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Monday, March 13th, 2023
22:13
Well, I hardly expected a month's break in my reading here, but what will happen is what will happen. Been very busy; new work, family complications, etc., but forcing myself to get back on the horse or I fear I never will!
Deut 4.7-8: Israel is distinguished both by its god and its law; the two ideas are interlocked. Scripture can be seen as evidence of the Justness and validity of the god of Israel.
Deut 4.9-14: The revelation at Horeb is recalled in order to instruct the generation that did not experience it.
Deut 4.9: To not forget and to educate the children is to overcome the distance of the past so as to maintain a source of identity. Moses refers to the events as if, in collective, those being spoken to had themselves seen and heard the events at Horeb; this is likely evident of a different source or literary layer of Deueteronomy.
Deut 4.13: A subtle reinterpretation of Sinai: The specification of that event as one where God proclaimed ten commandments occurs only here, at 10.4, and at Ex 34.28. There is no special number of or name for the commandments in Ex 19-20 or Deut 5. The rationale for two stone tablets (as at 5.22) derives from ancient Near Eastern treaties, whereby both sovereign and vassal would retain a separate complete copy of the treaty.
Deut 4.15-31: Reinterpretation of the commands regarding idol worship in 5.8-10. The Decalogue concedes the existence of other gods, while prohibiting Israel from worshipping them (5.7; cf. 32.8; Ex 15.11; Ps 8.21). This distinction is dissolved here, as the exilic writings of Deuteronomy that compose this section represent a later theological perspective in which emphasis is placed solely on the rejection of idols, presuming that no other gods exist.
Deut 4.16b-19a: This catalogue follows the order of creation in Gen 1 in reverse order, consistent with ancient scribal practice when quoting an earlier text.
Deut 4.19: 'Sun . . . host of heaven' may reflect images derived from foreign forms of worship brought into the Jerusalem Temple by Manasseh but removed by Josiah (2 Kings 21.5; 23.4-5; Jer 8.2). The idea of idols or of celestial phenomena literally being worshipped sharply distorts ancient Near Eastern religion, which regarded such phenomena as visible manifestations or emblems of a deity, not as themselves divine. This polemic, with the idea that God 'allotted' the celestial phenomena to other nations while reserving Israel as "his very own possession" (v. 20; cf. 7.6n), reinterprets the earlier idea that God, as head of the pantheon, assigned other nations to the supervision of lesser gods but retained Israel as "the Lord's own portion," "his alloted share". The author deanimates those gods, reducing them to lifeless celestial objects.
Deut 4.27-28: These verses allude to the policies of Assyrian and Babylonian exile, indicating how the age of the text post-dates that of the events themselves despite the narrative framing.
Deut 4.35: 'There is no other', this affirmation of full monotheism (contrast v. 7; 5.7) corresponds to the thought of the exilic Second Isaiah (Isa 43.10-13; 44.6-8; 45.6-7,22).
Deut 4.41-43: An appendix. Concerning the cities of refuge to be established in Transjordan; these verses are most likely an editorial appendix composed after the completion of ch 19. Similar disconnected appendixes often appear in the Bible at the conclusion of longer literary units (e.g., Lev 27).
Deut 5.1-33: The revelation of the Decalogue at Sinai/Horeb. Ostensibly a retelling of Ex 19-20, this version introduces significant changes in both detail and theology. The central idea is that God publicly reveals the law to the entire nation across boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and class. Near Eastern legal collections, in contrast, were attributed to a human monarch and were concerned to preserve class distinctions. Moreover, a deity disclosing himself to an entire nation was unprecedented. The Decalogue has God address each Israelite individually using a singular form of "you," rather than the expected plural form. In contrast to Near Eastern law, the prohibitions are universal and absolute: the aim of the law is to transform society by creating a moral community in which murder, theft, etc. will no longer exist.
Deut 5.1-5: Making the past present.
Deut 5.3: 'Not with our ancestors . . . but with us', once more inconsistent on the point of how revelation applies to each generation; this is, however, seemingly intentional, the author aiming to overcome the limits of historical time and place via participation in the covenant.
Deut 5.5: Inconsistent framing once more.
Deut 5.6-21: The decalogue. This version differs at several points from that in Ex 20.2-17.
Deut 5.9: Punishment for sins against God extends across three generations. This principle of vicarious punishment contrasts sharply with the Israelite norm for civil and criminal law, whcih restricts punishment to the agent alone (24.16).
Deut 5.18: Punishment for adultery would have been decided by the husband (as mirrored in such Near Eastern law corupuses as the Laws of Hammurabi) in ancient Israel, but here it is considered a transgression against God and the community as a whole. Following this version of the Decalogue, a diagram is presented showing the numbering of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5.8-21, I will not be repeating it here, but it is interesting to contrast to that of Exodus 20.
Tuesday, March 15th, 2023
02:43
Deut 6.1-11.32: Preamble to the laws: the requirement of loyalty to God.
Deut 6.5: The paradox of commanding a feeling (as in Lev 19.17-18) is resolved with the recognition that covenantal "love" is not private emotion but loyalty of action toward both deity and neighbor.
Deut 7.1-10.11: Risks to covenantal fidelity upon entry to the land; confrontation of natives as well as the risk of complacency in the event of succesful habitation.
Deut 7.1-26: The war of conquest.
Deut 7.1: The nations to be conquered listed are anachronistic, differing from lists elsewhere in the bible and contradicting the historical record—the enumeration of seven once again signifies completion.
Deut 7.2: Total destruction is never attained in initial conquest, as multiple of the nations listed are only dealt with later on in the narrative, long after entry into the land. Elsewhere merely 'expulsion' is indicated.
Deut 7.5: 'Pillars', stone momuments that marked places where God appeared and were thus origionally legitimate in worship. Only later was such worship banned. 'Sacred poles' are also noted, the 'Asherim'; preserving the name of Asherah, an important Canaanite goddess, popular in ancient Israel.
Deut 7.10: The vicarious punishment of prior decalogue repetitions is here revised, instead each individual that rejects God is repaid in their own person.
Deut 8.1-20: The temptation to pride and self-sufficiency in the land. Success in Canaan will tempt the Israelites to forget the wilderness lesson of complete dependence upon God.
Deut 8.11-20: The peril of posterity.
Deut 8.11: Disobedience of Deuteronomy's laws becomes tantamount to forgetting God and transgressing the Decalouge's prohibitions in 5.7-9.
Deut 9.1-10.11: The already broken and renewed covenant. God does not give the land to the people as a reward for righteousness, for in the wilderness they acted rebelliously.
Deut 10.1-11: The second ascent of the mountain.
Deut 10.1-3: These verses reflect a tradition that Moses made the ark, directly contradicting the narrative of its construction detailed prior.
Deut 10.6-9: Editorial insertion concerning Levites.
Deut 10.12-11.32: Obedience as the condition for prosperity in the land.
22:03
Deut 11.1-32: Loyalty to the covenant provides the condition for life in Canaan. Responsibilities listed in this section are communal in nature; they exist for the people as a whole.
Deut 11.2: The frequent word 'today' in Deuteronomy emphasizes the contemporaneity of the covenant.
Deut 11.6: No mention of Korah's rebellion (Num 16.3-11), which was added to Num 16 by the Priestly school after this abstract was made.
Deut 11.10-12: Though the Nile provided sufficient water, the Nile valley had to be irrigated through human effort, since rainfall was minimal; Canaan's crops are irrigated by seasonal rainfall. The difference is mentioned to stress Israel's dependence upon God, who gives and withholds rain, as well as the sanctity of the land of Israel.
Deut 11.29-30: These verses represent an editorial intrusion, hinting ahead to ch 27.
Deut 12.1-32: Centralization and purification of worship. Restriction of sacrificial worship of God to a single sanctuary and removal of foreign influence represent two of the most distinctive features of Deuteronomy's idea of religion and law.
Deut 12.2-7: Israel must reject the Canaanite precedent of multiple sanctuaries.
Deut 12.2: The chapter alternates between plural and singular, suggesting a long compositional history.
Deut 12.5: Biblical narrative reflecting a tradition in which Jerusalem played no role in Israel's history until the period of King David; consequently the city cannot be named explicitly without undermining the literary form of Deuteronomy as an address by Moses. Interesting amount of foresight on the part of the scribes. Also mentioned is God 'putting his name' there, rejecting the idea that a nation's God would inhabit the Temple (contrast 1 Kings 8.12-13).
Deut 12.13-16: Two important, revolutionary distinctions: First, between sacrificial worship at random sites, 'any place', rejected as illegitimate, and legitimate sacrifice performed at a single sanctuary, 'the place that the Lord will choose'. This contrasts with previous norms, when altars were common throughout the land (Gen 12.17; 35.1-7; 1 Sam 3.1; 7.17; 1 Kings 18.20-46). Second, between ritual sacrifice and secular slaughter of domestic animals for food. According to the biblical account, prior to Deuteronomy all slaughter, even for food, was sacrificial and took place at an altar. With altars throughout the land, that rule imposed no burden upon Israelites. The prohibition of all local altars, however, created a real difficulty for those without easy access to the central sanctuary. The permission granted here for local, secular slaughter answers that need. By analogy to the rules for hunting wild game (gazelle or deer), domestic animals may be slaughtered throughout the land, on condition that their blood is poured out 'on the ground like water' (cf. Lev 17.13). Blood symbolizes "life" (v. 23; 15.23; Gen 9.4-5; Lev 17.14; 19.26).
Deut 12.20-28: Permission for secular slaughter is now justified by the expansion of Israel's boundaries.
Deut 12.32: Text appended with an ancient Near Eastern scribal forumla often included in the epilogues of treaties, inscriptions, and law collections to protect them from being defaced or altered.
Deut 13.1-18: Unconditional loyalty to God. Provides various hypothetical sitauations including conflict of covenant loyalty.
Deut 13.1-5: Prophecy is here regulated, with Moses' status as the founder of Israelite prophecy setting the standards in Deuteronomy by which the people should act; should subsequent prophets contravene Dueteronomy's teachings, they are to be executed. I'm sure this will never be complicated by any potential future prophets.
Deut 13.1: Dreams and omens or portents, two sources of religious authority also mentioned in the nearly contemporary Neo-Assyrian 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon', indicating widespread recognition of the practises.
Deut 13.9: Summary execution here conflicts with the call for witnesses and a trial in other transgressions mentioned elsewhere in Deuteronomy; this likely arises from the presumed grave threat to the covenant.
Deut 13.10: Stoning, a punishment reserved for violation of fundamental values. Those named correspond to prohibitions from the Decalogue.
Deut 13.15-17: Religious infidelity of an Israelite population is met with the same ban (genocide—previously, ousting) as that of the Canaanites.
Friday, March 17th, 2023
01:54
Deut 14.1-29: The obligations of holiness. Special status entails special obligations, one of which is dietary. Lists permitted and prohibited foods.
Deut 14.3-21: Deueteronomy's dietary restrictions differ from the more detailed list of permitted and prohibited foods provided by the Priestly source (Lev 11.2-23). Clean versus unclean here, once more, refers specifically to ritual propriety. Note too that the creatures listed correspond to those groupings mentioned within the creation narrative.
Deut 15.1-18: Remission of debts and manumission of slaves. On accession to the throne, ancient Near Eastern rulers would sometimes grant one-time cancellation of debts, return land confiscated by the crown, and free indentured slaves. That custom, Akkadian 'duraru', is reflected in the Hebrew 'deror,' 'jubilee,' or 'release,' of Lev 25.10; Isa 61.1; Jer 34.15,17. Deuteronomy's conception of the covenant between Israel and God entails a similar fresh start as a covenantal obligation that recurs every seven years, adjusting earlier laws in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 21-23) to the innovation of centralization of worship.
Deut 15.1-6: Cancellation of debts.
Deut 15.12-18: Manumission. Laws regulating slaves are here reworked in the face of centralization of worship.
Deut 16.1-17: The festival calendar. Here, passover (and thus the sacrifice of the paschal lamb) has been centralized to the (yet to be built) Temple, as such, this blood ritual is merged with the festival of unleavened bread, also celebrated in early spring. Contrast to Leviticus where such ceremonies are considered as distinct.
Deut 16.7: Provision to 'cook' (read: boil) the paschal offering conflicts with the stipulation that the paschal offering be 'roasted over the fire,' not 'boiled in water' (Ex 12.8-9). The two inconsistent requirements for preparing the Passover are harmonized at 2 Chr 15.13.
Deut 16.18-18.22: Laws of pubic officials. The proposed government has judicial, executive, and religious branches: local and central courts (16.18-17.13), kingship (17.14-20), levitical priesthood (18.1-8), and prophecy (18.9-22).
Deut 16.18-17.13: The organization of justice.
Deut 16.21-17.1: Prohibitions against Canaanite cultic objects.
Deut 17.8-13: Justice at the local sanctuary. In the pre-Deuteronomic period, legal cases in which there was an absence of physical evidence or of witnesses were remanded to the local sanctuary wherein the parties would swear oaths. The laws listed in these verses fill in the judicial void created by the centralization of worship; all cases that require recourse to the altar must now be decided at the central sanctuary. The tribunal gathered at such cases includes both priestly and lay members.
Deut 17.14-20: The law of the king. Deuteronomy greatly restricts royal authority. The monarch is subject to the law and required to read it daily: contrast with the general rule of Near Esatern monarchs promulgating law alone.
Deut 18.1-8: The levitical priesthood. Centralization also affected the Israelite priesthood. Deuteronomy conflates what the book of Leviticus had initially bifurcated into two distinct categories: the 'Levites' and the 'Priests'. Here they are instead described as one, the 'Levitical priests'.
Deut 18.6-8: When the local altars became outlawed, it is clarified that the Levites must be provided for as they transition to the centralized sanctuary. This emphasis underscores that the countryside altars were not entirely Canaanite sanctuaries (as 12.2-4 asserts).
Deut 18.9-22: A prophet like Moses.
Deut 18.9-14: Divination is here branded as foreign and abhorrent, 'prophecy' is instead the given alternative. Elsewhere, however, divination is not typified as foreign (1 Sam 28.3-25; Isa 8.19-22; 29.4). Thus, describing the practice as foreign may actually cloak a condemnation of Israelite popular religion.
Deut 18.11-12: Here, necromancy and divination (integral as they would have been to the practice of ancient family religion) are considered abhorrent and illegitimate; the efficacy of them is not mentioned, however, as it is likely that the Israelites believed in the power of such acts even if condemning of it.
Deut 18.15-22: Deuteronomy transforms prophecy, viewing the prophet as the spokesperson of Torah and defining Moses at the paradigmatic prophet.
Deut 18.15: Prophecy by divine election. That God alone appoints the prophet makes the prophet independent of all institutions and able to challenge them. The laws in vv. 20-22 emphasize various cases in which the prophets are to be executed, however, curbing their potential for radical change—specifically in terms of reversing Deuteronomy's laws. More than one prophet is clearly suggested/intended.
Deut 18.20-23: Having estbalished an Isrealite model of prophecy, the law provides two criteria to distinguish true from false prophecy. The first is that the prophet should speak exclusively on behalf of God, and report only God's wprds. The second makes the fulfillment of a prophet's oracle the measure of its truth (Jer 28.9). That approach attempts to solve a critical problem: If two prophets each claim to speak on behalf of God yet make mutually exclusive claims (1 Kings 22.6 versus v. 17; Jer 27.8 versus 28.2), how can one decide which speaks the truth? The solution offered is not free of difficulty. If a false prophet is distinguished by the failure of his oracle to come true, the nmaking a decision in the present about which prophet to obey becomes impossible. Nor can this criterion easily be reconciled with 13.2, which concedes that the oracles of false prophets might come true.
Deut 19.1-14: Cities of refuge. Once more, due to the previous places of refuge being the local altars, now outlawed, here three "neutral" cities are outlined.
Deut 19.15-21: The integrity of the judicial system.
Deut 20.1-20: Rules for waging holy war. In contrast to other legal collections, which include only brief sections concerning military engagement (Ex 23.23-33; 34.11-16; Num 35.50-56), Deuteronomy, reflecting a literary setting of Israel about to enter the land, concerns itself extensively with the laws of holy war. Seizing the spoils of war, including human prisoners, is prohibited; all had to be devoted exclusively to God. A contemporary inscription, the Moabite Stone (ca. 850 BCE), establishes that similar theologies of holy war were shared by some of Israel's neighbors. In Deuteronomy, the conception of the conquest of the promised land as a holy war represents a highly schematized idealization, formulated half a millennium after the settlement, at a time when ethnic Canaanites would long have assimilated into the Israelite population.
Deut 20.11: The use of defeated people for 'forced labor' was widespread. Later, David's cabinet will be said to have an official responsible for such forced labor. Slavery is fine when it's the enemy, guys!
Deut 20.15-18: Text clarifies here that such takings of defeated peoples for forced labor applies only in situations of foreign war.
Saturday, March 18th, 2023
03:52
Deut 21.1-9: Atonement for unsolved murder and assigned rituals.
Deut 21.10-25.19: Miscellaneous civil and family laws.
Deut 21.10-14: Legal obligations toward female captives. This procedure most likely originally applied to the Canaanite population.
Deut 21.15-17: Legal protection of the less-favored wife.
Deut 21.18-21: The rebellious son. Flagrant and sustained disobedience towards parents is a capital offense.
Deut 21.22-23: Treatment of the executed. The concern to avoid defilement of the land by demonstrating respect for the corpse even of someone convicted of wrongdoing shows the close connection between criminal law and ritual purity in Deuteronomy. Note, 'for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse'. Judas wept!
Deut 22.1-12: Various moral and religious responsibilities of citizenship.
Deut 22.1-4: Moral duties toward the nighbor.
Deut 22.5-12: Miscellaneous laws.
Deut 22.5: Prohibition against cross-dressing seeks to maintain gender boundaries; a similar concern for boundaries is evident in vv. 9-11.
Deut 22.13-30: Volations of marriage law.
Deut 22.13-21: False accusation of breach of marital contract.
Sunday, March 19th, 2023
12:50
Deut 22.22-30: Adultery and rape. Adultery as defined by biblical law is the instance of a man having sex with a woman betrothed or married to another man. This is a violation of the Decalogue and a capital offense.
Deut 23.1-8: Restrictions on access to Israel's assembly.
Deut 23.1: No crushed testicles or severed penises! What was in Leviticus only a qualification required of the priesthood is here applied to all of Israel.
Deut 23.9-14: Special rules for the military camp. Includes sexual abstinence.
Deut 23.15-25.19: The heightened moral responsibilities of the covenant community.
Deut 23.15-16: Prohibition of the return of escaped slaves. Rejecting the almost universal stipulation within the ancient Near East, escaped slaves are here allowed to retain their freedom and shall not be returned.
Deut 23.17-18: Restrictions on prostitution. Illegal for the Israelites—many such sad cases! The regulations also seek to preserve the Temple's sanctity.
Deut 23.17: 'Temple Prostutite' (Hebrew "qedeshah"), the translation reflects belief in the existence of sacred prostitution in Israel and the ancient Near East, for which there is scant evidence; more likely 'qedesha' is a standard euphemism for the coarser term for prostitute (v. 18). The same alternation between the two terms appears in Gen 38.15,21. The word might better be translated as "one set aside."
Deut 23.19-25: Financial ethics, vows, gathering by the needy.
Deut 24-25: Laws promoting social harmony.
Deut 24.14-15: Deuteronomy's ethics are based upon the conviction that God identifies with and vindicates the oppressed.
Deut 25.3: 'Your neighbor', the criminal, despite his judicial status, retains human dignity.
Deut 25.5: An exception here to the incest prohibition of marrying a sister-in-law found in Leviticus presents an interesting question on the notion of what these various case instances might represent in terms of questions on the imperative—suppose I'll come back to this later.
Deut 25.18: These details are not found in Ex 17.8-16; they may have been supplied by the Deuteronomic author in order to justify the extirpation of Amalek.
Deut 26.1-15: Concluding liturgies.
Deut 26.14: 'Offered any of it to the dead', the duty of the living to care for dead ancestors through food offerings at their place of burial was widely assumed in the ancient Near East (see the Ugaritic 'Aqhat' epic), is confirmed archaeologically, and continued to be carried out in Second Temple times (Tob 4.17). This practice is not condemned here; it is viewed as improper only in relation to sacred donations, because of the impurity associated with death (Lev 22.2-4).
Deut 26.16-19: Formal conclusion: the reciprocity of the covenant, representing the legal corpus as a mutually binding relationship between God and Israel.
Deut 26.17-18: 'Obtained', the past tense point to an already completed ritual, not preserved in Deuteronomy, in which both Israel and God explicitly assented to the covenant and affirmed the mutuality of the obligations that each will undertake. This reciprocal model contrats with the Sinai covenant in Exodus, which was unilaterally offered by God (Ex 19.3-6) and unilaterally agreed to by Israel (Ex 19.8; 24.3,7). Deuteronomy invokes the language of the Sinai covenant as a model while revising it significantly in the process.
Deut 27.1-26: Ceremonies at Shechem upon entry into the land. Provides several competing traditions about how and where the covenant between God and Israel was concluded: at Sinai; or on the plains of Moab; or at Gilgal immediately upon entering the land; or at the important northern shrine at Shechem. Editorial revisions abounds!
Deut 27.1: Moses is referred to in the third person, interrupting is own first-person address. He is joined by the elders, who nowhere else in Deuteronomy address the people with Moses as they do here.
Deut 27.4: Mount Ebal, the tallest mountain in the region stands in central Canaan and is situated directly adjacent to the city of Shechem; it would be impossible for the Israelites to reach Shechem in a day as mentioned. The most logical explanation is that Josh 4 points to the original form of the verses, with Gilgal as the site where Israel complied with this command.
Deut 27.5-7: These verses are an insertion that reinterprets the plastered stones on which the teaching is to be inscribed as an altar of 'unhewn stones', following Ex 20.25. Such an altar, outside of Jerusalem, conflicts with the centralization requirement of ch 12, and further suggests the antiquity and the independence of this tradition from the rest of deuteronomy.
Deut 27.9: 'This very day' contrasts statements that define the bond as previously formed.
Deut 27.14: 'Levites', contrast Deuteronomy's normal term, "levitical priests".
Deut 28.1-68: The consequences of obedience or disobedience: blessing or curse. This chapter has several close parallels to the Neo-Assyrian 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon (VTE)', dating to 672 BCE. The disproportion between the sections devoted to blessing (vv. 1-14) and to curse (vv. 15-68) may be a reaction to the Babylonian conquest, deportation, and exile of Judah (597 and 586 BCE), here recast as a prophetic warning.
Deut 28.1-2: The poem emphasizes the conditionality of the exalted status of Israel, perhaps because of the exile.
Deut 28.9: 'The Lord will establish . . . if you keep', holiness is conditional upon obedience, a shift from other passages where Israel's holiness is not future but present, and not conditional but unconditional.
Deut 28.15-68: Consequences of disobedience.
Deut 28.21-44: This section echoes treaties that the Neo-Assyrian empire imposed on its vassal states, suggesting that the curse section of these state treaties, perhaps in Aramaic translation, provided a model for this chapter. Judah was a vassal to the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 8.13-18) and both Neo-Assyrian and Judean officials spoke Aramaic, the international language of diplomacy (2 Kings 18.26-27).
Deut 28.23: 'Bronze . . . iron', echoing language of the 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon'; "May [the gods] make your ground like iron . . . Just as rain does not fall from a bronze sky."
Deut 28.47-57: Scenario of foreign invasion. A later appendix, outside the frame provided by vv.45-46.
Deut 28.58-68: Undoing the exodus.
Deut 28.58: 'This book', how the commandments have become transformed from oral proclamation to written text is unexplained, since it is not until 31.9,24 that Moses commands that his teaching be put into writing. Also, 'HaShem', an important circumlocution for Yahweh, God's personal name.
Deut 28.63: Even the unconditional divine promises of Gen 12.7; 13.17 may be contrevened.
Monday, March 20th, 2023
12:22
Deut 29.1-30.20: Third discourse of Moses. The ratification ceremony for the covenant of the plains of Moab. Israel is formally adjured to enter the covenant: To swear to obey the laws of chs 12-26 under penalty of the sanctions of ch 28.
Deut 29.1: The laws of Deuteronomy are here presented as a covenant that exist in addition to the covenant established at Sinai.
Deut 29.20: 'Blot out', the erasure of a tablet or scroll (Num 5.23), given a theological cast: Following Mesopotamian models, the divine decree of human fate is recorded in a heavenly book, with erasure symbolizing punishment (9.14; Gen 6.7; Ex 17.14; 32.32; 2 Kings 14.27; Ps 9.6).
Deut 29.25: Here, the covenants of Sinai and Moab are conflated as one.
Deut 29.26: Gods are allotted to the various peoples of the region; Yahweh is Israel's, the existence of other gods is thus conceded within this polytheistic framework. Contrast 4.19, where it is rather only inanimate "stars . . . that God has allotted," which reinterprets the polytheistic image from the later perspective of monotheism.
Deut 29.28: Temporal slip-up here, 'as is now the case' implies that this chapter was composed subsequent to the Babylonian exile.
Deut 30.1-10: Reassurance of restoration. This section, with its emphasis on restoration, does not logically follow ch 29 and is most likely a later insertion that serves the religious needs of a community different from that of the book's original audience.
Deut 30.5: The 'You' here explicitly refers to the Judean exiles in Babylon rather than the desert generation whom Moses is supposed to be addressing.
Deut 30.10: The book refers to itself once more, contradicting the narrative.
Deut 30.11-20: The original continuation of ch 29.
Deut 30.11-14: Challenging the idea of wisdom being above the layperson, Deuteronomy here presents itself as divine but eminently communicable, so as to bolster its legitimacy to the common man.
Deut 31.1-34.14: The death of Moses and the formation of the Book of the Teaching. With the conclusion of the treaty between God and Israel in ch 30, Deuteronomy now returns to Moses, the mediator of the treaty. His life is ending, and the question of succession is given a two-fold answer, since Moses was both political and religious leader of Israel. Joshua will be his politcal and military successor (31.1-8,14-15,23; 32.44,48-52; 34.9), and "a book . . . of this law" (31.24) will instruct the nation in religion. Deuteronomy thus ends in paradox: Moses, ostensibly the book's narrator, narrates his own death (ch 34), and the Book of the Teaching, alread presupposed (29.27), nevertheless provides an account of its own formation (31.9-13,24-29). The conclusion of Deuteronomy also ends the Pentateuch. As they set Deuteronomy as the conclusion of that larger work, later editors with the background of the Exile added perspectives on the function of the entire Torah in the people's life. Finally, the Pentateuch's literary precedent of a patriarch deathbed bequest and blessing (Gen 27; 48-49) led to the incorporation of "The Song of Moses" (32.1-43) and of "The blessing of Moses" (ch 33), each of which likely circulated independently. The resulting text thus blends several viewpoints. Themes like the appointment of Joshua begin, then begin again from a different perspective, and then are continued only after a digression, which marks the insertion of new material.
Deut 31.1-29: Moses makes arrangements for his death. Multiple competing narratives mingle here, with verse-to-verse incongruencies about the exact sequence of events and who did what.
Deut 31.14-15: Tent of meeting, again, conflicting traditions on whether the tent is outside or inside the camp.
Deut 31.30-23.43: The Song of Moses. The Song is a late insertion that reflects upon Israel's history, probably presupposing the Exile.
Deut 32.8: 'Most High', or 'Elyon', the title of El, the senior god who sat at the head of the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan, as seen in Genesis.
Deut 32.9: The Lord here is contrasted somewhat to that of Elyon, with Elyon aportioning the nations and assigning the disparate peoples their own gods from which the Lord received his share; the NRSV translation has added 'own' to 'his [own] share' (not present in the original hebrew) in order to identify Yahweh with Elyon so as to avoid the impression that he is merely a member of the pantheon.
Deut 32.24: 'Burning consumption,' a common noun in postexilic Hebrew, 'Resheph', refers to the Ugaritic god of war and pestilence, worshipped by the Israelites as a minor god during the polytheistic period.
Deut 32.43: 'All you gods,' had been removed from the preserved hebrew, but reconstructed with the dead sea scrolls; their absence was likely intentional, reflecting the development and importance of later Israelite monotheism.
Deut 32.44-47: Double conclusion to the Song.
Deut 32.48-52: Moses commanded to die.
Deut 33.1-29: The Blessing of Moses. In the vein of a father's blessing of his progeny on the deathbed, here, Moses blesses all the tribes of Israel as if they were his own sons. Clearly imitating victory hymn of the divine warrior.
Deut 34.1-12: The death of Moses.
Deut 34.1: Mount Nebo and Mount Pigsah, two narrative locations posited to be the site of Moses's death, are here conflated by the editor to preserve both traditions.
And that is it for Deuteronomy. A shame about the month's worth of a gap there, but hey, that's life. I have to say, the Song of Moses and its footnotes have been the most interesting portion of the OT to me so far, that intersection of layered revision and obfuscated meaning reframing an older text within a different narrative, and all in the retrospective context of the exilic era too! All in all, quite dense, the addition of this second covenant to the first, that's a lot to take in—understanding, of course, the revisionist nature of such a covenant as outlined in the introduction to this particular book. Great stuff. Historical books next.
Hear me, dust of my lifeblood,
faithful and obedient,
constellations so gilded:
Seek not the stars but those which
were promised you, for bereft
of light will be your exile.
Tuesday, March 21st, 2023
12:14
Introduction to the Historical Books
The books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are altogether termed the "Histories," this is a misleading title, however, as the genres of the books are diverse and are often not historical in the modern sense of the word. Furthermore, the Bible contains several books that are similar to some of these "historical books," yet they are found in different sections of the bible. In the traditional Jewish view, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called the Former Prophets, thus beginning the second major division of the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets. This designation suggests that these books should be viewed as prophecy, and not as history. The books of Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are known collectively as the Writings.
A division is established here between the objective retelling of past events as literal history for the sake of defining that history, and the usage of past events as a narrative shorthand to serve as a basis for the observance of a central set of laws or practices, namely, Exodus.
The division of some biblical writings into separate books is oftentimes arbitrary: It has been proposed that since the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, along with the preceding book of Deuteronomy, fit so well together, these five books were edited together as a single work. This work is typically called the Deuteronomistic History, meaning the history written under the influence of ideas found in the book of Deuteronomy. Many details of this theory are debated, however; some scholars suggest that these books are not unified enough to be the product of a single movement. For example, the book of Samuel shows remarkably few contacts with the language of Deuteronomy, and the book of Kings, in its final form, contains narratives in which the great prophets Elijah and Elisha are legitimately active outside the Jerusalem Temple.
Scholars have also found many similarities between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah and have posited that these works belong to a single large history that parallels the Deuteronomistic History. The author of these books is often called "the Chronicler." A closer look at Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, however, shows that they differ from each other in outlook and vocabulary, and that hte general similarities between them are best attributed not to common authorship but to the shared era in which they were written, most likely the fourth century BCE.
Chronicles is a retelling of Genesis through Kings. It is likely that its author used a form of the Torah, along with some other books now in our bible, that was very close to the form we now know them. Chornicles is most notable for how it uses and changes its sources to suit a particular narrative, however. A key example is the long-lived reign of King Manasseh, a particularly evil King of Judah. The book of Kings (which Chronicles seeks to recount) does not have a clear retribution theory, that is, a theory concerning divine punishment and reward. This is awkward because, for many biblical writers, a long life was a sign of divine favor. The contradiction between the behavior of Manasseh and his long reign is reconciled by the Chronicler, who, himself very much believing in retribution theology, simply adjusted the facts of Manasseh's life, entering his own narrative and interpretation into the record:
The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they gave no heed. Therefore the Lord brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh captive in manacles, bound him with fetters, and brought him to Babylon. While he was in distress he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his plea, and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord indeed was God.
Other examples of this type of revisionism are found throughout Chronicles. They are especially easy to isolate since we have much of the same material that this author revised—it is preserved in our Bible.
The books of Ruth and Esther are short stories, historical fictions that incorporate literary convention, prose, and setpieces in order to narrate a past to the ends of conveying their lessons.
The books of Ezrah-Hehemiah, frequently told from a first-person perspective, purport to be individual and accurate accounts of the events described, and though they were seemingly written closer to those events than most other biblical retellings (that are often centuries removed before being put to paper), this does not mean they are any more accurate. Ideology may motivate the speedy reshaping of the past in this manner: Ezrah-Nehemiah is highly ideological, interested in fostering the importance of the Torah as the central document of the postexilic community, and in emphasizing the grave dangers of intermarriage.
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023
08:48
Introduction to Joshua
Named after Joshua, depicted as the apprentice and successor to Moses. Joshua was the military commander in the conquest of Canaan and the administrator of the allotment of that land to the Israelite tribes. In Num 13.16, Moses renames Hoshea (Heb hoshe'a, "salvation") Joshua (Heb yehoshu'a, "the Lord is salvation/help"), adding the divine name Yahweh to his name.
The historiographic materials used in the book of Joshua correspond to those found in the ancient Near East as a whole. These include traditional stories, etiologies, boundary and town lists, summary accounts and lists, accounts patterned after redundant annalistic documents, poetry (from the Book of Jashar, a lost book considered extracanonical due to it being referenced here), and burial reports. These have been oven together with ritual and covenantal materials and other matters of priestly interest to communicate the book's message.
Initially thought to be part of a 'Hexateuch' (six books) with the preceding five books of the bible, later scholars began to view Joshua as part of a larger historical work, the Deuteronomistic History (see prior introduction to the Historical Books on this point). Recent scholarship, however, is drifting away from this interpretation somewhat, viewing Joshua as a possibly independent book written during the postexilic period.
The book of Joshua describes the conquest of Canaan and its allotment to the Israelite tribes. Through well-known traditional stories (e.g., Rahab and the scouts, the crossing of the Jordan River, the capture of Jericho) as well as nonnarrative lists and ritual texts, the book portrays the fulfillment of God's covenantal promise to Israel's ancestors that their descendants would possess the land. Moreover, these stories challenge the book's readers to live in obedience to the Deuteronomic covenant so that they also will receive God's blessing in the land.
Here, the author of the introduction, K. Lawson Younger, Jr. provides an outline of the book's contents, pointing out the text's compositional symmetry. I will not be providing it in these notes.
The book should not be read as straightfoward history—it telescopes and simplifies what was a long and complex process of occupation of hte land by the Israelite tribes. A main theme of the book is a swift and complete conquest of the land, while most archaeological evidence suggests its gradual settlement.
Typology, representing one character or event as an echo or foreshadowing of another, is utilized to portray Joshua as parallel to Moses. For example, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan; Moses leads Israel in a miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, Joshua leads Israel in a miraculous crossing of the Jordan River; Moses sends out scouts, Joshua sends out scouts; Moses allots land to the tribes east of the Jordan, Joshua allots land to the tribes west of the Jordan. This particular typology depicts Joshua as the legitimate successor to Moses.
Thursday, March 23rd, 2023
13:40
Joshua
Josh 1.1-12.24: The conquest.
Josh 1.1-5.12: Preparation for the conquest.
Josh 1.1-18: The commission of Joshua.
Josh 1.2-9: The Lord's speech outlines the means of success for Joshua and the Israelites: obedience to the book of the law, likely referring to an early form of Deuteronomy.
Josh 2.1-24: The story of the scouts and Rahab.
Josh 2.1: The scouts go to Jericho where they enter the house of a prostitute: though no explicit sexual interaction is mentioned, an undercurrent of ambiguous sexual innunedo is provided, as the site of the Israelite camp, 'Shittim,' was also the infamous place where the men of Israel had sexual relations with the women of Moab (Num 25.1).
Josh 2.2-13: Rahab is at the center of the narrative, the Canaanite prostitute that protects the scouts; the scouts have little concern for her, however. In Mt 1.5 Rahab is reckoned among the ancestors of Jesus, and in Heb 11.31 Rahab is counted as one of the heroes of faith.
Josh 2.10: Here, the Red Sea is said to have dried up.
Josh 2.18: Crimson cord to safeguard the house, echoing exodus and the paschal lamb.
Josh 3.1-5.1: The crossing of the Jordan. Composed of multiple units and repititions, the redactor of this work was presumably working together multiple different sources.
Josh 3.1-17: The initial story of the crossing. Anticipates multiple events from the disparate aforementioned sources to be recounted.
Josh 4.1-10: The erecting of the twelve-stone memorial.
Josh 4.8-9: Divergent narratives on the location of the memorial; the latter is likely a later tradition.
Josh 4.23: Explicit mention of the parallel between Exodus and the crossing of the Jordan.
Josh 5.2-12: Final preparatory events at Gilgal.
Josh 5.2: Circumcision was fairly common in the ancient Near East; it became a sign of Israel's covenant with God. Here, the disobedience of the older generation is contrasted to the obedience of the new generation, though both were circumcised.
Josh 5.11-12: The change from manna to the produce of the land signifies Israel's relocation from wilderness to land.
Josh 5.13-12.24: Conquest of the land.
Josh 5.13-6.27: Jericho: first application of "herem". There was, at the time of the narrative, at best a small unfortified village on the site of Jericho, not the city supposed here.
Josh 5.13-15: The appearance of the 'commander of the army of the Lord,' probably a fragment of a fuller tradition; he is not mentioned in the rest of the book. He is an angel that will lead the heavenly forces.
Josh 6.6-27: Jericho is captured by following the Lord's instructions. This is the first implementation of the "herem," a ritual act first mentioned in Deuteronomy that has contentious definitions, meaning something given over to the Lord, destruction, genocide, an irrevocable renunciation, or a sacrifice. It has ritual connotations due to its usage in holy war, specifically here in Jericho due to the manner in which the walls were brought down (as per the Lord's instructions).
Josh 6.25: 'Ever since' indicates that the descendants of Rahab (i.e., Canaanites) survived and lived among the Israelites.
Josh 7.1-8.29: Achan and Ai.
Josh 7.1-5: First battle of Ai and Achan's sin. Although only one person was unfaithful, all Israel was liable becuase the state of being devoted ("herem") is contagious, and the spoil that was improperly obtained would contaminate Israel's camp and put it into a state of devotion ("herem").
Friday, March 24th, 2023
10:43
Josh 7.2: The name 'Ai' means "the ruin;" the site would have been uninhabited during the Late Bronze Age, suggesting an etiological component to the story.
Josh 7.6-26: Second application of "herem": Achan's execution.
Josh 7.25-26: The outcome for Achan and his family is an ironic reversal of that for Rahab and her family.
Josh 8.1-29: Third application of "herem": second battle of Ai and Ai's destruction via ambush. Ironically, God allows some plunder of Ai despite the "herem".
Josh 8.29: Hanging here anticipates the execution of the five kings in 10.26-27 and follows the Deuteronomic injunction of hanging.
Josh 8.30-35: Covenant renewal as land grant: Shechem. Joshua builds the altar as commanded by Moses in Deuteronomy. The mention of blessings and curses here is a strong indication of the connection this section of Joshua has to a compiled form of Deuteronomy in general.
Josh 9.1-11.15: The southern and northern campaigns. The region that became Judah's tribal allotment receives the greater emphasis ( a pattern also found in chs 13-19 and Judg 1). This suggests a strong Judahite redactional perspective.
Josh 9.3-27: Gibeon. Ironically, Israel has just defeated Ai by means of a ruse; now Israel is the victim of a ruse. Fearing Israel, the Gibeonites (apparently Hivites, a group known only by their mention in the bible) pretend to be from a far country, so as to recieve lenience afforded to such people (Deut 20.15).
Josh 9.14: Israel is blamed as a whole for not consulting the Lord on the matter of the Gibeonites.
Josh 9.16-27: The Gibeonites readily admit to the ruse when caught by the Israelites, as the covenant they have made with eachother must be respected; they are to become slaves in "the place that [the lord] should choose" (Jerusalem), acting as 'hewers of wood' and 'drawers of water'—according to Deut 29.10-13, the covenant was to erase distinctions between such lower-class occupations and others. This designation thus suggests that the Gibeonites are outside the covenantal community.
Monday, March 27th, 2023
13:46
Josh 10.1-43: The defeat of the Amorite alliance.
Josh 10.1-2: The treaty between Gibeon and Israel incited the kings of five Amorite city-states to attack Gibeon. Ironically, Jerusalem, an important Bronze Age city-state (and later the capital of Judah) is the driving force of the Amorite alliance.
Josh 10.11: Divine intervention with hailstones.
Josh 10.12-15: Joshua's request ot the Lord and the divine intervention. The exact meaning of the divine intervention, described only in poetry, is difficult to ascertain.
Josh 10.13: 'The Book of Jashar,' a lost book as mentioned in the introduction to Joshua.
Josh 10.16-27: The capture and execution of the kings.
Josh 10.28-39: The capture and "herem" of the cities.
Josh 10.36-39: Multiple different accounts of the tribes credited with the capture of various cities; these accounts highlight various different emphases in the book of Joshua to the end of representing multiple perspectives.
Josh 10.40-43: Summary of the southern campaign.
Josh 11.1-15: Northern campaign.
Josh 11.1-11: Defeat of the Canaanite coalition. This enemy is superior to the Israelite army, both numerically and technologically, but the Lord's oracle of assurance precedes the victory.
Josh 11.12-15: Summary of the northern campaign.
Josh 11.16-23: Summary of total conquest.
Josh 11.18-20: The depiction here conflicts with the earlier accounts, suggesting that a protracted war was necessary.
Josh 11.20: 'Harden their hearts,' is used here, suggesting that for the Lord and the author, the inhabitants of the land were enemies comparable to the Egyptians.
Josh 12.1-24: A selective list of defeated cities' kings.
Josh 12.7-24: Joshua's victories west of the Jordan. Previous narratives mention fewer than half of these cities [. . .] This section thus seems to be adapted from a different source than the previous chapters. Moreover, the length of this list shows that previous narratives are selective, highlighting particular stories for ideological and theological purposes.
Josh 13.1-24.33: The allotment of the land.
Josh 13.1-7: Noted here is the understanding that there remains land within Canaan not under Israelite control. This foreshadows other passages in chs 13-21 that contrast with the first half of the book, by documenting Israel's failure to capture all of the land, or by noting that foreigners live among the Israelites.
Josh 13.8-33: Transjordanian tribal allotment. Lots of superfluous detail on exact boundaries listed in the text itself; the footnotes decline to add more, for good reason, I would say. I will not be noting any of it here! I presume the same will be for cisjordan allotments.
Josh 13.22: Balaam, here presented in a negative light, as in Num 31.8. They did you dirty, my guy.
Josh 14.1-19.51: Cisjordanian tribal allotment.
Josh 14.1-5: Introduction to the process of allotment. Eleazar (who we haven't seen much of at all, might I add!), Joshua, and the heads of the tribal families oversaw this allotment, which was performed by the casting of lots, presuming divine providence.
Josh 14.4-5: Another mention here of how, in order to maintain the conventional number of twelve tribes, Joseph is counted as two, 'Manasseh' and 'Ephraim,' so as to make up for Levi's lack of inheritance.
Josh 14.6-17.18: Judah and Joseph's allotments.
Josh 14.6-15.63: Judah. The tribe to which King David belonged is first.
Josh 14.6-15: Caleb's conquest. Caleb was one of the original twelve scouts sent into Canaan in Numbers; the specific tribe of Caleb is uncertain. Named here as the son of Jephunneh, a Kenizzite (the Kenizzites said to reside within the land of Canaan), the Kenizzites were generally associated with Kenaz, the son of Esau, within the narrative of Genesis, apparently making them an Edomite clan. Regardless, in the ancient Near East, tribal groups were socially constructed units, not always being based on actual biological lineage; as such, later mentions of Caleb (as in Chronicles) list him as having been incorporated fully into the tribe of Judah due to his conquest, or as always having been part of the tribe of Judah as a retroactive edit.
Josh 15.1-12: Judah's boundary description.
Josh 15.13-19: Vignettes about Judah's heroes.
Josh 15.20-62: A list of Judah's towns.
Josh 15.63: A narrative postscript noting Judah's failure to conquer Jerusalem. This explains why the Jesubites live with the people of Judah 'in Jerusalem to this day.'
Josh 16.1-17.18: Joseph (Ephraim and Half-Manasseh). As the primary power in the Northern Kingdom, Joseph is mentioned next. The order here of Ephraim then Manasseh follows Jacob's blessings in Gen 48.12-22, not their birth order narrated in Gen 41.51-52.
Josh 16.1-4: General outline of the southern borders of the Joseph tribes. The people of Joseph receive one allotment, as if they constitute one tribe, yet they are recognized as two distinct tribal units (Ephraim and Manasseh). In addition, one of the tribes, Manasseh, is further divided: part of the tribe has already received an allotment in transjordan, while the remainder receives its allotment in Cisjordan.
Josh 16.5-10: Ephraim's boundary description is delineated. The Ephraimites failed to dispossess the Canaanites, though subjecting them to forced labor.
Josh 17.1-6: Ephraim's heroes. Includes Zelophehad's daughters!
Josh 17.7-13: Manasseh's boundary description is given.
Josh 17.14-18: Joseph's portion. The Josephites demand a double portion due to their numbers (as well as the divison of their tribe).
Josh 18.1-19.51: Seven other tribal allotments.
Josh 18.1-10: Assembly of Shiloh. The boundaries of the tribes in the land are asserted to be the result of the Lord's will and of Israel's obedience, not human will or historical contingency. Nice way of removing responsibility, eh?
Josh 18.1: Shiloh was an important Israelite sanctuary in the period before the monarchy.
Josh 18.11-28: Benjamin.
Josh 19.1-9: Simeon.
Josh 19.10-16: Zebulun.
Josh 19.17-23: Issachar.
Josh 19.24-31: Asher. Asher's list includes some Phoenician cities such as Tyre that were never under Israelite control, suggesting that idealized elements are found in these lists.
Josh 19.32-39: Naphtali.
Josh 19.40-48: Dan. Ancient tradition located Dan in the south [ . . . ] According to Judges, sometime before the time of the monarchy, the Danites migrated to the north.
Josh 19.49-50: Final allotment. Joshua requests a city in the Ephraimite hill country that he (re)builds for himself.
Josh 19.51: Summary of the process of allotment.
Josh 20.1-21.42: Allotments to persons of marginal status. Cities of refuge and the Levitical cities are based on instructions given by Moses.
Josh 20.1-9: Cities of refuge. The right of asylum in cases of adjudicated manslaughter is here reaffrimed and established in the land proper.
Josh 21.1-42: Levitical cities.
Josh 21.43-45: Ironic conclusion. Includes overstated claims of unmitigated success despite statements of failure given throughout the text. Nevertheless, the stress on the Lord's faithfulness contrasts with the squabbling over the Transjordanian altar in the next section.
Josh 22.1-24.33: Epilogue to the conquest and allotment. Includes a warning narrative, and a pair of exhorting addresses in which commitments to the covenant are renewed.
Josh 22.1-34: Misunderstanding with the Transjordanian tribes. An arising issue from the loose ties binding the tribes is the question of the place of legitimate worship, a central concern of Deuteronomy.
Josh 22.1-9: The Transjordanian tribes return to their homes on the east bank.
Josh 22.10-34: The debate over the altar built by the Transjordanian tribes. The central role of Phinehas [Eleazar's son; Phinehas was the priest that executed the couple in the book of Numbers for intermarriage (the sin at Peor)] in dealing with this conflict leads some scholars to conclude that priestly circles edited this story.
Josh 22.12: Deuteronomic law forbade the offering of sacrifice anywhere except in the central sanctuary. The other tribes apparently interpret the building of the altar as an act of disloyalty to Israel and to its God, and therefore prepare to make war against them. The exent to which the tribal settlement east of the Jordan is or is not part of Israel also stands behind this narrative.
Josh 22.24-25: The motive of the Transjordanian tribes was honorable; they built the altar as a witness to their loyalty to the Lord, not to worship foregin deities.
Josh 23.1-24.28: Concluding charges.
Josh 23.1-16: Covenantal charge to the leaders. Joshua's address to the leaders consists almost entirely of Deuteronomistic reflections.
Josh 23.6-11: An exhortation to remain faithful to the Lord and his covenant so that the remaining land can be conquered.
Josh 24.1-28: Covenant renewal of the people. Joshua fulfills the commands of Moses in Deut 11; 27; 31. All Israel unites under Joshua's leadership in the service of the Lord. Joshua's final meeting with the people takes place at Shechem.
Josh 24.11: Perhaps a different tradition about the conquest of Jericho.
Josh 24.12: 'The hornet;' see Ex 23.28; Deut 7.20.
Josh 24.29: Appendixes. Joshua dies, is buried. Joseph's bones are reburied in Shechem. Eleazar dies, is buried. This latter instance indicates the strength of the priestly interests in the book.
We'll miss you Joshua. And Eleazar, I suppose. This book was intriguing. In terms of narrative throughlines, this one feels the least intentionally historically based of the lot so far, which is strange to say, given the genuinely mythic claims of previous books. Perhaps it's something to do with the numerous admitted contradictions and mirrored story beats. It just feels like a purposefully mythologized tale, and that is, of course, what it is. I have to imagine ancient readers were quite aware of this fact. Judges next.
we stand
to gain all that was
and all that is
subsumed
in the arid mists
of memory
seizing
from the self all of
that which one needs
subsumed
in the cool fervor
of servitude
Thursday, March 30th, 2023
16:55
Introduction to Judges
Named after the Judges of the transitional period between the conquest of the land and the establishment of the Monarchy, this book has traditionally been ascribed to Samuel. As is the case with all of the books thus far, however, oral tradition and subsequent editing and compiling is the story of this work. Its primary fabric is a prose narrative, though it contains a long poem, and different sections of the book have distinct editorial formulas. The refrain "In those days there was no king in Israel" unifies chs 17-22 and thus represents a retrospective perspective of the author/s. It is clear that Judges was not completed before 722 BCE, as there is reference to the Assyrian invasion of Samaria in 18.30.
The initial chapters portray the southern tribe of Judah as uniquely succesful and the other, northern, tribes as faithless and hapless. The final chapters focus on the misdeeds of the tribe of Dan (in the far north) and Benjamin (just north of Judah), the very sites of shrines that rivaled Judah's own Temple in Jerusalem, and give special attention to the misdeeds of Saul's hometown Gibeah and his tribe Benjamin. Thus, though neither is mentioned, the shadows of David and Saul, heroes of southern and northern culture respectively, loom over the concluding section.
By the end of the book, the tribes are fractious, the judges are flawed, and without centralized religious and political leadership Israel's sense of identity and covenant are at risk of gradual assimilation into local cultures.
In its earliest version, Judges was an anthology of frontier legends about the time "when locks were long in Israel." This indicates a preexilic perspective, but in its current state, the book of Judges is framed in the context of growing chaotic lawlessness that could only be remedied by Kings, not Judges. But not just any Kings, Davidic Kings, whose shrine was the Jerusalem Temple, are who will save Israel. "There was no king" is the final refrain of Judges, suggesting the necessity of centralized political and religious authority.
Judges ends without closure, demanding that readers turn the page, as it were, to the next installment of Israel's story. In Christian Bibles, the next book is Ruth with its genial portrait of village life during the days of the Judges, its charming and quietly powerful female characters, and the birth of King David's grandfather. In Jewish Bibles, the next installment of the story comes in 1 Samuel with the emergence of David and his dynasty in Jerusalem.
Monday, March 13th, 2023
22:13
Well, I hardly expected a month's break in my reading here, but what will happen is what will happen. Been very busy; new work, family complications, etc., but forcing myself to get back on the horse or I fear I never will!
Deut 4.7-8: Israel is distinguished both by its god and its law; the two ideas are interlocked. Scripture can be seen as evidence of the Justness and validity of the god of Israel.
Deut 4.9-14: The revelation at Horeb is recalled in order to instruct the generation that did not experience it.
Deut 4.9: To not forget and to educate the children is to overcome the distance of the past so as to maintain a source of identity. Moses refers to the events as if, in collective, those being spoken to had themselves seen and heard the events at Horeb; this is likely evident of a different source or literary layer of Deueteronomy.
Deut 4.13: A subtle reinterpretation of Sinai: The specification of that event as one where God proclaimed ten commandments occurs only here, at 10.4, and at Ex 34.28. There is no special number of or name for the commandments in Ex 19-20 or Deut 5. The rationale for two stone tablets (as at 5.22) derives from ancient Near Eastern treaties, whereby both sovereign and vassal would retain a separate complete copy of the treaty.
Deut 4.15-31: Reinterpretation of the commands regarding idol worship in 5.8-10. The Decalogue concedes the existence of other gods, while prohibiting Israel from worshipping them (5.7; cf. 32.8; Ex 15.11; Ps 8.21). This distinction is dissolved here, as the exilic writings of Deuteronomy that compose this section represent a later theological perspective in which emphasis is placed solely on the rejection of idols, presuming that no other gods exist.
Deut 4.16b-19a: This catalogue follows the order of creation in Gen 1 in reverse order, consistent with ancient scribal practice when quoting an earlier text.
Deut 4.19: 'Sun . . . host of heaven' may reflect images derived from foreign forms of worship brought into the Jerusalem Temple by Manasseh but removed by Josiah (2 Kings 21.5; 23.4-5; Jer 8.2). The idea of idols or of celestial phenomena literally being worshipped sharply distorts ancient Near Eastern religion, which regarded such phenomena as visible manifestations or emblems of a deity, not as themselves divine. This polemic, with the idea that God 'allotted' the celestial phenomena to other nations while reserving Israel as "his very own possession" (v. 20; cf. 7.6n), reinterprets the earlier idea that God, as head of the pantheon, assigned other nations to the supervision of lesser gods but retained Israel as "the Lord's own portion," "his alloted share". The author deanimates those gods, reducing them to lifeless celestial objects.
Deut 4.27-28: These verses allude to the policies of Assyrian and Babylonian exile, indicating how the age of the text post-dates that of the events themselves despite the narrative framing.
Deut 4.35: 'There is no other', this affirmation of full monotheism (contrast v. 7; 5.7) corresponds to the thought of the exilic Second Isaiah (Isa 43.10-13; 44.6-8; 45.6-7,22).
Deut 4.41-43: An appendix. Concerning the cities of refuge to be established in Transjordan; these verses are most likely an editorial appendix composed after the completion of ch 19. Similar disconnected appendixes often appear in the Bible at the conclusion of longer literary units (e.g., Lev 27).
Deut 5.1-33: The revelation of the Decalogue at Sinai/Horeb. Ostensibly a retelling of Ex 19-20, this version introduces significant changes in both detail and theology. The central idea is that God publicly reveals the law to the entire nation across boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and class. Near Eastern legal collections, in contrast, were attributed to a human monarch and were concerned to preserve class distinctions. Moreover, a deity disclosing himself to an entire nation was unprecedented. The Decalogue has God address each Israelite individually using a singular form of "you," rather than the expected plural form. In contrast to Near Eastern law, the prohibitions are universal and absolute: the aim of the law is to transform society by creating a moral community in which murder, theft, etc. will no longer exist.
Deut 5.1-5: Making the past present.
Deut 5.3: 'Not with our ancestors . . . but with us', once more inconsistent on the point of how revelation applies to each generation; this is, however, seemingly intentional, the author aiming to overcome the limits of historical time and place via participation in the covenant.
Deut 5.5: Inconsistent framing once more.
Deut 5.6-21: The decalogue. This version differs at several points from that in Ex 20.2-17.
Deut 5.9: Punishment for sins against God extends across three generations. This principle of vicarious punishment contrasts sharply with the Israelite norm for civil and criminal law, whcih restricts punishment to the agent alone (24.16).
Deut 5.18: Punishment for adultery would have been decided by the husband (as mirrored in such Near Eastern law corupuses as the Laws of Hammurabi) in ancient Israel, but here it is considered a transgression against God and the community as a whole. Following this version of the Decalogue, a diagram is presented showing the numbering of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5.8-21, I will not be repeating it here, but it is interesting to contrast to that of Exodus 20.
Tuesday, March 15th, 2023
02:43
Deut 6.1-11.32: Preamble to the laws: the requirement of loyalty to God.
Deut 6.5: The paradox of commanding a feeling (as in Lev 19.17-18) is resolved with the recognition that covenantal "love" is not private emotion but loyalty of action toward both deity and neighbor.
Deut 7.1-10.11: Risks to covenantal fidelity upon entry to the land; confrontation of natives as well as the risk of complacency in the event of succesful habitation.
Deut 7.1-26: The war of conquest.
Deut 7.1: The nations to be conquered listed are anachronistic, differing from lists elsewhere in the bible and contradicting the historical record—the enumeration of seven once again signifies completion.
Deut 7.2: Total destruction is never attained in initial conquest, as multiple of the nations listed are only dealt with later on in the narrative, long after entry into the land. Elsewhere merely 'expulsion' is indicated.
Deut 7.5: 'Pillars', stone momuments that marked places where God appeared and were thus origionally legitimate in worship. Only later was such worship banned. 'Sacred poles' are also noted, the 'Asherim'; preserving the name of Asherah, an important Canaanite goddess, popular in ancient Israel.
Deut 7.10: The vicarious punishment of prior decalogue repetitions is here revised, instead each individual that rejects God is repaid in their own person.
Deut 8.1-20: The temptation to pride and self-sufficiency in the land. Success in Canaan will tempt the Israelites to forget the wilderness lesson of complete dependence upon God.
Deut 8.11-20: The peril of posterity.
Deut 8.11: Disobedience of Deuteronomy's laws becomes tantamount to forgetting God and transgressing the Decalouge's prohibitions in 5.7-9.
Deut 9.1-10.11: The already broken and renewed covenant. God does not give the land to the people as a reward for righteousness, for in the wilderness they acted rebelliously.
Deut 10.1-11: The second ascent of the mountain.
Deut 10.1-3: These verses reflect a tradition that Moses made the ark, directly contradicting the narrative of its construction detailed prior.
Deut 10.6-9: Editorial insertion concerning Levites.
Deut 10.12-11.32: Obedience as the condition for prosperity in the land.
22:03
Deut 11.1-32: Loyalty to the covenant provides the condition for life in Canaan. Responsibilities listed in this section are communal in nature; they exist for the people as a whole.
Deut 11.2: The frequent word 'today' in Deuteronomy emphasizes the contemporaneity of the covenant.
Deut 11.6: No mention of Korah's rebellion (Num 16.3-11), which was added to Num 16 by the Priestly school after this abstract was made.
Deut 11.10-12: Though the Nile provided sufficient water, the Nile valley had to be irrigated through human effort, since rainfall was minimal; Canaan's crops are irrigated by seasonal rainfall. The difference is mentioned to stress Israel's dependence upon God, who gives and withholds rain, as well as the sanctity of the land of Israel.
Deut 11.29-30: These verses represent an editorial intrusion, hinting ahead to ch 27.
Deut 12.1-32: Centralization and purification of worship. Restriction of sacrificial worship of God to a single sanctuary and removal of foreign influence represent two of the most distinctive features of Deuteronomy's idea of religion and law.
Deut 12.2-7: Israel must reject the Canaanite precedent of multiple sanctuaries.
Deut 12.2: The chapter alternates between plural and singular, suggesting a long compositional history.
Deut 12.5: Biblical narrative reflecting a tradition in which Jerusalem played no role in Israel's history until the period of King David; consequently the city cannot be named explicitly without undermining the literary form of Deuteronomy as an address by Moses. Interesting amount of foresight on the part of the scribes. Also mentioned is God 'putting his name' there, rejecting the idea that a nation's God would inhabit the Temple (contrast 1 Kings 8.12-13).
Deut 12.13-16: Two important, revolutionary distinctions: First, between sacrificial worship at random sites, 'any place', rejected as illegitimate, and legitimate sacrifice performed at a single sanctuary, 'the place that the Lord will choose'. This contrasts with previous norms, when altars were common throughout the land (Gen 12.17; 35.1-7; 1 Sam 3.1; 7.17; 1 Kings 18.20-46). Second, between ritual sacrifice and secular slaughter of domestic animals for food. According to the biblical account, prior to Deuteronomy all slaughter, even for food, was sacrificial and took place at an altar. With altars throughout the land, that rule imposed no burden upon Israelites. The prohibition of all local altars, however, created a real difficulty for those without easy access to the central sanctuary. The permission granted here for local, secular slaughter answers that need. By analogy to the rules for hunting wild game (gazelle or deer), domestic animals may be slaughtered throughout the land, on condition that their blood is poured out 'on the ground like water' (cf. Lev 17.13). Blood symbolizes "life" (v. 23; 15.23; Gen 9.4-5; Lev 17.14; 19.26).
Deut 12.20-28: Permission for secular slaughter is now justified by the expansion of Israel's boundaries.
Deut 12.32: Text appended with an ancient Near Eastern scribal forumla often included in the epilogues of treaties, inscriptions, and law collections to protect them from being defaced or altered.
Deut 13.1-18: Unconditional loyalty to God. Provides various hypothetical sitauations including conflict of covenant loyalty.
Deut 13.1-5: Prophecy is here regulated, with Moses' status as the founder of Israelite prophecy setting the standards in Deuteronomy by which the people should act; should subsequent prophets contravene Dueteronomy's teachings, they are to be executed. I'm sure this will never be complicated by any potential future prophets.
Deut 13.1: Dreams and omens or portents, two sources of religious authority also mentioned in the nearly contemporary Neo-Assyrian 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon', indicating widespread recognition of the practises.
Deut 13.9: Summary execution here conflicts with the call for witnesses and a trial in other transgressions mentioned elsewhere in Deuteronomy; this likely arises from the presumed grave threat to the covenant.
Deut 13.10: Stoning, a punishment reserved for violation of fundamental values. Those named correspond to prohibitions from the Decalogue.
Deut 13.15-17: Religious infidelity of an Israelite population is met with the same ban (genocide—previously, ousting) as that of the Canaanites.
Friday, March 17th, 2023
01:54
Deut 14.1-29: The obligations of holiness. Special status entails special obligations, one of which is dietary. Lists permitted and prohibited foods.
Deut 14.3-21: Deueteronomy's dietary restrictions differ from the more detailed list of permitted and prohibited foods provided by the Priestly source (Lev 11.2-23). Clean versus unclean here, once more, refers specifically to ritual propriety. Note too that the creatures listed correspond to those groupings mentioned within the creation narrative.
Deut 15.1-18: Remission of debts and manumission of slaves. On accession to the throne, ancient Near Eastern rulers would sometimes grant one-time cancellation of debts, return land confiscated by the crown, and free indentured slaves. That custom, Akkadian 'duraru', is reflected in the Hebrew 'deror,' 'jubilee,' or 'release,' of Lev 25.10; Isa 61.1; Jer 34.15,17. Deuteronomy's conception of the covenant between Israel and God entails a similar fresh start as a covenantal obligation that recurs every seven years, adjusting earlier laws in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 21-23) to the innovation of centralization of worship.
Deut 15.1-6: Cancellation of debts.
Deut 15.12-18: Manumission. Laws regulating slaves are here reworked in the face of centralization of worship.
Deut 16.1-17: The festival calendar. Here, passover (and thus the sacrifice of the paschal lamb) has been centralized to the (yet to be built) Temple, as such, this blood ritual is merged with the festival of unleavened bread, also celebrated in early spring. Contrast to Leviticus where such ceremonies are considered as distinct.
Deut 16.7: Provision to 'cook' (read: boil) the paschal offering conflicts with the stipulation that the paschal offering be 'roasted over the fire,' not 'boiled in water' (Ex 12.8-9). The two inconsistent requirements for preparing the Passover are harmonized at 2 Chr 15.13.
Deut 16.18-18.22: Laws of pubic officials. The proposed government has judicial, executive, and religious branches: local and central courts (16.18-17.13), kingship (17.14-20), levitical priesthood (18.1-8), and prophecy (18.9-22).
Deut 16.18-17.13: The organization of justice.
Deut 16.21-17.1: Prohibitions against Canaanite cultic objects.
Deut 17.8-13: Justice at the local sanctuary. In the pre-Deuteronomic period, legal cases in which there was an absence of physical evidence or of witnesses were remanded to the local sanctuary wherein the parties would swear oaths. The laws listed in these verses fill in the judicial void created by the centralization of worship; all cases that require recourse to the altar must now be decided at the central sanctuary. The tribunal gathered at such cases includes both priestly and lay members.
Deut 17.14-20: The law of the king. Deuteronomy greatly restricts royal authority. The monarch is subject to the law and required to read it daily: contrast with the general rule of Near Esatern monarchs promulgating law alone.
Deut 18.1-8: The levitical priesthood. Centralization also affected the Israelite priesthood. Deuteronomy conflates what the book of Leviticus had initially bifurcated into two distinct categories: the 'Levites' and the 'Priests'. Here they are instead described as one, the 'Levitical priests'.
Deut 18.6-8: When the local altars became outlawed, it is clarified that the Levites must be provided for as they transition to the centralized sanctuary. This emphasis underscores that the countryside altars were not entirely Canaanite sanctuaries (as 12.2-4 asserts).
Deut 18.9-22: A prophet like Moses.
Deut 18.9-14: Divination is here branded as foreign and abhorrent, 'prophecy' is instead the given alternative. Elsewhere, however, divination is not typified as foreign (1 Sam 28.3-25; Isa 8.19-22; 29.4). Thus, describing the practice as foreign may actually cloak a condemnation of Israelite popular religion.
Deut 18.11-12: Here, necromancy and divination (integral as they would have been to the practice of ancient family religion) are considered abhorrent and illegitimate; the efficacy of them is not mentioned, however, as it is likely that the Israelites believed in the power of such acts even if condemning of it.
Deut 18.15-22: Deuteronomy transforms prophecy, viewing the prophet as the spokesperson of Torah and defining Moses at the paradigmatic prophet.
Deut 18.15: Prophecy by divine election. That God alone appoints the prophet makes the prophet independent of all institutions and able to challenge them. The laws in vv. 20-22 emphasize various cases in which the prophets are to be executed, however, curbing their potential for radical change—specifically in terms of reversing Deuteronomy's laws. More than one prophet is clearly suggested/intended.
Deut 18.20-23: Having estbalished an Isrealite model of prophecy, the law provides two criteria to distinguish true from false prophecy. The first is that the prophet should speak exclusively on behalf of God, and report only God's wprds. The second makes the fulfillment of a prophet's oracle the measure of its truth (Jer 28.9). That approach attempts to solve a critical problem: If two prophets each claim to speak on behalf of God yet make mutually exclusive claims (1 Kings 22.6 versus v. 17; Jer 27.8 versus 28.2), how can one decide which speaks the truth? The solution offered is not free of difficulty. If a false prophet is distinguished by the failure of his oracle to come true, the nmaking a decision in the present about which prophet to obey becomes impossible. Nor can this criterion easily be reconciled with 13.2, which concedes that the oracles of false prophets might come true.
Deut 19.1-14: Cities of refuge. Once more, due to the previous places of refuge being the local altars, now outlawed, here three "neutral" cities are outlined.
Deut 19.15-21: The integrity of the judicial system.
Deut 20.1-20: Rules for waging holy war. In contrast to other legal collections, which include only brief sections concerning military engagement (Ex 23.23-33; 34.11-16; Num 35.50-56), Deuteronomy, reflecting a literary setting of Israel about to enter the land, concerns itself extensively with the laws of holy war. Seizing the spoils of war, including human prisoners, is prohibited; all had to be devoted exclusively to God. A contemporary inscription, the Moabite Stone (ca. 850 BCE), establishes that similar theologies of holy war were shared by some of Israel's neighbors. In Deuteronomy, the conception of the conquest of the promised land as a holy war represents a highly schematized idealization, formulated half a millennium after the settlement, at a time when ethnic Canaanites would long have assimilated into the Israelite population.
Deut 20.11: The use of defeated people for 'forced labor' was widespread. Later, David's cabinet will be said to have an official responsible for such forced labor. Slavery is fine when it's the enemy, guys!
Deut 20.15-18: Text clarifies here that such takings of defeated peoples for forced labor applies only in situations of foreign war.
Saturday, March 18th, 2023
03:52
Deut 21.1-9: Atonement for unsolved murder and assigned rituals.
Deut 21.10-25.19: Miscellaneous civil and family laws.
Deut 21.10-14: Legal obligations toward female captives. This procedure most likely originally applied to the Canaanite population.
Deut 21.15-17: Legal protection of the less-favored wife.
Deut 21.18-21: The rebellious son. Flagrant and sustained disobedience towards parents is a capital offense.
Deut 21.22-23: Treatment of the executed. The concern to avoid defilement of the land by demonstrating respect for the corpse even of someone convicted of wrongdoing shows the close connection between criminal law and ritual purity in Deuteronomy. Note, 'for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse'. Judas wept!
Deut 22.1-12: Various moral and religious responsibilities of citizenship.
Deut 22.1-4: Moral duties toward the nighbor.
Deut 22.5-12: Miscellaneous laws.
Deut 22.5: Prohibition against cross-dressing seeks to maintain gender boundaries; a similar concern for boundaries is evident in vv. 9-11.
Deut 22.13-30: Volations of marriage law.
Deut 22.13-21: False accusation of breach of marital contract.
Sunday, March 19th, 2023
12:50
Deut 22.22-30: Adultery and rape. Adultery as defined by biblical law is the instance of a man having sex with a woman betrothed or married to another man. This is a violation of the Decalogue and a capital offense.
Deut 23.1-8: Restrictions on access to Israel's assembly.
Deut 23.1: No crushed testicles or severed penises! What was in Leviticus only a qualification required of the priesthood is here applied to all of Israel.
Deut 23.9-14: Special rules for the military camp. Includes sexual abstinence.
Deut 23.15-25.19: The heightened moral responsibilities of the covenant community.
Deut 23.15-16: Prohibition of the return of escaped slaves. Rejecting the almost universal stipulation within the ancient Near East, escaped slaves are here allowed to retain their freedom and shall not be returned.
Deut 23.17-18: Restrictions on prostitution. Illegal for the Israelites—many such sad cases! The regulations also seek to preserve the Temple's sanctity.
Deut 23.17: 'Temple Prostutite' (Hebrew "qedeshah"), the translation reflects belief in the existence of sacred prostitution in Israel and the ancient Near East, for which there is scant evidence; more likely 'qedesha' is a standard euphemism for the coarser term for prostitute (v. 18). The same alternation between the two terms appears in Gen 38.15,21. The word might better be translated as "one set aside."
Deut 23.19-25: Financial ethics, vows, gathering by the needy.
Deut 24-25: Laws promoting social harmony.
Deut 24.14-15: Deuteronomy's ethics are based upon the conviction that God identifies with and vindicates the oppressed.
Deut 25.3: 'Your neighbor', the criminal, despite his judicial status, retains human dignity.
Deut 25.5: An exception here to the incest prohibition of marrying a sister-in-law found in Leviticus presents an interesting question on the notion of what these various case instances might represent in terms of questions on the imperative—suppose I'll come back to this later.
Deut 25.18: These details are not found in Ex 17.8-16; they may have been supplied by the Deuteronomic author in order to justify the extirpation of Amalek.
Deut 26.1-15: Concluding liturgies.
Deut 26.14: 'Offered any of it to the dead', the duty of the living to care for dead ancestors through food offerings at their place of burial was widely assumed in the ancient Near East (see the Ugaritic 'Aqhat' epic), is confirmed archaeologically, and continued to be carried out in Second Temple times (Tob 4.17). This practice is not condemned here; it is viewed as improper only in relation to sacred donations, because of the impurity associated with death (Lev 22.2-4).
Deut 26.16-19: Formal conclusion: the reciprocity of the covenant, representing the legal corpus as a mutually binding relationship between God and Israel.
Deut 26.17-18: 'Obtained', the past tense point to an already completed ritual, not preserved in Deuteronomy, in which both Israel and God explicitly assented to the covenant and affirmed the mutuality of the obligations that each will undertake. This reciprocal model contrats with the Sinai covenant in Exodus, which was unilaterally offered by God (Ex 19.3-6) and unilaterally agreed to by Israel (Ex 19.8; 24.3,7). Deuteronomy invokes the language of the Sinai covenant as a model while revising it significantly in the process.
Deut 27.1-26: Ceremonies at Shechem upon entry into the land. Provides several competing traditions about how and where the covenant between God and Israel was concluded: at Sinai; or on the plains of Moab; or at Gilgal immediately upon entering the land; or at the important northern shrine at Shechem. Editorial revisions abounds!
Deut 27.1: Moses is referred to in the third person, interrupting is own first-person address. He is joined by the elders, who nowhere else in Deuteronomy address the people with Moses as they do here.
Deut 27.4: Mount Ebal, the tallest mountain in the region stands in central Canaan and is situated directly adjacent to the city of Shechem; it would be impossible for the Israelites to reach Shechem in a day as mentioned. The most logical explanation is that Josh 4 points to the original form of the verses, with Gilgal as the site where Israel complied with this command.
Deut 27.5-7: These verses are an insertion that reinterprets the plastered stones on which the teaching is to be inscribed as an altar of 'unhewn stones', following Ex 20.25. Such an altar, outside of Jerusalem, conflicts with the centralization requirement of ch 12, and further suggests the antiquity and the independence of this tradition from the rest of deuteronomy.
Deut 27.9: 'This very day' contrasts statements that define the bond as previously formed.
Deut 27.14: 'Levites', contrast Deuteronomy's normal term, "levitical priests".
Deut 28.1-68: The consequences of obedience or disobedience: blessing or curse. This chapter has several close parallels to the Neo-Assyrian 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon (VTE)', dating to 672 BCE. The disproportion between the sections devoted to blessing (vv. 1-14) and to curse (vv. 15-68) may be a reaction to the Babylonian conquest, deportation, and exile of Judah (597 and 586 BCE), here recast as a prophetic warning.
Deut 28.1-2: The poem emphasizes the conditionality of the exalted status of Israel, perhaps because of the exile.
Deut 28.9: 'The Lord will establish . . . if you keep', holiness is conditional upon obedience, a shift from other passages where Israel's holiness is not future but present, and not conditional but unconditional.
Deut 28.15-68: Consequences of disobedience.
Deut 28.21-44: This section echoes treaties that the Neo-Assyrian empire imposed on its vassal states, suggesting that the curse section of these state treaties, perhaps in Aramaic translation, provided a model for this chapter. Judah was a vassal to the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 8.13-18) and both Neo-Assyrian and Judean officials spoke Aramaic, the international language of diplomacy (2 Kings 18.26-27).
Deut 28.23: 'Bronze . . . iron', echoing language of the 'Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon'; "May [the gods] make your ground like iron . . . Just as rain does not fall from a bronze sky."
Deut 28.47-57: Scenario of foreign invasion. A later appendix, outside the frame provided by vv.45-46.
Deut 28.58-68: Undoing the exodus.
Deut 28.58: 'This book', how the commandments have become transformed from oral proclamation to written text is unexplained, since it is not until 31.9,24 that Moses commands that his teaching be put into writing. Also, 'HaShem', an important circumlocution for Yahweh, God's personal name.
Deut 28.63: Even the unconditional divine promises of Gen 12.7; 13.17 may be contrevened.
Monday, March 20th, 2023
12:22
Deut 29.1-30.20: Third discourse of Moses. The ratification ceremony for the covenant of the plains of Moab. Israel is formally adjured to enter the covenant: To swear to obey the laws of chs 12-26 under penalty of the sanctions of ch 28.
Deut 29.1: The laws of Deuteronomy are here presented as a covenant that exist in addition to the covenant established at Sinai.
Deut 29.20: 'Blot out', the erasure of a tablet or scroll (Num 5.23), given a theological cast: Following Mesopotamian models, the divine decree of human fate is recorded in a heavenly book, with erasure symbolizing punishment (9.14; Gen 6.7; Ex 17.14; 32.32; 2 Kings 14.27; Ps 9.6).
Deut 29.25: Here, the covenants of Sinai and Moab are conflated as one.
Deut 29.26: Gods are allotted to the various peoples of the region; Yahweh is Israel's, the existence of other gods is thus conceded within this polytheistic framework. Contrast 4.19, where it is rather only inanimate "stars . . . that God has allotted," which reinterprets the polytheistic image from the later perspective of monotheism.
Deut 29.28: Temporal slip-up here, 'as is now the case' implies that this chapter was composed subsequent to the Babylonian exile.
Deut 30.1-10: Reassurance of restoration. This section, with its emphasis on restoration, does not logically follow ch 29 and is most likely a later insertion that serves the religious needs of a community different from that of the book's original audience.
Deut 30.5: The 'You' here explicitly refers to the Judean exiles in Babylon rather than the desert generation whom Moses is supposed to be addressing.
Deut 30.10: The book refers to itself once more, contradicting the narrative.
Deut 30.11-20: The original continuation of ch 29.
Deut 30.11-14: Challenging the idea of wisdom being above the layperson, Deuteronomy here presents itself as divine but eminently communicable, so as to bolster its legitimacy to the common man.
Deut 31.1-34.14: The death of Moses and the formation of the Book of the Teaching. With the conclusion of the treaty between God and Israel in ch 30, Deuteronomy now returns to Moses, the mediator of the treaty. His life is ending, and the question of succession is given a two-fold answer, since Moses was both political and religious leader of Israel. Joshua will be his politcal and military successor (31.1-8,14-15,23; 32.44,48-52; 34.9), and "a book . . . of this law" (31.24) will instruct the nation in religion. Deuteronomy thus ends in paradox: Moses, ostensibly the book's narrator, narrates his own death (ch 34), and the Book of the Teaching, alread presupposed (29.27), nevertheless provides an account of its own formation (31.9-13,24-29). The conclusion of Deuteronomy also ends the Pentateuch. As they set Deuteronomy as the conclusion of that larger work, later editors with the background of the Exile added perspectives on the function of the entire Torah in the people's life. Finally, the Pentateuch's literary precedent of a patriarch deathbed bequest and blessing (Gen 27; 48-49) led to the incorporation of "The Song of Moses" (32.1-43) and of "The blessing of Moses" (ch 33), each of which likely circulated independently. The resulting text thus blends several viewpoints. Themes like the appointment of Joshua begin, then begin again from a different perspective, and then are continued only after a digression, which marks the insertion of new material.
Deut 31.1-29: Moses makes arrangements for his death. Multiple competing narratives mingle here, with verse-to-verse incongruencies about the exact sequence of events and who did what.
Deut 31.14-15: Tent of meeting, again, conflicting traditions on whether the tent is outside or inside the camp.
Deut 31.30-23.43: The Song of Moses. The Song is a late insertion that reflects upon Israel's history, probably presupposing the Exile.
Deut 32.8: 'Most High', or 'Elyon', the title of El, the senior god who sat at the head of the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan, as seen in Genesis.
Deut 32.9: The Lord here is contrasted somewhat to that of Elyon, with Elyon aportioning the nations and assigning the disparate peoples their own gods from which the Lord received his share; the NRSV translation has added 'own' to 'his [own] share' (not present in the original hebrew) in order to identify Yahweh with Elyon so as to avoid the impression that he is merely a member of the pantheon.
Deut 32.24: 'Burning consumption,' a common noun in postexilic Hebrew, 'Resheph', refers to the Ugaritic god of war and pestilence, worshipped by the Israelites as a minor god during the polytheistic period.
Deut 32.43: 'All you gods,' had been removed from the preserved hebrew, but reconstructed with the dead sea scrolls; their absence was likely intentional, reflecting the development and importance of later Israelite monotheism.
Deut 32.44-47: Double conclusion to the Song.
Deut 32.48-52: Moses commanded to die.
Deut 33.1-29: The Blessing of Moses. In the vein of a father's blessing of his progeny on the deathbed, here, Moses blesses all the tribes of Israel as if they were his own sons. Clearly imitating victory hymn of the divine warrior.
Deut 34.1-12: The death of Moses.
Deut 34.1: Mount Nebo and Mount Pigsah, two narrative locations posited to be the site of Moses's death, are here conflated by the editor to preserve both traditions.
And that is it for Deuteronomy. A shame about the month's worth of a gap there, but hey, that's life. I have to say, the Song of Moses and its footnotes have been the most interesting portion of the OT to me so far, that intersection of layered revision and obfuscated meaning reframing an older text within a different narrative, and all in the retrospective context of the exilic era too! All in all, quite dense, the addition of this second covenant to the first, that's a lot to take in—understanding, of course, the revisionist nature of such a covenant as outlined in the introduction to this particular book. Great stuff. Historical books next.
Hear me, dust of my lifeblood,
faithful and obedient,
constellations so gilded:
Seek not the stars but those which
were promised you, for bereft
of light will be your exile.
Tuesday, March 21st, 2023
12:14
Introduction to the Historical Books
The books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are altogether termed the "Histories," this is a misleading title, however, as the genres of the books are diverse and are often not historical in the modern sense of the word. Furthermore, the Bible contains several books that are similar to some of these "historical books," yet they are found in different sections of the bible. In the traditional Jewish view, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called the Former Prophets, thus beginning the second major division of the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets. This designation suggests that these books should be viewed as prophecy, and not as history. The books of Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are known collectively as the Writings.
A division is established here between the objective retelling of past events as literal history for the sake of defining that history, and the usage of past events as a narrative shorthand to serve as a basis for the observance of a central set of laws or practices, namely, Exodus.
The division of some biblical writings into separate books is oftentimes arbitrary: It has been proposed that since the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, along with the preceding book of Deuteronomy, fit so well together, these five books were edited together as a single work. This work is typically called the Deuteronomistic History, meaning the history written under the influence of ideas found in the book of Deuteronomy. Many details of this theory are debated, however; some scholars suggest that these books are not unified enough to be the product of a single movement. For example, the book of Samuel shows remarkably few contacts with the language of Deuteronomy, and the book of Kings, in its final form, contains narratives in which the great prophets Elijah and Elisha are legitimately active outside the Jerusalem Temple.
Scholars have also found many similarities between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah and have posited that these works belong to a single large history that parallels the Deuteronomistic History. The author of these books is often called "the Chronicler." A closer look at Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, however, shows that they differ from each other in outlook and vocabulary, and that hte general similarities between them are best attributed not to common authorship but to the shared era in which they were written, most likely the fourth century BCE.
Chronicles is a retelling of Genesis through Kings. It is likely that its author used a form of the Torah, along with some other books now in our bible, that was very close to the form we now know them. Chornicles is most notable for how it uses and changes its sources to suit a particular narrative, however. A key example is the long-lived reign of King Manasseh, a particularly evil King of Judah. The book of Kings (which Chronicles seeks to recount) does not have a clear retribution theory, that is, a theory concerning divine punishment and reward. This is awkward because, for many biblical writers, a long life was a sign of divine favor. The contradiction between the behavior of Manasseh and his long reign is reconciled by the Chronicler, who, himself very much believing in retribution theology, simply adjusted the facts of Manasseh's life, entering his own narrative and interpretation into the record:
The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they gave no heed. Therefore the Lord brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh captive in manacles, bound him with fetters, and brought him to Babylon. While he was in distress he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his plea, and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord indeed was God.
Other examples of this type of revisionism are found throughout Chronicles. They are especially easy to isolate since we have much of the same material that this author revised—it is preserved in our Bible.
The books of Ruth and Esther are short stories, historical fictions that incorporate literary convention, prose, and setpieces in order to narrate a past to the ends of conveying their lessons.
The books of Ezrah-Hehemiah, frequently told from a first-person perspective, purport to be individual and accurate accounts of the events described, and though they were seemingly written closer to those events than most other biblical retellings (that are often centuries removed before being put to paper), this does not mean they are any more accurate. Ideology may motivate the speedy reshaping of the past in this manner: Ezrah-Nehemiah is highly ideological, interested in fostering the importance of the Torah as the central document of the postexilic community, and in emphasizing the grave dangers of intermarriage.
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023
08:48
Introduction to Joshua
Named after Joshua, depicted as the apprentice and successor to Moses. Joshua was the military commander in the conquest of Canaan and the administrator of the allotment of that land to the Israelite tribes. In Num 13.16, Moses renames Hoshea (Heb hoshe'a, "salvation") Joshua (Heb yehoshu'a, "the Lord is salvation/help"), adding the divine name Yahweh to his name.
The historiographic materials used in the book of Joshua correspond to those found in the ancient Near East as a whole. These include traditional stories, etiologies, boundary and town lists, summary accounts and lists, accounts patterned after redundant annalistic documents, poetry (from the Book of Jashar, a lost book considered extracanonical due to it being referenced here), and burial reports. These have been oven together with ritual and covenantal materials and other matters of priestly interest to communicate the book's message.
Initially thought to be part of a 'Hexateuch' (six books) with the preceding five books of the bible, later scholars began to view Joshua as part of a larger historical work, the Deuteronomistic History (see prior introduction to the Historical Books on this point). Recent scholarship, however, is drifting away from this interpretation somewhat, viewing Joshua as a possibly independent book written during the postexilic period.
The book of Joshua describes the conquest of Canaan and its allotment to the Israelite tribes. Through well-known traditional stories (e.g., Rahab and the scouts, the crossing of the Jordan River, the capture of Jericho) as well as nonnarrative lists and ritual texts, the book portrays the fulfillment of God's covenantal promise to Israel's ancestors that their descendants would possess the land. Moreover, these stories challenge the book's readers to live in obedience to the Deuteronomic covenant so that they also will receive God's blessing in the land.
Here, the author of the introduction, K. Lawson Younger, Jr. provides an outline of the book's contents, pointing out the text's compositional symmetry. I will not be providing it in these notes.
The book should not be read as straightfoward history—it telescopes and simplifies what was a long and complex process of occupation of hte land by the Israelite tribes. A main theme of the book is a swift and complete conquest of the land, while most archaeological evidence suggests its gradual settlement.
Typology, representing one character or event as an echo or foreshadowing of another, is utilized to portray Joshua as parallel to Moses. For example, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan; Moses leads Israel in a miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, Joshua leads Israel in a miraculous crossing of the Jordan River; Moses sends out scouts, Joshua sends out scouts; Moses allots land to the tribes east of the Jordan, Joshua allots land to the tribes west of the Jordan. This particular typology depicts Joshua as the legitimate successor to Moses.
Thursday, March 23rd, 2023
13:40
Joshua
Josh 1.1-12.24: The conquest.
Josh 1.1-5.12: Preparation for the conquest.
Josh 1.1-18: The commission of Joshua.
Josh 1.2-9: The Lord's speech outlines the means of success for Joshua and the Israelites: obedience to the book of the law, likely referring to an early form of Deuteronomy.
Josh 2.1-24: The story of the scouts and Rahab.
Josh 2.1: The scouts go to Jericho where they enter the house of a prostitute: though no explicit sexual interaction is mentioned, an undercurrent of ambiguous sexual innunedo is provided, as the site of the Israelite camp, 'Shittim,' was also the infamous place where the men of Israel had sexual relations with the women of Moab (Num 25.1).
Josh 2.2-13: Rahab is at the center of the narrative, the Canaanite prostitute that protects the scouts; the scouts have little concern for her, however. In Mt 1.5 Rahab is reckoned among the ancestors of Jesus, and in Heb 11.31 Rahab is counted as one of the heroes of faith.
Josh 2.10: Here, the Red Sea is said to have dried up.
Josh 2.18: Crimson cord to safeguard the house, echoing exodus and the paschal lamb.
Josh 3.1-5.1: The crossing of the Jordan. Composed of multiple units and repititions, the redactor of this work was presumably working together multiple different sources.
Josh 3.1-17: The initial story of the crossing. Anticipates multiple events from the disparate aforementioned sources to be recounted.
Josh 4.1-10: The erecting of the twelve-stone memorial.
Josh 4.8-9: Divergent narratives on the location of the memorial; the latter is likely a later tradition.
Josh 4.23: Explicit mention of the parallel between Exodus and the crossing of the Jordan.
Josh 5.2-12: Final preparatory events at Gilgal.
Josh 5.2: Circumcision was fairly common in the ancient Near East; it became a sign of Israel's covenant with God. Here, the disobedience of the older generation is contrasted to the obedience of the new generation, though both were circumcised.
Josh 5.11-12: The change from manna to the produce of the land signifies Israel's relocation from wilderness to land.
Josh 5.13-12.24: Conquest of the land.
Josh 5.13-6.27: Jericho: first application of "herem". There was, at the time of the narrative, at best a small unfortified village on the site of Jericho, not the city supposed here.
Josh 5.13-15: The appearance of the 'commander of the army of the Lord,' probably a fragment of a fuller tradition; he is not mentioned in the rest of the book. He is an angel that will lead the heavenly forces.
Josh 6.6-27: Jericho is captured by following the Lord's instructions. This is the first implementation of the "herem," a ritual act first mentioned in Deuteronomy that has contentious definitions, meaning something given over to the Lord, destruction, genocide, an irrevocable renunciation, or a sacrifice. It has ritual connotations due to its usage in holy war, specifically here in Jericho due to the manner in which the walls were brought down (as per the Lord's instructions).
Josh 6.25: 'Ever since' indicates that the descendants of Rahab (i.e., Canaanites) survived and lived among the Israelites.
Josh 7.1-8.29: Achan and Ai.
Josh 7.1-5: First battle of Ai and Achan's sin. Although only one person was unfaithful, all Israel was liable becuase the state of being devoted ("herem") is contagious, and the spoil that was improperly obtained would contaminate Israel's camp and put it into a state of devotion ("herem").
Friday, March 24th, 2023
10:43
Josh 7.2: The name 'Ai' means "the ruin;" the site would have been uninhabited during the Late Bronze Age, suggesting an etiological component to the story.
Josh 7.6-26: Second application of "herem": Achan's execution.
Josh 7.25-26: The outcome for Achan and his family is an ironic reversal of that for Rahab and her family.
Josh 8.1-29: Third application of "herem": second battle of Ai and Ai's destruction via ambush. Ironically, God allows some plunder of Ai despite the "herem".
Josh 8.29: Hanging here anticipates the execution of the five kings in 10.26-27 and follows the Deuteronomic injunction of hanging.
Josh 8.30-35: Covenant renewal as land grant: Shechem. Joshua builds the altar as commanded by Moses in Deuteronomy. The mention of blessings and curses here is a strong indication of the connection this section of Joshua has to a compiled form of Deuteronomy in general.
Josh 9.1-11.15: The southern and northern campaigns. The region that became Judah's tribal allotment receives the greater emphasis ( a pattern also found in chs 13-19 and Judg 1). This suggests a strong Judahite redactional perspective.
Josh 9.3-27: Gibeon. Ironically, Israel has just defeated Ai by means of a ruse; now Israel is the victim of a ruse. Fearing Israel, the Gibeonites (apparently Hivites, a group known only by their mention in the bible) pretend to be from a far country, so as to recieve lenience afforded to such people (Deut 20.15).
Josh 9.14: Israel is blamed as a whole for not consulting the Lord on the matter of the Gibeonites.
Josh 9.16-27: The Gibeonites readily admit to the ruse when caught by the Israelites, as the covenant they have made with eachother must be respected; they are to become slaves in "the place that [the lord] should choose" (Jerusalem), acting as 'hewers of wood' and 'drawers of water'—according to Deut 29.10-13, the covenant was to erase distinctions between such lower-class occupations and others. This designation thus suggests that the Gibeonites are outside the covenantal community.
Monday, March 27th, 2023
13:46
Josh 10.1-43: The defeat of the Amorite alliance.
Josh 10.1-2: The treaty between Gibeon and Israel incited the kings of five Amorite city-states to attack Gibeon. Ironically, Jerusalem, an important Bronze Age city-state (and later the capital of Judah) is the driving force of the Amorite alliance.
Josh 10.11: Divine intervention with hailstones.
Josh 10.12-15: Joshua's request ot the Lord and the divine intervention. The exact meaning of the divine intervention, described only in poetry, is difficult to ascertain.
Josh 10.13: 'The Book of Jashar,' a lost book as mentioned in the introduction to Joshua.
Josh 10.16-27: The capture and execution of the kings.
Josh 10.28-39: The capture and "herem" of the cities.
Josh 10.36-39: Multiple different accounts of the tribes credited with the capture of various cities; these accounts highlight various different emphases in the book of Joshua to the end of representing multiple perspectives.
Josh 10.40-43: Summary of the southern campaign.
Josh 11.1-15: Northern campaign.
Josh 11.1-11: Defeat of the Canaanite coalition. This enemy is superior to the Israelite army, both numerically and technologically, but the Lord's oracle of assurance precedes the victory.
Josh 11.12-15: Summary of the northern campaign.
Josh 11.16-23: Summary of total conquest.
Josh 11.18-20: The depiction here conflicts with the earlier accounts, suggesting that a protracted war was necessary.
Josh 11.20: 'Harden their hearts,' is used here, suggesting that for the Lord and the author, the inhabitants of the land were enemies comparable to the Egyptians.
Josh 12.1-24: A selective list of defeated cities' kings.
Josh 12.7-24: Joshua's victories west of the Jordan. Previous narratives mention fewer than half of these cities [. . .] This section thus seems to be adapted from a different source than the previous chapters. Moreover, the length of this list shows that previous narratives are selective, highlighting particular stories for ideological and theological purposes.
Josh 13.1-24.33: The allotment of the land.
Josh 13.1-7: Noted here is the understanding that there remains land within Canaan not under Israelite control. This foreshadows other passages in chs 13-21 that contrast with the first half of the book, by documenting Israel's failure to capture all of the land, or by noting that foreigners live among the Israelites.
Josh 13.8-33: Transjordanian tribal allotment. Lots of superfluous detail on exact boundaries listed in the text itself; the footnotes decline to add more, for good reason, I would say. I will not be noting any of it here! I presume the same will be for cisjordan allotments.
Josh 13.22: Balaam, here presented in a negative light, as in Num 31.8. They did you dirty, my guy.
Josh 14.1-19.51: Cisjordanian tribal allotment.
Josh 14.1-5: Introduction to the process of allotment. Eleazar (who we haven't seen much of at all, might I add!), Joshua, and the heads of the tribal families oversaw this allotment, which was performed by the casting of lots, presuming divine providence.
Josh 14.4-5: Another mention here of how, in order to maintain the conventional number of twelve tribes, Joseph is counted as two, 'Manasseh' and 'Ephraim,' so as to make up for Levi's lack of inheritance.
Josh 14.6-17.18: Judah and Joseph's allotments.
Josh 14.6-15.63: Judah. The tribe to which King David belonged is first.
Josh 14.6-15: Caleb's conquest. Caleb was one of the original twelve scouts sent into Canaan in Numbers; the specific tribe of Caleb is uncertain. Named here as the son of Jephunneh, a Kenizzite (the Kenizzites said to reside within the land of Canaan), the Kenizzites were generally associated with Kenaz, the son of Esau, within the narrative of Genesis, apparently making them an Edomite clan. Regardless, in the ancient Near East, tribal groups were socially constructed units, not always being based on actual biological lineage; as such, later mentions of Caleb (as in Chronicles) list him as having been incorporated fully into the tribe of Judah due to his conquest, or as always having been part of the tribe of Judah as a retroactive edit.
Josh 15.1-12: Judah's boundary description.
Josh 15.13-19: Vignettes about Judah's heroes.
Josh 15.20-62: A list of Judah's towns.
Josh 15.63: A narrative postscript noting Judah's failure to conquer Jerusalem. This explains why the Jesubites live with the people of Judah 'in Jerusalem to this day.'
Josh 16.1-17.18: Joseph (Ephraim and Half-Manasseh). As the primary power in the Northern Kingdom, Joseph is mentioned next. The order here of Ephraim then Manasseh follows Jacob's blessings in Gen 48.12-22, not their birth order narrated in Gen 41.51-52.
Josh 16.1-4: General outline of the southern borders of the Joseph tribes. The people of Joseph receive one allotment, as if they constitute one tribe, yet they are recognized as two distinct tribal units (Ephraim and Manasseh). In addition, one of the tribes, Manasseh, is further divided: part of the tribe has already received an allotment in transjordan, while the remainder receives its allotment in Cisjordan.
Josh 16.5-10: Ephraim's boundary description is delineated. The Ephraimites failed to dispossess the Canaanites, though subjecting them to forced labor.
Josh 17.1-6: Ephraim's heroes. Includes Zelophehad's daughters!
Josh 17.7-13: Manasseh's boundary description is given.
Josh 17.14-18: Joseph's portion. The Josephites demand a double portion due to their numbers (as well as the divison of their tribe).
Josh 18.1-19.51: Seven other tribal allotments.
Josh 18.1-10: Assembly of Shiloh. The boundaries of the tribes in the land are asserted to be the result of the Lord's will and of Israel's obedience, not human will or historical contingency. Nice way of removing responsibility, eh?
Josh 18.1: Shiloh was an important Israelite sanctuary in the period before the monarchy.
Josh 18.11-28: Benjamin.
Josh 19.1-9: Simeon.
Josh 19.10-16: Zebulun.
Josh 19.17-23: Issachar.
Josh 19.24-31: Asher. Asher's list includes some Phoenician cities such as Tyre that were never under Israelite control, suggesting that idealized elements are found in these lists.
Josh 19.32-39: Naphtali.
Josh 19.40-48: Dan. Ancient tradition located Dan in the south [ . . . ] According to Judges, sometime before the time of the monarchy, the Danites migrated to the north.
Josh 19.49-50: Final allotment. Joshua requests a city in the Ephraimite hill country that he (re)builds for himself.
Josh 19.51: Summary of the process of allotment.
Josh 20.1-21.42: Allotments to persons of marginal status. Cities of refuge and the Levitical cities are based on instructions given by Moses.
Josh 20.1-9: Cities of refuge. The right of asylum in cases of adjudicated manslaughter is here reaffrimed and established in the land proper.
Josh 21.1-42: Levitical cities.
Josh 21.43-45: Ironic conclusion. Includes overstated claims of unmitigated success despite statements of failure given throughout the text. Nevertheless, the stress on the Lord's faithfulness contrasts with the squabbling over the Transjordanian altar in the next section.
Josh 22.1-24.33: Epilogue to the conquest and allotment. Includes a warning narrative, and a pair of exhorting addresses in which commitments to the covenant are renewed.
Josh 22.1-34: Misunderstanding with the Transjordanian tribes. An arising issue from the loose ties binding the tribes is the question of the place of legitimate worship, a central concern of Deuteronomy.
Josh 22.1-9: The Transjordanian tribes return to their homes on the east bank.
Josh 22.10-34: The debate over the altar built by the Transjordanian tribes. The central role of Phinehas [Eleazar's son; Phinehas was the priest that executed the couple in the book of Numbers for intermarriage (the sin at Peor)] in dealing with this conflict leads some scholars to conclude that priestly circles edited this story.
Josh 22.12: Deuteronomic law forbade the offering of sacrifice anywhere except in the central sanctuary. The other tribes apparently interpret the building of the altar as an act of disloyalty to Israel and to its God, and therefore prepare to make war against them. The exent to which the tribal settlement east of the Jordan is or is not part of Israel also stands behind this narrative.
Josh 22.24-25: The motive of the Transjordanian tribes was honorable; they built the altar as a witness to their loyalty to the Lord, not to worship foregin deities.
Josh 23.1-24.28: Concluding charges.
Josh 23.1-16: Covenantal charge to the leaders. Joshua's address to the leaders consists almost entirely of Deuteronomistic reflections.
Josh 23.6-11: An exhortation to remain faithful to the Lord and his covenant so that the remaining land can be conquered.
Josh 24.1-28: Covenant renewal of the people. Joshua fulfills the commands of Moses in Deut 11; 27; 31. All Israel unites under Joshua's leadership in the service of the Lord. Joshua's final meeting with the people takes place at Shechem.
Josh 24.11: Perhaps a different tradition about the conquest of Jericho.
Josh 24.12: 'The hornet;' see Ex 23.28; Deut 7.20.
Josh 24.29: Appendixes. Joshua dies, is buried. Joseph's bones are reburied in Shechem. Eleazar dies, is buried. This latter instance indicates the strength of the priestly interests in the book.
We'll miss you Joshua. And Eleazar, I suppose. This book was intriguing. In terms of narrative throughlines, this one feels the least intentionally historically based of the lot so far, which is strange to say, given the genuinely mythic claims of previous books. Perhaps it's something to do with the numerous admitted contradictions and mirrored story beats. It just feels like a purposefully mythologized tale, and that is, of course, what it is. I have to imagine ancient readers were quite aware of this fact. Judges next.
we stand
to gain all that was
and all that is
subsumed
in the arid mists
of memory
seizing
from the self all of
that which one needs
subsumed
in the cool fervor
of servitude
Thursday, March 30th, 2023
16:55
Introduction to Judges
Named after the Judges of the transitional period between the conquest of the land and the establishment of the Monarchy, this book has traditionally been ascribed to Samuel. As is the case with all of the books thus far, however, oral tradition and subsequent editing and compiling is the story of this work. Its primary fabric is a prose narrative, though it contains a long poem, and different sections of the book have distinct editorial formulas. The refrain "In those days there was no king in Israel" unifies chs 17-22 and thus represents a retrospective perspective of the author/s. It is clear that Judges was not completed before 722 BCE, as there is reference to the Assyrian invasion of Samaria in 18.30.
The initial chapters portray the southern tribe of Judah as uniquely succesful and the other, northern, tribes as faithless and hapless. The final chapters focus on the misdeeds of the tribe of Dan (in the far north) and Benjamin (just north of Judah), the very sites of shrines that rivaled Judah's own Temple in Jerusalem, and give special attention to the misdeeds of Saul's hometown Gibeah and his tribe Benjamin. Thus, though neither is mentioned, the shadows of David and Saul, heroes of southern and northern culture respectively, loom over the concluding section.
By the end of the book, the tribes are fractious, the judges are flawed, and without centralized religious and political leadership Israel's sense of identity and covenant are at risk of gradual assimilation into local cultures.
In its earliest version, Judges was an anthology of frontier legends about the time "when locks were long in Israel." This indicates a preexilic perspective, but in its current state, the book of Judges is framed in the context of growing chaotic lawlessness that could only be remedied by Kings, not Judges. But not just any Kings, Davidic Kings, whose shrine was the Jerusalem Temple, are who will save Israel. "There was no king" is the final refrain of Judges, suggesting the necessity of centralized political and religious authority.
Judges ends without closure, demanding that readers turn the page, as it were, to the next installment of Israel's story. In Christian Bibles, the next book is Ruth with its genial portrait of village life during the days of the Judges, its charming and quietly powerful female characters, and the birth of King David's grandfather. In Jewish Bibles, the next installment of the story comes in 1 Samuel with the emergence of David and his dynasty in Jerusalem.