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IN WORDS AND PICTURES:

THE SUN IN 2 SAMUEL 12:7-12


ELLEN

VAN

WOLDE

University of Tilburg

A biblical narrative offers words and images, thus setting the


scene for a world different from ours. In reading, we create a
mental representation of a story world, using textual complexes
of meaning and letting them interact with our knowledge and
experience of the real world. Neither the biblical presentation nor
the readers representation, however, are directly related to the
extra-textual worlds, only indirectly, bound as they are to cultural
ideas and categorisations, linguistic prototypes and time- and
space-bound mental arrangements. Until recently, these cognitive
categories were reduced to rational categories, to grammar and
meaning, to literary style and structure, to history and ideology.
However, emotional categories are also present in and evoked by
a text, such as anger and fear, happiness and joy, sorrow and
sadness. It is difficult for us, in the twenty-first century, to gain
insight into the emotions and views as presented in the biblical
texts. Nevertheless, we can feed our imagination not only by reflecting on words as the single entrance to biblical thoughts and
texts but also by taking into consideration the pictures on seals,
in archives or in stone, because they offer as good an access to
the cognitive world of the ancient Near East as words.
I will concentrate here on one single aspect to illustrate this,
namely, on the role of the sun in 2 Sam. 12:7-12. In Yhwhs discourses, embedded in Nathans speech to David, the sun is mentioned twice: He will sleep with your wives before the eyes of this
sun (v. 11) and because you did this secretly, I will do this thing
in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun (v. 12). Many
exegetes are of the opinion that the term sun does not signify
anything special or that it is just a nice image (cf. Fokkelman 1981:
83; McCarter 1984: 306; Polzin 1993: 126-27). My question is: can
we achieve a better understanding of the meaning of the image
of the sun in 2 Sam. 12:11-12 and of the texts cognitive and emotional values when we take into account textual, linguistic, and
iconographic information?
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003
Also available online www.brill.nl

Biblical Interpretation 11, 3/4

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Textual Information: The Judicial Framework of 2 Sam. 12:1-15a


Reference is made to the sun by Yhwh after the episode in which
Nathan makes his appearance in Davids palace and confronts the
king with a parable about a rich man and a poor man and about
the rich mans behaviour. Both the kings reaction and the reported speeches of Yhwh show that the textual framework of 2
Sam. 12:1-15a is a judicial one (cf. Simon 1967: 230).
A first building block of this framework is visible in Davids reaction to Nathans parable: he immediately acts as a judge, pronouncing a judgement on the rich man. In doing so, he appeals
to Yhwh (As Yhwh lives, v. 5a), so that it appears that he places
his verdict against the background of a court in which Yhwh is
the Chief Justice. Because David judges the rich man as someone
who lacks compassion, his punishment fits the mans crime: this
man acted without pity because he did not want to take a lamb
from his own flock (v. 4a), now judge David shows no pity toward
him (v. 6b).
Yhwhs first speech, presented by Nathan (vv. 7-10), reflects a
reaction to Davids verdict. After having identified the rich man
as David, the prophet communicates the judgement of Yhwh and
refers to the crime as Yhwhs thing or business (v. 9a), thus showing that Davids case has become Yhwhs case. Inevitably, Yhwh
takes over the judging job from David: as a king, David s main
function is to be an impartial judge, but David is suspended from
this function because he himself has become the accused party.
Subsequently, Yhwh pronounces his sentence in v. 11a: I will
raise up evil against you from within your own house. This phrase
evaluates in advance Yhwhs behaviour still to be described in the
following clauses of v. 11. The two clauses 9a and 11a are related.
Both speak of evil: the first time, it is the evil (
) David has
brought about before my [that is Yhwhs] eyes, the second time,
it is the evil (
) Yhwh will bring about before your [Davids]
eyes. Thus it is phrased (logically) as a causal consequence and
(ethically) as retribution.
The execution of the sentence is described in v. 11b: an unnamed male person will sleep with Davids wives. Since v. 11a refers
to this future event as an evil coming from your house, the person indicated in v. 11b will be a relative of David. A remarkable
thing is that this relative will sleep with your wives before the eyes
of this sun. The obvious similarity with v. 11a (I will take your
wives before your eyes) shows that Davids previously described

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position is replaced by the suns position: the perspective of you


is taken over by the perspective of this sun and now this suns eyes
replace Davids eyes.
The last verse of Yhwhs discourses, v. 12b, is a kind of final
evaluation; it does not provide information about new actions, but
summarizes in general words what was presented in specified
terms before. Four arguments support this view.
1. Whereas v. 11 points to a specific situation in which speaker
and hearer, that is Yhwh/Nathan, David and the sun, are actually present, as is shown in the demonstrative this, which points
to the context of the utterance, the discourse is much more general in v. 12. The particle
functions as a marker of this transition between these discourse levels. Whatever the readers
grammatical view of this particle, that is as a particle with a prevalent causal function (because) or as a particle with an asseverative
function (indeed, truly), in both cases,
stresses a shift in
viewpoint: It is a discourse deictic sign of a proposition in which
the cognitive viewpoint is switched from the character/speaker to
the propositional content of a clause itself in a self-reflexive manner (Follingstad 2001: 306). This means that
in v. 12 marks
the transition from a specific context-bound communicative situation to a more general situation.
2. The two protagonists, David and Yhwh, are referred to here
with the explicit use of personal pronouns, you and I. What
David did before and what was extensively described in vv. 9-10 is
summarized here as (what) you did, and what Yhwh is going to
do and was extensively described in v. 11 is summarized as what
I will do.
3. The content of what Yhwh is going to do is merely referred
to as this thing (
), in which the demonstrative functions anaphorically and refers back to the previous verse, which
describes Yhwhs plans concerning Davids wives. His thing is
to take these wives away and give them to another male relative.
4. Davids behaviour is described as what you did secretly and
is juxtaposed with what I will do in the sight of all Israel and in
the sight of the sun. The term secretly refers back to Davids
actions described in detail in the previous chapters in 2 Samuel,
the act of sleeping with Batsheba in his house and his efforts to
keep it secret afterwards. It is opposed to in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun.
Therefore, v. 12 is to be considered as the concluding summary
in general terms of what was specified before, both with regard

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to the acts or crimes, and with regard to the consequences or


punishment.
In short, David, who acts as a judge before he discovers that he
is the accused party, is addressed as the defendant from v. 7a onwards (you are that man). He depends on the words of the
Lord Chief Justice, whose point of view and judgement are decisive. Having thus analysed 2 Samuel 12, we are able to perceive
that the very last clause of the chapter before this narrative,
namely, 2 Sam. 11: 27b, is a kind of summary of what will be told
in 2 Samuel 12.1 It says,
. Here
the same words as in 2 Sam. 12:9-12 occur: evil (11:27; 12:9, 11),
the thing (11:27; 12:6, 9, 12), that David had done (11:27; 12:9,
12a) and in the eyes of Yhwh (11:27; 12:9, 11a, 11b). It is exactly
the repetition of these terms that point to the storys main frame
in which Yhwh represents the all-seeing eye, the judge responsible
for justice, who does not accept evil. This Chief Justice condemns
Davids behaviour, passes sentence, and twice mentions the sun,
and even endows the sun with its own perspective. The sun is the
word mentioned last in Yhwhs second speech.
Linguistic Information: The Word Sun
A linguistic study of the word
, sun, can offer some additional information. The first element which draws our attention is
the gender of the noun
. This term is normally masculine in
the Hebrew Bible, but sixteen times it is feminine. In 2 Sam. 12:11,
the noun
is feminine in gender, as the demonstrative
indicates, but there is no clear indication for the gender of the noun
in v. 12. The combination of the noun sun with an attribute is
rare in the Hebrew Bible: apart from 2 Sam. 12:11, it only occurs
in Mal. 3:20, where it is combined with righteousness,
.
In both cases, the gender of the noun
is feminine, and these
texts show a personified image of the sun.
Another aspect which requires a linguistic analysis is the collocation in which the term sun occurs. In 2 Samuel 12, the noun
occurs in collocation with the prepositions
, before the
eyes of (v. 11), and
, in the sight of (v. 12). The collocation
1

This phenomenon, that a text commences with a general statement and then
proceeds to give a detailed account, occurs quite often in the Hebrew Bible (for
a discussion of this phenomenon, see Van Wolde 2001).

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occurs fifty-two times in the Hebrew Bible, and always before


persons. Only here, in 2 Sam. 12:11, the sun is linked to
,
which points at the personified role of the sun in this text. A study
of the distribution of the preposition
(with and without ), which
occurs eighty-five times in the Hebrew Bible, shows that it is used
sixteen times before Yhwh, and fifty times before human beings,
either as a group (twelve times) or as an individual person (thirtyeight times). It also occurs before place names nineteen times, as
a spatial preposition. In the large majority of cases (sixty-six occurrences out of a total of eighty-five, that is 78%), however, it is
used before persons or before Yhwh and refers to a position in
the sight, face, or presence of a person.
A distinction can be made between
, which is exclusively
linked to an individual person, and
, which is mainly linked to
persons, either as groups or individuals, or to places. The term
is, therefore, used both in general and in specific situations,
whereas
is always a specific and person-related term. The use
of the collocations in 2 Samuel 12 confirm these differences. In v.
9a and v. 11a,
is collocated with possessive suffixes: before
my eyes, before your eyes; in v. 11, it is related to a noun with
a demonstrative. The preposition , on the other hand, is placed
before the whole of Israel and before the sun without any specification.2 In addition, v. 12b (only v. 12b, not v. 11) is contrasted
with secretly in v. 12a. Thus, in the sight of all Israel and in
the sight of the sun can be understood as a general description
that is juxtaposed with the term secretly in v. 12a.
A third linguistic element is the combination of the noun with
the demonstrative:
. The demonstrative
, this or
that, is a deictic particle, which by definition is a feature of
language which refers directly to the personal, temporal, or locative characteristics of the situation within which an utterance takes
place, whose meaning is thus relative to that situation (Crystal
1991: 96). It is characteristic of deixis that it receives its meaning
relative to a deictic centre in a particular context of utterance and
thus directly concerns the relationship between the structure of
languages and the contexts in which they are used (Levinson
1983: 54). The speaker in v. 11 is Yhwh as represented by Nathan,
and the person addressed is David. The locative deixis points at

A similar use of

in a general judicial context is present in Num. 25:4.

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proximity or a close relationship to the participants context. In


addition, the demonstrative suggests specificity. This extraordinary
linguistic combination must refer to the sun visibly present or tangibly manifest in the presence of David and Nathan in one form
or another.
In short, from a linguistic point of view, the utterances in which
the sun figures in 2 Samuel 12 differ. The first usage of the sun in
v. 11 is context-bound, and the collocation with
and the demonstrative indicate that the sun referred to in v. 11 is a specific,
possibly even visibly present phenomenon. The second usage of
the term sun in v. 12 is much more general, as the collocation
with
and the parallel position with all Israel show. Both uses
of the term sun function in a judicial context, both are related
to the storys main protagonists, but the first is more specifically
linked to David and his position and the second is more generally linked to the people of Israel and their position.
Iconographic Information: Ancient Near Eastern Solar Pictures and
Solar Language
Iconographic studies of solar pictures offer us a view of the general horizon of ideas with regard to the sun in the ancient Near
East, which differs greatly from ours nowadays. Everywhere in the
ancient Near East, pictures can be found of winged sun disks, in
which the wings on both sides of the disk refer to movement of
the sun in the sky (cf. Mayer-Opificius 1984). They very often represent deities. In the ancient and new Babylonian period, the
national god, Marduk, is called the sun god of the gods. When,
in a god list, various deities are identified in reference to Marduks
functions, the Assyrian sun god ama is referred to as Marduk
of justice. In another Babylonian text, ama is also called
Marduk of the lawsuit (Smith 1990: 29-39). In a long and beautiful Assyrian hymn, the sun god ama is pictured as the elevated
judge, as guardian and helper of the afflicted, as the ultimate
guarantee for justice and righteousness (Sthli 1985: 28 n. 147;
Arneth 2000: 2). In another part of the Levant, in Ugarit, many
texts testify that the sun god apa is conceived of as the all-seeing
judge, responsible for the maintenance of righteousness. Generally known, of course, is the important role of the sun and the
sun deity in Egypt. In the Amarna period, Aton the sun god became the only god. In other periods, the Egyptian empire was

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considered in a political sense to be reigned by the god Amon,


whereas the sun god Re was held responsible for the cosmic reign
and, more often than not, these two deities appear in the molecular linked form, of one deity: Amon-Re.
In this Near Eastern setting, Judahs and Israels conceptualisation of Yhwh took place. According to Keel (1994), the mental representation of Yhwh combines the features of the two main
Near Eastern deities, namely the weather, storm or war deity of
the Levant (responsible for rain, fertility, and warfare), on the one
hand, and the Egyptian sun deity (whose main responsibility was
to defend justice), on the other.3 When Yhwh, the God of David
and his dynasty, became the resident of the temple of Jerusalem,
he took over, Keel argues, not only the empty throne of the sun
god as its main symbol but also the function of the sun god as the
universal judge, the protector of righteousness (
) and justice
(
and
).4
The sun in the ancient Near East not only represented deities
but also kings, and the view is generally accepted that the originally solar characteristics of the sun deities were transferred to the
kings. In the Codex Hammurabi, the king refers to himself as the
powerful king, ama sun (god) of Babel; in the Amarna letters,
the Egyptian king is formally addressed by the Palestinian leaders
as the king, the sun, my Lord; in Ugarit, apa is used as a title
for the Hittite king, and, in Mari, the king is addressed with my
sun.5 Epigraphic and iconographic material from ancient Judah
3
Noch in der frhen Eisenzeit waren dies die beiden groen Gottheiten des
Vorderen Orients: der aktive, nahe, punktuell eingreifende Wetter-, Sturm- und
Kriegsgott Vorderasiens unter bestndige, die Welt dauernd erhaltende und
erleuchtende, dynastische Sonnengott der gypter. In Jahwe sollten sich diese
beiden groen Gottheiten der altorientalischen Welt in der ersten Hlfte des 1.
Jts. v. Chr. verbinden. Jahwe gewann so eine Statur, die ihn zu einer sehr
bedeutenden Stellung prdestinierte (Keel 1994: 82-83).
4
Keels argument is a well developed one. He argues that it is very probable
that Jerusalem was closely related to the sun god, and that Solomons temple may
well have had its origins in a solar temple. He also points to the fact that David
had two high priests, Abiathar and Zadok, and two military leaders (Joab and
Benaiah), of whom Abiathar and Joab represent the people coming with David to
Jerusalem and Zadok and Beniah those originating from Jerusalem; the name of
the Jerusalem high priest Zadok could possibly be related to
. And Keel concludes: Aber nicht nur in Personennamen, auch in narrativen berlieferungen
aus der Umgebung Jerusalems ist ursprnglich von dem mit Recht und Gerechtigkeit engstens verbundenen Sonnengott die Rede gewesen (Keel 1994: 8788).
5
Sthli 1985: 27 n. 143; p. 28 n. 146; Smith 1990: 35.

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Figs. 1 and 2

Fig. 3

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267

express the same notions.6 More than twelve hundred royal jars
were found (all to be dated in Hezekiahs reign in the eighth century bce), which had, on their handles, stamp seal impressions with
the inscription
, for the king and with a two-winged sun emblem or with a four-winged scarab, and both scarab and winged
sun disk are conceived of as royal solar symbols (Keel 1995). Seals
have also been found of the minister of the Judean king Uziah
(779-738 bce), and of the minister of the Judean king Ahaz (736721 bce), and from the time of Hezekiah (721-693 bce), presenting winged sun disks as royal symbols (Keel 1994: 88): See figures
1-3.
Well-known, too, are the texts in the Hebrew Bible which use
solar language in relationship to kings.7 Thus, it appears that, in
the Hebrew Bible, the suns cosmic, cultic and judicial function
was delegated by Yhwh to the king: the king was not seen as the
one who constitutes the cosmic order, but as the governor who
should uphold and maintain this order(cf. Schmid 1968: 85).
Against this background, we can understand 2 Sam. 12:11-12, in
which the collocations
and
are used in
a judicial context. Yhwh discusses the criminal case in which David
is the accused and concludes that his punishment will be executed
before the forum of the sun. Having the meanings described
above, this sun can be understood to represent the incorruptible
judge, whose rays from zenith to horizon penetrate and discover
injustice done to victims. This reference to the sun is made by
Yhwh addressing David at the moment he thought he had escaped
from his murder of Uriah, and after he discovered that his
behaviour is parallelled to that of the rich man in the parable. In
this context, Yhwhs use of the term sun cannot but fill the accused person with fear. Nevertheless, a distinction should be made
between v. 11 and v. 12. In the first verse, the sun is collocated
with a demonstrative, which suggests a physical presence of the sun
in some form or another in Davids palace. In the second verse,
the term sun is placed in a parallel position to the whole of Israel; it has a more general meaning, such as openly or publicly, and appears to refer to the sun as all-seeing judge. In order
to demonstrate the plausibility of the suns distinct meaning in v.
11, I will now concentrate on specific sun emblems.
6
ANEP 809; Welten 1969: 171; Sthli 1985: 11; Keel, Uehliger 1992: 314ff,
449; Taylor 1993: 42-57; Keel 1995: 121.
7
E.g., Ex. 24:10; Judg. 14:20. 22; 1 Sam. 1:22; 2 Sam. 34; Pss. 11:7; 17:15;
27:4, 13; 42:3; 63:3; 72:5, 17; 84:12; 89:37, and Isa. 6:1.

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Fig. 4

Pictures of Ancient Near Eastern Thrones


There are quite a number of pictures of thrones in close relationship with the sun, which I will discuss in chronological order.
Figs. 4 and 5 present pictures of an Egyptian throne from the fourteenth century bce.8
This is Tut-ankh-Amons golden secular throne, the back of
which shows the king sitting on his throne, a woman standing
before him and a shaft of rays spreading from the sun between
the king and the woman; behind the woman is a piece of furniture (a table, an altar, or pedestal) with a sun emblem placed
8
In full colour published in Riesterer (1965), plates 3 and 4. For the reproduction of this photograph permission has been granted by the publisher,
Kmmerly & Frey in Bern.

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Fig. 5

vertically on it. Thus the royal throne contains a picture in gold


of a royal throne, which in its turn may contain another picture
of a throne with a king and a sun, etc., presenting a virtual miseen-abyme with a repeatedly returning pattern of the image of the
sitting king illuminated by the sun. The middle of the upper frieze
of Tut-ankh-Amons sacerdotal throne also shows a sun disk above
the kings cartouches, and still other royal thrones contain similar sun emblems (Metzger 1985: Pls. 250, 263; Riesterer 1965: Pls.
17, 18). It can be concluded that, at least in Egypt at the time of
Tut-ankh-Amon, the throne of this king contained pictures of the
sun or of the sun disk. Because Amon-Re was held responsible for

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the cosmic order (maat) and the king was considered to be the
representative of the sun, his responsibility as a judge was to guarantee the sun-protected order, which is represented by the solar
emblem on his throne.
From elsewhere in the ancient Near East, images of kings and
gods sitting on thrones are found, but usually they are painted or
carved in profile, so it is impossible to see whether the (backs of
the) thrones have carvings or pictures. In a middle-Assyrian seal
from the thirteenth century bce, however, a combination of a sun
throne and a kings throne can be detected (Keel 1994: 87). A
clearer picture shows the stela found in Ugarit from the same
period, described by Wyatt (1983): See figure 6.
On this stela, on the right-hand side, the god El is seated on a
lion-legged throne. The person pictured on the left appears to be
performing some ritual act before the seated deity. The cap and
act of worship lead to the conclusion that the king of Ugarit is
presented here. This king is holding a jug in his left hand, presumably with a view to pouring a libation before the god, or even
filling what looks like the cup the god proffers him. In his right
hand, he holds a staff of some kind in the form of a sceptre, symbol
of power and authority. And in the middle, we have the winged
sun disk, symbol of royalty and the Ugaritic emblem of apa , the
sun god (or goddess). Wyatt (1983: 277) interprets this sun disk
as an expression of cosmic stability that hovers over the scene
of many monuments in Ugarit and protects the kingdom of Ugarit.
On a ninth-century tablet from Mesopotamia, a similar scene can
be detected (Keel 1972: 153, Pl. 239): See figure 7. King Nabuapaliddin (figure on the left), preceded by a priest who is led by a
protector deity, enters the solar temple of Sippar. On a table-like
piece of furniture, a large emblem of the sun god is presented. It
forms the centre of the scene and focuses the attention of the
perceiver. The right-hand side of this scene takes place in heaven
(behind the god on his throne are, from left to right, the symbols
of the sun, moon, and Venus); the left-hand side takes place on
earth, and the waters underneath both can be discerned. On the
table-like piece of furniture in the middle of the scene stands an
emblem of the sun, the representation of the sun deity on earth.
The king approaches this table or altar, guided by the priest and
his protector, who hold hands on this piece of solar furniture.
Apparently, the sun god lowers with ropes from heaven the table
or altar with the suns emblem. In this picture, all elements are

the sun in 2 samuel 12:7-12

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

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visible at the same time: the sun is represented on earth in a


materialised form and is presented as an intermediary between
the earthly and heavenly realm, with the king on the left and the
deity on the right.
In Israel, we can detect a similar image on one of the famous
Megiddo ivories (Avi-Yonah, Stern 1977: 838): See figures 8-9. This
picture is carved on an ivory handle and shows the king seated
on a throne which looks very much like Egyptian thrones. Before
him, a victory procession is depicted: gifts and captives are presented before him who sits and receives it all, and above them a
sun disk is visible. The ivories from Megiddo originate, according
to the Chicago excavation team, from a Late Bronze Age Palace,
but recently Finkelstein has argued that levels previously dated
earlier in fact belong to the ninth century bce (Finkelstein 1996).
Although the dating discussion still goes on, it is clear that, in Israel, as in other places in the ancient Near East, kings were imagined and pictured as sitting on a throne with a sun nearby.
These iconographic data lead to the following conclusions: (1)
In the ancient Near East, deities and kings are often depicted as
sitting on thrones, and a sun disk is often visible in proximity to
these thrones. (2) The backs of Tut-ankh-Amon thrones contain
paintings of the sun or of a winged sun disk. (3) In the Megiddo
ivory handle, a king is depicted seated on a throne which is very
similar to Tut-ankh-Amons throne. (4) In general, in the ancient
Near East and in Israel and Judah, the sun is conceived of as the
all-seeing judge before whose eyes nothing is hidden. (5) In ancient Israel and Judah, Yhwh is described as a judge. (6) Solar
language is, in this context, used for Yhwh, and his empty throne
in the temple could (originally) be related to the sun deitys throne
and his function as a judge. Jars, jugs, and coins of ancient Judah
contain carvings or pictures of the winged sun disk with the inscription for the king, so that the relationship between the monarch and the sun is, at least in the eighth century bce, a fact. (7)
Because of the lack of sufficient material evidence, it cannot be
proved that, in ancient Israel, the royal throne contained a picture of the sun. However, it appears to be credible or even plausible to raise such a hypothesis.

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Fig. 9

Fig. 8

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Conclusion: Meaning and Emotion


The iconographic studies of the solar pictures offer us a panoramic view of the setting in which 2 Sam. 12:11-12 can be better
understood. Against this background, v. 11 and v. 12 focus on
specific aspects, thus evoking various meanings and emotions.
The textual study of 2 Sam. 12:11-12 demonstrated that Yhwh
passes sentence on David. He tells him that he will take his dearest possession, namely his wives, before his very eyes and that he
will give them to a member of Davids family. This verdict hits
David in his face, and he is strongly emotionally involved. However, David will not be present when this happens: he will sleep
with your wives before the eyes of this sun. Of course, the emphasis is on sleeping with your wives, but the deictic particle
relates this horrific event to the deictic centre in this speech:
David. Not only the suns physical presence, but also the presence
of Davids body is presupposed. Thus, the verdict reflects a proprioceptive viewpoint: it only functions through the body of the
subject of perception, that is, David.
The concept of proprioceptivity is derived from Jacques Fontanille (1998). In his view, a narrative text offers not only a neutral
description but also shows how characters are engaged in what is
depicted: they maintain more or less distanced relationships and
these dynamic relations are the buildings blocks of the text as an
emotionally charged space. The extent of the characters involvement in this charged space and the way his or her body is engaged
can differ: when the character is the centre of reference in a deictic
relation, the body is directly involved in the perceptions and
emotions. If this is the case, the textual positions are called proprioceptive: the physical presence of the characters own body
(within the textual world) is the operator between the logical and
the affective, between the concepts and the passions in the text,
and functions as the indispensable intermediary between the story
world (in the text) and the discourse world (in the communication between the text and the reader). An exteroceptive position,
on the other hand, is detached from a physically present body.
The text provides information from an outsiders position, and the
characters own body is not involved. Thus, the concepts of
proprioceptivity and exteroceptivity reflect the extent to which
the characters body is involved.
The linguistic study indicated how proprioceptivity is semantically expressed in 2 Sam. 12:11, namely by (1) the deictic sign

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this in this sun, (2) the collocation of this sun with the prepositional phrase before the eyes of (
) which usually occurs
only before persons, and (3) the placement of before the eyes of
this sun parallel to the previous before your eyes (same noun
and preposition but with a possessive suffix), which shows that the
materialised sun represents David and that he is physically engaged. Every word in Yhwhs speech underlines the severe judgement, but the proprioceptivity makes it tangible: it is the visible
skin of the text.
The iconographic study showed to what kind of material object
this sun could refer. The demonstrative indicates specificity and
denotes a sun visibly manifest in the presence of David in one
form or another. It can be the royal throne on which David is
sitting at that moment, with a sun painted on it, in a way similar
to Tut-ank-Amons throne. It might refer to another piece of furniture with a sun emblem above it (a table, a pedestal). It cannot
refer, however, to Yhwhs empty throne in the temple, which
(from the narratives point of view) still has to be built by Davids
son Solomon. The reference to a royal throne appears to be the
most attractive possibility, representing the kings and the deitys
responsibility for righteousness and justice, but we cannot be sure
that it refers to an actual seat. However, what we can be sure of is
that the function of the expression this sun in v. 11 is based on
the assumed relationship between David and the object. In other
words, the collocation refers, in the story world of 2 Sam. 12:11,
to a tangible object, and functions in the discourse world as a
metonym, as a language sign that receives its meaning by the contiguity of the subjects. To understand the emotional contents of
this contiguity, knowledge of the material culture and its cultural
representations are indispensable.
To summarize, this sun in v. 11 is not just a nice image, nor
a metaphor or another term for publicly, nor just a way of speaking, but functions as a metonym which activates the contiguity
between the character David and a material object, possibly the
sun emblem on the royal throne, in a way that makes it possible
for the contemporary reader to understand and even experience
it as a meaningful language sign charged with strong emotional
feelings. It is before the vigilant eye of this all-seeing judge, the
representative of the king, that Yhwhs verdict will be executed.
David is shattered, as is shown by his immediate reaction, I stand
guilty before Yhwh (12:13). No more long statements as in v. 5

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and v. 6, but in two words he admits his guilt and acknowledges


his sin. Now he has to face the consequences.
The term sun is twice used in 2 Sam. 12:11-12, but what a difference in meaning and emotion! In v. 12, the sun figures in a
more general context and is neutrally described from an exteroceptive position, without any involvement of an observer; the word
refers to the sun as the righteous judge for whom nothing remains
hidden. The particle
at the beginning of v. 12 marks the shift
in viewpoint from the proprioceptive to the exteroceptive position
in the text. Verse 11 presupposes a proprioceptive position in
which the sun acts as an intermediary between concepts and passions. The reader, then, does not only learn about Davids words
and actions and about the suns and Yhwhs judicial and religious
power, but, as soon as the emotional curtain of the text opens,
also experiences the sparks of thrill and fear in this text.

Abstract
A cognitive web with different layers of emotion spreads over the text of 2
Samuel 12, in which the sun plays an important role. The unique linguistic combinations in vv. 11-12 show the suns personified role. Iconographic study clarifies the sun as an image loaded with strong emotional feelings. Thus, it becomes
understandable why the sun could function for the contemporaneous reader as a
metonym which activates the contiguity between the character of David and a
material object, possibly the sun emblem on the royal throne. It is before the
vigilant eye of this sun, as the all-seeing judge, that Yhwhs verdict will be executed. Every reader since, all those who know of the suns cultural and religious
power as well as of Yhwhs, all those who read in the textual context about desire, lust and murder and about the kings devotion to the royal throne, can experience the sparks of thrill and fear in this text.

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