come in dream/vision reports. The same applies in the Hebrew Bible where prophetic experience of the divine council is, in the texts most quoted, of the visionary kind (see 1 Kgs 22.19–22; Isa. 6.1–13; cf. Ezek. 1–2; Zech. 3.1–10). It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in the critique of “false prophecy” in Jer. 23.9–40 the contrast is between standing in the council of Yahweh and experiencing dreams. By implication, Jeremiah lays claim to the former (cf. vv. 18, 22), whereas the opposing prophets take their stand on visions/dreams (vv. 16, 25 [“I have dreamed, I have dreamed”], 27, 28, 32). In view of the easy association of witnessing the divine council and dream experiences, we might conclude, then, that Jeremiah 23 tilts especially against the idea that the “false prophets” have experience of the divine council in their dreams. The dream/vision may be the normal mechanism by which the experience is gained, but the idea that there is an underlying reality in which these prophets have participated is rejected. So far as the generality of prophetic texts – whether in the Bible or at Mari – is concerned, it would be a reasonable assumption that, in some instances at least, the idea of the divine council is somewhere in the background. Polley suggests that it is so for Amos’s visions (Amos 7.1–9; 8.1–2; 9.1), and though this is not explicitly said in the text it remains a possibility.42 Messenger Prophets The messenger function of the prophets, whether at Mari or in Israel, may also presuppose the admission of the prophet to the divine council before the divine/royal message is delivered to its intended recipient. An indication of this messenger function of the Mari prophet may lie in the practice of giving rewards to prophets, just as was the case with the mãr šiprim. Malamat notes that there are references in Mari administrative texts to “prophets” as recipients of presents, usually of clothing, from the palace.43 In one text (ARM 9.22.14) an ãpilum is involved, but usually it is a muh h ûm (ARM 21.333.34; 22.167r.8; 23.446.9, 19; 25.142.3) or muh h ûtum ˘˘ ˘˘ 42 M. E. Polley, Amos and the Davidic Empire. A Socio-Historical Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 11. 43 Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience, p. 86. See also Malamat’s short note, “Parallels between the New Prophecies from Mari and Biblical Prophecy: II) Material Remuneration for Prophetic Services”, NABU (1989/4), pp. 63–64.

128

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

(22.326.6–10). Malamat’s interpretation of this is that the Mari prophets “received material support from the royal court”, and that they were to some extent comparable with the so-called “court prophets” of Israel, or with the Baal and Asherah prophets maintained at the court of Ahab and Jezebel. Durand also comments on the giving of presents to prophets, building on references in three prophetic texts that he presents in AEM I/1.44 A qammatum (see above) of Dagan of Terqa delivered herself of a warning message and received a garment and a nose-ring (s.erretum) from the palace as reward (text 199 [A. 925 + A. 2050], lines 51–52). Durand also thinks that the poorly preserved text 203 (A. 963) reflects a similar arrangement with a qammatum (lines 13–15), while the savage muh h ûm of text 206 (A. 3893) actually asks for an ˘˘ item of clothing in return for his dramatic contribution (lines 23–24). Durand’s texts certainly support the view that the “prophetic presents” were given as a reward for messages delivered, just as with (other) royal messengers. The same may also apply to the references in the administrative documents cited by Malamat. Indeed, text A. 4674 (ARM 25.142), which is quoted in part by Malamat, points quite convincingly to the “messenger reward” interpretation. A muh h ûm of Adad received a silver ring “when he delivered an oracle for the king” (i˘ ˘ te-er-tam a-na lugal id-di-nu). Significantly, this follows a reference to a nu-ma present given to an individual “who brought the news” (š[a] bu-su-ur-tam ub-lam).45 The messenger function of the Mari prophets therefore seems to be confirmed by the way in which they received presents for messages delivered. This, rather than a maintained status at court, appears to be indicated by the various texts that we have considered. Prophecy, Accountability, Ethics The growing amount of prophetic material coming to light at Mari in particular renders impossible the claim of H. M. Orlinsky that “it is divination, and not prophecy, that finds its parallels in the Mari and other social structures and documents in the Fertile Crescent of old”.46 This judgment was based on a small number of published texts and, for example, was pronounced in advance of the publication of volume 10 of Archives royales de Mari.47 Dismissive accounts of near eastern prophecy that reject it as in no way comparable with the biblical phenomenon become more visibly wide of the mark as the number of available texts increases and as their contents are more thoroughly analysed. Nor should it be forgotten that the multifarious prophecy of ancient Israel was often nationalistic in outlook, sometimes mundane in its preoccupations, and frequently concerned with the royal house. 44

See AEM I/l, p. 380. This latter clause is given in the form quoted by Durand, AEM I/l, p. 380. 46 H. M. Orlinsky, “The Seer in Ancient Israel”, OrAnt 4 (1965), pp. 153–74 (170). Such comparisons as Orlinsky allows are between near eastern “prophets” (“diviners”) and Israelite “seers” – which latter he distinguishes sharply from the classical prophets. 47 This volume, published in 1978, contains the majority of the Mari prophetic texts published in advance of AEM I/1. 45

FROM MARI TO MOSES

129

While the Mari prophets were generally supportive of the national dynasty, it is not true to say that they were completely uncritical of the royal house. The unconditional undertaking of Annunitum to Zimri-Lim in text 214 (A. 671) is balanced by the fact that Zimri-Lim is informed in another (233 [A. 15]) that, if he had been reporting fully to Dagan, the god “would long ago have delivered the kings of the Yaminites fully into the power of Zimri-Lim” (lines 29–31). Again, in a letter from Nūr-Sîn to Zimri-Lim (A. 1121) the god Adad declares that, since he had restored Zimri-Lim as national dynastic ruler in Mari, he was entitled to an estate (nih latum) in return.48 ˘ If he does not give (it), I am lord of throne, territory and city, and what I have given I shall take away. If, on the other hand, he fulfils my desire, I shall give him throne upon throne, territory upon territory, city upon city; and I shall give him the land from the east to the west (lines 21–28).

This is reported as a message relayed through ãpilum-prophets, and its implication as regards the possibility of negative action by Adad is clear. The same is indicated by Nūr-Sîn’s expression of anxiety lest, in the event of anything untoward ever occurring, he should be blamed for not having communicated important messages to Zimri-Lim (lines 34–45). While text A. 1121 could in no sense be called a “judgment oracle”, its tone is far from that of unconditional commitment or patronal monocularity on the part of the god in question.49 It is a familiar charge against near eastern prophecy that it lacks the socio-ethical awareness of its biblical counterpart. So Blenkinsopp turns to Egyptian ethical teaching as a likely source of inspiration for the social protest of the Israelite prophets.50 This does not mean, however, that Blenkinsopp regards the Egyptian texts as in any sense “prophetic” – malgré the heading “Egyptian Oracles and Prophecies” that introduces a section including the “Admonitions of Ipu-wer” and the “Prophecy of Neferti” in Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts.51 Moreover, the point that the proper locus of Egyptian “prophetic” material is within the wisdom genre has been argued in two recent articles by Shupak.52 Furthermore, if the concept of prophecy is elasticated to include Egyptian ethical texts, may we not just as 48 For text and translation see B. Lafont, “Le roi de Mari et les prophètes du dieu Adad”, RA 78 (1984), pp. 7–18; for English translation and discussion see A. Malamat, “A Mari Prophecy and Nathan’s Dynastic Oracle”, in Prophecy (Festschrift G. Fohrer; ed. J. A. Emerton; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), pp. 68–82. 49 For a comparison of this text with both the Heilswort and the Unheilswort in 1 Kgs 9.1–9 see A. Schmitt, Prophetischer Gottesbescheid in Mari und Israel: Eine Strukturuntersuchung (BWANT, 114; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982), pp. 65–87 (81–87). 50 J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (London: SPCK, 1984), pp. 55–56. 51 J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 3rd edn, 1969), pp. 441–49 (441). 52 N. Shupak, “Egyptian ‘Prophetic’ Writings and Biblical Wisdom Literature”, BN 54 (1990), pp. 81–102; idem, “Egyptian ‘Prophecy’ and Biblical Prophecy”, Shnaton 11 (1990), pp. 1–40. I have not been able to consult this latter study.

130

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

legitimately appeal to ethical material in, say, Mesopotamian non-prophetic texts (e.g. “Advice to a Prince”)?53 There is, in any case, some hint of ethical concern in the Mari prophecies, as a number of writers have noted in connection with text A. 1121. There Zimri-Lim is counselled by Adad through an intermediary prophet: “When a wronged man or woman cries out to you, stand and judge their case”.54 Text 232 (A. 907) shows how this might apply in practice. A woman whose servant (?) had been abducted was instructed by Dagan in a dream to carry a message to Zimri-Lim telling him that he was held responsible for the girl’s safe return. Since there is no suggestion that Zimri-Lim was implicated in the abduction, it evidently was as king and law-maker that he was held responsible. We now also have Durand’s text 194 (A. 4260) in which Shamash instructs Zimri-Lim through an ãpilum to declare a remission of debts (andurãrum) and to send those who had a legal case to the feet of Shamash (lines 41–46).55 The text is one of a small number collected in a section headed “Echange de lettres avec les dieux”, but it is no less significant on that account. Prophecy Alfresco The study of the ancient pre-Israelite prophetic texts tends to confirm the view voiced earlier in this discussion, viz. that the more we learn about the non-Israelite version the less wide the gap between it and its Israelite counterpart appears. Further illustration of this point may be found in the prophetic text 371 (A. 428) published by Charpin in AEM I/2.56 In the first place, the prophet figure is described as an ãpilum of Marduk (a-pí-lum ša damar-utu [line 9]), which, at least on the surface, associates the phenomenon of prophecy directly with Babylon and not just with the West Semites. (The text apparently was written in Babylon.) It may be that a Mari term has been used for a functionary who bore another title in Babylon,57 but there is a danger here of special pleading. This ãpilum of Marduk does not deliver his oracle within the confines of a temple as in various other instances (e.g. texts 195, 199, 209, 214), but at the door of the royal palace in Babylon and then at the door of Ishme-Dagan’s residence, and in the hearing of the general populace. He differs in this last respect from the ãpilum who delivered a message at the door of the palace in text 208, and even from the muh h ûm ˘ ˘ of who spoke in the hearing of the elders at Saggarãtum (text 206). At the door Ishme-Dagan the ãpilum of text 371 addresses him in the second person, using the words of Marduk himself as the god proclaims his displeasure at several of IshmeDagan’s actions. Here prophecy has come out into the public arena and has, if one may so speak, taken another step in the direction of its biblical counterpart. We may expect that, with further publication of texts and their detailed analysis, the 53 54 55 56 57

See W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 110–15. Cf. Lafont, “Le roi de Mari”, pp. 10–11 (lines 53–54). See AEM I/l, pp. 405, 418. AEM I/2, pp. 177–78. So Charpin, AEM I/2, p. 179.

FROM MARI TO MOSES

131

delineation of the Mari prophets will become still clearer. This could even have uncovenanted benefits for those members of the goodly fellowship of biblical prophets who have suffered loss of status amid current preoccupation with prophetic redactors and with prophecy as first and foremost a bookish phenomenon.

I am delighted to offer this short study for inclusion in the Festschrift for Norman Whybray, among whose major contributions to Old Testament scholarship the study of the prophets has featured prominently.58

58 I should like to thank J. Nicholas Postgate for his helpful comments on this paper, and especially for his advice on some of the finer points of Akkadian spelling. Since this article went to press a discussion with a bearing on the concluding paragraphs above has been published by S. B. Parker (“Official Attitudes toward Prophecy at Mari and in Israel”, VT 43 [1993], pp. 50–68).

Chapter 11

Where Have All the Prophets Gone? The “Disappearing” Israelite Prophet Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy While the phenomenon of the “disappearing” prophet has become a feature (indeed function) of some modern approaches to Israelite prophecy, at the same time the profile of Syro-Mesopotamian prophecy has been becoming increasingly clear, and there are now definite cognates for the basic Hebrew word for “prophet”. Against this background it is argued that, though eighth-century prophets like Amos and Hosea may not have been much interested in the title “prophet” (and not surprisingly, when the cognate term was used for nonIsraelite prophets), they nevertheless saw themselves functioning as such. No single aspect of Israelite prophecy marks it out as distinct from its Near Eastern cultural equivalents; its obvious distinctiveness derives from Israel’s unique perception of God. Key Words: prophecy, Mari, divine council, intercession, prophetic vocation Where have all the prophets gone? Up the road and across the desert to Mari! Or so we might conclude on the basis of recent study of the biblical and Mesopotamian manifestations of the phenomenon. At the risk of oversimplification, we can observe a notable contrast in fortunes as between the biblical representatives and their nonIsraelite counterparts. The “disappearing prophet” is by now a well-known feature of the biblical landscape, and for more than one reason as I shall presently be noting. At the same time, our awareness of prophecy in other parts of the ancient Near East has improved steadily since Golénischeff’s publication of the Wen Amon text in 1899.1 1 W. Golénischeff, “Papyrus hiératique de la Collection W. Golénischeff contenant la description du voyage de l’égyptien Ounou-Amon en Phénicie”, Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes 21 (ns 5; ed. G. Maspero; Paris: Librairie Emile Bouillon, 1899) 74–102. For an earlier publication relating to neo-Assyrian prophecy see G. Smith, “Addresses of Encouragement to Esarhaddon”, in H. C. Rawlinson (ed.), The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 4 (London: 1875), no. 68 (cuneiform text only); translation by T. G. Pinches in S. Birch (ed.), Records of the Past, vol. 11 (London: 1878), 59–72 (61–72).

132

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

133

The valuable accession of texts from Emar,2 Ugarit,3 Hamath,4 Deir ‘Alla,5 Hatti,6 Assyria7 and, above all, Mari8 provides us with valuable comparative material from the period before and during the heyday of the Hebrew prophets. Distant sightings in Egypt have also been claimed,9 though these are not so impressive or convincing. It is inevitable that, in this or almost any other discussion of Near Eastern prophecy, Mari is the chief contributor. The several dozen texts that have so far come to light represent a kind of film-freeze of prophetic activity in the region during a period of between ten and twenty years in the mid-eighteenth century BC. The literature on the subject is already extensive, and I have recently added to it myself in my essay in the R. N. Whybray Festschrift.10 Here it will suffice to say, by way of general comment, that these texts attest to the existence of a Mesopotamian version of prophecy that has features in common with both biblical and other Near Eastern forms of prophecy and that cannot be dismissed simply as “divination”.11 (Indeed, one of the effects of the more recently published texts is, as we shall see, to bring the prophetic and divinatory categories closer together.) At Mari, then, the contents of 2 See D. Arnaud, Recherches au pays d’Aštata. Emar VI/3. Textes sumériens et accadiens (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1986), texts 373 (line 97), 379 (line 12), 383 (line 10), 406 (line 5). Cf. also A. Tsukimoto, “Emar and the Old Testament: Preliminary Remarks”, Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute 15 (1989) 4–5. 3 See A. F. Rainey, “The Kingdom of Ugarit”, BA 28 (1965) 123; J. J. M. Roberts, “A New Parallel to I Kings 18:28–29”, JBL 89 (1970) 76–77. 4 See J. F. Ross, “Prophecy in Hamath, Israel, and Mari”, HTR 63 (1970) 1–28. 5 See J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, Aramaic Texts from Deir ‘Alla (Leiden: Brill, 1976); Hoftijzer and van der Kooij, The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989 (Leiden: Brill, 1991); J. A. Hackett, The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla (HSM 31; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984). 6 Here the reference is to one of the plague prayers of Mursilis II, in which the king asks for a divine revelation about the cause of a prolonged and deadly plague affecting his kingdom: “either let me see it in a dream, or let it be established by an oracle, or let an ecstatic declare it, or let all the priests find out by incubation whatever I suggest to them”. See A. Götze, “Zweites Pestgebet des Muršiliš”, Kleinasiatische Forschungen I (1929) 204–35. 7 See E. Ebeling, Altorientalische Texte zum alten Testament (ed. H. Gressmann; 2d ed.; Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1926) 281–84; L. Waterman, Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire (Part II; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1930) 140–43; M. Weippert, “Assyrische Prophetien der Zeit Asarhaddons und Assurbanipals”, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological, and Historical Analysis: Papers of a Symposium held in Cetona (Siena) June 26–28, 1980 (ed. F. M. Fales; Orientis antiqui collectio 17; Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1981) 71–115. 8 Some previously published texts and others previously unpublished are included in J.-M. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari, I/1 (ARM 26/1; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988) 375–452. See also vol. I/2 (ARM 26/2; ed. D. Charpin et al.) 177–79. 9 See G. Lanczkowski, Altägyptischer Prophetismus (Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 4; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1960); J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983) 56; H. Ringgren, “Prophecy in the ancient Near East”, Israel’s Prophetic Tradition. Essays in Honour of Peter Ackroyd (ed. R. Coggins, A. Phillips and M. Knibb; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 1–2. 10 “From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel”, Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages (ed. H. A. McKay and D. J. A. Clines; JSOTSup 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 63–79. 11 Pace H. M. Orlinsky, “The Seer in Ancient Israel”, OrAnt 4 (1965) 170.

134

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

auditory and visionary experiences by certain individuals, often in a cultic setting, were written down for communication to their intended beneficiary – normally the king of Mari – and so they have been preserved in the city’s royal archives. The other second millennium Syrian site that has yielded valuable information on ancient Near Eastern prophecy is Emar. Among the recently published texts from this centre are several – notably a kissu festival ritual, offering lists and a list of recipients of food allocations – which contain terms that appear to be cognate with the Hebrew nãbî’. These Emar texts date from the thirteenth century BC. Disappearing Prophets I have already used the term “disappearing prophet” in connection with some recent study of prophecy in the Old Testament. But the term can be used in several different senses. The prophets have, of course, attracted the glass-papering attentions of a long line of scholars over the past hundred years and more – witness Bernhard Duhm’s exertions on behalf of a newer, slimmer Jeremiah12 or Gustav Hölscher’s reduction of the contribution of the prophet Ezekiel to such parts of the book as he thought were in authentic Ezekielan meter,13 thus adding chronic aphasia to all the other ailments that have been visited upon the prophet by modern diagnosticians. More important for our present perspective, however, was Baumgartner’s demonstration in 1917 that the Jeremianic “Confessions” adhere to the lament form familiar in the Psalter, though he himself did not draw from this the radical conclusions that others later did.14 The dwindling of this great preexilic prophet from his generous Skinnerian proportions15 to the status of a literary persona created by Judaean exiles in Babylonia derives ultimately from Baumgartner’s observations since, if even the “Confessions” may be denied Jeremiah, nothing attached to his name is secure. We may note in the passing, however, that the lament form in Jeremiah is far from being a slavish repetition of a stereotype, and that if Jeremiah came from a priestly background he was as well qualified as any to put the cultic lament form to the service of prophecy. Again, those sections in Amos and Isaiah which, even under critical scrutiny, have tended to be regarded as informative sources on these prophets – for example, Amos 7:9/10–17 and the so-called “Isaiah Memoir” in Isaiah 6:1–8:21 (9:6) – are being evaluated differently by a growing number of scholars. In both cases it has been concluded that they tell us little or nothing about the actual historical prophets Amos and Isaiah.16 Now these various examples that I have cited 12 B. Duhm, Das Buch Jeremia (Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament XI; Tübingen: Mohr, 1901) XVI–XXII (“Die Dichtungen Jeremias umfassen etwa 280 massor. Verse” [p. XVI]). 13 G. Hölscher, Hesekiel. Der Dichter und das Buch (BZAW 39; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1924). 14 W. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte des Jeremia (BZAW 32; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1917; ET Jeremiah’s Poems of Lament [Historic Texts and Interpreters in Biblical Scholarship; Sheffield: Almond, 1988]). See pp. 90–92 of the German original for discussion of the poetic individuality of Jeremiah. 15 See J. Skinner, Prophecy and Religion: Studies in the Life of Jeremiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922). 16 For Amos 7:9–17 see P. R. Ackroyd, “A Judgment Narrative Between Kings and Chronicles? An

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

135

are merely representative of a longstanding tendency on the part of modern prophets scholarship. They represent ordinary everyday casualties of the historical critical enterprise, and with them the figures of the historical prophets recede ever further from view. Of course, if the passages in question have now been properly characterized, we should be grateful that the iron fist of a misplaced historicism has been prised open; and yet the recent revival of interest in the psychology of prophecy, as also, to a degree, the continuing interest in the sociology of prophecy, suggests that it is not only “historicists” who are interested in the connection between “prophecy” and actual prophets. The “disappearing prophet” also owes some of his recent invisibility to the tendency to emphasize the prophetic books as just that – literary entities in their own right. Influential literary theory encourages such an approach, and in its less tolerant phases allows no other. The problems arise when it is argued that texts, by virtue of their literariness, are not to be treated as sources of information on external social realities, and this especially if the texts in question are redacted prophecies and not even historylike narratives. The attraction of “final form” approaches (since this is what we are talking about) has naturally increased as the truly prophetic (or “historical”) elements in prophetic (or other) texts have appeared to diminish under the microscope of modern critical investigation. There are certainly pluses to report as a result, for example, a greater sensitivity to the development of themes and topics across the wide expanse of a book like Isaiah. But concentration on the text at this level can seriously impoverish the interpretive enterprise if some attempt to reconstruct the history, or at least the implied background, of the text is not undertaken. This would certainly be the case in Isaiah, were we not able to read the text against the backgrounds of eighth-century Judah and the late exilic period and, as most would claim, the period after the return from Babylon. The danger with an unqualified final form approach is that the text may be condemned to a fate of jejune sameness, lacking the vital dimension of human presence and interaction, save only as these are supplied by the sympathetic reader. And texts, and especially prophetic texts, which form part of a literary “product” that is not earthed in a particular historical period or in some set of historical circumstances are particularly vulnerable to the fate of the free-floating logion. When a prophetic book is viewed as essentially a redactional “product” similar dangers attend, though in such a case there may still be some earthing of the text to the extent that the redactional layering is supposed to take account of changing circumstances and perspectives. Again, the portrayal of the biblical prophets as spokesmen for groups as well as for God, while not denying their historical importance, does remove them somewhat from the splendid isolation that they have traditionally enjoyed. Now the prophecy is seen as partly the product of the social critique and the aspirations of common interest groups. “The prophet realizes and articulates what is recognized to be the Approach to Amos 7:9–17”, Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Theology (ed. G. W. Coats and B. O. Long; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 71–87; A. G. Auld, Amos (Old Testament Guides; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986) 25–30; for the “Isaiah Memoir” see A. G. Auld, “Poetry, Prophecy, Hermeneutic: Recent Studies in Isaiah”, SJT 33 (1980) 575–76: O. Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12 (ET [2d ed.]; London: SCM Press, 1983) 114–218; H. Graf Reventlow, “Das Ende der sog. ‘Denkschrift’ Jesajas”, Biblische Notizen 38/9 (1987) 62–67.

136

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

word of God by a particular group, whether a specific group of disciples, as perhaps in the case of Isaiah, or a more diffuse group within society.”17 This group perspective is supposed to explain the phenomenon of prophetic conflict, since the simple model of direct communication between God and prophet is thought to leave little room for such disagreement; however, the effect of thus distributing the prophetic word among conflicting parties is possibly so to relativize it as to make it not worth retaining as part of our conceptual apparatus. Furthermore, the assumption that the different kinds of prophets in the biblical tradition must all have operated on the same social-interactive basis may strike us as seriously in need of corroboration. That the “peace prophets” had support at different levels we need not doubt, but what grounds are there for assuming that the preexilic “judgment prophets” were similarly favoured? It is not even certain that Isaiah of Jerusalem had the support of a group of disciples, though this is perhaps still the likeliest interpretation of Isaiah 8:16. Finally, there is another sense in which we may speak of “disappearing” prophets, in the light of the claim that the preexilic prophets were essentially poets and would not have regarded themselves as prophets.18 It was later generations who, in bestowing the title “prophet” upon the preexilic prophets, “gave them an honour they had richly deserved but did not claim”.19 This perspective on the “nonprophetic” prophet starts from the observation that the designation “prophet” in the books of the so-called writing prophets commonly has the appearance of a redactional insertion, which merely reflects the later reception of the preexilic prophets in this way. But, it is maintained, the prophets did not see themselves as prophets bearing oracles from God. They were poets, and their utterances were transmuted into “word of God”, with appropriate formulas, only secondarily. Terminology At this point I want to bring together some of our Old Testament and Near Eastern data by briefly considering this question of terminology in the light of the texts from Mari and Emar and then considering whether the classical Hebrew prophets selfconsciously saw themselves as “prophets”. For some time we have been aware of the existence of various terms for “prophet” in the relevant Near Eastern texts, whether h.zh at Hamath/Deir ‘Alla, or ãpilum, muhhûm, qabbãtum and assinnum at Mari, or ˘ ˘ as a loan-word in the Wen Amon text.20 ‘dd(n) at Hamath and, if Cody is right, also 17

A. D. H. Mayes, “Prophecy and Society in Israel”, Of Prophets’ Visions, 40. See A. G. Auld, “Prophets Through the Looking Glass: Between Writings and Moses”, JSOT 27 (1983) 3–23; R. P. Carroll, “Poets Not Prophets. A Response to ‘Prophets through the Looking-Glass’”, JSOT 27 (1983) 25–31; H. G. M. Williamson, “A Response to A. G. Auld”, JSOT 27 (1983) 33–39; A. G. Auld, “Prophets Through the Looking Glass. A Response to Robert Carroll and Hugh Williamson”, JSOT 27 (1983) 41–44. 19 A. G. Auld, “Word of God and Word of Man: Prophets and Canon”, Ascribe to the Lord. Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (ed. L. Eslinger and G. Taylor; JSOTSup 67; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988) 250. 20 A. Cody, “The Phoenician Ecstatic in Wenamūn: A Professional Oracular Medium”, JEA 65 (1979) 99–106. 18

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

137

But of a cognate for the Hebrew nãbî’ nothing was known until the appearance of the Ebla texts and a claimed, but still not very well documented, occurrence of a form nabi’ūtum, which is said to mean “prophet”.21 More recently, however, discussion has been put on a firmer footing, with occurrences of comparable terms at both Mari and Emar having come to light. In the Mari text 216 (A. 2209) Tebī-gērī-šû says that he assembled the lú na-bi-i meš ša ha-na-meš to inquire of them whether it would be safe for the king of Mari to ˘ in a ritual lustration outside the city walls.22 These clearly are prophetic or participate mantic figures of some kind, and, in associating them with Hana, text 216 suggests a West Semite connection – a connection that is confirmed by the presence of the same term in a copy of the ritual text 387 from Emar.23 Not much information can be deduced from this latter text, because of its fragmentary condition, but there is clearly a close link between the nãbû figures mentioned there and the goddess Išh ara, ˘ of “so much so that one scribe substitutes their house for her temple as the place 24 sacrifice to the goddess, in a ritual devoted to her veneration”. This refers to the fact that, for “house of Išh ara” in line 11 of text 387, there is the alternative reading, “house of the na-bi-i”.˘There are also several occurrences at Emar of a form mu-nabbi-ia-ti or similar (texts 373:97; 379:12; 383:10; 406:5), which term may be related to nãbû. As to the etymology of the latter, there is agreement in looking to the verb nabû (“call”), as had already been done for the Hebrew nãbî’ before there were any known cognates to consider. But there are two main possibilities here: “called”, which is Durand’s preference on the basis of Mari text A.450, in which appointment by the king for a particular task is said to be “as if a god calls (i-na-ab-bu-ú) a human”,25 and “calling” (= “invoking”), which is favoured by Fleming who cites a legal usage at Emar in connection with invocation of the family gods of an heiress.26 We shall return briefly to the term and its meaning later in our discussion. Now, however, we must look at the use of Hebrew nãbî’ in connection with the Israelite preexilic prophets. I shall confine myself to the eighth-century prophets Amos and Hosea, since they stand near the head of the so-called classical prophetic tradition, and the books that bear their names seem to speak directly to the point at issue. Amos, we find, regards prophets and Nazirites as signs of God’s continuing provision for the people of Israel whom he had brought up out of Egypt (2:10–12). But the prophets were hushed up, just as is Amos himself in the narrative in 7:10–17, and the Nazirites were force-fed with wine. So Amos 2:10–12 has already all but institutionalized the rejected prophet theme. We might also consider Amos 3:7 (“Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing 21 22 23 24

Cf. G. Pettinato, “The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla”, BA 39 (1976) 49. See Durand, Archives, I/1, 444, line 7. See Arnaud, Recherches, VI/3 386. D. E. Fleming, “Nãbû and Munabbiãtu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel”, JAOS 113 (1993)

177. 25

Durand, Archives, I/1, 378, n. 13. JAOS 113 (1993) 177–78, 181–83. See also Fleming, “The Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nãbî’: The One Who Invokes God”, CBQ 55 (1993) 217–24. 26

138

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

unless he has revealed his plan to his servants the prophets”), except that in this case it is so widely believed that it really was the Deuteronomists to whom the Lord revealed this particular insight.27 However, the next verse (“The Sovereign LORD has spoken. Who will not prophesy?”) has an occurrence of the verb “prophesy” which easily passes muster as at least pre-Deuteronomistic as well as implicitly selfreferential. With Hosea the body of evidence is more substantial. This prophet has one deprecating mention of prophets in 4:5 (“You [O priest] stumble by day, and the prophet stumbles with you by night”), but otherwise prophets are good people for Hosea. They may be fools in the popular estimation (9:7), but they are watchmen in the divine economy (9:8). Through the prophetic word, God had “hewn” his people, and he had “killed” them with the words of his mouth (6:5). He spoke to the prophets, giving them numerous visions (12:11[10]). And it was through a prophet that God brought up Israel from Egypt, and by a prophet that he protected them (12:14[13]). (It is not important for this discussion that the identification of Hosea’s prophet of liberation with Moses has recently been questioned, for it is the general conception of the prophetic office or function in Hosea that I am attempting to establish.28 ) Several related points can be made on the basis of this short account of prophecy in Amos and Hosea. First, it is most unlikely that Amos and Hosea dissociated themselves from the prophet figures whom they are so keen to defend and whose experiences so clearly mirror their own. The kind of prophet in whom they are interested is no socially established mantic, nor any more probably a prophet of the šãlôm variety, and it is difficult to see why Hosea especially goes on about the worthy prophet if he is not wishing to identify with such. Second, indeed, we should note that the slightly difficult Hosea 9:8 sounds almost autobiographical: “The prophet, along with my God, is a watchman over Ephraim, yet the fowler’s snare is on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.”29 If Hosea does not want to be counted as a prophet, it sounds as if, by his own terms, he ought to be so wishing. Third, the function of such a prophet, according to Hosea, is to communicate the divine word. This is expressed vividly in 6:5 where the “hewing” of the people with the prophets parallels their being “killed” through the words of God’s mouth, while 12:11(10), in depicting the prophets as recipients of divine word and vision, implies their communication of both to a wider audience. This reception and communication of the divine word is also represented in the already quoted Amos 3:8. Fourth, the composite portrayal of the prophetic role in Amos and Hosea transcends by far that of the religious poet. The prophet may be a purveyor of parables, according to one rendering of Hosea 12:11(10) (see NIV), but he is much more than that. The 27

H. W. Wolff speaks of the verse as a “Deuteronomistic assertion” (Joel and Amos [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977] 187, cf. 181); cf., however, F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB 24A; New York: Doubleday, 1989) 391, 399. 28 See A. G. Auld, “Amos and Apocalyptic: Vision, Prophecy, Revelation”, Storia e Tradizioni di Israele. Scritti in onore di J. Alberto Soggin (ed. D. Garrone and F. Israel; Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1991) 9. 29 Cf. G. I. Davies, Hosea (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992) 222.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

139

difference between poet and prophet is brought to our attention somewhat later, in the book of Ezekiel, as the following two references show: Then I said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord! They are saying of me, ‘Is he not a teller of parables?’” (21:5 [20:49]) Indeed to them you are like a singer of love songs who has a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. (33:32)

Ezekiel’s problem is that he – the “prose prophet” by and large! – is regarded as no more than a poet by some of his contemporaries. But in both passages the overriding assertion is that the prophet is God’s spokesman, no matter that his hearers fail to treat him with becoming seriousness. When the prophecy meets its fulfilment they “will know that a prophet has been among them” (33:33). Now if the distinction between prophet and poet is not helpful in the case of Ezekiel, it is not any more so with the eighth-century prophets whose utterances combine the oracular and the poetic to a much greater extent. Moreover, there is a small amount of evidence of a different kind forthcoming from a couple of nonIsraelite prophetic texts which couch prophetic speech in poetic form. Given the prosaic concerns and the brevity of many of these texts, the occurrence of anything approximating to poetic form or diction (if one may still so speak) is noteworthy. The Mari oracles certainly indulge in the occasional figure of speech, as most obviously in the proverbial sounding ša-pa-al in-nu-da mu-ú i-il-la-ku (“the water runs under the straw” [i.e., things are not what they appear on the surface]) in texts 197, 199, and 202.30 But more important still is the apparent poeticizing in text 207: My lord raised the staff, against Ishme-Dagan he raised the staff, saying, With the staff I shall overcome you. Struggle as much as you want. In the struggle I shall overcome you. (ll. 13–17)31

It is very likely that the fragmentary Deir ‘Alla text exhibits a similar tendency. Colometric analysis has come up with different results when applied to this text; nevertheless, the division into discrete cola and the use of parallelism are there to be noticed. Wolters remarks of lines 1–9 in Combination 1: “Whether or not it [this passage] can be formally classified as poetry is probably a matter of definition. If colometric structure and regular parallelism are enough to define ancient Semitic poetry, then this part of the Balaamite inscription certainly qualifies. But if the use of the consecutive imperfect is a distinguishing mark of prose vis-à-vis poetry, then our text certainly does not qualify, since it is liberally interspersed with this verbal 30 Durand, Archives, I/1, 424, 427, 431. For discussion of the proverbial component in these texts see S. B. Parker, “Official Attitudes toward Prophecy at Mari and in Israel”, VT 43 (1993) 57–60. 31 Durand, Archives, I/l, 435. Parker describes the section as “strikingly close to poetic forms” (p. 60).

140

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

construction.”32 Wolters inclines accordingly towards the term “narrative poetry” in this particular case. However, since we are dealing in the Balaam text with a prophetic narrative composition, strictly speaking it is the actual words of Balaam that should be of interest to us. The ever-obliging son of Beor does not let us down: The gods have gathered together, and the shaddayin have met in assembly. (Combination 1, ll. 5–6)

And so on. An interested quest among the various claimed representatives of ancient Near Eastern prophecy would possibly discover more such examples.33 What such evidence amounts to can easily be stated. The “prophet” was a long-established figure in the Near East and fulfilled an identifiable social role.34 When the like of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah held forth in ancient Israel, and Judah, it was in an environment where the prophetic role was understood, and, it may be judged (mainly on the biblical evidence), one in which a prophet would very naturally deliver oracles in poetic form. Moreover, with the encouragement of Mari text 206, this kind of observation can be extended to the area of prophetic symbolism.35 When the muhhûm ˘ ˘ to of the text consumes a raw lamb outside the city gate and proceeds per wordplay warn of a “consuming” (ú-ku-ul-tum) he is doing something which, though lacking parallel in the other Near Eastern prophetic texts, presumably was within the bounds of familiar or accepted behaviour for prophets in the Mari region (Saggaratum, strictly). His action is certainly of a piece with the “prophetic symbolism” of the Old Testament and one more indication that the biblical prophets were “prophetic” in the sense that they self-consciously acted like prophets and would have been perceived as such. This “prophetic symbolism” is deeply imbedded in the Old Testament prophetic tradition, featuring already in the depiction of the eighth-century prophets – not to speak of the traditions concerning the “preclassical” prophets – and cannot be relegated to the status of later literary embellishment.36 Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the preexilic prophets went about proclaiming themselves as “prophets”. In Amos 7:14 the prophet famously repudiates the use of the term, or at least certain associations of it, in description of himself: “I am not a prophet or a prophet’s son.” As we noted earlier, the whole section 7:10–17 has been explained as a later composition having nothing to do with the actual circumstances 32 A. Wolters, “Aspects of the Literary Structure of Combination I”, The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated, 298–99. 33 The “prophetic” texts set out in poetic form in J. B. Pritchard may consist simply of omen apodoses (ANET, 606–7; cf. 451–52; cf. R. D. Biggs, ANET 606). For discussion of the poetry–prose issue generally see most recently, Verse in Ancient Near Eastern Prose (ed. J. C. de Moor and W. G. E. Watson; AOAT 42; Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon und Bercker/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1993). 34 Cf. T. W. Overholt, “Prophecy in History: The Social Reality of Intermediation”, JSOT 48 (1990) 9–10, 12; Overholt, Channels of Prophecy. The Social Dynamics of Prophetic Activity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 24–25, 67–68. 35 See Durand, Archives, I/1, 434–35. 36 On prophetic symbolism in general see D. W. Stacey, Prophetic Drama in the Old Testament (London: Epworth, 1990).

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

141

of the eighth-century prophet. The suggestion is interesting for the way in which it has the author of the narrative represent the prophet as rejecting the title “prophet” in the very period when the movement is supposed to be in the other direction, with poets being “canonized” as prophets. But if terminology appears not to have been a preoccupation of biblical prophets, so too it is not the great determinant that we might imagine at Mari. Of the several words used to describe prophetic figures in that region, the commonest are ãpilum and muhhûm. The two terms are easily ˘ the basis of status and function distinguishable etymologically, but distinctions˘on are not quite so easy to make. In point of fact, it appears not to have been the designations so much as an individual’s previous record and the content of a particular prophecy that gained the Mari prophets the attention of the authorities. Now, since there were prophet figures in preexilic Israel, other than the prophets of the biblical books – and this appears not to be questioned even by those who think that the latter were not recognized as prophets – a similar indifference to nomenclature is almost to be expected. Function, and not title, was what distinguished one type of prophet from another. But then, again, the discovery of nãbî’ cognates in particular at Mari and Emar, and the probability of a much wider distribution of such terms in the Near East, may also have a bearing on this issue. For, though the preexilic prophets operated against a background of extensive prophetic involvement in Near Eastern society and would naturally have been perceived as fulfilling a prophetic role, the existence of non-Israelite nãbî’-type figures will have provided added reason for their indifference to the use or non-use of “prophet” in description of themselves. Divine Council, Vocation, Intercession I have already discussed in my earlier essay the several indications in Near Eastern texts that it was not just the Israelites who associated the exercise of the prophetic function with admission to the divine council.37 There are clear references in the Mari letters, and the Deir ‘Alla text depicts Balaam as having witnessed a session of the council. Amplification of this aspect of prophecy is now possible on the basis of recent observations by Malamat about the admission of diviners to the royal council in Babylonia. Malamat draws attention to five texts “that mention a state body in the nature of a secret assembly or council, for which the biblical term sôd is appropriate.”38 The Akkadian term is pirištum, with Semitic cognates in the semantic field of separation and isolation. It seems a reasonable inference that this earthbound reality lies behind the idea that the bãrûm-diviner is admitted to the divine council as, for example, in the text published by Goetze in 1968: “Being clean, I shall draw near to the assembly of the gods (a-na pu-hu-ur ’i-lí) for judgment.”39 The bãrûm ˘ 37

“From Mari to Moses”, 71–74. A. Malamat, “The Secret Council and Prophetic Involvement in Mari and Israel”, Prophetie und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit im alten Israel (ed. R. Liwak and S. Wagner; Fs S. Herrmann; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1991) 231–36, esp. 231. 39 A. Goetze, “An Old Babylonian Prayer of the Divination Priest”, JCS 22 (1968) 25, lines 9–10. 38

142

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

tradition in Babylonia therefore relates to the divine council at the two levels of the heavenly council itself and of its earthly prototype in the royal council, and this dual relationship has a bearing on the increasingly evident conceptual and functional overlap between prophecy and divination in ancient Mesopotamia. This is not the place to dwell at length on this relationship; nevertheless, several corroborative points can be briefly mentioned. First, we should note the complementary use of divination to verify oracular utterances, though strictly speaking this does not amount to overlap in the sense intended. The complementarity extends, however, to the use of similar speech forms whether inquiry is being made of a prophet or a diviner.40 Second, our texts show that prophets were sometimes present at sacrifices, as in text 219 where a prophecy is said to have been uttered by an ãpilum “on the day of the sacrifice”.41 In text A.1121 we even have an instance of ãpilū speaking on the basis of the configurations of a divinatory sacrifice.42 Third, in text 216 prophets are assembled and omens consulted, if not actually by them then certainly in their presence and with their involvement.43 In the light of such contiguity of function outside Israel it would not be surprising to find Hebrew prophets making use of omen motifs with polemical intent, as has recently been suggested by Bailey.44 The point of our incursion into divination is, of course, not so much to argue for a close relationship between prophecy and divination at Mari as to show how it came about that prophets were thought to participate in the divine council. It appears that, because of the close correspondence between divination and prophecy, in some of its phases, the accessibility of the royal council to the diviner helped foster the idea that the diviner and the prophet likewise had access to the divine council. There are texts in the Old Testament that clearly assimilate this idea of admission to the divine council into their presentation of prophecy, and there are others that less certainly belong in such a discussion. At any rate, the Near Eastern material shows that, as far as cultural milieu is concerned, there is no need to regard the idea as anachronistic in any of its Old Testament occurrences. Since the prophetic “legacy” of Israel’s culture-partners includes the concept of the “prophet-in-council”, any 40 Cf. K. van der Toorn, “L’oracle de victoire comme expression prophétique au Proche-Orient ancien”, RB 94 (1987) 68–69. 41 Durand, Archives, I/1, 447, cf. 389. 42 See M. Anbar, “L’activité divinatoire de l’ãpilum, le ‘répondant’, d’après une lettre de Mari”, RA 75 (1981) 91; B. Lafont, “Le roi de Mari et les prophètes du dieu Adad”, RA 78 (1984) 12; Durand, Archives, I/1, 389. 43 Durand, Archives, I/1, 444–45, cf. 378. 44 R. C. Bailey, “Prophetic Use of Omen Motifs: A Preliminary Study”, The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective. Scripture in Context IV (ed. K. L. Younger, W. W. Hallo and B. F. Batto; Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies 11; Lewiston: Mellen, 1991) 195–215. For further discussion of the relationship between prophecy and divination see Overholt, Channels of Prophecy, 117–47; D. Charpin, “Le contexte historique et géographique des prophéties dans les textes retrouvés à Mari”, The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin 23 (1992) 25, 30; H. M. Barstad, “No Prophets? Recent Developments in Biblical Prophetic Research and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy”, JSOT 57 (1993) 47–48; F. H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and its Near Eastern Environment. A SocioHistorical Investigation (JSOTSup 142; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994) 243–50.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

143

suggestion of anachronism would involve the threefold supposition that the idea of the divine council was (a) disregarded by the first generations of Israelite prophets and by those who passed on the traditions about them, (b) assimilated during the same general period into other strands of Hebrew tradition (e.g., the Psalter), and finally (c) introduced at a late stage into the presentation of certain of the preexilic prophets. It is not as if the admitting of the Hebrew prophets into the divine council is presented as a major apologetic device, which we might feel obliged to regard as having been fashioned at some later stage under the influence of a pervasive ideology, that made such an experience the sine qua non of the true prophet. In 1 Kings 22 Micaiah’s vision of the council (vv. 19–22) forms but a small part of a narrative concerned with, among other things, the competing claims of different types of prophet. Isaiah’s “call” in Isaiah 6:1–13 functions as much as anything to explicate the prophet’s role in relation to his unresponsive contemporaries, but the presentation of the prophet’s credentials at the start of the book of Isaiah seems to proceed on another level by focusing on the Assyrian depredations that had brought Judah low, in accordance with the word of God through Isaiah, whose claim to recognition as God’s spokesman is thus seen as vindicated. Jeremiah 23:9–24 contains the classic statement about the prophet and the divine council, yet presumably without disqualifying Jeremiah himself, whose own call to prophesy is presented in terms of word and vision in Jeremiah 1:1–19, and without specific reference to the divine council. At an earlier stage, before the divine council was known to have featured in the Near Eastern conception of prophetic experience, it was possible to explain the quantum leap from non-Israelite prophecy to Israelite on this basis. The argument would have gone as follows. Outside Israel the idea of the divine council was a commonplace because of the prevailing polytheism, and yet the concept was not taken up and applied to prophetic experience in order to convey ideas of immediacy and authority. In short, Near Eastern prophecy suffered from arrested development in this regard.45 Only in the Old Testament, where the idea was accommodated after some radical restyling, was it used to describe prophetic experience. That, however, can no longer be said. So what is there that is distinctive about Israelite prophecy? Is there anything distinctive about Israelite prophecy? And should we even be asking such a question? To do so almost inevitably brings to mind Albrektson’s History and the Gods and the balanced approach which he brings to such questions and for which he pleads in that volume.46 Those of us who claim to worship the God of Israel, who is notoriously jealous of his uniqueness, will need little persuading that questions about distinctiveness remain both legitimate and unavoidable. But, of course, such questions 45 Cf. E. T. Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (HSM 24; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980) 218; M. E. Polley, “Hebrew Prophecy within the Council of Yahweh, Examined in its Ancient Near Eastern Setting”, Scripture in Context. Essays on the Comparative Method (ed. C. D. Evans, W. W. Hallo, and J. B. White; PTMS 34; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1980) 149, 151. 46 B. Albrektson, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (ConBOT 1; Lund: Gleerup, 1967).

144

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

are perfectly justified independently of confessional positions, and so I continue. To answer the first two questions satisfactorily is, for all that, a profound challenge, especially if we are seeking a definition that deals in essence rather than in scale. The divine council took us into the area of vocation and of prophetic selfconsciousness, which, presumably, is one reason why it does not figure in the tests of a prophet set forth in Deuteronomy 13 and 18. There the need is for public tests of authenticity, and in this, claims to private experience of the divine council cannot help.47 But perhaps vocation and prophetic self-consciousness may have a bearing on the question of distinctiveness, even without the help of the divine council? There are two main aspects of this topic that I want to introduce briefly. The first comes under the heading of “Prophetic Psychology”, an interest which enjoyed its floruit in the early decades of this century and which has attracted a certain amount of attention in the past few years.48 There are texts that describe the reaction of prophets to the divine word as they have experienced it, and, whether we view them as instances of “histrionic neurosis”49 or of something else, it is worth inquiring whether they permit an insight into the personal experiences of individual prophets. Compare the following three quotations: Therefore my loins are filled with anguish, pangs seize me, like the pangs of a woman in labour; I am staggered so that I cannot hear, I am bewildered so that I cannot see. (Isa 21:3) My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and his holy words. (Jer 23:9) I heard and my body shook, my lips quivered at the sound; decay came into my bones, and I trembled where I stood. (Hab 3:16)

For that matter, significant portions of the so-called “Confessions of Jeremiah” could be cited in illustration of the same phenomenon. Our passages do not describe “ecstasy” (or “trance”) in the way that the term would normally apply to certain types 47 I am mindful of the possibility that originally private experiences or statements about such can become part of the apologia of a prophet. 48 E.g., S. B. Parker, “Possession Trance and Prophecy in Pre-Exilic Israel”, VT 28 (1978) 271–85; R. R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination”, JBL 98 (1979) 321–37; B. Uffenheimer, “Prophecy, Ecstasy and Sympathy”, Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 40; Leiden: Brill, 1988) 257–69; P. Michaelsen, “Ecstasy and Possession in Ancient Israel: A Review of Some Recent Contributions”, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament (1989/2) 28–54. 49 A. D. H. Mayes, “Prophecy and Society in Israel”, Of Prophets’ Visions, 35.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

145

of prophetic experience. They report the appalled reactions of the prophets to what they have already experienced, rather than the conditions requisite for the receiving of divine communications in the first place. They cannot, however, be viewed in isolation from comparable phenomena elsewhere. For example, Mari text 234 possibly attests to a similar phenomenon in that it appears that the recipient of a monitory dream, having failed to make known its import until it had been repeated the next day, fell ill thereafter.50 Again, the weeping and fasting Balaam of the Deir ‘Alla text appears to associate his distress with the disclosure by the gods of what they intended doing on the earth. There is also the case of Eliphaz, who knew how to “experience” prophecy, though, of course, only as a literary persona in the book of Job (4:12–16). Similar experiences are also claimed by apocalyptists within and without the biblical tradition, and are commonly explained as stereotypical and artificial. As far as the biblical prophets are concerned, such a conclusion does not inevitably follow. What is described may have become traditional, but it can hardly be described as stereotyped or artificial. Even so, it is apparent from this brief discussion that the “accidents” of prophetic psychology are no more likely to provide the key to the essence of prophetic experience now than they were earlier in the twentieth century. The intensity of prophetic experience as expressive of the Israelite prophets’ commitment to their message may mark them out as different from their Near Eastern counterparts, but it does not provide the basis for a claim to uniqueness. The second aspect of prophetic vocation and self-consciousness that calls for attention is that of intercession. After all, who does not know that the first canonical occurrence of “prophet” in the Old Testament is in Genesis 20:7, and that it relates to Abraham’s intercession on behalf of Abimelech king of Gerar? This intercessory function of Abraham is memorably illustrated in his pleading for Sodom’s citizens in Genesis 18:22–32, never mind that the traditional source criticism apportions Genesis 18 and 20 to different Pentateuchal strands (18 [J]; 20 [E]).51 Indeed, in chapter 18 the depiction of Abraham is noticeably as of a prophet, for when the Lord says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” (v. 17), we are reminded of Amos 3:6b–7 (“Does evil befall a city and the LORD has not done [it]? For the Sovereign LORD will do nothing unless he has revealed his plan to his servants the prophets”). The association of ideas in Amos 3:6b–7 reads almost like a commentary on Genesis 18:22–32, and the insertion of “my servant” alongside the mention of Abraham’s name in the Septuagint and Peshitta of Genesis 18:17 suggests that these ancient versions may possibly have made the connection. Intercession is, in any case, so much the hallmark of a prophet as not to need detailed discussion here.52 Moses, Samuel, Amos, and Jeremiah are prime examples of the prophetic intercessor, while 1 Samuel 12:23 summarizes the duties of a prophet in terms of intercession and 50

Durand, Archives, I/1, 476; cf. 382. It is thus remarkable or unremarkable, depending on how one looks at it, that Gerhard von Rad could, in his commentary on Genesis, write on chapters 18 and 20 without so much as a cross-reference from the one passage to the other (Das erste Buch Mose, Genesis Kapitel 12, 10–25, 18 [2d ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1956]). 52 A more negative view of prophetic intercession is taken by S. E. Balentine, “The Prophet as Intercessor: A Reassessment”, JBL 103 (1984) 161–73. 51

146

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

teaching.53 With Jeremiah, intercession becomes a part of the burden of prophecy laid upon the complaining shoulders of a prophet whose personality is taken over by his vocation. But intercession of this order is possible only if the God whom one worships is a God of intense involvement with his people and, in a word, a God of entreaty. For the same reason, it is hard to imagine a Moses or a Jeremiah emerging, mutatis mutandis, from the prophetic circles of Mari or Emar. So are we closer here to what is distinctive about Israelite prophecy? Once more the newly-discovered cognate of nãbî’ must be summoned in evidence, for, as we have already noted, there are two main etymological explanations offered on the basis of an assumed connection with Akkadian nabû, viz. “called” and “calling”. Fleming argues for the latter and so invests the prophets of Hana and Emar etymologically with an intercessory function.54 The merits of the respective explanations will obviously have to be argued through, and illustrative instances of an intercessory function on the part of Syro-Mesopotamian prophet figures would be helpful. Perhaps our story of Abraham and Abimelech has something to tell us in this regard. The description of Abraham as a “prophet” is more likely to be explained in the guild of Old Testament scholars as evidence of an elasticated use of the term in later times, rather than as an accurate characterization of a Hebrew ancestor of the early second (much less, late third!) millennium. That is of no great significance just now, since what is important for us is that the text witnesses uncontroversially to the intercessory role of prophets. But what of the apparent implication that Abimelech is as likely to recognize this as being a characteristic function of a prophet as is Abraham himself? Questions of historicity apart, is the text implying that – whenever – non-Israelites associated prophecy with intercession? That may be to suggest reading too much into the text, but the question seems worth the asking. We should also have to define more carefully what we mean by “intercession” before proper comparison or contrast with non-Israelite prophecy could be made. A prophet might, for example, be an “intercessor” in the sense that he sought a message from a deity in response to a situation of threat or anxiety. Israelite prophetic intercession, on the other hand, tends to begin precisely where the divine response to a situation becomes known, since in preexilic times the response is commonly in terms of judgment and retribution. For the same reason, the “peace prophets” will not have known the anguish of intercession or anything, for that matter, of the tension involved in standing between God and people. The canonical prophets of Israel could be profoundly involved at this level of intercession, to an extent that marked them off from other prophets, whether Israelite or non-Israelite. And yet the evidence for this applies unequally across the prophetic books, and scarcely figures at all in some of them. Whilst, then, the intercessory dimension of prophecy testifies to the special character of Israelite prophecy, particularly as experienced by the “praying prophets” but probably as shared by the generality of the canonical prophets, it is not the 53 Among many other texts that might be cited, Jer 27:18 is interesting for what it implies about the function of a prophet. 54 Fleming, “Etymological Origin of the Hebrew nãbî’,” 217–24.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PROPHETS GONE?

147

desiderated universal “sign” of Israelite prophecy that sets it off from all other manifestations of the phenomenon. Conclusion This lecture began by contrasting the fortunes of Israelite and non-Israelite prophecy in recent times. The unhidden agenda has been that the study of prophecy in Israel stands to benefit from a consideration of its wider Near Eastern setting and that, though some sort of relativizing of its status may appear likely in the process, the task is well worth undertaking. It is not desirable, of course, to attempt straightforward comparisons between the biblical and non-biblical material because of the difference in their respective transmission histories. The Mari prophecies, for example, are autograph texts with individually specific contexts, even if these cannot always be recovered in detail. The Israelite prophecies, by contrast, mainly lack the kind of rubrication that would allow them to be understood within their original historical settings, which fact is shown up within the Old Testament itself if we compare the dated prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, or even of Ezekiel, with the bulk of preexilic prophecy. (That dated texts can also be subject to editing has naturally to be kept in mind.) In this connection R. P. Carroll speaks well of a “double decontextualization” of the biblical prophecies.55 The “double decontextualization” consists first in the transition from orality to literarity and then in the editing of the literary deposit into prophetic collections. That there is a process going on by which the original oracles are being reapplied and even universalized – and, to return to a point discussed earlier, in this respect it is arguable that the move is, if anything, from prophecy to poetry – need not be denied. The question is whether the loss of historical anchorage, to whatever extent this may apply, involves as corollary the disappearance of the prophets themselves. And if, even in the free-floating logia of Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is possible to find elements capable of contributing to a profile of prophecy, we are entitled to ask whether the flesh and blood preexilic prophets have been so comprehensively lost to sight.56 Now if a survey of Israelite prophecy in its Near Eastern setting shows up an increasing degree of overlap conceptually and terminologically, we ought not to try to obscure the parallels in the search for distinctives. This has implications for the type of text that is admitted to the discussion. Much light is shed on the subject by the Mari tablets, but they are a thousand years away from the Hebrew prophets of the eighth century. Nevertheless, most investigation by scholars of whatever stripe (including this one) has tended to focus on Mari, which is partly understandable in view of the character and the relative abundance of the material available from that source. However, there is probably the unspoken assumption that the biblical 55 “Prophecy and Society”, The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 208. 56 On this point see H. Ringgren, “Israelite Prophecy: Fact or Fiction?”, VTSup 40 (1988) 204–10; Barstad, “No Prophets?”, JSOT 57 (1993) 39–60.

148

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

evidence is properly compared only with “senior” Near Eastern sources, which can be seen as supplying the cultural antecedents for the unique efflorescence that is Israelite prophecy. The clear indications of a “prophetic continuum”, geographically and chronologically, in the Near East of the second and first millennia should encourage us to take the later evidence of, for example, the neo-Assyrian prophecies no less seriously. In the end, the difference between Israelite prophecy and the rest may simply have to be expressed in terms of its conception of its God. It should not really surprise us that the uniqueness that we know and feel as we read the biblical texts does not reduce to a simple formula or a single avenue of experience or expression. Israelite prophets proclaimed and predicted and prayed – and even, as we may see with privileged hindsight, prefigured the perfect servanthood in which the divine commitment to humanity was brought to full expression. When readers ancient or modern have thought to detect a prophetic element in the “suffering servant” of the (so-called) Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah 52:13–53:12, whether they have thought of the prophet of the “Song” or Moses or Jeremiah, this is possible because prophecy (Israelite style) has developed to the point where a prophet himself may become a symbol – one might almost say “type” – of God’s ultimate engagement with the world. That prophets from elsewhere in the ancient world evince some of the forms and even some of the interests that we associate with the Israelite prophets shows again the extent to which the biblical witness makes use of the common cultural stock of the Near East in order to give expression to religious insights sometimes already perceived, however imperfectly, by Israel’s neighbours and sometimes still to dawn upon the world at large.

Chapter 12

Present Trends and Future Directions Any attempt to forecast the direction of prophets study in the next few decades is likely to consist mainly of extrapolation on present trends, and risks steering a wavering course between the speculative and the mildly prescriptive. Let us therefore concentrate in the first instance on the defining of what has been happening recently, with the help of the two “essayists” who have already featured in this section.1 Schmidt and Deist, whose contributions are separated by no more than a decade, given that the German original of Schmidt’s book was published in 1979, show an immense difference in their agendas for prophets study. It is not simply a question of chronology, since many academic studies of the prophets would still proceed on the assumption of the legitimacy of Schmidt’s interests, prominent among which is the recovering of the words in which the original prophets expressed their ideas. For his part, Schmidt, without actually using the jargon of speech act theory, is asking the kind of question which forms part of its stock-in-trade, namely at what level (announcement? critique? exhortation?) the prophetic oracles of judgment were supposed to operate. But the question remains essentially an historical-critical one, being based on an assumption which is certainly unexceptionable from the present writer’s point of view, namely that there are authentic prophetic words to be analysed in this way. Deist, who represents the “new broom” approach to the prophets, deals mainly in methodology as he explains his talk of a paradigm shift (or “switch”) in the subject. The older paradigm was concerned with “uncovering the inherent meaning of a text”, and naturally could not ask the newer type of question facilitated by a newer paradigm. Under the old rules the text itself remained the main source of historical information, and it is this question of historical information, which the older textbased model of inquiry is judged incapable of supplying, that governs Deist’s conception of the recent paradigm change. More surprisingly, even text-immanent approaches which bypass the historical questions are consigned to the older paradigm. The new is represented by socio-anthropological approaches and by “new archaeology”, which is able to fulfil a similar role and is trustworthy because it does not attempt to confirm the biblical picture in a way that “biblical archaeology” is accused of doing. Sociology and anthropology are, of course, disciplines that are 1

The two essays that appeared in the volume from which this chapter is taken are W. H. Schmidt, “Questions in Contemporary Study of the Prophets”, Old Testament Introduction (Eng. tr. M. J. O’Connell; New York: Crossroad, 1984), 188–90; F. E. Deist, “The Prophets: Are We Heading for a Paradigm Shift?”, in V. Fritz, K.-F. Pohlmann and H.-C. Schmitt, Prophet und Prophetenbuch: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 65. Geburtstag (BZAW 185; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), 1–18. Schmidt’s contribution represents a small part of a larger discussion in his chapter entitled “The Form of Prophecy”.

149

150

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

inclined to produce information that is capable of more than one interpretation, and, depending upon the sociologist or anthropologist, could even be found to be supportive of the biblical picture on occasion. Nor would it be difficult to find supporters of the new paradigm objecting to a socio-anthropological interpretation of evidence on the ground that it was agreeing with the biblical account rather than with a preferred reconstruction of it. The concern of the “new archaeology” with the socio-economic framework within which the prophets (for example) functioned cannot be other than welcome, but a priori conclusions about “new archaeology” being constitutionally subversive of the biblical data would be wrongheaded, whatever agreements or conflicts there were in practice. Moreover, the choice is not between “die Bibel hat doch recht” [“the Bible is right after all”] and a subversive alternative, as the fairly recent ventures into archaeological commentary on prophetic books show.2 The programme in this instance is not necessarily to prove the correctness of the biblical data but to illuminate the text by comparison (or conceivably contrast) with the material finds of archaeology. Nonetheless, the idea of a paradigm shift in Old Testament prophets studies in the past couple of decades fairly reflects the situation as it is perceived by a good number of scholars. But “paradigm shift” as used here differs from what Deist means by the term, for the division is not simply between the text-related and the “text-extrinsic” (as anthropology, sociology, “new archaeology”), since that leaves the textimmanent approaches on the wrong side of the dividing-line. If the “paradigm shift” involves the abandoning of the text as a source of historical information, then the non-referential literary approaches currently much in vogue belong with the “textextrinsic” grouping. There are clear advantages in making the division in this way, first because the advent of the text-immanent approaches is sometimes also seen in terms of a paradigm shift,3 and confusion is best avoided, secondly because discussion in terms merely of historicity is reductionistic, and thirdly because the present situation in prophets study is not to be seen simply as a response to a methodological or epistemological crisis. The current scholarly interest in the prophetic books as literature is not just in compensation for the alleged failure of the biblical text to supply the historical data which it purports to give. On the contrary, the impulse for much of the recent literary emphasis comes from outside the world of biblical studies, and, though the timing may be regarded as fortuitous, it did not come about as a crisis subvention intended to augment the dwindling returns of the historical-critical approach. If the talk of a paradigm shift is justified, as it probably is, it is not because old questions are being dressed up as new, but because new (generically different) questions are being made possible by newer approaches to the text. It is also good to remember that the “eclipse” of the older paradigm can be only 2 Cf. P. J. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah: An Archaeological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988); Jeremiah: An Archaeological Companion (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993); G. I. Davies, “An Archaeological Commentary on Ezekiel 13”, Scripture and Other Artifacts (ed. M. D. Coogan, J. C. Exum, and L. E. Stager; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994) 108–25. See also J. A. Burger, “Amos: A Historical-Geographical View”, JSem 4 (1992) 130–50. 3 Cf. M. A. Powell, The Bible and Modern Literary Criticism: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (New York: Greenwood, 1992) 3.

PRESENT TRENDS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

151

partial, and that both the older and the newer approaches will be subject to scrutiny from either side. The current phase of prophets study is, therefore, a multifaceted one, and it is difficult to imagine the discipline ever again being hogged by a single dominant approach as was the case for large areas of biblical scholarship in the era of the historical-critical method solus. In the present era of “older new” and “newer new” approaches4 it is important that traditional interests have an assured place. To take but one example: our developing awareness of Near Eastern prophecy, already well advertised in the present volume, makes the limiting of attention to the final form of the prophetic texts difficult to defend. The formal comparisons that can be made between divination in Mesopotamia and certain aspects of Israelite prophecy also call for further investigation, in ways both traditional (e.g., form-critical) and modern (e.g., sociological). Again, it is a fine coincidence, if such it is, that the nation oracles of the earliest of the Israelite classical prophets (see Amos 1–2) assume internationally accepted standards of civilized behaviour, and that the Mari prophecies have sufficient ethical content to support the idea of a “natural law” governing the attitudes of both Israel and her neighbours. While the chronological gap between Mari and Israel is large and the physical distance not insignificant, there will have been other “Maris” (e.g., Emar, Hamath) geographically and chronologically interposed between Zimri-Lim’s Euphratean kingdom and first-millennium Israel. At the same time, there is point to Margaret Barker’s claim that it makes more sense to try to establish “the inner nature of Israel’s religion” from within the Israelite cultural domain, rather than by almost exclusive parallelism with non-Israelite tradition.5 That her own findings are radical and controversial does not invalidate the inquiry or remove the possibility that, for example, some of the imagery used by Israelite prophets and psalmists may be better understood as a result of such inquiry. If we consider the question of the mode of prophecy in recent discussion it will be to discover that several studies have emphasized in their different ways the written origin of parts of the Old Testament prophetic tradition.6 This affects the later phase of the prophetic era and, if the several claims are taken together, would add up to a consistent picture of the way in which prophecy, and not just the work of individual prophets, developed in this later period. Floyd’s conclusion, on the basis of his study of Hab 2:1-5, that “mantic writing” was one of the basic forms of prophetic activity7 gives formal recognition to what has sometimes been envisaged for individual books 4 For the distinction see D. J. A. Clines and J. C. Exum, “The New Literary Criticism”, in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (ed. J. C. Exum and D. J. A. Clines; JSOTSup 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 11–25. 5 The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1987) 125. 6 E. F. Davis, Swallowing the Scroll: Textuality and the Dynamics of Discourse in Ezekiel’s Prophecy (JSOTSup 78; Sheffield: Almond, 1989); M. H. Floyd, “Prophecy and Writing in Habakkuk 2,1–5”, ZAW 105 (1993) 462–81; J. E. Tollington, Tradition and Innovation in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8 (JSOTSup 150; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993); H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). 7 Cf. Floyd, “Prophecy and Writing”, 481 (summary).

152

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

or parts of them, but also opens up the possibility of a wider-ranging discussion. Written prophecy is preponderantly in the form of declamation – unidirectional speech in the name of God to the prophet’s target audience – but there are portions of the prophetic books that are dialogical in form. Jeremiah and Haggai have both been discussed from this stand-point.8 There is also dialogue where changes of speaker are not indicated, but the proof of this in a given case may be more open to debate, and the evidence so far is found mainly in Jeremiah and Micah.9 More thorough investigation of this aspect of prophecy, which is presumably not just a literary device, may help towards a more accurate picture of the modus operandi of certain of the prophets, giving insight into the relationship between prophet and audience. There may also be advantage to be gained from further examination of those parts of the prophetic books that deal in narrative, not now out of interest in source or redactional questions but in order to establish how such sections function as narrative. Amos 7:(9)10–17, for example, has been much discussed in recent literature from a number of different angles, but its inclusion in a collection of visions and oracles should not disqualify it from a narratological reading, which, moreover, could affect our appreciation of its internal coherence and – though this does not automatically follow – its value as a tradition about the prophet Amos. There is possibly scope for further narratological study of otherwise well-trodden areas of prophetic narrative in Isaiah and Jeremiah especially, even if the results are not necessarily as striking as with the little book of Jonah, whose few chapters have inspired a remarkable amount of recent writing. Whether narrative study of this sort can in any way be related to the “implied narrative” that Gottwald finds running through the whole prophetic corpus is perhaps worth investigating.10 Future study of the prophetic books will doubtless continue to encompass the language of the books, whether from the standpoint of a broadly descriptive linguistics approach or with attention focused on a particular form of speech such as metaphor. Neither interest is special to the prophetic literature, of course, though the prophets are very free with metaphor and some recent studies have dealt illuminatively with the subject, not least in Ezekiel where interest generally has been growing steadily after the book’s long-standing neglect in comparison with Isaiah and Jeremiah. The fundamental questions about what the prophets intended by their use of declamatory language in judgment speeches are also still highly discussible, and, since basically the same issue is raised in connection with the symbolic acts of the prophets, a broader discussion embracing both the spoken and the acted seems a logical development. Approaches to the biblical text that fall into the category of “reader response” vary in their usefulness (for why otherwise should a personal or community reading be 8

See D. L. Petersen, “The Prophetic Process Reconsidered”, Iliff Review 40 (1983) 13–19; J. T. Willis, “Dialogue between Prophet and Audience as a Rhetorical Device in the Book of Jeremiah”, JSOT 33 (1985) 63–82; L. Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics (Subsidia Biblica 11; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1988) 170–77. 9 Cf. Willis, “Dialogue”; Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, 172–73; A. S. van der Woude, “Micah in Dispute with the Pseudo-Prophets”, VT 19 (1969) 244–60 (esp. 249–55). 10 N. K. Gottwald, “Tragedy and Comedy in the Latter Prophets”, Semeia 32 (1984 [1985]) 83–96.

PRESENT TRENDS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

153

published?), as will be the case in any branch of the discipline. But what their practitioners and all students of the prophets should consider seriously is not just the extent to which a method employs currently accepted reading strategies but also in what ways the implementation of the particular approach or method helps Old Testament study to make its contribution to the larger theological enterprise. This is one important reason why the more traditional approaches must not be submerged in a deluge of self-indulgent new readings of texts, strong in whimsy and individualistic observation, but offering no solid planks leading from the Old Testament to adjacent territory. Post-biblical Judaism, New Testament studies and Christian theology, to name but three, are areas of scholarly endeavour that will habitually look to the Old Testament, courtesy of its specialists, for some account of its own institutions and beliefs, as a starting-point for their pursuit of their respective agendas.

This page intentionally left blank

Across, Behind and Beyond the Text

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 13

The Ideological Foe: the Philistines in the Old Testament Interest in ethnicity, identity, “otherness” or, more simply, “Israelite attitudes to nonIsraelites” has been flourishing in the past couple of decades1 and reflects a wider concern with such matters.2 It is no novelty within Old Testament study, as may be indicated by a mere bibliographical reference to A. Bertholet’s 1896 volume, Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden. In this study I propose to focus on the Philistines as, uniquely, from the point of view of the Old Testament writers, Israel’s “ideological foe” (cf. Bertholet 1896: 10). There are, to be sure, other possible candidates for such recognition,3 but reasons for according the Philistines this status will become apparent as the discussion develops. If our knowledge of the Philistines has progressed remarkably well in recent decades, it is largely thanks to archaeological endeavour4 and despite the continuing lack of fresh textual evidence. While scholars have understandably been interested in the period immediately following the Philistines’ arrival in the Levant (i.e. from about 1200 to 1000 BCE), the ever-improving clarity of the picture in the first millennium has also occasioned some refocussing. This is reflected in one of the more recent monograph publications – C. S. Ehrlich’s 1996 volume – which pursues the textual evidence as far as 730 BCE and the early days of serious Assyrian involvement in the Levant. Although our present interest lies elsewhere, it is worth noting with William Dever that archaeology combines with the biblical evidence quite reassuringly where the Philistines are concerned. So Dever enlists the Philistines against nihilistic readings of the biblical traditions about Iron Age Israel. These, he claims, are not literary inventions of the Persian or Hellenistic eras that have been retrojected upon an imaginary past: The biblical texts in Judges–Samuel–Kings yield a composite portrait of the Philistines that includes such specifics as their Aegean homeland (“Caphtor”, or Crete); non-Semitic language and culture; superior technology; warlike and expansionist character; initial concentration in a coastal/Shephelah pentapolis; tendency to acculturate gradually; and persistence as an ethnic identity until the end of the Judean monarchy (Dever 1998: 244) 1

Cf. Machinist 1991; 1994; 2000; Mitchell 1993; Brett 1996; Sparks 1998; Sternberg 1998. Represented in, for example, the four symposium papers published in HS 41 (2000): 149–224, on the role of Hebrew literature in the formation of Jewish national identity; see also Pongratz-Leisten (2001) for Mesopotamian perspectives on “the other”. 3 The role of the Babylonians ideologically should not be overlooked. See also Axskjöld (1998) on Aram as “the enemy friend”. 4 For example, the excavations at Miqne-Ekron and Timnah. 2

157

158

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

These are matters of great importance, and it is ironic that, when complaints about the Old Testament not writing up other peoples’ histories are being filed, study of non-Israelites such as the Philistines should actually confirm elements of Israel’s own endangered history. Nevertheless, I intend to concentrate here on the literary depiction and ideological significance of the Philistines in the Bible. The Genesis “Philistines” People described as “Philistines” inhabit parts of Genesis, Judges and especially Samuel (and parallel passages in Chronicles), and there are also various references to them in the prophetic books. They first appear – saving the “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10 – in the patriarchal narratives in Genesis 20–21 and, more particularly, Genesis 26. Here the contrasting agendas of historical inquiry and literaryideological approaches become very evident. The historian and archaeologist may well dispute the use of the term “Philistine” for such a purportedly early period, but these Gerarites are “Philistine” in at least one important respect. They are frequently contrasted with their later counterparts as being peaceable and even hospitable towards the ancestors of the Israelite people,5 and it is true that they go so far as to recognize that the blessing of God is upon Abraham, and to request a covenant pact first with Abraham and later with Isaac.6 On the other hand, both the Abraham and the Isaac cycles refer to rivalry between the Hebrew ancestors and the Gerarites over access to wells. This becomes a key issue in the rancorous exchanges between Isaac and the Gerarites in Genesis 26, and it is here that the use of the term “Philistine” comes properly into play. In chs. 20–21, the only specific mention of “Philistines” is in the double reference to the “land of the Philistines” in 21.32, 34. In point of fact, for “wells” we might as well read “land” in ch. 26, since the historic issue of “living space” is already in view here. When famine drives Isaac to Gerar, God tells him to “stay in this land … for to you and your descendants I will give all these lands” (v. 3). Moreover, Isaac “sowed in the land, and the same year he reaped a hundredfold” (v. 12). This is basically about territory, and the later struggles between Israel and Philistia are anticipated in these rivalrous dealings between the vanguard parties represented by Abraham and Isaac on the one hand and Abimelech on the other. To make too much of the apparent “anachronism” in the use of “Philistine” is to risk neglecting the point. Even the twice-expressed recognition by Abimelech that God “was with” the patriarchs underlines the rivalry theme (cf. 21.22; 26.28). A similar recognition is attributed by Nehemiah to “all the surrounding nations” when they realized that the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem had been achieved “with the help of our God” (Neh. 6.16). And so on both occasions when Abimelech speaks thus and requests a pact with the patriarchs he is accompanied by the commander-in-chief of his army (21.22; 26.26). 5 Wenham comments not inaptly on the “ecumenical bonhomie” between the patriarchs and the other inhabitants of Canaan (Wenham 2000: 20). 6 At the same time, the author of Gen. 20 may not be presenting Abimelech as being quite so innocent as he may at first appear (cf. Sternberg 1985: 316).

THE IDEOLOGICAL FOE

159

Territory Territory is, of course, at the heart of the later struggle between Israel and Philistia, as is very evident from the historical books of the Old Testament; nevertheless, it is the prophetic books that express most directly Israelite aspirations to control of Philistine land. In this, and in their attitude to the Philistines generally, it is difficult to distinguish between one prophet and another. It has been argued that Amos in the eighth century evinces a more benign attitude, this being reflected in his summons to the fortresses of Ashdod to assemble with their Egyptian counterparts on the mountains of Samaria to witness the upheavals and oppressions within the city (3.9), and in his claiming for the Philistines an “exodus” comparable with that of the Israelites when they left Egypt (9.7) (see Haak 1998: 39–40). However, Ashdod (as representing Philistia) and Egypt may be cited in 3.9 because they are the “old enemies” that have, from the outside, oppressed the people of Israel. Now they are being called upon to see what Israel is inflicting upon itself. In 9.7, the prophet is making the point that Israel is no better than the Cushites, Philistines and Aramaeans, each of which has had a kind of “exodus” experience; Israel cannot, in consequence, escape judgment (v. 8). More decisive, in any case, is the oracle against Gaza in 1.6–8, which ends with the threat that God would turn his hand against Ekron “until the last of the Philistines is dead” (1.8). We shall return to Amos after brief comment on other prophets’ attitudes to the Philistines. Several of the remaining prophets pronounce on the Philistines. Jeremiah and Ezekiel speak of their destruction tout simple (Jer. 47.1–7; Ezek. 25.15–17), but most other references relate to territory. Isaiah notes that Aramaeans from the east and Philistines from the west have devoured Israel (9.12), while Ezekiel observes how God had whittled down Judaean territory in favour of the Philistines (16.27). Still more noticeable, however, are those texts that envisage Judah-Israel annexing Philistine land. In the latter-day scenario envisaged in Isa. 11.14, they will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia; according to Obad. 19, people from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines; Zeph. 2.6–7 says that the land of the PhilistinesCherethites will “belong to the remnant of the house of Judah”; according to Zech. 9.7, Ekron “will be like the Jebusites”.7 In the light of these references, I conclude that it is not a difference in tone reflecting a more relaxed attitude that confronts us in Amos, but the absence of any expression of territorial ambition. And a possible explanation for this is not difficult to find. Amos is a Judaean prophesying against the Northern Kingdom, and he is already mocking the northerners’ boasting in meaningless territorial acquisitions like Lo-Debar and Karnaim (6.13). Almost the last thing that he would have wanted would be to entertain further meaningless advances on behalf of a society that he was denouncing for its failure to heed the dictates of mercy and justice. That Amos the prophet, or Amos the book, envisages a “Greater Israel” involving the restoration of the fallen booth of David and the 7

In the Targum of Zech. 9 this idea is expressed more nationalistically: “And the house of Israel will reside in Ashdod where they were like foreigners … and Ekron will be filled with the house of Israel like Jerusalem” (vv. 6–7). It is possible to interpret MT Zech. 9.7 more positively in relation to the Philistines, as noted at the end of this essay.

160

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

creation of an empire incorporating Edom and “all the nations upon which my name is called” (9.11–12) is another matter. Not least, this empire would be centred on Jerusalem and Judah rather than on the northern kingdom.

Religion/Verspottung The prophets’ interest in Philistine land contrasts with their relative indifference to Philistine religion. The mentions of the Philistines’ “abominations” are few: they are associated with divination in Isa. 2.6, and Zech. 9.7 talks about blood and forbidden food being removed from their mouths, but scarcely anything else of a religio-cultic nature is said of them. For the significance of Philistia in religious terms we have to go back to the historical books. Here I wish to highlight those elements that come under the heading of Verspottung or “derision”. Verspottung is the term used by H. D. Preuss in his 1971 study of the treatment of non-Israelite religions in the Old Testament, and it involves denigration of the enemy through ridicule of their gods and their cult practices. Some of the best examples come in Isaiah 40–48, where the making of idols and the futility of trusting in them are the butt of prophetic derision. Biblical Verspottung, where the Philistines are concerned, affects more than their religion, though Preuss understandably confines himself to a couple of passages of religious significance. In the Samson cycle not only does the blinded hero have the last “laugh” on the roof of Dagon’s temple, his prodigious strength and cunning are used to mock them throughout his contacts with them. In revenge for the loss of his wife to his best man Samson caught 300 foxes, tied them tail to tail in pairs and let them loose in the Philistines’ cornfields (Judg. 15.3–5). The picture thus conjured up is ridiculous, and the effect on the enemy humiliating. In the same chapter, Samson uses the jawbone of a donkey to kill a thousand Philistines and then turns poet: “With a donkey’s jaw-bone/I have made heaps of them (MT h.mwr h.mrtym)” (15.16). NIV accentuates the derisive element here: “With a donkey’s jaw-bone/I have made donkeys of them.” But the translation is unsafe, and the implication of making donkeys of people in English is that they are made to look foolish, whereas Israelite donkeys were not necessarily regarded as stupid. Again, when Samson’s night-time visit to a lady in Gaza attracted attention, he got up in the middle of the night and, despite his prior exertions, carried the city gates and gate-posts to the top of a hill facing Hebron (Judg. 16.1–3). That is a long journey of up to 40 miles, if the text is taken at face value. That Samson makes himself look laughable because of his repeated errors and his enslavement to his own lusts does not neutralize these other, anti-Philistine, elements. He manages to extricate himself and, at the last, wreaks a terrible vengeance that discourages any use of the term “tragic” in connection with his story (Exum 1992: 18–19).8 8 Wenham, noting the strong element of personal revenge in Samson’s dealings with the Philistines, and that he does not mobilize his own tribe, or other tribes, against them, finally being handed over to the enemy by Judahites (Judg. 15.9–13), describes the Samson story as a parody of the proper relationships that should exist between a judge, his people and the enemy (Wenham 2000: 64–65).

THE IDEOLOGICAL FOE

161

Likewise, in the books of Samuel realism about Israel’s failings does not blunt the ridicule that is directed at the Philistines and their religion. The account of the collapsible Dagon – who evidently had not been nailed down securely (cf. Isa. 40.20; 41.7) – ridicules the ostensibly victorious deity now worsted before the ark that acts as surrogate for the image of the God of Israel (1 Sam. 5.1–5).9 Thereafter the priests and worshippers of Dagon are “hopping” (cf. v. 5), as unwilling witnesses to the victory of Israel’s God over Dagon in his own temple. We should probably not risk diluting the satire by delving too deeply into anthropology for illustration. It is likely that already in 1 Samuel 4 the biblical writer places misinformation on Philistine lips in pursuance of the Old Testament’s episodically “derisive” treatment of the Philistines. When the ark of God arrives in the Israelite camp in 1 Samuel 4 the Philistines are all atrembling, and declare that now they are dealing with “the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the desert” (v. 8). At first sight this appears to be a misunderstanding on the part of the Philistines, and it probably is.10 Rashi, followed by the occasional modern, saw a reference to the destruction of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea,11 but the smiting of the Egyptians “with every plague” (or “affliction”) is more naturally associated with the Exodus plaguing-ofEgypt-in-Egypt tradition. This was the understanding of the Septuagint (LXX) translator who renders, “who struck Egypt with every plague and in the desert”.12 McCarter (1980: 104) builds upon the LXX variant to produce an emended Hebrew text: “with every kind of affliction and with pestilence” (reading wbmw dbr for MT bmdbr).13 However, it is clear that the Greek represents an attempt to improve the sense of the biblical text and does not witness to a superior alternative reading. The translator had taken “Egypt” to refer narrowly to the land of Egypt (tēn aigupton) and then inserted the conjunction in order to make sense of “in the wilderness”, for the simple reason that one cannot smite the land of Egypt in the wilderness. The Targum also sees the possibility of a misstatement and takes avoiding action: “who struck the Egyptians with every (kind of) affliction and worked wonders for his people in the wilderness”. This is consistent with Targumic policy, which sought to relieve the Hebrew text of obscurities and possible inconsistencies, but in this case the Targumist would have been justified in leaving the Philistines in ignorance. The gullibility of Achish king of Gath is a feature of both narratives in which he has dealings with David (1 Sam. 21; 27).14 From 1 Sam. 21.1–9 we are to understand that David arrives at the court of Achish with the sword of Goliath in his hand, or at 9

Sternberg (1985: 111) describes 1 Sam. 5 as moving “from the solemn to the comic or grotesque”. Polzin (1993: 65) refers to “carnivalesque” elements in 1 Sam. 5–6. 10 Cf. Fokkelman (1993: 208): “The speakers do something peculiar with the history book: they telescope both the time and the place of the Exodus by situating ‘all the blows’ which Egypt received ‘in the desert’.” Similarly Polzin 1993: 58. Jobling and Rose cite 1 Sam. 5.7 and 6.6 in order to dispel the notion of Philistine ignorance, but unconvincingly (1996: 403). 11 Caquot and de Robert (1994: 78) think of assimilation of the Exodus plague tradition to the defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. 12 So also some MSS of the Peshitta. 13 Cf. Klein 1983: 38. Wellhausen (1871: 55), followed by Driver (1913: 47), suggested reading wbdbr (“and with pestilence”). 14 Jobling and Rose suggest that Achish’s gullibility can be overstated (1996: 403).

162

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

least in his possession, which circumstance does nothing for our appreciation of Achish’s powers of perception when he becomes involved.15 David’s behaviour before Achish is eccentric (21.13), yet it succeeds in getting him out of a crisis worthy of a psalm of individual lament (Ps. 56, to be precise). Achish fails to penetrate David’s charade and famously inquires whether he has need of any more mešuggã‘îm (“mad men”) at the royal court of Gath (v. 15). Again, the Philistines may be represented as misinformed when some of Achish’s servants describe David as “the king of the land” in 21.11.16 Achish fares no better in ch. 27, where David busies himself in the flailing of Judah’s enemies but produces a duplicate text of his activities specially edited for Achish. Such is the latter’s trusting admiration for his Hebrew mercenary that he announces in 28.2 his intention to make David “the keeper of [his] head”, thus adding to David’s responsibilities as already keeper of Goliath’s head, according to 1 Sam. 17.54!

Representative Combat Verspottung takes a special turn in the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. I leave aside the question of who killed Goliath, or whom, for that matter, David killed.17 Goliath is mentioned by name only twice in the chapter (vv. 4, 23); on 27 other occasions he is referred to as “the Philistine”. He is, just as he claimed, “the [representative] Philistine” (v. 8). Perhaps the text’s reticence about naming means that in the earliest tradition the Philistine hero was anonymous, but, whereas the originality of the name in v. 23 might be questioned (Rofé 1987: 127), there are no grounds for querying it in v. 4. David also has a representative function in the narrative, not merely as a youth uncommonly brave, but as an exemplar of faith in the God of Israel (cf. vv. 45–47). Here narrative and historiographical interests easily become entangled, for it would be quite appropriate to read this story against the background of the Iliadic heroes of the Greek Bronze Age.18 Goliath’s armour does not match the dress of the Peleset of Medinet Habu (Rofé 1987: 132), but it has Iliadic parallel of a sort in the description of the armour of Paris and Menelaus.19 The “uncircumcised”20 Philistines are westerners, incomers from the Mediterranean world, and it is their champion who proposes this novel – from an Israelite point of view – form of conflict resolution. It is not just a question of a biblical writer inventing a likely15 The view that the David–Goliath story was unknown when 1 Sam. 21.10–15 was written (Rofé 1987: 127) hardly affects the reading of the Achish story in its present setting. 16 McCarter (1980: 356–57), comparing Josh. 12.1, 7, thinks that the expression means that David was a local ruler. 17 On this see Gibson (2000: 220–24 [“Who Killed which Goliath?”]). 18 See, however, Rofé (1987) for a more sceptical view of the antiquity of the story in 1 Sam. 17. 19 See Bierling (1992: 148) on Paris and Menelaus in Iliad 3.328–39, which passage, according to Rofé (1987: 132), provides the only real Iliadic parallel to 1 Sam. 17 in terms of strictly representative combat. 20 On the use of “uncircumcised” as a term of abuse see Sternberg (1998: 93, 643 n. 3).

THE IDEOLOGICAL FOE

163

sounding type of contest that could be made to fit a reconstruction of Israel’s early history.21 According to the biblical tradition, by the time of 1 Samuel 17 Israel had been a regular participant in conventional warfare. We are also reminded of the Homeric heroes in the exchanging of taunts that customarily was a part of this type of contest. There are other examples of “flyting” in ancient literature, but none offering such good parallels as Homer and the Bible.22 The relevant term in 1 Samuel 17 is the verb h.ērēp (vv. 10, 25, 26, 36, 45) which, as in some other of its occurrences, could be translated “taunted, mocked”. The subject in each case is the Philistine. In the MT David confines his response to a speech of utter theological seriousness in vv. 45–47. The LXX (or its Vorlage), however, has given him a line that replies to Goliath in kind. To the giant’s question, “Am I a dog?” (v. 43), David responds with “No, worse than a dog!” The verb h.ērēp also comes in the Israelite hero lists in 2 Samuel 21 and 23 in connection with the defeat of Philistine champions who “defied” or “taunted” Israel (21.21; 23.9). Otherwise, and quite significantly, its only remaining occurrences in Samuel–Kings relate to Sennacherib’s jibes against the God of Israel (2 Kgs 19.4, 16, 22, 23). Representative combat of a slightly different character is described in the context of the civil war between David and Eshbaal, in 2 Sam. 2.12–16, but little else that is subsequent could be included under this heading. Conventional warfare prevails thereafter. Rather, it is appropriate to turn back to the encounter between God and Dagon in 1 Samuel 5 and to see it in terms of representative combat. This narrative is about the discomfiture of Philistia and its gods, and to appreciate its importance we should first note the significance in both narrative and historical terms of the account of David’s double defeat of the Philistines in 2 Samuel 5. Thereafter the Philistines never threaten Israel in the same way (David “shattered their horn to this day”, Sir. 47.7). Later references are more often to the individual cities that were part of the “pentapolis”. The story of this decisive turn against the Philistines is, however, told but briefly in 2 Sam. 5.17–25, which is a mere paragraph compared with the proportions of 1 Samuel 4–6, where the victory of the God of Israel over Philistia and its gods is recounted.23 Doubtless, the story is told at such length in 1 Samuel because of its theological and ideological importance as much as for any possible historical interest. Just as David construed his defeat of Goliath as the vindication of Israel’s God (1 Sam. 17.45), so the God of the ark is settling accounts with the gods of the Philistines, as is clear from a number of considerations.24 21

Rofé allows that hero combat was a feature of “the Davidic period” (1987: 133). On “flyting” see Eaton (1994). 23 This is not a straightforward account of a Yahweh-victory; the narrative invites explanations for the Israelites’ defeat despite Yahweh’s obviously superior power (cf. Eslinger 1985: 193–94). 24 I would not hesitate to use the word “contest” in this connection, though Eslinger (1985: 190–91) objects on the ground that no action is attributed to God or the ark in 1 Sam. 5.1–5. That may be so, but it is surely not suggested that the God of the ark is comprehensively passive, or that nothing is conveyed by his presence in the shrine of Dagon. 22

164

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

God and the gods First, there is the confrontation between Dagon and the ark of God in Dagon’s own Ashdod temple (1 Sam. 5.1–5). Throughout the short piece the personal name of the Philistine deity is used (ten times) without mediating terms like “image” or “idol”. It is Dagon himself who is humiliated before the ark. This personalized treatment is all the more striking when we take into account the later references to Philistine images that will be mentioned shortly.25 Second, the Philistine priests and diviners acknowledge in 6.5 that their gods are under attack (“Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land”). It is true that Dagon is the only god whose troubles are mentioned in 1 Samuel 5–6, but the explanation is not narrative indifference towards the other gods of Philistia. We may assume that no chances were taken with friable Philistine images in Gath; and how far the ark progressed in Ekron is a debatable point. Third, the confrontation recalls the divine visitation on the gods of Egypt at the time of the exodus (cf. Exod. 12.12), and the Egyptian parallel was clearly present to the compiler of the narrative for, apart from the specific references to the exodus tradition – both on Philistine lips (4.8; 6.6) – there are sufficient other points of parallel to fill several pages of David Daube’s The Exodus Pattern in the Bible.26 When the Philistines begin to respond more rationally to their situation, it is their priests and diviners who rule on the proper treatment of the ark, ironically advising that a guilt offering for the profanation of the ark be provided for the God of the ark (who, after all, had dismembered Dagon in Ashdod) (6.3–5, 8). So the rivalry between Israel and Philistia is described at this crucial point, not in terms of land-holding, but of the power and the powerlessness of the respective gods. It was thus in the Valley of Elah when David issued his mission statement on behalf of “the living God”, whose was the battle and who would demonstrate to his enemies the realities of his existence and his power (1 Sam. 17.45–47). Further illustration of this interest in Philistine religion comes in the mention of Philistine “idols” at key points in the story of relations between Israel and Philistia. After their victory over Saul on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines are said to have sent word throughout the land to inform “(in?) the house of their idols and the people” (1 Sam. 31.9). The parallel in 1 Chron. 10.9 is more direct: “to inform their idols and the people”.27 There is the clear implication in both versions that the Philistine deities were not even at the battle, much less controlling the course of events during it. Again, following David’s victory in 2 Samuel 5 it is noted that the Philistines abandoned their idols and that David and his men carried them off (v. 21).28 This tidy-up kind of reference to enemy gods is not common in conflict narratives in the Old Testament. 25

Cf. Fokkelman (1993: 254): “In this way [the author] begrudges the Philistines the subtlety of a theological distinction between the numen himself and his effigy.” 26 Daube 1963: 73–88; cf. Garsiel l985: 51–54; Sternberg 1998: 151. Sternberg (1998: 92) comments on a continuity “pointedly drawn between Egypt and Philistia vis-à-vis Hebrewness” in 1 Samuel. Such would help to confirm the special role of the Philistines within the Old Testament as Israel’s “ideological foe”. 27 At 1 Sam. 31.9 the LXX agrees with 1 Chron. 10.9 in representing ’t for byt. 28 Or had them burned, according to 1 Chron. 14.12 (cf. Deut 7.5, 25).

THE IDEOLOGICAL FOE

165

In the last of the narratives in the Former Prophets involving Philistines, the issue of the Philistine gods – of the derogatorily named Baalzebub of Ekron in particular – is again raised. The injured Ahaziah sends messengers to inquire from Baalzebub about his prospects of recovery, but they are intercepted by Elijah who gives them a question for their master: “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to consult Baalzebub god of Ekron?” (2 Kgs 1.3). The phrasing recalls David’s defiant assertion before Goliath: “and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel” (l Sam. 17.46).

In Conclusion This interest in the gods of Philistia is, as we have seen, characteristic of the Former Prophets where, apart from the obvious case of Joshua, land issues are not highlighted in the way of the prophetic writings. In this regard chs. 20–21 and 26 of Genesis align themselves with the prophets. The Philistines themselves do not, of course, feature in the Hexateuchal lists of peoples whom the Israelites were supposed to disinherit, though Joshua 13 lays claim to the Philistine territory under the heading of “land not yet possessed” and has the interesting statement that all the land occupied by the Philistines “counted as Canaanite” (v. 3).29 So it is a question of definition for dispossession. It is also possible that the association of the Philistines with gigantism tended to serve the same purpose of categorizing not only Philistine territory but the people themselves as in some sense “Canaanite”, to be treated in the same way as the autochthonous inhabitants of the land.30 The pattern of relationships between the Philistines, the Rephaim and the Anakim in the biblical texts is admittedly complex. Nevertheless, Josh. 11.22 makes a clear connection between Philistines and Anakim: “No Anakim were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod were any left.” Again, in the oracle against the Philistines in Jeremiah 47, the LXX has a reference to “the remnant of the Anakim” where the MT speaks less obviously of “the remnant of their plain” (47.5 = LXX 29.5).31 The biblical tradition thus links the Philistines with the Anakite inhabitants of preIsraelite Canaan, and “Philistine” reaches on in the opposite direction to the present, in the coinages “Palestine” and “Palestinian”. The LXX translators found the Philistines enigmatic and, after the Hexateuch, altered their own terminology from transliterated “Phulistiim” to allophuloi (“foreigners”).32 Whatever lies behind the use of this latter term, it emphasizes the Philistines’ status as “other”.33 However, not all that the Old Testament has to say about the Philistines is negative. The Philistine 29 Cf. Williamson (2000: 108) on the significance of Gen. 26.3–4 in relation to Israelite territorial claims. See also Na’aman 1986: 64–65. 30 Mitchell (1993: 94) describes the Anakim of Josh. 11.21–22 as “symbols of primordial evil”. 31 For discussion of the textual issues here see McKane (1996: 1149–52). 32 This especially for Codex Alexandrinus, though Vaticanus is not far behind in the consistency with which it uses allophuloi from Judges onwards. 33 On the LXX translation of “Philistine” see de Vaux (1972: 185–94).

166

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

section in Zech. 9.5–7 emerges from standard threat and denunciation to envisage a time when the survivors of the Philistines would be incorporated in Judah: Its survivors, too, shall belong to our God: They shall become like a clan in Judah, And Ekron shall be like the Jebusites. (JPSV)

The vision is very much from a Judaean perspective, but is notable for its inclusiveness, and perhaps has a word for more recent struggles where old names and old issues still claim attention.

Kevin Cathcart is a valued friend of long standing and a Semitist of enviable achievement. I am most pleased to contribute this short study to his Festschrift. Bibliography Axskjöld, C.-J. (1998) Aram as the Enemy Friend: The Ideological Role of Aram in the Composition of Genesis–2 Kings (ConBOT, 45; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International). Bertholet, A. (1896) Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr). Bierling, N. (1992) Giving Goliath His Due: New Archaeological Light on the Philistines (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House). Brett, M. G. (ed.) (1996) Ethnicity and the Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series, 19; Leiden: E. J. Brill). Caquot, C., and P. de Robert (1994) Les Livres de Samuel (CAT, 6; Geneva: Labor et Fides). Daube, D. (1963) The Exodus Pattern in the Bible (London: Faber & Faber). Dever, W. G. (1998) “What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?”, in Magness and Gitin (eds.) 1998: 241–53. Dothan, T., and R. L. Cohn (1994) “The Philistine as Other: Biblical Rhetoric and Archaeological Reality”, in Silberstein and Cohn (eds.) 1994: 61–73. Driver, S. R. (1913) Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn). Eaton, M. R. (1994) “Some Instances of Flyting in the Hebrew Bible”, JSOT 61: 3–14. Ehrlich, C. S. (1996) The Philistines in Transition: A History from ca. 1000–730 BCE. (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, 10; Leiden: E. J. Brill). Eslinger, L. M. (1985) Kingship of God in Crisis: A Close Reading of 1 Samuel 1–12 (Bible and Literature Series, 10; Sheffield: Almond Press). Exum, J. C. (1992) Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Fokkelman, J. P. (1993) Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses. IV. Vow and Desire (I Sam. 1–12) (SSN, 31; Assen: Van Gorcum). Garsiel, M. (1985) The First Book of Samuel: A Literary Study of Comparative Structures; Analogies and Parallels (Ramat-Gan: Revivim Publishing House).

THE IDEOLOGICAL FOE

167

Gibson, A. (2000) Text and Tablet: Near Eastern Archaeology, the Old Testament and New Possibilities (Aldershot: Ashgate). Gordon, R. P. (1994) “Who Made the Kingmaker? Reflections on Samuel and the Institution of the Monarchy”, in A. R. Millard, J. K. Hoffmeier and D. W. Baker (eds.), Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns): 255–69. Haak, R. D. (1998) “The Philistines in the Prophetic Texts”, in Magness and Gitin (eds.) 1998: 37–51. Jobling, D., and C. Rose (1996) “Reading as a Philistine: The Ancient and Modern History of a Cultural Slur”, in Brett (ed.) 1996: 381–417. Klein, R. W. (1983) 1 Samuel (WBC, 10; Waco, TX: Word Books). Machinist, P. (1991) “The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel: An Essay”, in M. Cogan and I. Eph‘al (eds.), Ah, Assyria … Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (= Scripta Hierosolymitana 33): 196–212. ——— (1994) “Outsiders or Insiders: The Biblical View of Emergent Israel and its Contexts”, in Silberstein and Cohn (eds.) 1994: 35–60. ——— (2000) “The Rab Šãqēh at the Wall of Jerusalem: Israelite Identity in the Face of the Assyrian ‘Other’ ”, HS 41: 151–68. Magness, J., and S. Gitin (eds.) (1998) Hesed ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (BJS, 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press). McCarter, P. K. (1980) I Samuel (AB, 8; Garden City, NY: Doubleday). McKane, W. (1996) Jeremiah, II (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Mitchell, G. (1993) Together in the Land: A Reading of the Book of Joshua (JSOTSup, 134; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Na’aman, N. (1986) Borders and Districts in Biblical Historiography: Seven Studies in Biblical Geographical Lists (Jerusalem Biblical Studies, 4; Jerusalem: Simor). Polzin, R. (1993) Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. II. 1 Samuel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2001) “The Other and the Enemy in the Mesopotamian Conception of the World”, in R. M. Whiting (ed.), Mythology and Mythologies: Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Influences (Melammu Symposia, 2; Helsinki: The NeoAssyrian Text Corpus Project): 195–231. Preuss, H. D. (1971) Verspottung fremder Religionen im Alten Testament (BWANT, 5/12 [92]; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer). Rofé, A. (1987) “The Battle of David and Goliath: Folklore, Theology, Eschatology”, in J. Neusner, B. A. Levine and E. S. Frerichs (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press): 117–51. Silberstein, L. J., and R. L. Cohn (eds.) (1994) The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity (New York: New York University Press). Sparks, K. L. (1998) Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Sternberg, M. (1985) The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). ——— (1998) Hebrews Between Cultures: Group Portraits and National Literature (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana University Press). Vaux, R. de (1972) “Les Philistins dans la Septante”, in J. Schreiner (ed.), Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch. Beiträge zur Septuaginta (FzB, 1; Würzburg: Echter Verlag): 185–94.

168

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Wellhausen, J. (1871) Der Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Wenham, G. J. (2000) Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically (OTS; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Williamson, P. (2000) “Abraham, Israel and the Church”, EvQ 72: 99–118.

Chapter 14

A Warranted Version of Historical Biblical Criticism?: A Response to Alvin Plantinga When, as a biblical exegete, I (but very rarely) engage with a philosopher or dogmatician on the nature of Scripture, my mind runs quickly to the story of Israel at Sinai. There on the mountain receiving the lively oracles is Moses (for whom read “philosopher” or “dogmatician”), while down on the plain are the Israelite exegetes under Aaron, fashioning the golden calf and giving up on Moses. It is good and helpful to have the philosopher and the dogmatician lay down the lines, and it is good and helpful for the exegete to check that the lines touch the ground. My chapter has much more to do with texts than with the high doctrines that Plantinga writes about, nevertheless, there are various points of intersection at this lowlier level, and I am privileged to attempt a response to such a distinguished practitioner. I find very much with which to agree in what Plantinga writes in Chapter 12 of Warranted Christian Belief. In particular, I too believe that the true and effective apprehension of what Scripture teaches about the “good things” of the Gospel depends upon human receptivity to God through the divine Spirit. Otherwise the study of Scripture is a form of antiquarianism, much practised as such and well worth pursuing as such, but a totally different pursuit from what Scripture professes itself to be about and from what the faith of the church has always proclaimed – and always will so long as it merits recognition as Christ’s body on earth. Moreover, if there were no “divine voices” in biblical times, as some aver, there are none now, and the attempt to read off messages of authority or special worth from, say, a “demythologized” text scarce merits the bother. The reception and appropriation of a proposition such as that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3) is always going to lie beyond the reaches of historical quest and verification, no matter how sound or how consensually powerful our historical method. Even the best possible arguments in defence of such a central Christian dogma as Christ’s resurrection will leave a mighty gulf between conviction about this as an historical event, or about the probability of it, and the conviction that underlies the confessional statement just quoted from 1 Corinthians 15:3. “Ordinary” Christians recognize this instinctively, and this is one of the reasons why Van Harvey has to complain that, despite decades of biblical research, the average person thinks of the life of Jesus much as they did a few centuries ago.1 In other words, even if they were convinced 1

Plantinga, WCB, 401 (see the bibliography at the end of this chapter).

169

170

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

that the historical-critical method could deliver secure(r) results at ground level – and they have been given good reason to doubt that much – they recognize that even this could lift the inquirer no higher than the ground. In all this, Scripture provides the text for discussion, and the particular question that Plantinga raises and that I wish to pursue concerns the part that “Historical Biblical Criticism” (HBC) should have in the Christian reception of, and response to, Scripture. For practical purposes, Plantinga accepts the definition of HBC put out by some of its most convinced practitioners, who also claim to be representative of the general tendency. Since their pronouncements on HBC are not only radical but demonstrably elitist, he remains hugely sceptical of the right of this intruder to be in the Lord’s house. But he wishes to pay tribute where he can: HBC has taught us a great deal about the Bible that we might not otherwise have known, and some of its methods have been assimilated to good effect by traditional biblical commentary.2 It has contributed greatly to our knowledge of the circumstances and conditions in which the biblical books were composed.3 And yet it is judged to have little to offer the Christian believer as far as the appropriation of the “good things” of the faith is concerned. As the first page of Chapter 12 makes clear,4 it is not the serious and scholarly study of Scripture that causes this (quickly resolving) ambivalence on Plantinga’s part, but the presuppositions that inform HBC, especially in what he calls its “Troeltschian” form: it depends on reason alone, and allows nothing that traditional Christianity would associate with revelation and faith.5 There are other problems with it, such as its dependence on the well-named “fallacy of creeping certitude”6 and its requirement, according to some of its advocates, that even fundamentalists must be reborn as liberals in order to qualify for the pursuit of this “science”.7 As I have indicated, and as we would assume, Plantinga is a strong advocate of traditional biblical scholarship, which he distinguishes clearly from HBC (in the forms that he attributes to it). I want to suggest in this response that there are good reasons for people of faith to lay claim to HBC, in some form or other, as a department of “the scholarly study of the Bible” and as a legitimate and necessary tool of biblical research. As Plantinga notes, there is “vast disagreement” within HBC as regards both method and conclusions,8 and this alone suggests that it should be capacious enough to house the faith-based scholar. It is at root, after all, “historical study”,9 and none should exclude themselves. Nor is anyone authorized to lay down the membership requirements.10 Men and women of Christian (or, for that matter, Jewish) faith should not have to become honorary liberals or radicals in order to participate. Nor, if they 2

WCB, 386. WCB, 401. 4 WCB, 374. 5 WCB, 386. 6 WCB, 402. 7 WCB, 412. 8 WCB, 402. 9 WCB, 374. 10 Pace Troeltsch and followers; see WCB, 391. 3

HISTORICAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM

171

participate, are they to be dismissed as “feeling in a semi-confused way that this is the epistemically respectable or privileged way of proceeding”.11 In this short contribution I want to look first at a key concept that separates Plantinga from classic HBC, probably in any of its recognized forms. Then I shall suggest ways in which HBC, properly constituted, may help in the elucidation of Scripture. Finally, I offer some comment on why HBC has become so comfortably installed in Moses’ seat. The Principal Author The “principal author” concept is of front rank importance for Plantinga.12 The recognition of God as “principal author” of the Bible involves the corollary that only what the “principal author” says through the medium of Scripture is of any consequence for the understanding of the ultimate (“Gospel”) message of Scripture. And what God wishes to say through Scripture may be quite distinct from what the human author had in mind.13 Now, it is clear from the context and from the list of examples cited that Plantinga has in mind those Old Testament references that are said in the New Testament to predict some aspect of the Christ event. The Old Testament writers, it is observed, may have had nothing explicitly about Christ in mind when they wrote as they did; they “may not so much as have thought of what is, in fact, the teaching of the passage in question”.14 Something of the sort may be implied in 1 Peter 1:10–12 where, however, the Hebrew prophets are envisaged as having some insight into the longer-term, and perhaps even messianic, nature of their prophesying.15 What is not clear is whether Plantinga thinks that other types of messages unimagined by the original authors may also have been encoded in Scripture by the “principal author”. His reference to “what the Lord intends to teach us” could have a limited or a more extended reach, but the former is less likely in view of the footnoted suggestion that texts may have variable significance: a passage (which undoubtedly meant something to its first readers) could be intended to teach one thing to a fifth-century reader, and something else to a twenty-first century reader.16 On the face of it, this seems to invite a question about the location of the message: is it in the text or in the mind of the “principal author”?17 Of course, God could know 11 WCB, 403; cf. p. 399, where Plantinga waxes very bold and judges it unlikely that a “real live Scripture scholar” will have reflected much on “the epistemological foundations of the discipline”. 12 E.g., WCB, 384. 13 WCB, 385. 14 WCB, 385. 15 One would very much have liked to hear Plantinga further on the status of the meaning available to the human author when God had something different in mind. 16 WCB, 385, n. 12. 17 When addressing the issue of “clairvoyance” Plantinga may have answered my question. If God is “principal author”, then clairvoyance is not required on the part of a human author for his prophecy to refer to something happening much later than the prophet’s own time, since all then depends on the omniscience of God (WCB, 400, n. 43). Still, as possible “meanings” or “messages” multiply, the question of location remains for consideration.

172

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

how many ways he might intend a text to be taken, and how many ways a text might additionally be taken, but too much of this could begin to undermine the idea of proprietorial authorship, if we are not careful. Indeed, this variability of meaning (or message18) as envisaged by Plantinga opens up large vistas and encourages a further thought. If, for instance, we advert directly to HBC for a moment, we might also inquire whether an all-knowing God who provides such a multifaceted text in the form of Scripture might not also have taken account of the prevailing modes of thought in the several eras for which his word was cast. Since he appears to have been happy with allegory (for example) as a key to the profounder aspects of Scripture, might he not also be willing to conspire with, say, “Duhemian” HBC in an age when his people find themselves as deep as ever in the epistemological mire? At the risk of overlap with the next section, I also want to issue a couple of caveats on how an absolutist or exclusivist stance on “principal author” could affect our appreciation of important aspects of Scripture. The first concerns the playing down of dialectical or developmental aspects of Scripture, which in important respects may fairly be described as being in dialogue with itself. As examples of topics on which the Old Testament is obviously “dialogical” in this sense I would cite divine presence and afterlife. In either case a number of differing perspectives are represented, and it is important in exegesis not simply to override the partial insights of one or another text with the composite view derivable from the whole Hebrew or Christian canon. There is value in considering the literary and historical settings of texts that may strike us as partial in their insight or as transitional in form. If a psalmist holds out no hope of praising God in the afterlife, as in Psalm 115:17 (“It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down into silence”; cf. Ps. 88:5, 10), we can certainly move to consideration of the rounded teaching of Scripture on the subject, but we may also find profit in letting the errant text have its voice. Evidently this particular psalmist believed and rejoiced in God without needing the prompt of the hope of an afterlife – rather as C. S. Lewis noted of the early days of his own spiritual pilgrimage.19 To rewrite the psalmist on the point, as did the original Living Bible, is therefore doubly objectionable. In fact, the process that Plantinga describes for commentary work on Plato20 has a lot in common with that required for the understanding of biblical texts, granted with Plantinga that, for the believing reader, the question of authority separates Plato and the Bible. The two appear so dissimilar21 partly because of the telescoped account of the biblical exegetical process given in WCB. A second problem with the traditional scholarly study of Scripture and its emphasis on “principal author” is that it also, like HBC, brackets out issues from discussion. In this case it is not, of course, the exclusion of what is deemed to be historically inaccessible, but of what is deemed to be theologically inadmissible. Yet 18 In the original form of this chapter I picked up Plantinga’s use of “meaning”, but graduated a few lines later to “message”, since (as he rightly noted in his response) “meaning” is usually associated with texts in this kind of discussion. 19 Quoted in Vanauken, Severe Mercy, 92. 20 WCB, 383–84. 21 See WCB, 383–84.

HISTORICAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM

173

given the extent to which the two Testaments co-inhere with the literary and cultural conventions of the worlds in which they were formed, there are categories and possibilities that serious biblical criticism should at least consider. The creative retelling of narratives, pseudonymity, vaticinia ex eventu and composite authorship are among the features of ancient Jewish (and more generally Near Eastern) literature that traditional scholarship has found difficult to embrace. Nor is the effect of such consorting always negative. For example, HBC makes it easier to understand why animals are created before humans in Genesis 1 but after Adam in Genesis 2.22 It offers the possibility that the biblical text presents two creation narratives whose distinctive perspectives are preserved in the composite account of creation that now occupies Genesis 1 and 2. The alternative of a blatant contradiction within a single original composition actually fails to do justice to the biblical text. A similar point might be made about the appearance of vegetation in relation to the creation of humans, in Genesis 1:11–12 as compared with Genesis 2:4–7. All this, and more, escapes the attention of those who insist that “Genesis 1 teaches” the creation of the universe – strictly, those parts mentioned or implied in the chapter – in six days of twenty-four hours each. For, by so arguing, they elevate one Genesis creation narrative above the other and turn narrative perspectival differences into outright contradictions. If, as is so often claimed, contrary “non-creationist” positions are supported by bad science, the solution is scarcely to be found in equally bad biblical exegesis. Thus the concept of “principal author”, for all its obvious merit, needs careful handling. From a traditional Christian point of view it serves well in that it deals with both the particulars of Scripture and the overall authority that Christian believers acknowledge it to possess. Variations on the theme such as “general editor”, or even “series editor”, would also have analogical worth provided that, in highlighting the human factor in the composition of Scripture, including the “library” aspect of both Testaments, they did not exclude the essential element represented in “principal author”. The Value of HBC There are several reasons why a “warranted” version of HBC might exercise a benevolent effect on biblical study. First, I would suggest that the dividing wall between traditional biblical scholarship and HBC is not as substantial as it may seem. Calvin may be called as witness in this regard. Plantinga very credibly lists him on the traditional side of the critical divide, yet Calvin is sufficiently aware of critical issues, and is sometimes sufficiently unorthodox in his handling of them, as to lead some later exponents of HBC to claim him as evincing early HBC sympathies. As is well known, he was quite relaxed on the inerrancy question.23 If HBC is mainly 22 Even the invocation of the pluperfect in 2:19 does not relieve the tension, since it does not prove that the animals were created before Adam. 23 Calvin comments on the surprising attribution of a text to Jeremiah in Mt. 27:9: “How the name ‘Jeremiah’ crept in here I must confess I do not know and I do not much care. ‘Jeremiah’ was certainly put in error for ‘Zechariah’” (cf. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, 192).

174

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

concerned about authorship and composition, as Plantinga notes,24 then scholars of all types should be interested in this aspect of the HBC agenda, even if presuppositions may vary somewhat. Secondly, the usefulness of the results of interaction with HBC should not be underestimated. And if HBC in one of its less prescriptive (e.g. Plantinga’s “Duhemian”) modes still cannot “prove” the resurrection, it might nevertheless demonstrate (for example) that belief in the resurrection is present at all presumed levels of Gospel and New Testament tradition; and that would be a conclusion worth having. Study alone, it is true, will not substantiate the doctrine of the resurrection in the mind of a believer, but it could provide an important bridge to such conviction by establishing what is the univocal testimony of the New Testament. At the very least, an obstacle to faith could be unsettled. Thirdly, HBC can act as a corrective against easy, traditional assumptions about the nature of the biblical text and its composition. It was not “scholarly study of Scripture” in the non-HBC sense that opened up the possibility that “pan-Mosaism” does not reflect the circumstances of the composition of the Pentateuch and may even go beyond what the Bible itself has to say on the subject. Nor was study of this sort able to suggest that the psalm titles might be secondary additions to the text, even though they occasionally fail to match psalm contents and are even contradictory of mainline Scripture in one or two cases. But here I fight with one hand tied behind my back, since non-HBC “scholarly study of Scripture” tends to reject even those proposals of HBC that might have some solid basis to them. Fourthly, and as a subjoinder to the point made in the preceding paragraph, HBC can contribute healthily on the complex issue of the relationship between the two Testaments. There is, admittedly, a great deal of doublethink among those Christian exponents of HBC who want to hold on to Christianity as in some sense a revelation from God and yet insist on treating the Old Testament as a self-contained, closed system which offers no bridges directly to the New Testament. But however exactly the relationship is to be defined, it would be the sublimest oddity were God to be involved revelatorily in the Hebrew era and then in the Christian, and for this reality not to be reflected in both Testaments. God as “principal author” addresses this issue. However, the devil really is in the detail here, and this is where HBC or something remarkably like it can come to the rescue. For example, traditional biblical scholarship has not been successful in preserving the believing community from inventing a series of unlikely “fulfilments” of the Old Testament in the New. The “direct hit” approach has been the norm: the direct alignment of Old Testament “predictions” with New Testament events. Now, without at all ruling out the predictive in Scripture, we can still appreciate that there are problems with this approach. The Matthean nativity prooftexts, to take an obvious example, not only include one that is very difficult to track down in the Old Testament (see Mt. 2:23), but also one that works only because it has been completely recontextualized. When Matthew relates the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt to Hosea 11:1, he can quote no more than he does (“Out of Egypt have I called 24

WCB, 389.

HISTORICAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM

175

my son”, Mt. 2:15), for the Hoseanic text is talking about disobedient Israel, and continues with the christologically incompatible observation that the calling had an opposite effect to what was intended: “they sacrificed to Baals and burnt incense to idols” (Hos. 11:2). Here a question arises as to whether the Matthean meaning or “message” is to be regarded as implicit in the prophetic text (which is, of course, an historical statement rather than a prediction) and as, in any sense, a “direct hit” fulfilment of it. Or perhaps it is something else. Of course, one may have recourse to, say, typology in order to explain the relevance of the Hoseanic text to the life of Christ. One need not even limit oneself to atomistic prising of the text from its original context, since, from a typological perspective, Hosea 11 could be taken to imply a contrast between historical Israel and the “true Israel” personified in Messiah. But immediately we set out on this track we are dealing with something more complex (or even more sophisticated) than “direct hit” fulfilment. Commitment to “direct hit” prophecy has left some elements of evangelicalism in denial over such a text as Isaiah 7:14 where, against the evidence, the word ‘almah has been given the very specific sense of “virgin” – though no-one would suggest that when Saul uses the masculine equivalent in reference to David he is asking “Whose son is that virgin-lad?” (1 Sam. 17:56). Since, if ever a prophetic text did, Isaiah 7:14 has as its first port of call the circumstances of the prophet’s own lifetime (see verse 16), it is as well that ‘almah does not mean “virgin”. Christian faith knows only one virginal conception (cf. Mt. 1:22–23). One may briefly illustrate the problems of “direct hit” from a couple of other texts. Psalm 72 was early dubbed “messianic” and so interpreted of the end-time reign of Christ – this helped by the use of the future indicative in several verses where perhaps the optative (e.g., “may he endure”, v. 5) would be at least as appropriate (cf. NIV footnote). Famously, in verse 15, where the Hebrew text has “Prayer shall be made for him continually” / “May prayer be made for him continually”, the Prayer Book version has “prayer shall be made ever unto him”; for it is inconceivable that prayer should be offered on behalf of Christ ruling as the Davidic Messiah. And so also one version of a popular Christian hymn has the line, “To him shall endless prayer be made”. Again, the traditional interpretation of the wounds “between [the] hands” in Zechariah 13:6 in the light of the crucifixion of Christ runs against the plain sense of the expression and of the passage, but still survives in a context of pietistic “direct hit” reading of the Old Testament. That the words are actually addressed to a false prophet who apparently has been involved in orgiastic rites makes the messianic application all the more regrettable.25 This kind of “direct hit” treatment of Old Testament texts belongs within a larger framework of what David Clines has dubbed “Christomonism”. Many Christian readers and students of Scripture apply “Christomonism” with the most honourable intent, but its effects are not all good. One of its chief weaknesses is that it rubs out many of the contour lines of the Old Testament which, under the worst excesses of this regime, is valued only insofar as it offers typological or allegorical illustration of 25 The lack of an historical perspective is also, of course, one of the reasons why thoroughgoing dispensationalism still flourishes in many circles.

176

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the life and work of Christ. But “Christ in all the Scriptures” is a slogan that has been misapplied by too many preachers and writers. It diverts attention from other lessons that the biblical text is intended to teach, creates an air of jejune sameness about an otherwise rich and varied text, and inevitably depends for credibility on a principle of selectivity, involving the highlighting of biddable elements in the narrative and the downplaying of others less so. For how otherwise could anyone in the Old Testament foreshadow in the detail of their life history the life, death and resurrection of a divine Messiah? Parallels can be drawn, as Stephen’s speech illustrates in Acts 7, in its references to Joseph and Moses as (initially rejected) deliverers of their people; but there is an excess to be avoided that even traditional scholarly study of Scripture has not adequately monitored, and that the aims and methods of HBC can help check. There will also be the occasional exegetical gain, as in Hebrews 7:3, where “direct hit” robs the New Testament of perhaps its most outstanding text on the eternal pre-existence of Christ. To remove the shadowy figure of Melchizedek, mentioned in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, from the historical plane and then turn him into a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ commits such a robbery – quite apart from the logical and exegetical entanglements that it introduces into the Hebrews passage. I reserve for special mention the New Testament’s use of Septuagintal (mis)interpretations or mistranslations in confirmation of Christian teaching (e.g., Acts 15:17 [Amos 9:12]; Heb. 10:5 [Ps. 40:6]; Heb. 10:37 [Hab. 2:3]26). What these texts represent varies: the sense expounded by the New Testament writer may be reflected in the parent text independently of the mistranslated element, or the New Testament writer may develop an interpretative line that is already represented in the Septuagint but that is not in agreement with the standard Hebrew text. Is one required, then, in certain circumstances to say that one of the meanings that God originally had in mind is represented in the Septuagint (mis)translation? I do not overlook the possibility that the “mistranslation” may reflect an early Jewish interpretative tradition, and is therefore not “mistranslation” tout simple. Nevertheless, there is a point to be addressed here, and the view that the New Testament writers used such texts of Scripture as were available, and that this was a legitimate part of Scripture-making, seems the simple and safer solution.

Whence came HBC? Plantinga reports as a common explanation of much of modern academic dependence upon HBC the force majeure of “our historical position”: “we are all in the grip of historical forces beyond our control”.27 Thus does he summarize modernity’s response to the supernatural elements in the biblical witness, and to the world-view that they reflect. And to the extent that the force majeure claim applies, 26 “Apostolus, articulo addito, verba prophetae eleganter flectit ad Christum” (Bengel on Heb. 10:37, quoted in Alford, Greek Testament, 205). 27 WCB, 403.

HISTORICAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM

177

Plantinga gives good reasons for dismissing it. I note with special sympathy his comments on arrogance dressed up as historical necessity.28 I would, at the same time, want to suggest that some of the impetus for HBC comes from the Bible itself, and from the questions that it prompts in the mind of the attentive reader. This goes some way towards explaining why traditionalists at heart are drawn into HBC-type scholarship; it is not just that they are a bit confused and take cover in a “respectable” consensus as they do their biblical research.29 Perhaps the Gospels themselves give rise to HBC-type questions. Did Jesus repeat many of his sayings and actions, and sometimes more than once, with variations usually of a minor sort? Or is something else going on in the Synoptics? For most readers of the Gospels the answer is obvious (in most cases), but we should not overlook the kinds of judgements that go to make up this “obvious” decision. Many and various are the remaining HBC-type issues raised in Scripture: the creation narratives in Genesis 1–2; the occurrence and the distribution of the divine name in Genesis (cf. Ex. 6:2–3); the large numbers in the Exodus (and other) narratives; the variant forms of such a foundational statement as the Decalogue (see Ex. 20 and Deut. 5); the stances of Joshua and Judges on the “conquest” of Canaan; the existence of a Qumran version of Judges 6 without the “Deuteronomic” speech of verses 7–10; the synoptic-type questions posed by a comparison of Samuel–Kings with Chronicles; differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts of Old Testament books (including rival Hebrew and Greek texts of Samuel and Jeremiah); the psalm titles in relation to their psalms and to other Old Testament data; texts with Babylonian, Egyptian or Canaanite parallels (not to say prototypes); gospel genealogies; and the aforementioned Old Testament quotations in the New. These issues mostly transcend the concerns of “mere” textual criticism, and each is capable of raising HBC-type questions. They also differ in kind from the sorts of debated issues of interpretation cited by Plantinga,30 some of these latter of fundamental importance to the faith and the perennial concern of traditional biblical scholarship. They have in some instances the appearance of bringing us near to that world where suspicion lurks that there are “all sorts of additions and subtractions and alterations made in the interest of advancing theological points”,31 and for that reason they demand attention. In Conclusion In his response to this chapter, Plantinga has emphasized that his critique of HBC is not concerned with its subject matter, but with its a priori assumptions, and he suggests that my discussion of HBC is partly about its subject matter and therefore only partly about the underlying approach. This I happily recognize: my inclusion of subject matter is explained by the prominence of the “principal author” concept in 28 29 30 31

WCB, 405. Cf. WCB, 403. WCB, 381–82. WCB, 390.

178

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Plantinga’s original presentation. It seems to me that the implications of this model need further attention. In particular, if HBC is mainly about matters of composition and authorship,32 and if one may include what one knows by way of faith when deciding on such questions,33 then it would be interesting to know how, or in regard to what precisely, such illumination takes place. More concretely, it would be useful to be able to consider specific cases where such privileged information has led to secure conclusions on issues of composition and authorship. In my biblical work, I myself operate on the understanding that there is a “warranted” form of HBC that all students of Scripture may claim and apply. I would claim that my personal warrant comes to a significant extent from Scripture itself, for one of the most formative factors in my approach to academic biblical study has been the observation, closely and at length, of what Scripture does to Scripture – on which subject enough has been said above.34 Here, surely, may be found hints at the parameters that are appropriate to the discussion of what often comes under the heading of “introduction” in biblical study. For if HBC tends, as Plantinga notes,35 to bracket out the notion of Scripture as “word from God”, so too traditional biblical scholarship has been disinclined to exploit the full freedom of inquiry that Scripture itself, by both its procedures and its silences, appears to encourage. The form of HBC that I favour is certainly non-Troeltschian, whatever else it is. While recognizing the supernatural and revelatory nature of Scripture, it acknowledges that the “good things of the Gospel” have been communicated in the form of a literary tradition that is so much in keeping with the literary conventions of its time as to call out for the canons normally applied to literary works, and in particular to ancient Near Eastern texts, to be applied also to the biblical text. How this works out has, I think, been illustrated in the course of the foregoing discussion. It acts as a necessary corrective to well-intentioned piety that by its inattentiveness to salient matters of the biblical text has difficulty with its answers to the legitimate questions of the curious and the opposed. For while the “ordinary” believer may claim the crucial aid of the Spirit in the understanding and appropriation of the biblical message, such spiritual enlightenment does not normally extend to questions that press more and more in the post-Enlightenment world of the West in particular. Moreover, the “ordinary” believer’s independence of biblical scholarship can be overstated,36 for all are dependent on, at the least, the textual and translational labours of those who have prepared themselves by academic training for the study of the biblical text. That the dependence may be obscured by the antiquity of the Bible version used, or by the antiquity or multiplicity of the Bible aids consulted, does not alter the basic fact of dependence. We are all just a little closer together than sometimes we are willing to acknowledge. A narrowly defined Troeltschian HBC would certainly be thin on positive results, and compromise HBC positions might be thought to promise little more. Nevertheless, perhaps Plantinga’s long and 32 33 34 35 36

WCB, 389. See Plantinga, Ch. 4, “Reason and Scripture Scholarship”. I have touched on some of these matters in “Did Moses Write?” (see bibliography below). WCB, 375, 387–88. Cf. WCB, 374 = “Two (or More)”.

HISTORICAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM

179

extendable list of disputed doctrines37 – after all, they include even the most basic things, like what makes a person a Christian – shows that thinness of results is not restricted to one side of the divide. Finally, what is not in dispute between Plantinga and myself is that, whatever the exercise of non-Troeltschian HBC produces by way of results (information? knowledge?), there must in any case be a point at which faith takes over. That is because the co-ordinates of revelation and faith have to do with a far deeper kind of knowing than the mere assurance that events in human history took place in a certain way. Bibliography Alford, H., The Greek Testament, IV, I: The Epistle to the Hebrews (London: Rivingtons, 3rd edn, 1864). Gordon, R. P., “Did Moses Write ‘Second Isaiah’?”, Theological Students’ Fellowship News and Prayer Letter (summer 1983), 3–4. Parker, T. H. L. (ed.), Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986). Plantinga, A., Warranted Christian Belief (New York: OUP, 2000). Vanauken, S., A Severe Mercy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977).

37

See WCB, 381–82.

Chapter 15

“Comparativism” and the God of Israel1 The view that the God of Israel was sui generis among the deities of antiquity was once standard fare, and still has many defenders. During the second half of the twentieth century, however, Old Testament specialists have had to tread more cautiously when making the kinds of comparison (or contrast) that undergird such a claim. For while the idea of the uniqueness of Israel’s God prospered for a time as a tenet of the Biblical Theology “movement”, the steady accession of comparative near eastern material has almost inevitably added to the perception of resemblance, rather than of difference, between Israel’s God and the others.2 The issue has been addressed across a broader front by Peter Machinist, in his essay “The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel” (1991).3 Machinist notes that, with the accrual of information from archaeological discovery, “some correspondence always seems to be waiting to be found somewhere in the ancient Near East … for what is proposed as a distinctive concept or behavior in ancient Israel” (197). He suggests that Israel’s distinctiveness may lie not in “individual, pure traits” but in “configurations of traits” (200). Machinist opts for an alternative approach by posing the question: “how did Israel, in its Biblical canon, pose and answer the distinctiveness question for itself?” (202). His answer is framed in terms of Israel’s consciousness of a special relationship to her God (205). The present study focusses more narrowly on the God of Israel, but most of the time it will be desirable to think of this God, not in isolation nor in the abstract, but relationally, whether we relate him to the people of Israel, or to Israelite prophets, or to the gods of other nations. I begin by reviewing four areas where claims to uniqueness that long seemed to require no justification are now, in the light of the work of recent decades, in need of at least some nuancing.

1 This was the SOTS presidential paper (2003) read at the winter meeting of the society in Birmingham on 6 January 2003. The word “comparativism” is not recorded in any of the dictionaries that I have consulted. “Comparativism” may be taken to be something that “comparativists” do, and this latter word does already exist. I regard the title “the God of Israel” as appropriate despite the acknowledgement of the existence of other gods by many an Israelite. The Old Testament and Israelite-Judean onomastics together provide sufficient justification for the usage. 2 The dangers attending comparative exercises such as are discussed here are frequently noted. See, for example, D. Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature, San Francisco 1987, 28–9. 3 P. Machinist, “The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel: An Essay”, in: M. Cogan, I. Eph‘al (eds), Ah, Assyria … Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (= ScHier, 33), Jerusalem 1991, 192–212.

180

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

181

Divine Action in History For students of my generation, the appearance of Bertil Albrektson’s History and the Gods in 1967 provided a short cut to important insights.4 In this “essay”, as it is termed in the subtitle, Albrektson showed that ideas of divine action in history that had widely been regarded as special to the Old Testament were, in fact, shared with her neighbours in Mesopotamia, the Hittite homeland and, more proximately, in the land of Moab. Albrektson also questioned whether the Old Testament talks of a divine “plan” in history in quite the overarching way commonly assumed, and he cited Mesopotamian texts that give some evidence of divine plan in a more limited sense of the term.5 He suggested that the celebration of divine acts in history perhaps featured more prominently in the Israelite cult than was the case elsewhere. He noted the lack of historical reference in the Ugaritic cultic texts especially (115), and he concluded that what distinguished Israel from her neighbours was, if not the concept itself, the prominence that was given to it in the Israelite cult (116). Some years later Nicholas Wyatt sought to show that even the comparatively meagre textual evidence in the West Semitic region reflects “the presuppositions of theocratic history”,6 and already J. J. M. Roberts had pointed out that the absence of hymns and prayers in the extant Ugaritic texts makes it dangerous to assume too much about the importance or unimportance of history to Canaanite religion.7 In his final chapter Albrektson highlighted the Old Testament conception of the divine word as its truly unique possession. The idea of communicating divine words to humans may have been common near eastern currency, nevertheless the content of such divine communication within the Old Testament is “in several respects unique” (122). In the divine word we learn about God’s thoughts and intentions, his nature and his claims in ways that are not experienced elsewhere. Albrektson’s essay added to the discomfiture of “Biblical Theology” at a crucial point in the 1960s. In the previous year, in his Old and New in Interpretation James Barr had been exposing the problems inherent in maintaining history “as a central and mandatory theological concept”.8 But neither Albrektson nor Barr denied that history was fundamentally important for the writers of the Old Testament. Nor could they, for Israel is not India. Prophecy Albrektson’s suggestion that what truly separated Israel from her neighbours was the conception of God that came through the divine word leads directly into the prophetic domain, where once it was possible to hold discussion with minimal 4 History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (CB.OT, 1), Lund 1967. 5 Albrektson, History and the Gods, 68–97. 6 N. Wyatt, “Some Observations on the Idea of History Among the West Semitic Peoples”, UF 11 (1979), 825–32 (831). 7 J. J. M. Roberts, “Myth Versus History: Relaying the Comparative Foundations”, CBQ 38 (1976), 1–13 (11). 8 J. Barr, Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments, London 1966, 65–102 (68).

182

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

reference to contemporary non-Israelite phenomena. However, since George Smith’s publication, in 1875, of an oracle of encouragement to Esarhaddon (now listed as text K. 4310),9 a veritable “alternative prospectus” of near eastern prophetic texts has become available. These include not only the Neo-Assyrian prophecies, which in the 1990s have been made more accessible to non-Assyriologists, in the series State Archives of Assyria, but also the prophetic texts found in the royal archives of eighteenth-century Mari. Since 1875 the story has been one of increasing encroachment upon the uniqueness of the biblical institution of prophecy. It is clear that the prophet figures of Mari could, as part of their prophetic commissioning by a god, be allowed to witness the Divine Council in its decision-making.10 Something similar is described for the prophet Balaam in the Deir ‘Alla plaster text from the first millennium.11 Again, cognate forms of the Hebrew ‫נָבִיא‬, a term which previously had given the impression of being without an Akkadian parallel, have been claimed for Mari (text 216 [A. 2209]) and Emar (text 387).12 However, whereas the Hebrew prophets were characteristically concerned about ethical conduct and social obligation as well as national and international politics, their Mesopotamian counterparts have so far produced only a few syllables that express ethical concerns.13 From the Mari prophecies we have text A. 1121, in which Adad counsels Zimri-Lim through a prophet figure: “When a wronged man or woman cries out to you, stand and judge their case.” In text 194 (A. 4260) the god Shamash tells Zimri-Lim to decree a remission of debts and to direct people with a legal case to Shamash’s own feet. If we go forward to the Neo-Assyrian prophecies we shall find little or nothing by way of moral or ethical content. Parpola cites his texts 1.4.27–9 (“Do not trust in man. Lift up your eyes, look to me”) and 2.3.17 (“Mankind is deceitful; I am one who says and does”), but it is a poor return for a night’s fishing.14 Nothing has happened in a thousand years to make prophecy the mouthpiece for divine calls to justice and righteousness. For that we have better places to look in Mesopotamia, for example the text “Advice to a Prince”.15 9 G. Smith, “Addresses of Encouragement to Esarhaddon”, in: H. C. Rawlinson (ed.), The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 4, London 1875, no. 68 (cuneiform text only); translation by T. G. Pinches in: S. Birch (ed.), Records of the Past, vol. 11, London 1878, 59–72 (61–72). 10 See the writer in “From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel”, in: H. A. McKay, D. J. A. Clines (eds), Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages (Fs R. N. Whybray) (JSOT.S, 162), Sheffield 1993, 72. 11 For text in transliteration, with English translation, see M. Weippert, “The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla and the Study of the Old Testament”, in: J. Hoftijzer, G. van der Kooij (eds), The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Reevaluated: Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989, Leiden 1991, 153–8. Cf. also the admission of a “diviner” to the Divine Council in the Old Babylonian text discussed by A. Goetze, “An Old Babylonian Prayer of the Divination Priest”, JCS 22 (1968), 25–9. 12 See D. E. Fleming, “Nãbû and Munabbiãtu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel”, JAOS 113 (1993), 175–83; idem, “The Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nãbî’: The One Who Invokes God”, CBQ 55 (1993), 217–24. The relevance of the Emar terms is queried by J. Huehnergard, “On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew NĀBÎ’”, ErIs 26 (Frank Moore Cross Volume; 1999), 88*–93* (91*–2*). 13 Cf. Gordon, “From Mari to Moses”, 63–79 (77–8). 14 S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (SAA, 9), Helsinki 1997, XLVIII, CV, nn. 255–6. 15 See W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford 1960, 110–5.

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

183

The Neo-Assyrian prophecies are largely concerned with kings and their welfare.16 Even so, the preoccupation is often mundane and the undertakings of the god(dess) none too specific. Nor is there much at all that is predictive in the grand way of the Old Testament prophecies.17 If all he knew was prophecy of this sort, we can easily understand how an exilic Judean prophet could ask in relation to developments in the late sixth century, “Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old?” (Isa. 45:21). There clearly are formal and terminological correspondences between prophecy in its Levantine and Mesopotamian manifestations and Israelite prophecy, but these constitute a minor act of encroachment when once their content is taken into account. The National Covenant A third area where Israel was thought to overtop its neighbours was that of covenant, for the Old Testament, especially in Deuteronomically affected areas, makes much of a covenant forged between the people of Israel and their God. Other covenants are described, notably the Davidic covenant articulating the dynastic ideology of the royal house of Judah. This latter has parallels, but the concept of a God specially bound to his or her people by covenant was otherwise unknown.18 The introduction of the political treaty into the discussion offered explanation for formal elements of the biblical national covenant and even potential clues to dating, though it was disputed whether the second millennium Hittite treaties, as the best examples of a more widespread treaty tradition in the period, or the Neo-Assyrian representatives of the first millennium provided the closer comparison. The popular view that the Old Testament national covenant concept had developed in Deuteronomic hands under the impulse of Neo-Assyrian political practice certainly rendered it “of the earth, earthy” but did not, of itself, impair its essential uniqueness. This too has changed. Eckart Otto, for example, notes that the idea of a covenant between a god and human subjects is also found in Neo-Assyrian texts and in one of the Arslan Tash inscriptions, whose genuineness Otto is happy to accept.19 At first 16 I am grateful to Professor W. G. Lambert for helpful comments on the status of the “royal” prophecies in the Ashurbanipal library. 17 Cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, LXVI. 18 Cf. S. A. Geller, “The God of the Covenant”, in: Barbara N. Porter (ed.), One God or Many?: Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 1), n.p. 2000, 284: “Nowhere else is a God attached to a people by a covenant, nowhere else is there such a radical break with myth and mythology.” 19 E. Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien (BZAW, 284), Berlin 1999, 73, 81–2, 85; idem, “Der Ursprung der Bundestheologie in Assyrien und Juda: Eine forschungsgeschichtliche Orientierung”, in: idem, Gottes Recht als Menschenrecht: Rechtsund literaturhistorische Studien zum Deuteronomium (BZAR, 2), Wiesbaden 2002, 128–66 (161–6). Otto assumes the authenticity of the Arslan Tash text, citing (Das Deuteronomium, 85 n. 371) J. van Dijk, “The Authenticity of the Arslan Tash Amulets”, Iraq 54 (1992), 65–8, and F. M. Cross, quoted in T. J. Lewis, “The Identity and Function of El/Baal Berith”, JBL 115 (1996), 401–23 (409). See already Z. Zevit, “A Phoenician Inscription and Biblical Covenant Theology”, IEJ 27 (1977), 110–8, for the suggestion, on the basis of the Arslan Tash text, that the national covenant concept was not unique to Israel (118).

184

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Otto lumps together covenants involving kings and covenants involving the general populace,20 but the necessary distinction is observed when he comes to discuss the Neo-Assyrian text K. 2401, “Prophecy for Esarhaddon”.21 This he understands as requiring both Esarhaddon and his subjects to fulfil the terms of the covenant made initially between Asshur and the king.22 The Arslan Tash inscription even refers to an “eternal covenant” ’lt ‘lm made between Asshur and the citizens of Hadattu, hence judgments on its authenticity are very important for the “Israel only” ˘ discussion. Otto claims that the distinctive feature of Judean religion in the seventh century was not “covenant theology as such”. What was “innovative” was Judah’s deployment of covenant theology in opposition to Assyrian imperial and royal ideology.23 But it would also be true to say, with Bernhard Lang, that it was only the Judeans who gave this covenant theology anything like developed theological expression.24 Thus the national covenant becomes a key theological concept within the Old Testament, such that even the Judean dynastic covenant is swallowed up in the national covenant in one well-known text (Isa. 55:3), when the “sure mercies of David” are extended to the whole non-monarchical community of the later exile.

Aniconism My fourth example of a diminishing differentia is that of aniconism. The rejection of images to represent Israel’s God, or any god, gives the biblical writers a point d’appui for their attacks on polytheism, and has been recognized as a defining feature of Old Testament – perhaps even Israelite – religion. However, the work of T. N. D. Mettinger (especially) has raised questions about this uniqueness of Israelite aniconism.25 Mettinger argues that aniconic worship is a more general West Semitic phenomenon, and that Israel reflects this common outlook. Much of his evidence is late, coming principally from Nabatea and Phoenicia – Mettinger self-consciously works back from the later evidence to his conclusions about earlier periods – and much depends on the validity and the significance of his category of “material aniconism” which he distinguishes from the “empty-space aniconism” most often associated with the religion of the Old Testament. Examples of this second category 20

Otto, Das Deuteronomium, 73. Titled “The Covenant of Assur” by Parpola in his Assyrian Prophecies, 22. 22 Otto, Das Deuteronomium, 82. For the text see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, 22–7. Parpola thinks that the covenant is made with Ishtar rather than with Asshur, though he also believes that, for the author of the text, Asshur and Ishtar were identical (pp. XIX–XX). For the covenant as a “double covenant” between god and king and then between king and people see T. Ishida, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel: A Study on the Formation and Development of Royal-Dynastic Ideology (BZAW, 142), Berlin 1977, 115–6. 23 Otto, Das Deuteronomium, 86. 24 B. Lang, The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity, New Haven 2002, 38. 25 T. N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image?: Israelite Aniconism in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (CB.OT, 42), Stockholm 1995. See also the review by C. Uehlinger, “Israelite Aniconism in Context”, Bib 77 (1996), 540–9. 21

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

185

outside Israel are especially few and late.26 Because of this assumed West Semitic background, Mettinger holds that aniconism was a feature of Israelite religion from the beginning. But what was special to Israel was the development of programmatic iconoclasm; nowhere else in the ancient Semitic world was there an actual veto on the use of graven images (196). The exclusion took place late in the history of IsraelJudah: Mettinger claims that the accumulation of anthropomorphisms in the Old Testament prophetic literature reflects a situation in which “a strictly aniconic theology remained unarticulated” (15). This fits with his view that explicit prohibition occurred only in the exilic or early post-exilic period, but reads strangely when put against, say, Isaiah 40–66, which has pronounced aniconic moments, yet is very free in its use of the anthropomorphisms of God’s mouth, arm, hand and even eyes and ear. 27 Mettinger has unquestionably altered the terms in which discussion about Israelite aniconism must be carried out.28 However, it is a problem that, if the evidence for “material aniconism” is not late, it is as likely to be early and “mute”. This applies especially to the standing stones of the Bronze and Iron Ages that Mettinger dignifies as “aniconic”. His discussion of West-Semitic “aniconism” rests heavily on these stones. It would assist greatly if we knew how those that are genuinely cultic – for they are divided into several classes – were viewed by the people who made and used them.29 The problem can be illustrated by reference to the Assyrian deity symbols that Mettinger discusses at one point. There is textual evidence to confirm that these symbols could be treated just like images, even to the extent of undergoing the mouth-washing ritual (47), and Mettinger is not inclined to regard them as aniconic (42). By contrast, West Semitic seals of the ninth to sixth centuries displaying divine symbols such as the sun disk are regarded as tending towards (material) aniconism (194). The distinction between “iconic” and “aniconic” can, therefore, be fluid enough. The definition of “aniconic” is an issue to which Mettinger returns in a later study, in which he cites the use of “aniconic”, in the study of Greek religion, for certain kinds of cultic stones and pillars.30 Here he also allows a greater importance to the “empty space” aniconism of the Jerusalem temple as a “background factor” in the eventual development of the prohibition on images (189, 204). No doubt, part of our 26 See Mettinger, No Graven Image?, 100–2 (cf. 113) on the (very late) Sidonian “votive” (possibly) thrones, the only datable one coming from AD 59–60. On the aniconism of the “Aten revolution” in Egypt see ibid., 49. 27 The view that the polemics against the manufacture of images in Isa. 40–55 are secondary is a potentially complicating factor, but, even if the hypothesis were granted, Isa. 40–55 would still have its “aniconic moments”. 28 As well as Mettinger, some others who have written on the subject have contributed essays to: K. van der Toorn (ed.), The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism, and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East (CBET, 21), Leuven 1997. See further J. C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (BEThL, 91A), Leuven 21997, 42, 52–4, 60, 128, 264, 297, 354, 358. 29 On Mesopotamian god-symbols see W. G. Lambert, “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods: Superstition, Philosophy, Theology”, RHR 207 (1990), 115–30 (123–5). 30 See his essay entitled “Israelite Aniconism: Developments and Origins” in: Van der Toorn (ed.), The Image and the Book, 173–204 (199–200).

186

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

problem is that “aniconic” and “aniconism” are terms of considerable interest to the biblical theologian, and in that context suggest a concept, and a quite abstract, theological one at that, which may owe little to the niceties of archaeological typology.

“Reverse” Comparativism So far we have been concerned with the kind of “comparativism” that has dominated in Old Testament study, and that has been widely perceived to work to the disadvantage of non-Israelite traditions. There is, on the other hand, a kind of comparativism that works in the opposite direction and that sees the Old Testament as impoverished and constricted as compared with the rich and diverse forms of Israelite religion that have been obscured by Deuteronomic and similarly motivated manipulation of the literary tradition. One of the most recent exponents of this view, J. Edward Wright, complains about the “parochial perspectives on history and religion” introduced into the Old Testament by its monotheistic Judean editors.31 He notes, further, that their “sterile” view of reality was nothing like what the average Judean and Israelite thought of the divine and human realms (73). The substantive point in this latter utterance may readily be conceded, and the Old Testament itself is the primary witness to the fact that the Israelites were often nearer in outlook to their near eastern neighbours than to the prophetic and Deuteronomic blueprints presented in the Old Testament. In the light of this newer “reverse” comparativism, we shall now consider representative ways in which even the heavy hand of Deuteronomism, or of monotheism, has worked positively, imaginatively and insightfully with Israel’s traditions, keeping in mind with Stephen Geller that biblical religion is “an essentially literary faith” which “approaches the supernatural through essentially literary means”.32 I shall not be much concerned to make evaluative comparisons with what is found in surrounding cultures. The dangers involved in that kind of exercise have already been acknowledged, though I shall conclude this paper by asserting that “comparativism” remains a legitimate and even desirable feature of our discipline. For now, I am mainly interested in the kinds of things that were possible within what some would view as the straitjacket of Old Testament religion. First we should note, however, that for many students of the Old Testament it is not just a matter of imagery or imagination; the Old Testament is regarded as serious testimony to things at the very heart of reality. So the well-known essay by C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?”, has relevance, even though Lewis is talking of Christian theology, which for him includes both Testaments. And the first fact I discover, or seem to discover, is that for me at any rate, if Theology is Poetry, it is not very good poetry. Considered as poetry, the doctrine of the Trinity seems to 31 32

J. E. Wright, “Biblical versus Israelite Images of the Heavenly Realm”, JSOT 93 (2001), 59–75 (60). S. A. Geller, Sacred Enigmas: Literary Religion in the Hebrew Bible, London 1996, 168.

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

187

me to fall between two stools. It has neither the monolithic grandeur of strictly Unitarian conceptions, nor the richness of Polytheism. The omnipotence of God is not, to my taste, a poetical advantage.33

But that did not put Lewis off the biblical text, nor did it stifle his enthusiasm for amateur theologizing. Ultimately, with him, we shall want to judge the Old Testament by worthier canons than its use of imagery or its serviceableness as a conduit of phantasmagoric near eastern polytheism. I shall be discussing our topic under four headings: “The Coat of Many Colours”, “God and the Narrative Tradition”, “The Anthropomorphized God” and “The Conciliar God”. The Coat of Many Colours This subtitle introduces an aspect of the “richness” and “diversity” of the Old Testament presentation of God that deserves mention, even though similar tendencies are evident among Israel’s polytheistic neighbours. This is the “clothesstealing” that goes on in the Old Testament when characteristics (forms, functions, epithets) of non-Israelite gods are assumed by the God of Israel. In some contexts this would come appropriately under the heading of “syncretism”. The fourth chapter of John Day’s monograph on Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan deals with this subject and is entitled “Yahweh’s Appropriation of Baal Imagery”.34 The potential for enlargement in this area is considerable, but I shall mention only the haunting case of Isa. 45:7 where Judah’s God claims to be the creator of darkness as well as of light, of woe as well as of weal.35 This apparent rejection of conceptual dualism is uttered immediately after the section on the rise of Cyrus the Persian in 45:1–6, and the juxtaposition is striking, given that Persia provided the matrix for dualistic Zoroastrianism. Many commentators refrain from comment in this direction because it is not certain that Zoroastrianism was in a position to influence Judean thinking – even exilic Judean thinking – in the later sixth century. At the same time, Zoroastrianism is occasionally suggested as a factor in the development of IsraeliteJewish monotheism,36 but that is a separate and much larger issue and not at all my concern here. Uncertainty about the dating of Zoroaster and about the extent of his influence in the sixth century discourages easy conclusions about Isa. 45:7 being a 33

C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?”, in: idem, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, and Other Pieces, London 1965, 42. Again, “The majestic simplifications of Pantheism and the tangled wood of Pagan animism both seem to me, in their different ways, more attractive. Christianity just misses the tidiness of the one and the delicious variety of the other” (ibid., 42–3). 34 J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (JSOT.S, 265), Sheffield 2000, 91–127. 35 On the multifaceted problem of the relation between the deity and evil see now A. Laato, J. C. de Moor, Theodicy in the World of the Bible, Leiden 2003; O. Loretz, Götter – Ahnen – Könige als gerechte Richter: Der “Rechtsfall” des Menschen vor Gott nach altorientalischen und biblischen Texten (AOAT, 290), Münster 2003. 36 References in Robert Gnuse, “The Emergence of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: A Survey of Recent Scholarship”, Religion 29 (1999), 315–36; Laato, De Moor, Theodicy, viii–ix.

188

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

response to Persian dualism.37 J. D. W. Watts, in his commentary on Isaiah, takes it for granted that 45:7 functions in this way,38 but then Watts holds that the first audience for the book of Isaiah is to be dated in the late fifth century.39 At least, if it ever were demonstrated that 45:7 was meant to counter Persian dualism, we should not be surprised, for the God of the Old Testament would as happily spoil the Persians as the Egyptians. God and the Narrative Tradition That the Old Testament presents a literary, and in particular a narrative, tradition that stands apart from those of neighbouring countries seems self-evident. Attempts to boost the image of the competing literatures may alter the detail, but they do not change the picture. Admittedly, the narrative continuum of the Pentateuch–Former Prophets (Genesis–2 Kings) of the Hebrew canon, or of Genesis–Esther in the English Bible tradition, suggests a connectedness that would not have been apparent at the time of the composition of the individual books. Still, the considerable dovetailing of some of the constituent books and their orientation towards a history outside themselves indicate that something more than last-minute editing has created this sense of continuity. The view that the monotheistic faith of Israel has given birth to this narrative tradition is often associated nowadays with Robert Alter and his 1981 volume on biblical narrative.40 The theory is, of course, much older than Alter, whose predecessors in the field include Gerhard von Rad41 and Shemaryahu Talmon.42 When Alter first raises the question, he is consciously building on Talmon’s claim that, far from containing the vestiges of a national epic, the Old Testament deliberately avoids epic because of its pagan associations: the Old Testament writers “purposely nurtured and developed prose narration to take the place of the epic genre which by its content was intimately bound up with the world of paganism and appears to have had a special standing in the polytheistic cults” (354). Such a creative role for monotheism has been questioned, for example by David Gunn, who thinks that Alter is simply reverting to the values and judgments of the 37 Cf. M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 2: Under the Achaemenians (HO, 1/8, 1, 2, 2A), Leiden 1982, 1–4; G. Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland: A Study on the Origins of Mazdeism and Related Problems (SMSSA, 7), Naples 1980; idem, Zoroaster in History (Biennial Yarshater Lecture Series, 2), New York 2000. 38 J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34–66 (WBC, 25), Waco 1987, 157. 39 See J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 1–33 (WBC, 24), Waco 1985, xxx. 40 R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, London 1981. 41 G. von Rad, “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel”, in: G. von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, tr. E. W. Trueman Dicken, Edinburgh 1966, 166–204 (translated from Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, München 1958, 148–88. The essay, entitled “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel”, first appeared in AKuG 32 [1944], 1–42). 42 S. Talmon, “The ‘Comparative Method’ in Biblical Interpretation – Principles and Problems”, VT.S 29 (1978), 320–56 (351–6).

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

189

Biblical Theology period.43 Norman Whybray reckoned that Alter’s approach was too heavily final form, expecting too much from the final redactors of the biblical text. He also found it puzzling that narrative writing of the type so praised by Alter appears to have gone into decline in the very period when monotheism was in the ascendant. This, it will be clear, is predicated on certain assumptions about the age of the narrative books of the Old Testament. If in the main they originated in post-exilic times, different arguments would apply. For some, the applicability of the term “monotheism” to Israelite-Judean religion before the Babylonian exile is a major issue, but it may in any case be sufficient to frame the question in terms of the influence of “Yahweh-aloneism” in Israel and Judah, in the pre-exilic period and subsequently. For it is hard to dissociate the development of the unique Israelite literary tradition from questions of world-view, and in almost any ancient society world-view and religion overlap substantially. Certain it is that a comparable narrative-historical tradition did not develop in the surrounding cultures, even where and when the high gods became exceedingly “high”. Moreover, if there was no prior Israelite epic tradition, as Talmon has argued,44 the rise of the narrative tradition is the more obviously in need of explanation, since it is then not simply a “prosification” of older epic material. This development of a unique narrative tradition within the literature of the ancient near east is matched by the comparative absence of pictorial art and glyptic in ancient Israel, and this too appears to be related to Israelite religious perception, now in its aniconic/iconoclastic mode. The ban on images was “the ruin of their art, but the making of their religion”, wrote D. L. Edwards in a popular volume of his a quarter of a century ago.45 Whether the “ban” was the cause or merely a reflex of an underlying tendency, there is the likelihood of a connection between the ideology and the absence of the art. A similar thing has been observed of England, which has had its share of iconoclastic revolution. In consequence, England has never competed with the other European countries where the visual arts are concerned. On the other hand, a tradition of the written word that is second to none has developed and reached out across the globe.46 This tradition of the word, it is true, is not limited to narrative – Shakespeare appears early on the honours board – but it remains the case that the flow of creative energy has been channelled into the written word in a way that is not true of the visual arts. It appears to have been the same in ancient Israel. To say no more, however, would be to limit ourselves to the via negativa. The idea that Israel’s God was solely responsible for the created order, controlled and shaped history, and determined the whole course of Israelite national affairs, can justly be claimed as the dynamo that powered the narrative-historical tradition within the Old 43 D. M. Gunn, “Hebrew Narrative”, in: A. D. H. Mayes (ed.), Text and Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study, Oxford 2000, 234. 44 Talmon, “The ‘Comparative Method’”, 353–4. 45 D. L. Edwards, A Key to the Old Testament, London 1976, 31. 46 Cf. J. Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People, London 1998, 109–10. This “civilisation not of the image, but of the word” is applied more broadly to Protestant Europe by Kenneth Clark, Civilisation: A Personal View, London 1969, 159.

190

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Testament. Other peoples might attribute similar powers to their gods, but polytheism fragments, and even when the gods claimed credit for their doings in history, their vicegerents on earth had a good slice of the glory, as their proud accounts of victory testify. In the Old Testament this is not so, and even Israel’s monumental architecture – whether coincidentally or otherwise – bears silent witness to the sole claim of Yahweh to glory on the field of battle.47 “Yahwehaloneism” indeed! So, although it may be an overstatement to claim that monotheism per se gave rise to the Old Testament narrative tradition, the manner of Israel’s recognition of one supreme God created the context in which such a tradition could flourish. In this the consciousness of the special relationship between God and people, as described by Machinist (see above), played its part, as can be illustrated from the larger narrative blocks represented by the books of Kings and Chronicles. The writers, or compilers, of these books mention annalistic material of the sort that is commonplace within the larger near eastern literary corpus, but they are selfconsciously creating a different type of literature in which they recount the story, extending over several centuries, of a people and its God. The Anthropomorphized God The extent to which God is depicted anthropomorphically in the Old Testament is striking, given that he is viewed as above and beyond his creation, the high and holy One of many a text in prose and verse. The statement in Deuteronomy 4 that at Horeb the Israelites “saw no form of any kind” on the day God spoke out of the fire (v. 15; cf. v. 12) and the parallel aniconic tradition of tabernacle and temple, where God was enthroned invisibly between the cherubim (cf. 1 Sam. 4:4), certainly reflect a noncorporeal conception of God. On the other hand, the point is made increasingly nowadays that Deuteronomy 4 is a rare text on the subject of God’s incorporeality.48 Moreover, it may be argued that Deut. 4:15 is saying only that God did not manifest his form at Horeb, not that no form could ever be attributed to him. Stephen Geller takes this further, claiming that, whereas the old Deuteronomic thinkers allowed but one breach of divine transcendence, at Horeb, Deut. 4:36 wants to reject even this one concession.49 Whatever our views on Deuteronomy 4, we should not globalize its message so as to create an unbridgeable gulf between the God of the Old Testament and the physical world of his making. To do so would involve the further loss of unnecessarily widening the gap between Old Testament views of God and Christian incarnational theology. One of the most striking anthropomorphisms in the Old Testament is the “angelophany”, in which the angel of the Lord appears to favoured humans. When God appears to Gideon it is in 47

Cf. 2 Sam. 8:6, 14. See S. D. Moore, “Gigantic God: Yahweh’s Body”, JSOT 70 (1996), 87–115 (92). 49 Geller, Sacred Enigmas, 42. According to Geller, Deut. 4 teaches that hearing, rather than seeing, is the proper way to experience revelation (39, 48); the Deuteronomic writers are redefining the nature of God and the process of revelation (40–42); the unique feature of “biblical religion”, as of its daughter faiths Judaism and Christianity, is “transcendent monotheism” (170). 48

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

191

the guise of the angel of the Lord sitting under an oak in Ophrah and, apparently, indistinguishable from a human (Judg. 6:22). Gideon does not appreciate the literal potential in the greeting “The Lord is with you”; nevertheless, the story discloses that it is none other than the Lord himself speaking to Gideon (Judg. 6:11–24 [14]). It is as a “man of God” that God, initially introduced in the story as “the angel of the Lord”, appears to Manoah’s wife (Judg. 13:3, 6, 9, 13, 19–22). The appearance of God to Abraham in Genesis 18 belongs here, even though the chapter does not mention angels or the angel of the Lord.50 Abraham is confronted by three “men”, who eat his food, and, it becomes apparent, one of those who enjoys his hospitality is “the Lord” (vv. 13, 17). Similarly, it is as a man that God encounters Jacob at Peniel, and Jacob at the end recognizes that he has seen God face to face (Gen. 32:30). As we know, there is a tendency within traditional Christian exegesis to identify the “angel of the Lord” with the second person of the Trinity, though the New Testament itself noticeably refrains from this in the martyr Stephen’s reference to the angel of the Lord at the burning bush (Acts 7:30–34). Such Christophanic emphasis results from exegetical overkill, however, and its effect is to obscure a serious point of contact between the two Testaments: the compatibility of the biblical God with human form. Alter goes to the other extreme in claiming that in the Old Testament there is, “despite anthropomorphism”, an “absolute cleavage between man and God”: “man cannot become God and God (in contrast to later Christian developments) does not become man”.51 As ontology such a statement is pointless in an Old Testament context,52 while the absoluteness of the “absolute cleavage” depends precisely on the limits observed in the anthropomorphizing in the biblical texts. In the Old Testament, as we have already seen, anthropomorphism is taken quite far. Paying anthropomorphism its due respect will have repercussions for our reading of the biblical text more generally, as may be illustrated from the first page of the Bible. It is the anthropomorphized God who creates the universe in Genesis 1. There is a tendency to emphasize the fiat aspect of the creation (“God said, ‘Let there be …’”), as if this expressed a distinctive Israelite standpoint. However, we know that fiat creation is also a feature of Egyptian Memphite “creation theology”, and Genesis 1 is actually stronger on the idea of the “workman God”, not least when it comes to the creation of the first humans. This may have a bearing on the statement in verse 26 about God’s making humans “in our image”, for this strangely abstract phrasing – at least in an Old Testament setting, and as most often expounded – may not be so devoid of corporeality as is often assumed.53 If the language of the Divine Council lies behind the use of the first person plural in the verse, as is widely believed, then there is even more reason for our interpretation of “image” and “likeness” to avoid theological abstraction – this perhaps encouraged by other Old 50 In 19:1, 15, on the other hand, the other two visitants who continued on to Sodom are called “angels” (or “messengers”). 51 Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 157. 52 Alter’s contrasting of Christianity, according to which God does “become man”, shows the sense in which he (presumably) intends this “becoming”. 53 This may apply even if the beth essentiae approach is favoured (i.e. “as our image” [v. 26; cf. v. 27]).

192

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Testament passages which associate God with some sort of corporeal existence, even where the “angelophany” is not involved.54 What we have in the Old Testament is a depiction of God that is as developed and multiplex as that of any human character described there. This relates very directly to the aptitude of the biblical writers for characterization in narrative: God as a narrative protagonist is treated according to the same literary conventions as the human participants in the narratives. It would be a large claim that characterization developed in the Old Testament literature in a way unparalleled elsewhere, but a good case could be made. So God himself is depicted with an astonishing range of characteristics and responses to the people and situations described in the biblical narratives. Now, while the danger of the unwarranted comparison lurks again, it is, nevertheless, a fair question whether the personality of any other god in the ancient near east has been so developed, and so anthropomorphized in the process, as that of the God of Israel.” The Conciliar God The fate of the “foreign” gods in the Old Testament is to be reduced to angel status and to sing the praises of Israel’s God. Or worse, according to Psalm 82. This, however, does not exhaust the limits of the reconceptualization of polytheism within the Old Testament, as may be judged from the afterlife that it permits the “Council of the Gods” or “Divine Council”.55 The biblical presence of this Divine Council is something more than “vestigial”. It is represented in the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets, the Latter Prophets, Psalms, Job and Daniel, sometimes expressly and sometimes implicitly. As we have already noted, it can no longer be claimed that the Old Testament was unique in envisaging the admission of humans to the Divine Council.56 Mari text 208 recounts a discussion among the gods in Ea’s circle, while text 196 portrays Dagan passing judgment on Tishpak, the god of Eshnunna, in the Divine Council, both occasions being witnessed by the prophets who reported them. On the earthly plane, the Babylonian bãrû diviners were admitted to the royal court when their services were required, and it is a reasonable supposition that it was the experience of the diviners at the level of the earthly court that led to the idea not only of diviners but also of prophets being admitted to the divine court.57 Actual participation in conciliar 54 See R. Kasher, “Anthropomorphism, Holiness and Cult; A New Look at Ezekiel 40–48”, ZAW 110 (1998), 192–208 (192–4). See further M. C. A. Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine (UBL, 8), Münster 1990, as well as J. C. de Moor, “The Duality in God and Man: Gen. 1:26–27 as P’s Interpretation of the Yahwistic Creation Account”, in: J. C. de Moor (ed.), Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel: Papers Read at the Tenth Joint Meeting of The Society for Old Testament Study and Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap … Oxford, 1997 (OTS, 40), Leiden 1998, 112–25. 55 Cf. E. T. Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (HSM, 24), Chico 1980. 56 Cf. Gordon, “From Mari to Moses”, 71–4. 57 See the writer in “Where Have All the Prophets Gone? The ‘Disappearing’ Israelite Prophet Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy”, BBR 5 (1995), 78–9.

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

193

decisions in Mesopotamian texts was very much the preserve of the gods themselves. So, already in the Sumerian flood story the decision of the gods in Council to destroy humanity is described as a “final sentence” (di-til-la, a term borrowed from the Sumerian courtroom).58 Decisions of the gods in Council had to be confirmed by an oath at the start or end, or both, of the announced decision. There was no going back, as was discovered by Ningal when she tried to save Ur from destruction: May my city not be destroyed, I said to them. May Ur not be destroyed. May its people not be killed …

But there was no favourable response from Anu or Enlil.59 Once the decision of the gods in Council was reached, there was no opportunity for review. Even less was it open to humans to interfere in the decisions of the Council. While there is evidence in the Mari texts of prophet figures being allowed to witness Council proceedings, there is none that suggests that they participated or in any way questioned the decrees that eventuated. In Ugarit kings seem to have participated in gatherings of their deified ancestors, and similar phenomena have been observed elsewhere.60 An intercessory role has been claimed for the Balaam of the Deir ‘Alla text,61 but this much is not clear from the text itself. It appears that Balaam weeps and fasts after witnessing the gods in Council,62 but that is a different matter from participation in Council proceedings. In the Old Testament, prophets not only witness but may on occasion take part in the Divine Council. Micaiah is merely a spectator in relation to the curious goings-on that are described in 1 Kings 22. Isaiah, on the other hand, not only interrupts the proceedings of the heavenly court with his confession of uncleanness, but also offers his services as messenger and seeks clarification as regards the time-range of the message that he is to announce (Isa. 6:1–13; esp. vv. 5, 8, 11). Those who revocalizeַ . ‫“( וְאָמֵַר‬And he [or ‘one’] said”) in Isa. 40:6 to ‫“( וָאמַר‬And I said”; cf. 1QIsa, LXX) envisage prophetic participation in the proceedings of a Divine Council meeting at which an anonymous figure in the Isaiah tradition is commissioned with a message for the returning exiles.63 Zech. 3:5, as pointed in the MT, has the prophet contribute 58 See M. Civil, “The Sumerian Flood Story”, in: W. G. Lambert, A. R. Millard, Atra-hasīs: The ˘ Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford 1969, 142 (iv 158). 59 See “Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur” in ANET, 458; cf. T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven 1976, 86. 60 Cf. De Moor, The Rise of Yahwism2, 317–61; idem, “Seventy!”, in: M. Dietrich, I. Kottsieper (eds), “Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf”: Studien zum Alten Testament und zum Alten Orient (Fs O. Loretz), Münster 1998, 199–203. 61 See H.-P. Müller, “Die aramäische Inschrift von Deir ‘Alla und die älteren Bileamsprüche”, ZAW 94 (1982), 214–44 (242); M. Dijkstra, “Is Balaam also among the Prophets?”, JBL 114 (1995), 43–64 (52). 62 See M. Weippert, “The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla and the Study of the Old Testament”, in: J. Hoftijzer, G. van der Kooij (eds), The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated: Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989, Leiden 1991, 167–9. 63 For the view that the speaker in Isa. 40:6 is a member of the heavenly council see C. R. Seitz, “The Divine Council: Temporal Transition and New Prophecy in the Book of Isaiah”, JBL 109 (1990), 229–47.

194

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

a sentence to the proceedings when he asks that a clean turban be placed on Joshua the high priest’s head. A different level of engagement is represented in the visionary experiences of Amos 7. There is no direct mention of the Divine Council here, except the possible . hint in ‫“( וָאמַר‬and I said”) in the first two visions (vv. 2, 5). Indeed, it would hardly be possible to have a conventional Council session in these two visions, since they incorporate acted out judgments upon Israel, in the locust attack on the crops and the destruction of the land by fire (vv. 2, 4).64 Nevertheless, it is difficult to divorce the Amos visions from the world of the Divine Council. If not Amos himself, an early interpreter of his sees this kind of experience as God’s revealing of his plan (‫ )סוֹד‬to his prophet-servant (3:7); and the point of the previews in ch. 7 is that they give the prophet the opportunity to intercede on behalf of his endangered people. Here the God of Israel condescends to being entreated and even to “repenting” of his decisions in a way seldom described for an Israelite ruler. Certainly, Amos 7 differs in this respect from the typical king’s council in Old Testament narrative, whether as in 1 Kings 12 (Rehoboam), or 2 Samuel 16–17 (Absalom), or 1 Kings 22 (kings of Judah and Israel). In Amos 7 God is not seeking advice because of his perplexity, but shows himself willing to have his judgment opposed because of his merciful character. This aspect of the divine character is most strikingly apparent in the account of God’s meeting with Abraham in Genesis 18. Their encounter is not presented as a session of the Divine Council, and yet there are elements in the story that seem to point that way.65 And after all, it is on the basis of Abraham’s intercession for Sodom in this chapter that he is described to Abimelech in 20:7 as “a prophet”: “he is a prophet and he will pray for you”.66 What God decides to reveal to Abraham is nothing other than his ‫“( סוֹד‬plan”). When it is recognized that 18:17 introduces a flashback (cf. The Revised English Bible, “The Lord had thought to himself”), it becomes evident that God’s decision about Sodom has not yet been reached when he visits Abraham. His “going down to see” is not the taking of the road from Hebron to Sodom – about which the text has nothing further to say, for only the two accompanying angels reach Sodom (cf. 18:17, 22; 19:1)67 – but, as we would ordinarily expect, his descent from his heavenly abode to investigate what his human subjects are doing (“I shall go down and see whether they have done according to the outcry that has reached me”, v. 21; cf. Gen. 11:5). So Abraham is truly in the position of a prophetic intercessor whose bargaining takes place before the divine plan is finalized. The result is the remarkable picture of Abraham the Hebrew haggling with God over the fate of a pagan city, which might in its entirety be spared if there were, 64 Perhaps Deir ‘Alla provides a parallel in the vision that reduces Balaam to tears; Weippert has already suggested a parallel between the Balaam text and the Amaziah narrative in Amos 7:10–17 (“The Balaam Text”, in: Hoftijzer, Van der Kooij [eds], The Balaam Text, 164, 177; cf. M. Dijkstra, “Response to H.-P. Müller and M. Weippert”, ibid., 216). 65 Cf. G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC, 2), Dallas 1994, 50. 66 Genesis 18 and 20 are traditionally assigned to different sources, but the portrayal of Abraham as a prophet of intercessory accomplishment is found only in ch. 18. 67 Verse 22a then fulfils its proper function of being a resumptive repetition picking up verse 16 after the flashback material of verses 17–21.

“COMPARATIVISM” AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL

195

finally, but ten righteous people in it. In Genesis 18, then, God is memorably shown as being open to persuasion by a mere mortal (cf. “dust and ashes”, v. 27). We may perhaps hear echoes of the Council in the book of Hosea, in the selfdeliberations of God over Israel. There are scarcely any speech formulae to punctuate the text, and in that respect oracles and soliloquies go seamlessly on. Something of Hosea’s own perplexities are, doubtless, surfacing in the divine fretting over Israel. Hosea has stitched his heart on the sleeve of God.68 This God has no colleagues or even juniors to whom he turns, no Council where decisions can be debated. All is happening in the mind of Israel’s God. So he asks, “What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah?” (6:4); “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?” (11:8). Andersen and Freedman attribute the seeming lack of structure in Hosea to the consideration that Yahweh’s self-deliberations occur within the context of the Divine Council, or even that they represent a stage preliminary to the Council.69 So God soliloquizes, and we hear him debating the pros and cons of the policy that he is hammering out. Only Jeremiah among the later prophets comes close to such a depiction of God (cf. Jer. 5:7–9). The debating of pros and cons also seems to be a feature of Hos. 2:4–25 (2–23), and David Clines has written suggestively about this chapter as presenting, not a sequence of actions, but a series of options, the last of which is the course that God actually decides upon, viz. forgiving Israel and loving her out of her rebellious ways.70 Andersen and Freedman, in their commentary published a year later, and in apparent independence of Clines, view with some favour the possibility that the first two options in Hosea 2 are discarded in favour of the third.71 If so, the conceptuality of the Divine Council is not too far away.

In Conclusion In the second part of this paper comparisons and contrasts have not been of crucial importance. A different question has been addressed: How does the Old Testament, committed to the one God Yahweh, respond to the environing traditions and practices in which its own views of God and reality developed? Whether there were parallel developments elsewhere was not so important. But that was a self-denying ordinance on the writer’s part, for there is no reason why the making of cultural comparisons should be abandoned, even if the results must always have an element of provisionality about them. That the sum total of the Old Testament vision witnesses to something unique in the ancient east is self-evident, and it is hard to 68

The standpoint of the text is, of course, that of the reverse process. F. I. Andersen, D. N. Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AncB, 24), Garden City 1980, 45. 70 D. J. A. Clines, “Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation”, in: E. A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Biblica 1978, I: Papers on Old Testament and Related Themes – Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies, Oxford 3–7 April 1978 (JSOT.S, 11), Sheffield 1979, 83–103 (= pp. 293–313 in Clines’s On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967–1998, vol. 1 [= JSOT.S, 292], Sheffield 1998). 71 Andersen, Freedman, Hosea, 263. 69

196

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

disagree with David Jobling when he remarks that “[i]t argues little maturity on the part of biblical scholars that we sometimes seem to be arguing passionately against the distinctiveness of our material in any respect.”72 The analogy of apocalyptic and the New Testament may serve a useful purpose in this regard. Part of the exegetical task in the book of Revelation is to distinguish between standard apocalyptic features and specifically Christian elements in the book. They are interwoven in the text, but proper exegesis does not stop there. If verse 11 of the last chapter expresses classic apocalyptic determinism, as most would still recognize it – “Let the evildoer still be evil and the filthy still be filthy!” – then this is overwritten in verse 17 in the unrestricted offer of the water of life to any thirsty hearer.73 That is a specifically Christian element in the text. In the same way, the elements within the Old Testament that modify or rewrite the underlying near eastern “script” are a legitimate concern of the Old Testament specialist. There will never be a complete match, or, if there is, it will be Yahwism by another name, or not even that. In fact, Egyptian Atenism comes closest to the monotheism of the biblical tradition (if one may disregard the chronology), yet the Aten was a “nonanthropomorphic, nonspeaking god” who “required an interpreter for humanity, a role taken by the king, who claimed exclusive ‘knowledge’ of the deity”.74 Nonanthropomorphic, nonspeaking! That, surely, is real monotheistic sterility.

72

D. Jobling, “Robert Alter’s, The Art of Biblical Narrative”, JSOT 27 (1983), 87–99 (90). “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life freely.” 74 J. Baines, “Egyptian Deities in Context: Multiplicity, Unity, and the Problem of Change”, in: B. N. Porter (ed.), One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 1), n.p. 2000, 60. 73

Chapter 16

Better Promises: Two Passages in Hebrews against the Background of the Old Testament Cultus1 While the Letter to the Hebrews gives little away as to the identity and location of either its writer or its addressees, a certain amount can be gleaned about the circumstances of those whom tradition early named “the Hebrews”. They were second- or third-generation Christians in the sense that they were at some distance from the Christ-event which had been preached to them and which now formed the basis of their faith. Because of their Christian profession they had been subjected to public humiliation, persecution, and confiscation of property. We may judge from the references in 10.34 and 13.3 that some of their friends had been imprisoned, and that some of these were still in prison at the time of writing. So far their privations had fallen short of martyrdom, but the statement in 12.4 that they had “not yet resisted to the death (lit. ‘blood’) in the conflict with sin” hints at the prospect of greater demands being laid upon them. It is also clear that the writer regarded his readers as currently in a trough of spiritual torpor, for whatever reason. That they were Christian converts from Judaism has been disputed, but it seems very likely. Whether they were emphasizing their Jewish heritage to the detriment of their Christian commitment,2 or were struggling with a temptation to return to the Jewish fold, is a finer point; ultimately the positions may not be greatly different. This is as much as may be deduced from the several brief references to the addressees’ circumstances as they occur in the letter (2.1–4; 5.11f.; 6.9f.; 10.32–34; 13.7). That there were religious or intellectual factors contributing to their present state need not be doubted, but whether these are to be regarded as the root or the fruit of the problem is more difficult to judge. There are, on the other hand, quite strong hints as to the psychological condition of “the Hebrews” in a number of references which deserve highlighting in this particular connection. The “fear of death” evidently was regarded by the author as a sizeable obstacle to a continuing commitment on the part of his readers. The idea first appears in 2.14f. where the death of Christ is seen as that by which the wielder of the power of death was 1 This paper was read at the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Biblical Association at Tallaght, Co. Dublin, on 22nd April, 1989. I am pleased to offer it as a contribution to the Festschrift in honour of Dr E. Bammel on the occasion of his retirement. 2 As was argued by William Manson in the 1949 (1950) Baird Lectures (The Epistle to the Hebrews. An Historical and Theological Reconsideration [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951]).

197

198

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

destroyed and those who through fear of death had been held in lifelong slavery were given their freedom.3 In 5.7 the divine Son is portrayed as one who in his earthly life “offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to him who could save him from death”; and he, moreover, was heard “because of his humble submission”. In this case the solidarity of Christ with his people even, or especially, at their most vulnerable point is very strikingly expressed. And significantly, salvation from death is here not escape from the encounter but posthumous deliverance. That is also part of the message of ch. 11. The leading theme of this chapter is, to be sure, the necessity and the inspirational power of faith, but there is an ancillary theme which can be overlooked only with difficulty, viz. that faith overcomes death in whatever form it presents itself, and in any one of a number of ways. By faith Abel still speaks, even though dead (v. 4), by faith Enoch was translated so as not even to see death (v. 5), by faith Abraham, although “as good as dead”, became the progenitor of a host of descendants (v. 12), by faith the same Abraham received his son Isaac back from the dead – in a figure (v. 19), by faith the dying Jacob blessed Joseph’s sons and worshipped (v. 21), by faith Joseph at the end of his life gave instructions about his bones (v. 22), by faith Israel’s firstborn escaped the judgment of death in Egypt, the Israelites drowning in the Red Sea, and Rahab destruction with the rest of Jericho (vv. 28–31). Others stopped lions’ mouths, quenched flames, escaped the sword, received their dead back again (vv. 33–35a); yet others embraced death to gain a better resurrection, were stoned, were sawn in two, or were put to death by the sword (vv. 35b-37). The supreme example of suffering and overcoming is, nevertheless, Christ himself who “in anticipation of the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (12.2). It is at this point that the readers are reminded that their suffering has not so far resulted in martyrdom. For the present, they should remember that God uses suffering as a discipline for his children, and this discipline, it is claimed in what functions as a minor climax in the argument, does not issue in death but in life: “Should we not submit all the more to the father of spirits and live?” (v. 9). Life and not death, if they could grasp it, is the outcome of God’s paternal dealings with the faithful. The development of this sub-theme in chs. 11–12 serves, then, to nerve the faint endeavour of those who have been enjoined in 10.35–39 to persevere in the Christian faith. Even death must yield before the author and finisher of faith (12.1f.). Twice in the section on Moses in ch. 11 mention is made of the fearlessness of faith, first in relation to Moses’ parents and then in relation to Moses himself. The parents are said not to have feared the king’s edict (v. 23), and Moses, less obviously, is declared not to have feared the king’s anger when he forsook Egypt (v. 27). Since in the first century βασιλευ´ς was used for “emperor” as well as “king” (cf. 1 Pet. 2.13, 17), it is reasonable to inquire whether these references are meant to have a contemporary application, especially since v. 27 most naturally refers to Moses’ hurried departure from Egypt when he realized that the Pharaoh sought to kill him – hence NEB’s targumizing, “By faith he left Egypt, and not because he feared the 3 Already in 2.9 it had been stated that Christ entered into death “so that by the grace of God he should taste death for everyone”.

BETTER PROMISES: HEBREWS AND THE OT CULTUS

199

king’s anger.” 4 If the writer is so intent on saying that Moses was activated by faith rather than by fear of the Pharaoh, is it not because he wishes to raise the issue of fear of the king-emperor with his readers? And if all that I have said so far seems particularly suited to William Manson’s thesis that Hebrews is addressed to Jewish Christians living in Rome in the period between the Claudian expulsions around AD 49 and the Neronian persecutions of the 60s, I would not wish to disagree.5 While this, by its very specificity, goes beyond the evidence of the letter itself, it provides an historical context more agreeable to the content of Hebrews than any other of which I am aware. Whatever its exact causes and manifestations, it is undoubtedly a problem of arrested development that is addressed in Hebrews. That the Christian believer is far from being disadvantaged through lack of an Old Testament-type cultus is, in the circumstances, something that the author sees fit to argue from a number of standpoints and at some length. The main business of this paper is to discuss two passages, in chs. 6 and 9, and to note the ways in which the Old Testament is used in order to secure this point, that in Christ there is promise of better things – things that, according to the better reading at 9.11, may even be said to have come already. Hebrews 6 In Hebrews 6 the discussion revolves about two “impossibilities” (cf. α’ δυ´νατον, vv. 4, 18) of central importance to the author’s argument. The long sentence beginning in v. 4 introduces the first, namely that it is impossible to renew to repentance those who have once been enlightened so long as they are crucifying anew the Son of God. Even so, the writer voices the confidence that his readers are in a better state (vv. 9f.). In vv. 13–20 things take on a still more cheerful aspect as the discussion turns to another kind of impossibility, that of God going back on his promise to his people for whose sake he had confirmed his promissory word with an oath. Verses 1–12 and 13–20 are therefore rotating about different axes. It is the second of these “impossibilities”, and a particular element within it, in vv. 18f., that concerns us here. The writer characterizes himself and his readers in v. 18 as those “who have fled to take hold of the proffered hope”. This hope is then likened in v. 19 to an anchor of the soul, “both sure and stedfast” (AV). In many discussions of these verses the figure of the anchor is back-read into v. 18, sometimes to the exclusion of any other metaphorical content, as in Otto Michel’s paraphrase: “Die Exegese denkt etwa an ein Schiff, das aus der hohen See in den Hafen geflüchtet ist, wo es nun geborgen vor Anker liegt.”6 Occasionally καταφυγο´ ντες in v. 18 is interpreted independently of the nautical metaphor that follows, in which case a reference to the Israelite 4 That it is Moses’ first “exodus”, and not the Exodus, that is considered in v. 27 is supported by the fact that the keeping of the passover is not mentioned until v. 28. It is also questioned whether disregard of pharaonic anger is a relevant consideration on the second occasion (though compare Exod. 10.28f.). 5 Manson, op. cit., pp. 162–67. See also F. F. Bruce, “Hebrews: A Document of Roman Christianity?”, in W. Haase and H. Temporini (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (ANRW) II.25.4 (Berlin, 1987), pp. 3496–521. 6 Der Brief an die Hebräer (KEKNT; 12th edn; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), p. 253.

200

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

institution of the cities of refuge may be entertained (cf. Num. 35.6–28, etc.).7 According to the ancient legal provision, an unintentional homicide was entitled to flee to one of the appointed cities and enjoy its protection until the death of the ruling high priest. G. W. Buchanan, on the other hand, divests καταφυγο´ντες of any idea of literal flight, preferring the meaning “have recourse” and explaining that “the people who flee to an oath are the ones who can gain support from it”.8 The separation of v. 18 from the nautical metaphor of v. 19 is, in my view, entirely justified by the improved sense which then becomes possible, and the reference to the cities of refuge heads in the right direction even though it fails to account fully for the terms of the verse. The associated ideas of “fleeing” and “laying hold” suggest that the writer had more specifically in mind the seeking of sanctuary at the altar in Old Testament times, a provision that is mentioned independently of the cities of refuge tradition. Surprisingly, in a survey of a score of commentaries on Hebrews I have been able to find only one commentator who envisages a reference of this sort: “The notion of Abraham’s strong faith, reaching out a hand to the strong grasp of God’s oath, reminds him of men fleeing for refuge, perhaps into a sanctuary, and laying hold of the horns of the altar …”9 The basic text for this idea is Exod. 21.13 where the unintentional homicide is appointed “a place to which he shall flee”, and the exact nature of this provision becomes clear when it is laid down in the next verse that anyone found guilty of deliberate killing is to be removed from the altar and put to death. As is well known, there are two illustrations of this institution at work, in 1 Kings 1–2. When Adonijah realized that his bid for the throne had failed, and that his life was in jeopardy, he “rose, went and took hold of the horns of the altar” (1 Kgs 1.50). A closer verbal correspondence is furnished by the account of Joab’s sanctuary-seeking in 1 Kings 2, when he feared for his life because of his part in the Adonijah coup: And Joab fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar (v. 28).

The effort was unavailing, however, and Solomon did not put down an opportunity to rid himself of a dangerous man. This institution, we submit, lies behind Heb. 6.18f., and it provides an apt figure for Christian refuge-seeking in Christ. As the examples from 1 Kings 1–2 show, the exercise of the right of asylum was not limited to the unintentional homicide: Adonijah and Joab feared for their lives on other grounds. It is unnecessary, therefore, to ask in what way, from the viewpoint of Hebrews, the Christian may be compared with the unintentional homicide in Hebrew law. 7 E.g. C. Spicq, L’Epître aux Hébreux. II. Commentaire (Paris: Gabalda, 1953), p. 163; H. A. Kent, The Epistle to the Hebrews. A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972), p. 121. 8 To the Hebrews. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible, 36; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), p. 115. 9 T. C. Edwards, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Expositor’s Bible; London: 1888), p. 107. Spicq (op. cit., p. 163), includes 1 Kgs 1.50; 2.28 among his references, but makes nothing of them. See also H. W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), p. 183 (the volume was published after this paper was written).

BETTER PROMISES: HEBREWS AND THE OT CULTUS

201

So far the question of vocabulary has largely been skirted, but it requires some comment. If Heb. 6.18f. has in view the Old Testament altar asylum, should we expect some verbal echoes of the Greek version of Exodus 21 and 1 Kings 1–2? Several commentators have noted that καταφευ´γειν features in sections on the cities of refuge (Deut. 4.42; 19.5; Num. 35.25; Josh. 20.9), but it is also used in Exod. 21.14 of an intentional homicide who flees to the altar of God in vain hope of sanctuary. Philo also uses this verb in his discussion of Exodus 21 in De Fuga 78–81 and De Specialibus Legibus 3.88–91. In 1 Kgs 2.28 the simple verb φευ´γειν describes Joab’s flight to the altar. There is no parallel occurrence of κρατειˆ ν in the Old Testament texts that refer to grasping the horns of the altar; the Septuagint has ε’ πιλαµβα´νειν and κατε´ χειν to describe respectively Adonijah’s initial grasping and subsequent clinging to the altar (1 Kgs 1.50), and κατε´ χειν is used of Joab’s similar action (2.28f.). The occurrences of κατε´ χειν in the present tense in 1.51 and 2.29 are noteworthy in that they indicate the kind of clinging that may be suggested in the use of κρατηˆσαι in Heb. 6.18.10 For all that, the kind of allusion that we are envisaging hardly depends for its viability upon verbal correspondence with one or other of the relevant Old Testament texts. Moreover, G. Howard has shown just how often quotations in Hebrews diverge from the Septuagint or the Massoretic text or both.11 If this is the situation with quotations, a comely tolerance over allusions is called for. The author of Hebrews possibly takes the comparison with the ancient sanctuary asylum a step further than has so far been mooted. In two of the three Old Testament passages already considered the removal of a suppliant from the altar is mentioned, as a contingent measure in Exodus 21 and as an actual occurrence in 1 Kings 2; for the protection of the sanctuary could be denied on legal grounds (Exod. 21.14), or could be disregarded irrespective of legal considerations (1 Kgs 2.34). (The vulnerability of the institution is highlighted in a different kind of way in Amos 3.14 where God says that when he destroys the altars of Bethel the altar-horns will be cut off and fall to the ground. The more likely signification of this threat is that all possibility of turning to God for help, of seeking sanctuary at the altars of Bethel, would be cut off – this in keeping with the “twelfth-hour” [H. W. Wolff] perspective of Amos.) Seeking sanctuary by grasping the horns of the altar was familiar practice, therefore, in ancient Israel, but the suppliant was not thereby guaranteed his safety. The altar to which he had access was also accessible to those who might disregard a man’s legal right. It is not entirely clear from the Old Testament references where such an altar might be located,12 but this is largely unimportant, since the writer of Hebrews would not have contemplated the possibility of anyone but the Jewish high priest entering the most holy place in the tent of meeting. Whether the altar in 10

Cf. H. Braun, An die Hebräer (HbNT 14; Tübingen: Mohr, 1984), p. 190, comparing Heb. 4.14. “Hebrews and the Old Testament Quotations”, NovT 10 (1968), pp. 208–16. 12 Cf., however, J. Gray, I and II Kings (3rd edn; OTL; London: SCM, 1977), p. 96, commenting on 1 Kgs 1.50: “The location of the altar is not mentioned, but doubtless it was by the tent which housed the ark (v. 39).” 11

202

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

question is envisaged in the forecourt or in the outer compartment of the tent (cf. 1 Kgs 2.30?), to lay hold upon a hope that entered ει’ ς το` ε’ σω´ τερον τουˆ καταπετα´σµατος was literally to enter a new sphere. In this reading of v. 19, then, Christian hope reaches right into the most holy place and enjoys a sacrosanctity that the old Jewish system could not provide. With such an understanding of the verse, there is less cause than before to press the reference to the anchor so that it is made to reach into the heavenly adytum. Even less do we have grounds for contrasting, with Chrysostom, Calvin and others, the ordinary ship’s anchor which goes down into the sea and the Christian anchor of hope which ascends into the heavenly realm.13

Hebrews 9 In Hebrews 9 a contrast in terms of effectiveness is drawn between the sacrificial order associated with the Old Testament tent of meeting and the sacrificial death of Christ. In vv. 6–10 the limitations of the old ritual are noted. Even when the Israelite high priest entered within the most holy place on the annual Day of Atonement he could do no more than present animal blood first for himself and then for the sins of ignorance (α’ γνοηµα ´ των) committed by the people of Israel. There was nothing within this system that could clear the conscience of the worshipper; only externalities were affected by the tabernacle-temple ritual. In portraying Christ as the high priest of the Christian economy, on the other hand, vv. 11–14 assert that his offering of himself has cleansed the consciences of his people from “dead works” and has fitted them for the service of the living God (v. 14). Encouraged by this straightforwardly contrastive mode of presentation, writers on these verses are invariably drawn into some sort of comment on the limited purview of the Old Testament sacrificial system which is summarized in Leviticus 1–7. Seldom, if ever, is the discussion brought face to face with the passage in the Old Testament which actually sets out the two categories of sin which appear to be basic to the development of thought in Heb. 9.6–14. The passage in question is Num. 15.22–31, the locus classicus in the Old Testament for the distinction between sins of ignorance, for which atonement could be made by means of prescribed sacrifices (vv. 22–29), and high-handed sins which, because there was no atonement possible for such, carried the death penalty (vv. 30f.). This distinction may be echoed in Ps. 19.12f. where the psalmist asks, “Who can understand his errors (š egî’ôt)?” (v. 12), and then prays, “Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins (zēdîm)” (v. 13).14 The Qumran Community Rule makes use of these same categories when it prescribes penance for two years for a sin of inadvertence but expulsion for the person who 13 Spicq (op. cit., p. 164), goes so far as to appeal to Hebrew cosmology, according to which there was a supra-terrestrial ocean above the firmament. 14 See the discussion by J. Milgrom, “The Cultic šggh and its Influence in Psalms and Job”, JQR ns 58 (1967–68), pp. 120f., and cf. D. J. A. Clines, “The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm xix)”, VT 24 (1974), p. 13 n. 3.

BETTER PROMISES: HEBREWS AND THE OT CULTUS

203

sinned deliberately (beyãd rãmâ; cf. Num. 15.30).15 Elsewhere in Hebrews there is implicit recognition of this category distinction. At 5.2 the Jewish high priests are said to be able to bear with “the ignorant who stray”, which appears to deal in our first category of sins of inadvertence, while at 10.26 the possibility of atonement by ‘ µαρτανο´ντων) after sacrifice is rejected for those “sinning wilfully” (ε‘ κουσι´ως α having received the knowledge of the truth.16 There is good reason, therefore, to give α’ γνοηµα ´ των in 9.7 its natural sense of “sins of ignorance”. The view that it is to be interpreted broadly as an equivalent of α‘ µαρτι´α because Lev. 16.34 may be taken to mean that the Day of Atonement covers all the sins of Israel (see below), or because of the claimed equivalence of α‘ µαρτι´α and α’ γνο´ηµα in the Septuagint and in some extra-biblical texts17 seriously weakens the contrast which the author of Hebrews is seeking to establish. The relevance of the two categories of Num. 15.22–31 to the argument of Heb. 9.6–14 may become more apparent upon a consideration of the meaning of the expression “dead works” as it occurs in 9.14 and also in 6.1 (“not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God”). In 9.14 there is an obvious contrast between dead works and the service of the living God.18 The former are done in independence of God and accordingly lack the quality or grace of divine life. This, however, is not normally thought to exhaust the significance of the expression, and there are three main interpretations which recur in the secondary literature. Many writers, it may be observed, do not limit themselves to one line of explanation. 1

The view that the “dead works” are the works of the (Jewish) law is well represented by R. J. Daly, according to whom “obedience to the dead works of the law is replaced by the new cultic principle of service (latreuein) to the will of the living God”.19 B. F. Westcott expressed a similar understanding of the “dead works” of 6.1: “The writer of the Epistle is thinking, as it seems, of all the works corresponding with the Levitical system not in their original institution but in their actual relation to the Gospel as established in the Christian society. By the work of Christ, who fulfilled, and by fulfilling annulled, the Law, the element of life was withdrawn from these which had (so to speak) a provisional, and only a provisional, vitality.”20 This is a more sophisticated version of the “dead works” = “works of the law” interpretation, nevertheless the counter-argument that works of the law would be unlikely to give a person a guilty conscience – unless

15 1QS 8.20–9.2. See P. Wernberg-Møller, The Manual of Discipline, Translated and Annotated with an Introduction (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 1; Leiden: Brill, 1957), p. 132. 16 Contrast the use of α ’ κουσι´ως in translation of BH š egãgâ (“sin of inadvertence”) in LXX Lev. 4.2; Num. 15.24, etc. 17 Cf. Calvin, Commentary, ad loc.; T. Hewitt, Hebrews. An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC; London, 1960), p. 143. See also Spicq, op. cit., p. 253; Braun, op. cit., p. 256. 18 Cf. Braun, op. cit., pp. 160, 271. 19 The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1978), p. 70. 20 The Epistle to the Hebrews. The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1889), p. 144.

204

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the issue is approached from a different angle, as in, say, Romans 7 – seems to be adequate refutation of the “works of the law” interpretation in whatever form it is presented.21 2

J. Moffatt understood “dead works” to be those moral offences from which a person had to break away in order to become a Christian.22 Moffatt, like many others, was also inclined to see in the reference to “dead works” an analogy with “dead bodies”, a source of ritual defilement according to priestly law.23 More recently G. W. Buchanan has referred the “dead works” of 6.1 to the preChristian experience of the addressees in Hebrews: “ ‘Dead works’ referred to the life Christians had lived before they were baptized into the community. ‘Dead’ described those people who were outside of the covenant, living as other pagans.”24 And he too draws on the analogy of corpse contamination.

3

Possibly the most favoured line of interpretation is that which thinks in terms of “works that lead to death”, which is the translation (or paraphrase) given by NIV. Comparison is usually made with Didache 5.1 and its exposition of “the way of death”, by which is understood “the way that leads to death”. Again, 4 Ezra 7.119 asks, “For how does it profit us that the eternal age is promised to us, whereas we have done the works that bring death?” This is R. H. Charles’s translation of mortalia opera and it makes for a convincing contrast with the promised “immortal age”, which, 4 Ezra laments, is denied the descendants of Adam.25 The Pauline statement that “sin pays wages and they are death” (Rom. 6.23) provides a conceptual, if not a close verbal, parallel from within the New Testament.

If “dead works” are those that have death as their entail, the distinction between the two categories of sins of ignorance and high-handed sins is the more clearly visible in Heb. 9.6–14. But the distinction is there just so that it can be shown to have been dissolved through Christ’s high priestly ministrations. For an oblique commentary on what is happening in Heb. 9.6–14 we can turn with profit to rabbinic sources. “Great is repentance, for deliberate sins are accounted [to the repentant sinner] as errors”, says Resh Lakish in b. Yoma 86b, and the same idea can be illustrated from a couple of references in the Targum to the Prophets. Tg. Hosea 3.1 does not pretend to treat in literal fashion the acquisition of the adulterous woman whom the prophet was commanded to love. Predictably, in the Targum the adulterous woman is Israel in its 21

Cf. D. Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection. An Examination of the Concept of Perfection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (SNTSMS 47; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 139. 22 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924), p. 74. 23 Cf. P. E. Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 361. 24 Op. cit., p. 103. 25 Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, II (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), p. 591.

BETTER PROMISES: HEBREWS AND THE OT CULTUS

205

idolatry. “Nevertheless”, says the Targum, “if they repent they shall be forgiven and they shall be like a man who has acted inadvertently and has spoken a word in his wine.”26 Thus even the sin of idolatry may, if repentance supervenes, be treated as a sin of inadvertence. The second Targumic reference is Hab. 3.1. In the MT the chapter is headed, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet ‘al šigyōnôt”. The untranslated term is of a type familiar in the Psalter, but of uncertain meaning. The Targum clearly links šigyōnôt with the Hebrew š egãgâ (“sin of inadvertence”; cf. Vg pro ignorationibus and the renderings of the Greek minor versions), hence its otherwise improbable account of the MT: “The prayer which Habakkuk the prophet prayed when it was revealed to him concerning the extension which is given to the wicked, that if they return to the law with a perfect heart they will be forgiven, and all their sins which they have committed before him will be like sins of inadvertence.” These rabbinic passages, while putting more of a premium upon repentance (though compare Heb. 6.1), are addressing from the Jewish side the issue which engages the author of Hebrews in 9.6–14.27 Our passage states clearly that the activity of the Jewish high priests on the Day of Atonement was concerned with the sins of ignorance committed by the people of Israel, but this is significantly different from what is said in Leviticus 16 on the subject. There the high priest makes atonement for the most holy place “because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, in respect of all their sins” (v. 16), he lays his hands on the head of the live goat and confesses over it “all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites” (v. 21), and the result of the atonement ritual is that Israel are made clean from all their sins (v. 30; cf. v. 34). Such an understanding of the function of the Day of Atonement appears to be represented in rabbinic sources. According to m. Yoma 8.8, “Repentance atones for minor transgressions against both positive and negative commands, while for graver sins it suspends punishment until the Day of Atonement comes and effects atonement.” And in b. Ker. 7a the view is expressed that, with three notable exceptions, the Day of Atonement atones for all the sins mentioned in the Torah, whether repentance is in evidence or not. It could, perhaps, be argued in relation to these statements, formulated as they were when there was no temple, and no cultic observance of the Day of Atonement, that it is the spiritual exercises that effect the change,28 though in m. Yoma 8.8 repentance is noticeably in play before the annual fast. By comparison, the author of Hebrews is positively reductionistic in his assessment of the significance of the Day of Atonement. As we have already noted, ‘ µαρτι´α; the writer limits the there is no reason to treat α’ γνο´ηµα as equivalent to α efficacy of the Day to sins of ignorance. This desire to show the limitations of the socalled Levitical order even on its most holy day is also apparent in the contrasting 26 The reading bhmryh (“in his wine”) is preferred to the variant bhbryh (“against his fellow”) in view . . of the underlying Hebrew; cf. MT and Targum Isa. 28.7. 27 For further references and discussion see G. Larsson, Der Toseftatraktat Jom hak-Kippurim. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar. I. Teil, Kapitel 1 und 2 (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1980), pp. 141–44. I am most grateful to Dr William Horbury for drawing my attention to Larsson’s study. 28 A rabbinic view noted by F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New London Commentaries; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1965), p. 196 n. 63.

206

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

references to conscience in vv. 9 and 14. Then, as if to cap this line of argument, the writer declares in v. 15 that Christ’s death necessarily had retrospective effect, setting people free from deliberate sins (παραβα´σεων) committed under the first covenant. Hebrews 9 might, as to the point at issue, be compared more readily with the truncated version of the Day of Atonement given in Ezek. 45.18–20, according to which the priestly ministration would be on behalf of “everyone who errs and is foolish” (v. 20). The author of Hebrews may have had in mind some of the Old Testament’s own statements about the limited efficacy of animal sacrifices (Ps. 51.16f.; Mic. 6.6–8, etc.), but he may well have considered it of more immediate significance that Leviticus 16 concludes a section beginning with ch. 11 and consisting of food laws (ch. 11) and instructions on ritual purification (chs. 12–15). This much may lie behind the statement in 9.10 that the “gifts and sacrifices” were only concerned with “food and drink and various ceremonial washings”.29 The approach to Heb. 9.6–14 adopted in this paper has assumed that an Old Testament categorizing of sins into two main classes provides the basis for the writer’s argument about the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over what had preceded in Jewish ritual. It is quite distinct from, yet not necessarily incompatible with, another emphasis represented by, for example, J. W. Thompson in an article entitled “Hebrews 9 and Hellenistic Concepts of Sacrifice”.30 Thompson thinks that the author of Hebrews is operating with a dualistic anthropology which corresponds to the heaven–earth duality, from which it follows that only “the earthly side of human existence” is served by an earthly cultus. The metaphysical assumptions of vv. 11–14 in particular are thought to be characteristic of the Platonic tradition, and, of course, Philo can be quoted to the effect that the Levitical cultus availed for the cleansing of the body but did not affect the soul.31 Nevertheless, even though it may be conceded that our author is well versed in the language and thought of Platonism, with or without the direct assistance of Philo, a strong case can be made out for the Old Testament as a sufficient matrix of Heb. 9.6–14. Even v. 23, which Thompson wishes to link with v. 13 and its reference to outward purity, does not go beyond the concept of heavenly prototype and earthly counterpart that is attested in the ancient near east and that may well be reflected in “the pattern shown in the mount” of Exod. 25.9, 40 (cf. Heb. 8.5).32 It would be a foolhardy Alttestamentler who would seek to deprive the “Alexandrine” section of Hebrews of all its Alexandrinisms, yet the mere fact of the ancient author’s preoccupation with redemption rather than cosmology ensures that the argument will be subjected to a constant pull towards the ordinances and institutions of the Old Testament, even if only for contrastive purposes. It is characteristic of the Epistle that all the arguments from the divine worship of Judaism which it contains are drawn from the institution of the Tabernacle. These, which are treated as the direct embodiment of the heavenly archetype, are supposed to be still preserved in 29

Manson (op. cit., p. 158) suggests that this circumscription of the Old Testament cultus relates to the situation of the addressees, for whom Jewish teachings on food and drink were a “danger”. 30 JBL 98 (1979), pp. 567–78. 31 Spec. Leg. 1.269–71. 32 Cf. also Num. 8.4; 1 Chron. 28.19.

BETTER PROMISES: HEBREWS AND THE OT CULTUS

207

the later forms and to give force to them. They were never superseded even when they were practically modified.

Thus does B. F. Westcott comment on one of the more eye-catching features of the Letter to the Hebrews.33 Other considerations may have played their part. The author may have reckoned that the tabernacle (or “tent of meeting”) suited better his conception of the Christian life as a pilgrimage, or he may have been attracted by the idea of heavenly prototype and earthly counterpart,34 which is more prominent in the tabernacle tradition than the temple, though properly agreeable with either. At the same time, it is very clear that the form of Jewish worship envisaged in Hebrews is not pristine in the sense that it reflects merely the data of the relevant biblical texts; elements from later times are also represented.35 This is important because it confirms what should be otherwise clear from the argumentation of the letter, namely that, despite the “archaizing”, it is the service of the Second Temple – whether by now in its last phase or already extinct – that the author rejects as passé. It is a small matter, in the end, whether Heb. 6.18f., or even Heb. 9.6–14, is tied to the tabernacle or to the temple. In neither case, from the author’s point of view, could the old institution achieve what was now available in Christ. Both belonged to a system that was obsolete and ageing and “ready to vanish away” (8.13).

33

Op. cit., p. 233. Cf. R. J. McKelvey, The New Temple. The Church in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 147. 35 See W. Horbury, “The Aaronic Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews”, JSNT 19 (1983), pp. 43–71. 34

This page intentionally left blank

Part II Ancient Versions

This page intentionally left blank

The Text and the Versions

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 17

The Second Septuagint Account of Jeroboam: History or Midrash?1 “With its unique length as an insertion in the earlier books of the Septuagint, no passage has provoked a wider difference of opinion than this narrative, which is throughout contradictory of that in H (= Hebrew text).”2 There is little exaggeration in Montgomery’s summary of half a century of investigation of the second Septuagint account of Jeroboam at the end of its rendering of 1 Kings xii 24 (here called “account B” or “duplicate”, to distinguish it from the first account – “account A”). On the one hand we find A. P. Stanley3 relying heavily upon it for his reconstruction of the history of Jeroboam;4 his conflation of data from MT and account B results at times in a highly improbable story. Kittel,5 on the other hand, summarily dismissed the duplicate as a worthless piece of midrashic composition.6 Although recent treatments have tended to isolate certain elements as representing an authentic historical source,7 Kittel’s view has not lacked support.8 1 I am pleased to record my gratitude to Dr David W. Gooding, The Queen’s University, Belfast, for his encouragement to make this study and for his criticism of it. Part of this article was read as a paper, entitled “3 Reigns 12.24a–f: History or Midrash?”, at the Spring meeting of the Glasgow University Oriental Society in March, 1973 [see the next chapter in this volume]. Professor J. A. Emerton has been so kind as to provide me with a photocopy of the relevant pages of A. Šanda’s Die Bücher der Könige, I (Münster, 1911). I have used throughout the Greek text published by A. E. Brooke, N. McLean and H. St J. Thackeray (The Old Testament in Greek, II, The Later Historical Books; Pt. II, I and II Kings [Cambridge, 1930]). 2 J. A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings (ed. H. S. Gehman; Edinburgh, 1951), p. 252. 3 Art. “Jeroboam” in A Dictionary of the Bible, I (2nd ed., W. Smith and J. M. Fuller; London, 1893), Pt. II, pp. 1578–80. 4 So, in varying degrees, L. von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, I (Leipzig, 1881), Pt. I, pp. 76–8; III (1883), Pt. II, pp. 4–12; H. Winckler, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen (Leipzig, 1892), pp. 1–15; T. K. Cheyne, “The N. Arabian Land of Mus.ri in Early Hebrew Tradition”, JQR XI (1899), pp. 551–60; idem, art. “Jeroboam” in Encyclopaedia Biblica, II (London, 1901), cols. 2404–6; I. Benzinger, Die Bücher der Könige (KHAT IX; Freiburg I.B., 1899), pp. 82 ff.; Šanda, pp. 375–9; A. T. Olmstead, “Source Study and the Biblical Text”, AJSL XXX (1913), pp. 1–35; idem, “The Earliest Book of Kings”, AJSL XXXI (1915), pp. 169–214; J. Skinner, I and II Kings (Century Bible; Edinburgh, n.d.), pp. 180, 443–6. 5 R. Kittel, Die Bücher der Könige (HKAT; Göttingen, 1900), pp. 106–7. 6 Cf., in the main, C. F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings (Oxford, 1903), pp. 163–9; B. Stade and F. Schwally, The Books of Kings (Leipzig, 1904), p. 130; E. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme (Halle A.S., 1906), pp. 363–70. 7 See J. Gray, I and II Kings (London, 1964), pp. 268–9, 275–6, 287–8; 2nd ed. (1970), pp. 289, 297, 300–1; H. Seebass, “Zur Königserhebung Jerobeams I”, VT XVII (1967), pp. 325–33; M. Aberbach and L. Smolar, “Jeroboam’s Rise to Power”, JBL LXXXVIII (1969), pp. 69–72. 8 Cf. Montgomery, pp. 251–4; D. W. Gooding, “The Septuagint’s Rival Versions of Jeroboam’s Rise to Power”, VT XVII (1967), pp. 173–89; idem, “Problems of Text and Midrash in the Third Book of

213

214

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

For all its divergence in detail and sequence from MT, account B is undoubtedly based on a Semitic, and almost certainly a Hebrew,9 source. Olmstead could claim that “every single phrase can be easily recognized as a translation of some wellknown phrase of Hebrew”.10 With the aid of Hatch and Redpath, Olmstead apparently was able to reconstruct the Hebrew Vorlage of account B and, forsooth, to date this Hebrew text as pre-exilic and written in the style of the prophetic cycles of the books of Kings.11 Without accepting Olmstead’s heady claims in toto, we may indeed discern a Semitic original (pace Oxyrhynchus) in such details as the use of υιι‘ ο`ς to express age (υιι‘ ο`ς ω ’`ν ε‘ κκαι´δεκα ε’τω ˆ ν, 1 Kings xii 24a),12 and in the construction with the infinitive immediately following: ε’ν τωˆ. βασιλευ´ειν αυ’ το´ν.When Jeroboam speaks ει’ς τα` ωˆ’ τα Σουσακει`µ (xii 24d) we can almost hear the Hebrew ‫( בְּאָז ְנֵי‬cf. xii 24q). Occasionally, moreover, account B offers a more exact correspondence to MT than is found in account A. MT recounts that Rehoboam “strengthened himself (‫ )התאמץ‬to mount (his) chariot” after the murder of Adoram (xii 18); account A translates idiomatically by ’ε´φθασεν (cf. ’ε´σπευσεν in 2 Chron. x 18), whereas the duplicate’s κατεκρα´τησεν (xii 24u) shows that its Vorlage had, in all probability, the same verb, here represented more literally. There are also examples of a more stylish Greek in account B. Olmstead13 noted the two occurrences of the genitive absolute in xii 24k,1, and remarked upon the free use of participles generally. Other evidence of a superior Greek style is furnished by the translations of the infinitive absolute in MT xi 22 (B xii 24f); account A translates ‫ שלח תשלחני‬by ε’ξαποστε´λλων ε’ξαποστελειˆς µε, the duplicate by ο’´ντως ε’ξαπο´ στειλο´ ν µε.14 Recensional features, as outlined by Barthélemy and Shenkel, would point to an early date of origin for account B.15 There are instances of the historic present in xii 24a (κοιµαˆ ται and θα´πτεται), xii 24f (συνα´ γεται), and xii 24u (πορευ´ονται).16 Reigns”, Textus VII (1969), pp. 1–29; idem, “Jeroboam’s Rise to Power: A Rejoinder”, JBL XCI (1972), pp. 529–33; M. Noth, Könige (BKAT IX/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1968), pp. 270–1. 9 For the notorious difficulties involved in deciding between a Hebrew or Aramaic original cf. G. R. Driver’s review of The Apocalypse of John, by C. C. Torrey, in JTS NS XI (1960), pp. 383–9. 10 AJSL XXX, p. 20. 11 Ibid. 12 Cf. J. D. Shenkel, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Cambridge [Mass.], 1968), p. 54. This Semitism, which appears in the Old Greek and και´γε text-forms, also occurs in xii 24h. For other indications of a Hebrew original see Stade and Schwally, loc. cit. 13 Loc. cit. 14 Olmstead, loc. cit., summarised: “All the affinities of style and language are with the early rather than with the later translators of the ‘Septuagint.’ ” 15 Shenkel, p. 18, notes: “… the majority of Greek Bible manuscripts, including the Codex Vaticanus, displays a text in Samuel and Kings that alternates between the Old Greek and the KR (= και´γε recension)”; the γγ section of Kings (1 Kings ii 12–xxi 43) represents the Old Greek. Gooding, reviewing Shenkel in JTS NS XXI (1970), pp. 128–31, questions the validity of Shenkel’s recensional arrangement and points to a certain nebulousness in the use of the term “Old Greek”. 16 See H. St J. Thackeray, “The Greek Translators of the Four Books of Kings”, JTS VIII (1907), pp. 268, 273–4, 276; idem, The Septuagint and Jewish Worship (London, 1921), pp. 20–2, 115; D. Barthélemy, Les Devanciers d’Aquila (SVT X; Leiden, 1963), pp. 63–5; Shenkel, p. 58, speaks of the historic present as “the certain sign of an older Greek text in Kings”; cf. ibid., pp. 50–3, 62, 67, 71, 76f.

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

215

Of the other criteria by which the Old Greek text is recognised, we may cite the expression ε’ νω´ πιον Κυρι´ου in xii 24a, almost certainly translating ‫( בעיני יהוה‬as, mutatis mutandis, MT and account A at xiv 22; cf. xi 8 [MT 6], xv 5, 11, etc.). Shenkel17 has shown that the Old Greek tradition in Samuel and Kings never translates [‫ בעיני ]יהוה‬by ε’ν ο’ φθαλµοιˆ ς; conversely, the και´γε recension uses ε’ν ο’φθαλµοιˆς on twenty-six out of thirty-two possible occasions. That ε’νω´ πιον is occasionally used in the και´γε recension is explained by the fact that the και´γε revision of the Old Greek was not total. The occurrence of ‘ε´καστος (xii 24y) for MT ‫( איש‬xii 24)18 is also redolent of the Old Greek; when ‫ איש‬has the meaning “each” the Old Greek uses ‘ε´καστος and the και´γε tradition α’νη´ρ.19 Those who attribute a fair measure of historicity to account B are generally inclined to regard it as a translation of a northern (Israelite) document. It preserves, in Olmstead’s reckoning, “narratives which are practically unchanged from their original form and which clearly indicate their northern origin”.20 More recently Gray Gooding, JTS NS XXI, pp. 128f., is critical of the way in which the historic present is used as a criterion of the Old Greek text-form. With reference to Shenkel’s assertion (pp. 69f.) that the Old Greek in 2 Kings is confined to 2 Kings i 18a–d, Gooding (p. 128) notes two instances, discussed elsewhere by Shenkel himself (pp. 78, 133), in the Lucianic text at 2 Kings x 36+. Either these historic presents must be survivals of the Old Greek or the criterion breaks down, argues Gooding. Similarly, there is a historic present in a regnal formula in the Lucianic text at 2 Kings xiii 25+ (Gooding, p. 129), and since the plus is “invented midrash” (quoting Montgomery, p. 438) it cannot be Old Greek, no matter about the historic present. It should be said in defence of Shenkel that he does not represent the historic present as the criterion of the Old Greek exclusively; the Lucianic revision reduced the number of occurrences of the historic present but did not obliterate it (see Shenkel, pp. 52, 76f. [“the certain criterion of the Old Greek and proto-Lucian texts”]). Gooding’s point about the historic present in 1 Kings vi 2 (αι’´ρουσιν) would be more significant if it could be shown that the translator had actually revised, as well as rearranged, his material; in any case the recensional situation is extremely complex here (cf. Gooding, “Pedantic Time-tabling in 3rd Book of Reigns”, VT XV [1965], p. 165). Another example discussed by Gooding, ’ε´ρχεται in 1 Kings xi 43, could again be supported within the Shenkel framework on the grounds that a block of material in a secondary position could still contain unrevised Old Greek; cf. Gooding himself in JBL XCI, p. 531. If the historic present is accepted as the sign of the Old Greek, continues Gooding, then ε’κοιµη ´ θη in 1 Kings xi 43 and κοιµαˆ ται in 1 Kings xii 24a must represent the και´γε and Old Greek text-forms respectively. And if so, this would be in contradiction of Shenkel’s premise that the και´γε recension did not affect 1 Kings, except for a few verses at the end of the book (xxii 41ff.). The aorist occurs very commonly in the Old Greek and I can find no suggestion in Shenkel that it should ever be regarded as a certain indication of the και´γε recension. That all historic presents are taken to represent the Old Greek or Lucianic traditions does not require as corollary that aorists are indicative of και´γε (though the position may well be different in the case of a key recurrent verb such as βασιλευ´ ειν, for which there is evidence of a definite pattern of translation; cf. Shenkel, pp. 50ff., 60). In view of the fact that the examples from the Lucianic text of 2 Kings occur in material additional to MT it may be worth reflecting on the και´γε revisers’ policy of not improving readings which did not correspond to the proto-Massoretic text – this is well illustrated from the instances of historic presents given for the βγ and γδ (= και´γε) sections of Samuel and Kings by Thackeray (The Septuagint and Jewish Worship, p. 20); cf. Shenkel, p. 73, and Barthélemy, p. 65 (with reference to Samuel). Perhaps some of the Old Greek characteristics in the Lucianic additions may be explained along similar lines. 17 Op. cit., pp. 13–7. Gooding, JTS NS XXI, pp. 129f., casts some doubt on the validity of this criterion. 18 There are also two occurrences in the additional material at xii 24t,u. 19 See Barthélemy, pp. 48–54; Shenkel, pp. 62–3. 20 AJSL XXX, p. 25.

216

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

has claimed an independent northern origin for the duplicate, though at the same time pointing to the evidence for a Judaean redaction.21 Of particular interest is his assessment of xii 24b–c as a circumstantial account of Jeroboam’s revolt “which may well come from a reliable North Israelite source, quite possibly the annals of the kings of Israel”.22 Skinner,23 on the other hand, was not averse to regarding account B as Judaean. While it contains many details that one would not expect to find in a history of Judah, it is, nevertheless, prefaced by an introductory notice for Rehoboam of Judah and concludes with an account of the war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, “an event in the history of the southern kingdom”, according to Skinner. Attention has been drawn frequently enough to a certain bias in the duplicate’s treatment of Jeroboam. And here, no less than before, we find a division of opinion. Montgomery and Gooding contend that this account is heavily biased against Jeroboam: “It is evident that the whole animus of the story is against Jeroboam”;24 “It has not a single good word to say for Jeroboam”.25 Olmstead, as is to be expected, represents the contrary view. Jeroboam is the hero in this northern account.26 Winckler27 regarded the story of Jeroboam’s marriage into the Egyptian royal house as an editorial attempt to enhance his reputation.28 In one of the most recent pronouncements on the duplicate Aberbach and Smolar speak of “a complimentary description of Jeroboam”29: “It certainly exhibits no more of a tendenz than is found in MT.”30 Account B’s description of Jeroboam’s mother as a harlot (MT and account A have “widow”) has often been cited as an obvious example of vilification, but not all are in agreement on this point. We shall return to the issue in the detailed examination of xii 24a–f. The problem of apparent bias may be illustrated quite neatly from xii 24t,u. When the northern tribes reply to Rehoboam’s harsh conditions they say (MT xii 16): “What portion have we in David? There is no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now see to your house, David.” Account B’s version in xii 24t is in broad agreement, except that it has nothing strictly parallel to the last sentence 21 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 289. Gooding, VT XVII, p. 187, protests that the vilification of Jeroboam is “so constant and so exaggerated that it is difficult to attribute it to an editor, in the normal sense of that term …”. 22 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 297; cf. p. 301. Seebass, p. 325, regards this part of the Greek account as especially valuable: “Dagegen scheint mir xii 24b.c.f.o-z so wertvolle Nachrichten zu enthalten, dass eine historische Interpretation versucht werden soll.” See also Skinner, p. 445; Benzinger, p. 82; Šanda, pp. 375f. 23 Op. cit., p. 446. 24 Montgomery, p. 253. 25 Gooding, VT XVII, p. 187; cf. idem, Textus VII, pp. 11–3. 26 AJSL XXX, p. 21, etc. 27 Op. cit., pp. 9–10. 28 According to Montgomery, p. 253, it was to “make the subject more interesting” that Jeroboam was admitted to Shishak’s court. See also Aberbach and Smolar, p. 72. Gray, 2nd ed., p. 311, imagines that the story of Jeroboam’s marriage comes from a Judaean (and presumably a hostile) editor. 29 Art. cit., p. 69. 30 Ibid., p. 72.

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

217

(“Now see to your house, David.”). It has instead: “for this man will be neither ruler nor leader” (ο‘´τι ου‘ˆ τος ο‘ α ’´νθρωπος ου’κ ει’ς α ’´ρχοντα ου’δε` ει’ ς η‘ γου´µενον).31 This 32 feature was regarded by Olmstead as an important piece of evidence that account B was composed in the north; it is unthinkable that a southern historian or redactor would manufacture a reference so derogatory of Rehoboam, even if the jibe is on northern lips. There is a measure of good sense in this, especially if Olmstead’s translation is to be accepted: “this man is fit neither for a ruler nor for a leader”. The position in xii 24u is quite different. This material corresponds to MT xii 18b, 20b, and account A is in sufficient agreement with MT to be included under the heading of the latter. When the two portions of MT xii 18, 20 are joined together the following account results: “And King Rehoboam hastened to mount (his) chariot to flee to Jerusalem. There was none (going) after the house of David apart from the tribe of Judah alone.”33 Account B (xii 24u) presents the same events thus: “And Rehoboam prevailed and departed and mounted his chariot and went into Jerusalem. And after him went the whole tribe of Judah and the whole tribe of Benjamin.” The translation of κατεκρα´τησεν by “prevailed” recognises the word as more than an idiomatic translation of MT ‫ התאמץ‬and is in keeping with the general tone of the passage; in xii 24r Rehoboam sent packing (διεσκε´δασεν: MT xii 8 has ‫ )ויעזב‬the counsel of the elders of the people,34 and in xii 24u all the people were dispersed (διεσπα´ ρη) from Shechem and returned home (MT xii 16 has simply, “And Israel departed to their tents.”). Since account B has no mention of the murder of Adoram, Rehoboam’s taskmaster, its picture of the king’s unhurried return to Jerusalem is certainly selfconsistent. Indeed, whereas MT xii 21 has Rehoboam assembling his forces and then dismissing them on the advice of Shemaiah (verses 22–4), the duplicate (xii 24x) says that Rehoboam actually went up to Shechem to fight against Jeroboam and only then did he hear and obey the prophetic counsel. This preliminary inspection should suffice to show that the duplicate apparently has elements which suggest a sympathetic treatment of Jeroboam and yet others which clearly favour Rehoboam.35 Whether the balance in favour of Rehoboam and against Jeroboam, as it emerges from the above-mentioned examples, will be maintained remains to be seen. Detailed analysis of the duplicate is essential in view of the fact that random selection of data can so easily result in a distorted picture. Our assessment of account B must not be based simply on its plausibility – assuming that it passes that test comfortably. It will be important to reach some conclusion about 31 The Samaritan Sepher Ha-Yamim has a slightly longer version of the people’s reply which includes the interesting addition: “You are no king for us and we are no servants for you” (‫אין מלך אתה לנו ואין עבדים‬ ‫)אנחנו לך‬. See J. Macdonald (ed.), The Samaritan Chronicle No. II (BZAW CVIl; Berlin, 1969), p. 70 (Heb.). For evidence of some affinity between the Septuagint, notably Vaticanus, and the Samaritan biblical text see Macdonald, pp. 36–8, 208–9. 32 AJSL XXX, p. 22. 33 For the last phrase account A has πα ´ρεξ σκη´πτρου ’Ιου´ δα και` Βενιαµει´ν µο´νοι. 34 According to MT xii 6 Rehoboam consulted his father’s advisers. 35 See J. W. Wevers, “Exegetical Principles Underlying the Septuagint Text of 1 Kings ii 12–xxi 43”, Oudtestamentische Studiën VIII (1950), pp. 300–22. Wevers, pp. 310–1 (cf. p. 321), regards the Greek treatment of Jeroboam in 1 Kings as consistently vilificatory. For the opposite view of account A see the articles by Gooding listed above.

218

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the underlying Hebrew text, especially for those parts which correspond to material in MT. We should then hope to be in a position to evaluate those details which are additional to, or in opposition to, the facts as given in MT. It will be of particular value to examine the sections frequently regarded as historical and credible; a fair proportion of xii 24a–f is in this category. As we shall see, the Septuagint notice of Solomon’s death and Rehoboam’s succession (1 Kings xi 43) is in some disarray, thanks to an editor’s determination to associate Jeroboam’s swift return from Egypt with the occasion of Solomon’s death.36 MT, moreover, does not give the notice of succession proper until xiv 21, having been preoccupied with Jeroboam since its account of Rehoboam’s rejection at Shechem. There are no such complications in the duplicate’s arrangement. It has an introductory regnal formula of the type normally used in Kings for Judaean monarchs – giving the king’s age on accession, the length of his reign, the name of his mother, and a verdict, in religious terms, on the reign (for obvious reasons, in this case there could be no synchronism with the reign of the corresponding northern king).37 Benzinger preferred the duplicate’s positioning of the formula to that in MT;38 Olmstead attributed xii 24a, which contains the formula, to the last preSeptuagint editor of Kings;39 Gray conjectures that it was supplied from the annals of the kings of Judah.40 Stade and Schwally contend that the use of the formula here is artificial: “this verse can have formed only the introduction to a section concerning Rehoboam; as introduction to a section concerning Jeroboam it is out of place, indeed unnatural”.41 Nor was the succession from Solomon to Rehoboam as smooth as the duplicate’s arrangement might suggest; MT’s introduction of the regnal formula at xiv 21 has much to be said in its favour.42 In point of fact account B does not intimate that the first assembly at Shechem was convened so that all Israel might make Rehoboam king (in contrast to MT xii 1). Instead, Rehoboam goes up to Shechem after Jeroboam had assembled the northern tribes there (xii 24n) and after he had declared his intentions by, for example, building a fortress at Sareira (xii 24f). Whether the attempt to wring concessions from Rehoboam was sincere or not is not expressly stated, but it may safely be assumed that Rehoboam did not travel to Shechem in expectation of a coronation ceremony. The omission of such a reference is no surprise in view of all the activity – requiring many months – which the duplicate attributes to Jeroboam between the death of Solomon and the first assembly at Shechem.43 While the position of the regnal formula in the duplicate and the 36

Cf. Gooding, VT XVII, pp. 175–9 (esp. p. 178); Gray, 2nd ed., pp. 300f. Cf. Shenkel, p. 24. 38 Op. cit., p. 98. 39 AJSL XXX, p. 20. 40 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 289. 41 Op. cit., p. 137. 42 Cf. Gray, 1st ed., pp. 279f. 43 This stands however one interprets the section on Jeroboam’s marriage in Egypt. Stanley, p. 1578, understood it to mean that Jeroboam was given his royal wife after he had sought leave to return home on hearing of Solomon’s death, and that he did not leave until Abijah was born and the Pharaoh had acceded to a second request for permission to leave. A. Klostermann, Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige (Nördlingen, 1887), p. 339, described Ano as the Pharaoh’s parting gift to Jeroboam. See also von Ranke, 37

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

219

absence of any mention of a coronation at Shechem (however abortive the affair may have been, according to MT) make for a consistent pattern – with Rehoboam succeeding his father in the normal way and, evidently, having the allegiance of all twelve tribes for a time – the recognition of the formula on which this all appears to hinge as artificial and misplaced would more than negative its claim to superiority over MT’s scheme. Account B’s figures for Rehoboam’s age and for the number of his regnal years are sixteen and twelve respectively. They are in conflict with MT xiv 21 (forty-one and seventeen) and with all the major text traditions and, in spite of Kittel’s guarded “frt (= fortasse) recte”,44 their reliability is highly suspect.45 Montgomery46 and Gray47 are inclined to think that the association of Rehoboam with the ‫ילדים‬48 of xii 8 as his contemporaries was sufficient cause for the invention of the duplicate’s figures – an exercise in harmonisation. The lowering of Rehoboam’s age, at his accession, from forty-one to sixteen may have been dictated by such a consideration, but it is not so easy to account for the alteration in the number of regnal years by the same expedient.49 As well as the name of the queen-mother the duplicate gives the name of her father and grandfather. Rehoboam’s mother was, in any case, an Ammonitess, and it is remarkable that the names of her father and grandfather coincide with those of an Ammonite king and his son mentioned in 2 Sam. x 1ff. as having had dealings with David. We are simply not in a position to know whether or not the duplicate has preserved an authentic historical reminiscence at this point. Against the possibility that Solomon sought political advantage in a diplomatic marriage with the daughter of the Ammonite king must be weighed the inevitable hostility from that source as a result of the Ammonites’ comprehensive defeat at the hands of the Israelites in David’s reign (2 Sam. xii 26ff.). It militates somewhat against the credibility of the duplicate that in the seventeen references to queen-mothers in the regnal formulae in Kings the names of both father and grandfather are never given together; in only one case, for that matter, is the grandfather mentioned.50 That III, Pt. II, p. 5; Benzinger, p. 83. Winckler, p. 10, took the awkward placing of the marriage story as sure evidence that it did not originally belong to the Jeroboam saga. Meyer, p. 363, considered it unthinkable that the assembly at Shechem could have taken place so long after Solomon’s death as the duplicate would have us think. 44 Biblia Hebraica, 3rd ed., at xiv 21. 45 Shenkel, in spite of his interest in the chronology of the Greek text of Kings, merely records (p. 33) the variant for the number of regnal years. See also Šanda, p. 375; Olmstead, AJSL XXX, p. 17n. 46 Op. cit., p. 267. 47 Op. cit., 2nd ed., pp. 340n., 341. 48 Explained by Skinner, p. 187, as “a contemptuous and hyperbolical expression”; cf. Gray, 2nd ed., p. 305. 49 R. Kittel, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (7th ed.; Stuttgart, 1925), p. 220n., queries MT’s figure of forty-one for Rehoboam’s age on accession, citing 2 Chron. xiii 7 and the variant in account B. 50 In 2 Kings viii 26 the mother (Athaliah) and her famous grandfather, Omri of Israel, are mentioned. The other references range themselves as follows: (i) mention of the mother’s name: 1 Kings xiv 21 (nationality also stated), 2 Kings xxi 1; (ii) mention of the mother and her father: 1 Kings xv 2, xv 10, xxii 42, 2 Kings xv 33, xviii 2; (iii) mention of the mother, her father and her father’s home-town: 2 Kings xxi 19, xxii 1, xxiii 31, xxiii 36, xxiv 8, xxiv 18; (iv) mention of the mother and her home-town: 2 Kings xii 2, xiv 2, xv 2; (v) no mention of the mother: 2 Kings viii 16 (Jehoram), xvi 1 (Ahaz).

220

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

both names are given in xii 24a may possibly, but not necessarily, be a sign of dependence on 2 Sam. x 2.51 As is usual with the introductory regnal formula, xii 24a concludes with a verdict on the king’s reign, condemning Rehoboam for not walking in the way of David his father. For once MT (xiv 22ff.) levels criticism not at the king but at Judah: “Judah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (though see the Septuagint and the parallel in 2 Chron. xii 14). No conclusion as to possible bias in either version should be drawn, for, as Gray52 points out in another connection, the story of the Davidic succession was critical of David irrespective of its own Judaean origin. Jeroboam is introduced and the first phase of his life is summarised in xii 24b,c. The biographical details and the style in which they are presented show notable differences from MT. As to presentation, it is not too difficult to envisage a Hebrew original beginning, at least, in the manner of 1 Sam. i 1. The principal discrepancies consist in the duplicate’s omission of a reference to Jeroboam’s town of origin and in the details of his parentage, which are at odds with MT’s rather more favourable report. MT and account A describe the mother as a widow, whereas the duplicate says that she was a harlot. At least the latter is consistent in that, unlike the others, it does not mention the name of Jeroboam’s father. Is it possible to explain the duplicate as vilificatory in this respect? This is the conclusion of, for example, Skinner,53 Benzinger,54 Stade and Schwally,55 Meyer,56 Gray,57 and Gooding.58 Olmstead takes a different view: the lady was called a harlot because that is what she was, and the quest for a name for the father did not begin until later: “Nor is this intended as a slur on the ancestry of the hero, rather it is told in the perfectly matter of fact way of the days when the business was still perfectly legitimate.”59 In a footnote it is explained that at a later stage respectability was conferred on the mother by Cf. Montgomery, p. 267; Meyer, p. 363n.; Benzinger, p. 98, and Šanda, p. 375, otherwise. Op. cit., 1st ed., p. 279. 53 Op. cit., p. 181. 54 Op. cit., p. 82. 55 Op. cit., p. 125. 56 Op. cit., p. 367. 57 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 289. 58 VT XVII, p. 187. Skinner (loc. cit.), Benzinger (loc. cit.), Stade and Schwally (loc. cit.), Meyer, p. 366n., Gray, 2nd ed., p. 290n., point out that the name ‫צרועה‬, as in MT, is also derogatory in all probability. For another possible explanation see Montgomery, p. 243. Cheyne, JQR XI, p. 558, saw ‫צרועה‬, ‫=( זונה‬ πο´ρνη of account B) and ‫ אלמנה‬as corruptions of ‫מִצְ ִריּ ָה‬, “a Mus.rite” (cf. idem, Encyclopaedia Biblica, II, col. 2404n.). Stanley, p. 1578, gets the best of both worlds in describing the lady as a widow of loose character. Wevers, p. 303, notes that the omission of the mother’s name in account A is in keeping with the convention that such detail was not usually given for the rulers of the northern kingdom: “G avoids the royal formula by rendering υι‘ο`ς γυναικο` ς χη´ρας (the son of a widow).” 59 AJSL XXX, p. 21; cf. idem, AJSL XXXI, p. 179. Aberbach and Smolar, p. 69, argue that the Vorlage of MT may have had “harlot” for “widow” and that a northern redactor “later changed the unseemly – but not vilifying – term ‘harlot’ into ‘widow’”; cf. p. 71: “This latter assumption has the advantage of obviating the need for assigning a separate Judean editor on the ground that ‘harlot’ somewhat disturbs an otherwise consistent picture favorable to Jeroboam.” This disinclination to accept a Judaean revision takes no account of, for example, the introductory formula for Rehoboam in xii 24a – complete with Deuteronomic-type verdict on his reign – which is a translation of a Hebrew original, as it seems. 51 52

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

221

providing Jeroboam with a father (albeit dead by now). But can we accept, with Olmstead, that the Judaean editor(s)60 responsible for MT and the Hebrew Vorlage of the cognate Greek version saw fit to improve the pedigree of one who was regarded not as the hero who won independence for Israel but as the man “who made Israel to sin” (1 Kings xxii 53)? Behind Olmstead’s explanation lies the assumption that the Deuteronomist(s) or a later redactor would have shrunk from associating even a Jeroboam with a harlot mother. There is evidence to show that the Deuteronomist was not so sensitive as that. Deuteronomic susceptibility is certainly not apparent in the story of Jephthah (Judg. xi); he was the son of a harlot (note that the name of his father is given in Judg. xi 1).61 A rather less certain example from the story of Ahab may be cited for what it is worth. 1 Kings xxii 38, recording the circumstances of Ahab’s death, is notoriously difficult to harmonise with other references in 1 and 2 Kings and is usually assigned to the Deuteronomic editor.62 It attempts to present Ahab’s death as a direct and expeditious fulfilment of Elijah’s prophecy in 1 Kings xxi 19, but, significantly, adds a detail not mentioned in the original prophecy: “and the harlots washed themselves (sc. in Ahab’s blood)”. Gray remarks of this added detail: “It formed no part of the prophecy of Elijah, and is apparently introduced to vilify ‘Ahab.’”63 If so, it would be another move in the direction opposite to that presupposed in Olmstead’s reconstruction. Since Aberbach and Smolar take no account of the regnal formula in xii 24a their suggestion that account B was not revised by a Judaean editor64 need not detain us. Their hypothesis of an alteration of an original “harlot” to “widow” already in the north – an alteration which did not, for some reason, affect the duplicate – is more complicated than the simple solution advocated by many scholars and resting upon the fairly safe assumption that there was a Judaean redaction of the duplicate. The name of Jeroboam’s home-town is given in MT and account A at xi 26 but, as we have already noticed, not in the duplicate.65 What is mentioned in the latter (xii 24b) is that among his various enterprises he built Sareira66 for Solomon.67 There is not necessarily a contradiction of MT in the duplicate’s inclusion of Sareira among 60 Apparently Olmstead would attribute the change in MT to a Judaean revision; see AJSL XXX, p. 32, where xii 24a is dated in the latter half of the Persian period. 61 See Aberbach and Smolar, p. 70. 62 Cf. M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972), pp. 19f., 133f. 63 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 455. Cf. Kittel, Könige, pp. 178f. For an ingenious explanation of the addition see Montgomery, p. 341. Weinfeld, p. 132n., proposes to emend ‫ והזנות‬to ‫וחזרים‬. 64 Art. cit., pp. 69, 71f. 65 Whereas MT gives both the name of Jeroboam’s home-town (‫ )]ה[צרדה‬and the name of his mother (‫)צרועה‬, account A gives the name of his home-town (Σαρειρα´ ) and account B that of his mother (Σαρεισα´ [xii 24b]; a town by the name of Σαρειρα´ is mentioned in xii 24b, f, k, 1, n). For the suggestion that the mother’s name has arisen by dittography see Gray, 2nd ed., p. 290n. 66 Stade and Schwally, p. 130, note: “The fact that this addition in G [i.e., account B– R.P.G.] was translated from a Hebrew original is evident from Σαρειρα = ‫ ”… צרדה‬The probable confusion of Resh with Daleth would indeed lead to this conclusion. 67 Without doubt και` ω ’˛ κοδο´µησεν Σαλωµω´ ν should be translated “and he built for Solomon”, otherwise αυ’ τωˆ˛ later in the sentence would have to be referred to Solomon. Cf. the apparatus in BrookeMcLean-Thackeray.

222

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Jeroboam’s building feats, for he could legitimately be described as “from Zeredah” even though he had actually built the town. It seems impossible to prove or to disprove the reliability of this assertion in account B. That on his return from Egypt Jeroboam built a fortress in Sareira, yet seems to have taken up position in Shechem when Rehoboam went against him (xii 24x), is an apparent inconsistency which, in fairness, should not be pressed to the disadvantage of the duplicate. The association of Jeroboam with the building of Sareira can hardly be divorced from the more dubious reference to his possession of three hundred chariots – Solomon himself had only fourteen hundred (1 Kings x 26) – or from the equally dubious feats attributed to him at the end of xii 24b.68 If we were to suppose that the Greek of xii 24b was based on a Hebrew text approximating, in parts, to MT, it would be possible to find the nucleus of the statement, “and he built for Solomon Sareira in mount Ephraim”, in MT xi 26: ‫ מן–הצרדה‬read as ‫( בנה ]את[ הצררה‬with Beth for Mem, and He twice by dittography). But this is too forced, and it would introduce other problems of syntax in a Vorlage ˆ˛ ) similar to MT. The form of the statement in the duplicate, και` ω’˛ κοδο´ µησεν (τω Σαλωµω` ν τη`ν Σαρειρα` τη`ν ’εν ’ο´ρει ’Εφρα´ ιµ, invites comparison with the Greek ’˛ κοδο´ µησεν ’Ιεροβοα`µ τη`ν Σι´κιµα τη`ν ’εν ’ο´ρει ’Εφρα´ιµ version of xii 25: και` ω (to which is added the observation that Jeroboam then took up residence in Shechem). To make sense of the verb ‫ בנה‬in MT xii 25 it is necessary to translate by “rebuild”,69 for Shechem has already been prominent in both the Hebrew and Greek accounts of Jeroboam; he could not possibly have built Shechem. Add to this the fact that Shechem was, strictly speaking, in Manasseh,70 and it is quite conceivable that the attribution of the building of Sareira to Jeroboam is an adaptation of the reference to the rebuilding of Shechem, and that it is derived from a Hebrew text not materially different from MT. Jeroboam’s private army of three hundred chariots, mentioned in xii 24b, is otherwise unknown. Although it has no parallel in MT or account A, it is a detail essential to the duplicate’s account of Jeroboam’s activity prior to his flight to Egypt. To appreciate this it is necessary to look first at the other activities associated with his name in the duplicate. MT of 1 Kings xi 27 states that Solomon “built the Millo and closed up the breach of the city of David his father”. This was construction work of a perfectly peaceful nature,71 consisting in part of a repair job (the root ‫ סגר‬is used to describe the closing of the breach). It is Jeroboam, however, who is responsible for these operations, according to the duplicate; and a sinister note is struck, for it is at this point that his aspirations after kingship are noted. The manner in which this activity is attributed to ’˛ κοδο´ µησεν τη`ν α Jeroboam is striking: ου‘ˆ τος ω ’´κραν ε’ν ταιˆ ς α ’´ρσεσιν οι’´κου ’Εφρα´ιµ⋅ ουˆ‘ τος συνε´κλεισεν τη`ν πο´λιν ∆αυει´δ και` ηˆ’ ν ε’ παιρο´µενος ε’ πι` τη`ν 68

v. infra. As, for example, in 2 Chron. viii 2. Gooding, VT XV, p. 160, would not exclude the possibility that the Greek translator rearranged his material at 1 Kings vi 1 because of an overly pedantic interpretation of the verb ‫בנה‬. 70 Gray, 2nd ed., p. 314. 71 Though see the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 101b. 69

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

223

βασιλει´αν. It would seem to be fair comment that here the Greek has wrested some of Solomon’s achievements from him and ascribed them to his ambitious deputy72 – for a particular purpose, be it noted. Considering the emphasis in the use of ουˆ‘ τος, it is quite possible that the duplicate represents a deliberate contrast with a version which associated the building feats with the name of Solomon.73 Quite naturally account B says that Jeroboam built the citadel with the levies of the house of Ephraim; Solomon had put him in charge of the levies of the house of Joseph, as all the accounts testify. When the Greek states that Jeroboam συνε´κλεισεν the city of David the absence of a reference to the breaches is almost certainly of significance (account A has συνε´κλεισεν το`ν φραγµο`ν). It is possible to translate the verb by “besieged”74 rather than by “repaired, fortified”, as favoured by some scholars.75 Here the three hundred chariots of Jeroboam were being put into service; without this band such an action would have been out of the question. We may surmise that the mention of the chariot band is, then, no more than an attempt to support the claim that Jeroboam actually laid siege to Jerusalem.76 The hostile element is introduced in the 72

Olmstead, AJSL XXX, p. 21, takes the opposite view of the building activity: “It is easy to see how this might have been transferred from him to the mighty Solomon, it is not so easy to see how a later generation, and one not in sympathy with Jeroboam and the Northern Kingdom, could have done so.” But Olmstead pays no attention to the peculiar structure of the Greek. In a similar type of duplicate in the Greek at 1 Kings ii 35 (conceivably from the same editorial hand as account B: see Gooding, “The Shimei Duplicate and its Satellite Miscellanies in 3 Reigns II”, JSS XIII [1968], p. 77) the activity of MT xi 27b is attributed to Solomon (ii 35e; for observations on the Greek vis-à-vis MT see Montgomery, p. 247; idem, “The supplement at end of 3 Kingdoms 2 [I Reg. 2]”, ZAW L [1932], p. 127). There is possibly another instance of this change of subject, this time in connection with Solomon’s amassing of gold, in the Greek version of 1 Kings ix 26–8; see Gooding, “Text-Sequence and Translation-Revision in 3 Reigns IX 10–X 33”, VT XIX (1969), p. 453. Gooding, “Two possible Examples of Midrashic Interpretation in the Septuagint Exodus”, in J. Schreiner (ed.), Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch (Festschrift für Joseph Ziegler; Würzburg, 1972), pp. 45–8, draws a comparison between the use of the emphatic ουˆ‘ τος in Exod. xxxviii 18ff. (LXX) and the two occurrences in 1 Kings xii 24b. In Exodus too – for a reason not at all clear – the use of ουˆ‘ τος represents a deliberate change in the subject of the actions described. Note that in xii 24h ουˆ‘ τος, in reference to Ahijah, introduces a point of information additional to MT. 73 Cf. Gooding, Textus VII, p. 12: “… it would appear that the second account is deliberately set over against the first account in order to balance the first account’s interpretation with an opposite interpretation”. It is noticeable, indeed, that account A (Lucianic Mss) puts more stress upon the fact that Solomon was responsible for the building: … ε’πι` το`ν βασιλε´α Σολοµωˆντα. και` ο‘ βασιλευ` ς Σολοµω`ν ω’˛ κοδο´µησεν …; MT has: … ‫… במלך שלמה בנה‬. 74 So Montgomery, p. 251 (“he shut up the City of David”). Cf. also Gooding, VT XVII, p. 187, citing συγκεκλεικο´ τας in Jer. xxi 4; idem, Textus VII, p. 12. 75 Olmstead, AJSL XXX, p. 17, translates: “he repaired (the city of David)”. Cf. von Ranke, III, Pt. II, pp. 4f. 76 According to Aberbach and Smolar (p. 72) the attribution of a chariot force to Jeroboam is a device for the enhancement of his reputation. Seebass, who regards MT xi 28b as a résumé of the events outlined in xii 24b, considers (pp. 325f.) that Jeroboam may have been the commander of a chariot force (which account B seems to locate at Zeredah, though Zeredah is not included among the chariot-cities named in 1 Kings ix 15ff.). Such a role is thought to be compatible with Jeroboam’s status as a ‫( גבור חיל‬MT xi 28). See also Cheyne, Encyclopaedia Biblica, II, col. 2405. Meyer, p. 369, rejects the account of Jeroboam’s building of Zeredah and his possession of a chariot force as being highly improbable under Solomon; the king would not have tolerated it, and any chariots there were belonged to Solomon (cf. MT x 26); so also Montgomery, p. 253.

224

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

mention of the chariots, is maintained throughout the account of Jeroboam’s ˆ’ ν activities in Jerusalem and, in consequence, the concluding clause, και` η ε’ παιρο´µενος ε’ πι` τη`ν βασιλει´αν should not, pace Olmstead, be divested of hostile intent. Jeroboam was not “exalted over the kingdom”,77 he aspired to the throne.78 The reason for the rearrangement in the Greek is not far to seek. As MT stands there is a major difficulty in deciding exactly what Jeroboam did that constituted a “lifting of the hand against the king”. MT xi 26f. says: “And he lifted up (his) hand against the king; (27) and this was the matter wherein he lifted up his hand against the king.” There follow a reference to Solomon’s building enterprises in Jerusalem (27b) and the detail that the king was impressed by Jeroboam’s efficiency – presumably he was engaged in some work connected with the building programme – to the extent that he promoted him to be in charge of the forced labour of the house of Joseph. It was about that time that Jeroboam met the prophet Ahijah and was informed, by word and symbolic act, that he would rule over the greater part of Solomon’s kingdom. Only now (xi 40) is it stated that Solomon wanted to have Jeroboam killed. The exact nature of Jeroboam’s insubordination and the reason for Solomon’s ire have exercised the imaginations of modern scholars79 and, as it seems, also presented the translators of the ancient Greek accounts with a problem. Did Ahijah’s prophecy come to the king’s ears and produce such an extreme reaction, or did Jeroboam commit some treasonable act which has gone unrecorded in MT and account A? And does MT intend to present Jeroboam’s part in the Shechem conventions of ch. xii as the real manifestation of his treachery?80 Montgomery81 considered that the Ahijah episode was substituted for an earlier reference to an act of treason, while Gray82 thinks that acts of insurrection took place between Ahijah’s prophecy and Solomon’s decision to be rid of Jeroboam. 77

Olmstead, AJSL XXX, p.17. With ε’παιρο´µενος here compare 1 Kgs. i 5: και` ’Αδωνει´ας υι‘ο`ς ‘Αγγει`θ ε’πη ˛´ ρετο λε´γων ’Εγω` βασιλευ´σω. ε’παιρο´µενος is given a hostile significance by Montgomery, pp. 247, 253 (“he was exalting himself against the régime”), and Gooding, VT XVII, 1967, p. 187; cf. idem, Textus VII, p. 12 (“was lifted up against [or, aspired to] the kingdom”). In 1 Kings i 5 ε’πη ˛´ ρετο translates ‫מתנשא‬, and Klostermann, p. 341, was of the opinion that και` η’ˆ ν ε’παιρο´µενος ε’πι` τη`ν βασιλει´αν represented a Hebrew text reading ‫ויהי מתנשא על המלוכה‬, and not ‫ וירם יד במלך‬as in MT xi 26. If so, we should not overlook the possibility – albeit a remote one – that the Greek, and perhaps its Vorlage, corresponds to MT ‫( והוא מתכסה בשלמה‬xi 29), though actually representing ‫ והוא מתנשא במלוכה‬or ‫והוא מתנשא בשׁלמֹה‬. As will become apparent in the discussion of xii 24e, such a relationship to MT cannot be discounted here. Seebass, pp. 326ff., sees more than textual significance in this notice of Jeroboam’s designs on the kingdom (as xii 24b); this detail is thought to belong to a tradition according to which Jeroboam aspired to rule over twelve, not ten, tribes. The theory involves detailed examination of parts of ch. xi as well as the later sections of the duplicate and cannot be discussed properly in the present article. 79 Cf. Montgomery, p. 242; Gray, 2nd ed., p. 288; Gooding, VT XVII, pp. 183ff. For the view that the duplicate preserves the original account of the rebellion see Winckler, p. 11; Skinner, pp. 180, 445; Seebass, pp. 326ff. 80 As Gooding, VT XVII, p. 183. 81 Op. cit., p. 242. 82 Op. cit., 2nd ed., p. 288. 78

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

225

No such uncertainty can be attributed to the duplicate; the occasion of the rebellion is found in the words immediately following “and this was the matter wherein he lifted up his hand against the king”. In misapplying the reference to Solomon’s building operations account B is not merely indulging in vilification, it is applying a drastic solution to a real problem, and the way in which it is done can scarcely avoid notice. Twice the emphatic ου‘ˆ τος is used to stress that Jeroboam built the citadel and shut up (i.e., besieged) the city of David. If we do not expect the ancient translator to observe the laws of Hebrew grammar to a nicety,83 it is possible to explain his version of Jeroboam’s misdemeanours from the extant Hebrew text at 1 Kings xi 27. By making the major break in the verse after ‫שלמה‬, instead of ‫ במלך‬as in MT, he was able, with the help of other modifications, to make Jeroboam the subject of the verbs: “and this was the matter wherein he lifted up his hand against King Solomon; he built the Millo, and closed up (the breach of) the city of David (his father)”. And it is possible, of course, that these differences existed already in the Hebrew Vorlage of the duplicate. In any case the Greek has discovered, to its own satisfaction, the required casus belli and thereby vindicated Solomon somewhat.84 In the preliminary observations on the duplicate it was suggested that its translation of ‫( התאמץ‬xii 24u; MT xii 18) was determined in accordance with its generally favourable attitude towards Rehoboam. The opposite tendency may be in evidence in xii 24c – there in connection with Jeroboam. Account B says that Jeroboam – possessor of a chariot band and besieger of Jerusalem – “was afraid (ε’ φοβη´θη) and fled to Sousakeim king of Egypt” when Solomon sought to kill him; MT xi 40 says that Jeroboam “arose (‫ )ויקם‬and fled to Egypt to Shishak king of Egypt”. Jeroboam is ill at ease in both versions, but in contrast to its treatment of Rehoboam in xii 24u the duplicate maximises, rather than minimises, his panicstricken reaction. It is axiomatic that account B conflates the stories of Hadad the Edomite (xi 14–22) and Jeroboam for part of the way. There are features common to both histories which make this understandable to a degree. Both men fell foul of the king of Israel, though in Hadad’s case this was David; both fled to Egypt and remained there until their respective enemies had died; both are presented as enemies of Solomon. Since it is a matter of some significance whether Jeroboam left Egypt on hearing of the death of Solomon or on hearing of the first convention at Shechem,85 and since accounts A and B agree against MT in saying that the former was the case, it should be noted that the opening words of xii 24d, “and Jeroboam heard in Egypt that Solomon was dead”, are probably – like most of xii 24d–f – adapted from the Hadad 83

Cf. the similar construction in 2 Sam. xx 21. A not insignificant by-product of the Greek rearrangement in view of the Septuagint’s tendency to present Solomon in the best possible light; cf. Wevers, p. 307: “Almost invariably any variation between H and G in the Solomonic account accrues in G to Solomon’s advantage.” In xii 24o there is no denunciation of Solomon even though this forms a significant part of the parallel account in MT xi 29–39. 85 See Gooding, VT XVII, pp. 173ff. The question whether Jeroboam went first to Zeredah or to Shechem is largely dependent on the exact time of his return from Egypt and will be discussed later with special reference to account A. 84

226

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

episode, in this instance from xi 21: “and Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers …” If so, xii 24d may not be cited as evidence that Jeroboam had “returned from Egypt already, immediately after the death of Solomon, to his ancestral home of Seredah, as is stated in G (I K. 12.24 b–d) …”86 Compared with the testimony of account A the duplicate is of minor significance on this particular issue. During Hadad’s sojourn in Egypt he is said to have married the sister of the Pharaoh’s wife. This royal lady bore him a son who was weaned by the queen herself in Pharaoh’s house. That an Edomite prince should have married the Pharaoh’s sister-in-law is reasonable enough, but credulity is greatly stretched to accept with account B (xii 24e) that Jeroboam – illegitimate commoner as the same version describes him – could have done so.87 The Pharaoh’s truly magnanimous “Ask any request and I will grant it to you” is an affecting way of accounting for the mésalliance, but it is unconvincing. The wife’s name is given as Ano: και` Σουσακει`µ ’ε´δωκεν τω˛ˆ ’Ιεροβοα`µ τη`ν ’Ανω ` α’δελφη`ν Θεκεµει´ νας τη `ν πρεσβυτε´ραν τη ˆς γυναικο` ς αυ’τουˆ αυ’ τωˆ˛ ει’ς γυναιˆκα. This corresponds to MT xi 19 – where the account concerns Hadad, of course: ‫ויתן–לו אשה את–אחות אשתו אחות תחפניס הגבירה‬. On the basis of the Greek, Kittel and others have included the wife’s name in their reconstruction of MT, thus Kittel:88 “stände er (sc. der Name der Frau) an der Stelle des ersten ‫אחות‬, so dürften nur die zwei folgenden Worte die Stelle wechseln und wir hätten einen trefflichen Sinn”. He therefore reads: ‫ויתן לו אשה את–אחנה אחות אשתו תחפנס הגדולה‬.89 All this is opposed by Stade and Schwally who regard ’Ανω` as a misreading of an original ‫אחות‬: “The repetition of ‫ אחות‬is due to the fact that the narrator, as is evident from v. 20, did not know, or did not care to mention, the name of the Egyptian wife of the Edomite Hadad; he therefore substituted for her personal name the definition ‫אחות תחפניס‬.”90 The truth is that it is impossible to argue conclusively in favour of either MT or the duplicate.91 There is, however, another feature of the first sentence in xii 24e which does permit a more positive statement about the relationship of the duplicate’s Vorlage to MT. Where MT xi 19 has (‫ויתן–לו )אשה‬, the duplicate has και` Σουσακει`µ ’ε´δωκεν τωˆ˛ ’Ιεροβοα`µ. MT refers to the Pharaoh and Hadad, as earlier in the verse. The definite identifications in account B serve to reinforce its point that it was Jeroboam who married into the Egyptian royal house, but, unfortunately for the credibility of the Greek version, the occurrence of αυ’τωˆ˛ later in the sentence is witness that its Vorlage, or the Hebrew text from which the Vorlage was composed, differed little from MT. The Greek runs: “And Sousakeim gave to Jeroboam … to him for wife”, and the intrusive αυ’τωˆ˛ is rightly omitted by b d o p c2 e2 S(mg). It is a simple matter 86

Gray, 1st ed., p. 278. Winckler, p. 10; Montgomery, p. 253. 88 Op. cit., p. 97. 89 Op. cit., p. 98; ‫ אחנה‬is an error for ‫( אהנה‬correct Gray, 2nd ed., p. 282n., accordingly). Cf. also Klostermann, p. 339; Winckler, p. 2n.; Benzinger, pp. 79f. 90 Op. cit., pp. 123f. Montgomery, p. 240, follows Stade and Schwally. 91 Cf. Gray, 2nd ed., p. 282n. 87

227

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

to explain the presence of αυ’τωˆ˛ in the earliest form of the duplicate if the sentence is compared with MT xi 19b. The Hebrew begins: ‫ויתן–לו אשה‬, and the relationship of the ‫ אשה‬to the Pharaoh’s wife is then stated. When the translator set about rendering the sentence into Greek he rearranged the wording, with the result that ‫ אשה‬is represented by the last word in his sentence: και` Σουσακει`µ ’ε´δωκεν τω ˆ˛ ’Ιεροβοα`µ … γυναιˆ κα. But because he had before him a text similar to MT he translated ‫לו אשה‬ instead of merely ‫אשה‬, apparently forgetting that he had already represented ‫ לו‬by τωˆ˛ ’Ιεροβοα`µ at the beginning of his sentence. MT xi 20 records the birth of Hadad’s son: “And the sister of Tahpenes bore him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in the midst of Pharaoh’s house.” Account A’s Vorlage was not identical: “And the sister of Thekemeinas bore him, (that is) Ader, Ganebath her son, whom Thekemeinas reared in the midst of Pharaoh’s sons.” It has long been appreciated that the duplicate’s reference to Jeroboam’s wife in xii 24e has a loose attachment to MT xi 20:92 αυ ‘´τη η‘ µεγα´ λη ε’ν µε´σω˛ τωˆ ν θυγατε´ ρων τουˆ βασιλε´ ως. If we reconstruct the Hebrew originals of the two Greek versions it will be useful to compare them with MT; only the clauses corresponding to the quotation above from account B need be reproduced: ‫ותגמלהו תחפנס בתוך בית פרעה‬ ‫ותגדלהו תחמנס בתוך בני פרעה‬ ‫פרעה‬/‫ותגדל היא בתוך בנות המלך‬

: MT :A :B

Apparently account A read ‫“ ותגדלהו‬reared”, for MT ‫ותגמלהו‬, “weaned”, and ‫בני‬, “sons”, for MT ‫בית‬, “house”. The duplicate supports account A in its use of the root ‫גדל‬, for αυ ‘´τη η‘ µεγα´λη is a translation of ‫ותגדל‬, or even ‫ותגדל היא‬.93 But whereas MT and account A are speaking of the queen (Tahpenes/Thekemeinas), account B makes Ano, the supposititious wife of Jeroboam, the subject. This change of subject may well have been considered necessary to account B’s reconstruction and we may examine a couple of alternatives open to the Greek translator. If we imagine a text of the MT-type, with Tahpenes the stated subject of the verb and this verb ‫( ותגדל‬as seems to have been the case with account B’s Vorlage), we can perhaps appreciate the difficulty which faced the translator. It would not be very consistent to introduce Tahpenes as the Pharaoh’s queen and then add that she was great among the daughters of the king. As it is, by including Ano among the daughters of the king the translator seems to have married the king to his own daughter; Tahpenes and Ano were sisters.94 Of course, we cannot fault the translator, or his source, on this point of detail, since, knowingly or otherwise, he has illustrated a well92

See Klostermann, p. 339; Winckler, p. 10; Benzinger, p. 83; Burney, pp. 160f. The latter according to Burney, p. 161n. Cf. Šanda, p. 376. The fact that the duplicate reflects the Hebrew root ‫ גדל‬strengthens the case for assuming that ’εξε´θρεψεν αυ’ το` ν in account A represents a genuine reading ‫( ותגדלהו‬Montgomery, p. 240, speaks of “misreading or simplification” on the part of the Greek translator). Account B’s θυγατε´ρων (= ‫ )בנות‬seems to mediate between MT ‫ בית‬and account A’s ‫בני‬. 94 Olmstead, AJSL XXX, p. 21n., proposes that the two were daughters of the last king of the preceding dynasty. If this is what the Greek is saying it is most obscurely expressed. 93

228

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

known facet of life with the Pharaohs.95 Other possible permutations to account for the dual relationship of these two ladies to the king there may well be, but the matter then becomes much too involved, quite apart from the question of historical reality. We must also consider the story of Jeroboam’s marriage in its wider context, and, concomitantly, the possibility that account B’s Vorlage actually had a verb with suffix – as in MT and account A. We know that the Vorlage contained the verb ‫גדל‬ (and in the third person, feminine singular of the imperfect), so that we can postulate the reading ‫ – ותגדלהו‬the form represented in account A, as it happens. And if the translator had such a reading before him it must have been an embarrassment to him; he could not possibly state that Jeroboam’s son was reared in Egypt. In xi 20 the statement that Hadad’s son was reared among the sons of Pharaoh is unexceptionable, whether the credit is given to Tahpenes (as in account A and, to all intents and purposes, MT) or to the child’s own mother. This, however, could not be the case within the duplicate’s framework.96 According to this version it was this son, born in Pharaoh’s house, who died while still a παιδα´ριον and before Jeroboam made his first appearance at Shechem. Furthermore, a strict interpretation of the duplicate would lead to the conclusion that the child could not have been born much less than a year after Solomon’s death. Whereas MT has the story of Abijah’s sickness in ch. xiv, account B knows of no such interval before this unhappy domestic chapter. For that reason alone it is likely that the translator would have avoided saying that Abijah was reared among the sons of the Pharaoh – even if there was a suffixed form of the verb ‫ גדל‬in his Vorlage. While αυ‘´τη can be adequately explained as a translation of ‫ היא‬in ‫( ותגדל היא‬for an original ‫)?ותגדלהו‬, it is possible that its use here is to be compared with the occurrences of emphatic ου‘ˆ τος in xii 24b. As we have seen, the translator, thanks to his handling of his material, could not say that Tahpenes was great among the Pharaoh’s daughters or that Abijah was reared in the Egyptian palace. The change in ‘´τη. It was an opportunity, subject could well be deliberate, however we explain αυ too, to add lustre to the name of Jeroboam’s wife. There is one point on which both Greek accounts are agreed, and that against MT. It is an important difference for the reason that MT itself has often been regarded as less than self-consistent. According to the Greek versions Jeroboam returned to Sareira (= MT Zeredah) on hearing the news of Solomon’s death. Account A does not represent him as politically active until he was called to Shechem to be acclaimed king of the dissentient tribes (xii 20). The duplicate recounts how Jeroboam went first to Sareira and then, after some delay, convened a meeting of all the tribes of Israel (xii 24n), this convocation corresponding to the first such occasion described at the beginning of MT ch. xii. MT’s references to the circumstances of Jeroboam’s call to Shechem, on the other hand, have occasioned difficulty. Although Jeroboam was called to the first assembly at Shechem and took a leading part in it (xii 3) and in the confrontation with Rehoboam on the third day (xii 12), verse 20 reads: “And when all Israel heard that 95 96

Cf. J. E. M. White, Ancient Egypt (2nd ed.; London, 1970), pp. 14–6. Cf. Meyer, p. 369n.

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

229

Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel.” It requires no tour de force of harmonisation to achieve a reasonable interpretation of MT,97 but it is not our present concern to argue for or against the Hebrew. Having summarised the position with regard to our three sources, we can now attempt an explanation of this feature of the Greek accounts. It is not difficult to see why the duplicate has Jeroboam returning home. The wholesale adaptation of the story of Hadad’s flight to Egypt does not only account for Jeroboam’s marriage to Ano; as MT xi 21f. has Hadad pleading with the Pharaoh to allow him to return home because David had died, so Jeroboam sought permission to go back home as soon as he heard of Solomon’s death. So it was that, in the words of xii 24f, “Jeroboam departed from Egypt and came to the land of Sareira in mount Ephraim.” Since, according to xii 24b, Jeroboam had built Sareira for Solomon it was, in a special way, his own land (xii 24d; cf. MT xi 21). In view of the concurrence of the Greek accounts against MT on this point an investigation of account A would seem to be desirable. Gooding98 has drawn attention to the fact that the Greek is based on a Hebrew text which shows only minor differences from MT xii 2, 3a, though it has rearranged the order of the material99 so that the reference to Jeroboam’s return from Egypt is associated as closely as possible with the notice of Solomon’s death (xi 43). In contrast with MT xii 3a, “and they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came …”, the Greek at xi 43 says: “he went directly to his own city, to the land of Sareira in mount Ephraim”. By its arrangement of the material and by explicit statement (κατευθυ´νειν και` ’ε´ρχεται) account A insists that Jeroboam went home immediately the news of Solomon’s death reached him.100 Why? The explanation offered by Gooding101 is that verse 40 (i.e., but two verses before the mention of Jeroboam’s return) says that Jeroboam was in Egypt until Solomon died, and that the Greek translator interpreted this statement in a most pedantic manner. Such a pedantic treatment of MT is certainly common in 3 Reigns; Gooding has cited too many examples for them all to be wrong. As MT stands, the wrong committed by Jeroboam consisted in playing a major rôle in the rebellious assemblies at Shechem. But by stressing that Jeroboam went directly to Sareira and by omitting all reference to him in connection with those assemblies account A comes up with a Jeroboam who is guilty of no misdemeanour. Thus Gooding characterises this Jeroboam as “a ‘divinely appointed but reluctant king’.”102 97

See Gooding, VT XVII, pp. 180f. Art. cit., pp. 175ff. 99 Cf. Stade and Schwally, p. 127: “Compared with M 12,2 G 11,43 is secondary, as is evident also from the reappearance of the textual error ‫ וַיּשֶב ירבעם במצרים‬and from the repetition of the beginning of M 11,43 ‫ וישכב שלמה עם אבתיו‬in order to regain connection with M 12,1 after the insertion.” 100 Kittel, p. 102, takes και` κατευθυ ´νει to represent ‫וַיְיַשֵּׁר‬. Cf. Burney, p. 173: “LXX κατευθυ´νειν, Luc. more correctly και` κατευθυ´νει represents ‫ וַיָּשָׁב‬read as ‫ ;וַיִּשַׁר‬cf. I Sam. vi 12 ‫ וַיִּשַּׁרְנָה‬και` κατευ´θυναν.” It should be noted that here MT ‫ וישב‬is already represented in και` ε’κα´ θητο. 101 VT XVII, p. 178. Note that the numbering of the Greek verses differs from MT. 102 Art. cit., p. 185. 98

230

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

It is a fact that account A did not have to exclude Jeroboam from the popular confrontations with Rehoboam simply because of its pedantic stand – assuming that its arrangement is to be explained as Gooding has suggested. The translator-editor could have said that Jeroboam went to Sareira and then proceeded to Shechem for the first meeting with Rehoboam; a scheme of this type is presented in the duplicate. The question we wish to raise is whether account A’s statement that Jeroboam returned to Sareira can be interpreted in some other way. Let it be said that Gooding’s theory has a particular advantage in that Jeroboam’s dash for home and his absence from the parleys with Rehoboam form a consistent pattern in presenting Jeroboam as innocent of any machinations to further his own ends. In this case we should indeed be dealing with an example of “extreme whitewashing”.103 Of course this involves attributing an inconsistency to the Greek, since an act of hostility against Solomon is greatly desiderated in an account which begins: “and this was the occasion of his lifting up (his) hands against King Solomon” (xi 27, Luc.; B has “against the king”).104 In seeking an explanation of account A’s revised order – and the present arrangement of xi 43 is patently secondary – we should at least mention the possibility that account A is a more recent version than account B and has been influenced by the latter on this particular point. The feature, which is readily explicable within the duplicate, may have been carried over into account A, the standard version. Olmstead’s evidence for an organic link between the two Greek versions could be significant in this connection.105 Such an assumption about the relationship between the Greek accounts is unwarranted, nevertheless, and the explanation stands or falls with it. Account A is so close to MT and so divergent from the duplicate for the rest of the Jeroboam narrative that a solution within its own terms will be more credible. The duplicate’s conflation of part of the Hadad story with its biography of Jeroboam has already received attention. Interestingly, there is a similar conflation of two shorter biographies in account A’s rendering of 1 Kings xi. MT xi 14–25 tells of two adversaries, Hadad and Rezon, whom God raised up against Solomon, and their affairs are covered separately in self-contained units. In the Greek, however, Rezon (“Esrom”) is mentioned immediately after Hadad’s introduction (xi 14) and his story is told to its conclusion before the more detailed account of Hadad gets under way. There are difficulties associated with MT, particularly at verse 25, but again it is not our business to adjudicate between the Hebrew and the Greek. What is of interest for present purposes is the finished article in the Greek. This account of Hadad’s stay in Egypt is in close agreement with MT as far as the Hebrew goes (MT ends with Hadad imploring the Pharaoh to let him return home). Where the Hebrew ends the Greek adds: “and Ader (= Hadad) returned to his own country”. Then there follows material which corresponds to MT verse 25b, except that the Greek represents ‫ זאת‬for ‫ ואת‬and has a verb – probably epexegetically – which MT does not have and is generally 103

Gooding, art. cit., p. 189. This is not to suggest that a theory which rests upon the assumption of an incongruity in the Greek is in any way inferior to any other theory. 105 See AJSL XXXI, pp. 179f. 104

THE SECOND SEPTUAGINT ACCOUNT OF JEROBOAM

231

thought to need. And so the Greek account of Hadad concludes: “And Ader returned to his country; this is the evil which Ader did. And he distressed106 Israel and reigned in Edom.”107 What was the evil of which Hadad was guilty? Nothing in the Greek answers to this description, unless the reference is to Hadad’s return to his homeland after David’s death. Montgomery108 sensed the difficulty which the “simpler” Greek version of verse 25 presents: “In the first sentence it is all too easy to accept the Gr. rendering, . . . but that was only a guess at a mutilated passage, for what was ‘the evil that Hadad did’ after all?” This Montgomery solves by postulating an “evident lacuna before the passage”.109 Immediately following this conclusion to the Hadad episode the Greek embarks upon the story of Jeroboam; this narration has, as noted above, features reminiscent of the Hadad account. If Hadad’s mischief is not all that apparent in the Greek, what are we to say of Jeroboam’s act of treason in either the Hebrew or the Greek? It seems a definite possibility that account A’s emphasis on the celerity with which Jeroboam made for his home-country is the translator’s way of saying that it was this very act of returning to mount Ephraim which constituted the crime of lese-majesty. Just as Hadad’s crime consisted in returning to his homeland on hearing of David’s death, so the Greek translator goes to extraordinary lengths to stress that when Jeroboam heard of Solomon’s death he hastened to Sareira. Having thus identified Jeroboam’s treasonable act, the translator was not obliged to have Jeroboam present at the rebellious Shechem assemblies. The way was open for him to resolve the particular problem presented by MT – viz., the apparent implication in xii 20 that Jeroboam did not attend the earlier meetings with Rehoboam (cf. verses 3, 12) – by excising the offending references in verses 3 and 12. The Hadad episode may, therefore, have influenced both account A and account B. The latter’s conflation of the accounts of Hadad and Jeroboam offers an easy explanation of Jeroboam’s homeward journey; for account A the connection between the histories of Hadad and Jeroboam, as far as the point under discussion is concerned, was simply analogical. The significance which Gooding attaches to the words “until Solomon died” is not hereby discounted; both considerations may have figured in the translator’s mind when he emphasised Jeroboam’s swift return to Sareira. We have digressed from our study of the duplicate, but it was that account which suggested this particular line of approach to one of the few problems of the Septuagint history of Jeroboam as contained in account A. The title of this article poses the question “History or Midrash?” because these two terms ably represent the divergence of views concerning the value of the duplicate as a historical account. Happily we are not restricted to these terms in our summary of the evidence as presented so far. Midrashic features there would certainly appear to be: that was never in doubt. What also emerges from our study is that some of the “historical” material, notably in xii 24b, is of dubious origin, and that the remainder The Greek και` ε’βαρυθυ´µησεν possibly represents ‫ וַיָּצֶק‬for MT ‫וַיָּקָץ‬. MT has, of course, “Aram” for “Edom”. 108 Op. cit., p. 240. 109 So also Burney, p. 162: “The definiteness of the statement ‫ זאת הרעה‬suggests that in the original narrative some explicit account of Hadad’s aggressions must have intervened after v. 22.” 106 107

232

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

is for the most part even less trustworthy. It would probably be premature to attempt to reach a conclusion about the measure of bias – or about its direction – in account B, or to try to determine the precise relationship, if any, between the two Greek accounts. Such issues will best be confronted after the duplicate has been examined in its entirety. As far as historical value is concerned, the prognosis is not good.

Chapter 18

Source Study in 1 Kings XII 24a–nα1 After 1 Kgs. xii 24 Codex Vaticanus and its congeners have an alternative version of the history of Jeroboam (xii 24a–z) which is greatly at variance with the Massoretic tradition and yet is undeniably translated from a Hebrew original. At several other points in Kings the Greek version has similar “duplicates” (1 Kgs. ii 35a–o; ii 46a–l; 1 Kgs. xvi 28a–h; 2 Kgs. i 18a–d), sometimes repeating material in MT and at other times supplementing, or even contradicting, the Hebrew. Because there is evidence of Hebrew originals for some at least of these duplicates they cannot be dismissed out of hand as rogue Greek compositions, though the fact that something is written in Hebrew does not per se bespeak historicity or authenticity. I There can be no doubt that the Jeroboam duplicate is a translation from a Hebrew original (if for present purposes we may speak of the duplicate as a unity). Olmstead2 characterised this Hebrew original as pre-exilic and composed in the style of the prophetic narratives in Kings. Debus’s exercise in retroversion3 shows how easily the Hebrew substratum can be rediscovered. In some cases the Hebrew idiom is rendered literally (huios is used to express age in xii 24a, h), occasionally the duplicate has a closer rendering than the first (MT-type) Greek account (“account A”; compare the translation of ht’ms. [MT xii 18] in account A with the duplicate at xii 24u), and there is the occasional mistranslation4 (skutalēs in xii 24b represents a mistranslation of an original plk II [“district”] as plk I [“spindle”]).5 When the Greek of the duplicate is compared with that of account A, on the other hand, we find that it is sometimes the more stylish, as, for example, in its use of participles (note especially the instances of the genitive absolute in xii 24k, l). In its recensional 1 This article is partly a summary of, and partly a sequel to, a paper entitled “3 Reigns 12.24a–f: History or Midrash?” which was read at the Spring meeting of the Glasgow University Oriental Society in March, 1973. An expanded version of the original paper (with full supporting footnotes) appears under the title “The Second Septuagint Account of Jeroboam: History or Midrash?” in Vetus Testamentum XXV, 1975, pp. 368–93 [= ch. 17 in this volume]. 2 A. T. Olmstead, “Source Study and the Biblical Text”, AJSL XXX, 1913, p. 20. 3 J. Debus, Die Sünde Jerobeams: Studien zur Darstellung Jerobeams und der Geschichte des Nordreichs in der deuteronomistischen Geschichtsschreibung, Göttingen, 1967, pp. 57–65. 4 That is, mistranslation of single words as distinct from the more complex situations to be discussed in this article. 5 Cf. T. K. Cheyne, art. “Jeroboam” in Encyclopaedia Biblica, II, London, 1901, col. 2405; Debus, p. 57n.

233

234

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

features the duplicate has affinity with the Old Greek as against the later text-forms in Kings. The examples of the historic present in xii 24a, f, u, would, on present knowledge, mark the duplicate as Old Greek. It is when we come to the question of the duplicate’s historicity that we find scholarly opinion greatly divided. For some the duplicate is nothing more than an early attempt at Midrash, and useless as far as historical worth is concerned. Those who have regarded it more highly have usually accepted it as a translation of a northern (Israelite) source. For such a theory to stand, a later redaction in Judah must be assumed, and most supporters of the duplicate are happy with such an assumption. An associated problem is that of the duplicate’s attitude towards Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Now and then it seems to be derogatory of both, as in the description of Jeroboam’s mother as a harlot (xii 24b – MT and account A have “widow”) and in its version of the reply which the northern tribes made to Rehoboam’s harsh terms (xii 24t). So we find Olmstead6 declaring that Jeroboam is the hero in the duplicate and Montgomery7 and Gooding8 contending that the same version makes him out to be the arch-villain of the piece. What we can say here is that the duplicate achieves the effect of enhancing Rehoboam’s reputation at several key points. A comparison of xii 24r, u with MT will show this clearly. In xii 24r, u Rehoboam’s authority is the more in evidence when it says that he “sent packing” (MT xii 8 “forsook”) the elders’ advice and that the people “were scattered” (MT xii 16 “departed”). We can actually see this process at work in Rehoboam’s favour in xii 24x, y. We are told in MT xii 21–4 that Rehoboam mustered his forces in preparation for an attack on Jeroboam but desisted on the advice of the prophet Shemaiah. The duplicate tells us that Rehoboam actually went up to Shechem to fight and only then did he hear from Shemaiah. But it reflects ill on the Greek that in xii 24y Shemaiah gives the same message as in MT xii 24: “You shall not go up …” And xii 24z adds that they “desisted from going”. This all makes sense in MT, but hardly in the duplicate which has already said that Rehoboam had gone up to Shechem. It is an improvement clumsily executed which, in conjunction with the other changes, was meant to redound to the honour of Rehoboam. The duplicate begins with an introductory regnal formula for Rehoboam of the type which Kings reserves for kings of Judah. Prima facie the positioning of the formula in the Greek is superior to MT, in which it does not appear until xiv 21. This superiority may only be apparent, since the succession did not pass from Solomon to Rehoboam in the smooth manner suggested by the Greek. The inappropriateness of xii 24a as an introduction to a biography of Jeroboam also tells against the duplicate’s alleged superiority. It is impossible to be definite about the Greek’s figures for Rehoboam’s age on accession and for the number of his regnal years (sixteen and twelve as against forty-one and seventeen in MT xiv 21). There is certainly no support for them in the major text traditions, or indeed in any other text 6

AJSL XXX, p. 2l. J. A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings (ed. H. S. Gehman), Edinburgh, 1951, p. 253. 8 D. W. Gooding, “The Septuagint’s Rival Versions of Jeroboam’s Rise to Power”, VT XVII, 1967, p. 187. 7

SOURCE STUDY IN 1 KINGS XII 24a–nα

235

tradition, and the Lucianic MSS agree with MT. Do the Lucianic MSS preserve the original Old Greek readings here, or have these MSS been brought into line with MT?9 When xii 24a gives not only the name of Rehoboam’s mother but also that of her father and grandfather it is out of step with the usual practice in Kings. In only one of the seventeen references to queen-mothers in Kings is the grandfather mentioned and that in the case of Athaliah and her famous grandfather Omri (2 Kgs. viii 26), and there the name of the father is not given. This by itself would not cast doubt on the validity of the duplicate’s witness if it were not for the fact that the names of the father and grandfather given in xii 24a are those of an Ammonite king and his son mentioned in 2 Sam. x 1ff. Some scholars assume that the duplicate has filched the names from 2 Sam. x. It seems quite probable, but absolute certainty is impossible. The duplicate’s apparent knowledge of the details of Jeroboam’s insurrection against Solomon (xii 24b) is commonly regarded as an indication of its superiority over MT. Jeroboam was an important official who supervised some of Solomon’s building works, but he was marked by excessive ambition. With his three hundred chariots he besieged Jerusalem and aspired to the throne. It was not surprising that Solomon sought his life and that he found it necessary to flee to Egypt. In comparison with this straightforward account of the rebellion, MT seems to offer a poor alternative. At first blush its outline of the circumstances in which Jeroboam fell foul of Solomon appears incomplete. MT xi 26–8 speaks of his “lifting up his hand against the king”, then proceeds to mention two of Solomon’s building enterprises and informs us that Solomon took note of the young man’s ability and advanced him to a position of some importance. Next there follows the story of Jeroboam’s encounter with the prophet Ahijah, in which Ahijah denounces Solomon and prophesies a kingdom for Jeroboam (verses 29–39). We are left to ponder whether the writer understood this prophecy to have incited Jeroboam to some unnamed act of rebellion, or whether the part played by the latter at the Shechem assemblies (xii 3, 12) constituted the rebellious act (though now it could be against Solomon in an indirect sense only, and we should still want an explanation of Solomon’s desire to have Jeroboam killed – unless we assume that Ahijah’s prophecy came to Solomon’s ears and made him react in so extreme a manner). It is widely held that the Ahijah episode in MT xi 29–39 is a Deuteronomic substitute for the original account of the rebellion and that the duplicate preserves the details suppressed by the Deuteronomist. However, an examination of the individual statements in xii 24b shows that, with the exception of the highly improbable attribution of a chariot force to Jeroboam, the details of the Greek “insurrection” are rooted in a misunderstanding (manipulation?) of an original Hebrew text very similar to MT xi 27. Twice the emphatic (demonstrative) pronoun houtos is used in order to make what was originally said of Solomon apply to Jeroboam. And the actions described are given a sinister twist so that Solomon’s shutting up of the breach in the city wall is transmogrified into Jeroboam’s shutting up (besieging) of Jerusalem. 9 My first inclination was to favour the second alternative, but Dr Gooding counsels against too rash an assumption here. I wish to thank Dr Gooding for his willingness to discuss this and various aspects of the Jeroboam duplicate with me.

236

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Even Solomon’s building of the Millo is attributed to Jeroboam (houtos ōikodomēsen) in such a way as to sustain the note of hostility. Without his chariots, of course, Jeroboam would not have stood a chance against Solomon and it would seem that this detail represents an attempt to give credibility to the claim that he actually besieged Jerusalem. We conclude, therefore, that the Greek version of the insurrection offers nothing in advance of MT. It was precisely the awareness of a hiatus in the account as it had been handed down which inspired such a manipulation of the text so as to produce a more acceptable version of Jeroboam’s rebellion. There are possible ramifications for our inquiry at a later point, since it is very evident that the duplicate at least cannot be used to show that the Deuteronomist has written nohistory in order to make room for his own theological ideas. It is a feature of the duplicate that Ahijah is introduced for the first time when Jeroboam’s wife visits him with an inquiry about the outcome of her son’s illness (xii 24h). We should therefore note in passing that, while the Greek is consistent in not having a counterpart to the Ahijah narrative in MT xi 29–39, and in presenting him as a new character in xii 24h, its account of the rebellion, which performs for it the function of the Ahijah story in MT, is a literary fiction. Few have contested the view that xii 24d–f, which tells of Jeroboam’s stay in Egypt, is a garbled version of the history of Hadad the Edomite as it appears in MT xi 14–22. Hadad had also betaken himself to Egypt, to escape David’s attentions, and on hearing of David’s death he requested the permission of the Pharaoh to return to his homeland. Presumably it was his activity on his return to his native country which earned him the title of “adversary of Solomon” (xi 14). Hadad was a prince of Edom and it was not unreasonable that the Pharaoh should give him his sister-in-law in marriage. When, however, this is transferred to Jeroboam, a fugitive commoner from Israel, it becomes rather far-fetched. But it is not just that the duplicate associates Hadad’s experiences in Egypt with the name of Jeroboam. We find that at two points at least the duplicate’s Vorlage, or its handling of its Vorlage, compares unfavourably with MT. (Whether the fault lies with the Vorlage or with the Greek translation of it sometimes cannot be determined, though in our first example it looks as if the Greek translator is responsible.) MT xi 19 wytn-lw is paralleled in xii 24e by kai Sousakeim edōken tōi Ieroboam. The Hebrew has mentioned the Pharaoh and Hadad earlier in the verse and therefore does not need to be more specific. The second half of xi 19 requires careful handling by translators into any language if clumsy renderings are to be avoided: wytn-lw ’šh ’t’h.wt ’štw ’h.wt th.pnys hgbyrh. Quite sensibly the Greek translator has his own wordorder, so that the words “to wife” come at the end of his sentence rather than near the beginning as in MT (and, as it will appear, in his own Hebrew text). But by the time he had reached the end of the sentence he had lost sight of the fact that he had already said that Sousakeim had given his sister-in-law “to Jeroboam”, and so instead of picking up ’šh from his text he picked up lw ’šh and translated by autōi eis gunaika. The tautologous autōi is rightly omitted by b d o p c2 e2 S(mg). From this it is evident that in spite of the way in which the duplicate sentence begins, with specific mention of Sousakeim and Jeroboam, its Vorlage had lw for tōi Ieroboam. We may suspect that the specific mention of Sousakeim and Jeroboam was meant to reinforce the link

SOURCE STUDY IN 1 KINGS XII 24a–nα

237

between Jeroboam and the Egyptian episode which MT associates with Hadad (rather as we have seen the emphatic houtos serve a similar purpose in xii 24b). In the second case of an unfavourable comparison with MT the situation is more complex and may only be summarised here. When the Greek says of Ano, Jeroboam’s wife, that “she was great among the daughters of the king” it reflects a Hebrew text which corresponds roughly with MT (and account A) at xi 20: “And Tahpenes weaned (Gk. reared) him in the midst of the Pharaoh’s house (Gk. sons).” But, whereas Ano is the subject of the verb in the duplicate, in MT and account A it is Tahpenes. There is reason to think that either the duplicate or its Vorlage has deliberately altered the original reading. First, it is clear that the Greek represents the Hebrew root gdl. It is also clear that it would make nonsense of the duplicate’s story if Tahpenes were the subject of this verb (used intransitively as now with reference to Ano), or if Ano’s son were the object of the verb (represented in the suffix as in MT and account A). If the verb had an object then, with the root gdl, the duplicate would be saying that Jeroboam’s son was reared in the Pharaoh’s house. Whether we follow the reading of MT (wtgmlhw) or account A (wtgdlhw), the statement in xi 20 that Hadad’s son was weaned, or reared, in the Pharaoh’s palace makes sense. In the story of Jeroboam, however, it could have no part, for the duplicate says that Jeroboam’s son died in Palestine while still a paidarion (xii 24g–nα). Equally, once the suffix had been discarded or otherwise explained, it would not have been at all suitable for the duplicate to announce that Tahpenes was “great among the daughters of the king” – she was the king’s wife! As it is, the most natural inference from the description of Ano as “great among the daughters of the king” would be that the Pharaoh was married to his own daughter, since Ano and Tahpenes were sisters. While such marital practices are well-attested for the Pharaohs, we cannot be certain that the Greek translator was aware of this, or, if he was, that he realised that such was the implication of his translation (the same could be said of a Hebrew editor if the revision was carried out at that earlier level). In any case, the probability is that the present form of the Greek was necessitated by the wholesale adaptation of the Hadad Egyptian episode to the Jeroboam saga. It may even be that in hautē (hē megalē) we do not have a translation of an original hy’ after wtgdl10 – which would not be in the best Hebrew style – but another case of the emphatic pronoun representing a deliberate change of subject for the reasons already outlined. And even if hautē translates an original hy’, it would be possible to explain the Hebrew pronoun along similar lines.

II The duplicate’s version of Abijah’s illness and the associated prophecy by Ahijah differs greatly from MT in general conception as well as in many points of detail. For the present we shall confine our attention to the broader issues which it raises. There 10 As suggested by C. F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings, Oxford, 1903, p. 161n.

238

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

is nothing in the Old Greek to answer to the Abijah episode as contained in MT 1 Kgs. xiv 1–18, though the Hexaplaric texts have the material in a variant form. This feature of the Old Greek is probably secondary. It appears that once the duplicate (with its shorter account of Abijah’s illness) had become ensconced in the Greek manuscript tradition a copyist excised 1 Kgs. xiv 1–18 as being superfluous. This is suggested not just by the absence of an MT-type account of Abijah’s illness in the Old Greek but also by the omission of a death-succession notice for Jeroboam and Nadab his son and successor. Elsewhere the Greek of Kings is consistent in supplying these notices,11 and it is an obvious desideratum in the present Greek text. It has been plausibly argued that the copyist responsible for the excision of the material corresponding to MT xiv 1–18 was also responsible for the removal of the Greek equivalent of MT xiv 19–20, which appends the death-succession notice to the Abijah story;12 and this we are inclined to accept. Šanda held that the Abijah story (xii 24g–nα) was inserted in the duplicate at a late stage in the latter’s development.13 By then the epitome consisted of all but xii 24a (the regnal formula for Rehoboam) and the Abijah section. The latter was first written on the margin of a Greek manuscript. After xii 24f the original version continued with xii 24nβ which begins with kai eporeuthē Ieroboam, and these three words found their way into the margin to appear near the beginning of the Abijah narrative. Since they made no sense there, they were expanded to kai eporeuthē Ieroboam eperōtēsai huper tou paidariou. While Šanda’s reconstruction requires a measure of sympathy, not to speak of tolerance, on the part of the reader, there is something to be said in its favour. The duplicate is inconsistent in saying that Jeroboam went to enquire about his son’s illness and in then proceeding to tell how he sent his wife to the prophet Ahijah. If Šanda has not pointed the way to the understanding of this discrepancy, something equally adventitious must account for it. It was after the insertion of xii 24g–nα, according to Šanda, that the Greek version of xiv 1–18 was omitted by a copyist, and with it, unfortunately, went Jeroboam’s Schlussformel (xiv 19–20). There is reason to believe, therefore, that the absence of a parallel to MT xiv 1–18(20) in the Old Greek is secondary, and that the equivalent material in the duplicate was not in the earliest form of that account. At least two other points support the latter assumption and can be briefly stated. First, if we accept the duplicate’s version of Jeroboam’s return from Egypt at its face value we are required to put the first assembly at Shechem much later than probability would allow (two years after Solomon’s death according to Meyer14). The credibility of the Greek at this juncture does rather depend on the recognition of xii 24g–nα as intrusive. Secondly, it must be admitted that the Greek account of Ahijah’s denunciation of Jeroboam refers as much to Jeroboam’s dynasty as does the longer version in MT.15 Such an interest in dynastic fortunes is surely out of place in an oracle which was 11 12 13 14 15

Cf. Gooding, “Problems of Text and Midrash in the Third Book of Reigns”, Textus VII, 1969, p. 12. Cf. Gooding, ibid.; A. Šanda, Die Bücher der Könige, I, Münster, 1911, p. 378. Ibid. E. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, Halle A.S., 1906, p. 369. Cf. Debus, p. 87.

SOURCE STUDY IN 1 KINGS XII 24a–nα

239

delivered before Jeroboam had been so much as acclaimed king over the northern tribes. In order to avoid attributing such an inconsistency to the duplicate, Šanda16 conjectured that xii 24m, which contains the oracle against Jeroboam’s house, was added at a still later stage and in partial compensation for the loss of xiv 1–18 in the Greek. A possible objection to this view is that xii 24m is not simply a translation of parts of MT xiv 10–11 such as would be used in this manner. Among the concluding words of xii 24m are kai to paidarion kopsetai (var. kopsontai) ouai kurie, and there is nothing in MT to answer to them. Even such a critic of the duplicate as Montgomery allowed that this single clause had “a note of originality”.17 This clause alone is sufficient to show that xii 24m is more than an abridgement of MT xiv 10–11. Furthermore, a comparison with Jer. xxii 18; xxxiv 5 shows that the words ouai kurie are a translation of a Hebrew expression hwy ’dwn and that they are appropriate to royal personages only. In the Jeremiah passages this form of lamentation is used in connection with Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. The Hebrew lamentation appropriate to a commoner was hwy ’by (1 Kgs. xiii 30).18 If we accept that xii 24m belongs to the original Greek account of Abijah’s illness, then the element of anachronism is strengthened, for not only is Jeroboam denounced for kingly wrongs before he comes to the throne, his son is mourned as a prince during this same period of comparative obscurity. If, on the other hand, we hold with Šanda that xii 24m is intrusive in the Abijah narrative, we can only conclude that it is a fragment of another (Hebrew) tradition, independent yet corroborative of MT, according to which Abijah died as a prince. If, as Benzinger could be taken to imply at one point,19 not all of xii 24m, but only that part which parallels MT xiv 10–11, is to be regarded as a later insertion, then the final sentence of xii 24m, with its strong implication that Abijah died a prince, must belong to the earlier form of xii 24g–nα and the anachronism is as original to the duplicate as it can be. III We must now address ourselves more directly to the question whether the MT-type material in xii 24m is necessarily Deuteronomic and to be regarded as interpolative in xii 24g–nα. The fact that the Greek account of Abijah’s illness is much shorter than MT – principally because of the brevity of its version of Ahijah’s oracle – has been interpreted in two quite different ways. For some the duplicate is that rara avis of a pre-Deuteronomic narrative in which the simple facts are given without any of the Deuteronomist’s theologising elaborations. According to the other view, the Greek represents but the abstract of a longer text and one which closely resembled 16

Op. cit., pp. 376, 378. Op. cit., p. 266. 18 In Jer. xxii 18 it is said that no lamentation, whether appropriate to commoner or king, will be made for Jehoiakim. 19 I. Benzinger, Die Bücher der Könige, Freiburg I.B., 1899, p. 96; Benzinger regards the material as intrusive because it breaks the connection between what precedes and what follows, but this could apply to all xii 24m or only to xii 24m minus the last sentence. 17

240

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

MT. In support of the first opinion, it is usually pleaded that the material in MT xiv 1–18 would hardly have been reduced to the simple proportions of xii 24g–nα, since the longer version gives the reason for the death of Abijah and for the rejection of Jeroboam’s house.20 Of course, if we assume for a moment that xii 24g–nα originally referred to the later period when Jeroboam was king of Israel, then it is perfectly understandable that an editor should want to remove as many of the references to the dynasty as he reasonably could. Clarity would have to be sacrificed for a measure of plausibility. In fact, there is good reason to think that the MT-type material in xii 24m belongs to the original prophetic oracle. Baasha and Ahab are denounced in similar terms in 1 Kgs. xvi 3–4; xxi 21–4, and 2 Kgs. ix 8–10 and in each case reference is made to the house of Jeroboam. On form-critical grounds it would seem likely that the bulk of 1 Kgs. xiv 10–11 belongs to the core of the oracle;21 in the other passages the comparison is with the house of Jeroboam because it was with reference to that house that the dire prophecy was first uttered. Those who prefer MT’s positioning of the Abijah story will have further cause to regard verses 10–11 as nuclear. Even if the core of the oracle is limited to verses 12 and 17, which would be the absolute minimum, it is still clear that the death of Abijah is being presented as a punishment on Jeroboam (and the same is true of the duplicate without xii 24m). There is too much emphasis on the simultaneity of Abijah’s death and the home-coming of his mother for it to be otherwise. A prophecy of doom for Jeroboam’s house as in verses 10–11, far from being intrusive, is then rather to be expected. There is therefore no sound reason for regarding the MT-type material in xii 24m as a late insertion. But we must proceed to inquire whether xii 24m represents the full and original version of the denunciation of Jeroboam’s dynasty. Are verses 10–11, 13, of 1 Kgs. xiv indeed an expansion of a Hebrew text very similar to xii 24m, as Benzinger has argued?22 The last sentence of xii 24m reads: “And they shall lament for the child, (saying), ‘Alas, lord!’, for there was found in him something pleasing concerning the Lord.” This is scarcely replete with meaning just as it stands. The connection between the mourning for the dead child and the observation that he found favour in God’s sight is less than obvious. In MT all becomes clear. The judgment on Jeroboam’s dynasty was to be fulfilled in the ignominious treatment to which their dead bodies would be subjected. MT and the Greek are agreed on that point. But in MT it is also clear that Abijah was to be favoured in that he alone of the house of Jeroboam would have a decent burial.23

20

Cf. Debus, p. 86. In addition to the references given by Debus, p. 52n., see M. Noth, Könige, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1968, pp. 310–11. 22 Loc. cit. 23 As noted in the Introduction, the journal issue in which this article appeared was published without proofs having been sent to the contributors. At this point there is an omission in the original article which it is now not possible to restore. I have therefore omitted several sentences that stand or fall with the missing material. 21

SOURCE STUDY IN 1 KINGS XII 24a–nα

241

IV On the basis of the observations made so far we are in a position to make some judgment on the relative merits of MT xiv 1–18 and xii 24g–nα. We agree with Montgomery when he said, “An absolute choice must be made between the two stories.”24 The differences between the two accounts are such that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that one or other has been radically altered in order to serve the purposes of the editor responsible. Šanda25 detailed the main differences between MT and the Greek as follows: (1) the name of Jeroboam’s wife is given as Ano in the Greek; (2) Abijah’s name is not mentioned; (3) Ano is not said to have disguised herself; (4) Ahijah is introduced for the first time in xii 24h; (5) Ahijah sends a servant to meet Ano; (6) Ano would be informed of the child’s death by her servant-girls; (7) the duplicate has no mention of Abijah’s burial. The first two points are important only in that, if they do not show that xii 24g–nα belonged to the duplicate in its earliest form, they certainly bear witness to an editor’s attempt to integrate the section with the original account of Jeroboam. Points 5 and 6 are of minor significance and may well be later embroidery, as Šanda suggested. The absence of a reference to Abijah’s burial we have already discussed. It is in points 3 and 4 that the major issue as to the timing of the episode crystallises. In the duplicate Ano wears no disguise because she is not yet queen; it would have been futile for Jeroboam to have his barely-acclimatised Egyptian wife disguise herself, regardless of such a consideration. Because MT has the story set in Jeroboam’s reign, a disguise is necessary. Likewise, in MT Jeroboam has already encountered Ahijah before his flight to Egypt, and he speaks to his wife in the light of that earlier meeting. It is quite otherwise in the Greek, which has to introduce Ahijah as a new member of its dramatis personae. These two differences are bound up with the fundamental question of timing. Each account seems to follow its story through quite consistently, so that the unbiased reader is at a loss to decide which to accept as the less tendentious version. Any dropping of the disguise is bound to be momentary. Just such a lapse, we suggest, is represented by the last sentence of xii 24m. It is not derived from MT, yet it is certainly based on a Hebrew text. Whether all xii 24m belongs with the Abijah narrative in its earliest form, or only this last sentence, it contradicts the tenor of xii 24g–nα in suggesting that Abijah died a prince (after all, in xii 24i, n his mother is referred to as hē gunē). The exact significance of the form of the lamentation (v. supra) was lost on the reviser, and it is not all that surprising. Here is a clue that it is the Greek account which has been so drastically altered, and that, as we have seen, will have been in order to support the awkward positioning of the Abijah episode in the duplicate. The closing sentence of xii 24m is therefore a remnant of the original unrevised version of what now appears in the Greek. What it presupposes is explicit in MT. MT presents a consistent account, whereas the consistency of the duplicate can only be upheld by the dubious expedient of a theory of interpolation.26 24 25 26

Op. cit., p. 265. Op. cit., p. 376. Cf. Debus, commenting on Šanda’s position, p. 76.

Chapter 19

The Variable Wisdom of Abel: the MT and Versions at 2 Samuel xx 18–19 2 Sam. xx recounts how Sheba ben Bichri rebelled against David and finally was beheaded by the citizens of Abel Beth-maacah with whom he had sought refuge. Verses 18–19 report a short speech in which a wise woman from the city upbraids Joab for his efforts to relieve the place of its protective wall. However, there are significant differences between the speech in its Massoretic and Septuagintal forms, and sufficient doubts have been raised about the former to commend to many critics the attractions of the latter. Then, in addition to the text-critical issue, the verses have inspired the Targum and the Peshit.ta to boldly imaginative strokes which are worth consideration in their own right by way of a minor contribution to the history of exegesis of 2 Sam. xx. In this article we shall examine, and offer some evaluation of, the rival Hebrew and Greek traditions, and also follow the two major Aramaic versions as they try to pierce the not-quite-transparent wisdom of the woman of Abel.

i. MT 18. And she spoke saying, In olden times they used to say, Make inquiry at Abel, and so they settled it (wekēn hētammû). 19. I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel (’ãnōkî šelūmê ’ emûnê yiśrã’ēl). You are seeking to kill off a city and a mother1 in Israel. Why are you swallowing up the inheritance of the LORD?

It is good to note at the outset with D. Barthélemy that the divergence between the MT and the much favoured Greek text affects only the last two words of verse 18 and the first two words of verse 19.2 The assumption of those who prefer the Greek is that the MT is syntactically awkward and that it yields inferior sense as compared with its rival. P. K. McCarter queries the intransitive use of the Hiphil of tmm,3 and perhaps there is a case to answer, except that wkn htmw follows in the wake of a clipped proverbial utterance, and indeed, according to some, actually forms part of the 1 For the view that the MT ’m means “family”, “clan”, see A. Malamat, “Ummatum in Old Babylonian Texts and Its Ugaritic and Biblical Counterparts”, UF 11 (1979), pp. 527–36. 2 “La qualité du Texte Massorétique de Samuel”, in E. Tov (ed.), The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Samuel. 1980 Proceedings IOSCS–Vienna (Jerusalem, 1980), p. 31. 3 II Samuel (Garden City, 1984), p. 429.

242

THE VARIABLE WISDOM OF ABEL

243

saying.4 And if, for example, S. Pisano were correct in interpreting the saying “Ask in Abel and thus they accomplish it” to mean “No sooner said than done”, the short (i.e. unsuffixed) form htmw would be particularly appropriate.5 The tension between the first-person singular pronoun in verse 19 and the two plural constructs that follow is easily enough resolved, as a number of writers have indicated (e.g. Barthélemy [n. 2], pp. 32–3). By the use of ’nky the woman identifies herself with the city, or – just as likely in view of the following plurals and in keeping with good Hebrew idiomatic usage – this is a case of a city speaking in the firstperson singular, much as does Ekron in 1 Sam. v 10 (“They have brought the ark of the God of Israel around to me to kill me and my people”).6 The immediate lapse into the plural in šlmy ’mwny prevents confusion of the woman with the city: it is the peaceableness and the loyalty of the city that Joab urgently needs to hear about. When, therefore, McCarter asks whether ’nky in association with a plural construct sequence can refer collectively to the people of Abel ([n. 3] p. 429), it seems reasonable to answer in the affirmative. The “I-you” contrast that is set up in the MT has been noted by one or two writers.7 As to the double construct, and the use of passive participles, Barthélemy has shown that there are respectable parallels in the Hebrew Bible ([n. 2] p. 32). ii. Septuagint And she spoke saying, In the beginning they spoke a word8 saying, Surely it was asked in Abel and in Dan whether they had omitted what the faithful of Israel appointed. [They will surely ask one9 in Abel, even thus, whether they have failed. 19. I am a peaceable one of the strong ones of Israel.] But you seek to kill a city and a mother-city in Israel. Why do you overwhelm the inheritance of the LORD?

The main thing to note about the Greek at this stage is that it has a double translation. If the third of the Lagardian axioms10 is applied, it is not difficult to separate the double 4

In view of the parallels to be noted between 2 Sam. xiv and 2 Sam. xx it is worth considering whether mnh. h in xiv 17 is semantically parallel to MT htmw here (i.e. the “rest” sought by the wise woman of Tekoa is not so much an end of her anxiety as an end [= answer] to the problem that she has outlined to the king). 5 Additions or Omissions in the Books of Samuel. The Significant Pluses and Minuses in the Massoretic, LXX and Qumran Texts (Freiburg, Switzerland, and Göttingen, 1984), p. 148. Note that there are other unsuffixed transitive verb-forms in the section (vv. 20, 22). 6 When the Gibeonites speak partly in the first person singular in 2 Sam. xxi 4 there is no need to alter ly to lnw (so Qerê), since the collective usage is broadly comparable with what we are describing here. 7 Cf. J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel, I, King David (II Sam. 9–20 and I Kings 1–2) (Assen, 1981), pp. 333–4. 8 The Greek read dbr as a noun, and is probably superior to the MT (pointing dabbēr [infinitive absolute]) in this respect. 9 ‘ε´να probably arose as dittography from ε ’ν A[βελ]. 10 P. de Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen übersetzung der Proverbien (Leipzig, 1863), p. 3: “wenn sich zwei lesarten nebeneinander finden, von denen die eine den masoretischen text ausdrückt, die andre nur aus einer von ihm abweichenden urschrift erklärt werden kann, so ist die letztere für ursprünglich zu halten.”

244

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

reading into Old Greek (or its approximation) and a later revision to an MT-type text – this latter marked off in the translation by square brackets. Since it is also widely accepted that for much of the βγ section of LXX “Kingdoms” the oldest extant text is represented in the “Lucianic” minuscules boc2e2,11 refinements of the text in Vaticanus towards more pristine readings are possible. Thus, for example, ε’ ξε´ λιπεν (1°) of boc2(e2) may be preferred to ε’ ξε´λιπον (1°) of Vaticanus. Originally ε’ ξε´λιπεν, which ‘´ ’ε´θεντο for could be either transitive or intransitive, and which has the neuter plural α subject, represented tmw in the Greek Vorlage as an intransitive, the prefixed hē having been interpreted as the hē interrogativum (cf. MT 1 Sam. xvi 11). At a later stage the verb appears to have been regarded as transitive and α‘´ ’ε´θεντο began to function not as subject but as object. So ε’ ξε´λιπον in Vaticanus should probably be translated “they (= citizens of Abel and Dan) had omitted”. Other minor differences between the Vaticanus and “Lucianic” texts are unimportant for the present discussion. The original LXX therefore was based upon a Hebrew text which differed strikingly from the MT in a couple of points. The underlying text should probably be reconstructed as follows: š’l yš’lw b’bl wbdn htmw ’šr śmw ’mwny yśr’l Substantially this retroverted text was adopted by scholars like J. Wellhausen and H. P. Smith (see Pisano [n. 5], p. 146), beatified in R. Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, and finally canonized in The Jerusalem Bible (“Let them ask in Abel and in Dan if all is over with what Israel’s faithful ones have laid down”).12 One major prepossessing feature of this alternative version is its mention of Abel and Dan, since Tell Abil and Tell el-Qâd. ī are only about four miles apart (cf. 1 Kgs xv 20 which mentions the two together). Or is this touch of “local colour” a false clue in the search for authenticity? Pisano, whose sympathies are more with the MT, wonders why Dan should be mentioned at all in the circumstances of the siege of Abel and the impending destruction of its walls ([n. 5] p. 148). At any rate, it is interesting in view of its history of association after the division of the kingdom that Dan should be presented here as exemplary in its attachment to the principles established by the founding fathers of Israel (see below). The reading of htmw as compounded of hē interrogativum and the Qal of the verb tmm creates no problems within the retroverted text. It is noticeable, indeed, that both Greek readings construe htmw in this way, even though the MT-type reading is not so well served thereby. So too does Genesis Rabbah 94.9, where wkn htmw is explained as meaning, “Have the words of the Torah ended by now (k’n for MT kn)?” Since the midrash goes on to cite Deut. xx 10, we have there the interesting situation in which the LXX’s vocalization is yoked with the interpretation of 2 Sam. xx 18–19 given in the Targum (see below). 11 Cf., for example, J. D. Shenkel, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 5–21. 12 In The New Jerusalem Bible (1985) this has become: “In olden days people used to say, ‘Abel and Dan are where you should enquire whether a tradition established by the faithful of Israel has finally died out’.”

THE VARIABLE WISDOM OF ABEL

245

Even if the LXX’s construal of htmw is followed, there is a further issue to be decided, as becomes apparent when English renderings based upon the assumed Vorlage of the Greek are compared. Which of its senses does tmm have in the retroverted text? The Jerusalem Bible, as we have seen, translates “(if) all is over”, whereas McCarter renders no less legitimately by “has been carried out” ([n. 3] p. 429); and indeed, if he had discussed the point, he could have claimed the support of Josh. iv 10: “until everything that the LORD had commanded Joshua was carried out (tm)”. Both The Jerusalem Bible and McCarter understand what the wise woman says about Abel and Dan to be a quotation of a proverb, so that, although it would be wrong to press the difference in interpretation of (h)tmw to the disadvantage of the retroverted text, some account has to be taken of this apparent ambiguity of the verb. ‘´ ’ε´θεντο corresponds to the MT’s ’nky There is not much doubt that the LXX’s α šlmy at the beginning of verse 19, or that it assumes the variant reading ’šr śmw. J. Wellhausen’s suggestion that the Greek Vorlage had ’šr hśymw is unnecessary,13 and is even ill-advised in view of the rarity of occurrences of śym in the Hiphil, while A. Klostermann’s positing of an underlying šśmw, involving the relative particle še, makes it even more difficult to bridge the gap between the Greek Vorlage and the MT.14 There is no question of the suitability of ’ε´θεντο/śmw in the context of establishing law or custom, though normally in the Hebrew Bible a noun such as h. q or mšpt. is in close attendance.15 In context the meaning of ’šr śmw would be clear, which leaves to personal judgement the decision whether or not this particular feature of the text is original.16

iii. Targum 18. And she spoke, saying, Remember now what is written in the Book of the Law, that one should inquire first of a city (saying): So you ought to have inquired of Abel whether they are making peace. 19. In truth we are making peace with Israel, but you are seeking to destroy a city that is a great citadel and a mother in Israel. Why will you spoil the inheritance of the people of the LORD?

The Targumist, having seen midrashic possibilities in the MT, gives up any pretence of literality. The passage indicated by his reference to the Book of the Law is Deut. xx 10–20, which gives instructions about the investing of enemy cities and makes a distinction between cities within the land to be occupied and those further afield. In the second case the attacking force was to offer peace (v. 10; cf. the Targum here: “So you ought to have inquired of Abel …”). Thus, by cross-referring to Deut. xx 10–20, the Targum has made a non-Israelite city of Abel; otherwise the provision in the passage would not apply. According to verse 19 in its Targumic configuration, 13

Der Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen, 1871), p. 207. Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige (Nördlingen, 1887), p. 232. 15 Cf. Barthélemy (n. 2), p. 31. See BDB, p. 963 (śwm 3b). 16 This is not the only place where the verbs šlm and śym feature in a dispute between the MT and the LXX. See McCarter (n. 3), p. 429. 14

246

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

therefore, Abel is peaceably disposed towards Israel17 and, in the atomistic way of the Targum, is even described as a city of Israel. As its full name of Abel Beth-maacah implies, the city lay within the orbit of the kingdom of Beth-maacah,18 and the Targumist will have been aware of the tradition in Josh. xiii 13 that the people of Geshur and Maacah had not been ousted by the Israelites, continuing to live among them “to this day”. When the vassals of Hadadezer made peace (Targum: ’šlymw) with the Israelites after their defeat by David at Helam (2 Sam. x 19) it is possible that Abel had an intake of Israelite settlers.19 What we have, at any rate, is a city which is at peace with Israel and yet is now under attack by Joab. From the Targumic standpoint, therefore, Joab’s sapping of the walls of Abel was in contravention of Deuteronomic law, which ruled that such a city could be attacked only if it had rejected terms of peace. This being so, there may be grounds for looking again at the apparent variant in the Targum and LXX of verse 15 where, instead of the MT “were destroying (mšh.ytm; scarcely, “were digging holes”20) in order to bring the wall down”, these two versions have “were planning (= mh.šbym?)21 to destroy the wall”. Some have been conscious of a slight awkwardness in the MT’s construction, hence the attraction of the variant. It may be, however, that the smoother-reading alternative is simply an halachically-motivated pseudo-variant designed to rescue Joab and his men from a breach of Deuteronomic law. This is likely in the case of the Targum which, in a roughly comparable situation, has pagan sailors only promising to make a sacrifice to the LORD (Jon. i 16).22 The probability is increased when it is noted that the Targum has mt‘štyn for “planning”, whereas, if its Vorlage had mh.šbym, it might have been expected to translate using the Aramaic cognate of h.šb, as it often does. Moreover, this would be the only place in the Greek Old Testament where Hebrew h.šb was translated by νοειˆ ν. The Vulgate noticeably does not suffer from the same sensibilities, representing mšh. ytm by moliebatur (“was/were labouring”).

iv. Peshit.ta 18. The woman says, They used to say in former times that they would make inquiry of the prophets and then destroy. 19. I am the rewarder of Israel, but you are seeking to kill the child and his mother in Israel. Do not swallow upa the inheritance of the LORD. avar. “But you are swallowing up” 17

This emphasis obviously derives from MT šlmy. On the identification of the site see J. Kaplan, “The Identification of Abel-Beth-Maachah and Janoah”, IEJ 28 (1978), pp. 157–9. 19 Cf. Malamat (n. 1), pp. 535–6. 20 Cf. the note by R. Marcus to Josephus, Ant. vii.11.7 (288) in Josephus 5 (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1934), p. 513. 21 The Peshitta has mgrgyn (“provoking”). . 22 Cf. R. P. Gordon, “Terra Sancta and the Territorial Doctrine of the Targum to the Prophets”, in J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif (ed.), Interpreting the Hebrew Bible. Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 120–1. 18

THE VARIABLE WISDOM OF ABEL

247

No doubt the most interesting feature of the Syriac is its recourse to “narrative analogy” in order to deal with one of the problem elements in verse 19, but we shall consider a few other points before developing this one further. D. M. C. Englert thinks that “destroy” (mwbdyn) at the end of verse 18 may have resulted in part from a transposition of the tãw and mêm in MT htmw.23 This is possible, but it is perhaps significant that “kill” (lhmyt) in verse 19 is translated by qt.l rather than ’bd (Aph.). It is not difficult to see how, in the context, a rare occurrence of tmm (Hiph.) might be translated by “destroy”. Again, it is not necessary to follow Englert in his assumption that pr‘t in the Syriac of verse 19 represents a Vorlage which had šillamtî (p. 22), for the translator was probably making the best of an MT-type text. Something other than a variant reading would appear to be necessary to explain the Peshit.ta’s reference to prophets in verse 18. It is unlikely that an inner-Syriac corruption accounts for the development, since ’bl and nby’ are not all that similar in the Estrangela script. For consultation of a prophet, and for a limited verbal resemblance, we have 1 Sam. ix 9 (“Formerly in Israel …”). If the Syriac translator has simply baulked at making the unconsidered city of Abel a focus of oracular inquiry, then, on one reading of the data, he would have completed the trend begun by the MT which, possibly for polemical reasons, may already have ejected the mention of Dan from the text.24 The most arresting feature of the Peshit.ta in these two verses is, however, its translation of ‘yr w’m in verse 19 by “the child and his mother”. Englert (p. 22) proposed a Vorlage with n‘r instead of ‘yr, but this is not the answer. A philological possibility, no doubt more attributable in the end to coincidence than to anything more serious, is suggested by Horst’s explanation of ‘r in Mal. ii 12 from the Akkadian aiaru (“young man”; cf. Targum, Peshit.ta, Ibn Ezra ad loc.).25 On the other hand, “the child and his mother” are two of the principal figures in 2 Sam. xiv in the story of the wise woman of Tekoa whom Joab involved in his ruse to have Absalom restored to favour with David. Obvious points of similarity exist between 2 Sam. xiv and 2 Sam. xx and have been noted by a number of writers: in particular, there are the involvement of Joab with a wise woman and the shared heritage motif.26 Apparently the Syriac translator was conscious of the analogy to the extent of letting it affect his translation in xx 19. What specifically influenced him was the correspondence between xiv 16 (“the man who is seeking [cf. LXX, Vulgate] to destroy me and my son together from the inheritance of God”) and xx 19 (“you are seeking to kill off a city [‘yr] and a mother in Israel. Why are you swallowing up the inheritance of the LORD?”). In purely rabbinical exegetical terms this roughly approximates to the use of the “equal law” principle (gezerah shavah) whereby a text may be interpreted in 23 The Peshitto of Second Samuel (Philadelphia, 1949), p. 48. With the transposition and insertion of a yôdh the form hmytw (“they killed”) is produced. 24 Professor J. A. Emerton suggests the possibility that the translator was influenced by the fact that the prophet Elisha was associated with Abel-meholah (1 Kgs xix 16). 25 F. Horst, Die zwölf kleinen Propheten. Nahum bis Maleachi (3rd edn, Tübingen, 1964), p. 268. Cf. CAD I/1, p. 230. 26 See C. Conroy, Absalom Absalom! Narrative and Language in 2 Sam 13–20 (Rome, 1978), p. 142.

248

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the light of another with which it has features in common. However, conscious application of rabbinic exegetical principles is not obviously a factor here, and, since we are discussing chapters which have a certain amount of narrative interplay between them, it is probably only right that the ancient translator be credited with a fleeting interest in what nowadays is dignified as “narrative analogy”. Because “narrative analogy” is a compositional rather than a translational ploy, the scope for a translator to show awareness that the technique may be at work in his Vorlage is usually quite limited. At 2 Sam. xx 19 the rendering of ‘yr w’m by “the child and his mother” was hardly born of desperation, least of all to a Syriac-speaker in whose language ’m could have the contextually appropriate meaning of “mother city”, so that the echo of 2 Sam. xiv seems all the more deliberate, and not to be explained away on a purely mechanical basis. We may even, with the encouragement of our early Syriac translator-interpreter, take our discussion of the narrative analogy between 2 Sam. xiv and 2 Sam. xx an observation further. At xx 22 the account of the Sheba rebellion is brought to an end with the statement that Joab “returned to Jerusalem to the king”. Perhaps it is because the intention behind the statement is so obvious that it often goes unremarked in commentaries. Joab, who had been out of favour with David for his breach of orders in connection with Absalom, whom he had killed (2 Sam. xviii 14–15), had been replaced as army commander first by Amasa and then by his own brother Abishai. Now, however, he is reinstated. As Josephus, Ant. vii.11.8 (292), implies, this is borne out by verse 23 where Joab as army commander heads the list of David’s chief officials. Now the whole of ch. xiv is also concerned with the theme of return: the return of Absalom after three years of exile in Geshur (cf. xiii 38). This return is in two stages, first to Jerusalem (xiv 23) and then to the palace (xiv 33), but all hinges on the royal assent given in verse 21 (“Behold, I have granted it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom”). The return of Joab to Jerusalem has similar implications. First, he (too) had gone to the boundary of Israel and, having proved his usefulness to the king, was thereafter restored to his former position. Conroy treats “return and restoration” as a major theme in 2 Sam. xiii–xx, and principally in relation to David’s own banishment from Jerusalem ([n. 26] pp. 89–90, 92–3, 97–9, 102). Here “return” has an expressly theological dimension, as is suitably enunciated by David in xv 25: “If I find favour in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me back and let me see both it [sc. the ark] and his dwelling.” In Joab’s case it is not a return to a secure place in David’s estimation; the sequel in 1 Kgs ii 5–6, 28–35 shows otherwise. But no more was it a return to unconditional prosperity for Absalom or, for that matter, for David. As Conroy notes, “From the geographical point of view the story does end in a cyclic way with David as unopposed king in Jerusalem again, but psychologically matters have changed for the worse …” “The theme, or mythos, of 2 Sam xiii–xx belongs to what Frye calls the ‘autumn mode’; there is reintegration after the peripeteia but it is coloured by sacrificial overtones of loss and grief” ([n. 26] pp. 98–9).

THE VARIABLE WISDOM OF ABEL

249

v. Adjudicating: MT versus Septuagint The choice between the MT and the divergent reading(s) represented by the LXX probably cannot be made on the basis of a single clinching argument. Several questions and issues require addressing before a preference may even begin to emerge. We should note, in the first instance, that in the shorter “saying” of the MT š’l be may fulfil a different function from that in the assumed Greek Vorlage. “Let them ask in Abel” suggests for verb-cum-preposition an oracular (or quasi-oracular) significance, as most often in the expression “to inquire of the LORD”, which occurs preponderantly in the books of Samuel (e.g. 2 Sam. ii 1; v 19). Nowhere else is š’l be used with a place-name, though a comparable idea is expressed in Amos v 5 (“Do not seek Bethel”).27 There, however, the preposition may simply indicate the place at which inquiry was to be made. Presumably, what is intended in the MT at 2 Sam. xx 18–19 is that people customarily availed themselves of the proverbial wisdom of Abel in order to settle matters of dispute. In the Greek Vorlage, on the other hand, š’l introduces an ordinary indirect question, which in accordance with the normal rules may begin with either ha or ’im (cf. GKC §150 i). As we have already noted, the right of Dan to a mention in verse 18 has been questioned (cf. Barthélemy [n. 2], p. 32), but it is difficult to legislate for the exact form or content of a proverbial saying, and especially at this distance. Moreover, the geographical proximity of Dan to Abel certainly allows the LXX version to achieve something in terms of verisimilitude; though awareness of the fact could easily have been within the compass of a Hebrew reviser or Greek translator (were one to assume the introduction of Dan at the translational level). What the woman is saying in the MT is that her city is at peace with the faithful of Israel, as distinct from being in league with rebel types like Sheba. One way or another, it has to be concluded that the MT is intelligible, which means that emendation to agree with the LXX’s alternative reading is a questionable solution to the “problem” of 2 Sam. xx 18–19.28 In our present state of knowledge we can but take note of both readings, allowing at the same time for the possibility that the absence of Dan from the MT has a polemical explanation. And if polemic were involved, the superiority of the assumed Greek Vorlage would scarcely be in doubt.

27

There the expression is plainly influenced by what precedes (“Seek me and live”, v. 4). See the comments by M. Greenberg, “The Use of the Ancient Versions for Interpreting the Hebrew Text. A Sampling from Ezekiel ii 1–iii 11”, SVT 29 (1978), pp. 131–48 (esp. pp. 145–8). 28

Chapter 20

The Syriac Old Testament: Provenance, Perspective and Translation Technique This paper considers the question of Peshitta origins, taking as more or less proven the Jewish background of the version and focussing on possible examples of Christian interpretation that have crept in, if not during the actual translation phase then in the course of transmission. In the second main section four aspects of the Peshitta translation technique are discussed, partly with a view to making comparisons between this version and the other ancient versions of the Old Testament in respect of translation policy. Finally, some notice is taken of current research on the Peshitta and of new directions in research, in particular as envisaged by the Peshitta Institute in Leiden.

One of the best-known facts about the Peshitta1 Old Testament is that nothing is known about its origin or the earliest phase of its development. Aphrahat and Ephraim Syrus made use of it in the fourth century, but its previous history remains quite unilluminated by passing reference or stray quotation. And so, for example, Ishodad of Merv, writing in the ninth century, can report that the first phase of the work of translation was undertaken in Solomon’s reign, at the behest of King Hiram of Tyre.2 We may be grateful, on the other hand, that there are a few relatively old MSS of parts of the Peshitta, two of them from as early as the fifth century and probably qualifying as the oldest dated MSS of any ancient version of the Bible. Add. MS 14.512 of the British Library (Leiden siglum 5ph1) is a collection of palimpsest fragments of Isaiah and Ezekiel written in year 771 of the Greeks (AD 459–460).3 The text is difficult to decipher, but a number of interesting readings have been collated for the Leiden edition. Add. MS 14.425 of the British Library (Leiden siglum 5b1), which preserves the text of Genesis and Exodus, was written in year 775 (of the Greeks) (AD 463–464).4 The rest of the MS tradition spans the period from the sixth to the twentieth century, with the majority of texts coming from the second half of the period. 1

I shall use the spelling “Peshitta” (i.e. without distinguishing t. ēth from taw) for all references, including bibliographical, in this article. The retention of the diacritical for t. ēth is as unnecessary for Peshitta as it is for (e.g.) Tobit. 2 See Commentaire d’lšocdad de Merv sur l’Ancien Testament I: Genèse (CSCO 126; ed. J.-M. Vosté and C. van den Eynde; Louvain: Durbecq, 1950), 3. 3 For information see The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version III.1: Isaiah (Leiden: Brill, 1987), XIII–XVI. 4 See The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version I.1: Genesis and Exodus (Leiden: Brill, 1977), VI–VIII.

250

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

251

1. Provenance and Perspective What more, then, can be said about the early history of the Peshitta Old Testament? Late last century A. Rahlfs was influential in arguing that the Nestorian schism had resulted in a bifurcation of the Peshitta MS tradition into eastern and western divisions, that the latter had in turn broken down into three subdivisions, and that the challenge for the textual critic was to work back towards the text-form existing prior to the schism.5 This, however, combines an impressionistic view of the effects of the schism with a simplistic view of the later MSS and their usefulness in any such reconstruction. It is only in the Psalms that such a differentiation between eastern and western MS traditions is observable.6 A great deal of the discussion about Peshitta Old Testament origins since Rahlfs has, in point of fact, revolved around the issue of Jewish or Christian authorship. Already in 1859 J. Perles had drawn attention to a large number of Peshitta renderings that appear to indicate close and detailed acquaintance with Jewish tradition from a variety of Jewish sources,7 and while Perles did not conclude that the Peshitta translators consulted written sources, many scholars have taken the further step of arguing that the Pentateuch in particular derives from an old form of Targum, whether Palestinian (e.g. A. Baumstark, P. Kahle) or Babylonian (A. Sperber), or at least that it was translated with reference to a Targum. A long and not very conclusive story could begin here, but we shall refrain. More recent students of the Peshitta have tended to explain agreements between Peshitta and Targum, in the Pentateuch and beyond, in terms of common exegetical tradition,8 which assumes no use of written texts and might even in certain cases be compatible with Christian authorship. Moreover, study of the Bible text of Aphrahat in Genesis and Exodus has failed to find readings that are significantly at variance with the extant Peshitta text and that might otherwise have pointed to the existence of a Targum-like precursor to the extant text.9 On the other hand, the occurrence in, notably, the commentaries of Ephraim Syrus of Targumic renderings that are not found in the Peshitta, though occasionally they may appear as MS variants, could be interpreted to mean that the earliest form of the Peshitta had more Targumisms than are now apparent.10 Back in 1827 C. A. Credner had presented comparable data for the book of Hosea, en route to 5

“Beiträge zur Textkritik der Peschita”, ZAW 9 (1889), 161–210 (164–165, 198). Cf. P. B. Dirksen, “East and West, Old and Young, in the Text Tradition of the Old Testament Peshitta”, VT 35 (1985), 468–484 (for the Psalms see p. 472). 7 Meletemata Peschitthoniana (Breslau: Friedrich, 1859), 13, 27, 48; see also the most comprehensive study by Y. Maori, The Peshitta Version of the Pentateuch and Early Jewish Exegesis ([Hebrew] Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995). 8 Cf. J. Cook, “The Composition of the Peshitta Version of the Old Testament (Pentateuch)”, The Peshitta: Its Early Text and History (ed. P. B. Dirksen and M. J. Mulder; Leiden: Brill, 1988), 168; D. J. Lane, The Peshitta of Leviticus (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 174, speaks of a “shared universe of discourse”. 9 See R. J. Owens, The Genesis and Exodus Citations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 241–248 (247); for similar conclusions about Leviticus see R. J. Owens, “Aphrahat as a Witness to the Early Syriac Text of Leviticus”, The Peshitta: Its Early Text and History (see note 8 above), 44–45. 10 Cf. S. P. Brock, “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources”, JJS 30 (1979) 212–232 (218–220). M. P. Weitzman, “The Interpretative Character of the Syriac Old Testament”, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The 6

252

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the conclusion that the original form of the Peshitta of this book had been significantly influenced by the Targum.11 Possible pointers to a Christian origin for the Peshitta, in whole or in part, have also occasionally been noted. Wilhelm Gesenius based his conclusion partly on the simple assumption that Syriac was spoken only by Christians.12 It is true that all Old Syriac inscriptions from the first three centuries of the current era are of Gentile origin,13 but this may simply reflect the minority status of Jews in a town like Edessa. Han Drijvers favours Christian authorship, asking why, if the Peshitta is a Jewish translation, it is not mentioned in Jewish sources.14 On the other hand, the close association between Christians and Jews in an important centre like Edessa would make it very likely that Christian translators consulted their Jewish neighbours on points of exegetical difficulty, and if the translators were Jewish-Christian converts they would likely have brought with them some awareness of Jewish biblical interpretation. Gesenius had also cited a number of texts in the book of Isaiah that appeared to have acquired a Christian complexion in the course of translation, and this line of argument has been strengthened in more recent times by A. van der Kooij in his monograph on the text of Isaiah.15 Now since the transmission of the Peshitta seems to have been entirely in Christian hands,16 it would be surprising if Christian elements of interpretation were not to be found in the extant version (including, of course, MS variants). Whether such elements, if certainly identified, could further be demonstrated to belong to the essential Peshitta, as distinct from being merely secondary, is another matter. The evidence of Christian authorship, or at least editing, might be expected to take a number of different forms, of which three will now be briefly reviewed. First, there is the question of terminology. Weitzman has commented upon the way in which abstract nouns from the Hebrew root yš‘, signifying “deliverance”, are represented by the personalized pãrōqã (“deliverer”) in the Peshitta of Psalms. The same tendency is observable in Jerome’s translations and also in the Septuagint and Targum, but on a more restricted scale in the case of the Jewish versions. Christian influence at the primary or secondary level is possible, but not provable, since all such references to a “saviour” could be interpreted of God.17 As another possible History of its Interpretation, I (ed. M. Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996), 611, prefers to speak of “a fund … of Aramaic renderings of particular biblical words and phrases” to which Ephraim had access. 11 C. A. Credner, De Prophetarum Minorum Versionis Syriacae Quam Peschito Dicunt Indole (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1827), 96–100. 12 Commentar über den Jesaia, I.1 (Leipzig: Vogel, 1821), 86. 13 See H. J. W. Drijvers, “Syrian Christianity and Judaism”, The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (ed. J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak; London/New York: Routledge, 1992), 125. 14 The Jews among Pagans and Christians (see note 13 above), 141. 15 Die alten Textzeugen des Jesajabuches: Ein Beitrag zur Textgeschichte des Alten Testaments (OBO 35: Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1981), 273–84, 289–296 (cf. 276–277 on the Syriac translator of Isaiah as a Jewish Christian). 16 See M. P. Weitzman, “From Judaism to Christianity: The Syriac Version of the Hebrew Bible”, The Jews among Pagans and Christians (see note 13), 147. 17 M. P. Weitzman, “The Origin of the Peshitta Psalter”, Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal (ed. J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 295–296.

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

253

example we take the suggestion by de Moor and Sepmeijer that the use in the Peshitta of Joshua and Chronicles of the Greek loan-word diathēkē in reference to divine covenants mirrors the universal Peshitta New Testament usage for such covenants, and indicates the Jewish-Christian origin of these two books.18 A second possible indication of Christian involvement in the Peshitta Old Testament would be the back-reading of New Testament forms of Old Testament quotations into their original Old Testament locations. Again the results have been meagre enough. My own small contribution in this area concerns Isa 6:10 where the Syriac has “and be forgiven” for the MT’s “and be healed”, interpreting the figure of physical healing in spiritual terms. This is also the procedure in the Targum to the verse, so that there is a real possibility of influence upon the Syriac from this direction.19 However, whereas the Targum interprets healing in terms of forgiveness for four of the seven references to healing in Isaiah, this is the only case of the Syriac doing so. It is therefore possible that the Syriac has been brought into conformity with Mark 4:12, where the Isaiah phrase is quoted in its Targumic form. In that case the Syriac could still be said to have been influenced by the Targum – but now indirectly via the New Testament, if, as seems likely, the particular form of the quotation in Mark 4:12 was inspired by some kind of Targum, whether oral or written. Thirdly, specific features of Christian teaching may have been superimposed on the Peshitta text, as has been noted already in connection with van der Kooij’s discussion of Isaiah. In this connection, I wish to pay special attention to the books of Chronicles, and for two reasons. The first is that I have been involved in the preparing of the edition of Chronicles for the Leiden Peshitta project, and the second is that in Chronicles the Syriac is unusually free in relation to the Hebrew text and therefore more likely to disclose the translator’s theological preferences. Several scholars have expressed interest in Chronicles in recent times, evidently for this second reason. It is also worth noting that the important MS 9a1 (Or. MS 58 of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) yields an unusually good crop of variants in these books. A certain “Targumic” quality has been observed in the translation, by which is meant both a tendency to expand and explain and also the presence of certain Targumic theologoumena such as the practice of prayer and the observance of Torah. 2 Chr 6:18 in its Syriac form would pass for Targum. “But will God indeed dwell with humanity on the earth?” asks Solomon in the first part of the verse. And although he is thinking particularly of Israelite humanity, it is a fact that the Hebrew speaks simply of ’ãdãm “humanity”. Not so the Peshitta, which converts the rhetorical question into a clear affirmative: “For in truth the LORD has made his presence dwell with his people Israel upon the earth.” This is Targumic in the sense that it introduces a standard Targumic expression connected with the divine presence 18

J. C. de Moor and F. Sepmeijer, “The Peshitta and the Targum of Joshua”, The Peshitta as a Translation (ed. P. B. Dirksen and A. van der Kooij; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 174–175. For a differently angled discussion of the situation in Chronicles see the contribution by P. B. Dirksen (“Some Aspects of the Translation Technique in P-Chronicles”) in the same volume, 21–22. 19 Cf. E. R. Rowlands, “The Targum and the Peshitta Version of the Book of Isaiah”, VT 9 (1959), 185; B. D. Chilton, A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (London: SPCK, 1984), 90–98.

254

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

or shekinah, asserts that this localization of the presence has been an historical fact, and associates it specifically with Israel. At other points the Syriac is more open to the non-Israelite. The very difficult Hebrew at 1 Chr 17:17b could have fathered more than one interpretation in the Syriac which, in fact, offers: “And all people who observe your fear with all their heart you are bringing out from darkness to light, O Lord of Lords.” Verbally and conceptually the closest biblical parallel is found in Acts 26:18 where the mission of St Paul is to open the eyes of Gentiles (and possibly also Jews) and turn them “from darkness to light” (cf. Isa 42:16). The influence of the New Testament passage certainly cannot be proved in this case; at the same time, the Syriac version of 1 Chr 17:17 is far more universalist-sounding than the average Targumic pronouncement on such matters. How finely balanced the arguments are for Jewish or Christian authorship of the Peshitta of Chronicles may be seen in the fact that de Moor and Sepmeijer claim to have found a trace of the “Lord’s Prayer” in 1 Chr 29:10,20 while in verse 19 of the same chapter Weitzman, more convincingly, finds “the earliest known text of the Jewish Kaddish prayer”.21 The Peshitta version of 1 Chr 5:2 calls attention to itself by its inclusion of a messianic reference that is only loosely attached to the MT: MT: Though Judah became strong among his brothers and a prince was from him, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph. Pesh: The King Messiah will come forth from Judah, and (but?) the birthright will be given to Joseph.

The expression “King Messiah” is particularly well-known from its occurrences in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and the Targums to the Hagiographa. However, the specially interesting point here is that there is a variant reading in MS 9a1, which has npq “has come forth” instead of npwq “will come forth”, and therefore reads: 9a1: The King Messiah has come forth from Judah, and (but?) the birthright will be given to Joseph.

The variant is noteworthy in connection with two questions of central interest for Peshitta origins, namely the status of MS 9a1 and the provenance of the original Peshitta. MS 9a1, as we shall note, is increasingly regarded as being, in part, a witness to the earliest recoverable text of the Peshitta, to the extent that its affiliation to the MT is stronger than is apparent for most of the other MSS. In this instance, of course, both the majority reading and the variant sit sufficiently loosely to the MT for this to appear not to be a consideration. Strictly speaking, the MT involves a nominal clause (wlngyd mmnw) at the crucial point, so that the competing perfect and imperfect tenses of the Syriac MSS could be held to be equally valid or invalid as 20 21

The Peshitta as a Translation (see note 18), 175. The Jews among Pagans and Christians (see note 13), 156.

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

255

interpretations of the Hebrew. It is true that in the MT the verse begins with a perfect tense (gãbar), but since the essentials of this clause are not represented in the Syriac the significance of this is debatable. More importantly, the second clause in the Syriac has an imperfect to indicate the future (“the birthright will be given to Joseph”). Now since this clause belongs equally to the majority reading and MS 9a1, it might be cited as an argument in favour of the originality of the imperfect in the first clause, as in the majority reading (“The King Messiah will come forth”). If now we turn this into a question about the Jewish or Christian authorship of the verse, it would be possible to classify the reading with the imperfect (“will come forth”) as Jewish, but perhaps alternatively as Christian, if we were to allow that the translator was representing the coming of the Messiah as future from the standpoint of the biblical writer supposedly being translated. It seems unlikely, however, that having gone so far from the MT in the first place a Christian translator would observe this nicety. On the other hand, the reading of MS 9a1 does amount to a statement of Christian belief about the Messiah. Moreover, it is unlikely that a text that originally said “the King Messiah has come forth” – which already indicates a Christian viewpoint and influence – would in the course of its transmission in Christian circles be realigned to the future (“will come forth”), which alignment would more naturally suit Jewish interests. We may conclude, therefore, that theology (Christian) had the last word, and that MS 9a1 has the younger reading.22 But, just as clearly, the combination of the Targumic-type expression “King Messiah” and the future tense in the majority reading seems to point to a first-phase Jewish involvement in the history of the Peshitta of Chronicles, just as Perles and others have sought to demonstrate for the Pentateuch in particular (see above). 2. Translation Technique It is difficult to generalize meaningfully about such a large undertaking as the Peshitta translation of the Old Testament. The translators inevitably made mistakes, sometimes found their task too difficult, and occasionally took liberties with the text. Few modern translators would be found innocent on all three counts. Recently Heidi Szpek has set out to analyse the translation characteristics of the Peshitta of Job in accordance with a specially adapted model of translation technique. Her results testify to, among other things, a relatively sophisticated attempt to bring out the sense of the Hebrew, within the limits of the target language, even by applying techniques that, formally, are mutually contradictory, but that are invoked as the translator thought appropriate in order to render the MT in a serviceable, audience-orientated, way.23 The requirement that the Hebrew text be rendered in accordance with Syriac idiom seems generally to have been observed by the Peshitta translators, and often enough their more editorial interventions were made in the interests of logic and consistency, as has been 22 It is already known that only a certain proportion of the variants in MS 9al agree with the MT; other factors, as in this case, account for the others. 23 H. M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job: A Model for Evaluating a Text with Documentation from the Peshitta to Job (SBLDS 137; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1992), 171–184.

256

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

demonstrated for the treatment of the cultic material in the book of Leviticus.24 In what follows I have singled out four features for comment as being specially characteristic of the Peshitta or as deserving mention because they belong to the wider world of the translation method of the ancient versions of the Old Testament. a) Standard Translation One of the most striking features of the Targums is their use of recurrent words and phrases that have almost the flavour of the Homeric stock epithet. Consultation of a Targum concordance will quickly produce confirmation of this habit of using one of a limited list of Aramaic terms to represent a variety of Hebrew words. Some years ago I noted that perhaps the commonest root to be so used in the Targums is tqp (“be strong”), in its several derived forms. The use of this particular stock term, it was also noted, is already a feature of the Qumran Job Targum (11Q10).25 Now the Peshitta exhibits the same tendency towards the use of standard terms, if not quite on the Targumic scale. Like the Targums, the Peshitta is sometimes tempted to the standard translation where the original was found to be obscure in some way. And as with the Targums, a Syriac root indicating strength (‘šn) is at, or near, the top of the list.26 (Where both the Targum and the Peshitta use their respective verbs “to be strong” in translation of a Hebrew verb usually explained differently, as is the case with ‘lz “rejoice”, this may even complicate philological discussion.27) In the case of the Peshitta, and probably also the Targums, this standardizing should be viewed in the context of a more general tendency towards lexical levelling and generalizing that arises partly from lexical impoverishment as compared with the Hebrew original.28 On the other hand, the Peshitta may be found varying its renderings of a single Hebrew word or using more sense-specific terms than the MT,29 the concern for clarity being the common factor here. And where the Hebrew original was difficult, colourless terms like “strength” and “destroy” may have been regarded as safe renderings which, in a variety of situations, could be trusted not fundamentally to misrepresent the sense of the text. b) Converse Translation In a previously published paper that referred to the matter of the major ancient versions sharing translation features more significant than, for example, the mere 24 See D. J. Lane, “‘The Best Words in the Best Order’: Some Comments on the ‘Syriacing’ of Leviticus”, VT 39 (1989), 475–477. 25 “Targum as Midrash: Contemporizing in the Targum to the Prophets”, Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Bible Studies and Ancient Near East) (ed. M. Goshen-Gottstein; Jerusalem: Magnes Press-Hebrew University, 1988), 63. 26 See M. P. Weitzman, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (see note 10 above), 594. 27 Cf. J. A. Emerton, “Notes on Some Passages in the Book of Proverbs”, JTS NS 20 (1969), 214–220; A. R. Millard, “‘ls. ‘To Exult’”, JTS NS 26 (1975), 87–89. 28 Cf. H. M. Szpek, Translation Technique (see note 23 above), 171–172. 29 See M. P. Weitzman, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (see note 10 above), 590; H. M. Szpek, Translation Technique (see note 23 above), 177–184.

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

257

alteration of person or number, I cited the versional tendency to invert statements in the MT if they offended the translator’s sense of logic or his scruples, this often being achieved by the insertion or omission of the negative particle.30 This has been well described on the Targumic side by M. L. Klein in particular, who has popularized the term “converse translation” in this connection.31 As work on the Peshitta continues, a number of these have been noted but, as far as I know, the phenomenon has not been addressed in any formal manner for this version.32 To take an example from early Genesis: in the Syriac version of the flood story the raven is said, pace the MT, not to have returned until the water receded from the earth (Gen 8:7), presumably because the translator asked with Gerhard von Rad, “Is the meaning of the statement really that the raven did not return to the ark?”33 The phenomenon apparently is not limited to the Targums and Peshitta. There are occasional instances in the Septuagint that may be indicative of a more widespread tendency that also deserves more formal discussion (cf. Judg 1:18; Zech 14:18), and, if we stray a little further, we shall find R. H. Gundry, in his commentary on Matthew, appealing to “converse translation” in explanation of the statement in Matt 2:6 that Bethlehem was oudamōs elachistē among the leaders of Judah, which more or less inverts the statement of the parent text in Mic 5:1(2).34 Sometimes the Peshitta inverts the meaning in company with the Septuagint, as at Jer 5:10 where the Hebrew says: Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s.

For this the Peshitta has: Go up on her walls and tear down, but do not make a full end; leave her foundations, for they are the LORD’s.

The Septuagint proceeds along similar lines, and both versions are concerned, here as elsewhere, to correct what they perceive as an inconsistency in the text. And while it may be true that, in the case of the Septuagint especially, we sometimes have to consider questions of Vorlage, nevertheless the fact is that inversion has taken place at some level. 30

“Dialogue and Disputation in the Targum to the Prophets”, JJS 39 (1994), 17. “Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique”, Biblica 57 (1976), 515–537. 32 Examples at Gen 41:54; 2 Sam 1:21; 23:5; Zech 14:18; Mal 2:16; for others see M. P. Weitzman, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (see note 10 above), 591. 33 Genesis: A Commentary (trans. J. H. Marks; London: SCM, 1972), 129 (Germ. orig.: Das erste Buch Mose, Genesis [9th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1972]). 34 Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982), 29. 31

258

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

c) Omissions The Peshitta’s tendency to omit words or phrases too difficult to translate or to reconcile with other elements in the biblical text does not quite add up to a policy of “when in doubt leave it out”, but is nonetheless a recognizable feature of the version.35 At the same time, it would require a major effort to quantify the number and extent of such omissions, and still more to set up the possibility of comparisons with the other ancient versions. Job and Chronicles, where something other than the difficulty of Hebrew words and phrases appears to be a factor, provide good examples of the omissions policy at work. Here we shall particularly note the treatment of the lists of unclean birds in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. The inadequate handling of these terms in the Syriac was for some considerable time cited as evidence of the Christian origin of the version, but the weaknesses of this argument were exposed by my colleague J. A. Emerton in an article published in 1962.36 What is not in dispute is the failure of the Peshitta to translate four terms, each of which is a hapax legomenon in the Old Testament. Now while this may be typical of the Peshitta translation method, it is not so with the Targums generally and not at Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14 in particular, even though the Targumists may have been no more informed about the identification of some of the biblical terms. They, however, offer some attempt at translation or at least transliteration, so that nothing is left unrepresented. In such a passage as Mal 2:16, on the other hand, a translation of the MT clause usually rendered “for I hate divorce” was surely within the competence of the Syriac translator, yet the clause is omitted, possibly because of a grammatical incongruence between this clause and what follows in the Hebrew, but more probably because of the acknowledgement of divorce in Deut 24:1–4. “If you hate her, divorce her”, says the Targum to the verse, and also the Vulgate. Omission of some sort of equivalent for even the most difficult word or phrase goes against the grain in modern translating of the Bible, certainly within the English Bible tradition. A rare exception is provided by 1 Sam 13:1 where the Hebrew can be read (though not without difficulty) to say that King Saul was one year old when he became king and that he reigned for two years. Some modern versions (e.g. Revised Version, New International Version) rely on secondary data from within the Septuagint MS tradition, but the Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version use dots to indicate that key words are deemed to be missing. This precise approach was not, of course, adopted by the translators of the ancient versions. As it happens, in this instance the Peshitta tries to work with the MT’s numerals, but only after disregarding some other features of the Hebrew. It is the majority Septuagint MSS that lack – but is that the same as omit? – the verse. d ) Narrative Analogy The colouring of one passage by another, for which the term “narrative analogy” is sometimes used, is a feature of narrative composition that can also happen in 35 Cf. R. P. Gordon, “The Citation of the Targums in Recent English Bible Translations (RSV, JB, NEB)”, JJS 26 (1975), 51: M. P. Weitzman, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (see note 10 above), 594. 36 “Unclean Birds and the Origin of the Peshitta”, JSS 7 (1962), 204–211 (205, 208).

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

259

translation when the rendering of one passage is affected by another one that resonates, or that can be made to resonate, with the first in some way or other. There appears to be such a case at 2 Sam 20:19, where the wise woman of Abel of Bethmaacah accuses David’s commander Joab of attempting to kill “a city and a mother in Israel”.37 This should have occasioned no difficulty to the Syriac translator, and very probably did not, nevertheless the Peshitta has the woman berate Joab for trying to kill “the/a child and his mother in Israel”. There is no need to reconstruct a variant Hebrew text to account for this, for it looks very much as if the translator had in mind the other chapter in 2 Samuel that features a wise woman and, for that matter, Joab. In 2 Sam 14 the wise woman whom Joab instructs to act out her little charade before King David refers to “the man who would destroy me and my son together from the inheritance of God” (v. 16). The verbal and thematic parallels with 20:19b were all too evident to our translator, and so this latter is rendered: “you are seeking to kill off a child and his mother in Israel. Do not overwhelm the inheritance of the LORD.” So whereas “mother” in reference to a city (cf. “metropolis”) should have been familiar to the translator, the pull of the earlier passage was too great to resist. It is a substantial liberty to take with the text, and there may also be a strong ironical twist involved. In 2 Sam 14 the story that Joab puts in the mouth of the wise woman of Tekoa relates to members of her family who would destroy her and her son from God’s heritage; now her counterpart from Abel of Beth-maacah casts Joab himself in the role of potential destroyer of both child and mother. 3. Present Consensus/New Directions While the earliest phases of Peshitta production may remain clouded in uncertainty, recent study of the version is tending towards consensus on some key issues. The earlier idea that the original translation was free and Targum-like and was subsequently brought into some sort of conformity with the MT is not so well regarded now. A. P. Hayman goes so far as to declare: “The ‘revision according to the MT’ hypothesis may be firmly laid to rest.”38 The evidence of the MSS, and not least the most ancient of them, 5b1 and 5phl, strongly suggests a movement from the relatively literal to the more free and expansive. There are further implications arising from this axiom. The first is that MS 9al, which chronologically should belong to the Textus Receptus phase of Peshitta history, contains many original readings, whether unique or supported by palpably early texts. Secondly, this means that the apparatus of the Leiden edition becomes all the more important for the reconstruction of the earliest attainable Peshitta text. In that respect, the preparing of the edition has resulted in a major achievement even before the publication of the final volumes, for the editors do not pretend that the main text, which is usually MS 7al, represents the most pristine form of text available. In the General Preface to the edition published in 1972 the then editors stated: 37 Cf. R. P. Gordon, “The Variable Wisdom of Abel: The MT and Versions at 2 Samuel XX 18–19”, VT 43 (1993), 215–226 (222–223). 38 Reviewing M. D. Koster, The Peshitta of Exodus (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1977) in JSS 25 (1980), 267.

260

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

The object of our undertaking is to present as clearly and completely as is possible within reasonable limits of space such evidence from a more or less representative array of manuscripts as will illustrate the transmission of the Peshitta text. In our opinion the time has not yet come to reconstruct the ‘original’ Peshitta Old Testament. Perhaps the evidence collected here will give new impetus to research into this complicated subject.39

Thirdly, the clarification, to this extent, of the earlier transmission-history of the version has had the practical effect of encouraging the Leiden editors to restrict the critical apparatus to MSS up to and including the twelfth century. This is good scientific sense, as well as good news for hard-pressed collators of books such as Chronicles, most of whose thirty-odd MSS fall into the later period. The loss is minimized by the fact that clear family groupings and looser affiliations become apparent as the work of collation progresses, and in such cases account is taken of the later family members. There is a further implication as regards Peshitta citations in modern biblical editions and commentaries, since, if it is evidence of Hebrew Vorlage that is being sought, readings in the apparatus must in some cases take precedence over the main text. Caveat editor! Against this background, research into the history and the characteristics of individual MSS40 and the translations of individual books is being carried out. Weitzman in particular has studied the translation equivalents of a selection of terms within individual books and across the face of the whole Old Testament canon, and with interesting results.41 He distinguishes between older and more recent, or innovative, renderings of certain Hebrew terms like ‘yr “city”, ‘wlh “burnt offering” and ksp “silver” and proceeds to characterize some books, such as Judges, Samuel and Kings, as conservative in their translation policy and others, such as Ezekiel and the Twelve, as modernizing by comparison. This information cannot, however, be used to construct a relative chronology of the individual books of the Peshitta, since a later translator may have had conservative tendencies, as apparently in the case of Chronicles where older terms appear even though there is good reason to think that these books were among the last to be translated. That there were different translators involved in the production of the Peshitta can be taken as substantially having been demonstrated. Weitzman has even suggested on the basis of lexical distinctions within the books of Samuel that a second translator’s hand may be detected in 2 Samuel, beginning somewhere in ch. 6 or 7.42 At the same time, we can legitimately speak of a “school” of Peshitta translators working according to certain conventions and, in the books translated later, in awareness of translation work previously done. Thus Koster, while recognizing three 39 P. A. H. de Boer and W. Baars, The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version: General Preface (Leiden: Brill, 1972), V–VI. 40 For a good illustration see K. D. Jenner, “Some Introductory Remarks concerning the Study of 8a1”, The Peshitta: Its Early Text and History (see note 8 above), 200–224. 41 M. P. Weitzman, “Lexical Clues to the Composition of the Old Testament Peshitta”, Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches (ed. M. J. Geller, J. C. Greenfield and M. P. Weitzman: JSS Suppl. 4; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 217–246. 42 Studia Aramaica (see note 41 above), 239.

THE SYRIAC OLD TESTAMENT

261

stages in the transmission history of the Peshitta, claims that in all three “we are dealing with one and the same Syriac translation”.43 There is an uneven distribution of Targum-like features and even specifically Targumic expressions in the version, and some books more than others make use of the Septuagint, nevertheless the impression of a basic homogeneity remains. Even the already-noted tendency to omit difficult words or phrases, while not deserving of elevation to the status of a translation “technique”, is encountered frequently enough to be mentioned in this connection. But what exactly this talk of a translation “school” amounts to may be a legitimate question. There is impressive homogeneity of style and of theological stance across the various Targums to the biblical books, and they may be said to come from within the same tradition, yet chronologically and even geographically the spread is such as to discourage use of a term like “school”. Admittedly, the formative period in the history of the Peshitta is somewhat shorter, as the early citations in the Syrian fathers would indicate, so that ideas of a more compact series of translation activities are more easily entertained. 4. The Leiden Peshitta Project The publication of editions of the individual books of the Old Testament in Syriac remains the priority of the Leiden Peshitta Project. The volumes currently being prepared for printing are those on Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah-1–2 Maccabees. Various other activities are under way, and I am pleased to summarize these on the basis of a letter from the project director Konrad Jenner: 1

A Peshitta Discussion List has been started on the Internet to promote discussion on the Bible in Syriac and its relation to Syriac religion and culture. The Peshitta Institute is involved in the creation of a Database to serve as the basis for a Computer-Assisted Language analysis of the Peshitta, and also to facilitate the projects listed in 3 and 4 below. Data relating to the origin of the Peshitta and its significance for liturgy, biblical exegesis and theology will also be included, as will information on the revision by Jacob of Edessa and on the Syro-Hexapla. The publication of a Minor Edition and of an annotated English translation is in the early planning stages. The revision of the List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts (Preliminary Issue) published in 1961 is now under way. Information additional to what is given in the List and its supplements (published in Vetus Testamentum) will be gratefully received by the project director. The publication of the first volume of The Concordance to the Old Testament in Syriac, covering the books of the Pentateuch, is expected in early 1997. The Syriac-Hebrew (and, where appropriate, Syriac-Greek) correspondences will be given, and the Mosul, Urmia and Lee editions will be taken into account.

2

3 4

5

43

M. D. Koster, “Peshitta Revisited: A Reassessment of its Value as a Version”, JSS 38 (1993), 251.

262 6

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Further additions to the Peshitta Institute Monograph series are planned, with volumes on the Peshitta of 1–2 Kings and the Samuel text of Jacob of Edessa in an advanced stage of preparation.

Bibliography Boer, P. A. H. de, “Towards an Edition of the Syriac Version of the Old Testament”, VT 31 (1981), 346–357. Dirksen, P. B., “The Old Testament Peshitta”, Mikra (ed. M. J. Mulder; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1988), 255–297. Dirksen, P. B. and A. van der Kooij (eds.), The Peshitta as a Translation (Leiden: Brill, 1995). Emerton, J. A., “Unclean Birds and the Origin of the Peshitta”, JSS 7 (1962), 204–211. Gelston, A., The Peshitta of the Twelve Prophets (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987). Kooij, A. van der, Die alten Textzeugen des Jesajabuches. Ein Beitrag zur Textgeschichte des Alten Testaments (OBO 35; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1981), 258–298. Koster, M. D., The Peshitta of Exodus: The Development of Its Text in the Course of Fifteen Centuries (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1977). Lane, D. J., The Peshitta of Leviticus (Leiden: Brill, 1994). Perles, J., Meletemata Peschitthoniana (Breslau: Friedrich, 1859). Szpek, H. M., Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job: A Model for Evaluating a Text with Documentation from the Peshitta to Job (SBLDS 137; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1992). Weitzman, M. P., “The Interpretative Character of the Syriac Old Testament”, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation I (ed. M. Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996), 587–611.

Summary Robert P. Gordon The Syriac Old Testament: Provenance, Perspective and Translation Technique While nothing certain is known about the origin or the early history of the Peshitta version of the Syriac Old Testament, the influence of Jewish exegetical tradition is clear at many points. There is, however, more than one way of interpreting this situation. The translation of the books of Chronicles is unusually free (for whatever reason) and has recently been attracting attention, partly because of the clearer indications of the translator’s own viewpoint that it presents. Here there may perhaps also be one or two instances of Christian recasting of texts. Several translation characteristics of the Peshitta are briefly reviewed, with comparison where appropriate with similar techniques or tendencies in other major ancient versions. Finally, the present scholarly tendency towards consensus on certain basic questions relating to the early development of the Peshitta is noted, and current lines of research and further projected work are briefly outlined.

Chapter 21

“Converse Translation” in the Targums and Beyond It is just over 20 years since Michael Klein highlighted the phenomenon of what he called “converse translation” in the Targums, and in particular the Targums to the Pentateuch.1 Since then his article has been widely quoted, and not least by the present writer.2 Klein showed that alongside the normal interpretative mode of the Targums there is a common enough tendency towards “contradictive rendition”, when a Targumist considers that it would be more appropriate to say the opposite of what the Hebrew text appears to be saying. As he notes, this feature of Targum had already been observed by Elias Levita in the sixteenth century, in the introduction to his Aramaic lexicon.3 On the last page of his praefatio authoris Levita notes briefly a few of the translational peculiarities of Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan to the Prophets. Sometimes words are represented only in a general sense (citing Gen. 32.11 and Isa. 66.24), or are translated by antonyms (two examples from Jer. 17.16);4 sometimes whole sentences may be turned round (citing Exod. 33.3 and Num. 24.1, the latter of which Klein understandably regards as doubtful). Klein also refers to J. Heinemann, who, in his 1974 study of the development of Aggadah, notes this aspect of the Onqelos rendering of Gen. 37.33 and 48.22 and describes it as a crude translation attempt deriving from an early, unsophisticated phase in the development of the Targums.5 Klein divides his examples of converse translation into four categories: addition or deletion of the negative particle; replacement of the verb; resolution of the rhetorical question; and addition of the negative particle delã’ (“lest”). I touched briefly on the subject in my essay “The Targumists as Eschatologists” (see n. 2), in which a couple of other variations on the basic theme were noted, namely, the device of alternative attribution by diverting texts towards more appropriate targets (cf. Job 14.12; Eccl. 3.18–22), and the creation of rhetorical questions (cf. Eccl. 2.16). However, it is the first two of Klein’s categories that are most obviously converse translation, and it is 1

M. L. Klein, “Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique”, Biblica 57 (1976), pp. 515–37. See especially, “The Targumists as Eschatologists”, in J. A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume: Göttingen 1977 (VTSup, 29; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), pp. 113–30 (113–14). 3 Lexicon Chaldaicum (Izny, 1541). 4 The translation of MT ’ãnûš by taqqîp is not found in any of the manuscripts collated by Alexander Sperber. 5 J. Heinemann, Aggadah and its Development (Heb.) (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1974), pp. 154, 238 n. 67. I am dependent on Klein for this information since, unfortunately, the volume is not held by any of the libraries to which I have access in Cambridge. 2

263

264

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the first with which I am mainly concerned here. Klein nominates nine passages in the Pentateuchal Targums that involve the addition or suppression of the negative particle: Gen. 4:14, 23; 5.24; 37.33; 43.14; 46.30; 48.22; Deut. 2.6; 5.21(24). These changes are made in order to deal with possible theological objections to statements or implications in the MT, such as that Cain could hide from the presence of God (Gen. 4.14; cf. Deut. 5.21[24]), or in order to maintain consistency with the immediate context (Gen. 4.23; 37.33), or to avoid conflict with some other passage (Gen. 43.14; Deut. 2.6). The reference to Enoch in Gen. 5.24 deserves special attention because of the statement in several texts of Onqelos that Enoch “is [alive] because God did not kill him”. Following Luzzatto,6 Klein suggests that this is the original text of Onqelos, rather than the majority reading “and he is not because God killed him”.7 The latter is explained as reflecting “a reaction that became dominant in Jewish exegesis as an anti-Christian polemic”.8 The purpose of this paper is to examine further this phenomenon of converse translation, first by citing a couple of instances from the Targum to the Prophets and then by considering the growing evidence for the existence of the same translation ploy in the other ancient versions, especially the Peshitta and Septuagint. The rationale behind my focusing on the insertion or omission of the negative particle is simply that such occurrences are both more numerous and more discrete than the other categories that might be studied. Even here, as will soon be apparent, occurrences have to be gradated, since they range from the formally converse to the outright converse, and there is a great difference between the two. The former, by dint of other modifications in the text, do not significantly alter meaning, while the latter have to be regarded as outright contradictions of the biblical text. Nor is it always easy to make final and absolute distinctions between the two, since there may be other unconsidered interpretative factors at work and, when all else fails, appeal can sometimes be made to intonation (unscripted!) and the ever-obliging rhetorical question, with the same deleterious effect on the supposedly “outright converse”. For all that, most of the examples that I cite from the ancient versions are headed in the direction of converse translation in the strict sense. Especially in the cases of the Peshitta and Septuagint, a large number of references have been omitted where the appropriate description would have been “formally converse” or something even less precise or relevant. 1. Targum Klein’s examples were limited to the Pentateuchal Targums mainly, no doubt, for convenience’ sake. Already, as we have seen, Levita had referred to the Targum to 6 S. D. Luzzatto, Oheb Ger (Cracow: Joseph Fischer, 2nd edn, 1895), p. 24. Luzzatto thought that “and he is not” (welãyetôhî) represents an assimilation to the MT (no doubt also requiring the removal of the negative in “God did not kill him”). The Onqelos verse is discussed by J. Bowker, “Haggadah in the Targum Onqelos”, JSS 12 (1967), pp. 51–65. 7 Klein, “Converse Translation”, p. 519 n. 11. 8 Klein, “Converse Translation”, p. 521 n. 15.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

265

the Prophets in the same connection, and this is not at all surprising in view of the stylistic and theological homogeneity that unites the various Targums to biblical books, irrespective of their time and place of origin. It will be appropriate to begin with a couple of examples from the Targum to the Prophets. Both are useful in that they anticipate issues confronted by the other ancient versions. In the case of 2 Sam. 1.21, the interpretative option preferred by the Targumist leads into his “converse” handling of the text, while in Jer. 14.9 it is simply a matter of what is acceptable speech to, or about, God. 2 Samuel 1.21 The issue here is the state of either Saul or his shield, described at the end of the verse as “not anointed with oil”. The reading in Ms Leningrad B 19A is mãšîah.,9 which would naturally refer to Saul since it is virtually a terminus technicus for the anointed king of Israel, as in the expression “the Lord’s anointed”. On the other hand, there is a qere reading mãšûah. which is supported by many manuscripts and which, although defensible as a reference to Saul (cf. 2 Sam. 3.39, of David), could at least as readily refer to his shield lying unanointed and untended after the battle on Gilboa. It appears that for the Targum, and even more clearly for the Peshitta, the text referred to Saul, who is described a number of times by the term “anointed of the Lord” in the books of Samuel (e.g. 1 Sam. 26.9, 11; 2 Sam. 1.14, 16). However, the prefacing of “anointed” by the negative particle belî was problematical for this interpretation, for it could hardly be said that Saul was “not anointed”, hence the Vulgate’s quasi non unctus (cf. “as though he had not been anointed” [AV]). The Targum could be rendered “the shield of Saul who was anointed as with oil” or, just possibly, “the shield of Saul that was anointed as with oil”. In either case the inclusion of kad (“as”) is slightly surprising, except perhaps as a ballast counterpart (albeit out of position) to the MT belî. However, the Targum’s omission of the negative probably confirms the first option, since there would have been no problem for the Targumist in saying that Saul’s shield had not been anointed. This view finds some support in the fact that at Isa. 21.5, which has the only other Old Testament reference to anointing shields, the Targum represents biblical Hebrew (BH) mãšah., by the two verbs meraq and s.eh.ah.. Here at 2 Sam. 1.21 the Peshitta is more straightforward than the Targum, simply omitting the negative and leaving no doubt that Saul is the referent of “anointed”: “who was anointed with oil”.10 Jeremiah 14.9 This verse comes in one of the Jeremianic laments (the so-called “Confessions”), in which the prophet asks why God should be “like a strong man who is not able to deliver”. This impertinence is rectified in a fundamental reworking of the verse in 9 See now D. N. Freedman (ed.), The Leningrad Codex: A Facsimile Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998), p. 349 (fol. 169 recto). 10 Since the Syriac sakrã’ (“shield”) is a feminine noun there is no question of the Peshitta referring to Saul’s shield as lying “(un)anointed”.

266

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

which Jeremiah is made to say, “You are a strong man who is able to deliver.” The decisive change here is in the omission of the negative particle.11

2. Peshitta From time to time the Peshitta modifies and even reverses the meaning of its presumed Vorlage. This often involves the introduction or the removal of the negative particle. Occasionally the Syriac is found to be in the company of the Targum and/or Septuagint in this respect (e.g. 2 Sam. 1.21 as discussed above), but more often it stands on its own. This suggests that, even when there is agreement with the “senior” versions, the same translational and interpretative exigencies which affected them have been at work in the Peshitta, and without absolutely requiring direct borrowing on the part of the Syriac translator(s). Many of these instances involving the negative particle fall outside the strict category of converse translation for the kind of reason noted earlier, and they will therefore not be considered here. At the same time, instances of formally converse translation are noted where they are judged to deserve special comment. The examples are organized under several headings according to their chief characteristics vis-à-vis the MT.12 a. Misrenderings of the Masoretic Text Deuteronomy 29.11 The Syriac translator took BH ‘ãbar in this verse to mean “transgress”, whereas in this context it denotes entering into a covenant (“so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God”). Thus committed, the Peshitta introduces the negative particle, translating “so that you may not transgress the covenant of the Lord your God”.13 Deuteronomy 33.29 A difficult bicolon in this verse possibly intends to say that God is the shield of Israel’s help and her glorious sword (“the sword of your triumph” [NRSV]). However, having identified God as the source of help, the Syriac translator resorts to the via negativa: “and your [Israel’s] glory is not in the sword”. It may be that the translator simply regarded this as an appropriate follow-up to the first statement. However, the Hebrew could easily be construed to mean, “and [Israel] whose sword is your glory”.14 If this is how the translator understood the MT he must then have felt obliged to negate the idea, just as the Pentateuchal Targums have 11 See C. T. R. Hayward, The Targum of Jeremiah (The Aramaic Bible, 12; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1986), pp. 23, 25, 90–91. 12 Wherever possible, readings are taken from The Old Testament in Syriac: Peshitta Version (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972–). 13 There are variant readings in MSS 7al and 8al; nevertheless, all manuscripts feature the negative particle. 14 Cf. the translation “A sword is your majesty”, in P. C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976), p. 402.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

267

elsewhere treated a comparable sentiment.15 Either way, we have a formally converse rendering, and in the second case there would be outright contradiction of the assumed meaning of the Hebrew. Psalm 37.33 Whereas the MT says that the Lord will not let the righteous fall into the hands of the wicked “nor condemn him when he is judged”, the Syriac refers the second clause to the wicked and is forced into a rephrasing that dispenses with the negative: “but will condemn him in [the] judgment”. The sense of the Syriac is not opposed to that of the MT; it just addresses a different issue and qualifies as “formally converse”. Psalm 60.6 Having failed to provide the correct sense for MT lehitnôsēs, the translator thought of BH nûs (“flee”) and had to introduce the negative in order to say, “so that [your fearers] might not flee before your16 bow”. Ruth 2.13 In this verse Ruth acknowledges that Boaz has been kind to her “even though I am not as one of your servants”. However, the concessive nature of the clause has not been appreciated by the Syriac translator, who omits the negative to produce the statement, “[and] I will be like one of your servants”. b. Harmonizing Genesis 41.54 When, in the Joseph story, the seven years of famine begin, the MT says that there was famine in every country, whereas throughout all the land of Egypt there was food. However, the next verse states that all the land of Egypt was famished, and it was presumably for this reason that the Syriac translator amended his text to say at the end of v. 54 that “there was not food in all the land of Egypt”. This is also the case with a strand of the Septuagintal tradition, where Codex Alexandrinus inserts ouk. Joshua 10.20 Joshua and his army are said to have wiped out the armies of the five Amorite kings, though a number of survivors returned to their fortified cities. The Peshitta translator evidently had difficulty reconciling this idea of extermination with the existence of survivors, and perhaps also with Joshua’s order in the previous verse not to let the Amorites back into their cities.17 He therefore inserted the negative – “and not a survivor was left of them” – and then radically reworked the remainder of the verse (“and they brought the Gibeonite fugitives to their city”; cf. vv. 5–10). Joshua 11.13 According to the MT, Israel did not burn any of the north Canaanite cities that stood on mounds, apart from Hazor, which Joshua burned. The Hebrew is 15

See Klein, “Converse Translation”, pp. 525–26, on Gen. 48.22. Most manuscripts omit the suffix with the MT. 17 Verse 20b “is in effect a considerable qualification of vv 16–21” according to R. G. Boling and G. E. Wright, Joshua (AB, 6; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), p. 286. 16

268

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

quite emphatic in the contrast that it makes between the fates of Hazor and the rest: Hazor “alone” was fired. The Peshitta, on the other hand, attributes the same fate to all: “all the cities standing on mounds Israel burned, and Joshua burned Hazor”. Perhaps the Hebrew appeared to contradict the claim that Joshua had kept all the commands associated with Moses (cf. vv. 12, 15), if destruction was thought to require the uniform burning of fortified cities. The translator will, in any case, have been aware of the fates of Jericho and Ai (see Josh. 6.24; 8.28). 2 Chronicles 15.19 Whereas the Chronicler asserts that there “was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign”, the Syriac translator felt obliged to say something quite different, namely that there was war in the thirty-fifth year of his reign. This does not contradict the MT, but it seems to imply discomfort with it, and perhaps because of the account of a battle already in 2 Chron. 14.8–14 and the statement in 1 Kgs 15.16 that there was war between Asa and Baasha of Israel “all their days”. The first reference might have been accommodated as in some English versions (cf. “no more war” [NIV, NRSV]), but the second would be more resistant to such treatment. 2 Chronicles 26.23 The obituary notice for King Uzziah in the MT states that he was buried with his fathers in the burial field belonging to the kings, “because they said that he was leprous”. The Syriac translator evidently found the logic of this difficult and so inserted the negative in order to say that it was not in the royal tombs that Uzziah was buried, on account of his leprosy: “And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in a tomb, (but) not in the royal tombs.” The Chronicler differs from 2 Kgs 15.7 in drawing attention to the tradition of Uzziah’s leprosy – Kings refers simply to his being buried “with his fathers in the city of David” – in a way that creates the expectation of a departure from the norm, which possibly he intended to indicate by the less specific “in the burial field belonging to the kings”. In that case the Syriac may be regarded as trying to interpret the intention of the MT, but the effect is to produce an outright contradiction of any suggestion of royal association in Uzziah’s burial. That there is epigraphical evidence of at least the tradition that Uzziah’s remains were treated separately is interesting,18 but presumably this was not influential with the Syriac translator. c. Generally Ameliorative Leviticus 25.35 The MT addresses the problem of the impoverished Israelite, instructing the individual members of the community to support such people. Those fallen on hard times were to “live with you as though resident aliens” (NRSV), which was intended as a safeguard for the dependent member. The Syriac apparently objects to what it perceives as a lowering of the impoverished Israelite’s status, and so commands: “you shall not treat him as a sojourner and settler”. 18 Cf. J. A. Fitzmyer and D. J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (BibOr, 34; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), pp. 168–69, 223–24.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

269

Psalm 68.19 The second half of the verse is not without difficulty, but may be translated “[you received gifts from men,] even from the rebellious – that you, O Lord God, might dwell there” (NIV). The Syriac apparently senses the possibility in the last clause of the divine dwelling being associated with these rebels, and so inserts the negative – perhaps encouraged by the prefixed lãmedh in liškōn – to express the theologically correct sentiment that “the rebellious will not dwell before God”. This, however, is poor warrant for reconstructing a non-Masoretic Vorlage for the Peshitta (pace BHS). Psalm 89.48 This psalm, which for the most part celebrates the Davidic covenant, nevertheless has a concluding section in which God’s repudiation of the covenant, with tragic consequences for his people, is lamented (vv. 39–52). Verse 48, “Remember how short my time is. For what futility you have created all human beings!”, is despairing, yet entirely consonant with the context. The Syriac translator, whatever his precise construal of the MT, conveys a different, more pious, sentiment: “Remember me from the grave, for not in vain did you create all human beings.” d. Special Case Malachi 2.16 Formally the Peshitta is in the position of having an inserted negative in the clause “and he should not conceal evil in his garment”, for the MT “and covering one’s garment with violence”, but the translator had omitted the first clause in the verse (“For he hates divorce”) and so could not treat the clause in question as dependent upon “he hates” (i.e. he [God] hates concealing evil in one’s garment). So far as can be judged, the Peshitta is not at variance with the MT.

3. Septuagint The existence of something approximating to converse translation in the Septuagint has not been much canvassed and, where recognized, has not been analysed in any serious or systematic manner. It has principally been commentators on the Greek version of Isaiah who have been forced to recognize that among the many translational oddities in this book are a number of passages with inserted or omitted negatives. In his introductory volume on LXX Isaiah, Ottley lists about three dozen references under the heading “Negatives differ”, but these represent such a motley collection of free renderings vis-à-vis the MT as to be of little consequence for the present study.19 Seeligmann also comments on “the fairly frequent cases where [the translator] forcibly tries to wrench, from passages which he cannot understand, some signification either by adding a negation not occurring in the Hebrew text, or by 19 R. R. Ottley, The Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus) (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1909), I, pp. 52–53.

270

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

neglecting a negation which does figure in the Hebrew original”.20 He cites three examples, from 1.24, 3.10 and 8.14 (see below). Again the issue of formally converse rendering needs to be taken into account in the discussion of many such cases. For example, a reference noted by neither Ottley nor Seeligmann is Isa. 37.23, where “and you did not lift up your eyes on high to the holy one of Israel” is in formal contradiction of the MT, but the significance of the inserted negative depends on whether the sentence is read as a statement or as a question.21 Similarly, at Isa. 41.28 the Greek translator inserted a negative “to make sense”,22 producing the statement “they will not answer me”, which formally contradicts MT weyãšîbû dãbãr. However, the Septuagint reconstructs the syntax of the verse, and the overall sense is as in the MT. The examples that follow are organized according to the category divisions used for the discussion of the Peshitta, except that “misrenderings” of the Hebrew do not play such an obvious part and do not have a separate listing here. a. Harmonizing Genesis 8.7 According to the MT, Noah sent out a raven from the ark and it flew to and fro (lit. “going out and returning”) until the waters of the flood had subsided from the earth. The Septuagint and Peshitta, however, were not satisfied with straightforwardly representing this idea of the raven simply flying to and fro. If the bird flew about in this manner, then it could be assumed that it did not actually return to Noah.23 Again, the sending out of a dove, as in the next verse, would make little sense if the raven was returning to the ark. So the Septuagint, anticipating a clause in v. 8, says that Noah sent out the raven “to see whether the water had subsided; and when it went out it did not return until the water had dried up from the earth”.24 Similarly, the Peshitta says of the raven, “and it went out and did not return”. Since it is unlikely that the plain sense of the Hebrew idiom eluded the Greek and Syriac translators, their alternative versions may be seen as attempts to elucidate the phrase “going and returning” within its immediate context. Formally, the Greek and Syriac are converse in that “going and returning” becomes “did not return”. The contrast may even be actual and deliberate, from the point of view of the translators, if the text was understood to imply the raven’s return to the ark and the translators’ intention was to “improve” the sense by ruling this out. 20

I. L. Seeligmann, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah: A Discussion of its Problems (Mededelingen en Verhandelingen, 9; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1948), p. 57; cf. S. Olofsson, God is My Rock: A Study of Translation Technique and Theological Exegesis in the Septuagint (ConBOT, 31; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990), pp. 41–42. 21 Ottley, The Book of Isaiah, p. 58, punctuates this as a question in his Greek text. 22 Ottley, The Book of Isaiah, p. 305. 23 Cf. J. W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis (SBLSCS, 35; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), p. 104. 24 Coincidentally, as Cassuto notes (U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. II. From Noah to Abraham [2 vols.; trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1964], p. 110), the raven in the Gilgamesh version of the deluge is said not to have returned to Utnapishtim’s boat.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

271

Judges 1.18 The verse in its Masoretic form says that Judah captured Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron and their surrounding land, whereas v. 19 claims only the conquest of the hill country because the locals’ possession of iron chariots prevented the Judahites from gaining the upper hand in the lowland region. The two verses appear to be in conflict, and the Septuagint translator evidently was troubled by this tension in the text. The Greek therefore asserts that Judah “did not inherit” Gaza or the other Philistine cities. (In this respect the A and B texts are in agreement.) If we were to consider the possibility that the text represented by the Greek is original we might well, with Moore,25 expect v. 19 to have been “differently introduced”. As it is, the Greek kai ouk eklēronomēsen is a better rendering of MT welō’ hôrîš in v. 27 than of *welō’ lãkad, which might otherwise be assumed as its Vorlage in v. 18. b. Generally Ameliorative 1 Samuel 29.6 Here Achish, the king of Philistine Gath, is telling David that he and his retinue will not be allowed to go into battle on the Philistine side, because of the opposition of the Philistine city rulers who fear that David will change sides during the battle. Achish acknowledges that David has been impeccable in his behaviour towards him; nevertheless, “in the eyes of the rulers you are not acceptable”. Vaticanus and its congeners omit the negative, and, since explanations of a mechanical nature are unlikely, it seems that one or other version of the Greek was driven by contextual or other considerations.26 Lestienne favours the Vaticanus reading, mainly on the ground that the Greek has a further divergence from the MT in v. 11 of this chapter, reporting there not only that David returned to Philistine territory after his dismissal (so MT), but also that he went back to guard the Philistine territory in the absence of the Philistine army at Gilboa.27 This, for Lestienne, implies that David’s good standing with the city rulers was not in question, and that it was to spare him embarrassment that he was sent away from Gilboa. Lestienne thinks that the Vaticanus reading, representing the original Septuagint at this point, may reflect the situation of Jewish mercenaries serving in foreign garrisons during the Hellenistic period. This implies, then, that the original Septuagint translator (or possibly his Vorlage) deliberately inverted the meaning of this part of 1 Sam. 29.6. Otherwise, if the Vaticanus reading is secondary, the converse element in the Greek came in secondarily. Isaiah 8.14 The Septuagint is heavily interpretative in that it prefaces its translation of the verse with the conditionalizing “And if you are trusting in him”, which refers back to God “your [object of] fear” in v. 13. That still leaves a potentially unsettling contrast in v. 14 between the description of God, in adjacent phrases, as both a sanctuary and a stone of stumbling to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Some interpreters 25 G. F. Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895), p. 38. 26 Cf. D. G. Deboys, “1 Samuel xxix 6”, VT 39 (1989), pp. 214–19. 27 M. Lestienne, Premier livre des règnes (La Bible d’Alexandrie, 9.1; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1997), pp. 403–404.

272

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

resolve the perceived difficulty by emending “sanctuary” (miqdãš) to produce something more suitably negative (e.g. maqšîr, “conspirator”). The Greek translator remains more positive-sounding, achieving this by the insertion of the negative: “and you will not meet him as a stone of stumbling or as a stone of falling”. While it would be possible to explain the negative particle as a dittograph from le’eben,28 it is clear from the translator’s approach to the verse generally that the change is exegetically motivated, as is the oude in the next phrase (it is unnecessary to invoke double-duty negative on the part of the presumed Hebrew Vorlage). Isaiah 54.6 The prophet comforts Zion in this verse with the thought that the Lord would call her back “as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be deserted”. This is not positive enough for the Greek translator: “Not as a wife deserted and distressed has the Lord called you, nor as a wife hated from her youth.” This is simple amelioration of the text, “due to the translators’ view of the meaning”.29 Jeremiah 5.10 This is another “Zion text”, and judgment is in question. Jerusalem, described using the metaphor of a vine, is to be destroyed; her branches are to be removed because “they do not belong to the Lord”. This is too strong for the Greek translator, who changes the verb “remove” to “leave behind” and then simply removes the negative in “for they do not belong”, so that the second half of the verse reads: “leave her buttresses for they belong to the Lord” (cf. Peshitta). So BHS notes of both the Septuagint and the Peshitta: vertunt sensum in contrarium. Psalm 105.28 (104.28) Whereas the MT says in the second colon, “and they did not rebel against his words”,30 the Greek (minus S) omits the negative (cf. also Peshitta). Since the verse has already mentioned the judgment of darkness on the land of Egypt, as in the Exodus plague tradition, a statement about the Egyptians not rebelling against the divine word could easily be regarded as inappropriate (see Exod. 10.27–29), although Exod. 11.2–3 might form the basis of a contrary argument. It is possible (cf. BHS) that the text originally had welō’ šãmerû (“but they did not observe”), and, if so, the negative would surely be original, albeit lost in the Septuagint (or its Vorlage) in consequence of the introduction of mãrû/parepikranan into the text. c. Special Case Jeremiah 12.5 This verse introduces God’s response to the prophet’s complaint in vv. 1–4 of this chapter. Basically the problem in the second half of the verse is that the Hebrew seems to be saying, “If you are trusting in safe country, how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan?”, and the question does not follow logically from the 28 So J. Ziegler, Untersuchungen zur Septuaginta des Buches Isaias (Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen, 12.3; Münster: Aschendorff, 1934), pp. 95–96. 29 Ottley, The Book of Isaiah, p. 349. 30 Reading the qere debãrãyw for the kethib dbrww.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

273

protasis. The Greek translator, who apparently was not aware of the possibilities suggested by the Arabic bat. ah.a (“fall flat on the face”), translated ’attãh bôt. ēah. by su pepoithas. BS*+ have ou for su and what appears to be an instance of converse translation: “And if in a land of peace you have not trusted, how will you fare in the roaring [phruagma] of the Jordan?” Ziegler, however, regards the A reading as original,31 and in this he may well be right. McKane thinks that “you have not trusted” rests on the perception that if the Hebrew has to be rendered “are trusting” or “feel secure” then it cannot be right.32 He does not invoke the category “converse translation”, but that is what he is describing. Nevertheless, Ziegler is probably correct in preferring the A reading, since su answers exactly to ’attãh in the Hebrew text, and in a directly comparable situation in 5.17 ’attãh bôt. ēah. is represented by su pepoithas (var. humeis pepoithate). The converse translation in BS*+ may not, therefore, be regarded as unquestionably deliberate; graphic confusion (ou for su) and a conviction of what the text should be saying may both have played their part. It is far from evident, then, that the BS*+ reading reflects a non-Masoretic Vorlage such as has commended itself to a number of modern commentators.

4. Vulgate There is no point of principle that would have prevented the Vulgate from indulging in converse translation where this was considered appropriate. One apparent example that has come to light is at Lev. 25.33. There are difficulties in this verse, which appears to deal with cases of property redemption involving Levites, and which begins “And if one of the Levites redeems” (cf. RV).33 The Vulgate attempts to shed light by inserting the negative: “Si redemptae non fuerint in iobeleo revertentur ad dominos …”34 Both BH3 and BHS favour what they take to be the Vorlage of the Vulgate (though BHS limits itself to “fortasse recte”), despite the fact that the Vulgate is obviously struggling in this verse.

5. A New Testament Example This is a different situation from what has so far been described. In Mt. 2.6 the evangelist is quoting from the prophet Micah in connection with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem (cf. Mic. 5.1). But whereas the prophet addresses the town as “little among the clans of Judah” (s.ã‘îr līhyôt be’alepê yehûdãh), Matthew declares that 31

J. Ziegler, Jeremias (Septuaginta, 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957), p. 210. W. McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah, I (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986), pp. 263–64. 33 The opening clause of the verse may be translated in more than one way (cf. NRSV “Such property as may be redeemed from the Levites”). 34 Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem. I. Genesis-Psalmi (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969). 32

274

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Bethlehem is “by no means least among the rulers of Judah” (oudamōs elachistē … en tois hēgemosin Iouda), which is somewhat different from MT Mic. 5.1. Nor can the evangelist claim support from the LXX, which has oligostos ei tou einai en chiliasin Iouda (“you are too little to be among the thousands of Judah”). In his commentary on Matthew, Gundry rejects conjectural emendations of Micah’s text which attempt to assimilate it to the Matthaean quotation of it, partly because of the evangelist’s tendency to interpret his Old Testament sources as he quotes them.35 In this case the association of Bethlehem with the birth of Christ has, already for the evangelist, transformed the place into one of the central sites of Christendom, and he has modified Mic. 5.1 accordingly. Gundry notes Klein’s article on converse translation in the Targums, cites in particular the Targumic treatment of Gen. 37.33, and suggests that the evangelist, by his insertion of oudamōs, has used the same translation ploy. While there is not outright polarity between the MT and Matthaean forms of this statement about Bethlehem, Gundry’s invoking of the concept of converse translation is justified.

6. Conclusion The question whether there is an explanation for the practice of converse translation can justifiably be put, but it is unlikely that a single answer will suffice. Since we are dealing specifically with the negative particle, there are a couple of possibilities that can easily be considered but that just as clearly have to be rejected. It may occasionally be possible to explain a particular occurrence of the particle as introducing a rhetorical question implying a positive statement. This belongs with what G. R. Driver called “affirmation by exclamatory negation”.36 Driver cites examples of this “emphatic negative” from Akkadian and Arabic, as well as from BH, where lō’ has developed this significance in certain instances because it actually represents the fuller form halō’, with interrogative hē. Again, we might consider the possibility that occurrences of lō’ for lô (“to/for him/it”) were influential in the development of the practice of converse rendering (e.g. Isa. 9.2; Ps. 100.3). Of course, the problem with such attempted solutions is that, at best, they could work only in those instances where the negative particle is present, or is judged to have been present, in the Hebrew original. They do not account for the insertion of 35 R. H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 29. 36 G. R. Driver, “Affirmation by Exclamatory Negation”, JANESCU 5 (Festschrift T. H. Gaster; ed. D. Marcus; 1973), pp. 107–14. While the phenomenon described by Driver (as by others before him) is demonstrably present in different phases of Hebrew, whether biblical (Driver compares Jer. 49.9 with Obad. 5) or postbiblical, not all his biblical examples are convincing. Both Job 23.17 and 41.2 are difficult texts and are variously treated by commentators. In the case of 23.17 the omission of the negative by one Hebrew manuscript (Kennicott 48) – “eine Erleichterung des Textes” according to G. Fohrer (Das Buch Hiob [KAT, 16; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1963], p. 363) – is interesting for all that. On Job 23.17 and emphatic lō’ see further R. Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation and Special Studies (Moreshet Series; Studies in Jewish History, Literature and Thought, 2; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978), p. 263.

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

275

negatives, unless by means of a highly improbable analogy derived from the cases of omitted negatives. Moreover, although the omission and the insertion of the negative particle belong together within a clearly defined category, there are, as was noted at the outset, gradations within the single phenomenon of converse translation, and so the particular manifestation of the phenomenon examined in this essay should not be accorded a special explanation of its own. We should also recall at this point the existence in the ancient versions of a significant number of translations that are formally converse but that do not really belong in this study, if only because some, or most, of these formal disagreements with the Hebrew text may even represent a circumlocutionary way of saying exactly the same thing as the Hebrew. However, at the very least it can safely be concluded from this study that what Klein has described for the Targums exists in healthy proportions in the other ancient versions and cannot, pace Heinemann,37 be dismissed as a product of early, crude approaches to Targumizing. Translation of the Hebrew scriptures in antiquity did not take place in a vacuum. Traditions of interpretation, affecting difficult texts not least, will already have been developing by the time the first attempts at translation were made. Translators will also have had some awareness of the way of Scripture with Scripture, and in particular of the kinds of modifications introduced by the later biblical writers as they reworked inherited texts and applied them to contemporary needs and circumstances. This is also what the translators of the ancient versions sought to do – the Septuagint and the Peshitta as well as the Targums, and sometimes just as frankly and as openly. At the beginning of his article on converse translation Klein quotes the familiar saying of R. Judah that encapsulates the problem of the would-be translator of biblical texts, and maybe of any text: “He who translates a verse literally is a liar, but he who elaborates on it is a blasphemer.”38 This famous dictum is very much apropos where the Targums and the ancient versions generally are concerned, in that it draws attention to the interpretative dimension in the act of translation. The phenomenon of converse translation is but a small part of the evidence testifying to the fact that it is not textual variants but, rather, the interpretative impulse affecting the translators that accounts for so many of the “deviations” with which the ancient versions abound. Such reworking of the text, in the process of writing commentary on it, is also evident in the Qumran pesharim, in which the “pesherists”, although functioning primarily as expositors, are sometimes also found to be “acting as biblical authors”.39 It is true that the Targumist/methurgeman was not encouraged to think of his product as on a par with the sacred texts themselves, yet there are 37

See n. 5 above. T. Meg. 4.41 (cf. b. Qid. 49a); text in M. S. Zuckermandel (ed.), Tosephta (Jerusalem: Bamberger and Wahrmann, 2nd edn, 1937), p. 228. 39 See T. H. Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 120. Lim notes further, in the same paragraph: “There is a formal distinction in their commentaries between what they quote as lemma and interpretation, and yet at certain points they also blur this dividing line by changing the very words of scripture.” This kind of observation by Lim is the more significant because he sets himself unusually strict criteria for the recognition of “pesherist” modifications of the text of Scripture (cf. his conclusions on p. 94). 38

276

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

references aplenty, and not least Targumic ones, that make an equation between the scribe and the prophet,40 while for Philo of Alexandria, and presumably some others, the translators of the books of the law into Greek were not so much translators as “priests of the mysteries and prophets”, and fit to take their place alongside Moses himself.41 In a thoroughgoing discussion of the ancient Bible translator and his attitude to the biblical text, therefore, the status of both the text and the translator, as perceived in antiquity, would have to be taken into account. What the ancient translators lacked, in comparison with their modern counterparts, was the capacity to “flag” in footnote form the changes that they introduced, if we may assume that they would indeed have wished to avail themselves of such a facility. Thus we cannot be sure in problem cases whether a deviation from the presumed Vorlage had, in the mind of the translator, a textual or grammatical basis, or whether it is to be attributed simply to theological motivation. The use of the footnote facility by a modern version, in just the kind of situation reviewed in this essay, can be illustrated from The Jerusalem Bible (1966) at Josh. 17.18, where the translators decided that the Hebrew kî should be rendered “since”, thus making Joshua tell the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh that their land allocation would include the forested hill-country, but not the lowland area, “since you cannot drive out the Canaanite because of his iron chariots and his superior strength”. However, to achieve this sense the translators have made the explanatory clause negative, and have indicated in a footnote to “cannot” that the insertion of the negative is “conjectural”. By contrast, in The New Jerusalem Bible, published in 1985, the word kî is given another of its possible significances – that is, as a concessive, and the need for emendation therefore does not arise (“although they have iron chariots and although they are strong”). The major impulse for the insertion of the negative in The Jerusalem Bible version no doubt came from the critical apparatus in the third edition of Biblia Hebraica, which has “prps ins lō’”. It was Martin Noth who was responsible for the editing of Joshua in the latter, so it is not surprising to find that in his commentary on Joshua he advocates the insertion of the negative, translating: “wenn du den Kanaaniter ‘nicht’ vertreiben kannst”, and remarking that otherwise v. 18b makes no sense.42 So whereas the modern translator of the biblical text thinks almost exclusively in terms of original readings and corruptions of them, our problem with the translators of the ancient versions is that interpretation played a greater part – or at least more obviously played a part – in the making of these versions. At the same time, we can safely assume that the ancient translators were conversant, not with the perfectly transcribed Hebrew texts of much later times, but with manuscripts whose fallibility may well have been emphasized in many a case by marginal or interlinear 40

Cf. R. P. Gordon, “Targum as Midrash: Contemporizing in the Targum to the Prophets”, in M. H. Goshen-Gottstein (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Panel Sessions: Bible Studies and Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), pp. 66–68. 41 Vit. Mos. 2.40. 42 M. Noth, Das Buch Josua (HAT, 1.7; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2nd edn, 1953), p. 102. Noth himself attributes the idea of inserting the negative to R. Smend (Die Erzählung des Hexateuch [Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1912], p. 333).

“CONVERSE TRANSLATION” IN THE TARGUMS AND BEYOND

277

corrections, as in the large scroll of Isaiah from Qumran (lQIsa). The translational tendency to correct and improve, therefore, may not have developed exclusively from a view of what falls within a translator’s competence or duty at the level of interpretation, but also from the awareness that biblical manuscripts sometimes fail, and that even such a device as rendering by converse translation may sometimes be a legitimate tool for the interpretation of the biblical text.

Chapter 22

The Legacy of Lowth: Robert Lowth and the Book of Isaiah in Particular1 Robert Lowth was born on 27 November 1710, in Winchester where his father William had been appointed a canon of the cathedral in 1696. William Lowth was himself a theologian of some accomplishment whose interests included the Old Testament prophets, Josephus and Clement of Alexandria. It was ordained, therefore, that the young Robert should study at the school founded by William of Wykeham several centuries earlier for the preparation of young men for the service of church and state. The régime under which Lowth began his learning was exacting and consisted almost entirely of the study of classical authors in the original languages. A Winchester alumnus writing several decades before Lowth records how, in his day, school began at six o’clock each morning, with the first exercise of the day a verse composition on a set theme.2 At Winchester Lowth developed a rare facility for verse-making that is represented by two compositions subsequently published: The Genealogy of Christ, inspired by the Old Testament characters depicted on the east window in the college chapel, and Katherine-Hill Near Winchester, apostrophizing the spot where the boys of Winchester disported themselves during their limited free time away from their desks (“When to thy pleasures joyful I repair / To draw in health, and breathe a purer air”). It was a precocious talent such that when the poet and Olney hymnist William Cowper was shown some of Lowth’s schoolboy verses he declared that, had he been present when Lowth declaimed them, I should have trembled for the boy, lest the man should disappoint the hopes such early genius had given birth to. It is not common to see so lively a fancy so correctly managed, and so free from irregular exuberances, at so unexperienced an age; fruitful, yet not wanton, and gay without being tawdry.3

If Lowth acquired classical learning at Winchester, it was “Orientalism” and primitivism that captured his imagination when he went up to New College, Oxford, in 1729. In Oxford he established credentials as the foremost theorist among a group of Wykehamist “pre-Romantics” who, in keeping with the prevailing doctrine, 1 The first draft of this study was written in the private library of Ora Lipschitz and Simcha Friedman in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, in September 1999. Their generous hospitality greatly assisted its production. 2 See A. K. Cook, About Winchester College (London: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 14–17. 3 See J. G. Frazer (ed.), Letters of William Cowper, I (London: Macmillan, 1912), p. 182 (Letter LXXIX, dated 9 February 1782).

278

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

279

traced the origins of poetry as the purest and most ancient expression of the human imagination to “the Orient”, and more particularly to the poetry of the Hebrews. Lowth’s views on Hebrew poetry are set out in De sacra poesi hebraeorum,4 which was published in 1753 and which gives the text of 34 lectures delivered in Oxford during his tenure as Professor of Poetry from 1741 to 1750. Here we are told, not only that poetry originated in the ancient east, but that it was a gift from the creator to the first humans; and so, following Milton, Lowth can attribute Ps. 148 to Adam.5 Most famously, in these lectures Lowth argues for the essentially poetic character of Hebrew prophecy and highlights parallelism as the defining feature of Hebrew poetry. However, when he surmises that there were colleges of trainee prophets where the tiros were taught the skill of composing to music,6 we may detect the influence of his own schooling at Winchester. Already the importance of Isaiah is becoming evident in the Praelectiones. After the Psalms, Isaiah is the book most frequently quoted, while Lowth’s translation of Isa. 14, containing the ode on the downfall of the king of Babylon, won him special praise from such admirers as Christopher Smart and Joseph Warton.7 According to Lowth, Isaiah represented “the first of all the prophets both in order and in dignity”.8 While his primitive anthology was contained within the Hebrew Bible, Orientalism as promoted by him and his contemporaries tended to play down distinctions between the Hebraic and the nonHebraic, and between the ancient and the modern.9 So the observations of “modern” travellers like Sir John Chardin, Edward Pococke and Thomas Harmer in “the east” are cited regularly in illustration of points of detail in the biblical text. Moreover, the poetical book of Job, which Lowth regarded as the oldest of the biblical books, is also viewed as the least specifically Israelite of them.10 At the same time, Lowth’s intensive classical education at Winchester could not be denied, and – although it was hardly expressive of Orientalism or primitivism – in Isaiah (see below) he frequently adverts to classical sources for illustrative purposes. Lowth’s preoccupation with the forms of Hebrew poetry and, indeed, his explicit eschewing of theological discussion have resulted in his being classed as more humanist than Christian,11 but this is to misread him. Theological comment is by no means absent from his notes on Isaiah, and when it occurs it is orthodoxly Christian in assuming revelation in history and through Scripture, prefiguration and incarnation. As John Milbank observes, it is wrong “to conclude that because Lowth is not concerned to expound the truth of the scriptures, nor to establish their factual veracity, 4 De sacra poesi hebraeorum: Praelectiones academicae oxonii habitae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1753). 5 Praelectio XXV (p. 334). 6 Praelectio XVIII (p. 230). 7 Cf. B. Hepworth, Robert Lowth (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978), pp. 37, 165–67. The poem is translated into Latin at the end of Praelectio XXVIII (pp. 376–79). 8 Praelectio XXI (p. 281). 9 Cf. Hepworth, Robert Lowth, pp. 51, 94–95. 10 Praelectio XXXII (pp. 420–21). 11 Cf. Hepworth, Robert Lowth, pp. 36, 94, 98, 154 on Lowth’s “materialistic”, “humanistic”, “secular” outlook.

280

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the work is theologically neutral”.12 Lowth is rightly lauded for his contribution to the study of the forms of Hebrew poetry, and indeed for giving classic expression to the view that the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible largely consist of what may be described as “poetry”. This all came to a heady climax in Isaiah: A New Translation, published in 1778, in which Lowth presented not only a translation but also extensive notes on the Hebrew text.13 In the “Preliminary Dissertation” he states his position on a number of basic issues relating to the practice of textual criticism. He recognized that the Masoretic vocalization of the received Hebrew text was a secondary development: “in effect an Interpretation of the Hebrew Text made by the Jews of later ages, probably not earlier than the Eighth Century; and may be considered as their Translation of the Old Testament” (p. liv). He was aware that the Septuagint translation of Isaiah has many flaws, opining that it is as bad as for any book in the Hebrew Bible (p. lxvi), though that does not prevent him from frequently quoting it or occasionally retroverting on the basis of it. He was less objective, and certainly less accurate, in his estimation of the work of his friend Benjamin Kennicott – “a Work the greatest and most important that has been undertaken and accomplished since the Revival of letters” (p. lxii). Kennicott made his collation of mediaeval manuscripts of Isaiah available to Lowth pre-publication, and Lowth frequently cites Kennicott variants as pointing to more pristine readings of the Hebrew.14 When Lowth does emend the MT towards a presumed original reading he sometimes has precedent among the commentators whom he consults, and very often the support of the ancient versions which, not surprisingly, he uses without too much regard for their general characteristics, or for the necessity often enough laid upon the ancient translators of making the best sense out of a text that was problematic already in antiquity. Thus, to take some instances from the early chapters of Isaiah, the emendations at 1.7 and 2.6 are representative in already having been advocated by earlier scholars. Lowth’s positive evaluation of the ancient versions is illustrated at 6.11, where he accepts the presumed Vorlage of the LXX (cf. Vulgate), while at 1.3 he expresses high regard for the text underlying Aquila’s version. At 3.8 he follows the Syriac and emends the text, and similarly at 9.8 on the basis of the Targum (“Chaldee”). The writers whom Lowth most frequently quotes are K. F. Houbigant, Thomas Secker, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1758 to 1768, and the Jewish rabbinical commentator Kimchi. Houbigant’s critical notes on Isaiah were published in 1753.15 In the “Preliminary Dissertation” Lowth notes that he was given permission by Archbishop Secker’s successor to consult the archbishop’s marginal notes written in, respectively, a folio English Bible and a Hebrew Bible in the edition of J. H. Michaelis (Halle, 1720), which had been deposited by order of Secker in the Lambeth Library (p. lxix). 12 J. Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997), p. 63. 13 Isaiah: A New Translation. With a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes Critical, Philological, and Explanatory (London: J. Dodsley & T. Cadell, 1778). 14 Kennicott’s collations were published as Vetus Testamentum hebraicum cum variis lectionibus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1776). 15 In Biblia hebraica cum notis criticis et versione latina, IV (Paris: C. Briasson & L. Durand, 1753).

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

281

And so to the main purpose of this study, which is to consider two examples of Lowth the textual critic at work and to note how, in his emendations of the Hebrew text – in which his views on parallelism were a contributory factor – he anticipated later scholarship by deferring to the doubtful evidence of the ancient versions. Isaiah 57.17 The second half of Isa. 57, beginning with v. 14, marks a change in tone from the preceding verses in that now God in all his majesty extends the hope of healing and restoration to his people in spite of their defection from him. This is the setting within which God declares in v. 17: ‫בעון בצעו קצפתי‬. This clause is most often translated as if ‫ בצעו‬derives from the familiar BH ‫בצע‬, “(unlawful) gain”,16 as in NRSV “Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry.” The verse continues with the assertion that those whom God “struck” had persisted in their contrariness. The LXX, however, has βραχυ´ τι for ‫ בצעו‬and so represents God as having been angry “a little” or “for a little while”. BHS notes the Greek and proposes an emendation of the MT on the basis of it, viz. *‫בצע‬, without the suffix, now glossed with the Latin “paululum” (“for a little while”). No doubt the prior proposal to replace ‫בעון‬, the first word in the verse, by ‫( בעונו‬i.e. with 3 m.s. suffix) is an emendation consequential on the decision about *‫בצע‬, since ‫ בעון‬would no longer be in construct relationship with the following word, and “I was angry for a little while because of their sin” reads a little more easily than would a text with an unsuffixed form.17 The BHS editor may even have reckoned that the 3 m.s. suffix had crossed from one noun to the other through a simple scribal lapse at some point in the early transmission of the MT. For all that, whatever the LXX had in its Vorlage corresponding to ‫בצעו‬, it appears to have read ‫ בעון‬unsuffixed as in the MT, hence its rendering by δι’ α‘ µαρτι´αν. The main sponsors in the modern period of what we may for the moment dub the LXX-BHS approach have been NEB and REB, the former translating our clause by “For a time I was angry at the guilt of Israel” and the latter revising to “For a brief time…” The revised Gesenius lexicon also accepts the meaning that appears to be supported by the LXX and refers its readers to C. C. Torrey’s commentary on Isaiah for further explanation.18 Torrey claims, without further comment, that ‫ בצע‬has its “etymological” meaning of “bit, morceau, Bisschen” and compares BH ‫רגע‬ (“moment”). He thinks that the LXX rendering has a more solid basis than mere guesswork, and that it may well represent a Vorlage with an MT-type reading.19 The 16 I am grateful to Peter Harland for letting me consult an advance copy of his paper “‫בצע‬: Bribe, Extortion or Profit?” (see now VT 50 [2000], pp. 310–22), in which he argues that the term generally has a negative connotation. 17 Cf. the MT’s suffixing of ‫בצע‬. 18 R. Meyer and H. Donner (eds.), Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, I (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 18th edn, 1987), p. 167. 19 C. C. Torrey, The Second Isaiah: A New Interpretation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), p. 436. Cf. also J. Fischer, In welcher Schrift lag das Buch Isaias den LXX vor? Eine textkritische Studie (BZAW, 56; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1930), pp. 63–64.

282

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

dictionary references to Torrey notwithstanding,20 the first to propose this explanation of ‫ בצע‬in the modern period appears to have been Robert Lowth in Isaiah: A New Translation. In his notes on Isa. 57.17 Lowth remarks: For ‫בצעו‬, I read ‫בצע‬, paululum, à ‫בצע‬, abscidit; as LXX read and render it βραχυ τι. “Propter iniquitatem avaritiae ejus,” the rendering of Vulg. which our translators, and I believe all others follow, is surely quite beside the purpose.21

Lowth therefore translates the first line of the verse by “Because of his iniquity for a short time I was wroth.” He clearly believed that he was the first to follow the lead of the LXX in his treatment of ‫בצעו‬. The verb meant basically “cut”, and the LXX translator assumed a noun denoting something cut off, or of short duration.22 Basically, then, the issue is whether there is evidence in Biblical Hebrew for a noun derived from the root ‫בצע‬, meaning “(small) portion, piece” and capable of being used adverbially with the sense “for a short time”. HALAT, which cites the (Lowth)/Torrey explanation without giving it approval, does suggest, coincidentally in the same entry, two possible occurrences of ‫ בצע‬with something like the required meaning.23 Its explanation of the occurrence of ‫ בצעך‬in Jer. 51.13 by “abgeschnittenes Stück” is based upon the presumed root meaning of “cut” for BH ‫בצע‬, but Jer. 51.13b is a very difficult text; the LXX (= 28.13) certainly represents a root other than ‫ בצע‬in this case.24 The expression ‫ בצע כסף‬in Judg. 5.19 is also cited in HALAT as illustrating a similar meaning for ‫בצע‬, but there are no special grounds for seeing anything here other than the more usual sense of “gain”, now extended in the direction of “plunder”. Now if the biblical support for Lowth’s explanation at Isa. 57.17 is doubtful, there is not much in post-biblical usage that would sustain it. Saadia may reflect awareness of such an explanation of ‫ בצע‬in his Arabic translation of Isa. 57.17 where, at the same time as he represents the more usual sense associated with this noun, he speaks of God’s wrath being directed against a section of the community.25 Ben Yehuda notes a couple of instances of ‫ בצע‬meaning “piece”, but this does not amount to much and still falls short of the temporal significance proposed for Isa. 57.17.26 Since it is difficult to buttress Lowth’s proposal with philological support, the same must, of course, apply to the LXX – if we are to assume that the LXX’s treatment of ‫בצעו‬/‫ בצע‬is to be explained philologically. There are, however, other potentially viable ways of explaining the difference between the MT and the LXX. 20

As well as the revised Gesenius lexicon, see also HALAT. Isaiah, Notes, p. 251. The punctuation is reproduced as in Lowth. 22 At Isa. 38.12 ‫( בצע‬piel) is translated in the LXX by the verb ε ’κτε´µνειν, according to D. Barthélemy, Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament. II. Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamentations (OBO, 50/2; Fribourg: Editions universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), p. 415, but the Hebrew and the Greek are not that closely related in this verse and too much should not be made of the possible equation. 23 HALAT, pp. 141–42. 24 ει ’ς τα` σπλα´ γχνα σου probably assumes ‫ במעיך‬with BHS. 25 See J. Derenbourg, Oeuvres complètes de R. Saadia ben Iosef AI-Fayyoûmî. III. Version arabe d’lsaïe (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1896), pp. 86 (Arabic), 101 (French). 26 E. Ben Yehuda, Thesaurus totius hebraitatis, II (Berlin: Schoeneberg, n.d.), p. 585. 21

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

283

Houbigant, whom Lowth regularly cites, though not on this particular point, suggests that the LXX reflects a text with ‫“( פתע‬immediately”).27 R. Kittel, who edited Isaiah for BHK, cites the Greek in support of the emendation ‫[“( רגע‬for] a moment”), reading also ‫ בעונו‬for ‫בעון‬. This suggestion had, however, already been dismissed by Bernhard Duhm as “ein verdientes Unglück des Konjekturensports”.28 Duhm himself assumed that the LXX Vorlage had ‫מצער‬, with which we may compare Ziegler’s subsequent proposal of ‫מזער‬.29 ‫ מצער‬occurs with prefixed lamedh in Isa. 63.18, apparently with the meaning “for a little while”, rendered in the LXX by µικρο`ν (+ τι S* Or. V 214 Cyr.). If we were to pursue this possibility of an alternative Vorlage at 57.17, we could, for that matter, suppose that the Greek translator thought that he saw ‫ – בצער‬with only the final letter differing from what we have in the MT – and so translated by βραχυ´ τι. In that case the variant would consist of the adjective ‫“( צעיר‬small”), written defectively, and the inseparable preposition ‫ב‬. Here, however, we run into a procedural issue, since it is a good question whether the textual critic should be obliged to reconstruct readings using a precise lexical form or idiomatic phrasing in order to explain every versional divergence from the MT. In other words, is he or she required to proceed in cases of variant readings as if what an ancient translator thought he saw in his Vorlage was necessarily grammatical or idiomatic? If the textual critic favours an ancient version with a “best possible” retroversion into Hebrew he or she may actually complicate the task of adjudication between competing readings by creating a more viable alternative to the MT than ever actually existed. In the case of Isa. 57.17 it is perfectly conceivable that the translator read ‫ – )בצעיר =( בצער‬which is nearer to the MT than the ‫ מצער‬or ‫ מזער‬proposed by others – and translated as he did.30 However, having thus set up the possible Greek Vorlage, we might then proceed to question its suitability in respect of idiomacy and contextual appropriateness; and, despite the inherent circularity in all this, the procedure is legitimate, even if liable to misfire. At any rate, since Lowth’s explanation of the MT lacks support, the possibility of relating LXX βραχυ´ τι to MT ‫ בצעו‬suffers with it, and the attraction of the explanation from the Hebrew root ‫ צער‬gains in appeal. We should note, too, that if the LXX could be shown to represent ‫בצער‬/‫ מצער‬this would confirm that its Vorlage had a fourth radical after ‫בצע‬, corresponding to the waw in MT ‫בצעו‬. So far the discussion has been in terms of possible variant readings, but it is necessary also to consider the interpretative factor that is so often involved in the translational equivalences of the ancient versions, and from which no translation can be completely free. The two approaches are not mutually contradictory, since sometimes the translator’s interpretative preference or ideological tendency will 27

BHK, IV, p. 160. B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (Göttinger Handkommentar zum Alten Testament; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd edn, 1914), p. 404. 29 J. Ziegler, Untersuchungen zur Septuaginta des Buches Isaias (Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen, 12/3; Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1934), pp. 165–66. 30 In view of the speculative nature of the discussion, it seems unnecessary to appeal to the graphic similarity between beth and mem in the old Hebrew script, or to the possibility of aural confusion between these two labial consonants. 28

284

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

have inclined him to read a difficult, or not so legible, text in a certain way, or to choose a particular option where more than one possibility existed. The first colon of Isa. 57.17 has to be examined in this light before any final decision about Vorlage is reached. In the first place, we should note that, whereas the idea of God being wrathful against his people is widely represented in the Old Testament, there are a few texts where it is suggested that this divine anger is not interminable, as perhaps classically expressed in Ps. 30.6(5): For his anger is but for a moment; his favour is for a lifetime.

This idea is expressed a couple of times in Isaiah, and more so in LXX Isaiah. According to 10.25, the divine wrath that used Assyria as its agent of punishment against Israel would end “very soon” (‫)עוד מעט מזער‬. At 26.16 the LXX is innovative in this respect, representing the difficult ‫ צקון לחש מוסרך למו‬of the MT by “with small affliction do you correct us”. There is no strikingly obvious explanation of the Greek in relation to the Hebrew;31 what is important for the present discussion is the Greek translator’s inclination to think in terms of the limited intensity, or even duration, of the chastisement meted out by God to his people. As regards the MT, Isa. 54.7–8 is the text closest to 57.17: “For a brief moment I forsook you, but in great compassion I will gather you together” (v. 7), where the LXX has χρο´νον µικρο`ν for ‫ברגע קטן‬. While it is hardly necessary to attribute the LXX plus (α’πε´στρεψα) το` προ´ σωπο´ ν µου α’ π’ αυ’ τουˆ in 57.17 to 54.8, in view of the obviously elliptical nature of the MT at 57.17,32 the LXX translator cannot have been unaware of the close verbal connexion between the two verses – a connexion that he has cemented by his introduction of βραχυ´ τι into his translation of 57.17. Most obviously, the immediate context may also have influenced the Septuagintal rendering of Isa. 57.17. The preceding verse has God declare that his accusations and his anger do not last forever. Considerations of context can, of course, work in either of two ways, whether by confirming the originality of a reading that is appropriate to its wider setting or by giving grounds for suspecting that a contextually compatible reading has been influenced secondarily by the context. Perhaps, therefore, the Greek translator of 57.17 (or his Vorlage) was influenced by the immediate context, possibly with assistance from such a text as 54.7–8, into emphasizing the finiteness of the divine wrath when directed against Israel. If the translator (or copyist-editor) was already predisposed by theological Tendenz into amelioration of the biblical text in favour of Israel-Judah (cf. above on Isa. 26.16), he will have been all the more susceptible to the pull of the immediate context in this case. Bergmeier33 introduces another factor when he notes how the Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible had difficulty in handling BH ‫“( בצע‬gain”). He claims that, 31 Cf. R. R. Ottley, The Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus). II. Text and Notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), pp. 231–32. 32 pace M. H. Goshen-Gottstein (ed.), The Book of Isaiah (The Hebrew University Bible Project; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1995), p. 258. 33 R. Bergmeier, “Das Streben nach Gewinn – des Volkes ‫”עון‬, ZAW 81 (1969), pp. 93–97 (95).

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

285

whereas the word is correctly rendered in eight of its occurrences, there are ten that are incorrectly translated. More particularly, in Isaiah MT ‫ אישׁ לבצעו מקצהו‬at 56.11 is translated very freely by ‘ε´καστος κατα` αυ’το´ , which is contextually appropriate – “shepherds” going their own way, in ironic reversal of the sheep motif of 53.6, according to which the “we” of the passage had gone astray “like sheep” – but it scarcely reflects a proper understanding of the Hebrew term. Bergmeier concludes that LXX 57.17 had ‫ בצעו‬in its Vorlage and that the translator opted for a free rendering out of simple ignorance of the true meaning. Other indications of actual Tendenz may be present in LXX 57.17. The Hebrew verb ‫ קצף‬is translated by λυπειˆ ν, which at first sight looks like an attempt to evacuate ‫ קצף‬of the idea of divine anger, except that the ‫קצף‬/λυπειˆ ν equation operates elsewhere (cf. 1 Sam. 29.4; 2 Kgs 13.19; Isa. 8.21).34 At the same time, the equation of ‫ קצף‬with ο’ργι´ζεσθαι is tolerated in v. 16. There is, however, the difference that, whereas in v. 17 the intransitive qal of ‫ קצף‬is represented by a transitive verb and object in ε’λυ´ πησα αυ’το`ν (“I grieved him”), ‫ אקצוף‬in v. 16 is translated by ο’ργι´ζεσθαι in a statement that God would not be angry forever. In the third colon of v. 17 the differences are more substantial and may be credited with more obvious intention to ameliorate this address to Judah. Where the MT says that God’s people “went stubbornly in the way of their heart”, the Greek says that they “went gloomily (or ‘sullenly’ [?]) in their ways”. στυγνο` ς for ‫ שׁובב‬has the appearance of mitigation, and the same may be said of the absence of an equivalent of ‫( לבו‬in ‫)בדרך לבו‬, since with the omission goes the idea of wilfulness, just as happened with the neutralization of ‫ שׁובב‬in στυγνο` ς. A softer focus on Judah in the hands of its God is clearly the intention of the Greek translator. So where does this survey of options leave us? We have seen that MT Isa. 57.17 and, quite probably, the LXX attest to a form with a radical after the ‘ayin in ‫;בצע‬ that, even if we were to read ‫ בצע‬instead of ‫בצעו‬, there is no substantial basis for translating by “paululum”; that the Septuagintal βραχυ´ τι probably reflects a reading (whether actual or imagined by a translator) derived from the root ‫ ;צער‬that the immediate context could have influenced the Greek translator into emphasizing the limited duration of God’s wrath vis-à-vis his people; that the LXX is otherwise and evidently in the business of ameliorating the text and thus may come under suspicion for its rendering of ‫ בצע‬by βραχυ´ τι; that the LXX in general is less than sure-footed when dealing with BH ‫“( בצע‬gain”). Two further considerations may be briefly introduced. First, in Isa. 56.11 the leaders of the community have been accused of turning aside “each to their unjust gain (‫”)לבצעו‬, and such straying is the subject of 57.17–18 (“went stubbornly in the way of their heart” [v. 17], “I have seen their ways” [v. 18])’. Just as ‫ בצע‬makes perfect sense in 56.11, so its occurrence in 57.17 in a similar setting occasions no difficulty. Secondly, we may have some sympathy with Bergmeier’s point that the idea of God’s being “angry” with Judah for only a moment is very appropriate to 54.7, which falls within chs. 40–55 with their message 34 It is therefore unnecessary to assume that the Greek represents the verb ‫“( עצב‬grieve”) instead of MT [‫( בצע]ו‬cf. Goshen-Gottstein, The Book of Isaiah, p. 258).

286

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

of imminent salvation for the Judaean exiles, but may not so obviously reflect the viewpoint of chs. 56–66 and 57.17 in particular. It seems, therefore, that Robert Lowth’s venture into textual criticism at Isa. 57.17 was ill-founded, and that those texts, editions, translations and commentaries that have followed him – they include BHK, BHS, J. B. Moffatt’s translation,35 NEB, REB, the German 1980 Einheitsübersetzung36 and the new Gesenius lexicon – have done so ill-advisedly. Isaiah 59.18 In his treatment of this verse Lowth again displays his reserve for the MT, which he declares to be “very imperfect, and absolutely unintelligible”,37 and he shows his willingness to retrovert towards an ostensibly superior Hebrew text on the basis of versional evidence – in this case the Targum to Isaiah. He comments on “the learned Vitringa” (as he is wont to call him) and his unavailing efforts to explain the MT, adding that those who regard the Hebrew text as absolutely infallible “ought surely to give us somewhat that has at least the appearance of sense”. He then introduces the Targum which, retroverted, points to what he believes to be the original form of the text. For the Hebrew ‫“( כעל גמלות כעל ישׁלם‬According to their deeds, so will he repay”, NRSV) the Targum has ‫מרי גמליא הוא גמלא ישׁלם‬, which Lowth renders in Latin by “Dominus retributionum ipse retributionem reddet” (“The Lord of retributions himself will render retribution”). In other words, the Targum represents ‫ כעל‬at the beginning of the verse by the equivalent of ‫“( בעל‬Lord”). Now we may think that Lowth has exaggerated the difficulties in this colon, especially since ‫כעל‬, the word that he is anxious to emend, occurs in 63.7, again in the context of recompense, though without any of the syntactical awkwardness attaching to the second occurrence of ‫ כעל‬in 59.18. The MT has, at any rate, exercised the minds of both ancient and modern interpreters, and the LXX translator plainly was uncomfortable. He joins the colon to the preceding verse with its description of God putting on his armour before intervening on behalf of truth and justice: “as one about to pay recompense, reproach to the enemy”. In defence of his reconstruction, Lowth compares the resultant expression “lord of retribution” with ‫( בעל אף‬lit. “lord of anger”) in Prov. 22.24.38 As he notes, the same Targumic expression ‫ מרי גמליא‬also appears in Isa. 35.4, there as the equivalent of MT ‫גמול‬ ‫“( אלהים‬with terrible recompense”, NRSV). This, of course, still leaves the second occurrence of ‫ כעל‬in Isa. 59.18 requiring explanation. Lowth says that the word has been omitted in the Targum, but claims that it too should be read as ‫בעל‬, and so he assumes an original Hebrew text that ran: ‫בעל גמולות ישׁלם‬/‫בעל גמולות הוא‬. However, it is more likely that the Targum was doing its best with a text that was 35

A New Translation of the Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928). Die Bibel: Einheitsübersetzung (Freiburg: Herder, 1980) (“Kurze Zeit zürnte ich wegen der Sünde [des Volkes]”). 37 Isaiah, Notes, p. 255. 38 Cf. also ‫ בעל חמה‬in Nah. 1.2. 36

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

287

closer to the MT and that, even with the modification of ‫ כעל‬2° to ‫בעל‬, was still problematical. For if we were to suppose for the sake of argument that ‫ בעל‬did indeed stand in place of ‫ כעל‬2° in the Targumist’s Vorlage, it would be a fair question what the Targumist would be likely to do with it. This is probably why the Targum, while representing neither ‫ כעל‬2° nor ‫ בעל‬in strict literalness, translates ‫ כעל ישׁלם‬by ‫הוא‬ ‫גמלא ישׁלם‬. Lowth, at any rate, translates his reconstructed text, with ‫ בעל‬twice for ‫כעל‬, as follows: He is mighty to recompence [sic]; He that is mighty to recompence [sic] will requite:

This Targum-driven emendation of the MT was picked up by Rudolf Kittel in BHK, where it is proposed that ‫ כעל‬1° should be emended with the Targum to ‫ בעל‬and that ‫ כעל‬2° should be changed to ‫גמול‬, again (supposedly) in line with the Targum. Since it is the second occurrence of ‫ – כעל‬with no noun to govern, as Skinner notes39 – that is specially difficult, BHS retains only the second emendation, again to ‫ גמול‬and purportedly on the basis of the Targum. We have already noted, however, the difficulty facing the Targumist as he sought to render the Hebrew text. If he had indeed been faced by a text that ran ‫( כעל גמלות גמול ישׁלם‬or similar) it is doubtful that he would have included the pronoun ‫ הוא‬in his translation. The presence of the pronoun might actually suggest that the Targumist thought that he was reading ‫בעל‬ and paraphrased in order to gloss over the slight problem of having ‫ בעל‬on its own. Moreover, suspicion that the Targum does not reflect a Vorlage with ‫ גמול‬for ‫ כעל‬is confirmed by Jer. 51.56 where, in a reference to divine retribution, the statement that God will “requite” (‫ )שׁלם ישׁלם‬is expanded to say that God will requite “their recompense to them”. In other words, the root ‫ גמל‬supplies a translational object to ‫ישׁלם‬, just as we may suspect that it has at Isa. 59.18. The Targum to Jer. 51.56 is also important for our discussion in that it has another occurrence of the term ‫מרי גמליא‬. The underlying Hebrew in this case is ‫“( אל גמלות‬a God of recompense”), which becomes in the Targum ‫“( אלהא מרי גמליא‬a God the Lord of recompense”). This could be interpreted to mean that ‫מרי‬, as additional, is simply exegetical. Nevertheless, it is probably better – and not quite the same thing – to receive ‫ מרי גמליא‬as a set piece paralleled in Isa. 35.4, where it stands for MT ‫גמול‬ ‫אלהים‬, and in Isa. 59.18 where it corresponds to MT ‫כעל גמלות‬. Now when a word or phrase recurs in the Targums in other than a straight wordfor-word equivalence it is prudent to consider whether the Targum is simply a witness to the Hebrew text or has been rendering in accordance with the interpretative principle of gezerah shavah, according to which similar phrasings in otherwise unrelated texts may be translated in more or less identical fashion. Even if not consciously invoking a hermeneutical principle such as gezerah shavah, a translator of a biblical text might easily translate one passage in the light of another, and especially when confronted by a textual crux. The Targums for their part 39 J. Skinner, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah: Chapters XL–LXVI (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917), p. 193.

288

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

regularly have the same renderings for words and phrases that are not identical but that nevertheless were thought to correspond in one way or another, and this creates hazards for any textual critic who is inclined to retrovert without making proper allowance for this Targumic trait. In his “Preliminary Dissertation” to Isaiah Lowth’s comments on the Targum are exceptionally brief. He appears to accept the ascription to Jonathan ben Uzziel and thinks that the translation was made not later than the first century CE. He acknowledges the closeness of the Targum to the MT, and its occasional usefulness for “ascertaining the true reading of the Hebrew Text” – in spite of its tendency towards “wordy allegorical explanation”.40 Elsewhere in the “Preliminary Dissertation” Lowth finds the Targum already witnessing to the conjectured reading ‫ ותפר‬for MT ‫ וכפר‬at Isa. 28.18. However, even though he correctly notes that the Targum’s use of ‫ בטל‬parallels its translation of the verb ‫ פרר‬in the expression ‫הפיר ברית‬, he does not discuss the possibility that it is not the Targumic Vorlage but its translation method that accounts for its reading here (p. xxxix). This uncritical approach to the Targum as textual witness is also evident in the commentary, for example at Isa. 16.9. Here Lowth happily emends the text in the light of the parallel at Jer. 48.32 and cites the Targumic agreements with the Jeremiah text as if they constitute independent textual evidence. So Lowth fails to pay attention to the significance of parallel renderings in the Targum. At the same time, it may be possible to go beyond simply identifying “parallel translation” as a feature of the Targum at Isa. 35.4, 59.18 and Jer. 51.56, since there may be an identifiable starting-point for the parallelism that occurs in these references. It is reasonable to test the supposition that one text may have influenced the others. In the case of Isa. 35.4, however, it is not so likely that the Targumic ‫ מרי גמליא‬was minted here in the process of translating the MT of the verse. For MT ‫ גמול אלהים הוא‬the Targum has ‫הוא מרי גמליא יוי‬. Since the Targum to Isaiah habitually represents ‫אלהים‬, when referring to the God of Israel, by the tetragrammaton (cf. 13.19; 37.4, 16, 17; 53.4; 58.2), the same may be assumed to apply in 35.4. This almost certainly means that the expression ‫ מרי גמליא‬was triggered off by the occurrence of ‫ גמול‬in the MT. That this is probably the case is indicated by Jer. 51.56, where on a strict word-for-word basis the Targumic ‫ ארי אלהא‬corresponds to ‫ כי אל‬in the MT, leaving ‫ גמלות‬to generate our set-piece expression ‫מרי גמליא‬. It therefore appears as if the assumed Vorlage of the Targum at Isa. 59.18 may have been responsible for the coining of the expression ‫מרי גמליא‬. And if ‫ מרי גמליא‬is original to the Targum to Isa. 59.18, this at least means that we cannot dismiss the Targumic expression outright as a mere standard translation that is irrelevant to the reconstruction of the Targumic Vorlage.41 To that extent, Lowth might plead justification for his dependence on the Targum at Isa. 59.18. Moreover, the supposition that, of the three texts cited, Isa. 59.18 is more likely to have generated the expression may be confirmed by the occurrence of ‫ בעל גמולות‬in a marginal reading in MS B of Ecclesiasticus at 35.13, which runs: ‫מלוה ייי נותן לאביון ומי בעל‬ ‫ גמולות כי אם הוא‬. The origin of the marginal reading is uncertain, though it cannot be 40 41

Lowth, Isaiah, p. lxviii. pace J. Reider, “Substantival ‘AL in Biblical Hebrew”, JQR NS 30 (1940), pp. 263–70 (267 n. 9).

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

289

later than the Peshitta version of Ecclesiasticus, since it appears there.42 There is nothing else in the reading that would support a direct reference to Isa. 59.18, while on the other hand there is obvious affinity with Prov. 19.17. It could be that ‫בעל‬ ‫ גמולות‬was simply a current expression or even an ad hoc coinage; nevertheless, the correspondence with the assumed Vorlage of the Targum at Isa. 59.18 is noteworthy. As already noted, it is possible to exaggerate the difficulties in the first colon of Isa. 59.18. The expression ‫כעל גמלות‬, for correction of which Lowth turned to the Targum, presents no problems when taken by itself. Not only is ‫ כעל גמלות‬good Hebrew, we have already noted that there is a strikingly similar expression also involving the use of ‫ כעל‬in Isa. 63.7: ‫כעל כל אשׁר גמלנו יהוה‬. It would be cause for comment if originally 59.18 had ‫ בעל‬and 63.7 had ‫כעל‬, even if the referents in the two texts are quite distinct.43 Both BHK and BHS, and especially the former, have been beholden to the Targum for their reconstruction of the text of Isa. 59.18, though whether through the mediation of Lowth or independently it is not possible to say. At first sight, NEB also seems to be in agreement with the Targum: High God of retribution that he is, he pays in full measure …

However, NEB assumes that the MT contains an occurrence of ‫ על‬meaning “High One”, in reference to God.44 REB reverts to the more traditional interpretation: “According to their deeds he will repay…”45 The legacy of Lowth is substantial, if it is assessed in terms of the influence that his views on Hebrew poetry exercised on his contemporaries and on later scholarship. In England poets and writers of the eighteenth century took up his insights; in Germany Johann David Michaelis published his own edition of Lowth’s Praelectiones in two volumes in 1758 and 1761, and Johann von Herder’s Vom Geist der ebräischen Poesie (1782–83) famously betrays its indebtedness to Lowth in its enthusiasm for poetic parallelism.46 However, the acclaim has not been universal or unqualified. That Lowth’s views on poetic parallelism in the prophets did not persuade the revisers of the AV is quite ironical. Lowth expresses more than once in his writings the hope that there would be a revision of the AV in view of its manifest failings. Referring to the numerous marginal annotations in Archbishop Secker’s 42 See F. Vattioni (ed.), Ecclesiastico (Naples: Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 1968), p. 185. For this and for other helpful observations on Ben Sira I am most grateful to my colleague James K. Aitken. 43 Cf. S. Sekine, Die Tritojesajanische Sammlung (Jes 56–66) redaktionsgeschichtlich untersucht (BZAW, 175; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1989), pp. 132–33, 273. 44 See G. R. Driver, “Hebrew ‘al (‘high one’) as a Divine Title”, ExpTim 50 (1938), pp. 92–93 (“like the high one will He pay full recompense”). 45 The emendation of the first occurrence of ‫ בעל‬to ‫כי אל‬, on the basis of Jer. 51.56, is favoured by A. B. Ehrlich, Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel. IV. Jesaia, Jeremia (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912), pp. 212–13. 46 On Lowth, Herder and others, see further C. Bultmann, Die biblische Urgeschichte in der Aufklärung (BHT, 110; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), pp. 75–85.

290

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Bibles, he says that “[t]hese valuable remains of that great and good man will be of infinite service, whenever that necessary work, a New Translation, or a Revision of the present Translation, of the Holy Scriptures, for the use of our Church, shall be undertaken”.47 Again, having paid generous tribute to “our Vulgar Translation” as having an excellent style that has “taken possession of our ear”, and having noted the way in which the AV had pre-empted most of “[t]he most obvious, the properest, and perhaps the only terms, which the language affords”, Lowth goes on to suggest that when it is thought desirable to set forth the Scriptures “to better advantage … the expediency of which grows every day more and more evident … a Revision or Correction of that Translation may perhaps be more adviseable [sic], than to attempt an entirely new one”.48 The revision did come, just over a hundred years later, but without affirming Lowth’s discovery of poetic form in the prophets. The 1885 revisers note in their preface: In the poetical portions, besides the division into paragraphs, the Revisers have adopted an arrangement in lines, so as to exhibit the parallelism which is characteristic of Hebrew Poetry. But they have not extended this arrangement to the prophetical books, the language of which although frequently marked by parallelism is, except in purely lyrical passages, rather of the nature of lofty and impassioned prose.49

While Wilhelm Gesenius followed Lowth’s lead in his commentary on Isaiah published in 1820–21, in Britain T. K. Cheyne, whose commentary came out just a few years before the RV Old Testament, anticipated the revisers in his avoidance of poetic form in his translation of Isaiah.50 The 1980s saw further reassessment of Lowth on parallelism, by James Kugel in The Idea of Biblical Poetry.51 Kugel upholds the idea of parallelism in the prophets, but rejects Lowth’s division of it into categories such as synonymous, synthetic and antithetic. There is much more variability at both the formal and functional levels, and purely synonymous parallelism is scarcely allowed to exist. Kugel is particularly effective in his attack on this category, as in his discussion of Isa. 1.3 where he rejects the idea of mere restatement in “An ox knows its owner/and an ass its master’s trough”.52 Instead there is progression here: 47

Isaiah, p. lxix. Isaiah, pp. lxxii–lxxiii. Cf. also his remarks, in a sermon preached in Durham in 1758, to the effect that nothing would confirm and illustrate the teachings of the Bible better than “the exhibiting of the Holy Scriptures themselves to the people in a more advantageous and just light, by an accurate revisal of our vulgar translation by public authority” (Sermons, and Other Remains of Robert Lowth [repr.; London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995], pp. 85–87 [85]). 49 “Revisers’ Preface to the Old Testament”, The Holy Bible. The Revised Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885); cf. R. P. Gordon, “ ‘Isaiah’s Wild Measure’: R. M. McCheyne”, ExpTim 103 (1992), pp. 235–37. 50 Cf. G. B. Gray, The Book of Isaiah I–XXXIX (XXVII) (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), p. lx. 51 J. L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). For criticism of Kugel, see A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 4–6. 52 Lowth cites Isa. 1.3 in his section on “synonymous parallelism” in Isaiah, “Preliminary Dissertation”, p. xvi. 48

THE LEGACY OF LOWTH

291

The animal of the first [clause] was hardly considered the most praiseworthy of beasts: nevertheless “ox” is in several significant respects considered superior to its frequent pair, “ass.” More important, parallel to the “owner” of the first is “master’s trough” in the second.53

– for even an ass knows where to get its food. Kugel rightly makes the point that, strictly speaking, Lowth was not the first to “discover” parallelism. Nor indeed was it the centre-piece of the Praelectiones, though by the time of the commentary on Isaiah it had an enhanced status in Lowth’s thinking. Even here, however, he enumerates a list of other important criteria for distinguishing poetry from non-poetry.54 Part of the problem is that parallelism is a tendency in Hebrew writing of various types, and it is precarious to talk of poetical form simply on this basis. Most recently, Mary Douglas comments on the presence of parallelism in the laws of Leviticus as a product of the book’s delight in craftsmanship and design, and she cites Lev. 22.10 in illustration. Echoing Kugel’s scepticism, she claims that “[t]he good bishop did not make a discovery that had been missed for two millennia, he invented a word”.55 It seems that “the good bishop” contributed to the problem by telescoping – probably in all innocence – the history of previous scholarship. Others such as Marc Meibom and Christian Schoettgen had discussed parallelism in all but name.56 Schoettgen addressed the subject in an essay in his Horae hebraicae et talmudicae, published in 1733, in which he divided Hebrew writing into the ordinary-historical (“pedestris sive historicus”) and the rhetorical-poetic (“oratorius sive poeticus”).57 His examples of “exergasia”, taken principally from the Psalms, also include Isa. 1.18 and 53.5, Jer. 8.22, and even Dan. 12.3; but one finds no mention of Meibom or Schoettgen in the index of Lowth’s Isaiah commentary. Lowth’s contribution to biblical scholarship consisted in part in his recognition that parallelism is intrinsic to biblical poetry and that it is a feature in its own right rather than a colouring agent of figurative-tropical language. For him parallelism implied metre, but Hebrew metre was unrecoverable. The Masoretic tradition, late and interpretative, could offer no help towards recovery: the different system of te‘amim for Job, Psalms and Proverbs was not even extended to obvious poetry like Song of Songs and Lamentations.58 By the time of the Isaiah commentary Lowth was commending parallelism as an aid to the restoration of the Hebrew text: Thus [two] inveterate mistakes, which have disgraced the Text above two thousand years, (for they are prior to the Version of the Seventy,) are happily corrected, and that, I think, beyond a doubt, by the Parallelism, supported by the example of similar passages.59 53

Kugel, The Idea, p. 9. Isaiah, p. li, with cross-reference to Praelectiones III, XIV, XV. 55 M. Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 46–47. 56 Cf. Kugel, The Idea, pp. 258, 267. 57 C. Schoettgen, “Dissertatio VI, de Exergasia Sacra”, in Horae hebraicae et talmudicae, I (Dresden: C. Hekel, 1733), pp. 1249–63; cf. the appendix “Christian Schoettgen’s Exergasia Sacra”, in J. Lundbom, Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric (SBLDS, 18; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), pp. 121–27 (2nd edn; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997). 58 Praelectio XVIII (p. 227). 59 Isaiah, p. xl. 54

292

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

So too had Meibom and Schoettgen suggested the restorative potential in parallelism.60 Since we need not restrict the force of Lowth’s comment to straight binary relationships, in the case of Isa. 57.17 the parallel suggested by the LXX with the first bicolon of the previous verse may well have been instrumental in Lowth’s coinage of *‫“ בצע‬paululum”, which has so misled a number of later scholars. So too at 59.18 Lowth is to be found constructing synthetic parallelism out of what is a mere colon in the MT – admittedly with internal parallelism – now purportedly with the support of the Targum. While there are, no doubt, better examples of parallelism helping towards probable reconstructions of the Hebrew text, Lowth’s legacy was never going to be substantial on the textual, linguistic or philological fronts. It is a special privilege to contribute this discussion of Robert Lowth to a volume that honours the memory of a scholar who both enjoyed and excelled in the practice of textual criticism.61

60

Cf. Kugel, The Idea, pp. 267, 272–73. The following studies have been encountered since this article was written: G. Stansell, “Lowth’s Isaiah Commentary and Romanticism”, and P. K. Tull, “What’s New in Lowth? Synchronic Reading in the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Centuries”, in Society of Biblical Literature, 2000 Seminar Papers (SBLSP, 39; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), pp. 148–82 and 183–217, respectively; D. Norton, A History of the English Bible as Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 219–29, 245–47. 61

The Targums, Chiefly to the Prophets

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 23

Alexander Sperber and the Study of the Targums I Alexander Sperber applied his scholarly energies in two main directions, viz. historical Hebrew grammar1 and the study of the Targums. He also wrote on the Septuagint2 and, insofar as it related to targumic issues, the Peshit.ta,3 but these are mere opuscula by comparison. His work on the Targums, which is what concerns us here, is represented almost entirely in the five volumes of The Bible in Aramaic. Most of his several shorter discussions published elsewhere are subsumed in these volumes and especially in the last of them (IVB), subtitled The Targum and the Hebrew Bible, published posthumously in 1973. Sperber did not live long enough to produce the index volume to which he refers in this last volume (pp. 4, 9). His editions of the “Babylonian” Targums to the Pentateuch and Prophets were welcomed as fulfilling a long-felt need, but they soon came under critical fire as certain deficiencies became apparent. At this stage it is enough to say that, if some cannot do with Sperber, few of us can do without him. That The Bible in Aramaic is very largely the work of the younger Sperber, when he was in his late twenties and thirties,4 is clear from his own account of the project. Much of it was completed before his departure from Bonn in 1933. Moreover, the developments that were responsible for his leaving Germany also interfered with his arrangements for the publication of his editions there.5 Because of the prospect of a long delay in publication, Sperber published specimens of his work in article form in 19356 and again in 1945.7 The first presents what is essentially ch. VA in volume IVB of The Bible in Aramaic (“The Hebrew Vorlage of the Targum: A. The 1 See his A Historical Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 1966), where others of his publications on Hebrew grammar are noted (p. vii). 2 Cf. in particular Septuaginta-Probleme, I (BWANT 3.13; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1929). 3 “Peschitta und Onkelos”, in S. W. Baron and A. Marx (eds.), Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut 1874–1933 (New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1935), pp. 554–64. 4 A point stressed by A. Díez Macho in his review of vol. IVB of The Bible in Aramaic, in JSJ 6 (1975), p. 217. 5 This phase of Sperber’s life is mentioned briefly in his article, “The Targum Onkelos in its Relation to the Masoretic Hebrew Text”, PAAJR 6 (1934–35), pp. 310–11. 6 “The Targum Onkelos”, pp. 309–51 (315–51). 7 “Specimen of a Targum Edition”, in S. Lieberman et al. (eds.), Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), pp. 293–303. He notes (p. 293 n. 1) that the prospects for the publication of his Targum editions were improving (“as soon as the world returns to normalcy again”).

295

296

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Pentateuch”), while the second gives a text and apparatus for the Targum of 1 Sam. 17, with Ms Or. 2210 of the British Library serving as basic text. We know from Sperber’s own comments that volumes I and II of The Bible in Aramaic may have been ready as early as 1931,8 and it is likely that a draft of volume III was completed within a few years of that date. Díez Macho reports that all the originals of Sperber’s editions were in existence in 19499 when Sperber paid a visit to Barcelona. While there, Sperber generously made his work available to Díez Macho. So the preparation of Sperber’s targumic material was completed at an early stage, and the years between completion and publication were taken up largely with historical Hebrew grammar and, perhaps, some of the laborious transcribing and retranscribing of Targum material mentioned in the foreword to volume IVB. None of the newer developments and none of the new gods of the targumic world found their way into volumes I–IVA nor, except in the merest concessionary way, into volume IVB. There is not so much as a mention, anywhere, of Codex Neofiti 1, notes Díez Macho its chief sponsor.10 Of course, as Díez Macho informs us in volume 1 of the editio princeps, Sperber did not believe in Neofiti: “This ms Neofiti 1 contains NO genuine Targum at all, but it is a clumsy attempt to imitate the Targum-style and create a Targum-text.”11 It may even be that Sperber regarded Neofiti 1 as “a Christian composition”, as was suggested to Díez Macho.12 Thus Sperber anticipated the questions of Goshen-Gottstein about the status of Neofiti 1, even if GoshenGottstein’s raising of the possibility of editorial “trimming” in the sixteenth century fell far short of Sperber’s outright rejection of this Targum.13 II In volume IVB Sperber recounts how in 1923, while still an undergraduate, he “just happened to be reading the book of Jeremiah” when he encountered a problem at 11.14 and then the apparent solution in the Targum of the verse. “Surprisingly, this reading was not quoted in Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica (in its edition of 1905 [sic], which in those days was The Biblia Hebraica) nor in any Biblical commentary” (pp. 15–16). Sperber wrote to Rudolf Kittel informing him of his “discovery” and observing that there were many other such non-Masoretic readings reflected in the Targum text but not reported in Biblia Hebraica.14 Equally, many of the supposed variants actually attributed to the targumic Vorlage were explicable in terms of the targumic translation method, and the greater part of the letter is taken up with this 8

“The Targum Onkelos”, p. 311. JSJ 6 (1975), p. 217. Díez Macho indicates that most of what he saw was in photocopy (sic). 10 JSJ 6 (1975), p. 218. 11 Neophyti 1, I: Génesis (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1968), p. 42.* Díez Macho is quoting from a letter that Sperber wrote to him on 9th October, 1960. 12 Neophyti 1, V: Deuteronomio (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1978), p. 85.* 13 M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, “The ‘Third Targum’ on Esther and Ms. Neofiti 1”, Bib 56 (1975), pp. 301–29 (312–15). 14 The letter is reproduced in The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, between pp. 16 and 17. 9

ALEXANDER SPERBER AND THE STUDY OF THE TARGUMS

297

aspect of Biblia Hebraica. Sperber listed and briefly discussed fourteen citations of the Targum in the Biblia Hebraica edition of Jeremiah, twelve of which wrongly attributed non-Masoretic readings to the targumic Vorlage. He ended his letter by volunteering his assistance to Kittel in connection with the Targum material in the new (third) edition of Biblia Hebraica. The letter was not acknowledged at the time, but later, when Sperber was working on the revision of Biblia Hebraica as an assistant editor to Kittel, he found it in a package containing W. Rudolph’s manuscript of Jeremiah. In view of Sperber’s comments in the letter, a look at Jeremiah in the first and third editions of Biblia Hebraica is revealing.15 Into the third edition went a reference to the Targum at Jer. 11.14 and out went all but a couple of the twelve references that Sperber had rejected in his letter. It would be smallminded to dwell on the fact that Jer. 11.14 was, even by Sperber’s own canons, in no better state than the other “variants” to which he had rightly taken exception. Still, even in Rudolph’s edition of Jeremiah for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1970 [1972]) the reference to the Targum remains in the apparatus at 11.14, as does the cross-reference to 7.16, on which Sperber had partly based his “solution”. The contribution of Sperber as regards the integration of Targum citations into the apparatuses of BH 3 is acknowledged by Kittel in the foreword to the edition (p. v), and it would be an interesting study to chart his influence across the various books – not to say editors – of the Pentateuch and prophets in the light of the detailed evidence that we have of Sperber’s views on the targumic Vorlagen. But first we should note a strange inconsistency in Sperber’s approach to the matter. In the case of the Pentateuch he can envisage non-Masoretic readings to the tune of 650 in the Vorlage of Targum Onqelos.16 Well over half of these supposed variants are derived from readings in the main critical apparatus. And since many of these “variants” are paralleled in non-Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts, Sperber feels confirmed in his opinion about their status as true variants, and is even encouraged to think that other Onqelos readings which do not have the support of Hebrew manuscripts may be just as significant. The process whereby some Hebrew manuscript readings were assimilated to the MT may have robbed them of this kind of Hebrew manuscript support. With the prophets, however, Sperber takes a different line, and the long second chapter in volume IVB has for its basic premiss that the differences between the Targum and the MT are usually occasioned by the “style” of the Targum (pp. 22–23), though some possible evidence to the contrary is also noted (pp. 133–37). At the same time, “real” variants reflected in the Targum of the Prophets are listed, with occasional comments, in ch. VB. We may be grateful, then, that Sperber’s influence upon the apparatuses of BH 3 for the Pentateuch was not as great as for some other parts of the Hebrew Bible. Sample checks in the early chapters of each of the Pentateuchal books reveal a slight increase in Targum citation over the earlier edition(s),17 but that is all. When 15 Sperber himself refers to the first edition of Biblia Hebraica (IVB, pp. 15–16; cf. above), and all the citations mentioned in his letter to Kittel are found in the first edition. 16 The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, pp. 11, 29. 17 That is, in relation to the lists of variants given by Sperber in ch. VA of The Bible in Aramaic, IVB.

298

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

comparisons are made between Sperber’s list of “real” variants in the Targum of the Prophets, as in his ch. VB, and the apparatuses of the several prophetic books, the evidence of his influence becomes stronger. It is, perhaps, surprising in view of his negative success in banishing the pseudo-variants discussed in his 1923 letter to Kittel that he did not manage to introduce into Rudolph’s revised edition of Jeremiah more of the variants that he assumed genuinely to have a basis in the Targum. Of ten agreements between BH 3 and Sperber’s list for Jeremiah 1–10, six were in the first edition of Biblia Hebraica. More striking, on the other hand, is the extent to which Kittel himself was willing to accept Sperber’s judgment in the books which Kittel personally edited. If we take Isaiah 1–10, for example, we find that, of twenty-seven variants in Sperber’s list,18 nineteen are cited in BH 3, as against only three in the first edition of Biblia Hebraica. The picture is not significantly different for 1 Samuel, which was one of the other books edited by Kittel. There are eleven agreements between Sperber’s own list and the BH 3 apparatus to 1 Samuel 1–10, only three of which were in the first edition of Biblia Hebraica. Now since one of the most obvious things to be said about Sperber’s assumed variants in the targumic Vorlagen is that many of them are no more convincing than those that he excluded on grounds of targumic style, he cuts a very enigmatic figure here as in some other departments of his work. Despite his own statement that it was only after he had gone through all the prophets that he became aware of the peculiarity of the targumic translation technique,19 it is clear that Sperber was trying to exorcize the retroversion demon back in 1923.20 The problem was that he was not nearly strict enough in his application of his own insights and, though he did not create the problem of the widespread misuse of Targum for retroversive purposes, he became an unintentionally generous subscriber through his participation in BH 3.

III From the beginning, Sperber was convinced that the production of editions of the “Babylonian” Targums would assist in the recovery of the pristine Targum text, and for this purpose the variants in his main apparatuses were regarded as crucially important. In this connection his firm demarcation between Targum as institution and Targum as a literary document is illuminating.21 He doubtless exaggerated the difference and the time-gap – at least 1,200 years, in his opinion – but as a result we are able to appreciate just how Lagardian (in matters targumic!) was his approach. “Targum” was about texts in transmission, and the recovery of the Urtext the simple and legitimate goal of the targumist. In his earliest articles, published in 1926 and 1927, Sperber notes a feature of Targum which is diffused throughout the manuscript tradition, the recognition of which would, as he thought, help uncover the original 18 19 20 21

Counting the references to 10.1, 13, 18 as two variants in each case. The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, p. 16. Cf. also his article, “Zur Sprache des Prophetentargums”, ZAW 45 (1927), pp. 267–88 (268–72). The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, p. 2.

ALEXANDER SPERBER AND THE STUDY OF THE TARGUMS

299

text.22 With the decline of Aramaic as a spoken language and the increasing authority of the biblical text, a “Hebraizing” of the Targums occurred, resulting in a series of minor calques. It followed, therefore, that, where there are two readings, the grammatically correct one is original.23 The aim was to create “a grammatically correct Targum”.24 However, Sperber’s criterion is far from sufficient to deal with the range of variants within the manuscripts which he himself edited. Moreover, its inadequacy in special circumstances may be illustrated from Nah. 1.9 where the shorter text of the Antwerp Polyglot is the grammatically correct one, yet the absence of three words and the modification of a fourth would accord well with the abridgment policy at work elsewhere in the Targum text of this Polyglot, albeit there is no further evidence for it in the Targum of Nahum.25 This preoccupation of Sperber with the recreation of the original Targum text partly accounts for his attitude to the vocalization issue, for he believed that the vocalization offers little or no help in this regard.26 As is well-known, Sperber has been faulted for having used manuscripts that are not representative of the authentic Babylonian tradition of vocalization, and for having by-passed texts that would have served his purpose better – notably Vatican Ms Ebr 448 in the case of Onqelos and Ms 229 of the Jewish Theological Seminary for the Former Prophets.27 Furthermore, Genizah fragments preserving the authentic Babylonian pointing were used only indifferently (and unvocalized) for the volume on the Former Prophets, and for the other two volumes not at all.28 While these fragments could not have formed the basis of an edition, they could have been cited more extensively, and presumably the problem of carrying two distinct systems of vocalization in the apparatus(es) would not have proved insuperable. Sperber, however, was disinclined to persevere with texts that were too difficult to read or too fragmentary, especially if they seemed not to help towards the recovery of the original text of the “Babylonian” Targums.

IV When critiquing Sperber’s edition of the Targum of the Latter Prophets some years ago, I produced some statistics that showed that he had achieved a fair degree of 22 “Zur Textgestalt des Prophetentargums”, ZAW 44 (1926), pp. 175–76; “Zur Sprache des Prophetentargums”, ZAW 45 (1927), pp. 267–88 (272–81); cf. The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, pp. 28–29. 23 “Sprache”, p. 281. 24 The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, p. 30. 25 On abridgment of the Targum text in the Antwerp Polyglot see Goshen-Gottstein, “‘Third Targum’”, pp. 308–12. 26 Cf. his comment by way of explanation of his omission of Ms 229 of the Jewish Theological Seminary from his edition of the Targum of the Former Prophets: “Furthermore, the importance of this MS. lies in its vocalization (as far as it can be read); but the text itself is in no way better than the average” (The Bible in Aramaic, IVB, p. 31). 27 Cf. Díez Macho, JSJ 6 (1975), pp. 222–23; D. Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament (OBO 50/3; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1992), pp. ccix–ccx. 28 Note especially his comments in The Bible in Aramaic, I (Leiden: Brill, 1959), p. xvi.

300

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

accuracy in his reproduction of the consonantal text of the books in question.29 A good proportion of the errors – whether originating with Sperber as editor or with the printers – involved the letters wãw and yôdh, and could charitably be regarded as second-order offences. But even yôdh can be crucial to the correct understanding of a word or sentence, as in Zech. 3.3 which, as I have argued elsewhere, preserves a rare occurrence of the qt. yl l- syntagma highlighted by E. Y. Kutscher as an Old Persian calque in Eastern Aramaic and a criterion for distinguishing between Eastern and Western Aramaic.30 There is no doubt about the validity of the reading within the manuscript tradition, and the presence of the construction may even provide collaborative evidence of separate redactional levels within the Targum of Zech. 3.1–5. Since, however, Sperber saw the inner-Targum variants collected in his apparatuses as specially important for the study of the “official” Targums, it is all the more regrettable that he did not do his collating of these with greater care. Sample checks reveal a tendency to omit and otherwise misreport to an unacceptable degree.31 And yet Sperber was correct in his estimation of the importance of the inner-Targum variae lectiones, as the following two examples will illustrate. 1. šmh/šm Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion; they, they are your lot.

The second line of this quotation from Isa. 57.6 translates MT hm hm gwrlk, and the Hebrew and English may be judged to make reasonable sense. lQIsa, on the other hand, has “there they are your lot” (šmh hmh gwrlkh), which picks up the locative “among the smooth stones” of the first colon. Kutscher thought that “the scribe” responsible for 1QIsa 57.6 had introduced the change in order to make the connection with the first line, and yet, as he himself notes, the 1QIsa reading is paralleled in the Targum’s tmn ’nwn ‘dbk.32 More interesting for present purposes is the reading recorded for Ms c in Sperber’s apparatus, for ltmn exactly corresponds to the apparently locative šmh of 1QIsa in a way that the rest of the Targum texts do not. But a further point requires our attention in that šmh in 1QIsa 57.6 almost certainly does not involve the locative hē. At a number of places in the scroll šmh stands where the MT has šm, and there are even two occurrences of mšmh (52.11; 65.20). Sperber’s Ms c therefore represents a flat-footed approach to the reading šmh, since what was functionally a simple adverbial hē has been treated as a locative hē. Further inquiry, however, shows that Ms c and the majority reading at Isa. 57.6 are but representative of a large number of places, in both Targum Onqelos and Targum 29

“Sperber’s Edition of the Targum to the Prophets: A Critique”, JQR NS 64 (1974), pp. 314–21. Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets: From Nahum to Malachi (VTSup 51; Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 113–14. 31 See “Sperber’s Edition”, pp. 319–20. 32 E. Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, VI; Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 292 (cf. pp. 413–14). 30

ALEXANDER SPERBER AND THE STUDY OF THE TARGUMS

301

Jonathan of the Prophets, where the manuscripts are divided between the readings tmn and ltmn for MT šmh,33and even for MT šm.34 2. nws> ‘rq/’pk A largely unexploited approach to the Targums is the study of the translation of selected Hebrew words across the complete targumic spectrum. A good illustration of the value of the approach is provided by Grossfeld’s article, published in 1979, in which he examined the targumic treatment of Hebrew verbs for “flee”.35 One of Grossfeld’s more striking observations is that in the Targum of the Former Prophets BH nws is most often translated by ’pk, and only occasionally by ‘rq, whereas in the Latter Prophets ’pk never represents nws, for which ‘rq is the almost universal equivalent.36 The explanation offered by Grossfeld (p. 118) is that the Targum of the Latter Prophets is older than the Targum of the Former Prophets, and that ’pk as a translation of “flee” was a later arrival in targumic Aramaic. If we bring Sperber’s apparatuses into play this difference between the two halves of the Targum of the Prophets is underlined. In none of the thirty-plus places in the Latter Prophets where nws is translated by ‘rq is there a manuscript variant involving ’pk. In the Former Prophets, on the other hand, ’pk in Sperber’s basic text has ‘rq as a variant at eight places (Josh. 7.4; 10.11; Judg. 1.6; 1 Sam. 17.24, 51; 1 Kgs 12.18; 20.30; 2 Kgs 3.24), while ‘rq in the main text has ’pk as a variant at 1 Sam. 4.16. Sperber’s apparatus therefore seems to show the translation of nws in the Targum of the Former Prophets in a transitional phase when the rendering by ‘rq survives in some references and has not been altogether obliterated in others. Given the extent to which the gezerah shavah principle operates in the Targums, the number of such clear-cut variations may be very limited, but they would be all the more important on that account. Sperber’s collations include his “Testimonia” – “Targum Quotations in the Works of Early Authors” – culled from the Aruch, the commentaries of Rashi and Kimchi and the like. These too have an important contribution to make and are clearly only representative of a much larger number of alternative readings in mediaeval sources; but at the least Sperber should be given credit for having seen their importance. In a sense, his collation of this material may be seen as anticipating the Lost Targumim project initiated by the late M. H. Goshen-Gottstein.37 But again the problem of incompleteness and inaccuracy has to be faced. 33 Sperber notes thirty-three instances in Targum Onqelos alone (“The Targum Onkelos”, p. 321); see also Isa. 22.18; Jer. 16.15; 22.27; 40.4. 34 See Isa. 23.12; 34.14; 57.7. Note that the Samaritan Pentateuch sometimes has šm where the MT has šmh (cf. Gen. 19.20; 23.13; 42.2; Num. 35.6, 11; Deut 4.42). Occasionally šmh in the MT lacks any locative significance (e.g. 2 Kgs 23.8; Jer. 18.2; cf. GK 90d). 35 B. Grossfeld, “The Relationship between Biblical Hebrew brh and nws and their Corresponding . Aramaic Equivalents in the Targum – ‘rq, ’pk, ’zl: A Preliminary Study in Aramaic-Hebrew Lexicography”, ZAW 91 (1979), pp. 106–23. 36 The exceptions are at Isa. 35.10 (= 51.11) (swp) and Zech. 2.10 where MT wnsw is paraphrased by “assemble yourselves and come”. 37 Fragments of Lost Targumim [Hebrew], 1 and 2 (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983, 1989).

302

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

V Perhaps the greatest desideratum so far as the Targum of the Prophets is concerned is the production of a concordance. Happily, our colleagues at the Theological University in Kampen are well on the way to supplying our need. In Vetus Testamentum 1989 the preparation of a “Concordance to Targum Jonathan to the Prophets” was announced,38 and details were given in a paper read by Professor J. C. de Moor at a seminar held in Amsterdam in March 1991.39 The team have decided – wisely, in my judgment – to base their work on Sperber’s volumes dealing with the Targum of the Prophets. All major variants noted by Sperber will be included, as will important consonantal variants from other sources known to the team. Where variants are concerned, some discrimination will therefore be required in the use of the concordance. Since the Kampen team are understandably restricting their citations to “major variants”, they might profitably ponder the feasibility of independent checking of the readings selected against the limited number of manuscripts and printed editions collated by Sperber. This, in fact, brings us to the nub of the issue: does Sperber’s work on Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan (to the Prophets) need to be done again? If scientific accuracy is desirable, then there is certainly need of revision. Accurate reproductions of basic texts are worth having, whether they are truly Babylonian or not, for a text is a text. And Sperber’s basic texts are reproduced consonantally with reasonable accuracy, as most will agree. Within the limits set by Sperber, it is probably the apparatuses that most require attention. The new reprint of Sperber’s editions will not last forever, and in the meantime a team effort which aimed to rectify, if not actually replace, Sperber could very usefully get under way.

38

“Announcement: A Concordance to Targum Jonathan to the Prophets”, VT 39 (1989), p. 242. “A Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets” (paper read at a seminar on targumic studies, Judah Palache Institute, Amsterdam, 18 March, 1991). I am grateful to Professor de Moor for supplying me with a copy of his paper, pending publication of the seminar proceedings. [The twenty-first and final volume, including introduction, additions and corrections, and indices was published in 2005.] 39

Chapter 24

The Targumists as Eschatologists1 If the Targums were first committed to writing in the late intertestamental period – an unexceptionable premise in our present state of knowledge – then it should cause no surprise that they are found to reflect the interests and preoccupations of those formative years. And one of the outstanding features of the intertestamental period was the popular predilection for subjects with an eschatological flavour. Furthermore, speculative interest was sharpened by sectarian contention, and the Targumists were unwaveringly on the side of those who maintained a lively eschatological hope, with its promise of God’s imminent intervention in the affairs of a disordered world. The Targumists were, of course, in a privileged position since they stood at the headwaters of biblical exposition and could easily, if they were so minded, make the biblical text conform to their own parti pris. But their endeavours in this field were well-intentioned and normally in the interests of what was considered to be doctrinal orthodoxy. Interpretative Stratagems There were many occasions, let it be said, when the Targumists felt justified in their liberal interpretation of their duties as translators and paraphrasts. If the plain sense of a verse seemed to contradict the general tenor of scripture they would feel dutybound to harmonize, and there were not a few ways of accomplishing this. M. L. Klein has recently drawn attention to the technique of “converse translation” by which even the most refractory text could be made pliant.2 “Converse translation” involves saying the exact opposite of what the text intends, for example by the insertion or omission of a negative particle. Now when the Targumists came to deal with certain O.T. passages which speak of the afterlife they were only too glad to take refuge in the device of “converse translation”. What else could be done with those sections in Job and Ecclesiastes in which the ideas of resurrection and immortality are expressly repudiated? That some of these agnostic sentiments might have been made argumenti causa was not likely to be appreciated by the man in the street. Job xiv 11f., for example, was in urgent need of attention because of its espousal of annihilationism. 1 “Targumist” properly denotes the author of a written Targum. Behind the written Targum there may lie, of course, the oral composition of the synagogal meturgeman. The following symbols have been used: F (Fragment-Targum, ed. M. Ginsburger); N (Targum Neofiti, ed. A. Díez Macho); P (Palestinian Targum; in the case of the Pentateuch this symbol indicates the agreement of at least two of the group F-NPs); Ps (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, ed. M. Ginsburger). 2 “Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique”, Biblica 57 (1976), pp. 515–37.

303

304 11 12

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, so man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake, or be roused out of his sleep.

To render these verses innocuous the Targumist had recourse to a type of “converse translation” which we may dignify with the title of “alternative attribution”. Not men in general, but the wicked in particular, will suffer the fate described by Job: till the heavens are no more the wicked shall not awake, or be roused from their place of sleep.3

Eccles. iii 18–22 is treated in similar fashion, so that it is not “the sons of men” but the wicked who experience the same fate as the beast, and “the advantage of a sinner over the unclean beast is nothing but the burial-place”.4 The resolution of rhetorical questions was, as Klein observes, another method by which dissident texts could be brought into line. But the Targumists not only resolved rhetorical questions, they might also create them, as in Eccles. ii 16. “How the wise man dies just like the fool!” exclaims the Preacher; the Targumist achieves a completely different effect with his rhetorical question: “And why, then, say the children of men that the end of the righteous is like that of the wicked?” This contortion was necessary because the option of “alternative attribution” was foreclosed by the Preacher’s specific reference to the wise man. Resurrection G. F. Moore claimed that “the primary eschatological doctrine of Judaism is the resurrection”,5 and it is certainly the case that the Targums make frequent mention of the resurrection and of the related themes of reward and retribution. Apart from the many general references to the resurrection there are also more specific statements as to who would, or would not, participate in it. Adam, for example, was told by God, “You shall return from the dust and shall arise and give an account and a reckoning of all that you have done” (P Gen. iii 19).6 For her disobedience Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt “until the time when the dead are brought to life” (P Gen. 3 In the light of this and the examples which follow it is surprising to find that the Targumist rendered Job vii 9f. quite literally. 4 Tg Ps. xlix 19 (Heb. 20) introduces the same distinction between the fate of the righteous and the fate of the wicked. 5 Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), p. 379. 6 The same text furnished proof of the doctrine of resurrection for later Samaritan theologians, who, however, based their argument on a reading (“and to your dust you shall return”) peculiar to the Samaritan Pentateuch; see M. Gaster, Samaritan Oral Law and Ancient Traditions (London, 1932), p. 137; J. Macdonald, The Theology of the Samaritans (London, 1964), pp. 374f.

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

305

xix 26), which implies that she herself would be resurrected. On the other hand, it is said of the Egyptians who perished at the Red Sea that they would not be resurrected on the day of judgement (P Exod. xv 12). Exceptions of this kind are made in texts as far apart in time as 2 Maccabees and the Mishnah, to go no further.7 The apocalyptic literature of the intertestamental period displays no consensus in its references to the classes of people expected to have a part in the resurrection. Three main views are represented: a resurrection of righteous Israelites, or of all Israelites, or of all mankind.8 Each of these view-points can be illustrated from the Targums. The Targum to Ps. lxviii 22 (Heb. 23) teaches that nothing will be able to stand in the way of the righteous on the day of resurrection. Whereas the MT declares that God will bring his enemies from Bashan and from the depths of the sea in order to requite them, the Targumist inserts a word of hope for the righteous who had not been buried in the normal way and who might therefore fear exclusion from the resurrection. As for the righteous who died and were consumed by the beasts of the field, says the Lord, I shall bring (them) back from Bashan, I shall bring back the righteous who were drowned in the depths of the sea.9

This positive statement about the resurrection of the righteous does not necessarily imply that the wicked will not be raised, yet it is worth recalling that the MT is actually speaking about the fate of those who oppose God. It could therefore be significant that their resurrection to judgement does not come into the picture.10 Any suggestion that Tg Psalms is late and therefore unlikely to reflect the earlier view that only the righteous would be raised has to be put alongside the fact that the quotation of verse 18 (Heb. 19) of this same Psalm in Eph. iv 8 betrays its obvious indebtedness to the Targum. The resurrection of all deceased Israelites is taught in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. xi 26. The MT says no more than that Eldad and Medad prophesied in the camp of Israel; the Targumist reveals that their prophecies were concerned, in the main, with the end times. We are informed that, after the destruction of the armies of Gog, “all the dead of Israel will be raised and will enjoy the good things hidden for them from the beginning, and will receive the reward of their deeds”. Here it is probably the resurrection of the dead of Israel at the beginning of the Messianic age which is in view; Neofiti and the Fragment-Targum credit the Davidic Messiah with the defeat of the invading armies. This interpretation appears to be supported by the reference to “the good things hidden for them from the beginning”, for this is 7

Cf. 2 Macc. vii 14 (referring to Antiochus Epiphanes); Mish. San. x 1–4. See the references in R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament 2 (Oxford, 1913), p. 218; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), p. 143. 9 Cf. Rev. xx 13; 1 Enoch lxi 5. 10 A resurrection of the righteous only seems to be implied in the conditional promise made to Joshua the high priest in Tg Zech. iii 7. 8

306

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

probably an allusion to the monsters Behemoth and Leviathan which were supposed to have been created on the fifth day (cf. Gen. i 21) and to have been reserved for the Messianic banquet of the last days.11 There is at least one explicit statement of a general resurrection of mankind in the Targums. In the prayer of Hezekiah the king addresses God with the words, “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit” (Is. xxxviii 16). Whatever is meant by “these things” (possibly “the words and works of God”12), the Targumist saw an opportunity to raise the subject of resurrection: “O Lord, thou hast declared that thou wilt bring all the dead to life, and before them all thou hast revived my spirit.” It is the insertion of the word “all” in the first clause which calls for comment. This affirmation of a universal resurrection is deliberate; the Targumist’s choice of words was not dictated solely by the underlying Hebrew text. Unequivocal teaching about a general resurrection is rare in the apocalyptic literature and seems to have gained currency only in the first century AD.13 There was one point on which there was general agreement among the ancient rabbis and that was the role of the land of Israel in the resurrection.14 Israel was, in an eschatological sense, “the land of the living”, the land of everlasting life. Some obscure Hebrew in Hos. xiv 7 (Heb. 8) becomes the vehicle for expressing this conviction. In its Targumic form the verse reads: “They shall be gathered in from their dispersion, they shall dwell in the shadow of their Messiah, the dead shall live, and goodness shall abound in the land.” Israel was, then, the land in which the resurrection life was to be enjoyed. But it also came to be regarded as “the land of the living” in the sense that only there could the dead entertain hope of being raised from their graves. Some authorities held that even a righteous Israelite could be denied a part in the resurrection if he had been buried beyond the borders of Israel (so R. Eleazar in TB Ketub. 111a). Conversely, the hope of resurrection was extended to non-Israelites whose only merit was their interment within the holy land. The resulting concern for the fate of Jews who had died in exile partly accounts for the widespread practice of ossilegium, or secondary burial, especially in the first three or four centuries of the Christian era.15 Secondary burials in Palestine have a long prehistory, but the belief that resurrection was a favour reserved for those buried in the land can only have ensured the continued popularity of the custom. In recognition of this problem, and in order to preserve the unique status of Israel as the land of resurrection, a highly fanciful solution was proposed. It is expounded in the Targum to Cant. viii 5: 11 Cf. P Gen. i 21; Tg Ps. 110; 1 Enoch lx 7–10; 2 Bar. xxix 3f.; 4 Ezr. vi 48–52. Other references in Moore, pp. 363–5; M. J. Mulder, De targum op het Hooglied (Amsterdam, 1975), p. 113. Tg Cant. viii 2 speaks of the old wine which was also thought to have been set aside (same verb [s.n‘] as in Ps Num. xi 26) from the creation (cf. also TB San. 99a). 12 So J. Mauchline, Isaiah 1–39 (London, 1962), p. 236. 13 Cf. Nickelsburg, loc. cit. 14 Cf. W. D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Berkeley, 1974), pp. 61–5. 15 See E. M. Meyers, “Secondary Burials in Palestine”, BA 33 (1970), pp. 1–29; idem, Jewish Ossuaries: Reburial and Rebirth (Rome, 1971).

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

307

Solomon the prophet said, When the dead come to life the Mount of Olives will be split asunder and all the dead of Israel will come out from beneath it; and also the righteous who died in exile will come by way of channels under the ground, and will debouch from under the Mount of Olives. But the wicked who died and were buried in the land of Israel will be ejected just as a man throws a stone with a sling.

The Targum’s picture of subterranean channels issuing at the Mount of Olives is no isolated exegetical quirk, for there are similar representations of the resurrection in rabbinic literature.16 While the connection of the Mount of Olives with the resurrection has no biblical basis, the notion of the cleaving asunder of the hill is obviously derived from Zech. xiv 4.17 Direct reference to the resurrection is made in the Reuchlinianus Targum text of this verse: “At that time the Lord shall take in his hand a great trumpet and shall blow ten blasts on it to resurrect the dead.” Although it is not expressly said that the dead will issue from the Mount of Olives, we are a step nearer the tradition preserved in the Targum to Cant. viii 5. A quite fundamental reinterpretation of the various passages which speak of the subterranean travels of the righteous Israelites was mooted by Herbert Loewe in an extended note in A Rabbinic Anthology.18 Behind the references to underground burrowings, suggests Loewe, there lies the Greek concept of metempsychosis. Each of the terms which serve to depict the resurrection in this highly fanciful manner can be shown to have had a totally different significance originally. For example, the notion that the righteous will “roll” (mitgalgelîn)19 through the ground is the result of a misunderstanding of the term gilgûl, meaning “transmigration”. In fact, says Loewe, two ideas have become intertwined: the practice of removing corpses to Palestine for re-burial and the concept of metempsychosis which was little understood among Jews and was quite unacceptable in any case. Loewe’s thesis is nothing if not original, but it suffers from a couple of basic weaknesses. First, it is hard to conceive of the rabbis so misunderstanding the idea of metempsychosis as to link it in some way with the institution of secondary burials. Loewe’s reinterpretation had arisen out of the conviction that there was a limit to the fantasies in which the rabbis indulged, and that the view of resurrection presented in Tg Cant. viii 5 was beyond that limit. But is anything gained by substituting rabbinic stupidity for rabbinic fantasy? The second possible objection was anticipated by Loewe himself. There is not good evidence to show that metempsychosis was seriously considered by Jewish thinkers until the time of Saadia. Loewe counters by pointing out that, although the concept was not discussed, the terminology was known in the earlier period. However, the fact that the root gãlal, from which the later gilgûl (“transmigration”) derives, was used in connection with the incubation of an egg and the rolling of dough is hardly conclusive for the argument. Nor can Philo’s acquaintance with the idea of transmigration be taken as an index of knowledge or opinion in Palestine and Babylonia. And it is noticeable that the 16 17 18 19

Some parallels are given in Strack-Billerbeck, III, pp. 828f. Cf. V. Aptowitzer, “Arabisch-Jüdische Schöpfungstheorien”, HUCA 6 (1929), p. 227. Ed. C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe (London, 1938), pp. 660–3. The word used in TJ Ketub. xii 3 and TB Ketub. 111a.

308

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

examples of metempsychosis quoted from Josephus and the Talmud are of “retrogressive transmigration”: the souls of the wicked become demons, the men of Babel are transformed into apes, and so on. Such conjectures about the fate of the wicked may owe nothing at all to Greek concepts.20 On the other hand, it would seem that the idea of underground burrowing on resurrection day was already current in Babylonia in the mid-third century AD. The evidence comes from the Dura-Europos synagogue where a large fresco (no. 21) portrays the resurrection, largely in terms of Ezek. xxxvii but also incorporating features from Zech. xiv. There need be little doubt that the action revolves round the Mount of Olives which is shown split in two, the two halves separated by a deep valley whence human heads and limbs are issuing.21 We cannot really tell whether this valley, or channel, was thought to extend under the ground to regions beyond Israel, but there are several reasons for thinking that this was the case. (i) How would the bodies of the righteous who died in Israel be conducted from their graves to the Mount of Olives, if not by “subterranean traction”? (ii) It is unlikely that a painting in Babylonia would represent the resurrection in such a way as to exclude from participation in it the very people by whom and for whom the fresco was made. (iii) It is probable that the group of ten men in Greek garb on the right of the panel are representatives of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. The artist indicates clearly enough that the group had taken part in the resurrection (cf. Pes. R. 147a). There was a particular reason why the vision of Ezek. xxxvii should enjoy prominence at Dura-Europos. In his account of the vision the prophet mentions only that he was set down in a valley. Several rabbinic sources, Targums included, assert that it was the valley of Dura which Ezekiel saw.22 Dan. iii 1 gives the only biblical mention of the valley of Dura, in connection with Nebuchadrezzar’s erection of his great image. Not only was the valley of Dura in Babylonia, the word “valley” in Dan. iii 1 is the Aramaic cognate of the Hebrew biq‘ãh used in Ezek. xxxvii 1. This easy association of Ezekiel’s vision with the valley of Dura was probably made long before the painting of the Dura-Europos frescoes, and the inhabitants of the town will have regarded themselves as being, in a special way, the heirs of the promise. 20

Similar developments are traceable in Islam; cf. J. Macdonald, “Islamic Eschatology – V: The Day of Resurrection”, Islamic Studies 5 (1966), pp. 159f. See also Quran v 60f., etc. 21 See H. Riesenfeld, The Resurrection in Ezekiel xxxvii and in the Dura-Europos Paintings (Uppsala, 1948), esp. pp. 28–34 (this study is reprinted in J. Gutman [ed.], No Graven Images, Studies in Art and the Hebrew Bible [New York, 1971]); E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period 10 (New York, 1964), pp. 179–96; also plate XXI in vol. 11. 22 Cf. P Exod. xiii 17; Tg Cant. vii 10; TB San. 92b; PRE xxxiii. In the fragment of Palestinian Targum to Ezek. xxxvii (see next note) the vision is again located in the valley of Dura. Because the next verse there proceeds to identify the dead bones of Ezekiel’s vision with the remains of those who took part in a supposititious Ephraimite exodus from Egypt thirty years before the main body of Israelites, Díez Macho (p. 203n.) concludes that this must be a different Dura from that mentioned in Dan. iii 1. Instead he nominates Dor, situated between Carmel and Caesarea (cf. 1 Kg. iv 11; 1 Macc. xv 11, 13, 25, etc.). But this is to treat the reference to the Ephraimite exodus as if it were an integral part of the Targum, whereas it is probably a later insertion in the text. The identification of the valley of Ezek. xxxvii 1 with Dura will have been made independently of the tradition of the Ephraimite exodus, as the references at the beginning of this note, which know nothing of that tradition, would indicate.

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

309

Panel no. 21 represents, therefore, a conflation of two resurrection traditions, the one based on Ezek. xxxvii and the other traceable to Zech. xiv. The fresco reflects, in our opinion, that view of the resurrection presented in the Targum to Cant. viii 5 and its rabbinic parallels. And because the Dura-Europos paintings are known to have been made around AD 245–256 we can plot this point with rare accuracy. In the fragment of Palestinian Targum to Ezek. xxxvii published by A. Díez Macho in 195823 the problem of the fate of the diaspora Jews is also addressed. The fragment reproduces Ezek. xxxvii 1–14 in a form which differs considerably from the standard Targum. There are what Díez Macho calls “incrustations” on the earlier text of the passage, and these are easily identified. Apart from these additions, however, there are still major differences from the Babylonian standard version. The latter, as commonly, follows the MT closely, and therefore portrays the resurrection as a revival of national fortunes. In the Palestinian fragment it is the resurrection of those who have died outside Israel which is in focus. Son of man, from what I have done to these bones you can know what I shall do24 to those of the children of Israel who die in captivity. For, behold, the children of Israel are saying, When we die and do not see the deliverance which the Lord will accomplish for Israel, our bones will be dry and our expectation will cease and our confidence perish (verse 11).

Clearly the Targumist is endeavouring to correct that view which denied the blessing of resurrection to those buried beyond the borders of Israel. Messianism Without doubt the most discussed aspect of Targumic eschatology hitherto has been the subject of Messianism.25 For that reason, and because it is such a large field in any case, our observations will be restricted to a few points of general interest. We shall not be misrepresenting the Targumists if we say that, in their estimation, the primary task of the Messiah was to remove the yoke of the Gentiles from the land of Israel. The Targumic version of Is. liii 8 expresses this conviction very aptly: From chastisements and from punishment he shall bring our exiles near. Who shall be able to recount the wonderful things which shall be accomplished for us in his days? For he shall remove the sovereignty of the nations from the land of Israel;26 the sins which my people have committed he shall transfer to them. 23

“Un segundo fragmento del Targum Palestinense a los Profetas”, Biblica 39 (1958), pp. 198–205. The Aramaic actually has the perfect. 25 See, for example, P. Humbert, “Le Messie dans le Targum des Prophètes”, RTP 43 (1910), pp. 420–47; 44 (1911), pp. 5–46; S. H. Levey, The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation (Cincinnati, 1974). 26 For the same emphasis cf. Tg Is. x 27; Ps. Sol. xvii 25; TB San. 99a; Shab. 63a. Cf. the rôle of the Messiah in the eschatology of the Qumran sect: “This [sc. the smiting of the nations] is almost the sole function which is certainly ascribed to the Messiah in the Scrolls. Their Messiah is therefore the Messiah of the 1st century AD coming to make their nation the rulers of the world” (G. R. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls [Oxford, 1965], p. 468). 24

310

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

In the days of the Messiah Israel would recover its status as a nation and there would be a great ingathering of its exiled sons and daughters. But an element of confusion is introduced into all this by the fact that the Targums actually speak of two Messiahs, a Messiah son of David and a Messiah son of Ephraim. Targumic references to the Messiah son of Ephraim are few in number, and the same is true of the rabbinic literature as a whole. All that we are told about him is that he would be killed while doing battle with that eschatological character Gog, the leader of Gentile resistance to the Messianic rule. This information is provided by our two main sources, TB Sukk. 55a and the Reuchlinianus marginal variant to the Targum of Zech. xii 10. In the words of the latter, “the Messiah son of Ephraim shall go out to do battle with Gog and Gog shall kill him before the gate of Jerusalem …” Evidently it was expected in some quarters that the golden age of the Davidic Messiah would be preceded by the appearance, and the death, of a secondary Messianic figure.27 It is all the more surprising, then, and an illustration of the doctrinal pluralism of the Targums, that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exod. xl 11 attributes the defeat of Gog to the hand of the Messiah son of Ephraim. It is impossible to discover how the tradition of the Ephraimite Messiah came into being. Christian Messianism seems an unlikely source of influence.28 Perhaps the most attractive solution is that which sees it as the product of bitter historical experience in the first two centuries of the Christian era, when one and another Messianic hero fell before the seemingly invincible might of Rome.29 The Targums do not represent the Messiah as being personally involved in the raising of the dead. Hos. xiv 7 (Heb. 8), already quoted, comes as near as any Targumic text to linking the Messiah with the resurrection. But here the Targumist does not actually say that the Messiah will himself perform the miracle of resurrection, only that it will take place during his reign of peace.30 This approximates to the situation in all but the very late rabbinic writings. Mish. Sot.. ix 15 says that “the resurrection of the dead shall come through Elijah of blessed memory”. In a few places such as Is. xxvi 19 and Zech. xiv 4 (Reuchlinianus variant) the Targumists see the resurrection as being directly the work of God himself.31 In the thinking of the earlier apocalyptists no distinction was made between the Messianic age and “the world to come”. But already in the first century BC it was being propounded that the Messianic age would be of limited duration and but the 27

The death of the Messiah is anticipated in 4 Ezr. vii 29f. Nor is it easy to relate Targumic Messianism, in its hybrid aspect, to the question of “the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” mentioned in the Qumran Discipline Scroll (ix 11). On this latter see G. R. Driver, pp. 462–86; W. S. LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1972), pp. 98–103. 29 Cf. Levey, p. 16: “Such a personality was probably built up as a psychological reaction to the death of Bar Kokhba.” The concept of dual Messiahship itself is rather older and probably owes its inspiration to the complementary figures of Zerubbabel and Joshua in the early post-exilic period. 30 Cf. Humbert, p. 10: “C’est le seul passage de tout le Targum des prophètes qui place pendant l’époque messianique une résurrection des morts.” 31 Cf. N Gen. xxx 22: “There are four keys which are given into the hand of Yahweh, the lord of all ages, and they are not handed over either to angel or to seraph.” One of these keys is the key (so F; N “keys”) of the sepulchres. On Messiah and the resurrection see Strack-Billerbeck, IV, p. 819; on Elijah and the resurrection see Moore, p. 384. 28

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

311

prelude to “the world to come” (1 Enoch xci 12–17). Seldom do the Targumists commit themselves in expressis verbis; when they do it is, as we should expect, to expound the later view. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exod. xvii 16 announces that God will destroy the Amalekites from three generations: “from the generation of this world, and from the generation of the Messiah, and from the generation of the world to come”. The Hebrew phrase thus dilated is middõr dõr, “from generation to generation”, an expression which might more naturally have been enlisted in support of a two-age scheme of history if such had been in vogue when the Targum was composed. The same tripartite arrangement is presupposed in the Targum to Ps. lxi 7 where it is affirmed that the Messiah would not be subject to death but would live on into the age of “the world to come”. Reward and Retribution From time to time the Targumists saw fit to make their own positive declarations concerning the principles of reward and retribution. So the message of the watchman in Is. xxi 12, “Morning comes, and also the night”, is metamorphosed to become “There is a reward for the righteous and there is punishment for the wicked.” A similar explanation of this rather cryptic utterance of MT is given in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta‘an. i 1): “Morning for the righteous, and night for the wicked; morning for Israel and night for the peoples of the world.” By means of a pun on the word rãzî in Is. xxiv 16 the same theme is introduced,32 and here the Targum stands as close to the apocalyptic literature as anywhere. “The prophet said, ‘The mystery of the reward of the righteous has been shown to me, the mystery of the punishment of the wicked has been revealed to me.’” The association of “mystery” with the theme of reward and punishment is noteworthy. There are various parallels in the apocalyptic literature. Equally, there is nothing in the MT which would have inclined the Targumist to formulate his “mystery” in these terms.33 It may also be regarded as a felicitous circumstance that MT is expressed in the first person singular (“But I say …”). Whether by accident or design, the form of words which the Targumist attributes to the prophet is on a par with “I know a mystery” in 1 Enoch ciii 2 (cf. civ 10, 12; cvi 19) and “He made known to me the mystery of the times” in 2 Bar. lxxxi 4. The first person references by the apocalyptists were not made simply to preserve esotericity; they were also supposed to assure the reader of the reliableness of the information being conveyed. It was doubtless the latter case in Tg Is. xxiv 16. Gehenna and the Second Death are familiar features of New Testament eschatology whose closest parallels on the Jewish side are to be found in the Targums. This holds especially for the use of the term “Second Death” which does not figure in early rabbinic literature, though the concept was known and expressed 32 G. Bornkamm suggests (TDNT 4, p. 814n. = TWNT 4, p. 820n.) that the Massoretic pointing of rãzî is intended to associate the form with rãz, “mystery” (cf. TB San. 94a). 33 The temptation to relate the Targumic expansion to MT sebî lassaddîq (taken in the sense of “glory . .. for the righteous”) is checked somewhat by the fact that these words are given an independent rendering by the Targumist (“a song of praise for the righteous”).

312

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

in other ways.34 Twice in the Targum to Jeremiah it is said of the Babylonian spoliators of Jerusalem that they would “die the Second Death and not live in the world to come” (li 39, 57), but the Targumists are customarily less specific and prefer to direct their strictures against “the wicked” (cf. Is. xxvi 15, xxxiii 14; Hos. xiv 10). This expression, as may be deduced from various texts, certainly included the ungodly within the community of Israel. Upon such the sentence of Tg Is. xxii 14 is passed: “This sin shall not be forgiven you until you die the Second Death, says the Lord God of hosts.” Tg Is. lxv 5 is in similar vein, and again it is ungodly Israelites who are the object of the Targumist’s attack: “their punishment shall be in Gehenna where the fire burns all the day”. An apparent historical allusion in the preceding verse adds to the interest of this particular commination. Is. lxv 3f. outlines certain obnoxious practices which have still to be explained fully. For the most part the Targum is faithful to the Hebrew, but there is one notable deviation in the translation of verse 4a where MT speaks of those “who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places”. Whereas the MT may be alluding to an incubation rite, this is plainly not the case in the Targum. In the latter the guilty party “sit in houses which they build from the dust of graves, and dwell with the corpses of men”. And there is much to be said for P. Churgin’s suggestion that the Targumist had in mind the building of the town of Tiberias by Herod Antipas.35 In the earliest phase of its history Tiberias was regarded with disdain by observant Jews, since it was supposed to have been built partly on the site of a cemetery. The tradition of the unseemly origins of Tiberias was no closely-guarded secret, and it appears highly probable that the Targumist has introduced a contemporising reference to the town. If so, we have a terminus post quem and the makings of a terminus ante quem for this snatch of Targum. Tiberias was founded about AD 20, so that any allusion to its location must be placed after that date. However, in spite of its inauspicious beginnings Tiberias before long acquired a reputation nulli secundus as a centre of rabbinic scholarship, and there are hints of its respectability being acknowledged in the mid-second century AD. Some years after the Hadrianic persecutions Simeon ben Yochai took the springs at Tiberias and “declared either a part or the whole of Tiberias to be clean”.36 Judah ha-Nasi took up residence there and, all in all, it would seem that by AD 200 its period of disfavour had come to an end. A jibe such as we have in Tg Is. lxv 4 is unlikely to have been coined after this date, and probably not in the decades immediately preceding it. What would be the duration of the punishment meted out to the wicked in Gehenna? To this question the rabbis gave varying answers. According to one view, the wicked, whether belonging to Israel or to the nations generally, would be punished for twelve months, while heretics and apostates would suffer unending torments (Cf. TB R.H. 17a; Tos. San. 13 4f.). The Targumists do occasionally speak of the unquenchable nature of the fire of Gehenna in such a way as to suggest belief 34

Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, III, p. 830. Targum Jonathan to the Prophets (New Haven, Conn., 1927), p. 25. See the relevant article by M. Avi-Yonah, “The Foundation of Tiberias”, IEJ 1 (1951), pp. 160–9. 36 Jewish Encyclopedia 12, p. 143. 35

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

313

in punishment of infinite prolongation for rebellious Israelites (cf. P Gen. xxxviii 25; Is. xxxiii 14 may refer to Israelites or, if the wider context is determinative, to Gentile oppressors). Tg Is. lxvi 24, on the other hand, is noteworthy because of the way in which it introduces the idea of limited punishment. The MT says that in the end-time those who rebel against God will be a dērã’ôn, an abhorrence, to the rest of humanity: “their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh”. The last clause is expanded considerably in the Targum: “and the wicked shall be judged in Gehenna until the righteous say of them, ‘We have seen enough’.” To achieve this interpretation the word dērã’ôn has been read as day (or dê) rã’înû, “we have seen enough”. Such a treatment of the MT, no matter about its artificiality, was possible only in an atmosphere in which differing estimations of the significance of Gehenna were current.37 The Targumist’s midrashic interpretation of dērã’ôn emphasizes a feature of the judgement of the wicked which occasionally receives notice in the apocalyptic writings, viz. the expectation that those consigned to Gehenna would be a spectacle to the righteous as the latter enjoyed the delights of paradise (cf. Jub. xxiii 30; Ass. Mos. x 10; 4 Ezra vii 93).38 It is an idea which could have had any one of a number of Old Testament texts as its starting-point (e.g. Ps. xci 8, not to mention Is. lxvi 24 itself), and it finds expression in other texts which have been similarly remodelled by the Targumists (e.g. Ps. xlix 10 [Heb. 11]; Is. xxxiii 17). Sectarian Controversy Finally, we come to a consideration of the possibility of sectarian controversy having left its mark upon the eschatology of the Targums. The passage most discussed in this connection is Gen. iv, which tells of Abel’s death at the hand of Cain.39 Now in Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament (New York, 1969), pp. 53–5, T. H. Gaster voiced his suspicion that an earlier form of the story of Cain and Abel contained some account of a conversation, of the débat type, between the two brothers. Support for this view he found in the words which the major versions supply in addition to the MT’s “And Cain said to Abel his brother” (verse 8). (The MT is truncated and has obviously suffered in transmission.) But the major versions, with the exception of the Palestinian Targums, have nothing more than “Let us go into the field” (or variants) to represent what Cain said. The authors of the Palestinian 37

Is. lxvi 24 is quoted in TB R.H. 17a to show that the exceptionally wicked will suffer unending torment in Gehenna. 38 Cf. also 1 Enoch xxvii 2f., xlviii 9, lxii 12. It is a familiar conceit among the church fathers; cf. Tertullian, De Spectaculis 30; Cyprian, Ad Demetrianum 24. 39 See A. Marmorstein, “Einige vorläufige Bemerkungen zu den neuentdeckten Fragmenten des jerusalemischen (palästinischen) Targums”, ZAW 49 (1931), pp. 235–9; P. Grelot, “Les Targums du Pentateuque – Étude comparative d’après Genèse, IV, 3–16”, Semitica 9 (1959), pp. 59–88; R. Le Déaut, “Traditions targumiques dans le Corpus Paulinien?”, Biblica 42 (1961), pp. 30–6; G. Vermes, “The Targumic Versions of Genesis iv 3–16”, ALUOS 3 (1961–2, published 1963), pp. 81–114 (= pp. 92–126 in Post-Biblical Jewish Studies [Leiden, 1975]).

314

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Targums evidently shared Gaster’s hunch, for they introduce their own form of débat in which the brothers argue the question of theodicy in several of its aspects. Cain is made to say: “There is no judgement, there is no judge, there is no other world, there is no gift of good reward for the just and no punishment for the wicked”, and Abel contradicts him in similar terms. It would seem that Cain and Abel have representative functions so far as the Palestinian Targums are concerned. For L. Finkelstein40 and G. Vermes41 the dialogue is a distillation of the controversy between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. S. Isenberg has sought to reinforce this position by showing that, as early as the second century AD, Cain’s assertions were being used as a topos to be placed on the lips of others who were also held to be heretical.42 He goes on to link the Targumic haggadah to the non-Massoretic reading which the Palestinian Targums share with the other versions, in such a way as to conclude that the haggadah must antedate the standardization of the consonantal Hebrew text. H. A. Fischel interprets the haggadah differently, seeing it as a rebuttal of Epicureanism rather than of Sadduceeism.43 In fact, the first words attributed to Cain (“there is no judgement, there is no judge”) are to be regarded as an Epicurean sententia, according to Fischel. The argument is that it cannot be Sadduceeism which is being repudiated, since Cain “denies any kind of compensatory judgement”, and not just the notion of judgement after death. Cain’s insistence that “there is no other world” is also claimed as a positively Epicurean sentiment. And as further illustration of his point, Fischel attempts to show that the speeches by Cain and Abel betray the influence of Greek rhetorical structures. It might appear as one of the strengths of Fischel’s case that he is able to give full weight to Cain’s assertion that “there is no judge”. On the surface, this is an absolute rejection of the idea of human accountability, in the present life as much as in any future existence. This, Fischel contends, more truly reflects Epicureanism than Sadduceeism. But this is not all that can be said on the matter. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the Sadducees is largely derived from hostile sources in which no attempt at an unbiased exposition of their beliefs is ever made. In view of the tone of many of these references it is well within the bounds of possibility that in Gen. iv the Palestinian Targums are also indulging in overstatement in order to score points off the opposition. It is possible, too, that Cain’s seeming denial of accountability in any shape or form has to be read in the light of his rejection of belief in a future life, the point then being that there is no judgement after death because there is no life after death. It is also relevant to mention that the epigrammatic “there is no other world”, described by Fischel as “a well-known and widely fought tenet of Epicurus”, was precisely that feature of the Palestinian Targum to Gen. iv 8 which led Finkelstein to conclude that the life-setting of the haggadah was the doctrinal controversies involving the Pharisees and the Sadducees (p. 769). Finkelstein was influenced by 40

The Pharisees3 (New York, 1962), pp. 762ff. P. 103 (= p. 116). 42 “An Anti-Sadducee Polemic in the Palestinian Targum Tradition”, HTR 63 (1970), pp. 433–44. 43 Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden, 1973), pp. 35–50 (footnotes on pp. 128–38). 41

THE TARGUMISTS AS ESCHATOLOGISTS

315

the fact that the comparatively uncommon expression “other world” (‘wlm ’h.r) appears in Aboth de-Rabbi Nathan ch. 5 in the account of the schism between the Pharisees and the Boethusians/Sadducees. Fischel, however, lays particular stress on the rhetorical, formulaic nature of the Epicurean sententia which he claims to have discovered in the Palestinian Targum. That the sententia, whether Epicurean or Sadducean, enjoyed a long and varied life in the Talmudic and Midrashic literatures is very evident from his study. It is also undeniable that similar coinages are to be found in Greco-Roman literature, but whether the similarities between these and their Hebrew-Aramaic counterparts are sufficient to justify a theory of a common, in this case Greco-Roman, origin is a different matter. It could be argued that the correspondences upon which Fischel builds his case are nothing more than coincidence. Challenges to items of traditional belief in any culture are naturally couched in negatives,44 and it is this feature of the coinages which more than anything gives them the appearance of sharing a common origin. If the case for the influence of Greek rhetorical patterns is insubstantial, then we must inquire whether the carefully structured utterances of Cain and Abel draw their inspiration from some other identifiable source. In point of fact Ps. lviii 11 (Heb. 12) seems to throw light on the genesis of the dicta attributed to Cain and Abel by the Targumists. weyõ’mar ’ãdãm ’ak perî las.s.addîq ’ak yēš ’elõhîm šõpet. îm bã’ãres. Men will say, Surely there is a reward45 for the righteous, Surely there is a God who judges on earth.

There are several things to be noted about the verse. First, it contains the basic components of the dialogue between Cain and Abel: reward and divine retribution. Again, in the second stich the verbal particle yēš is used. All occurrences of the sententia in Hebrew and Aramaic sources are marked by the use of such a particle: yēš/’ît in positive formulations, ’ên/lêt in negative. Thirdly, as Fischel observes, all Talmudic (and Targumic) formulae of this type have word repetition at the beginning of each “stich”. This feature is also present in the biblical text, in the repetition of the asseverative ’ak.46 In short, it is easier to relate the speeches of Cain and Abel to Ps. lviii 11 than to their supposed Greco-Roman prototypes. We would therefore conclude that the whole case for interpreting the Palestinian Targumic version of Gen. iv 8 as a repudiation of Epicureanism rests on questionable premisses. A more direct challenge to prevalent heterodoxy in the area of eschatology is presented in Tg Mal. iii 6. There the MT’s “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, 44

The point hardly needs substantiation but, compare “there is no God, no hereafter, no punishment” (R. Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ2 [London, 1970], p. 49, quoting his Communist torturers). 45 perî clearly means “reward” here. The Targum has ’gr t b, “good reward”, the expression used in P . Gen. iv 8. 46 In ’elõhîm šõpet îm we even have an instance of parēchēsis (repetition of sound), a feature of which . Fischel (e.g. pp. 38f.) makes a great deal.

316

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” has been transformed into “I the Lord have not changed my covenant which is from of old; but you, O house of Israel, you think that if a man dies in this world his judgement has ceased.” This is certainly not a matter of an alien philosophy on the periphery of Judaism; it is, on the contrary, a heresy which has become deep-rooted among a section of the population and which requires controverting in plain language. It is not now a question of putting a topos in the mouth of a heretical figure like Cain or Esau (see P Gen. xxv 32, 34), but of confronting a significant proportion of the “house of Israel” in the manner of P Ezek. xxxvii 11 (“the children of Israel”). “Such a situation seems to have existed in these proportions only in the period when the Pharisees and Sadducees co-existed and before strict pronouncements on Minim in general began to be made by the rabbinical authorities.”47 Targumic eschatology will not readily submit to schematizing in the ways which we might consider appropriate. It is too tolerant of variation and dissonance for that to be the case. But there is one feature which remains a constant throughout, and that is the Targumists’ insistence on human accountability in the face of the doctrines which they uphold. Tg Mal. iii 6 is illustrative of the point. The Targumists were not content with the mere repetition of eschatological credenda; they set themselves the more rewarding task of encouraging the faithful, and of rallying the wavering, to orthodoxy of belief and to rectitude of conduct.

47 A quotation from my, as yet, unpublished dissertation, A Study of Targum Jonathan to the Minor Prophets: From Nahum to Malachi (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 49f. [See now my Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets (SVT 51; Leiden, 1994), pp. 60f.]

Chapter 25

Terra Sancta and the Territorial Doctrine of the Targum to the Prophets1 It is not difficult to understand why the concept of “the land” is one of the dominant notes in the Hebrew Bible. The tradition of a promise of territory for Abraham’s descendants was already old by the time the patriarchal stories began to be written down;2 when in the fullness of time those descendants created a kingdom and then an empire for themselves, the tradition assumed still greater significance as “a formative, dynamic, seminal force in the history of Israel”.3 Possession of “the land” became a visible sign of the unique relationship between God and Israel. Israel was the land of the divine presence, and even when this land proved as vulnerable to Assyrian depredations as any other in the Near East, the idea of “the land of the presence” was perpetuated, albeit now in the myth of the inviolability of Zion. In 587 BC both Zion and the myth were destroyed by the Babylonian forces of Nebuchadrezzar II, but the concept of “the land” lived on, and in the rabbinic period we find it being developed and applied in new and sometimes surprising ways. As I have noted elsewhere, some rabbinical authorities saw fit to introduce the territorial factor into their discussions of the subject of resurrection.4 So close was the link between resurrection and “the land” in some minds that R. Eleazar ben Pedat could deny the privilege of resurrection to Israelites buried beyond the borders of Israel (BT Ket. 111a). The lengths to which exegesis could go in order to accommodate this view can be seen in Tg Song of Songs viii. 5, where it is suggested that deceased expatriate Israelites would, on the day of resurrection, be conducted to the Mount of Olives by means of underground channels. The problem of the expatriate is also addressed in the fragment of Palestinian Targum to Ezek. xxxvii published by A. Díez Macho in 1958.5 Here too it is asserted that Israelites buried abroad will participate in the resurrection.6 But territorial considerations affected other equally important areas of Jewish belief and practice, and it is the purpose of this essay to examine three of these with particular reference to the Targum to the Prophets. 1

The following abbreviations have been used: DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls); PTg (Palestinian Targum); Tg (Targum); TJ (Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, ed. A. Sperber); TO (Targum Onqelos to the Pentateuch, ed. A. Sperber); PsJ (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, ed. M. Ginsburger). 2 Cp. R. E. Clements, Abraham and David (London, 1967). For a recent discussion of the Pentateuchal promises in relation to “the land” see D. J. A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch (Sheffield, 1978). 3 W. D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Berkeley–Los Angeles–London, 1974), p. 18. 4 “The Targumists as Eschatologists”, SVT 29 (1978), 117–21. 5 “Un segundo fragmento del Targum Palestinense a los Profetas”, Biblica 39 (1958), 198–205. 6 Cp. especially verse 11.

317

318

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

(1) Land and Cult TJ is a keen advocate of the law of the central sanctuary (cp. Deut. xii. 5ff), even to the extent of compensating for the apparent lapses of the MT in this connection. Only in “the land”, and specifically in Jerusalem, were sacrifices to be offered to the God of Israel. The targumic commitment to this view probably accounts for its modification of the MT at Jonah i.16 where, instead of saying that the sailors on board the ship of Tarshish “offered a sacrifice to the LORD”, TJ avers only that they “promised to offer a sacrifice before the LORD”. We can be sure that TJ is not concerned merely with the question of the availability of a sacrifice there and then aboard ship, so much as with the unwelcome suggestion that Gentile idolaters offered sacrifice to Israel’s God, and on a profane altar.7 Considerations of this sort will have given rise to the tradition that the mariners’ sacrifice consisted of the blood of their circumcision: They returned to Joppa and went up to Jerusalem and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins, as it is said, “And the men feared the LORD exceedingly; and they offered a sacrifice unto the LORD.” Did they offer sacrifice? But this (sacrifice) refers to the blood of the covenant of circumcision, which is like the blood of a sacrifice.8

On the other hand, Naaman’s professed intention of offering burnt offerings and sacrifices to the LORD when he returned to his native Syria appears with minimal alteration in TJ (2 Kgs v.17). The Targum, introducing its own brand of “Name Theology”, simply substitutes “to the name of the LORD” for the MT’s “to the LORD”. Whether this is a substantive difference is difficult to tell; normally TJ speaks of offering sacrifice “before the LORD” (cp. 1 Sam. vii.9; 2 Sam. vi.17). However, targumic scruples could not be denied amid such uncertainties, and the record is put straight in an alternative version of 2 Kgs v.19, which has survived in the margin of Codex Reuchlinianus.9 Elisha, according to this version, informed Naaman that altars in non-Israelite territory were ritually unclean, but that he could, if he wished, send his offerings each year to “the place which [the LORD] has chosen to place his name there” and they would be accepted. The reference to the name of the LORD is interesting in view of our observation about the standard Targum’s treatment of verse 17, but there are insufficient grounds for thinking of an “abridgement theory” of the type advanced by Grelot in connection with the tosephtic Targum to Zech. ii.14f.10 7 Cp. É. Levine, The Aramaic Version of Jonah (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 70. P. Churgin, Targum Jonathan to the Prophets (New Haven, 1927), p. 113, notes how TJ differentiates in its terminology between Israelite and pagan altars. 8 Pirkê de Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 10 (Eng. trans., G. Friedlander [London, 1916], p. 72). . 9 W. Bacher, “Kritische Untersuchungen zum Prophetentargum”, ZDMG 28 (1874), 17ff, lists this reading among several that cannot be traced to a known midrashic source. 10 P. Grelot, “Une Tosephta targoumique sur Zacharie, II, 14–15”, RB 73 (1966), 197–211. Fundamental criticisms of Grelot’s argumentation are presented by R. Kasher in “The Targumic Additions to the Haphtara for the Sabbath of H.annuka” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 45 (1975–6), 27–45.

TERRA SANCTA AND TARGUM PROPHETS

319

The question of the proper location of cultic activity is also raised by Mal. i.11: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.” If, as our translation suggests, the prophet is speaking of a present reality, is he referring to Gentiles worshipping God in ignorance, or is he thinking of the worship of the Jewish Diaspora?11 In either case the territorial factor is involved. For all that modern commentators have tended to credit Malachi with a universalist outlook, TJ plies in the opposite direction: “and on every occasion when you fulfil my will I hear your prayer and my great name is hallowed on your account, and your prayer is like a pure offering before me”. TJ has thus dismissed the question of location by substituting “occasion” for “place”, and the effect is reinforced by the equation of “incense” with “prayer”. For the targumist there is no question of Gentile worship being acceptable to God, nor can he allow the unique cultic status of Jerusalem to be compromised. It is a matter of theological orthodoxy, and the fact that Didache XIV.3 has “in every place and time” in its paraphrase of Mal. i.11 scarcely requires the conclusion that there was a variant reading, which is otherwise attested only in TJ.12 Theological considerations of a different kind account for the wording of Didache, for Mal. i.11 was a pliant text for Christians as well as for Jews in the early centuries of the common era. Cultic and territorial issues inevitably confronted the targumists when they came to deal with Isa. xix.18. The MT speaks of five cities in the land of Egypt whose inhabitants would in a future day speak “the language of Canaan”. One of these cities is named, though the ancient texts disagree over the form of the name. The MT has “city of destruction (heres)”; 1QIsaa, some Hebrew manuscripts and Symmachus have “city of the sun (h.eres)”, while TJ appears to combine both readings in “the city, Beth-shemesh [literally ‘house of the sun’], which is to be destroyed”. The LXX ploughs a lonely furrow with πο´λις ασεδεκ (“city of righteousness”), almost certainly influenced by Isa. i.26. It would seem that, to some degree, these variants reflect differing attitudes to the Jewish temple erected c. 160 BC by Onias IV, at Leontopolis in Egypt.13 Josephus’ account of the circumstances in which the temple was built makes it plain that Isa. xix.18 was popularly regarded as having a bearing on Onias’ venture; indeed, he represents Onias as quoting from Isa. xix to back up his request to the Ptolemy for permission to build (Ant. XIII.3.1 [68]). Obviously the LXX – and its Vorlage, for πο´λις ασεδεκ points to a Hebrew original – looked upon this development favourably, as would be expected of a work originating in Alexandria. Enthusiasm for the Onias temple is also expressed in the Sibylline Oracles (bk 5, lines 492–511), and in M. Menah.. 13.10 it is even suggested that sacrifices offered at Leontopolis were, in certain circumstances, valid. But there 11 See J. G. Baldwin, “Malachi 1:11 and the Worship of the Nations in the Old Testament”, Tyndale Bulletin 23 (1972), 117–24. 12 Cp. my note, “Targumic Parallels to Acts XIII 18 and Didache XIV 3”, Novum Testamentum 16 (1974), 287ff. 13 Cp. M. Delcor, “Le temple d’Onias en Égypte: Réexamen d’un vieux problème”, RB 75 (1968), 201. On the problems raised by Josephus’ accounts of the Onias temple see V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (New York, 1974), pp. 275–81.

320

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

are also indications of hostility towards this rival to the Jerusalem Temple. The circumstances in which the project was launched were short of ideal, for, as Josephus notes, Onias cherished a grudge against the Jerusalem authorities who had banished him from the city, and thought that he could create a following for himself by establishing a rival centre of worship (War VII. 10.3 [431]). Disapproval of the Onias temple appears to be expressed by the MT at Isa. xix.18, where the original reading almost certainly was “city of the sun”. The alteration in the consonantal Hebrew text is slight and of a kind sometimes made in pursuit of an exegetical point.14 Strictly, “city of the sun” would correspond to Heliopolis, the ancient centre of Egyptian sunworship, but Leontopolis was “in the nome of Heliopolis”, according to Josephus, and would therefore come within the terms of Isa. xix.18 in the reckoning of ancient translators and exegetes.15 As has already been noted, TJ possibly shows awareness of the two readings, “city of the sun” and “city of destruction”, though the fact that the Targums sometimes insert a clause such as “which is to be destroyed” must also be taken into account. At all events, it is scarcely to be doubted that TJ is predicting the destruction of Leontopolis, and if we are guided by other passages in which the devastation of cities or countries is predicted with the use of the formula ‘atīd le we shall conclude that here too it is used with hostile intent (cp. PTg Gen. xv.12; Tg Isa. xxi.9; Tg Zech. iv.7 [Sperber’s manuscript c]). Even in Tg Jer. ii.12, where the prediction concerns Israel and the Temple in Jerusalem, the idea of judgement predominates. So we have another instance of the territorial doctrine of TJ at work: “Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John iv.20). It is known from Josephus’ account of the First Jewish War that the Onias temple was destroyed by the Romans c. AD 73, as a measure to prevent further outbreaks of rebellion among the Jewish population in Egypt (War VII.10.4 [433–6]). Is it therefore to be concluded that Tg Isa. xix.18, for which the destruction appears to lie in the future, assumed its present form before AD 73? Tg Isa. xxi.9 was used in this kind of way by Pinkhos Churgin when he attempted to settle the question of the dating of the final redaction of TJ.16 Or is it possible that, as at Jer. ii.12, TJ is speaking from the standpoint of the prophet whose message it is interpreting? There can be no certain answer to this question; the most that can be said is that a date before AD 73 for the composition of Tg Isa. xix.18 is a possibility. (2) The Land and Prophecy The territorial doctrine of the rabbis also figured in their discussions of prophecy and the canonical prophets. Some rabbis upheld the view that prophecy was a medium of revelation intended for use within Israel and nowhere else. Jonah i.3 was quoted to 14

For an example involving the same consonants see BT Yoma 76b. On, the Hebrew equivalent of Egyptian ’Iwnw (Greek Heliopolis), is transliterated in the “official” Targums (cp. Gen. xli.45, 50; xlvi.20; Ezek. xxx.17). 16 Pp. 28f. Churgin’s views on the final redaction of TJ are rejected by S. H. Levey in his article “The Date of Targum Jonathan to the Prophets”, VT 21 (1971), 186–96. 15

TERRA SANCTA AND TARGUM PROPHETS

321

show that the divine presence was restricted to Israel, but others enlisted Psalm cxxxix.7–12 and Amos ix.2ff in support of the opposite view.17 However, the strongest objection to this territorial circumscription of prophecy lay in the fact that Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Jonah prophesied outside “the land”. One of the answers offered in solution of this problem was that extra-territorial prophecies were special concessions granted because certain conditions had been fulfilled, such as that the vision was experienced in a “pure” place, for example beside water (cp. Dan. viii.2; x.4; Ezek. i.3). Some rabbis reconciled the territorial view with the undoubted fact that prophets occasionally did prophesy abroad by declaring that once a prophet had prophesied on the terra sancta of Israel it was permissible for him to fulfil his vocation in foreign parts. Jeremiah certainly satisfied this condition, since his Egyptian pronouncements (Jer. xliii–xliv) came after a long period of prophetic activity in Judah. Ezekiel presented more of a problem. In its present form the book that bears his name seems to allow only a Babylonian ministry; viii.3–xi.24 is no exception, for the prophet’s trip to Jerusalem was of a visionary nature. So it was propounded that Ezekiel had already functioned as a prophet in Judah before he received his visions in Babylonia. Exegetical support for this idea was furnished from Ezek. i.3 where the words hãyõ hãyã were interpreted to mean, “[the word of the LORD] had come [i.e. in Palestine] and came [i.e. now in Babylonia]”, the infinitive absolute being given the force of a pluperfect.18 This is quite illuminating when we turn to Tg Ezek. i.3. For the MT’s “The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans” the Targum has: “A word of prophecy from before the LORD was with Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of Israel; it returned a second time and spoke with him in the province of the land of the Chaldeans.”19 It is clear that the earliest Targum texts had no direct equivalent of hãyõ, but it is equally evident that the targumic assurance that Ezekiel first prophesied in Israel has a great deal to do with the explanation of the infinitive absolute given in the Mekilta. And it is the Targum’s commitment to territorial doctrine that accounts for its divergence from the MT. The prophetic ministry of Jonah, as described in the canonical book, was also exercised beyond the borders of Israel. In this case, however, TJ leaves territorial considerations alone. The probable explanation is that Jonah’s mission to Nineveh was held to have been undertaken after the prophesying attributed to him in 2 Kgs xiv.25.20 Jonah’s utterances concerning the expansion of Israel under Jeroboam II were not unreasonably regarded as having been made within “the land”. It is interesting in this connection to note Levine’s suggestion that, in translating the 17 Cp. Mekilta, Pisha 1 (ed. J. Z. Lauterbach [Philadelphia, 1933–5], vol. 1, pp. 4–7); see also BT . Mo‘ed Qat.an 25a. See P. Schäfer, Die Vorstellung vom heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literatur (Munich, 1972). 18 Mekilta, loc. cit. (ed. Lauterbach, vol. I, p. 6). This separation of the infinitive absolute and the accompanying finite verb forms part of the hermeneutical stock-in-trade of the Targums (cp. TO Exod. xxxiv.7; Tg Nahum i.3). 19 For a similar type of explanatory expansion see Tg Nahum i.1. 20 So Pirkê de Rabbi Eliezer (Eng. trans., Friedlander, p. 65); see also BT Yebam. 98a. .

322

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

MT’s “ship of Tarshish” by “a ship that was going on the sea” (Jonah i.3; cp. iv.2), TJ “may also be reflecting the midrash tradition that Jonah fled to the sea due to his primitive conception of divine revelation not taking place there” (p. 56; see n. 7 above). The difficulty with this is that, as Levine himself notes, the Targums commonly translate “Tarshish” by “sea” (cp. Isa. ii.16, xxiii.14), and Jerome is aware of the same exegetical tradition: “naues Tharsis: id est maris” (Commentary on Jonah i.3). There is the further consideration that the targumic rendering has recently been commended as preserving something of the original sense of “Tarshish”.21 C. H. Gordon explains the word as originally meaning “red”, cognate with the Coptic trošreš. He also connects it with the Hebrew tīrõš (“wine”) and compares the common Homeric epithet for the sea, οι’ˆνοψ (“wine-dark”): “Both taršîš and oinops are reflexes of an ancient East Mediterranean tradition where the sea was called wine-dark.” (3) The Land and the Future In rabbinic thinking Israel would not only occupy a special position in the messianic age or World to Come but would also extend its boundaries as in its imperial heyday. This expectation is summed up in Tg Mal. i.5: “And your eyes shall behold, and you shall say, ‘Great is the glory of the LORD who has extended [MT “beyond”] the border of Israel.’” But first let us observe the unique status accorded to Israel in the new age by Tg Mic. vii.14. To appreciate the manner in which TJ has adapted the MT to suit its own purpose it will be useful to set out the respective Hebrew and Aramaic versions in translation. The MT reads: Shepherd thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them pasture in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.

In TJ this becomes: Sustain thy people by thy Word, the tribe of thy inheritance; in the world which is to be renewed they shall dwell by themselves; those who were [or, “for they were”] desolate in the forest shall be settled in Carmel, they shall be sustained in the land of Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.

Exactly the same idea is propounded in TO at Deut. xxxii.12, with perhaps even less support from the MT: “The LORD will settle them by themselves in the world which is to be renewed, and the worship of idols shall not be established before him.”22 And TO returns to the same theme at Deut. xxxiii.28 (manuscripts). The expectation that the world will be renewed is voiced elsewhere in the Targums (cp. Tg Jer. xxiii.23; Tg Hab. iii.2); in the case of Mic. vii.l4 its introduction has the effect of converting the prophet’s depiction of the plight of Israel, surrounded by predacious enemies, 21 22

C. H. Gordon, “The Wine-Dark Sea”, JNES 37 (1978), 51ff. See also TO Num. xxiii.9; in both cases cp. PsJ.

TERRA SANCTA AND TARGUM PROPHETS

323

into a picture of future prosperity when the nation will have taken possession of all the territory to which it laid claim (cp. Jer. 1.19). B. Stade’s interpretation of the MT as a prayer for the separation of Israel from the pagan world around has a certain amount in common with TJ, but both depart from the plain sense of the Hebrew.23 In reaffirming Israel’s claim to the regions of Bashan and Gilead in Transjordan, TJ exceeds the expectation of Ezekiel, for whom the river Jordan was the eastern boundary of his ideal kingdom.24 A more striking statement about the extent of the kingdom of Israel in the new order occurs in Tg Zech. ix.1. Whereas the MT declares that the word of God will alight in judgement on Hadrach and Damascus, TJ sees a reference to the future enlarging of Israel’s coasts: “The oracle of the word of the LORD is in the land of the south, and Damascus shall again belong to the land of his presence.” The claim of Israel’s God to sovereignty over Hadrach and Damascus25 is thus made concrete in a prediction of their physical inclusion in a new and enlarged state of Israel.26 TJ can speak of the return of Damascus to the Israelite fold because of David’s subjugation of this city-state (cp. 2 Sam. viii.5f). Israelite suzerainty over Damascus had, however, been short-lived, and the Aramean state, once independent, proved a troublesome neighbour to Israel and Judah. The location of Hadrach puzzled some of the rabbis, though others affirmed with no lack of confidence that it was situated in the same general area as Damascus. Nowadays it is usually identified with the Hatarikka mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions and situated about 16 miles (25.7 km)˘ south of Aleppo. TJ’s substitution of “the south” for Hadrach obviously knows nothing of such an identification, and it is in any case doubtful whether it is to be regarded as offering a serious geographical datum.27 There is a slight tendency in the Targums to assign places of uncertain location to “the south” (cp. Tg 1 Sam. ix.4, xiii.17; Isa. xlix.12); perhaps the same applies to Tg Zech. ix.1.28 The reference to the south is probably intended to balance the mention of Damascus, which, even for targumists, lay to the north of Israel.29 TJ would then be making the point that Israel’s boundaries were to be extended to the north and to the south, in keeping with Tg Isa. liv.3 (“you [sc. Jerusalem] will be strengthened to the south and to the north”). Basically the same interpretation of Zech. ix.1 is given in Song of Songs Rabba 7.5 and in Sifre on Deuteronomy.30 Commenting on its occurrence in Song of Songs 23 “Streiflichter auf die Entstehung der jetzigen Gestalt der alttestamentlichen Prophetenschriften”, ZAW 23 (1903), 169. 24 Ezek. xlvii.18. Cp. also Num. xxxiv.10ff, though there the allocation of Transjordanian territory to the two-and-a-half tribes is assumed (cp. verses 13ff). 25 Cp. the widely accepted emendation of MT “the eyes of man” to “the cities of Aram” in verse 1. 26 In verse 2, TJ also predicts the inclusion of Hamath in “the land”. 27 Cp. B. Otzen, Studien über Deuterosacharja (Copenhagen, 1964), p. 235. 28 This possibility renders unlikely the suggestion of G. Vermes (Scripture and Tradition in Judaism [Leiden, 1961; 2nd edn, 1973], p. 47n) that ’ara‘ dãrõmã should be translated “the land of the height (rûmã)”. 29 Cp. “the land of the north” for Damascus in CD VII.14. See C. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents (Oxford, 1958), p. 29. 30 Ed. L. Finkelstein and H. S. Horovitz (Berlin, 1939; reprinted in New York, 1969), Pisqã 1, pp. 7f.

324

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Rabba, W. D. Davies makes a suggestion about the historical circumstances in which it may have originated: In the age of the Rabbis concerned, Jerusalem was out of bounds to Jews, who were scattered from that city as far away as Damascus. Such Jews lacked the comfort of living in the land, as its boundaries were understood in the first century, and lacked the consolation of living with easy access to Jerusalem, the centre of their world. But, it was natural that they should want to claim that they, although scattered to Damascus, were still to be considered as belonging to the land where the Messiah was to appear. At the same time, they had no desire to question the age-long centrality of Jerusalem. Aware of this twofold aspect of the yearnings of Jews, did the Rabbis in their Messianic hopes, for their comfort, expand Jerusalem to include Damascus? (pp. 232–3 [see n. 3 above]).

Unfortunately, Davies does not include TJ in his discussion; much less does he take account of Vermes’s submission (p. 49; see n. 28 above) that the targumic exegesis of Tg Zech. ix.1 and the symbolical interpretation of Damascus in the DSS reflect a common exegetical tradition. The origins of the interpretation presented in TJ and the midrash would then have to be traced to a time considerably in advance of the Hadrianic decree that expelled all Jews from Jerusalem and its environs. It is also a moot point whether the phrase ’ara‘ bēt šekīnetēh in Tg Zech. ix.1 should be translated “the land of the house of his presence”, or simply, “the land of his presence”.31 If the latter is preferable – would Damascus belong again to “the land of the house of his presence”? – then the Targum must be understood to refer to “the land” in the broad sense, and not specifically to Jerusalem. This could be a significant point in view of the possibility that TJ represents an earlier stage in the interpretation of the verse than is given in Song of Songs Rabba.32 The annexation of Philistine territory by Israel in the latter days is also envisaged in Tg Zech. ix. Verses 5–8 in the MT announce the impending destruction of Philistia and give intimation of its incorporation in the revived Israelite empire: it too shall become a remnant for our God; it shall be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites. (verse 7)

TJ develops this idea of annexation. Even the statement that “a mongrel people shall dwell in Ashdod” (verse 6), intended merely as a threat of judgement on that city, is pressed into higher service: “and the house of Israel shall dwell in Ashdod where they were as foreigners”. Otzen suggests that TJ has been influenced by Zeph. ii.7, which actually refers to Ashkelon, and possibly also by the account of the visit of the ark of the covenant to Ashdod (1 Sam. v.1–8) (p. 238 [see n. 27 above]). But it is 31 Vermes (n. 28 above), p. 47, opts for the former alternative. For bēt in its various combinations see J. Levy, Chaldäisches Wörterbuch über die Targumim, vol. I (Leipzig, 1867), pp. 96ff. 32 This is not the place to enter into discussion of the dating of the Targums and midrashim; on Song of Songs Rabba see J. W. Bowker (The Targums and Rabbinic Literature [Cambridge, 1969], p. 83) who follows S. T. Lachs in suggesting a date between 600 and 750.

TERRA SANCTA AND TARGUM PROPHETS

325

more to the point to note that, according to Josh. xv.47, Ashdod was allocated to Judah at the time of the settlement. The Israelites did not capture Ashdod at that time (cp. Josh. xi.22, xiii.lff), but 2 Chr. xxvi.6 reports that Uzziah broke down its walls and founded cities in its territory. The precise manner of the incorporation of Philistia in the Israelite kingdom is outlined by TJ in its rendering of verse 7: “and the strangers who are left among them, they also shall be added to the people of our God and shall be as princes of the house of Judah, and Ekron shall be filled with the house of Israel like Jerusalem”. It is not just, as the MT would have it, that Philistia would become “a remnant for our God”; rather, the “strangers” who are left in it after divine judgement has been executed are to be included in the reconstituted Israel. Since it is unlikely that “strangers” here denotes expatriate Israelites, for it would hardly be said of them that they would be “added to the people of our God”, giyyõr must be used in the technical sense of “proselyte”.33 TJ lies somewhere in between the polarities of universalism and particularism. Boundary extension specifically in connection with Jerusalem seems to be indicated by Tg Zech. xiv.10. The idea of territorial expansion is already present in the MT, though strictly with reference to “the whole land”, which is to be converted into a plain, “from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem”. The boundaries of the new Jerusalem are also delineated, but in fairly conventional terms. One of the reference points mentioned is “the king’s wine presses”, which must denote some royal holding in the vicinity of Jerusalem. TJ, which, as a matter of interest, has a contemporizing reference in this verse to the Hippicus Tower built by Herod the Great, does not at first sight appear to deviate from the MT in the matter of the royal wine presses: for the MT’s yiqebē hammelek it has šīh.ē malkã. But the translation of yiqebē by šīh.ē is worthy of comment. In the first place, this is the only instance of BH yeqeb being rendered by šīh.ã in the Targums; šīh.ã is used for a pit or cavity rather than a wine press.34 In fact, the key to TJ’s translation is provided by Song of Songs Rabba 7.5 where, in relation to the latter-day expansion of Jerusalem, the words “as far as the king’s wine presses” are explained as meaning “up to the pits of Ripa [var. Yapho], up to the wine presses that the supreme king of kings, the holy One blessed be he, hollowed out”. The pits in question are the depths of the Mediterranean Sea; Jerusalem is to extend to the Mediterranean coast. Ripa does not offer as good sense as Yapho (=Jaffa) in this connection, and it is likely that an original reading ‫ דיפו‬was corrupted into ‫ריפע‬.35 Since Song of Songs Rabba uses the root šyh. for “pit”, we may reasonably infer that its singular occurrence in Tg Zech. xiv.10 betrays the Targum’s awareness of the interpretation spelled out in the midrash. This is a good example of the way in which a single word in the “official” Targums may connect with an haggadic tradition developed at greater length in a talmudic or midrashic source.36 33

For a discussion of giyyõr and related terms in the Targums to the Pentateuch see M. Ohana, “Prosélytisme et Targum palestinien: Données nouvelles pour la datation de Néofiti 1”, Biblica 55 (1974), 317–32. 34 Pace Levy (n. 31 above), vo1. II, p. 475. 35 So M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London–New York, 1903), p. 586. 36 Cp. J. W. Bowker, “Haggadah in the Targum Onqelos”, JSS 12 (1967), 51–65.

326

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

That this survey of the territorial doctrine of TJ should conclude with reflections on the place of Jerusalem in the new earth is entirely appropriate, for there is a sense in which, as Tg Zech. xiv.10 implies, Jerusalem and “the land” are, eschatologically, coterminous. At the end of days it was Jerusalem that was to be the scene of the eschatological drama when Gentiles would come to Mount Zion to worship at God’s Holy Mountain. Any area that might be desirous of inclusion in that drama (and after the Fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of Jewry there were many such), was simply taken over geographically into the orbit of the city. Any rivalry that might have arisen between such areas and Jerusalem was thereby cut at the root (Davies, pp. 234f. [see n. 3 above]).

What came to full flower in the midrashim of which Davies speaks can be seen in nuce in Tg Zech. xiv.10.37

I welcome this precious opportunity to record my appreciation of Dr E. I. J. Rosenthal, distinguished scholar and exemplary teacher. Postscript Since this essay was written there has appeared yet another explanation of Tarshish, relating it to the Greek θαλα ´ σσης (gen.), “sea”, and again invoking targumic support. See S. B. Hoenig, “Tarshish”, JQR N.S. 69 (1979), 181f. Two recent studies focusing on “land theology” are mentioned here at the suggestion of Dr S. C. Reif: E. M. Meyers and J. F. Strange, Archaeology, the Rabbis and Early Christianity (London, 1981), pp. 155–65 (“Jewish and Christian Attachment to Palestine”); B. H. Amaru, “Land Theology in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities”, JQR N.S. 71 (1981), 201–29.

37 For information on studies with a bearing on targumic topography, principally in connection with the Pentateuchal Targums, see A. Díez Macho, Neophyti 1, vol. v, “Deuteronomio” (Madrid, 1978), pp. 13*ff.

Chapter 26

Targum as Midrash: Contemporizing in the Targum to the Prophets I We have only to recall the debate about the Genesis Apocryphon in earlier days – was it Targum, Midrash, or even Midrash-Targum? – to appreciate the extent of the consanguinity of these two genres. As far as definition is concerned, “Midrash” is certainly the more slippery of the two; nevertheless, I shall for present purposes assume that, as some aver, the commenting upon, and the contemporizing of, the words of Scripture are of the essence of Midrash.1 Contrary to what we might expect, the midrashic way of commenting upon Scripture does not compromise its status as Scripture; rather, it affirms it, partly on account of the amazing versatility which it attributes to Scripture. Targum, of course, presupposes the authority of Scripture and is, if anything, even more dependent upon its textual fixity. Moreover, that concern to contemporize which is so often said to be characteristic of Midrash is just as much a feature of the Targumim. For illustration of this we need simply consult the valuable Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets published in 1983 by Leivy Smolar and Moses Aberbach, for each of their three main chapters, dealing with halakhah, historical and geographical allusions, and theological concepts respectively, is substantially an essay on targumic contemporizing.2 Their detailed work gives me licence, I trust, to touch on a few broad aspects of the topic. But first I should like to emphasize a point that is commonly appreciated and yet insufficiently applied in respect of “targumic geography”, viz. that if the text of Scripture can effectively be rewritten in the interests of halakhah, theology and contemporary history, so too may geography be revised as a result of the same actualizing process. In other words, what may be to us an “obvious” case of mistaken identification may be no more a “mistake”, from the targumic standpoint, than the boy Samuel’s halakhically-motivated sleeping arrangements in the “court of the Levites” in Tg 1 Samuel 3:3. As a specific example of what I shall call “contemporizing relocation” I would cite the Targum’s treatment of references to No Amon, i.e. Thebes, “the city of Amon”, in Upper Egypt. In each of the three passages in which Thebes is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible Targum Jonathan finds a 1 Cf. R. Le Déaut, “La Septante, Un Targum?”, in R. Kuntzmann, J. Schlosser, eds., Etudes sur le Judaïsme hellénistique, Lectio Divina 119 (Paris, 1984), pp. 147–195; pp. 169–185 = “Approche midrashique: adaptation et actualization.” 2 L. Smolar, M. Aberbach, Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets (New York and Baltimore: The Library of Biblical Studies, 1983).

327

328

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

reference to Alexandria, twice offering the expression “commotion (’trgšt) of Alexandria” in recognition of the associated ’ãmôn (or hãmôn) element (Jer. 46:25; Ezek. 30:15; cf. Nah. 3:8). To be sure, Thebes and Alexandria are quite distinct places, and we may convict the Targum of ignorance without more ado. On the other hand, we know that Alexandria was nothing if not cosmopolitan, and that it included a large Jewish segment in its population. We know too that in the first and second centuries CE Alexandria experienced several race riots in which the Jewish community suffered grievously.3 So, although indifferent geography alone could account for the identification of No/Thebes with Alexandria, the latter’s importance in Jewish eyes and its proneness to civil commotion may have been even more of a determining factor in the equation.4

II There is one aspect of targumic contemporizing which is even more basic than halakhah, history, geography or theology, and I want to comment briefly upon it at this point. The fundamental act of contemporizing is, of course, that of rendering Hebrew Scriptures into an Aramaic vernacular. That there were dangers inherent in the exercise was recognized – traduttore traditore! – nevertheless, subject to controls which sooner or later began to be enforced (cf. M. Meg. 4:4), the rendering of the Scriptures into Aramaic did take place.5 It was, moreover, a particular kind of Aramaic that resulted – and I am not thinking of language phases or dialectal maps. One of the most striking features of targumic translation-paraphrase is its tendency towards simplicity of style, this being achieved largely through the use of stock phrases and standard terms. If the meturgemanim (or targumists) were aware of the concept of paraphrastic aemulatio (enhancement of the original text) familiar to the Greco-Roman rhetoricians of late antiquity,6 they had no use for it. In a short note published in ZAW in 1926, in which he gave notice of his intention of publishing editions of Targum texts, Alexander Sperber cited this tendency to standardization as evidence that Aramaic as a spoken language was already in decline when the written Targum tradition was in its formative stages.7 But can this view be justified? It is regrettable that there is so little that is palpably “early” Targum – by which I mean Targum from the period of the Second Temple – to help us to a safe conclusion. We do, however, have the fragmentary Targum to Job from Qumran (11QtgJob), and, in spite of its fragmentariness, there is already here a 3 Cf. Philo, In Flaccum and De Legatione; Josephus, Antiquities 18:257; War 2:487–498; Eusebius, History IV:2. 4 Cf. Le Déaut, “La Septante”: “On accuse trop légèrement les traducteurs d’erreur et d’ignorance” (p. 195n.). 5 See P. S. Alexander, “The Targumim and the Rabbinic Rules for the Delivery of the Targum”, SVT 36 (1985), 14–28. 6 See M. Roberts, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity, Arca 16 (Liverpool, 1985), pp. 20f. 7 “Zur Textgestalt des Prophetentargums”, ZAW NF 3 (1926), 175.

TARGUM AS MIDRASH

329

soupçon of the same standardizing tendency. Two roots much favoured in the Targumim generally are t-q-p (“strong”, “strength”) and š-q-r (“false”, “falsehood”), occurring as stock renderings of various Hebrew roots or in paraphrastic expansions of MT.8 In 11QtgJob the root t-q-p occurs four times in this way (cols. xvi:2; xxxii:6; xxxiii:1; xxxvii:4).9 Again, the root š-q-r is used four times,10 in translation of three different Hebrew roots, in the ten incomplete lines of column xxiv. This is, admittedly, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand when compared with the evidence of the later written Targumim, but there is also slight support from what is probably the best-known Targumism in the New Testament, viz. the quotation in Mark 4:12 of Isaiah 6:10 in the form “lest they should turn again and be forgiven”. Since the Targum likewise has “forgiven” for MT “heal”, the case for targumic influence on the Markan quotation is strong.11 But what also deserves consideration is the fact that at several other points in Targum Jonathan the same theologizing of the metaphor of healing takes place (cf. Isa. 53:5; 57:18, 19; Jer. 3:22; Hos. 14:5). In addition, Aramaic š-b-q, with the meaning “forgive”, does duty for a wide range of verbs in MT – six in Isaiah, for example – as well as occurring in targumic expansions of MT. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to treat Mark 4:12 as a small additional piece of evidence for the use of stock lexical items, in this case involving the untying of a metaphor, at a relatively early stage in the process of Targum-making. Whether the connection is with an oral tradition or a written text of some sort does not matter; it is the tendency that interests us. Mere straws in the wind these may be, but they tend toward the conclusion that even when Aramaic was still in its prime as both a spoken and literary language the standardizing simplifications that have briefly engaged us were already characteristic of “Targum”. So the contemporizing of Scripture carried with it as corollary the simplification of Scripture. It was not the only possible direction in which to head, for, as has been observed of the Septuagint, the tendency there is to use multiple Greek words for one Hebrew term. (Even there, however, there are exceptions, as in Gen. 1–3 where the Greek gē [“earth”] represents four different Hebrew words.12) Whether the life-setting envisaged for Targum is synagogue or school13 – and here I am very conscious of the problem of oral Targum and its relationship to our extant Targum tradition – there would have been good reason to use plainness of speech. Simplification of this sort would have been but one aspect of that larger programme which saw anthropomorphisms eliminated, metaphors interpreted, and discrepancies resolved.

8

Cf. my comment in JJS 26 (1975), 50f. Col. ii:1 contains the remnant of what is probably a fifth occurrence of t-q-p (cf. Tg 2 ad loc.); in col. xxxvi:7 the root also occurs in a straight translation of MT ‘z. 10 Three times according to M. Sokoloff, The Targum to Job from Qumran Cave XI (Ramat-Gan, 1974), p. 74. 11 Cf. B. D. Chilton, A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (London, 1984), pp. 90–98. 12 See H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, I (Cambridge, 1900), pp. 328ff. 13 On the latter see A. D. York, “The Targum in the Synagogue and in the School”, JSJ 10 (1979), 74–86. 9

330

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

III I now want to consider the status of the interpretation that is “Targum”, or, more strictly, the status of the interpreters of Scripture who produced Targum. The particular question before us is whether the meturgeman/targumist’s contemporizing led him to claim a quasi-prophetic status for himself, as has been alleged in a fairly recent study by B. D. Chilton.14 There is certainly a remarkable emphasis upon prophets, prophecy and prophesying in Targum Jonathan. If we take Tg Isaiah, for which we have the benefit of van Zijl’s concordance,15 we find that for the eight such references in MT16 the Targum has just over one hundred. Among these the recurrent incipit formula “the prophet said” is especially interesting. It comes nineteen times in Tg Isaiah and quite often elsewhere in Targum Jonathan, and there are even comparable occurrences in the Pentateuchal Targums.17 It prefaces fairly literal renderings of MT and it also introduces sentences which depart radically from the lemma in order to express one or another aspect of targumic teaching: The prophet said, “With my ears I was listening when this was decreed from the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 5:9); The prophet said, “A harsh prophecy was shown to me” (Isa. 21:2).

These are fairly typical examples. But is it the case that wherever the incipit makes its appearance the meturgeman/targumist is claiming a kind of prophetic authority for his teaching? Does the use of the incipit formula signify that what follows is “the contemporary voice of prophecy”?18 The familiar statement in TB Meg. 3a might be quoted in support of this view: The Targum of the prophets was composed by Jonathan ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

There are, however, quite conclusive arguments against this interpretation of the incipit. First, we should note that there are other formulae of this type scattered throughout Targum Jonathan. Tg Isaiah 61:10, for example, has “Jerusalem said, ‘I rejoice greatly in the Memra of the Lord’”, and in Habakkuk 3:16 the prophet’s trembling at the report of God’s power is reallocated thus: “Babylon said, ‘I heard and my kings trembled’.” Then we have a trio of incipits in Jeremiah 8:20–22: “The congregation of Israel said” (v. 20), “Jerusalem said” (v. 21), and “Jeremiah the prophet said” (v. 22). These and various other instances that could be cited must be taken into account when we try to assess the significance of the words “the prophet said”. A second reason for discounting the contemporizing, quasi-prophetic 14 B. D. Chilton, The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum, JSOT Suppl. 23 (Sheffield, 1983), pp. 52–56. 15 J. B. van Zijl, A Concordance to the Targum of Isaiah, SBL Aramaic Studies 3 (Missoula, 1979). 16 The total includes the reference to “the prophetess” in 8:3. 17 E.g. Tgs Pseud.-Jon. and Neof. to Deut. 32:4, 14. 18 Chilton, The Glory, p. 55.

TARGUM AS MIDRASH

331

explanation is that on a number of occasions the incipit leads into an expression of prophetic prostration: The prophet said, “My bowels! my bowels!” (Jer. 4:19); The prophet said, “My heart is sick” (Jer. 8:18); The prophet said, “Woe is me, for I was as if I was gathering up good things when the godly have perished from the land” (Mic. 7:1).

These three quotations will suffice to show that use of the formula has little or nothing to do with the meturgeman/targumist’s claims to quasi-prophetic status. Its function, and the function of all those others with which it may be compared, is, rather, to provide guidance for the hearer or reader of Targum. A rough analogy exists in the marginal notes, indicating the supposed speakers, in certain Greek texts of the Song of Songs,19 as also in the rubrics provided in a number of modern translations of the same book. Tg Isaiah 5:1 is especially interesting in this regard because it prefaces the whole of the section on the vineyard with “the prophet said”, and still manages to address the prophet in the second person in verse 3 (“O prophet, say to them …”).20 If a function can be discerned for the incipit in verse 1 it is precisely to avoid the confusion between the words of the prophet and the words of the meturgeman/targumist such as might arise if the latter were to launch into his paraphrase with the words “I shall now praise Israel.”

IV The real contemporizing in the area of “Targum and prophecy” comes, I believe, in the quite frequent equation of “scribe” with “prophet” in the Targum to the former, but particularly to the latter, prophets. In both episodes involving Saul and the “sons of the prophets”, in 1 Samuel 10 and 19, the ecstatics become scribes “praising” (for MT “prophesying”). And so we have, “Is Saul also among the scribes?” and “And who is their teacher (rab)?” (1 Sam. 10:11f.). 1 Samuel 19 has the added feature that Samuel and his pupils, among whom Saul eventually finds himself, are in the bêth ’ûlpãnã’. There is no problem in associating Saul with scribes in this way, for a part of the rabbinic tradition treats him generously even where the Hebrew text is critical of him.21 In the latter prophets we have the equation “scribe” = “prophet” at various points (see Isa. 3:2; 9:14; 28:7; 29:10; Jer. 6:13; 8:10; 14:18; 18:18; 23:11, 33; 26:7, 8, 11, 16; 29:1; Ezek. 7:26; 22:25; Zech. 7:3). Since the Targum explicitly labels as “false” those prophets of MT who plainly merit the description, we have three “prophetic” groups in Targum Jonathan: prophets, false prophets and scribes. The last-named come into the reckoning because, with the cessation of prophecy (“canonical 19

Cf. Swete, Introduction, p. 360. On the Targum’s handling of this section see H. D. Lewis, Targum on Isaiah I–V, with Commentary (Heb.) (London, 1889), p. 38b. 21 See Pesikta R. 15:68a–b; Num. r. XI:3. 20

332

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

prophecy”), they became the authoritative interpreters of the prophets, as is indicated in TB BB 12a: Since the day when the temple was destroyed, prophecy has been taken from the prophets and given to the sages.

If, then, we are talking about quasi-prophetic status, it is the scribe rather than the meturgeman/targumist who qualifies. Smolar and Aberbach see this portrayal of the scribe as typical of the talmudic era,22 and, in a separate study, Aberbach suggests that the targumic bêth ’ûlpãnã’ (as in 1 Samuel 19.18–20:1) may denote “an institution specializing in talmudic studies”.23 But there are serious opposing arguments that need to be considered. First, the scribe as expounder of Scripture and a member of the prophetic succession makes his appearance somewhat in advance of the talmudic period. Already in a well-known passage in Ben Sira we find that the scribe is also among the prophets: I will again make instruction shine like the dawn, and make these things shine afar; I will again pour out teaching as prophecy, and bequeath it to eternal generations. (Ecclus. 24:32f.)24

Secondly, even though “apostolic prophecy”25 had ceased with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, there were thereafter individuals with prophetic powers and (certainly) reputations. And at the same time, Qumran,26 Josephus27 and the New Testament28 all bear witness to a more relaxed use of the term “prophet”, following a trend which goes far back into the Hebrew Bible itself (cf. Gen. 20:7; 1 Chron. 25:1–3). As far as the bêth ’ûlpãnã’ is concerned, the rabbinic evidence which Aberbach adduces is, as he acknowledges, inconclusive. A further datum in the shape of a marginal Targum in Codex Reuchlinianus actually seems to undermine his argument. According to this gloss, Saul absented himself from the lot-casting at Mizpah (1 Sam. 10) and hid in the bêth ’ûlpãnã’ where, attired in splendid robes, he was engaged in study of the law. This I take to mean Bible-study; and we may even hazard the guess that he was making the acquaintance of the “law of the king” in Deuteronomy 17:18–20. Targum Jonathan itself has numerous references to “the teaching (’ûlpan) of the law”, and these may also have a bearing on the definition of 22

Studies in Targum Jonathan, pp. 30f., 102f. M. Aberbach, “Educational Institutions and Problems During the Talmudic Age”, HUCA 37 (1966 [1968]), 107–111 (109). 24 See further W. Baumgartner, “Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach”, ZAW 34 (1914). 186–189. 25 To use an expression of M. P. Miller, JSJ 2 (1971), 46. 26 Cf. O. Betz, Offenbarung und Schriftforschung in der Qumransekte, WUNT 6 (Tübingen, 1960), pp. 88–99; G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit, SUNT 2 (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 140–146. 27 See J. Blenkinsopp, “Prophecy and Priesthood in Josephus”, JJS 25 (1974), 239–262. 28 Cf. Acts 2:30; Titus 1:12. 23

TARGUM AS MIDRASH

333

the bêth ’ûlpãnã’. There are at least thirteen such references in Tg Isaiah, two of them in the form “the teaching of (the) law from Sinai” (Is. 33:22; 43:12).29 In two other places in Tg Isaiah “teaching” is in parallel to “the words of the law” (32:6; 50:4). In the light of this, the narrow definition of the bêth ’ûlpãnã’ as a talmudic institution, with its implication for the dating of various parts of Targum Jonathan, seems unjustified. One cannot be more precise than that, or do more than plead for a non liquet in the hope that further light on life-setting and dating will eventually break through. The contemporizing remains, even if the tempus still eludes us.

V In the two concluding sections of this paper we ask the question, How far does targumic contemporizing go? If Scripture is for actualizing, and prophets are held to speak to contemporary situations, does contemporizing also lead to an emphasis on eschatological imminence in the Targums? Undeniably, and in keeping with postBiblical tendencies, Targum Jonathan makes much of the predictive side of prophecy. A good illustration is afforded by Tg I Samuel 2:1–10, where Hannah “prayed by the spirit of prophecy” – and proceeded to outline some of the major developments in the national history, down to the time of the Hasmonaeans. Very often the conversion of the original words of Scripture into future promise or threat (as the targumic prophecies so often are) is attended by the use of the Aramaic ‘atîd (usually plus lãmadh and the infinitive) – which I shall not attempt to translate at this stage. In Tg Isaiah the word occurs forty-five times in what are mainly statements about God’s intended action in the future.30 The distribution in the rest of the latter prophets is less dense, but still significant (cf. Jer. 2:9[2t.], 12[2t.]; 12:5; 17:13; 23:23; 31:26; 51:7; Ezek. 16:20; Hos. 6:2; Joel 4:21; Mic. 4:8; 7:14; Zech. 4:7[MS]; 5:3; 6:12). As in Tg Isaiah, the themes associated with this use of ‘atîd are retribution for the wicked, the days of consolation, the renewal of the world, and such-like. And since they almost invariably occur in passages that are but loosely affiliated to MT, we shall not be surprised to find that Hannah’s uninhibited targumizing in 1 Samuel 2 involves no fewer than nine occurrences of ‘atîd. To say the least, the grammarians are not unanimous in the significance which they attach to this use of ‘atîd and (usually) the infinitive. Dalman31 and Solá-Solé32 treat it as the equivalent of an ordinary imperfect with future sense, Odeberg33 takes it to “express the certainty of an act or event in the future”, as does Segal34 in 29

There are occurrences outside Tg Isaiah (e.g. Hos. 10:12). Note that the reference to Isa. 10:32 in van Zijl’s concordance is to a marginal reading from Codex Reuchlinianus. 31 G. Dalman, Grammatik des Jüdisch-Palästinischen Aramäisch, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 268f. 32 J. M. Solà-Solé, L’infinitif Sémitique (Paris, 1961), p. 138. 33 H. Odeberg, The Aramaic Portions of Bereshit Rabba With Grammar of Galilaean Aramaic, II (Lund and Leipzig, 1939), p. 98. 34 M. H. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Oxford, 1927), p. 167 (cf. p. 154). 30

334

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

commenting on its occurrences in Mishnaic Hebrew, while Marshall35 thinks that it implies imminence (“he is about to”). With such an untidy picture before us, it is the more interesting to find J. F. Stenning36 translating ‘atîd by “about to” on every possible occasion, as in Isaiah 5:5: “And now I will declare unto you what I am about to do unto my people.” The single exception is at 47:13 where the Aramaic is rendered: “Thus will it happen to you month by month.” Obviously it was thought that monthly instalments and imminent action did not go well together, but it may also have been a consideration that the words just quoted represent the utterances of Babylonian astrologers and therefore lack the potential for eschatological imminence that the other forty-four possess. While we might suspect the influence of Marshall upon Stenning in this matter, the only references to a grammar-book in Stenning’s introduction and notes are to the second edition of Dalman’s Aramäische Grammatik (1905), and we have already noted that Dalman opts for a straight future significance for ‘atîd. It need hardly be said that the way in which we translate this construction affects considerably our perception of Targum Jonathan’s stance in relation to the eschatological future. Several dozen statements about what God (usually) is about to do would result in a quite eschatologically fraught text. As it happens, there is little to commend the alternative favoured by Marshall and Stenning. In the first place, there are references such as Tg Isaiah 47:13, already mentioned, where the suggestion of imminence is inappropriate or even incongruous. To take an example from outside Targum Jonathan: in a Fragment Targum version of Genesis 15:12 Abraham sees “the four kingdoms that were to [‘tydyn] rise up and enslave his children”.37 Imminence does not appear to be in question. It is also the case that in Hannah’s Song, in its targumic form, the various occurrences associated with ‘atîd are surely all in the past from the standpoint of meturgeman or targumist. At the most, then, we are talking about tone and timbre in Tg 1 Samuel 2, with eschatological expectation colouring even the reference to events which belong to the past yet also to the continuum of sacred history which is moving towards its consummation. As second and third points against investing ‘atîd with a sense of imminence, however, we have the situation in rabbinic (talmudic, for example) Hebrew and in Syriac, in neither of which does the cognate usage support the imminence explanation. Can anything be said on the other side? It is true that ‘atîd in its basic adjectival sense means “ready, prepared,” and that Tg Habakkuk 2:3 – ”the prophecy is ready (‘atîdã’) for the time” – exhibits the right meaning in a not inappropriate context; and Tg Isaiah 3:13 poses an interesting question or two, especially when MT is taken into account. But we must not be seduced by etymology, even though we may still ponder why the occurrences of ‘atîd come where the Targum is at its most paraphrastic and the usage therefore most characteristic of the meturgeman/targumist himself. With some reluctance – for I was once otherwise inclined – I conclude that ‘atîd does not imply the imminence that is quite often read into it. 35

J. T. Marshall, Manual of the Aramaic Language of the Palestinian Talmud (Leiden, 1929), p. 15 (cf. p. 238). 36 J. F. Stenning, The Targum of Isaiah (Oxford, 1949). 37 Cf. M. L. Klein, The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch, Analecta Biblica 76 (Rome, 1980), I, 51.

TARGUM AS MIDRASH

335

That the Targumim do not convey a sense of imminence in the way that, for example, some of the Qumran literature does is obvious enough. And yet, in theory, such a Qumran-type conviction was open to anyone who believed that Imperial Rome corresponded to the fourth empire of Daniel’s visions, since it was after the emergence of the fourth empire that the rock cut out of the mountain crushed Nebuchadrezzar’s colossus to pieces (Dan. 2). Josephus has a tantalizing reference, in War 6:312f., to Jewish oracles which had an unfortunate effect upon elements of the Jewish population at the time of the First Jewish War. These seem to have been canonical texts and, in view of what Josephus has to say about Daniel’s unique ability to indicate not only future events but the times of the events, it may be texts from Daniel (chs. 2 and 7?) that he has in mind.38 The view that Rome completed the Danielic quartet of world empires is certainly reflected in Targum Jonathan, as also at several points in the Palestinian Targumim to the Pentateuch. Tg Habakkuk 3:17 reads: For the kingdom of Babylon shall not endure or exercise suzerainty over Israel, the kings of Media shall be killed, and the warriors from Greece shall not prosper; the Romans shall be destroyed and shall not gather taxes [rakings?] from Jerusalem.

The potential for an imminence ideology is there in Targum Jonathan but is not worked out in the way that might have been expected. A possible reason for this will be given at the conclusion to this paper.

VI Even if a strong sense of eschatological imminence is not characteristic of Targum Jonathan, that is not to say that the “targumic present” is a barren waste between sacred past and sacred future. Here I would take issue with Daniel Patte’s negative conclusion about the Targumim: There is not reference in the Targumim, so far as I know, to present events (present to the targumist, that is) which could be considered as having this basic identity with the events of the sacred history. To put it bluntly: it is as if for the targumist God acted (in the past), will act (in the eschatological future), but is not acting in between.39

As we have already seen, in Tg 1 Samuel 2 the sacred history comes right down to the Hasmonaean period, though that is not surprising in the light of, say, Daniel 11. It is more to the point, however, to observe the pervasiveness, in Targum Jonathan, of the idea that contemporary weal or woe is attributable to divine action in history. If we may restrict comment to the weal, Tg Isaiah 41:27 usefully states the principle: 38 39

See the comments by F. F. Bruce, The Time is Fulfilled (Exeter, 1978), pp. 18f. D. Patte, Early Jewish Hermeneutic in Palestine, SBL Diss. Series 22 (Missoula, 1975), p. 72.

336

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

The words of consolation which the prophets prophesied of old concerning Zion, behold, they have come to pass.

This is on a very loose rein from MT and is therefore more likely to relate to the contemporary experience or perception of the targumist than to be a reflection on the distant events which followed the Persian conquest of Babylonia in 539 BCE. That the consolations are, to some extent, at the mercy of our imaginations does not detract from the clear implication of the Targum about God’s saving interpositions in history – post-Biblical history, as I have suggested. Tg Nahum 1:9 is relevant here: O nations which have plundered Israel, what are you reckoned before the Lord? He will make (MSS) a full end of you. Relief after affliction will not be established twice for you as for the house of Israel.

It is not convenient to discuss here the various references, targumic and extratargumic, which would encourage us to make the obvious enough connection between the two afflictions and the Babylonian and Roman destructions of Jerusalem, and of the temple in particular. Let us be content with the observation that this piece of Targum looks the destruction of 70 CE in the face and contrasts the prospect – or, as I suspect, the reality – of “relief” with the fate of the enemies of Israel. An illustration of what “relief” might mean in this context is provided by Tg Judges 5:2: Therefore for the visitation of destruction upon Sisera and his army, and for the miracle and deliverance that were performed for Israel – namely, that the sages have again sat openly in the synagogues and taught the people the words of the law – therefore give thanks and praise before the Lord.

Smolar and Aberbach relate this to the post-Hadrianic situation,40 and I am more or less persuaded by them. The particular point that I want to make on the basis of this verse, however, is that here – pace Patte – we have precisely an instance of God’s working in the interval between the sacred past and the eschaton. The rehabilitation of the sages in synagogue is linked in the best heilsgeschichtlich manner with the victory of Deborah and Barak, as equally worthy of celebration. Nor is there any reason why a sense of God’s acting in contemporary history should be absent from a targumic tradition which, we are told, bears multiple traces of the influence of R. Akiba and his school.41 Did not Akiba himself see the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE as a fufilment of Micah 3:12?42 Indeed, it is hard to see what meaning can attach to Patte’s claim that there are no events present to the targumist that have a “basic identity with the events of the sacred history”. At its most restrictive this would leave room for nothing but actuality reporting, but this cannot be meant. And in any case, we have seen that “intermediate events” can be treated as part of the “sacred history”. 40 41 42

Studies in Targum Jonathan, pp. 86f. Ibid., pp. 1, 129. Cf. TB Makk. 24b.

TARGUM AS MIDRASH

337

The events which have left the deepest impression upon Targum Jonathan are, not surprisingly, those of 70 CE and 135 CE – though I have not attempted, within the present confines, to do justice to this fairly obvious point. It may well be that hereabouts lies the key to the targumic reserve as regards imminence. By whatever time our extant Targum tradition was given its literary shape “imminentism” had suffered a severe defeat – possibly a double defeat – and a more sober outlook prevailed. The expectations are still cherished, but there are no idle promises. The meturgeman/targumist was, at least, not a false prophet.

Chapter 27

Dialogue and Disputation in the Targum to the Prophets I Dialogue is a commonplace in biblical narrative, but the extent of its presence in the poetic sections of the Old Testament – which, of course, include much of the prophetic material – is less easily determined and has been little discussed until fairly recent times.1 The book of Job obviously presents a dialogue of sorts, with perhaps more speaking than listening, and Song of Songs offers what is probably a better example of dialogue, even if it is unrubricated in the Massoretic tradition. Some writers have drawn the discussion of these two books into the area of dramatic performance, but that is another issue. For present purposes, dialogue in the prophetic books may be classified as either rubricated or unrubricated. In the former case the speakers are explicitly indicated, whereas in the latter their identity has to be established on the basis of grammatical and other features in the text. Unrubricated dialogue naturally leaves more room for uncertainty and disagreement, even as to whether a given passage contains dialogue. A leading concern in the recent discussion of rubricated dialogue has been its evidential value as regards the historicity of prophetic traditions, since a dialogue might in theory have been contrived by a biblical writer for, for example, polemical purposes, or it may genuinely, to a greater or lesser degree, reflect the fact that prophets often addressed audiences who might be inclined to engage with them in dialogue or disputation. The so-called “prophetic disputations”, which have enjoyed independent status since Gunkel,2 and the series of exchanges that form the backbone to the book of Malachi represent this reality in one way or another. The name of Robert Gordis deserves prominent mention among those who, in the present century, have examined the role of unrubricated dialogue in the poetic parts of the Old Testament.3 For Gordis, the study of dialogue formed part of a larger 1 A number of recent studies are mentioned in the footnotes that follow. In addition see H. W. Wolff, “Das Zitat im Prophetenspruch. Eine Studie zur prophetischen Verkündigungsweise”, in Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (München, 1964), 36–129; J. T. Willis, reviewing T. Lescow, Micha 6, 6–8. Studien zu Sprache, Form und Auslegung (Stuttgart, 1966), in VT 18 (1968), 273–8 (277); A. S. van der Woude, “Micah in Dispute with the Pseudo-Prophets”, VT 19 (1969), 244–60. 2 Cf. A. Graffy, A Prophet Confronts His People. The Disputation Speech in the Prophets, Analecta Biblica 104 (Rome, 1984), 2–5. 3 E.g. Poets, Prophets, and Sages. Essays in Biblical Interpretation (Bloomington/London, 1971), 104–59, 173–81; “Virtual Quotations in Job, Sumer and Qumran”, VT 31 (1981), 410–27. For a critique of

338

DIALOGUE AND DISPUTATION IN THE TARGUM TO THE PROPHETS

339

agenda centred on the identification of quotations and virtual quotations, principally in the Old Testament but also in other literature of the ancient near east. Those scholars who have shown a special interest in unrubricated dialogue in the prophets have found Jeremiah especially promising. In his study of the structure of Jer. 1–20, W. L. Holladay comments on the quick conversational interchange that sometimes occurs within these chapters.4 Slightly more is made of this by L. Alonso Schökel and J. L. Sicre Díaz in their commentary on Jeremiah,5 while Alonso Schökel devotes a short chapter to “Dialogue and Monologue” in his primer on Hebrew poetics.6 Here Jeremiah and Mic. 4–6 provide the main examples of what the author calls “real dialogue” (p. 171). In his 1979 essay on festal drama in Deutero-Isaiah, J. H. Eaton finds within Isa. 40–55 the utterances of several speakers who are represented by “declaiming prophets” in a way that is thought to reflect the liturgy of the autumn festival in pre-exilic times.7 Vision in Worship (1981) by the same author has a chapter entitled “Dialogue of God and Congregation”, which takes samplings from a number of prophetic books as well as from the Psalter.8 In 1985 J. T. Willis published an article in which he argued that dialogue, especially that between the prophet and his audience, should be recognized as a structuring device in Jeremiah.9 He calls attention to six examples of dialogue within Jer. 1–20, some of them with introductory formulae, others indicating (change of) speakers by linguistic variations and context only. The dialogical approach is seen at full stretch in J. D. W. Watts’s two-volume commentary on Isaiah (1985–1987), where all sixty-six chapters are arranged dramatically.10 In P. R. House’s recent monograph on Zephaniah he treats the whole of this short prophecy as dialogue between Yahweh and the prophet.11 Dialogue in biblical texts generally will, we may be assured, continue to create interest – witness most recently H. J. Levine’s article on the dialogic discourse of the Psalms.12 And, finally in this short survey, the appearance of the Dramatized Bible in 1989 has shown what one reader of the Bible thinks of the potential of the dialogical approach for both the Old and New Testaments.13 It is difficult to judge the extent to which these “sightings” of dialogue in the biblical text by a number of scholars correspond to objective reality, but they almost Gordis’ approach see M. V. Fox, “The Identification of Quotations in Biblical Literature”, ZAW 92 (1980), 416–31. 4 The Architecture of Jeremiah 1–20 (Lewisburg/London, 1976), pp. 110–1l. 5 Profetas: Comentario I. Isaías: Jeremías (2nd ed., Madrid, 1987), 460–5. 6 A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, Subsidia Biblica 11 (Rome, 1988), 170–9. 7 Festal Drama in Deutero-Isaiah (London, 1979), 99. 8 Vision in Worship. The Relation of Prophecy and Liturgy in the Old Testament (London, 1981), 54–88. 9 “Dialogue Between Prophet and Audience as a Rhetorical Device in the Book of Jeremiah”, JSOT 33 (1985), 63–82. 10 Isaiah 1–33; Isaiah 34–66, Word Biblical Commentary 24/25 (Waco, 1985/1987). 11 Zephaniah. A Prophetic Drama, Bible and Literature Series 16 (Sheffield, 1988). 12 “The Dialogic Discourse of Psalms”, in V. L. Tollers and J. Maier (eds.), Bucknell Review. Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text (Lewisburg, 1990), 268–81. 13 Ed. M. Perry (London/Swindon, 1989).

340

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

certainly reflect a hidden dimension of the biblical text, even if that dimension is a comparatively limited one. In what follows we shall observe several ways in which dialogical considerations have played a part in the rendering of the MT by Tg Prophets.

II Our discussion must begin by taking notice of a type of incipit which is widely distributed throughout the Targum to the “Latter Prophets” and which has rough parallels in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and also in various of the Targums to the Hagiographa. It occurs most often in the form “The prophet said”, and in many of its occurrences it introduces first-person speech which is unrubricated in the MT but which can with reason – and sometimes with a little goodwill – be attributed to the prophetic voice in whatever book is in question. One example will be sufficient to show how the incipit functions in Tg: MT: In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the LORD … Tg: In the year that king Uzziah was smitten with leprosy, the prophet said, I saw the glory of the Lord … (Isa. 6:1).

Biblical precedent for this practice is slim; Jer. 28:5, 6 (“Jeremiah the prophet said”) is not strictly parallel. Other incipits of a broadly comparable character are found in Tg Prophets and, though less numerous, they may also be of assistance in establishing the status of incipits generally in the Targums. For example, there are occurrences of “Jerusalem said” in a number of places (e.g. Isa. 49:24 [MSS]; Jer. 31:3), while Jer. 8:20 is prefaced by “The congregation of Israel said”. Opinions about the status of the “prophetic incipit” have varied insofar as they have been expressed at all; nevertheless, there are various indications that they are not just late interpolations in a largely established Targum tradition. To take a typical piece of evidence: at Hab. 3:16 it is difficult to imagine that the Targumic paraphrase of the verse ever existed without the prefatory “Babylon said”, otherwise the precise point of Tg’s shifting elsewhere the anxieties expressed by the prophet in the MT would be lost.14 At Jer. 8:18–23 there are four incipits, exhibiting as many forms, and they give the section a dialogical character that is perhaps unique in Tg Prophets. This tendency is even more pronounced in a Spanish haftaric version of Jer. 8:13–9:23, where the exact correspondence between the haftarah and the standard Targum in respect of the incipits suggests, when taken with other evidence, that a form of Targum comparable with the standard version has contributed to the composite text that is the haftarah.15 From dialogue we move on to disputation in the broad, non-technical, sense of the term. The book of Malachi maintains its edge by means of a series of exchanges in 14 15

For a similar diversion of the MT see Tg Isa. 21:3. See A. D. Corré, “The Spanish Haftara for the Ninth of Ab”, JQR NS 48 (1957), 13–34.

DIALOGUE AND DISPUTATION IN THE TARGUM TO THE PROPHETS

341

which an assertion or accusation by Yahweh is met with a rejoinder from the prophet’s contemporaries, beginning with w’mrtm (“but you say”), and taking the form of a question in eight cases out of nine. This in turn merits a surrejoinder from Yahweh (see 1:2, 6, 7, 13; 2:14, 17; 3:7, 8, 13). In each case Tg translates w’mrtm by w’m tymrwn (“and if you say”), so creating a series of slightly complicated conditional sentences. It is possible to offer a limited syntactic defence of Tg, since there are numerous examples in the Hebrew Bible of conditional sentences whose protases begin not with conditional particles but with waw and verbs in the perfect.16 Nevertheless, syntax may not have been the only factor that the Targumist had in mind. Commenting on the various popular rejoinders in their MT form Eaton remarks: “Such querying of the divine announcement would not be intended quite as truculently as it sounds in the present brief citations …”17 It is just possible that Tg’s programme of conditionalizing is meant to meet this point, though its failure to respond in the same way at Ez. 18:19, 25; 33:17, 20 (cf. below) may put limits on the value of this suggestion. For whatever reason, the Peshitta version of Malachi creates conditional sentences in seven of the nine references already noted in connection with Tg Malachi. The exceptions are at 1:2, 13; elsewhere the Syriac prefaces the people’s response with w’n ’mryn ’ntwn (“and if you say”). Since the Peshitta has an incomplete set of conditional sentences as compared with Tg, a case for the dependence of the Peshitta upon Tg might be considered. A. Gelston, however, has argued against such dependence, partly because of the incompleteness of the correspondence; the two versions may have resorted to conditional sentences independently of each other.18 A couple of other points have also to be borne in mind before conclusions are drawn. In the first place, this is only one of a number of agreements between Tg and Peshitta that suggest an especially close relationship between the two versions for the book of Malachi. Our view of this larger question (which is itself, of course, affected by the several individual judgments that have to be made) will have a bearing on our decision about the Peshitta’s conditional sentences. Secondly, the imported conditional clause can be paralleled elsewhere in both Tg and Peshitta, in Tg at Zech. 1:5 and in the Peshitta at Ez. 18:19. While the talmudic parallel to Tg Zech. 1:5 in b. San. 105a shows that the tradition represented abbreviatedly in Tg is solidly rabbinic, the independent occurrence of the “translational protasis” in the Peshitta at Ez. 18:19 shows that direct borrowing from Tg in the Malachi references is not the only possible explanation. Moreover, the Peshitta’s choice of Ez. 18:19 for the deployment of the “translational protasis” is peculiarly apt in view of the fact that the verse represents a rejoinder by the prophet’s addressees within the setting of a “prophetic disputation”,19 and, furthermore, the rejoinder is in the form of a question 16

Cf. A. B. Davidson, Hebrew Syntax (3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1901), 180–2. Vision in Worship, p. 88. 18 The Peshit ta of the Twelve Prophets (Oxford, 1987), 181–2. Gelston treats the MT construction as . conditional, which would have the effect of reducing the significance of the agreement between Tg and the Peshitta in having conditional sentences. 19 Cf. R. M. Hals, Ezekiel, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature 19 (Grand Rapids, 1989), 118–27. 17

342

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

just as in eight of the nine comparable rejoinders in Malachi. That the Peshitta does not use the same translation ploy in rendering similar rejoinders at Ez. 18:25; 33:17, 20 may be put down to inconsistency on the part of the translator. On the other hand, none of these other examples is couched in the form of a question. This is interesting in view of past discussion about the status of the dialogues in Malachi: are they “prophetic disputations”, even if a later form of them,20 or are they something else? Unless the correspondence is simply coincidental, we may conclude that the translator of the Peshitta of Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets – for the same person may be responsible for both21 – made an observation of an embryonically formcritical nature when he translated the respective passages as he did. Finally, and by way of a more general observation, we may note that the presence of the rejoindersurrejoinder in Ez. 18:19, 25; 33:17, 20 provides a point of contact with the dialogues in Malachi which form-critical discussion, especially as regards the status of the latter, must take into account.

III In the remainder of this paper we shall be principally concerned with the Targumic version of Mal. 2:15 and the possibility that it contains dialogue, albeit it is unrubricated even in Tg. Beth Glazier-McDonald understandably describes the verse in the MT as a riddle.22 And did he not make one and he had a residue of the spirit? And what was the one seeking? A godly seed. And you shall take thought for your spirit and shall not betray the wife of your youth.

Renderings of the first half of the verse are many and various. Tg, perhaps not surprisingly, identifies the “one” with Abraham: Was not Abraham one alone from whom the world was made? And what was the one seeking except that offspring should be established for him from the LORD? So you shall take heed to yourselves and shall not deceive the wife of your youth.

The idea that Mal. 2:15 involves dialogue between prophet and audience has attracted a few scholars in the modern period,23 and it goes back a long way. Already the LXX, by its insertion of και` ει’´πατε before its translation of wmh h’h.d mbqš, exemplifies this approach. In his recent article on Mal. 2:10–16 according to 4QXIIa, R. Fuller calculates on the basis of letter spacing that the Qumran manuscript had the 20

As suggested by E. Pfeiffer, “Die Disputationsworte im Buche Maleachi”, EvTh 19 (1959), 546–68. So M. P. Weitzman, reviewing M. J. Mulder (ed.), The Old Testament in Syriac according to the Peshit.ta Version. Part II, fascicle 3, Ezekiel (Leiden, 1985), in JTS NS 38 (1987), 466. 22 Malachi. The Divine Messenger, SBLDS 98 (Atlanta, 1987), 103. 23 Cf. Glazier-McDonald, loc. cit.; also J. M. P. Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Malachi, ICC (Edinburgh, 1912), 54–5. 21

DIALOGUE AND DISPUTATION IN THE TARGUM TO THE PROPHETS

343

same plus as the LXX Vorlage.24 Of course, in the LXX και` ει’´πατε translates w’mrtm in its various occurrences in Malachi where the popular rejoinders are being quoted. It is therefore likely that the LXX (and 4QXIIa?) has simply extended the number by one in the hope of relieving some of the difficulty presented by our verse. Something comparable happens in 11QtgJob vi:7 where w’mrt in the Aramaic signals that 22:8, often treated as a gloss or as misplaced, should be interpreted as Eliphaz quoting Job’s own words against him.25 A dialogical approach to Mal. 2:15 is also discussed by the mediaeval commentators Rashi and Kimchi, and is implied in Ibn Ezra’s brief comment on the verse.26 Rashi reports an haggadic interpretation according to which those members of the community who had married foreign women suggested to the prophet that Abraham, by taking Hagar in addition to his wife Sarah, was in no better state. The exchange envisaged by Rashi implies the following division of the verse: People: Prophet: People: Prophet:

wl’ ’h.d ‘śh wš’r rwh. lw wmh h’h.d mbqš zr‘ ’lhym

Basically the people comment on what Abraham, “the one” (cf. Isa. 51:2; Ez. 33:24), had done in taking Hagar, and the prophet replies that Abraham had a different motivation (cf. MT rwh.) from theirs, namely the acquiring of “godly seed”/“offspring from God”. Kimchi knows of a similar reading of the verse, according to which the prophet’s hearers compared their behaviour with Abraham’s. In this case the whole of the sequence wmh h’h.d mbqš zr‘ ’lhym functions as the prophet’s reply. Kimchi adds that Abraham acted by consent of Sarah. His interpretation of the MT is closer to Tg than is Rashi’s, and indeed it reads like a paraphrase of it. Should we then understand Tg dialogically, with separate speakers for the first and second sentences? People: Prophet:

Was not Abraham one alone from whom the world was made? And what was the one seeking except that offspring should be established for him from the LORD?

Rashi understands Tg to be talking about Adam in the first sentence, but, although the language of Tg would be even more appropriate to Adam than to Abraham,27 there is no manuscript evidence to indicate that the referent ever was anyone other than Abraham. 24

R. Fuller, “Text-Critical Problems in Malachi 2:10–16”, JBL 110 (1991), 53. Cf. J. P. M. van der Ploeg and A. S. van der Woude, Le Targum de Job de la Grotte XI de Qumrân (Leiden, 1971), p. 22 (“Tg I en fait une citation de paroles de Job, réprouvées par Eliphaz”, 23). 26 Text from Mikraoth Gedoloth, 10 (Warsaw, 1902), 333. 27 For the idea of the world having been created because of the merit of Abraham see the marginal addition in Codex Reuchlinianus at Isa. 33:7. This is how Y. Komlosh understands dmnyh (= “because of whom”) in Tg Mal. 2:15 (in A. Weiser and B. Z. Loria [eds.], Prswmy hh.brh lh.qr hmqr’ byśr’l [Sepher Z. Karl] [Jerusalem, 1960], p. 167). 25

344

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

There are three points of considerable relevance for the dialogical option at Tg Mal. 2:15. First, the fact that Abraham is mentioned at all is, in the marriage context of Malachi, bound to put the prophet on the defensive. So, even if we regard the whole of the verse in Tg as spoken by the prophet, there is dialogue implied: the prophet is taking up an issue which has been thrust upon him by his audience. Secondly, the interpretation with reference to Abraham can be shown to go back at least as far as the fourth century AD. In his article on Jerome and the Aramaic Targums, C. T. R. Hayward notes the partial agreement between Jerome, in his commentary on Malachi, and Tg.28 Jerome represents Malachi as challenging his hearers: Was not Abraham the one father of us all? Concerning whom it is written in Isaiah, Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for he was one and I called him. Did not one God create us, who from Abraham chose our race?29

Here the prophet himself introduces the figure of Abraham, along the lines of Isa. 51:2. The appeal is to the common ancestry of Jews both male and female; all trace their origins to Abraham and Sarah. Marriage with foreigners is therefore a betrayal of one’s own kith and kin. This shared reference to Abraham in Tg and in Jerome’s commentary is interesting, but further investigation of early interpretations of Mal. 2:15 shows that a bifurcation has taken place, with the patriarch fulfilling quite distinct roles within the two traditions of interpretation. The evidence for this bifurcation, and the basis for our third point, is provided by the commentary on Malachi attributed to Ephraem Syrus.30 Ephraem identifies the “one” of the text with Abraham, and the “residue of the spirit(s)” as those descended from Isaac, the offspring whom Abraham had sought from God. He says, moreover, that Abraham’s wife constrained him to take Hagar. This is a very different preoccupation from that of Jerome, having more in common with the interpretation(s) discussed by Rashi and Kimchi. The mention of Sarah urging Abraham to cohabit with Hagar strongly suggests, moreover, that, by the fourth century, Abraham’s action was regarded as needing a defence in the context of Mal. 2:15. The perception that Tg Mal. 2:15 is dealing in apologetic is therefore strengthened when Ephraem’s comments are taken into account. Apologetic is one thing and dialogue is another, nevertheless there is one further point that encourages us to think that the latter is also involved. Two texts from elsewhere in the prophets have already been noted as having references to Abraham that are on a par with Tg Mal. 2:15, viz. Isa. 51:2 and Ez. 33:24. Jerome, as we saw, appealed to Isa. 51:2 in order to stress the shared ancestry of the wronged and the wrong-doers in Malachi’s community. If, however, we set Tg Mal. 2:15 alongside these two texts, it will become apparent that the closer affinity is with Ez. 33:24: 28

“Saint Jerome and the Aramaic Targumim”, JSS 32 (1987), 116–18. Cf. M. Adriaen, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera Pars I, Opera Exegetica 6, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores (CCSL LXXVI A [Turnhout, 1970]), 921. 30 See S. Ephraem Syri Opera Omnia, Syr. et Lat., II, ed. P. Benedictus (Rome, 1740), 314. 29

DIALOGUE AND DISPUTATION IN THE TARGUM TO THE PROPHETS

345

Isa. 51:2 ky ’h.d qr’tyw Ez. 33:24 ’h.d hyh ’brhm (wyyrš ’t h’rs.31) Tg Mal. 2:15 hl’ h.d hwh ’brhm yh.yd’y dmnyh ’tbry ‘lm’ It is Ez. 33:24 that provides the closer verbal correspondence in ’h.d hyh ’brhm // (hl’) h.d hwh ’brhm, and that is also compatible in a way that is of special interest for this paper. It happens that Ez. 33:24 forms part of a “prophetic disputation”, with the words in question part of a quotation put in the mouths of the Judaeans who had been left behind when others of their countrymen had been deported to Babylonia. An agreement with Ez. 33:24 would certainly not be disadvantageous to our proposal that the first sentence of Tg Mal. 2:15 may be intended as speech by Malachi’s hearers – just as Kimchi, possibly influenced by Tg, assumes. It is because of the embarrassing precedent set by Abraham that the second question is framed as it is: “And what was the one seeking except that offspring should be established for him from the LORD?” Even if the first sentence is attributed to the prophet, we are almost bound, as we have already observed, to presuppose a background of dialogue in which the example of Abraham is enlisted against the prophetic teaching on divorce and remarriage with foreign women.

IV It has not been the purpose of this paper to argue that the dialogical-disputational approach by Tg in the passages discussed offers an interpretive key for the opening up of those texts. A few modern scholars have followed the lead of Tg in a couple of cases,32 or have been found to be coincidentally in agreement with Tg, but that is largely beside the point. Our conclusions have to do with Tg itself, its principles of operation and its place within the larger enterprise of translating the Jewish scriptures to form what we have come to call the “ancient versions”. First, we have argued that Tg’s use of incipits of the “prophet said” type begins at the earliest level of its composition. These cannot be treated simply as interpolations; and because they occur several dozen times in Tg Prophets, and appear from time to time in the Targums to the Pentateuch33 and to the Hagiographa,34 they have a part to play in discussion of the formation of Tg, and have, no doubt, functional and/or interpretive significances that deserve serious consideration. So far as the commonest form of the incipit is concerned, I have argued briefly elsewhere that it is primarily an identifier and is not meant to invest the Targumist with quasi-prophetic authority.35 31

Here ’rs. refers to the promised land, rather than to the earth in general. E.g. A. van Hoonacker, Les Douze Petits Prophètes (Paris, 1908), 589. 33 See the Palestinian Targums at Gen. 49:18; Exod. 15:9; Deut. 32:4, 14, etc. 34 E.g. Song of Songs 1:2, 17, etc. 35 “Targum as Midrash: Contemporizing in the Targum to the Prophets”, in M. Goshen-Gottstein (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1985). Panel Sessions: Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem, 1988), 64–6. 32

346

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Secondly, the existence in Tg and Peshitta of the “translational protasis”, not only in Malachi where a sustained translational strategy is involved, but independently in two other references (Ez. 18:19 [Pesh]; Zech. 1:5 [Tg]), illustrates the way in which translational principles and techniques may be applied across the versional boundaries. We are familiar with, and the better for, invitations to treat the ancient versions in their own right, to familiarize ourselves with their translation characteristics and their theological tendencies rather than use them merely as servile adjuncts to the biblical text. It is better still to approach the matter in a “transversional” way, in recognition of the fact that many translation features cross the boundaries of the individual translations, without necessarily appearing in corresponding references or passages: in other words, much more is involved than synoptic checks across the versions at specific references. Such a situation is not surprising when we consider that all the ancient versions are Jewish in origin or have been affected significantly by Jewish biblical interpretation and translation method. As is well-known, this applies even to the Vulgate. At this point we are not thinking of minor, and often coincidental, features such as the alteration of the singular to the plural (or vice versa), or the standardizing of suffixes. The personalizing of abstract nouns, as when, for example, “deliverance” becomes “deliverer”,36 and the phenomenon of “converse translation”, in evidence in the Targums and the Peshitta37 and also, it would seem, in the LXX,38 represent translation features of a higher level of significance. Naturally, a conspectus of the translation characteristics of the ancient versions can be achieved only by creating profiles of the individual translations, thus allowing comparisons to be made across the full range of characteristics and techniques. In the case of the Targum and Peshitta allowance should, of course, be made for the fact that these versions are in related dialects of Aramaic and may therefore exhibit a number of features that are of no significance where translation technique or theological Tendenz are concerned. One of the attractions of the already-discussed “translational protasis”, which has served as a springboard for the wider-ranging observations in this final section, is that dialectal similarity does not come into the picture. This is especially clear from Tg Zech. 1:5, where exegetical-interpretive considerations are paramount.

36 Cf. M. P. Weitzman, “The Origin of the Peshit ta Psalter”, in J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif (eds.), . Interpreting the Hebrew Bible. Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal (Cambridge, 1982), 295–6. 37 See M. L. Klein, “Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique”, Biblica 57 (1976), 515–37; R. P. Gordon, JSS 35 (1990), 318 (referring to the Peshitta). 38 Compare MT and LXX at Judg. 1:18. The addition of the negative particle may already, of course, have been a feature of the LXX Vorlage.

Chapter 28

The Ephraimite Messiah and the Targum(s) to Zechariah 12.10 Zechariah 12 envisages the besieging of Jerusalem by a coalition of “all the nations of the earth” (v. 3), and their destruction by God as he moves to protect the city (v. 9). This saving intervention will be accompanied – or more probably followed – by a nationwide outbreak of mourning for someone whom those recently delivered by God had “pierced” (v. 10). The remainder of the short chapter emphasizes the intensity of the mourning for the mysterious figure of v. 10. Comparison is made, for example, with “the mourning for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddon” (v. 11). The Targumic tradition has responded to the obscurity at the heart of Zech. 12.10 with two distinct interpretations of the “pierced one”. The standard Targumic version (ST) supplants the idea of piercing with a reference to exile, while a marginal reading in Codex Reuchlinianus (CR) introduces the figure of the Messiah son of Ephraim and purports to describe the circumstances of his death at the hand of the eschatological arch-enemy of Israel, Gog.

The Marginal Variant We begin with the CR reading, since it will generate a good proportion of the discussion that follows. In Reuchlinianus it is accompanied by the siglum trg(wm) yrwš(lmy), and is therefore presented as a fragment of “Jerusalem Targum”. It has no known haftaric connection, and its dialect is “mixed” (Kasher 1996: 223). First a translation into English is offered: And I shall cause to rest upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of prophecy and true prayer. And afterwards the Messiah son of Ephraim will go out to do battle with Gog, and Gog will kill him in front of the gate of Jerusalem. And they will look to me and inquire from me why the nations pierced the Messiah son of Ephraim. And they will mourn for him just as a father and mother mourn for an only son, and they will lament for him just as they lament for a firstborn.

Two main figures are therefore presented here: the Messiah son of Ephraim and Gog, the former known mainly from the Targums and (other) rabbinic references and the latter first appearing in Ezekiel 38–39. First, we should note that there can be no question of the essentially Targumic character of the CR variant. The evidence begins with the first word, since, whereas 347

348

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

the ST represents MT “I will pour” by its cognate Aramaic verb, the CR variant uses one of the Targumists’ stock verbs for the conveying of ideas of divine presence and activity: “I will cause to dwell”. Thus the variant is referring to the divine Spirit when it talks of “the Spirit of prophecy”.1 The ST may also be speaking of the divine Spirit, since it translates “pour” in Joel 3.1 (2.28), referring to the divine Spirit, by its Aramaic cognate (cf. also Ezek. 39.29). Still, ST’s “a spirit of mercy and compassion” may be as ambiguous as the Hebrew that it translates, and so may not necessarily indicate the divine Spirit. Again, the CR variant’s statement about mourning as for an only son is virtually identical with the ST version and confirms the closeness of the variant to the Targum tradition. The longer text of the CR reading calls for attention not only because of its portrayal of the conflict between the Ephraimite Messiah and Gog but also because of the way in which it maintains the vantage point and the momentum of the ST text just at that point where the latter descends into obscurity and possibly even grammatical incongruence. This integrality of the variant with the fabric of the ST version is evident in a couple of ways. The first is the description of the Ephraimite Messiah going out to confront Gog, who kills him in front of the gate of Jerusalem. This is very much in agreement with the thrust of vv. 1–9, which are constructed around the idea of an attack by the nations on Judah and, especially, Jerusalem (vv. 2–3, 9). By contrast, one of the puzzling aspects of the ST text is that its reference to scattering or exile introduces a quite distinct topic, even if it is a commonplace elsewhere in the Targums. Secondly, the CR variant is very much of a piece with the ST text in its mention of an enemy ruler who kills an Israelite leader and thereby engulfs the nation in mourning. In this regard, moreover, the connection is with the ST rather than with the MT; it is the ST that personalizes and expands the MT’s by now opaque reference to mourning for Hadad-Rimmon. Here “Hadad-Rimmon” is disaggregated so as to become an allusion to the death of King Ahab in the battle at Ramoth Gilead against Benhadad son of Tabrimmon (cf. 1 Kgs 15.18; 22.1–40), and although the identification of Ahab’s opponent with the Benhadad who was contemporary with Asa (as 1 Kgs 15.18) is debated, this would not have been a concern of the Targumist. Again, the mention of Megiddo(n) inspires in the ST a reference to the death of King Josiah who fell in battle when trying to interrupt Pharaoh Neco’s progress through Judah on his way to the Euphrates (2 Kgs 23.29). If, therefore, we were to substitute the CR variant for the ST version at v. 10 we could construct the following set of parallels: Verse 10 Verse 11

Messiah son of Ephraim Ahab son of Omri Josiah son of Amon

whom Gog killed whom Benhadad son of Rimmon killed whom Pharaoh the Lame killed

Since the context speaks much of mourning, the appropriateness of Ahab and Josiah in this setting did not go unremarked by rabbinical interpreters. Special mourning is 1 Cf. 1 Sam. 10.10; Isa. 11.2; in 1 Sam. 18.10 it is even used of an evil spirit sent from God to afflict Saul.

EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND TARGUM(S) TO ZECH. 12.10

349

associated with the death of Josiah already in the Bible. According to 2 Chron. 35.24–25 “all Judah and Jerusalem” mourned for Josiah, Jeremiah composed a lament for him, and a tradition of lamenting his death continued down the years among the guilds of male and female singers.2 There is no biblical tradition about mourning for Ahab, but the claim is made in the Babylonian Talmud (b. M. Qat. 28b), which cites Zech. 12.11. Clearly, it was on the basis of a Targumic version of Zech. 12.11, or at the very least of a Targum-type explanation of the verse, that the claim about special mourning for Ahab was made.

The Standard Version Thus our CR variant is very well suited to the contextual surround of Zech. 12.10, and in a way that is not true of the ST at v. 10, and so it is to the ST that we must now turn. And I shall pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of mercy and compassion. And they will entreat from before me because they were exiled; and they will mourn for him just as they mourn for an only son, and lament for him as they lament a firstborn.

For the MT’s “and they will look to me whom they pierced” the ST therefore has “and they will entreat from before me because they were exiled”, which, as we have noted, represents a distinct change of direction on the part of the Targum, and the more noticeably so when compared with the CR alternative. Strack-Billerbeck, however, propose to translate the ST in a way that avoids this problem. They suggest two possible renderings: “Sie werden bitten von vor mir für die, welche in die Verbannung gingen” and “Sie werden bitten von vor mir für den, um dessentwillen sie in die Verbannung gingen” (Strack-Billerbeck, II, 583). They prefer the second option because it makes for a much better syntactical fit with the rest of the verse, and they suggest that the Targumist has the Messiah son of Ephraim in mind. It is in some sense because of the Messiah son of Ephraim that the people are “exiled”. So the reference to exile is explained in the light of a tradition that says that the people of Jerusalem would have to flee Jerusalem for the wilderness when the Ephraimite Messiah was killed (Strack-Billerbeck, II, 584).3 However, despite the obvious attraction of this explanation, there is good reason to question it. First, the translation itself is not secure. It is not at all certain that ‘l d’t.lt.lw can be translated “for him on whose account they were exiled” (see below). Secondly, in Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17, which recounts the tradition of the Ephraimite Messiah at length (Buber 1884: 258–59), the mourning comes before the withdrawal to the wilderness, and this absence, lasting 45 days, provides the context in which the destinies of righteous and unrighteous Israelites are determined. Thirdly, if the Targum wished to refer to the Ephraimite Messiah, it has behaved most oddly in 2 3

Cf. also, for example, b. M. Qat. 25b. Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, II, 298.

350

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

disregarding the obvious cue in the MT, namely, the reference to “piercing”. By comparison, mention of “him on whose account they were exiled” is convoluted, even if it were defensible in other respects. Fourthly, and perhaps because of the particular eschatological fit that they had in mind, Strack-Billerbeck have not mentioned a further, and perhaps the more obvious, translation possibility at Zech. 12.10: “because they were exiled”.4 If this last possibility is the appropriate translation, then the Targum is simply resorting to one of its stock themes when bringing exile centre-stage. Since the presumption in the text would be that the exiled people of Judah had been restored to their land, “because they were exiled” could have a pluperfect sense, and the whole clause might even imply a measure of repentance for what had in the first place occasioned the exile. Such a simple reference to exile at this point would be less context-specific than the alternative about to be discussed; nevertheless, it would be perfectly congruent with the Targumic predilection for the theme of exile. Targumists frequently introduce it with or without the encouragement of the MT. If, on the other hand, the first Strack-Billerbeck possibility (“for those who were exiled”) is preferred, it cannot be the whole community that goes into exile, as in the Strack-Billerbeck scenario. Nevertheless, an end-time perspective could be maintained with the help of Zech. 14.2 (MT and Targ.), which talks of half the city of Jerusalem going into exile (bgwlh) when the nations are finally assembled against it. In that case, the singular referent in “they will mourn for him”, closely following the MT, could, with a little goodwill, be explained within its Targumic setting as a collective, continuing the reference to those who had been exiled from JerusalemJudah.

Ezekiel and the Variant One of the most striking features of the CR marginal text is the time reference expressed by wmn btr kdyn: “And afterwards the Messiah son of Ephraim will go out to do battle.” The use of this time marker ensures that we understand that the death of the Ephraimite Messiah takes place after the accession of the divine Spirit upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and such an order of events is not to be taken for granted in a context like this. If we compare, for example, Joel 3.1–5 (2.28–32) on the subject of the outpouring of the divine Spirit in the end time, the impression conveyed is that this will follow a time of suffering and of attack by “the northerner” (2.1–17, 20). So 3.5 (2.32) promises deliverance for “the survivors whom the Lord calls”. 3.1 (2.28) begins, accordingly, with “And afterwards” (Targ. wyhy btr kyn). If, in the case of Zechariah 12, we take into account the verses immediately preceding v. 10, the contrast between the conditions following upon God’s intervention, as in the chapter, and the death of the Ephraimite Messiah after the coming of the divine Spirit, as in the CR variant, becomes more apparent. “At 4 The translation of MT ’t ’šr by “because” would parallel LXX anth’ hõn (“because”; cf. Sæbø 1969: 99). For Targum ‘l d- meaning “because”, see Ezek. 39.23, 25, 28, etc.

EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND TARGUM(S) TO ZECH. 12.10

351

that time”, according to the MT, God’s merciful intervention on behalf of Jerusalem and Judah would bring it about that even the weak among the citizenry of Jerusalem would be like David, and that the house of David would exercise its leadership role like the very angel of God (v. 8). At that time, moreover, God would set out to destroy the nations that attacked Jerusalem (v. 9). This is poor preparation for the suggestion of a dying messiah outside the gate of Jerusalem, as in the CR variant. The CR variant therefore presents an alternative to the basic sequence of return to Jerusalem-outpouring of divine Spirit-era of prosperity, and the explanation appears to lie in the presentation of Gog and the events surrounding his appearance in Ezekiel 38–39. First, we should note that Ezekiel 36–37 describes the reconstitution of the exiled people of Judah, who are cleansed from the pollution of their idolatry (36.25) and infused with the divine Spirit (36.27). Chapter 37 in particular describes the recreation of the nation as a “corporate” entity (vv. 1–14) and its unification under a restored Davidic ruler (vv. 15–28). Then Gog comes on the scene, and a unique perspective on the Judah of the return is offered in ch. 38. For it is when the Judaeans are restored to their land that Gog makes his attack. After many days you will be mustered. In future years you will come to a land that has recovered from the sword, assembled from many nations upon the mountains of Israel, which had been perpetually desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and they all lived in safety. You and all your troops, and many nations with you, will go up, coming on like a storm, like a cloud covering the land (Ezek. 38.8–9).

In certain respects the eschatological standpoint of Zech. 12.1–9 corresponds to that of Ezekiel 38–39. Whether or not the CR variant makes this assumption for the earlier verses of ch. 12 is difficult to judge, given its isolated (marginal) position in relation to the main text. It itself certainly seems to reflect the Ezekielan order of events: the divine Spirit remaining “upon” the restored community, then (“afterwards”) the attack by Gog and the Ephraimite Messiah’s death in battle. It differs from the ST version, where the outpouring of the spirit of compassion and mercy leads to the beseeching described in the remainder of v. 10. In the variant, then, the attack of Gog and his allies represents a stage beyond the return of the exiles to their homeland. So it is in the one passage in the New Testament where Gog is mentioned: following a thousand-year period of messianic rule Gog and Magog head up the last outbreak of satanic rebellion before being destroyed with fire from heaven (Rev. 20.8–9). Somewhat later, the tradition recounted in Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17 envisages the attack of Gog after the restoration and prospering of Israel back in their land: “After all this Gog-Magog hears and comes up against them.” However, a challenge to this ordering of events can also be found in the ancient sources. With perhaps more than a hint of pastoral concern, Targum Canticles has the King Messiah counsel the Jewish diaspora to wait until the destruction of Gog and Magog, so that then God could restore them to the land of Israel (8.4; cf. 7.13). That the CR variant is beholden to Ezekiel 38–39 for its event sequencing makes its depiction of Gog as victorious over the Ephraimite Messiah all the more surprising. For, while nothing is implied about the subsequent fate of Gog, what is

352

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

said nevertheless contrasts radically with his treatment in Ezekiel. There God himself declares that he will summon a sword against Gog on the mountains of Israel (38.21) where Gog is destined to fall (39.4); it will take the house of Israel seven months to bury all the host of Gog’s fallen warriors, hence the naming of the Valley of the Horde of Gog (39.11–12). This destruction of Gog is also mentioned in the Targum tradition. In PseudoJonathan to Exod. 40.11 the Messiah son of Ephraim – said here to be a descendant of the Ephraimite Joshua son of Nun – is the one through whom the house of Israel is to conquer Gog and his allies at the end of the age. In both Targum Neofiti and a Fragment-Targum version of Num. 11.26, on the other hand, victory over Gog and Magog is attributed to the King Messiah (i.e. the Davidic Messiah).5 Both texts also show dependence upon Ezekiel 39, so that their specific reference to Gog’s attack on Jerusalem, as in the CR variant at Zech. 12.10, is noteworthy. In Ezekiel 38–39 the attentions of Gog are trained on the land and the mountains of Israel, and this appears to be the assumption in the Pseudo-Jonathan version of Num. 11.26: “Their corpses shall fall upon the mountains of the land of Israel.” Perhaps the specific focus on Jerusalem in Targum Neofiti and the Fragment-Targum has been influenced by the like of Zech. 12.2–3, 9. Antiquity At the very least, the traditions of interpretation that are reflected in both the ST text and the CR variant are attested elsewhere in rabbinic literature. In b. Mo‘ed Qatan 28b R. Akiva quotes Zech. 12.11 (sic), apparently to show that mourning was made for King Ahab despite a certain lack of merit on his part. This is followed by a statement by R. Joseph of Pumbeditha confessing that he would not have understood Zech. 12.11 without the help of the Targum.6 There are clear implications here for the antiquity of the extant Targum, since the version quoted by R. Joseph agrees closely, and there is no reason to assume that the Talmudic quotation has been assimilated to the ST text.7 That the forerunner of the ST text predated R. Joseph by a significant period of time seems to be the minimum that we should conclude from his statement.8 For its part, the CR variant has its interpretative counterpart in b. Suk. 52a, where the Ephraimite Messiah is regarded as a possible referent at Zech. 12.10. Again, 5 Cf. Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. 24.17 (“a mighty king of the house of Jacob”). According to Targ. 1 Sam. 2.10 God himself is directly involved in the destruction of Gog, as in Ezekiel 38–39. In Targ. 2 Sam. 22.49 God delivers David, the speaker in the chapter, from Gog and the Gentile armies accompanying him. God himself also acts in Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. 11.26, and in Targ. Ezek. 38–39, though it has to be noted that the Targum to this prophet universally fails to mention the Messiah; cf. Levey 1974: 85–87. In Targ. Cant. 4.5 the Davidic and Ephraimite Messiahs are mentioned together as deliverers of Israel. 6 Similarly in b. Meg. 3a. 7 E contra, the Talmudic quotations of Targum texts can differ significantly from the standardized version (cf. Zeph. 3.18 as quoted in b. Ber. 28a). 8 The Peshitta agrees with the Targum in finding a reference to the lamentation for Josiah (“the son of Amon”) in Zech. 12.11, though the MT’s mention of the plain of Megiddo(n) may have been sufficient inspiration for the Syriac translator.

EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND TARGUM(S) TO ZECH. 12.10

353

Midrash Rabbah on Numbers (11.6) has an explanation of the words “and be gracious to you” in the “Priestly Blessing” (Num. 6.25) that depends on Zech. 12.10 as interpreted in the marginal variant. In the Midrash the verb “be gracious” is interpreted to mean “raise up prophets”, on the basis of the expression “the spirit of grace” as it occurs in Zech. 12.10. However, although the concept of the “spirit of prophecy” is well known in the Targumic literature (e.g. Isa. 61.1), and the pouring out of the divine Spirit is associated with prophesying already in Joel 3.1 (2.28), there is nothing in MT Zech. 12.10 that explicitly suggests the subject of prophecy. This is also true of the literalish ST text at this point, but the marginal version, with “spirit of prophecy” for “spirit of grace”, provides the missing link. Again, it is inadvisable to claim that the Midrash presupposes the marginal Targum itself, though this cannot be ruled out.

Priority The question of the possible priority of the one Targumic reading of Zech. 12.10 over the other inevitably calls for discussion. The use by both versions of the verb b‘y in their rendering of MT “and they will look to me” calls for comment in this regard: ST CR

and they will entreat from before me and they will look to me and will inquire from me

The translation of BH nbt. (hiphil) by Aramaic b‘y is not the most obvious one, and the occurrence of the same Aramaic verb in both the ST and the expansive text of the CR variant suggests the possibility of a relationship of some sort between the two readings. An abridgment theory of the type that Pierre Grelot invoked to account for the variant texts woven together as “Toseftic Targum” at Zech. 2.14–15 would argue that the standard Targum had omitted the literal equivalent of MT “they will look” and retained only the amplificatory “and will inquire from me” (cf. Grelot 1966: 197–211). However, there is precedent for the rendering of nbt. by b‘y (see Isa. 8.22),9 and the issue is slightly complicated by the likelihood that the two versions use b‘y in different senses. The CR variant clearly uses it in the sense of “ask why”: they will inquire why the Ephraimite Messiah has been allowed to die while in combat with Gog and his armies. In the ST version the more likely sense is “entreat”: “they will entreat from before me because they were exiled”. Even with the other translation possibilities that have been considered above, some sense such as “beseech” or “entreat” would be appropriate, and still the verb would be differently nuanced from its counterpart in the CR variant. Moreover, the soundness of Grelot’s arguments for taking the toseftic Targum associated with Zech. 2.14–15 as representative of a longer original text that has been abridged to become the standard version is seriously doubted.10 9 10

Here the Targum is free: “And he will seek support from the inhabitants of the land.” See Kasher 1975–6: 27–45; 1996: 213–19; Gordon 1994: 96–107.

354

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Identity There have been various attempts to account for the introduction of the figure of the Messiah son of Ephraim into Jewish messianism, whether as a reaction to historical developments of one sort or another, or as an expression of more deeply felt needs within Judaism (Heinemann 1975: 1–15). In general, the Targum tradition reflects the idea of a triumphant messianic figure out of the Davidic mould, and the expectation was that this Davidic Messiah would live forever (Levey 1974: 108). This roseate view is strikingly evident in the Targumic version of Isa. 52.13–53.12 where the Messiah plays a conspicuous part, yet is spared any of the negatives in the Hebrew text. Here ideas of suffering and servitude are distributed by the Targumist between Israel and the nations. One short clause in ch. 53 stands out as a possible exception, when it is said of the Messiah that he “handed himself over to death” (v. 12). Whether this actually means that the Messiah died or that he merely risked death is debated. The Hebrew text that is thus translated says that the servant “poured himself out to death”, and could be held to be equally ambiguous, except that the MT original of the poem has other statements about the servant that would, taken in their natural sense, imply his death. The argument, sometimes appropriate in discussion of the Targums, that similarity to the parent Hebrew text may reduce the significance of a particular rendering as an independent interpretation, hardly applies here in view of the importance of the subject of the Messiah, the unusual lengths to which the Targumist goes in this chapter in order to protect his understanding of the Messiah’s role, and the importance of Isaiah 52–53 in Jewish-Christian polemic. In Targ. Judg. 5.18 there is a similar statement about the tribe of Zebulun who “handed themselves over to death”,11 but it could be argued that the same ambiguity applies there. Even so, the mere suggestion that the Messiah would “risk his life”, if we so limit the sense of the term in Isa. 53.12, is hardly expressive of the ideology of the Davidic Messiah, and may hint at that diversity of views on the Messiah that could accommodate even the Ephraimite Messiah. Perhaps it was awareness of this concept of a dying messiah that allowed the Isaiah Targumist to render the MT relatively literally at this point, when so much else in the chapter was fundamentally reconstructed. Those who look for historical causation to explain the Ephraimite Messiah turn most naturally to Simeon bar Kokhba, who was famously acclaimed by R. Akiva as a messianic figure.12 However, Bar Kokhba’s revolt against the Romans failed, and he himself became a casualty, following the prolonged siege at Bethar. The tradition – which in this kind of discussion is as important as the actual historical facts – has it that, when the Romans took Bethar, Bar Kokhba perished, and his head was removed and presented to the emperor Hadrian.13 The “reception-history” of Bar Kokhba is a 11 Because the Targum redivides the MT in its translation of Judg. 5.18, our rendering corresponds to the words “themselves to death”. It is therefore inappropriate in this case even to consider the underlying Hebrew as a possible guide to the meaning of the Targum. 12 For wide-ranging discussion of the Bar Kokhba revolt see Schäfer 1981. 13 j. Ta‘an. 4.5; Lam. R. 2.4.

EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND TARGUM(S) TO ZECH. 12.10

355

complex matter,14 nevertheless there is sufficient positive treatment of him in Jewish tradition to suggest that his messianic pretensions were not universally dismissed, even after his failed attempt to oust the Romans. The other main possibility canvassed is that the “Messiah son of Ephraim” developed as a reflex of Christian preaching of Jesus as a suffering and dying messiah. However, key differences between the Christian messianic concept and the Messiah son of Ephraim (or, Joseph) as depicted in rabbinic sources were already noted by Dalman over a century ago (1888: 22–23). At the same time, the CR variant’s description of the death of the Messiah son of Ephraim does not fit with what is known of Bar Kokhba’s death (see above). Indeed, it could be argued that the Ephraimite Messiah’s death at the hand of Gog “before the gate of Jerusalem”15 has more in common with the crucifixion of Christ who, according to the unanimous New Testament tradition, “suffered outside the gate” of Jerusalem (cf. Heb. 13.12). Since, however, the view that Bar Kokhba served as a prototype for the Ephraimite Messiah does not assume his identity with that messiah, we should not expect a perfect correlation between the two in respect of the circumstances of their deaths. Even Heinemann’s explanation of the death of the Messiah son of Ephraim as a secondary, Bar Kokhba-influenced, element in the tradition should not require this degree of correspondence (Heinemann 1975: 6–10). The honorand may well regard this (or any) contribution on Targum as “strange fire”, nevertheless it is offered in recognition of the unique talent and prodigious industry that have served, stimulated and more than once twitted the Old Testament guild (I almost said “fraternity”) during the past thirty years.

Bibliography Buber, S. (ed.) (1884) Lekach-Tob. III. Sepher Bamidbar (Wilna: Romm). Chilton, B. D. (1983) The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (JSOTSup, 23; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Dalman, G. (1888) Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synagoge im ersten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend (Berlin: H. Reuther). Gordon, R. P. (1994) Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets: From Nahum to Malachi (VTSup, 51; Leiden: E. J. Brill). Grelot, P. (1966) “Une Tosephta targoumique sur Zacharie, II, 14–15”, RB 73: 197–211. Heinemann, J. (1975) “The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim”, HTR 68: 1–15 (also in L. Landman [ed.], Messianism in the Talmudic Era [New York: Ktav, 1979]: 339–53). Kasher, R. (1975–6) “The Targumic Additions to the Haphtara for the Sabbath of Hannuka” (Heb.), Tarbiz. 45: 27–45. ——— (1996) Targumic Toseftot to the Prophets (Heb.) (Sources for the Study of Jewish Culture, 2; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies). 14

This provides the focus for the monograph by R. G. Marks (1994). According to Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17, Gog kills the Ephraimite Messiah in the streets of Jerusalem. 15

356

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

——— (2000) “On the Portrayal of Messiahs in Light of an Unknown Targum to Lam 4:21–22”, Jewish Studies Quarterly 7: 22–41. Levey, S. H. (1974) The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College, 2; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion). Levine, E. (1988) The Aramaic Version of the Bible: Contents and Context (BZAW, 174; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Marks, R. G. (1994) The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press). Pearson, B. W. R. (1998) “Dry Bones in the Judean Desert: The Messiah of Ephraim, Ezekiel 37, and the Post-Revolutionary Followers of Bar Kokhba”, JSJ 29: 192–201. Sæbø, M. (1969) Sacharja 9–14: Untersuchungen von Text und Form (WMANT, 34; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Schäfer, P. (1981) Der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand: Studien zum zweiten jüdischen Krieg (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, 1; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]). Strack, H. L., and P. Billerbeck (1924) Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, II (Munich: C. H. Beck).

Index of Biblical References Genesis 1–3, 329 1–2, 173, 177 1, 22, 25, 26, 28, 191 1:5, 8, 10, 26 1:11–12, 173 1:15, 25 1:21, 306 1:26–27, 192 1:26, 27, 191 1:28, 28, 29 1:31, 29 2–3, 71 2:1, 29 2:4–7, 19, 22, 173 3, 87 3:6, 87 3:19, 304 4, 313 4:3–16, 313 4:8, 313, 314, 315 4:14, 23, 264 5:24, 264 7:8, 270 8:7, 257, 270 10, 158 11:3–4, 30 11:5, 194 11:7, 28, 30 12:10–25:18, 145 14, 176 15:12, 320, 334 15:20, 60 18, 145, 191, 194, 195 18:13, 191 18:16, 17–21, 194 18:17, 145, 191, 194 18:22–32, 145 18:21, 22, 194 19:1, 191, 194

19:15, 191 19:20, 301 19:26, 305 20–21, 158, 165 20, 145, 158, 194 20:7, 125, 145, 194, 332 21:22, 32, 34, 158 23:13, 301 24:11, 89 25:32, 34, 316 26, 60, 158, 165 26:3, 60, 158 26:3–4, 165 26:12, 158 26:26–31, 42 26:30–31, 87 26:28, 44, 158 26:31, 43 30:22, 310 31:43–54, 42 32:11, 263 32:30, 191 34:21, 249 37:1, 70 37:33, 263, 264, 274 38:25, 313 39–41, 71 40, 29 41: 8, 33, 39, 72 41:45, 50, 320 41:54, 257, 267 42:2, 301 42:11, 24 42:25, 87 43:14, 264 45:21, 23, 87 46:20, 320 46:30, 264 48:22, 263, 264

357

49:18, 345 Exodus 1:1–7, 28 1:7, 28 2:10, 65 4:8, 164 6:2–3, 177 6:6, 164 10:27–29, 272 10:28–29, 199 11:2–3, 272 11:5, 90 12:12, 164 14, 62 15:9, 345 15:12, 305 17:16, 311 20, 177 21, 201 21:13, 200 21:14, 201 23:31–33, 80 23:32, 86 25–40, 72, 75 25:9, 40, 206 28:3, 75 31:2, 3, 6, 75 33:3, 263 34:11–16, 80 34:12, 86 35:25–26, 75 35:31, 34, 35, 75 36:1, 2, 8, 75 37:1, 75 38:18ff (LXX), 223 38:22, 75 39:32, 29 39:43, 29, 75 40:1–33, 75 40:11, 310, 352

358

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Leviticus 1–7, 202 4:2, 203 11, 258 12–15, 206 16, 205, 206 16:16, 21, 30, 205 16:34, 203, 205 22:10, 291 25:33, 273 25:35, 268 Numbers 6:25, 353 8:4, 206 11:6, 353 11:26, 305, 306, 352 13:33, 60 15:22–31, 202, 203 15:24, 30, 203 16:1–3, 53, 55 16:1–2, 52 16:3, 5, 7, 9, 54 16:10, 12–14, 53 16:11–14, 54 16:22, 23–25, 53 16:24, 54, 55 16:27, 55 16:30, 33, 54 16:32, 53, 55 16:35, 40, 53 23:9, 322 24:1, 263 24:17, 349, 351, 352, 355 25:12, 43 26:10, 53 26:11, 55 34:10ff, 13ff, 323 35:6–28, 200 35:6, 11, 301 35:25, 201 Deuteronomy 1:4, 86 1:28, 60 2:6, 264 2:10, 21, 60 3:11, 60 4:12, 15, 190 4:19, 201 4:36, 39, 48, 190

4:40–42, 190 4:42, 201, 301 5, 177 5:12–15, 51 5:21, 264 7:1–6, 80 7:2, 86 7:5, 25, 164 8:4, 83 9:2, 60 10:1–5, 75 11:6, 53 11:30, 81 12:5ff, 318 13, 144 14, 258 17:18–20, 332 18, 144 18:15–19, 107 20:10–20, 245 20:10–18, 85 20:10, 244, 245 20:11, 16, 88 20:16–18, 80 24:1–4, 258 29, 83, 84, 97 29:4–5, 84 29:4, 83 29:5, 84 29:10, 83 29:11, 44, 266 32:4, 14, 330, 345 32:12, 322 33:28, 322 33:29, 266 Joshua 1–12, 81, 95 1:16–18, 80 1:8, 80 2:9–11, 84, 86, 88 2:12, 80 2:13, 87, 88 2:14, 80, 87 2:17, 20, 80 4:19, 81 6:1, 81 6:17, 87 6:24, 268 6:25, 87, 88

7:4, 301 8:3–25, 85 8:28, 268 8:29, 81 8:30–35, 80, 81 8:33, 35, 81 8:34, 80 9, 80, 81–4, 86, 87, 89, 90, 97 9:1–27, 81 9:1–2, 81 9:1, 85, 86 9:2–7, 84 9:3–27, 81, 82 9:3–4, 85 9:3, 81, 85, 86 9:4–5, 83 9:4, 85, 86 9:5, 86 9:6, 80, 86 9:7, 82, 86, 87, 89 9:8, 82, 89 9:9–13, 83, 86 9:9, 86, 91 9:11, 82, 86, 87 9:12–13, 91 9:12, 85, 87 9:14–15, 87 9:14, 87 9:15–10:1, 82 9:15, 87, 88 9:16–27, 82, 88 9:16, 87 9:17, 88 9:18–21, 81, 84 9:18, 88 9:20, 87, 88 9:21, 83, 88, 89 9:22, 87 9:23, 82, 83, 88, 89, 90 9:24–25, 89 9:24, 84 9:25, 89 9:26, 87 9:27, 82, 83, 89 10, 62, 81, 86 10:2, 86, 94 10:5–10, 267 10:6, 87

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Joshua (contd) 10:11, 301 10:12, 15, 268 10:16–21, 267 10:20, 267 11:13, 267 11:21–22, 165 11:22, 60, 165, 325 12:1, 162 12:4, 60 12:7, 162 13–19, 60 13, 165 13:lff, 325 13:2, 60 13:3, 165 13:12, 60 13:13, 246 15:47, 325 16:10, 88 17:13, 88 17:18, 276 20, 52 20:9, 201 24:1–27, 81 Judges 1:6, 301 1:18, 257, 271, 346 1:19, 27, 271 5:2, 336 5:18, 354 5:19, 282 6:7–10, 177 6:11–24, 191 6:22, 191 11, 221 11:1, 221 13, 64 13, 65 13:2, 64 15:3–5, 160 13:3, 6, 191 13:7, 65, 13:9, 13, 19–22, 191 15:3–5, 160 15:9–13, 16, 160 16:1–3, 160 16:21, 90, 97 17:1, 64

18, 28 Ruth 2:13, 267 1 Samuel 1–15, 64 1–10, 298 1–3, 57, 64 1–2, 64, 66–9 1, 64, 65, 66 1:1, 64, 220 1:11, 65 1:17, 64 1:20, 64, 65 1:22, 65 1:27, 64 1:28, 64, 66 1:29, 65 2, 333, 334, 335 2:1–10, 333 2:10, 12, 352 2:16–17, 34 2:20, 64 3:3, 63, 327 3:20, 59, 61, 62 4–6, 163 4, 66, 67, 161 4:4, 190 4:8, 161 4:16, 301 4.38, 66 5–6, 161, 164 5, 161, 163 5:1–8, 324 5:1–5, 161, 163, 164 5:5, 39 5:7, 161 5:10, 243 6:3,5, 164 6:6, 161 6:8, 164 7–8, 58 7, 62 7:2, 67 7:15–17, 62, 67 8:1–5, 58, 59 8:9, 318 8:11–18, 62 8:20, 58 9–31, 6

359 9–10, 29 9:1–10:16, 29, 62, 68 9:1, 64 9:4, 323 9:7, 30 9:9, 247 9:12–14, 63 9:16, 58 10, 331, 332 10:1 (LXX), 58 10:5–13, 103, 104 10:5–7, 58 10:5, 103, 105 10:10, 348 10:11–12, 331 10:27, 58 12:23, 145 13–31, 18 13:1, 258 13:13, 13 13:17, 323 14:1–46, 17, 68 14:3, 66, 67, 68 14:18–19, 67 14:18, 66, 67, 68 14:50, 40 15–2 Sam. 5, 5 15, 30, 31 15:1, 5 15:5, 12 15:12, 9 15:14, 15, 21, 31 15:27–28, 16 16–18, 6, 48 16, 14, 30 16:2, 31 16:6, 63 16:11, 244 16:14–2 Sam. 5, 5, 35 16:14–23, 6 16:14, 5 17:1–18:5, 6 17, 162, 163 17:4, 8, 162 17:10, 163 17:23, 162 17:24, 301 17:25, 26, 36, 43, 45, 163 17:45–47, 162, 163, 164

360

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

1 Samuel (contd) 17:45, 163 17:46, 165 17:51, 301 17:54, 162 17:56, 175 18:1–5, 17, 18 18:10–11, 19 18:10, 103, 348 19, 331 19:11–17, 10 19:18–20:1, 332 19:19–20, 19 19:20–24, 103 20:17, 44 20:30–34, 9 20:42, 43, 44 21, 161 21:1–9, 161 21:10–15, 162 21:11–16, 39 21:11, 13, 15, 162 21:21, 163 22:8, 17, 18, 19, 10 23–2 Sam. 5, 5 23:1, 5 23.9, 163 23:14, 7 23:17, 18 23:24–25, 9 24–26, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 28, 37 24–25, 12 24, 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 36, 37 24:1–7, 16 24:1–22, 15 24:lff, 7 24:4–5, 16, 17 24:5–8, 33, 35, 37 24:5b–6, 12, 37 24:5, 16, 17, 20, 35, 36 24:6, 35, 36, 63 24:7, 16, 35, 36, 37 24:8, 33, 34, 36, 35 24:10, 37 24:11, 11 24:15, 12 24:17, 18ff, 11

24:20, 18 25, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 29 25:2–42, 15 25:2, 9 25:3, 14 25:8, 11 25:10, 10 25:15, 12 25:17, 19, 10 25:21, 12 25:25, 13, 14, 30 25:26, 12, 13 25:28, 30, 5 25:30–31, 9 25:36, 10, 11 25:37, 12, 14, 15, 30 25:38, 39, 12 25:43, 9 26, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 37 26:1–25, 15 26:1–12, 17 26:6, 60 26:9, 265 26:9–10, 15 26:10, 12 26:11–12, 37 26:11, 265 26:12, 60 26:13–25, 19 26:13, 15–16, 19 26:16, 18 26:17, 21, 25, 11 26:19–20, 19 26:21–25, 13 26:21, 13, 18, 19 26:22, 19 26:25, 7, 18 27–30, 9 27, 161, 162 27:1–12, 38, 39 27:1, 7, 18, 19 28:2, 162 29, 38 29:1–11, 38 29:1, 66 29:4, 55, 285 29:6, 11, 271 30:9–10, 2l–25, 10

31:6, 12 31:9, 164 2 Samuel 1:14, 16, 265 1:21, 257, 265, 266 2–4, 38 2:1, 249 2:8–10, 39 2:10, 11, 39 2:12–16, 163 3–4, 38 3, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46 3:2, 40 3:12–21, 41, 45 3:12, 41 3:13–16, 40 3:13, 16, 41 3:17, 41, 42 3:18, 41 3:19, 20, 41, 42 3:21–23, 43 3:24, 41, 43 3:27, 40, 44 3:28–29, 44 3:28, 43, 45 3:29, 43, 45, 93, 94, 97 3:30, 40 3:31–37, 40 3:31, 34, 44 3:37, 40 3:38–39, 44 3:39, 265 4, 45 5, 163, 164 5:3, 41 5:5, 39 5:17–25, 61, 163 5:19, 249 5:21, 164 6, 5, 61, 260 6:2, 67 6:17, 318 7, 5, 80 7:42, 260 8:5–6, 323 8:6, 14, 190 9–1 Kgs 2, 23 9–20, 5, 71, 77, 79, 243 10, 235

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

2 Samuel (contd) 10:1ff, 219, 235 10:2, 220 10:19, 246 11–12, 15 11:2–12:25, 79 11, 14, 30 11:25, 30 12:8, 40 12:26ff, 219 13–20, 5, 247, 248 13:3–5, 72 13:27, 11 14, 247, 248, 258 14:2, 73 14:16, 247, 258 14:20, 73, 74 14:21, 23, 33, 248 15–17, 73 15, 27 15:25, 248 15:31, 34, 73 16–17, 194 16:15–17:14, 73 16:7–6, 6 16:20, 23, 73 17:3–13, 73 17:7, 14, 23, 73 18:14–15, 248 18:18, 52 18:32, 13 19, 27 19:9, 27 19:16–23, 76 19:23, 78 20, 6, 242, 247, 248 20:1, 10 20:2, 39 20:14–22 , 72 20:14, 73 20:16, 72 20:18–19, 242, 244, 249, 259 20:18, 247, 249 20:19, 243, 245, 247, 248, 258 20:21, 225 20:22, 72, 248 20:23, 248

21–24, 26 21, 6, 26, 163 21:1, 82 21:2, 82, 86 21:15–22, 26, 60 22:2–51, 26 22:49, 352 23, 163 23:1–7, 26 23:5, 257 23:8–39, 26 24, 17, 36 24:10, 17, 36 1 Kings 1–2, 5, 71, 77, 78, 79, 200, 201, 243 1:5–53, 77 1:5, 224 1:39, 201 1:50, 200, 201 1:51, 201 2–12:14, 49 2–11, 78 2–3, 76 2, 44, 45, 46, 73, 76–9, 200, 201 2:1–12, 76, 77 2:5–6, 40, 44, 76, 248, 2:5, 46, 77 2:6, 9, 72, 74, 76, 78 2:8–9, 76 2:11, 78 2:12–21:43, 214, 217 2:12–14, 78 2:12, 76, 77 2:13–46, 77 2:13–25, 77 2:24a–f, 218 2:25, 78 2:25–27, 77 2:26, 77 2:28–35, 248 2:28, 77, 200, 201 2:29, 78, 201 2:30, 202 2:31–33, 40, 46, 77 2:31, 32, 78 2:34, 78, 201 2:35, 223

361 2:35a–o, 233 2.35a–k, 46a–1 (LXX), 49 2:35e, 223 2:38, 78 2:39, 77 2:43, 78 2:46, 76, 78, 2:46a–l, 233 2:46b, 77 3–11, 71, 72, 79 3, 79, 83 3:9, 11, 78 3:12, 74, 78 3:16–28, 74 3:35, 78 4:11, 308 4:20–5:14 (4:20-34), 79 5, 75 5:9–14 (4:29–34), 74 5:20 (6), 75 5:21 (7), 26 (12), 74 5:27–31 (13–17), 79 5:32 (18), 75 6–7, 74, 75, 76 6:1, 75, 77, 222 6:2, 75, 215 6:14, 21, 75 7:13–45, 75 7:14, 74, 75 7:48, 51, 75 9:1–9, 129 9:15ff, 223 9:20–21, 82 9:21, 88 9:22–23, 79 9:26–28, 223 10:1–13, 74 10:26, 222, 223 11, 79, 224, 230 11:8, 215 11:14–43, 79 11:14–25, 230 11:14–22, 225, 236 11:14, 230, 236 11:19, 226, 227, 236 11:20, 227, 228, 237 11:21–22, 229 11:21, 225, 229 11:25, 230, 231

362

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

1 Kings (contd) 11:26–28, 235 11:26, 221, 222, 224 11:27, 222, 223, 225, 230, 235 11:28, 223 11:29–39, 235, 236 11:30–31, 16 11:39, 79 11:40, 79, 224, 225, 229 11:41–43, 79 11:43, 215, 218, 229, 230 12, 194 12:1–24, 79 12:1, 218 12:2, 229 12:3, 228, 229, 231, 235 12:6, 217 12:8, 217, 219, 234 12:12, 228, 231, 235, 240 12:16–17, 10 12:16 , 216, 217, 234 12:17, 240 12:18, 217, 214, 225, 233, 301 12:20, 39, 217, 226, 228, 231 12:21–24, 234 12:21, 22–24, 217 12:22, 214 12:24, 213, 215, 233, 234 12:24a–z, 49, 233 12:24a–f, 233 12:24a–n, 233 12:24a, f, u, 234 12:24a, 214, 215, 218, 220, 221, 234, 235 12:24b–d, 225 12:24b, 221, 222, 223, 224, 228, 229, 233, 234, 235, 237 12:24b,c,f,o-z, 216 12:24b,c, 216, 220 12:24b, f, k, 1, n, 221 12:24c, 225 12:24d–f, 225, 236 12:24d, 214, 225, 229 12:24e, 224–7, 236 12:24f, 214, 218, 229, 238

12:24g–n, 237–41 12:24h, 223, 236, 241 12:24i, n, 241 12:24k, 214 12:24k, l, 233 12:24m, 239, 240, 241 12:24n, 218, 228, 238 12:24o, 225 12:24r, 217 12:24r,u, 234 12:24t, 216, 234 12:24t,u, 215, 216 12:24u, 214, 217, 225, 233 12:24x, 217, 222 12:24x, y, 234 12:24y, 215, 234 12:24z, 234 12:25, 222 12:26–27, 224 13:30, 239 14, 228 14:1–18, 238–241 14:10–11, 239, 240 14:13, 240 14:19–20, 238 14:21, 218, 219, 234 14:22ff, 220 14:22, 215 15:2, 219 15:5, 215 15:10, 219 15:11, 215 15:18, 348 15:20, 244 16:3–4, 240 16:28a–h, 233 18, 103 18:28–29, 123 19–22, 143 19:16, 247 20:30, 301 21:19, 221 21:21–24, 240 22, 143, 194 22:1–40, 348 22:19–22, 127, 143 22:38, 221 22:41ff, 215

22:42, 219 22:53, 221 2 Kings 1:3, 165 1:18a–d, 215, 233 3:15, 103 3:24, 301 5:17, 19, 318 8:16, 219 8:26, 219, 235 9:8–10, 240 9:11, 103 10:36, 215 12:2, 219 13.19, 285 13:25, 215 14:2, 219 14:25, 321 15:2, 219 15:7, 268 15:33, 219 16:1, 219 18:2, 219 19:4, 16, 22, 23, 163 21:1, 19, 219 22:1, 219 23:8, 301 23:29, 348 23:31, 36, 219 24:8, 18, 219 1 Chronicles 5:2, 254 9:2, 83 10.9, 164 12:19, 55 14:12, 164 16:8–36, 49 17:17, 254 25:1–3, 332 28:19, 206 2 Chronicles 6:18, 253 8:2, 222 10, 214 12:14, 220 14:8–14, 268 15:19, 268 20:14–17, 106 26:6, 7, 325

363

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

2 Chronicles (contd) 26:23, 268 35:24–25, 349 Ezra 7:7, 83 8:17, 83 Nehemiah 6:16, 158 Job 4:12–16, 145 6:7, 343 7:9–10, 304 14:11–12, 303 14:12, 263 22:8, 343 23:17, 274 31:10, 90 41:2, 274 Psalms 6:8, 9, 107 14, 52 19, 202 19:12–13, 202 22:22, 23, 107 30:6, 284 37:33, 267 40:6, 176 49:10, 313 49:19, 304 51:16–17, 206 52:4, 37 53, 52 56, 162 60, 106 60:6, 267 61:7, 311 68:19, 269 68:22, 305 72, 175 72:5, 15, 175 78, 66 78:60–72, 67 81, 107 82, 106, 125, 192 82:35, 125 88:5, 10, 172 89:39–52, 269 89:48, 269 91:8, 313

95, 107 100:3, 274 105:28, 272 106:16–18, 53 110, 176, 306 115:17, 172 119, 25 135:10–12, 86 136:18–21, 86 139:7–12, 321 Proverbs 8:4, 26 9:1, 74 19:17, 289 21:30, 73 22:24, 286 26:4–5, 73 31:19, 92, 97 Ecclesiastes 2:16, 263, 304 3:18–22, 263, 304 12:3, 90 Song of Songs (Canticles) 1:2, 17, 345 4:5, 352 7:10, 308 7:13, 351 8:2, 306 8:4, 351 8:5, 306, 307, 309, 317 Isaiah 1–39, 306 1–12, 117 1–10, 298 1:2–3, 107 1:3, 280, 290 1:7, 280 1:10–20, 107 1:11–17, 105 1:18, 291 1:24, 270 1:26, 319 2:6, 160, 280 2:16, 322 3:2, 331 3:8, 280 3:10, 270 3:13, 334 5:1, 331

5:5, 334 5:9, 330 6:1–8:21, 134 6:1–13, 127, 143, 193 6:1, 106, 340 6.8, 127 6:10, 253, 329 6:11, 280 7:14, 16, 175 8:13, 271 8:14, 270, 271 8:16, 111, 136, 285 8:17, 21, 285 8:22, 353 9:2, 274 9:8, 280 9:12, 159 9:14, 331 10:25, 284 10:27, 309 10:32, 333 11:2, 348 11:14, 159 13:19, 288 14, 279 16:9, 288 19:16, 90 19:18, 319, 320 21:2, 330 21:3, 144, 340 21:5, 265 21:9, 320 21:12, 311 22:14, 312 22:18, 301 23:12, 301 23:14, 322 24:16, 311 26:13–27:13, 117 26:15, 312 26:16, 284 26:19, 310 28:7, 205, 331 28:18, 288 29:10, 331 30:8, 111 32:6, 333 33:14, 312, 313 33:17, 313

364

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Isaiah (contd) 33:22, 333 34–66, 188 34:14, 301 35:4, 287, 288 35:10, 301 36, 112 37:4, 16, 17, 288 37:23, 270 38:12, 282 38:16, 306 40–66, 113, 185 40–55, 185, 285, 339 40–48, 160 40:6, 193 40:20, 161 41:7, 161 41:27, 335 41:28, 270 42:16, 254 43:12, 333 45, 112 45:1–6, 187 45:7, 187, 188 45:18, 25 47:2, 90 47:13, 334 49:12, 323 49:14–26, 112 49:24, 340 50:4, 333 51:2, 343, 344, 345 52–53, 354 52:11, 300 52:13–53:12, 148, 354 53:4, 288 53:5, 291, 329 53:6, 285 53:12, 354 54:3, 323 54:6, 272 54:7–8, 284 54:7, 285 54:8, 284 54:10, 43 55:3, 184 56–66, 286 56:11, 285 57:6, 300

57:7, 301 57:14, 281 57:17–18, 285 57:17, 281–6, 292 57:18, 19, 329 58:2, 288 59:18, 286–9, 292 61:1, 353 61:10, 330 63:7, 286, 289 63:18, 283 65:3–4, 312 65:4, 5, 312 65:20, 300 66:24, 263, 313 Jeremiah 1–20, 339 1–10, 298 1, 106 1:1–19, 143 1:1, 106 2:9, 333 2:12, 320, 333 3:22, 329 4:19, 115, 331 5:7–9, 195 5:10, 257, 272 5:17, 273 6:13, 331 7, 66 7:2, 109 7:21–28, 105 8:10, 331 8:13–9:23, 340 8:18–23, 340 8:18, 331 8:20–22, 330 8:20, 330, 340 8:21, 330 8:22, 291, 330 11:14, 296, 297 12:1–4, 272 12:5, 272, 333 13, 49 14:9, 265 14:18, 331 15:1, 63 16:15, 301 17:13, 333

17:16, 263 18:2, 301 18:18, 331 21:4, 223 22:18, 239 22:27, 301 23, 127 23:9–40, 126, 127 23:9–24, 143 23:9, 115, 144 23:11, 331 23:16, 18, 22, 127 23:23, 322, 333 23:25, 27, 28, 32, 127 23:33, 331 26, 66 26:7, 8, 11, 16, 331 27:18, 146 28:5, 6, 340 29–52, 49 29:1, 331 29:26, 103, 115 31:3, 340 31:26, 333 33:17, 95 34:5, 239 36:1–2, 111 40:4, 301 43–44, 321 46:25, 328 47, 165 47:1–7, 159 47:5 (LXX 29:5), 60, 165 48:32, 288 48:41, 90 49:9, 274 49:22, 90 50:19, 323 50:37, 90 51:7, 333 51:13, 282 51:13 (LXX 28:13), 282 51:30, 90 51:39, 312 51:56, 287, 288, 289 51:57, 312 52:11, 90 Lamentations 5:13, 90

365

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Ezekiel 1–2, 127 1:3, 106, 321 2:1–3:11, 249 7:26, 331 8:3–11:24, 321 16:20, 333 16:27, 159 18:19, 341, 342, 346 18:25, 341, 342 21:5, 139 22:25, 331 25:15–17, 159 30:15, 328 30:17, 320 33:17, 20, 341, 342 33:24, 343, 344, 345 33:32, 33, 139 34:25, 43 36–37, 351 36:25, 27, 351 37, 308, 309, 351 37:1–14, 309, 351 37:1, 308 37:11, 316 37:15–28, 351 38–39, 347, 351, 352 38, 317, 351 38:8–9, 351 38:21, 352 39, 352 39:4, 11–12, 352 39:23, 25, 28, 350 39:29, 348 40–48, 192 44:6–9, 83, 84 45:18–20, 206 48:18, 323 Daniel 2, 335 3:1, 308 7, 335 8:2, 321 10:4, 321 11, 335 12:3, 291 Hosea 2, 195 3:1, 204

4:5, 138 6:2, 333 6:4, 195 6:5, 34, 138 6:6, 105 9:7, 103, 138 9:8, 138 10:12, 333 11, 175 11:1, 174 11:2, 175 11:8, 195 12:11, 138 12:14, 138 13:4–14:10, 117 14:5, 329 14:7, 306, 310 14:10, 312 Joel 2:1–17, 20, 350 3:1–5 (2:28–32), 350 3:1 (2:28), 348, 350 3:5 (2:32), 350 4:21, 333 Amos 1–2, 151 1:6–8, 159 2:10–12, 137 2:11–12, 65 3:6b–7, 145 3:7, 137, 194 3:8, 138 3:9, 159 3:14, 201 5:5, 249 5:21–27, 105 6:13, 159 7, 194 7:1–9, 127 7:2, 4, 5, 194 7:9–17, 135 7:(9)10–17, 134, 152 7:10–17, 137, 140, 194 7:14, 140 8:1–2, 127 9:1, 127 9:2ff, 321 9:7, 59, 159

9:8, 159 9:11–15, 113 9:12, 176 Obadiah 5, 274 19, 159 Jonah 1:3, 320, 322 1:16, 318 4:2, 322 Micah 3:12, 336 4–6, 339 4:8, 333 5:1, 257, 273, 274 6:1–8, 102 6:6–8, 105, 206 7:1, 331 7:14, 322, 333 Nahum 1:1, 321 1:2, 286 1:3, 321 1:9, 336 3:8, 328 3:13, 90 Habakkuk 2:1–5, 151 2:3, 176, 334 3:1, 205 3:2, 322 3:16, 144, 330, 340 3:17, 335 Zephaniah 2:6–7, 159 2:7, 60, 324 3:18, 352 Haggai 1:7–8, 106 Zechariah 1:5, 341, 346 2:10, 301 2:14–16, 106 2:14–15, 318, 353 3:1–10, 127 3:1–5, 300 3:3, 300 3:5, 193 3:7, 305

366

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Zechariah (contd) 4:7, 320, 333 5:3, 333 6:12, 333 7:3, 331 9–14, 118 9, 159 9:1, 323, 324 9:5–8, 324 9:6–7, 159 9:6, 324 9:7, 60, 159, 160, 324 9:11–12, 160 12, 347, 350 12:1–9, 348, 351 12:2–3, 9, 348, 352 12:3, 347 12:8, 351 12:9, 347, 351 12:10, 310, 347–50, 352, 353 12:11, 347, 349, 352 13:5–6, 123 13:6, 175 14, 308, 309 14:2, 350 14:4, 307, 310 14:10, 325, 326 14:18, 257 Malachi 1:11, 319 1:2, 341 1:5, 322 1:6–2:9, 106 1:6, 7, 13, 341 2:10–16, 342 2:12, 247 2:14, 341 2:15, 342–5 2:16, 257, 258, 269 2:17, 341 3:6, 316 3:7, 8, 13, 341 4:1–6, 118

Matthew 1:22–23, 175 2:6, 257, 273 2:15, 175 2:23, 174 4, 34 18:23–35, 35 24:41, 90 24:51, 34, 35 27:9, 173 Mark 4:12, 253, 329 Luke 1–2, 48 12:46, 34, 35 John 4:20, 320 Acts 2:30, 332 7, 176 7:30–34, 191 13:18, 319 15:17, 176 26:18, 254 Romans 3:10–18, 50 6:23, 204 7, 204 1 Corinthians 15:3, 169 Ephesians 4:8, 305 Titus 1:12, 332 Hebrews 2:1–4, 197 2:9, 198 2:14–15, 197 4:14, 201 5:2, 203 5:7, 198 5:11–12, 197 6, 199 6:1–12, 199

6:1, 203, 204, 205 6:4, 199 6:9–10, 197, 199 6:13–20, 199 6.18–19, 199, 200, 201, 207 6:19, 199, 200, 202 6:27, 28, 199 7:3, 176 8:5, 206 8:13, 207 9, 199 9:6–14, 202–7 9:6–10, 202 9.7, 203 9:9, 10, 206 9:11–14, 202, 206 9:11, 199 9:12, 202 9:13, 202, 206 9:14, 202, 203, 206 9:15, 20, 206 9:22–29, 30–31, 202 10:5, 176 10.26, 203 10:32–34, 197 10:35–39, 198 10:37, 176 11–12, 198 11, 198, 206 11:4, 5, 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28–31, 33–37, 198 12:1–2, 198 12:4, 197 12:9, 198 13:3, 197 13:12, 355 1 Peter 1:10–12, 171 2:13, 17, 198 Revelation 20:8–9, 351 20:13, 305 21:11, 17, 196

Index of Authors Cited Aberbach, M., 213, 216, 220, 221, 223, 327, 332 Achtemeier, P. J., 110 Ackroyd, P. R., 120, 134 Adriaen, M., 344 Ahituv, S., 85, 88, 95 Ahlström, G. W., 106 Aitken, J. K., 289 Albrektson, B., 90, 95, 143, 181 Albright, W. F., 57 Alexander, P. S., 328 Alford, H., 176, 179 Allegro, J. M., 63 Alonso Schökel, L., 71, 152, 339 Alter, R., 8, 11, 15, 22, 29, 43, 54, 188, 189, 191, 196 Amaru, B. H., 326 Anbar, M., 121, 142 Andersen, F. I., 138, 195 Anderson, A. A., 41 Anderson, G. W., 53, 111 Aptowitzer, V., 307 Arnaud, D., 121, 133, 137 Attridge, H. W., 200 Auld, A. G., 47, 116, 136, 135, 138 Avi-Yonah, M., 312 Axskjöld, C.-J., 157, 166 Baars, W., 260 Bacher, W., 318 Bailey, C., 90, 91, 95 Bailey, H. W., 95 Bailey, R. C., 142 Baines, J., 196 Baker, D. W., 167 Baldwin, J. G., 319 Balentine, S. E., 145 Bammel, E., 197 Barker, M., 151 Baron, S. W., 295

Barr, J., 13, 53, 63, 181 Barstad, H. M., 142, 147 Bartel, R., 22 Barthélemy, D., 48, 214, 215, 242, 243, 245, 249, 282, 299 Barton, J., 23, 24, 25, 58 Batto, B. F., 143 Baumgartner, W., 134, 332 Baumstark, A., 251 Beauchamp, P., 25, 26 Behrens, H., 96 Bellinger, W. H., 106, 107 Ben Yehuda, E., 282 Benzinger, I., 213, 216, 218, 219, 220, 226, 227, 239, 240 Bergmeier, R., 284, 285 Berlin, A., 51, 290 Bertholet, A., 157, 166 Betz, O., 34, 35, 332 Bierling, N., 162, 166 Biggs, R. D., 140 Billerbeck, P., 310, 312, 349, 356 Birch, S., 120, 132, 182 Blenkinsopp, J., 81, 82, 95, 109, 117, 129, 133, 332 Boer, P. A. H. de, 260, 262 Boling, R. G., 82, 95, 267 Borger, R., 91, 95 Bornkamm, G., 311 Bowker, J. W., 264, 324, 325 Boyce, M., 188 Braudel, F., 59 Braun, H., 201, 203 Brauner, R. A., 16 Bream, H. N., 71 Brett, M. G., 157, 166, 167 Briend, J., 81, 85, 86, 95 Bright, J., 6 Brock, S. P., 48, 251 Bron, F., 93, 94, 95

367

368

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Brooke, A. E., 33, 213, 221 Brooke, G. J., 97 Brown, D., 92, 95 Brown, J. P., 92, 95 Bruce, F. F., 49, 50, 51, 199, 205, 335 Brueggemann, W., 71 Brunet, G., 91, 95 Bryce, G. E., 71 Buber, M., 29 Buber, S., 355 Buchanan, G. W., 200, 204 Budde, K., 7 Bultmann, C., 289 Burger, J. A., 150 Burkitt, F. C., 35 Burney, C. F., 213, 227, 229, 231, 237 Butler, T. C., 81, 82, 95 Cagni, L., 91, 95 Calvin, J., 173. 203 Campbell, A. F., 61 Caquot, C., 161, 166 Carlson, R. A., 13, 36 Carroll, R. P., 118, 136, 147 Caspari, W., 9 Cassuto, U., 270 Cathcart, K., 166 Chardin, J., 279 Charles, R. H., 204, 305 Charpin, D., 121, 130, 133, 142 Cheyne, T. K., 108, 213, 220, 223, 233, 290 Childs, B. S., 70, 82, 95 Chilton, B. D., 253, 329, 330, 355 Churgin, P., 312, 318, 320 Civil, M., 193 Clark, K., 189 Clay, A. T., 49 Clayton, S., 45 Clements, R. E., 108, 113, 118, 147, 317 Clines, D. J. A., 49, 89, 95, 114, 118, 119, 134, 151, 182, 195, 202, 317 Coats, G. W., 53, 71, 95, 118, 135 Cody, A., 136 Cogan, M., 166, 167, 180 Coggins, R. J., 21, 120, 133 Cohn, R.L., 166 Conrad, E. W., 119 Conrad, J., 5, 7 Conroy, C., 5, 36, 247, 248

Coogan, M. D., 150 Cook, A. K., 278 Cook, J., 251 Cooper, W., 278 Coote, R. B., 59 Corré, A. D., 340 Craigie, P. C., 266 Crawford, T. G., 90, 95 Credner, C. A., 251, 252 Crenshaw, J. L., 71, 72 Cross, F. M., 123, 183 Cryer, F. H., 63, 142 Culley, R. C., 16 Dalman, G., 333, 334, 355 Daly, R. J., 203 Damrosch, D., 180 Darr, K. P., 119 Daube, D., 61, 164, 166 Davidson, A. B., 341 Davies, G. I., 113, 138, 150 Davies, W. D., 306, 317, 324, 326 Davis, E. F., 151 Day, J., 71, 117, 187 Déaut, R. Le, 313, 327, 328 Deboys, D. G., 271 Debus, J., 233, 238, 240, 241 Deist, F. E., 149, 150 Delcor, M., 319 Delekat, L., 76 De Moor, J. C., 140, 185, 187, 192, 193, 254, 302 Derenbourg, J., 282 Dever, W. G., 157, 166 DeVries, S. J., 78 Dietrich, M., 193 Díez Macho, A., 295, 296, 299, 303, 308, 309, 317, 326 Dijk, J. van, 183 Dijk-Hemmes, F. van, 118 Dijkstra, M., 193, 194 Dirksen, P. B., 251, 253, 262 Donald, T., 13 Donner, H., 122, 281 Dothan, T., 166 Douglas, M., 291 Drijvers, H. J. W., 252 Driver, G. R., 33, 34, 214, 274, 289, 309, 310 Driver, S. R., 11, 13, 33, 42, 93, 96, 161, 166

INDEX OF AUTHORS CITED

Duhm, B., 102, 103, 109, 113, 134, 283 Durand, J.-M., 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 130, 133, 137, 139, 140, 142, 145 Dus, J., 64, 66 Eaton, J. H., 339, 341 Eaton, M. R., 163, 166 Ebeling, E., 133 Edwards, D. L., 22, 189 Edwards, T. C., 200 Ehrlich, A. B., 289 Ehrlich, C. S., 157, 166 Eichhorn, J. G., 113 Eissfeldt, O., 108 Eitan, I., 52, 53 Ellermeier, F., 124 Ellis, M. deJong, 122, 123, 126 Emerton, J. A., 37, 115, 129, 144, 213, 246, 247, 252, 256, 258, 262, 263, 346 Emmerson, G. I., 113 Englert, D. M. C., 247 Engnell, I., 106, 112 Eph‘al, I., 167 Erman, A., 120 Eslinger, L. M., 136, 163, 166 Evans, C.D., 126, 143 Ewald, H., 102 Exum, J. C., 119, 150, 151, 160, 166 Eynde, C. van den, 250 Fales, F. M., 133 Feldman, L. H., 66 Fensham, F. C., 87, 96 Field, F., 33 Finkelstein, I., 61, 81, 96 Finkelstein, L., 314, 323 Fischel, H. A., 314, 315 Fischer, J., 281 Fishbane, M., 11, 17, 25, 117 Fitzmyer, J. A., 268 Flanagan, J. W., 57, 79 Fleming, D. E., 115, 121, 137, 146, 182 Floyd, M. H., 151 Fohrer, G., 71, 111, 129, 274 Fokkelman, J. P., 30, 77, 78, 161, 164, 166, 243 Fox, M. V., 339 Frazer, J. G., 278 Freedman, D. N., 139, 195, 265

369

Frei, H. W., 11 Frerichs, E. S., 167 Friedlander, G., 318, 321 Friedman, R. E., 52 Friedman, S., 80, 278 Fritz, V., 149 Frymer-Kensky, T., 92, 96 Fuller, J. M., 213 Fuller, R., 342, 343 Gammie, J. G., 71 García-Treto, F. O., 119 Garrone, D., 138 Garsiel, M., 164, 166 Gaster, M., 304 Gaster, T. H., 274, 313, 314 Gehman H. S., 213, 234 Geller, M. J., 260 Geller, S. A., 183, 186, 190 Gelston, A., 341 Gemser, B., 13 Gesenius, W., 52, 108, 252, 281, 290 Gibson, A., 162, 167 Gibson, J. C. L., 90, 92, 96 Ginsburger, M., 303, 317 Gitay, Y., 117, 119 Gitin, S., 166, 167 Glazier-McDonald, B., 342 Gnoli, G., 188 Gnuse, R., 62, 187 Goedicke, H., 39 Goetze, A., 86, 96, 122, 133, 141, 182 Golénischeff, W., 104, 120, 132 Goodenough, E. R., 308 Gooding, D. W., 48, 49, 213–18, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 229–235, 238 Gordis, R., 274, 338 Gordon, C. H., 125, 322 Gordon, R. P., 28, 49, 94, 96, 108, 114, 115, 116, 167, 179, 182, 192, 246, 258, 259, 262, 276, 290, 319, 346, 353, 355 Goshen-Gottstein, M. H., 256, 276, 284, 285, 345, 296, 299, 301 Gosse, B., 74, 76 Gottheil, R. J. H., 48 Gottwald, N. K., 152 Graffy, A., 117, 338 Grant, F. C., 63

370

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Gray, G. B., 109, 290 Gray, J., 90, 96, 120, 201, 213, 215, 218–22, 224, 226 Greenberg, M., 249 Greenfield, J. C., 260 Grelot, P., 313, 318, 353, 355 Gressmann, H., 133 Grintz, J. M., 88, 89, 96 Grønbaek, J. H., 5, 7, 9, 16, 39 Groningen, B. A. Van, 91, 96 Grossfeld, B., 301 Guidi, I., 50 Guirgass, V., 94, 96 Gundry, R. H., 257, 274 Gunkel, H., 103, 104, 106, 109, 110, 111, 338 Gunn, D. M., 38, 188, 189 Gunneweg, A. H. J., 112 Gurney, O. R., 49 Gutman, J., 308 Haak, R. D., 159, 167 Haase, W., 199 Hackett, J. A., 126, 133 Halbe, J., 81, 82, 96 Haldar, A., 106 Hall, I. H., 48 Hallo, W. W., 126, 143, 144 Halpern, B., 79, 82, 96 Hals, R. M., 341 Hanson, P. D., 123 Haran, M., 83, 96 Harland, P., 281 Harmer, T., 279 Harrington, D. J., 268 Harris, J. R., 51 Harvey, V., 169 Hatto, A. T., 95 Hawk, L. D., 84, 86, 88, 96 Hayes, J. H., 62, 63, 66, 67, 105, 111 Hayman, A. P., 259 Hayward, C. T. R., 266, 344 Heim, R.D., 71 Heinemann, J., 263, 275, 354, 355 Heintz, J.-G., 126 Hempel, J., 70 Hepworth, B., 108, 279 Herder, J. von, 289 Hertzberg, H. W., 85, 96

Hess, R. S., 83, 84, 96 Hewitt, T., 203 Hillers, D. R., 45, 90, 91, 96 Hoenig, S. B., 326 Hoffmeier, J. K., 167 Hoffner H. A., 39, 92, 96 Hoftijzer, J., 126, 133, 182, 193, 194 Holladay, J. S., 110 Holladay, W. L., 118, 339 Holloway, S. W., 92, 93, 96 Hölscher, G., 103, 104, 106, 134 Hoonacker, A. van, 345 Horbury, W., 205, 207 Horovitz, H. S., 323 Horst, F., 247 Houbigant, K. F., 280, 283 House, P. R., 339 Howard, D. M., 87, 96 Howard, G., 201 Huehnergard, J., 182 Hughes, P. E., 204 Humbert, P., 309, 310 Humphreys, W. L., 6, 8, 15, 19 Hurowitz, V., 76, 77 Hylander, I., 64 Irwin, W. A., 57 Isenberg, S., 314 Ishida, T., 38, 39, 41, 62, 76, 78, 184 Israel, F., 139 Jacobsen, T., 121, 193 Jastrow, M., 49, 325 Jenner, K. D., 260, 261 Jeremias, G., 332 Jobling, D., 8, 9, 17, 18, 25, 68, 161, 167, 196 Johnson, A. R., 106 Johnstone, W., 48 Kahle, P., 251 Kaiser, O., 135 Kaiser, W. C., 31 Kalluveettil, P., 80, 87, 96 Kalugila, L., 74 Kaplan, J., 246 Kasher, R., 192, 318, 347, 353, 355 Kassis, R. A., 92, 96 Kaufman, S. A., 50, 55

INDEX OF AUTHORS CITED

Kearney, P. J., 81, 82, 83, 96 Kegler, J., 77 Kennicott, B., 280 Kent, H. A., 200 Keys, G., 79 King, P. J., 150 Kistemaker, S., 21 Kittel, R., 213, 219, 221, 226, 229, 244, 283, 287, 296, 297, 298 Klein, M. L., 257, 263, 264, 267, 274, 275, 303, 304, 334, 346 Klein, R. W., 161, 167 Klostermann, A., 218, 224, 226, 227, 245 Knibb, M. A., 120, 133 Koch, K., 7, 16, 18, 20, 110, 117 Köhler, L., 110 Kohut, G. A., 295 Komlosh, Y., 343 Kooij, A. van der, 252, 253, 262 Kooij, G. van der, 126, 133, 182, 193, 194 Koppe, J. B., 113 Korpel, M. C. A., 192 Koster, M. D., 259, 261, 262 Kottsieper, I., 193 Kuenen, A., 102 Kugel, J. L., 23, 108, 290, 291, 292 Kuntzmann, R., 327 Kutscher, E. Y., 300 Laato, A., 187 Labuschagne, C. J., 85, 96 Lachs, S. T., 324 Lafont, B., 129, 130, 142 Lagarde, P. de, 243 Lambert, W. G., 130, 182, 183, 185, 193 Lanczkowski, G., 133 Landes, G. M., 71 Landman, L., 355 Lane, D. J., 251, 256, 262 Lang, B., 184 Langlamet, F., 77 Laperrousaz, E.-M., 95 Laroche, E., 94, 96 Larsson, G., 205 LaSor, W. S., 125, 310 Lauterbach, J. Z., 321 Layton, S. C., 92, 93, 96 Lemche, N. P., 5, 7, 15

371

Lescow, T., 338 Lestienne, M., 271 Levenson, J. D., 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 40 Levey, S. H., 309, 310, 320, 352, 354, 356 Levine, B. A., 167 Levine, É., 318, 321, 322, 356 Levine, H. J., 339 Levita, E., 263 Levy, J., 324, 325 Lewis, C. S., 172, 186, 187 Lewis, H. D., 331 Lewis, T. J., 183 Lieberman, S., 295 Lieu, J., 252 Lim, T. H., 275 Lindblom, J., 105, 110 Lipschitz, O., 80, 278 Liver, J., 82, 85, 88, 96 Livingstone, E. A., 195 Liwak, R., 141 Loding, D., 96 Loewe, H., 307 Lohfink, N., 97 Long, B. O., 58, 77, 118, 136 Longstaff, T. R. W., 50 Loretz, O., 187, 193 Loria, B. Z., 343 Lowth, R., 108, 109, 278–83, 286–91, 292 Lowth, W., 278 Lundbom, J. R., 117, 291 Lust, J., 48 Luzzatto, S. D., 264 Maass, F., 77 McBride, S. D., 123 McCarter, P. K., 37, 39, 42, 64, 65, 66, 76, 79, 93, 97, 161, 162, 167, 242, 243, 245, 249 McCarthy, C., 55 McCarthy, D. J., 41, 82, 97, 107 McCheyne, R. M., 290 McKane, W., 12, 36, 41, 111, 113, 118, 165, 167, 273 McKay, H. A., 114, 133, 182 McKelvey, R. J., 207 McLean, N., 33, 213, 221 Macchi, J.-D., 95 Macdonald, J., 217, 304, 308 Machinist, P., 157, 167, 180, 190

372

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Magness, J., 166, 167 Maier, J., 339 Malamat, A., 28, 115, 121–24, 127, 128, 129, 141, 242, 246 Malul, M., 94, 97 Manson, W., 197, 199, 206 Maori, Y., 251 Marcus, D., 274 Marcus, R., 246 Marks, R. G., 355, 356 Marmorstein, A., 313 Marshall, I. H., 34 Marshall, J. T., 334 Martin, W. J., 42 Marx, A., 295 Maspero, G., 104, 120, 132 Mauchline, J., 12, 14, 306 Mayes, A. D. H., 62, 81, 83, 84, 97, 136, 144, 189 Mays, J. L., 110 Mazor, Y., 118 Mead, C. M., 47, 48 Meibom, M., 291, 292 Mendelsohn, I., 62 Mendenhall, G. E., 71 Merwe, C. H. J. van der, 85, 97 Mettinger, T. N. D., 113, 184, 185 Meyer, E., 213, 219, 220, 223, 228, 238 Meyer, R., 281 Meyers, E. M., 306, 326 Michaelis, J. D., 289 Michaelis, J. H., 280 Michaelsen, P., 115, 144 Michel, O., 199 Milbank, J., 279, 280 Mildenberger, F., 5 Milgrom, J., 202 Millard, A. R., 167, 193, 256 Miller, J. M., 58, 62, 63, 66, 67 Miller, M. P., 332 Miller, P. D., 123 Milton, J., 279 Miscall, P. D., 6, 14, 15 Mitchell, G., 157, 165, 167 Moffatt, J. B., 204, 286 Montefiore, C. G., 307 Montgomery, J. A., 213, 215, 216, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 226, 227, 231, 234, 239, 241

Moore, C.A., 71 Moore, G. F., 47, 48, 271, 304, 306, 310 Moore, S. D., 190 Moran, W. L., 121 Morgan, D. F., 71 Mowinckel, S., 105, 106, 112, 113, 114 Moynahan, J., 22 Muilenburg, J., 11 Mulder, M. J., 251, 306, 342 Mullen, E. T., 125, 126, 143, 192 Müller, H.-P., 193, 194 Murray, D. F., 117 Na’aman, N., 165, 167 Nakata, I., 124, 125 Namier, L., 59 Nelson, R. D., 76 Neusner, J., 167 Nicholson, E. W., 84, 95, 97, 108 Nickelsburg, G. W. E., 306 Noort, E., 17 North, J., 252 Norton, D., 292 Noth, M., 17, 75, 107, 214, 240, 276 Nübel, H.-U., 5

O’Connell, M. J., 149 Odeberg, H., 333 Oettinger, N., 91, 94, 97 Ohana, M., 325 Olmstead, A. T., 213–221, 223, 224, 227, 230, 233, 234 Olofsson, S., 270 Oppenheim, A. L., 124 Orlinsky, H. M., 128, 133 Ottley, R. R., 269, 270, 272, 284 Otto, E., 183, 184 Otzen, B., 323, 324 Overholt, T. W., 140 Owens, R. J., 251 Parker, K. I., 79 Parker, S. B., 115, 131, 139, 144 Parker, T. H. L., 173, 179 Parpola, S., 42, 182, 183, 184 Patte, D., 335, 336 Paxman, J., 189 Pearson, B. W. R., 356

INDEX OF AUTHORS CITED

Perles, J., 251, 255, 262 Perlitt, L., 108 Perry, M., 339 Petersen, D. L., 115, 116, 152 Peterson, D., 204 Pettinato, G., 121, 137 Pfeiffer, E., 342 Phillips, A., 120, 133 Pinches, T. G., 120, 132, 182 Pisano, S., 243, 244 Plantinga, A., 169–72, 174, 176–9 Ploeg, J. P. M. van der, 343 Pococke, E., 279 Polley, M. E., 126, 127, 143 Polzin, R., 161, 167 Pongratz-Leisten, B., 157, 167 Porter, B. N., 183, 196 Postgate, J. N., 131 Powell, M. A., 150 Preuss, H. D., 160, 167 Pritchard, J. B., 91, 97, 129, 140 Quincey, T. de, 27 Rabin, C., 323 Rad, G. von, 6, 18, 26, 70, 110, 112, 145, 188, 257 Rahlfs, A., 251 Rainey, A. F., 120, 133 Rajak, T., 252 Ranke, L. von, 213, 218, 223 Rawlinson, H. C., 120, 132, 182 Redford, D. B., 71 Reider, J., 288 Reif, S. C., 246, 326, 346 Rendtorff, R., 5 Reuther, H., 355 Reventlow, H. Graf, 106, 135 Riesenfeld, H., 308 Ringgren, H., 120, 133, 147 Robert, P. de, 166 Roberts, J. J. M., 39, 123, 133, 181 Roberts, M., 328 Robertson, D., 21 Robinson, H. W., 104 Robinson, T. H., 104, 105, 111 Rofé, A., 52, 162, 163, 167 Rogers, J. S., 78 Rogerson, J., 113

373

Röllig, W., 122 Römer, T., 95 Rose, C., 161, 167 Rösel, H. N., 81, 82, 97 Rosenthal, E. I. J., 246, 326 Rosenzweig, F., 29 Ross, J. F., 122, 133 Rost, L., 5, 20 Roth, M.T., 96 Roth, W. M. W., 13 Rowlands, E. R., 253 Rowley, H. H., 63, 105, 108 Rudolph, W., 81, 82, 97, 297, 298 Šanda, A., 213, 216, 219, 220, 227, 238, 239, 241 Sacon, K. K., 78 Sæbø, M., 252, 350, 356 Sandmel, S., 51 Sawyer, J. F. A., 11 Schäfer, P., 321, 354, 356 Schäfer-Lichtenberger, C., 83, 85, 86, 89, 97 Schicklberger, F., 5 Schley, D. G., 66, 67 Schlosser, J., 327 Schmidt, H., 104 Schmidt, W. H., 149 Schmitt, A., 129 Schmitt, G., 97 Schmitt, H.-C., 149 Schoettgen, C., 291, 292 Scholes, R., 19, 20, 22 Schreiner, J., 167, 223 Schwally, F., 213, 214, 218, 220, 221, 226, 229 Secker, T., 280, 289 Seebass, H., 213, 216, 223, 224 Seeligmann, I. L., 269, 270 Segal, M. H., 36, 333 Seitz, C. R., 193 Sekine, S., 289 Sellin, E., 71 Sepmeijer, F., 253 Seters, J. B. van, 38 Shenkel, J. D., 214, 215, 218, 219, 244 Shupak, N., 129 Sicre Díaz, J. L., 339 Silberstein, L. J., 166, 167

374

HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT VERSIONS

Skinner, J., 134, 213, 216, 219, 220, 224, 287 Smart, C., 279 Smend, R., 276 Smith, G., 120, 132, 182 Smith, H. P., 7, 37, 244 Smith, J. M. P., 342 Smith, M., 50 Smith, W. R., 48, 106, 213 Smolar, L., 213, 216, 220, 221, 223, 327, 336 Soden, W. von, 92, 97 Soggin, J. A., 82, 85, 97, 138 Sokoloff, M., 329 Solá-Solé, J. M., 333 Sparks, K. L., 157, 167 Sperber, A., 50, 251, 263, 295–302, 317, 320, 328 Spicq, C., 200, 202, 203 Stacey, D. W., 140 Stade, B., 213, 214, 218, 220, 221, 226, 229, 323 Stager, L.E., 150 Stanley, A. P., 213, 218, 220 Stansel, G., 292 Starr, I., 122 Stenning, J. F., 334 Sternberg, M., 24, 157, 158, 161, 162, 164, 167 Stoebe, H. J., 12, 20, 36 Strack, H. L., 307, 310, 312, 349, 350, 356 Strange, J. F., 326 Sutherland, R. K., 81, 97 Swete, H. B., 329, 331 Szpek, H. M., 255, 256, 262 Tadmor, H., 180 Talmon, S., 23, 70, 188, 189 Taylor, G., 137 Tcherikover, V., 319 Temporini, H., 199 Thackeray, H. St J., 33, 213, 214, 215, 221 Thomas, D. W., 16 Thomas, R., 91, 97 Thompson, J. W., 206 Tigay, J. H., 47, 48, 49, 51, 52 Tisserant, E., 50 Tollers, V. L., 339 Tollington, J. E., 151 Tomback, R. S., 93, 94, 97

Toorn, K. van der, 90, 94, 97, 142, 185 Torrey, C. C., 214, 281, 282 Tov E., 48, 49, 242 Trebolle-Barrera, J. C., 49 Troeltsch, E., 170 Tsukimoto, A., 121, 133 Tucker, G. M., 110, 111 Tull, P. K., 292 Tuttle, G. A., 125 Uehlinger, C., 184 Uffenheimer, B., 144 Ulrich, E. C., 11, 16, 65, 81, 97 Unnik, W. C. van, 96 Vanauken, S., 172, 179 VanderKam, J. C., 38, 39, 40 Vanstiphout, H. L. J., 92, 97 Vatke, W., 101 Vattioni, F., 289 Vaux, R. de, 48, 50, 51, 165, 167 Veijola, T., 41, 44 Vermes, G., 313, 314, 323, 324 Vosté, J.-M., 250 Wagner, S., 141 Ward, R. L., 5, 7, 35 Warton, J., 279 Watanabe, K., 42 Waterman, L., 133 Watson, W. G. E., 140 Watts, J. D. W., 188, 339 Weeks, S., 72 Weidner, E. F., 91, 97 Weimar, P., 62 Weinfeld, M., 221 Weippert, M., 126, 133, 182, 193, 194 Weiser, A., 5, 15, 343 Weitzman, M. P., 251, 252, 254, 256, 257, 258, 260, 262, 342, 346 Wellhausen, J., 34, 101, 102, 161, 168, 244 Wenham, G. J., 54, 158, 160, 168, 194 Wénin, A., 65 Wernberg-Møller, P., 203 Westcott, B. F., 203, 207 Westermann, C., 110, 111, 112 Wevers, J. W., 217, 220, 225, 270 White, J. B., 126, 144 White, J. E. M., 228

INDEX OF AUTHORS CITED

Whitelam, K. W., 45, 46, 58, 59 Whiting, R. M., 167 Whybray, R. N., 47, 51, 70–74, 131, 133, 182, 189 Widengren, G., 105, 112 Williamson, H. G. M., 5, 136, 151 Williamson, P., 165, 168 Willis, J. T., 6, 117, 152, 338, 339 Wilson, R. R., 62, 115, 144 Winckler, H., 213, 216, 219, 224, 227 Wiseman, D. J., 16, 43, 87, 92, 97 Wolff, H. W., 5, 112, 113, 138, 201, 338 Wolters, A., 93, 97, 139, 140 Woude, A. S. van de, 96, 152, 338, 343 Woudstra, M. H., 21 Wright, G.E., 260, 262

Wright, J. E., 186 Wundt, W., 103 Wurmbrand, R., 315 Wyatt, N., 21, 181 Yadin, Y., 91, 97 York, A. D., 329 Younger, K. L., 84, 97, 142 Zakovitch, Y., 52 Zevit, Z., 183 Ziegler, J., 223, 272, 273, 283 Zijl, J. B. van, 330, 333 Zimmerli, W., 102, 103, 113 Zólyomi, G., 95 Zuckermandel, M. S., 275

375