Helpful ANE Resources

In case anyone is interested I found some helpful resources when dealing with the primary sources of ANE texts. Browse around. The first one looks hokey but the translations come from mostly standard sources or scholarly sources (such as the second link).

http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/

http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/

Textual Variant & the Sabbath

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the NIV has smoothed over a difficulty in Genesis 2:2 with a "possible" reading.

The NIV reads: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."

The ESV reads: "And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

The Hebrew reads: וַיְכַל אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה; וַיִּשְׁבֹּת בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה.

The problem is that the ESV is more accurate. To translate the bet-preposition as "by" is a stretch. To translate wayekal as a pluperfect ("he had finished") is also a stretch. Even more of a stretch is to translate bayom as "by...day" in the first instance and then translate the exact same phrase only 5 words later "on...day." Why does the NIV do this?

Well, because God is supposed to be resting on the seventh day, not finishing up his work. The same language is used in Exodus 20:10 and even explictly says that God made heaven and earth in six days. So what do we do?

Well, rather than trusting in all of these stretches Ronald Hendel in his apologetic for a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible called The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition suggests taking the textual variant found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Syriac Peshitta, and Jubilees 2:16 and replacing "seventh" with "sixth."

Now, typically I am skeptical of taking textual variants but Hendel makes a good case for it.

1. "...to posit that scribes or translators changed the text independently in three (or four) textual traditions is extremely unlikely, given our cognizance of the numerous shared readings in G, S, and Syr." Also, G of Genesis is known for conserving the Vorlage so that reading "sixth" for a Proto-G is warranted. So then, it is better to argue for a common root than independent traditions.

2. So the question must now be settled on text-critical grounds. While typically the harder reading is to be accepted, in this case there is another plausible motive for why "sixth" could have given rise to "seventh." Verse 2 can be split up in this way:

בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה
בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה.

"With the exception of the stylistic variation of mkl in v 2b, the two sequences are identical but for the variation of ["sixth"] in the place of ["seventh"]. It is entirely possible that a scribe could have miswritten ["seventh"] in lace of ["sixth"] in the first clause, triggered by anticipation of the parallel in the second clause. This would be an accidental assimilation by anticipation" (33).

So the difficult reading is chalked up to scribal error. I like it, mostly because that's the best explanation I've heard so far.

Aliens & Genesis

I am currently writing a paper on the literary connections between the two creation stories found in Genesis. I am not at all interested in whether they come from two different sources (with a great redactor) or whether they are from one source, it makes no difference to me. Anyway, I have finally found the answer in a book entitled The Lost Tribes From Outer Space. Apparently Elohim was the creator God who created hominids and evolution and the whole bit and then this strange new guy, YHWH, came from outer space and created Jews (Adam & Eve) to colonize the earth. This also explains why Jews have been persecuted for so long, they aren't human! "their oppression is like the process of rejection that sometimes occurs in organ transplants" (19-20). That also explains why YHWH gets so ticked off about intermarrying, it's obvious that Aliens (Jews) shouldn't intermarry with lowly humans.

Whew, and I thought the enigma between Genesis 2:3 and Genesis 2:4 would never be solved...

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 7

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

Where did Moses get his name from? The text itself says that the etymology of his name is כִּי מִן-הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ (lit. because from the water I drew him)But there are a few slight problems with saying that Pharoah's daughter named him "Moses," "Because I drew him from the water." First, the probability of Pharaoh’s daughter naming the child with a Hebrew name is slim for two reasons. The first is that naming him with a Hebrew name would give away his identity as a Hebrew...and remember, her Dad is killing Hebrew boys at the moment. The second reason it's improbable is that she's not Hebrew! It's not very likely at all that she would have known Hebrew. The conquoring country rarely learns the language of the conquored country. Secondly, the term itself is more easily taken from the Egyptian noun ms ‘boy, child’ as a cognate of the Egyptian verb msỉ ‘to bear, beget’ and appears in such names as Ptahmose, Tuthmosis, Ahmose, and Harmose.

But then why did the Jewish author record the Hebrew etymology and not the Egyptian etymology of the name? To say that it was obviously due to the ignorance of the author of the Egyptian derivation misreads the purpose of the text and certainly isn’t obvious, contra Durham.

On the contrary, it is quite possible (and likely) that the purpose was theological and literary. Naming in the whole of the Old Testament was a highly theological and literary enterprise and is used by the writer on more than one level and for more than one purpose. “Moses’ name meant for the Israelites (and therefore for God, whose Spirit inspired the writers) that he was drawn out of water and would draw them out of water” (Peter Enns, Exodus, 64-65).

So maybe it’s not the validity of the answer that should cause worry but whether or not we are even asking the right questions. There is much more meaning, for the reader today and especially for the ancient Jewish reader, in the Hebrew etymology of the name than in the Egyptian, not that the Egyptian etymology shouldn’t be recognized. The problem comes when we start thinking that the only thing that is truly "meaningful" is modern notions of history and "what really happened."

But the origin of the name of Moses seems to be an intentional foreshadowing. This foreshadowing in the name of Moses as one drawn out of the water only to later himself ‘draw’ his people out of the water is also supported by the placing of Moses "in the reeds" (בַּסּוּף)in 2:3 and "in the midst of the reeds" (בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף)in 2:5. And later he will in fact lead God’s people through the "sea of reeds" (יַם-סוּף).

Then there is a final, broader connection that comes by way of the overall structure of the stories. Just as Moses begins outside of the house of Egypt (raised in the court of Pharaoh), then enters the house of Israel, then is dealt harshly by Pharaoh who tries to kill him and then chases him out, so goes the story of Israel in Egypt (cf. the story of Joseph and Exodus 1:1-14:31).

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 6)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

Was Moses's Mom That Superficial?

2:2 of Exodus: "The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months."

This of course begs the question: If Moses was ugly would she have not hidden him and left him to be found by Pharaoh to be killed?

Well, actually, there is much more going on in this verse than the English translations allow. The verse literally says, "Then the woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw him, that he was good (ki-tov), she him him for three months." This is exactly the phrase we heard over and over at the beginning of Genesis, "and God saw that it was good (ki-tov)." It seems then that the author is taking us back to the creation story and making some sort of connection with Moses.

But what does it mean for Moses's mom to see "that he is good?" Many translators have tried to decide:

NIV: "When she saw that he was a fine child"
NASB: "When she saw that he was beautiful"
JPS: "When she saw how beautiful he was"
NLT: "She saw that he was a special baby"
KJV: "When she saw that he was a goodly child"

I think that the NLT is probably the closest to the point that the author of Exodus was trying to get across, this Moses is special. It's not trying to say that he was such a great baby, he never cried, never spit up on his dear parents. Nor is it trying to say that Moses was cute or beautiful. But the point is that God is now engaged in the life of his people and is going to work through a special child, Moses.

But why do so many versions translate the verse as talking about his looks? It actually comes from the Septuagint, or Greek version of Genesis. This would have been the Bible that the writers of the NT would have used since many of them probably didn't know Hebrew anymore, or at least not nearly as well as they would have known Greek. So they used a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, similar to the way we use an English translation.

And in the Greek translation the word is asteion or "handsome." In fact, this is the word Stephen uses when he recounts to the story of Moses in Acts 7:20.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 5)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

"Just as the men of Egypt cast their sons into the river, so He took revenge on one million, and one thousand strong and ardent men perished on account of one infant whom they threw into the midst of the river."
-Jubilees 48:14

At the end of the first chapter of Exodus we have Pharaoh commanding all male children (even Egyptian?) to be cast into the Nile. It has not failed interpreters, ancient and modern, to make a possible connection between the watery death of Israelite boys and the watery death YHWH brings on the Egyptians at the Exodus (see Exodus 14). Many Jewish interpreters saw this as an explicit demonstration of the Law, specifically the famous lex talionis, or "eye for an eye" law (Exodus 21:23-25).

Other sources that make this same connection:
Wisd. 18:5
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 9:10
Mekhilta deR. Ishmael, Shirta 4

Interestingly, James Kugel also points out in his The Bible As It Was, that there was also a tradition that it was actually the decision of Pharaoh's counselors to drown the children because these wise men had consulted the Hebrew Scriptures and determined that drowining would be the safest method against divine recompense. Kugel quotes b. Sota 11a, where after deciding that fire and sword are out because Isaiah 66 says that "the Lord shall come with fire...and by his sword [he will punish] all flesh," the counselors say, "Let us therefore sentence them [to die] by water, for God has already sworn that he will nevermore bring a flood into the world..."

What a creative gap-filling midrash.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 4)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus

Today I just want to point out how Pharaoh is depicted here in the first chapter of Exodus. And, well, it's not looking good. Basically, he is shown to be two things: a sort of "anti-God" who acts against God's creation mandate and secondly, as a sort of "royal boob" (to quote an old He-Man movie) who is naive and foolish in light of God (see I Corinthians 1:19, alluding to Isaiah 29:14), despite his prominence and power among people.

1. Pharaoh as Anti-God: The picture of Pharaoh as the "anti-God" is painted most explicitly in 1:10 where Pharaoh tells his people, "Come, let us deal wisely with these Israelites or else they will multiply..." So Pharaoh is against the very thing God had told the Israelites to do in the creation narrative ("be fruitful and multiply," same word used here). But as we'll see, Pharaoh is no match for God and his purposes.

2. Pharaoh as Foolish: We see here in the first chapter of Exodus 3 failures on the part of Pharaoh in his futile attempt to keep Israel from fulfilling their mandate to be fruitful and multiply.

The first failure comes in verse 12: "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied." Shouldn't the opposite be true? God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's first attempt fails.

The second failure comes in 17: "But the midwives feared God and didn't do what Pharaoh had commanded them." Since Pharaoh's first attempt fails he gets a little more desperate: let's get the midwives to kill all the boys. But he gets outsmarted...By women! Of course, this could be read in a feminist way (which I am not averse to when it's warranted) but I think here the sense is this: "Pharaoh's plan has no hope, even the women outsmart him!" Also remember that a theme throughout the Hebrew Bible (OT) is that God is so powerful he often uses the weakest to defeat the powerful to show that it is His power and not ours. God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's second attempt fails.

The third failure comes in the birth of Moses (Ex 2:2): After the two failed attempts by Pharaoh he gets frantic and outraged. Now, every son (possibly even the Egyptian?) is to be thrown into the Nile to die! Instead, a son comes out of the Nile to live! This is the climax of Pharaoh's failed attempts. God's wisdom confounds the wise. Pharaoh's third and final attempt fails, a savior is born.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (Part 3)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus

One thing I love about ancient Jewish readers of the Hebrew Bible (OT) is that they paid attention to the smallest details of a text. So our two examples today, about the midwives of the Hebrews (Exodus 1:15-21), will take their cue from ancient midrash.

First, I suggested in the last post that the midwives might have actually been Egyptian and not Hebrew (see below). Well, there is an ancient Jewish interpretation that suggests that they were Jewish. Not only were the midwives Jewish but they were none other than Jochebed and Miriam, the mother and sister of Moses! Now, there a few good reasons to think that it probably wasn't Jochebed and Miriam, including the fact that they are actually given other names in the text, but it's interesting to see how these interpreters filled in the "gaps" in the Bible. They took the names given for the midwives in the text to be "nicknames" or "descriptors" (like Jacob being called "heel-grabber") rather than their given names. Jewish interpreters loved doing this sort of thing (see Paul's use of Jannes & Jambres in II Timothy 3:8). Here is the passage in Jewish literature that relates the two:

"The Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1:15) were Yocheved and [her daughter] Miriam. Miriam, who was only five years old then, went with Yocheved to assist her. She was quick to honor her mother and to serve God (Eitz Yosef), for when a child is little, its traits are already evident. The name of the second (i.e., Miriam) was Puah (ibid.) for she gave the newborns wine and restored the babies to life when they appeared to be dead, she lit up Israel before God by teaching the women, she presented her face before Pharaoh, stuck up her nose at him, and said, "Woe is to the man (i.e., Pharaoh) when God punishes him!" Pharaoh was filled with wrath and would have killed her, but Yocheved appeased him, saying, "Will you pay attention to her? She is only a child, she has no understanding" (Shemot Rabbah 1:13)

Secondly, several Jewish interpreters noticed how improbable it was that there were only two midwives for all of the Jewish women (who were, if you remember, "increasing greatly"). So some suggest that these were simply the heads of the group of women who served as midwives. So they weren't the only ones, just the ones in charge. Of course, there are other explanations as well, although I think this is a pretty good one.

Old Testament Thoughts - Exodus (Part 2)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.
Yesterday I posted we looked at some of the creation language and the significance of such language. Today we'll look at the "Account of the Hebrew Midwives," in Exodus 1:15-22.

Hebrew or Egyptian

Are the midwives of Hebrew or Egyptian descent? The verse is actually inconclusive about the nationality of the midwives. It literally says "Then the king of Egypt said to the midwives of the Hebrews..."

וַיֹּאמֶר מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם, לַמְיַלְּדֹת הָעִבְרִיֹּת

Now, although it could go either way, here are a few reasons to support the view that they are Egyptian for three reasons:

1. The rest of the story reads like the women are not Israelites. They are referred to twice as "fearing God," a term often used for non-Israelites who nonetheless recognized God as God.

2. It also makes the story more believable. Why would Pharaoh believe Hebrew women, his slaves, when they said that they couldn't get to the women in time? Or why would Hebrew women even have midwives if they knew this was the case? Of course, some think that this is precisely the point, that Pharaoh is being portrayed as a complete oaf. While there is a trend here of women tricking Pharaoh throughout, I don't think that warrants taking the midwives as Hebrew instead of Egyptian.

3. The word "vigorous" or "lively" (כִּי-חָיוֹת) might be a negative way of referring to Israelite women. So the Egyptian women would be saying something like this, "Hebrew women are less refined and more animal-like than Egyptian women, they give birth quickly and don't even need a midwife." So the Egyptian women would be slamming the Hebrew women to more easily pull the wool over Pharaoh's eyes.

Of course, again, the answer is inconclusive and it doesn't really matter to the story, but some of the best things about a story can be found in the smallest details.

OT Thoughts - Exodus (part 1)

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the first two chapters of Exodus.

After finishing up Jonah, I have been agonizing over what Scripture to talk about next. There are so many things to choose from and I don't really want to get bogged down with too many technical details of the text. So I landed on the first 2 chapters of Exodus, just up to the Burning Bush. I have already posted several of these on the other blog where I am a regular contributer ( Encounter blog ) so today I will just post all them successively to get caught up on this blog.

First up today, the first evidence of "creation language" in the first chapter of Exodus...

As we'll see throughout this series, the writer of Exodus 1-2 uses a lot of images and language that was also used in the creation narrative (Genesis 1-3) up through even the pre-Abraham narrative in Genesis 11. So when I say "creation language" I only mean that the writer of Exodus 1-2 seems to be consciously using images and language that was used in Genesis 1-11. The writer probably has a theological reason for doing this, namely, that the story of Exodus 1-15 is the story of the creation of God's people, the Israelites (see Ex. 4:22). Adam has failed as God's representative on the earth, so Israel has now been given the task.

For my post today I am only going to give one example, to further explain what I mean by "creation language."

In Exodus 1:7, the beginning of the story after the genealogical introduction, we have this: "The Israelites were fruitful and multiplied and became extremely numerous, so that the land was filled with them." Sound familiar? What do we have in Genesis 1:28 following on the heels of the creation of humankind?

"God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..."*

So Israel is fulfilling the duty God gave to the first couples.

*N.B.: I will be using my own translations in all of these posts, as I did with the Jonah posts. If you have any questions about why I translate something the way I do, let me know, I'd be happy to explain it. Otherwise, just know that I will oftentimes translate in a way that emphasizes the connections being made in Hebrew (something most mass produced translations do not do) but I will never translate anything in a way deemed "unacceptable" by scholars.

Jonah 7

Although there are dozens of other great literary features in the book of Jonah (like chapter 4's affinity with the book of Exodus) I will end this series with a discussion of how the Ninevites are portrayed in the book. The book makes it sound as though the Ninevites are no better than cattle.

Now, oftentimes, the Old Testament will call people animals. For instance, Amos rails against some foreign wives and says, "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy!" But there in Jonah the comparison between the foreigners and cattle is a little more subtle.

This idea is seen in Jonah 3:7-8 and 4:11. In 3:7-8 the author lumps man and beast together in the proclamation of the king of Nineveh who says:

"Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste anything. Do no let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth and let them call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and the violence which is in their hands." So both man and animal (what a strange idea) must be covered with sackcloth (a traditional Hebrew rite for mourning) and let them (another strange idea) call on God.

Then in 4:11 he also lumps them together although the connection is not as explicit:
"Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"

Jonah 6

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

Chapter 3 begins the way you would have expected the entire story would have (see the first post below). YHWH tells Jonah to "arise" and he does "arise" to go to Ninevah, instead of "arising" to "go down" to run away from YHWH.

Then he goes to Nineveh and says this, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be haphak."

I will, for the sake of space and focus, not deal with how unlikely it would have been for the Ninevites to understand Hebrew, the language the Scriptures are written in. That is, what did Jonah really say? And did he say it in Hebrew? Or is what we have a translation? Ah...for another day...

But I do want to simply point out the ambiguity of the term haphak. If God (via Jonah) wanted to proclaim that in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed there are several other words that would be unambigious. Instead, he uses the ambigious haphak, which could mean either "turned" or "overthrown." We obviously know which of those Jonah meant, he wanted Nineveh to be "overthrown."

Instead, verse 5 shows us that the Ninevites "turned" or "were changed," that is, they repented. Is that what God meant when he said, "40 days and Nineveh will be haphak"?

The interesting thing is that Nineveh wasn't destroyed. If you remember, in Deuteronomy, the mark of a true prophet is that his/her prophecy comes true. But Nineveh wasn't destroyed. So if Jonah took haphak to mean "destroy" then he is a false prophet. But as it is, and against Jonah's own wishes, Nineveh "turns," so maybe he wasn't a false prophet after all...

N.B.: Even the people of Nineveh thought (whatever language Jonah used) that God was planning on destroying them - see 3:9.

Jonah 5

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

The Psalms in ancient Israel are everywhere. They seem to be what the Israelites continue to go back to in order to explain where they are in life. David prays for deliverance in 2 Samuel 22 quoting extensively from Psalm 18, Jesus uses Psalm 22 to describe his current pain and abandonment.

In Jonah 2, the Psalms are used the same way Beatles songs are used in the movie Across the Universe. There is a pastiche of quotes from the psalms all stitched together to make a coherent prayer for Jonah in the belly of the fish. Here is a list* of verbatim uses of the Psalms in Jonah 2:

Jonah 2:3a=Psalm 18:7; 30:3; 118:5; 120:1

Jonah 2:3b=Psalm 130:2

Jonah 2:4b=Psalm 42:8b

Jonah 2:5a=Psalm 31:23a

Jonah 2:6a=Psalm 18:5; 69:2

Jonah 2:8a=Psalm 142:4; 143:4

Jonah 2:8b=Psalm 5:8b; 18:7

Jonah 2:9a=Psalm 31:7a

Jonah 2:10a=Psalm 42:5b; 50:14; 66:13

Jonah 2:10b=Psalm 3:9

The rhetorical effect of this is in providing a structure that lends itself to introspection, as many of the Psalms are, but also of identifying with Israel as a whole. Why else might the writer of Jonah use all these Psalms in the prayer of Jonah?

*List taken from A Poetics of Jonah: Art in the Service of Ideology by Kenneth M. Craig

New Septuagint Translation

For those (one or two) interested, there is a new English translation of the Septuagint (NETS) available for free online in pdf format.

The interview with Peter Gentry, a Baptist Septuagint scholar, reminded me of the excellent introductory book on the Septuagint, recommended to anyone interested in a basic understanding of what the Septuagint is and the issues surrounding it, called Invitation to the Septuagint by Karen Jobes & Moises Silva.

NETS Website

HT: Justin Taylor

Jonah 4

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

A shorter post this time we'll continue the theme from last time - who really is a God-fearer in the story of Jonah? The writer makes another contrast between Jonah and the "pagan" boat crew. Here it is:

When the folks from Ninevah sin, Jonah has no interest in mercy or in trying to save them from their impending doom.

When Jonah sins, the "pagan" boat crew do everything they can, even against their best interest, to save Jonah.

Even after Jonah told them that the only way to calm the storm was to throw him into the sea they still "rowed desperately to return to land but they could not."

This may give some evidence as to when and why Jonah was written, although such a question is a little off topic from the purpose of these posts. However, many think that Jonah was written around the time of the exile of 586 BCE, either just prior (pre-exilic), during (exilic) or just after (post-exilic) This is important because later in the life of Israel, around the time of the exile, they became unhealthily ethno-centric. This rhetorical effect (or maybe even the whole book) may be one example of the writer of Jonah trying to correct how ingrown Israel had become. God cares about and yearns to have compassion on all the nations, not just Israel. Israel had forgotten that. So here, to make the "pagan" boat crew more God-like than the prophet of God, Jonah, is a slap in the face to the Israelites...but a much needed slap.

Jonah 3

Today we'll look at the contrast of character between Jonah and the "pagan" boat crew.

The first contrast comes in the form of "fear." When the sailors cast lots to see who was responsible for this great storm and the lot fell on Jonah, they asked him who he was. He replied, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear (yare) YHWH." But does he really? He has just run away from YHWH and has disobeyed him.

But the sailors, on the other hand, go through a "conversion experience" so to speak here in the first chapter of Jonah. When the storm first came about the sailors became afraid (yare) and each one cried to their own god.

Secondly, after Jonah tells the men that he is running away from YHWH, the one who made the heavens and the earth, they become "extremely afraid" (yare).

Then, to complete the conversion experience, in verse 16, after they have thrown Jonah overboard and the sea stops its raging, they "fear YHWH greatly" (yare), so much that they offer sacrifices and make vows.

Oh the irony, the true "prophet of God" who is a "fearer of YHWH" doesn't fear him at all. Instead we have a whole boat full of pagans who see God for who he really is. They are appropriately afraid of the storm, then they become extremely afraid when they find out Jonah is running from "YHWH, the one who made the heavens and earth." You ran away from who? That God? Are you crazy? Then finally, when the storm suddenly stops, the pagan sailors become true God-fearers, ironically unlike Jonah.

Who is the true follower of God in this story?

Jonah 2

Still in Chapter 1, there are a few other nice literary features in the text to consider.

A Children's Story?

I had a professor tell me once that Jonah would've made a wonderful story for children (and maybe it was?). And he didn't say this after the VeggieTales got hold of it, but because of the personification and the hyperbole (do you remember your 9th grade English class?)

Personification - is when you give animate qualities to inanimate objects, such as emotions, willful actions, etc.

1:5 - The ship "reckoned that it was about to break" or "thought it was about to break"
1:15 - The sea "stopped its rage (or indignation)"

Hyperbole - exaggeration or a use of "extreme terms"

Look at all these:

1:2 - Ninevah the great city
1:4 - YHWH hurled a great wind
1:4 - there was a great storm
1:5 - the men hurled the cargo
1:10 - the men were extremely frightened
1:12 - the great storm
1:12 - pick me up and hurl me into the sea
1:15 - so they picked Jonah up, hurled him into the sea
1:16 - the men feared YHWH greatly
1:17 - YHWH appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah
3:2 - Ninevah the great city
3:3 - a great city, a three day's journey

Jonah 1

I have been posting about the literary aspects of Jonah over at the Encounter blog and thought they would be good to reproduce here. Comments, critiques, and questions are helpful.

For today:

Jonah's "going down"

The very first word in the Hebrew after the introductory verse is the word "Arise" (Qum) followed by "Go" (Lekh). It is God speaking to Jonah and they are not requests but commands (or imperatives)

"Arise and Go." That is how the book of Jonah begins.

How does Jonah react? He "arises" alright, but he arises to flee. So when you are reading it you would expect it to say "So Jonah arose and went," obeying God. But instead you have "But Jonah arose to flee."

But that's just the beginning. Jonah's disobedience leads him down the wrong path, literally. Instead of "arising" Jonah begins to "go down" to escape from God.

Verse 3: Jonah went down (yared) to Joppa
Verse 3: Jonah went down (yared) into the ship
Verse 5: Jonah went down (yared) to the hold of the ship
Verse 5: Jonah was asleep in the hold of the ship

As we'll see later, Jonah "went down" to escape from God, but could not. Instead God takes Jonah even further down than even he wanted to go.

1:15 - Jonah was thrown into the sea, even further down than the hold of the ship
1:17 - Jonah went into the belly of the fish
2:2 - In this poem Jonah tells God that the fish has metaphorically taken him all the way down to the "depths of Sheol (hell)."
2:3 - It was God who cast Jonah into "the primeval deep," into the "heart of the seas"
2:5-6 - Jonah "goes down" all the way to the bottom of the earth until he is "shut out" of creation, the ultimate "going down"

Then comes the climax. After Jonah, by his own disobedience goes down to Joppa, down to the ship, down to the hold of the ship, down to the ocean, down to the belly of the fish, down to the bottom of the ocean and the "great deep," down until he is shut out of creation, then we have the climactic statement in verse 6:

"But You have brought my life up from the pit, O YHWH, my God."

Talk about a powerful few chapters. No wonder Jesus alludes to it when he talks about his own suffering.

It seems as though the writer of Jonah knew what s/he was doing...

My Perfect Valentine

You know you have been married for a good amount of time and have an amazing wife when she gets you a JPS Hebrew-English TaNaKh for Valentine's Day. It also makes me think I am not a normal husband.

Zondervan's "A Reader's Hebrew Bible"

I wanted to advertise for the new Reader's Hebrew Bible that will be coming out in March that Pete told us about a few days ago. I have to admit I am excited. I use my Reader's Greek New Testament all the time, it was one of the best things I've ever bought for my study. The Hebrew Bible will contain in the footnotes all vocabulary occurring 100 times or less in the HB. It really does allow me to spend more time in the text and less time in the lexicon while at the same time not really losing any valuable study since I would be doing the same thing in a lexicon as I would by looking at the bottom of the page. The only downside is the lack of a critical apparatus but that allows for a much slimmer and light-weight Bible. I wonder if it would be okay to duct tape the Reader's GNT to the new Reader's HB?