Ackerman Love VT

The Personal Is Political: Covenantal and Affectionate Love ('hb, 'ahb) in the Hebrew
Bible
Author(s): Susan Ackerman
Source: Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 52, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 437-458
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1585137
Accessed: 31-03-2016 08:12 UTC
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THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL:
COVENANTAL AND AFFECTIONATE LOVE
('AHEB, 'AHABA) IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
by
SUSAN ACKERMAN
Hanover, United States
In 1963, William L. Moran published an influential article on the
love of God in the book of Deuteronomy, in which he proposed that
Deuteronomy's understanding of love ('dheb, 'ahabd) is not at all our
modern notion, which defines love in terms of a tender psychological
feeling; a strong personal attachment; a sympathetic understanding; a
deep, natural, and genuine affection.' Rather, according to Moran,
love in Deuteronomy is a concept grounded in political language. More
specifically, Moran argued that the love of God in Deuteronomy-(1)
which is something that can be commanded, (2) which stands intimately
related to the concepts of fear and reverence, and (3) which is expressed
in terms of loyalty, service, and unqualified obedience to the demands
of the law-is a love that has its basis in the ancient Near Eastern
concept of covenant in general and, in particular, in the covenant
demands of fealty and devotion that ancient Near Eastern suzerains
imnposed upon their vassals. Indeed, Moran substantiated his argument
by listing numerous specific parallels between the language of love as
found in ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal treaties and as found in
Deuteronomic texts describing Yahweh's relationship with Israel.
Moran further buttressed his conclusions by identifying at least three
narrative passages from the Deuteronomistic History that, although
concerned with relationships between human beings rather than the
divine-human relationship, nevertheless seemed to him to depend on
the same understanding of love as an obligation of covenant: first,
1 Kgs. v 15 (English v 1), where Hiram of Tyre is said to have been
the "lover" ('ohgb) of Israel's King David, which Moran took to mean,
" The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy",
CBQ25 (1963), pp. 77-87.
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002
Vetus Testamentum LII, 4
Also available online - www.brill.nl
438
SUSAN ACKERMAN
based on J. Bright's interpretation of 2 Sam. v 11, that David and
Hiram were in a treaty relationship with one another; second, 2 Sam.
xix 7 (English xix 6), where Joab rebukes David for grieving over the
death of his rebellious son Absalom while "hating those who love you
('ohabeka)", that is, according to Moran, those "servants" (xix 6; English
xix 5) who had remained loyal to David and his monarchy through-
out Absalom's revolt; third, 1 Sam. xviii 16, where all Israel and Judah
are said to "love" ('jh&b) David, which is to say, all Israel and Judah
offered David their allegiance as he worked to secure his monarchi-
cal claims. Moran also suggested briefly, and in a footnote, that the
love between David and Jonathan that is described in 1 Sam. xviii 1,
3, and again in 1 Sam. xx 17 and 2 Sam. i 26,2 was a love "sealed"
(the usage is Moran's) by the covenants the two are said to have made
with each other in 1 Sam. xviii 3; xx 16; and xxiii 18.3
Although not everyone has been convinced,4 the vast majority of
commentators who have considered the biblical concept of love sub-
sequent to Moran have accepted his conclusions and, consequently,
have primarily focused their attention upon refining Moran's thesis.5
For example, both J. A. Thompson, writing in 1974, and Katharine
Doob Sakenfeld, writing in 1983, elaborated upon Moran's passing
observation regarding the covenantal connotations implicit within the
love of David and Jonathan.6 Thompson further, in a 1977 article,
2 Reading with the LXX in 1 Sam. xx 17, which describes Jonathan as "again"
swearing to David out of his love for him (versus the MT, which has Jonathan again
causing David to swear). The original oath to which the Greek of 1 Sam. xx 17 refers
is the one sworn by Jonathan in 1 Sam. xx 12-13. See further P. K. McCarter, I
Samuel (AB 8; Garden City, NY, 1980), p. 337.
3 "The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God", p. 82, n. 33.
4 See, e.g., E. W. Nicholson, God and His People (Oxford, 1986), pp. 78-81; this ref-
erence brought to my attention by E. J. Adler, "The Background for the Metaphor of
Covenant as Marriage in the Hebrew Bible" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University
of California at Berkeley, 1989), pp. 75-77.
5 In addition to the studies discussed below, note the following articles: P. R. Ackroyd,
"The verb love--aheb in the David Jonathan narratives-A footnote", VT 25 (1975),
pp. 213-214; D. J. McCarthy, "Notes on the Love of God in Deuteronomy and on
the Father-Son Relationship between Yahweh and Israel", CBQ 27 (1965), pp. 144-
147; idem, Treaty and Covenant (AnBib 21; Rome, 1978), pp. 160-161, n. 6;J. W. McKay,
"Man's love for God in Deuteronomy and the father/teacher-son/pupil relationship",
VT 22 (1972), pp. 426-435; L. L. Walker, "'Love' in the Old Testament: Some Lexical
Observations", Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI, 1975),
pp. 277-288.
6 J. A. Thompson, "The significance of the verb love in the David-Jonathan narra-
tives in 1 Samuel", VT 24 (1974), pp. 334-338; K. D. Sakenfeld, "Loyalty and Love:
LOVE IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
identified multiple other instances in the Hebrew Bible where the lan-
guage of love appears to imply the concept of covenant fealty,7 sug-
gesting, for example, that the slaves described in Exod. xxi 2-6 and
Deut. xv 12-18 who choose to stay bound to their masters out of
"love" probably are motivated less by feelings of genuine attachment
and natural affection and more by their desire to retain certain advan-
tages that are a part of the master-slave covenantal relationship (mate-
rial advantages, according to Deut. xv 16, and advantages concerning
a male slave's ability to maintain a relationship with his wife and chil-
dren, according to Exod. xxi 4-5). Thompson also proposed that the
descriptions of Abraham as the "lover" ('oheb) of Yahweh in Isa. xli 8
and 2 Chr. xx 7 reflected Abraham's status as the deity's covenant
partner, as established in Gen. xv 18 and again in Genesis xvii; sim-
ilarly, that the prophetic condemnations of Israel's and Judah's love
for other gods, as found, especially, in Hosea and Jeremiah,8 are
informed by covenantal language, with the implication being that
because the people had violated their obligations as vassals to love the
suzerain Yahweh, and Yahweh alone, the covenant between God and
nation would soon collapse.
Yet while scholars such as Thompson and Sakenfeld have been
eager to find these many instances throughout the Hebrew Bible where
the terms 'dheb and 'ahbda carry covenantal overtones, they have cor-
rectly insisted that this meaning is relatively specialized and does not
apply to what Thompson describes as "the numerous examples of the
natural affection shown between members of a family or between
friends."9 Still, a closer look at these "numerous examples of... nat-
ural affection", especially the numerous examples found within the
Bible's narrative corpus,10 reveals that there are some interesting sim-
ilarities between the way 'dheb and 'ahadba are construed within these
The Language of Human Interconnections in the Hebrew Bible", Michigan Quarterly
Review 22 (1983), pp. 190-204; reprinted in Backgroundsfor the Bible (ed. D. N. Freedman
and M. P. O'Connor; Winona Lake, IN, 1987), pp. 215-230.
7 "Israel's 'lovers"', VT 27 (1977), pp. 475-481.
8 Thompson specifically discusses Hos. ii 7, 9, 12, 14, and 15 (English ii 5, 7, 10,
12, and 13); ix 10; Jer. viii 2.
9 "Israel's lovers", p. 480; see similarly, the description Sakenfeld offers ("Loyalty
and Love", p. 203 [Michigan Quarterly Review publication]) regarding the love of Ruth
for Naomi.
'0 The Song of Songs, anomalous in so many respects when compared to the rest
of biblical literature, is also anomalous regarding the usage of 'aheb and 'ahdbd described
in this paper. See further my discussion in the body of this paper below, and also in
n. 16.
439
440
SUSAN ACKERMAN
accounts of interpersonal relationships and the way these terms are
construed within certain covenantal texts. This is not to say, let me
be quite clear, that the Bible conceives of interpersonal love as being
identical to covenant love, or even that it conceives of interpersonal
love and covenant love as being generally of the same type: as Moran
has convincingly demonstrated, the larger context of covenantal love
is political, whereas the context of love as depicted in the interper-
sonal relationship is emotional, with family members or close friends
exhibiting feelings of genuine attachment and affection toward one
another. Yet despite these significant differences, I believe that there
are some important points of overlap between the construing of 'adhb
and 'ahdbd as found in the interpersonal relationship texts and the con-
struing found in covenantal texts, especially the construing found in
the divine-human covenant texts of Deuteronomy that were originally
analyzed by Moran. It is these points of overlap that I explore in Part
I of this paper." Then, in the paper's second section, I turn to con-
sider some of the implications of my initial findings: how the points
of overlap that exist between the Bible's construing of covenantal and
interpersonal love illuminate the way 'dhIb and 'ahdbd are used in cer-
tain otherwise enigmatic texts.
I begin my inquiry regarding the points of overlap between covenan-
tal and interpersonal 'aheb and 'ahdbd with some observations con-
cerning the interpersonal relationship accounts. In these texts, 'dheb
and 'ahdbd are used most often to describe the attraction of one per-
son to a member of the opposite sex. Yet curiously, when these texts
" In undertaking this sort of comparison, my goal is simultaneously significantly
more modest and somewhat more ambitious than certain studies that have preceded
mine. In comparing only the lexical items 'aheb and 'ahaba as they are used in covenan-
tal and interpersonal relationship texts, I consider just one aspect of the larger metaphor-
ical correlation between covenant and marriage documented by scholars such as Adler,
"The Background for the Metaphor of Covenant as Marriage"; F. C. Fensham, "The
Marriage Metaphor in Hosea for the Covenant Relationship Between the Lord and
His People", JJNSL 12 (1984), pp. 71-78; J. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel:
The City as Yahweh's ife (SBLDS 130; Atlanta, 1992), pp. 25-88; and G. P. Hugenberger,
Marriage as Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage Developed from the
Perspective of Malachi (VTSup 52; Leiden, 1994). Yet because I will consider other types
of interpersonal relationships in addition to marriage in my discussion (parent-child
relationships in particular), I will expand on the range of correlations considered in
prior comparative studies.
use 'aheb or 'ahabd to describe the attraction members of the opposite
sex feel for one another, the terms (with only one exception, which I
will discuss more thoroughly in Part II) refer to the man's love for the
woman. Isaac is said to have loved Rebekah (Gen. xxiv 67); Jacob to
have loved Rachel (Gen. xxix 18, 20, 30) and possibly, albeit to a
lesser degree, to have loved Leah (Gen. xxix 30);12 Samson is said to
have loved Delilah (Judg. xvi 4, 15); and Samson's Timnite wife seems
to presume that he loved her at some point as well (Judg. xiv 16).
Also, Elqanah is said to have loved Hannah (1 Sam. i 5); Solomon to
have loved his many foreign wives (1 Kgs. xi 1, 2); Rehoboam to have
loved Ma'acah (2 Chr. xi 21); and Ahasuerus to have loved Esther
(Esth. ii 17). Yet none of these women is ever described as giving her
sexual partner her love in return, nor, but for the aforementioned and
yet-to-be-discussed exception, is any woman in the Bible's narrative
corpus ever said to love a man. Likewise, in narrative texts that describe
the feelings of attachment that exist between a parent and a child-
which is the second-most common interpersonal context in which the
terms 'dheb and 'ahdabd appear-it is only the parents who are described
as loving. Abraham is said to love Isaac (Gen. xxii 2); Rebekah to
love Jacob while Isaac loves Esau (Gen. xxv 28); Jacob/Israel to love
bothJoseph (Gen. xxxvii 3, 4) and Benjamin (Gen. xliv 20); and David
to love Amnon (2 Sam. xiii 21).'3 However, no child in the narrative
tradition-or, indeed, anywhere in the Bible-is described as loving
his or her parents.
How to account for such a one-sided usage of 'dheb or 'ahdbd? Before
turning to suggest how Deuteronomy's divine-human covenant texts
might help answer this question, let me address some explanations that
I believe will not work. First, I believe it is not possible to explain the
one-sided usage of 'dheb or 'ahdbd within the interpersonal relationship
accounts simply by appeal to the Bible's preferred perspectival stances:
to claim, say, that because the Bible's authors tend to subscribe to the
dictum that "children should be seen but not heard",'4 they generally
12 Gen. xxix 30 reports that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, which suggests
Jacob was not without affection for the older sister. Yet two verses later, in Gen. xxix
32, Leah gives voice to the hope that "now" ('attd), because she has given birth to
Reuben, Jacob will love her, which suggests she has not found herself the object of
Jacob's affection prior to that point.
13 So 4QSama (partially restored) and the LXX; this text has fallen out of the MT.
See further P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB 9; Garden City, NY, 1984), pp. 319-320.
14 The only Hebrew Bible text I can think of in which a child is said to speak is
441
SUSAN ACKERMAN
442
do not reveal to us a child's point of view; or, similarly, to claim that
because the Bible is an almost exclusively male-oriented document, it
typically tells us only men's perspectives on things and does not con-
cern itself with women's experiences. Granted, such a thesis would
explain why the biblical authors can describe for us a parent's love
for a child and yet refrain from speaking of a child's affections for his
mother and/or father. Likewise, it would explain why the biblical
authors can reveal a man's love for the woman or women in his life
without considering whether those women love the man in return. Still,
it falters when confronted with the fact that the Bible is willing to
speak of a woman's love within the context of relationships other than
sexual, when describing a mother's love for her child, for example, as
in Rebekah's love for Jacob (Gen. xxv 28), or when describing one
woman's love for another, as in Ruth's love for Naomi (Ruth iv 15).
The biblical text, that is, does not so much ignore women's perspec-
tives in general as it ignores women's perspectives specifically when
they concern a woman's love for a man.
Moreover, even though the Bible does refrain from using the terms
'dheb or 'ahdbd when describing women in their relationships with men
or when describing children in their relationships with their parents,
it does not actually ignore how women feel about their male partners,
nor how children feel about their fathers and mothers, which brings
me to my second "wrong" explanation: that we cannot conclude, just
because the women and the children of the biblical tradition are not
explicitly described as "loving" their male partners and their parents,
that the Bible's women are to be understood as indifferent or uncar-
ing with regard to men and that the Bible's children are to be under-
stood as lacking in affection for their mothers and fathers. To be sure,
some of the Bible's women and children undoubtedly did not return
the love of those who loved them. Delilah's actions in selling Samson
to the Philistines, for example, hardly suggest that she reciprocated his
love for her. Nevertheless, the Bible's narrative accounts of interper-
sonal relationships generally offer portraits of husband-wife and par-
ent-child interactions that suggest mutuality in terms of feeling. Jacob's
the story of the akedah in Gen. xxii 1-14. There, in verse 7, Isaac, who seems to be
pictured as a near-adolescent (he is not yet married but is physically mature enough
to carry the wood for the sacrificial fire and mentally mature enough to question devi-
ations from normal sacrificial ritual), asks his father Abraham where they are to get
the lamb for the burnt offering.
beloved Rachel is devoted enough to him that she is willing to betray
her father by stealing his household gods and then conceal her theft
through deception (Gen. xxix 19, 33-35); the trust Isaac places in
Abraham as they climb one of Moriah's mountains prior to the son's
near sacrifice seems similarly to indicate that the love the father extended
toward the child was shared (Gen. xxii 1-15, especially verses 7-8).
Isaac, moreover, is said to need comfort after Sarah's death, which
intimates the narrative's conviction that the boy also loved his mother
(Gen. xxiv 67). Yet still, the specific language of '"heb/'ahdbad in these
particular examples is only used of Jacob with regard to Rachel and
of Abraham with regard to Isaac. This lexical peculiarity thus remains
in need of elucidation. Why, despite the sense of mutually-held affection
that is found in most of the interpersonal relationship accounts, are
the actual terms 'adhb and 'ahdbd reserved throughout these narratives
for male partners and parents alone?
A third explanation comes closer to providing an answer by sug-
gesting that "loving" in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts
should be understood as an initiating action that determines or sets
the stage for what is to follow.'5 It is Ahasuerus' love for Esther, for
example, that drives the plot of the Esther narrative, and hence this
love is explicitly signaled in Esth. ii 17. Likewise, Samson's love for
Delilah is explicitly signaled in Judg. xvi 4, 15 because it is determi-
native for the story of Delilah's mastery over Samson that follows, and
Jacob's love for Rachel is carefully noted in Gen. xxix 18, 20, 30
because it is this love that motivates Jacob to serve Laban for fourteen
years. Because the Bible, moreover, is such a male-oriented document,
its narratives almost always understand men's concerns as having de-
terminative power and thus its almost exclusive focus on men as lov-
ing as opposed to women. Still, in those few instances where women's
concerns drive the plot, this explanation argues, their love can be fore-
grounded. Rebekah, then, can be said to love Jacob in Gen. xxv 28
because this is what motivates the following story of the deception of
Isaac, and Ruth can be said to love Naomi because this is what drives
the younger woman to abandon Moab and return to Israel with her
mother-in-law in order that she can eventually marry Boaz and bear
their son Obed. Similarly, in the otherwise enigmatic Song of Songs,
it is the young woman's love for her paramour that is atypically stressed
15 Suggested to me by Phyllis A. Bird (private communication).
443
444
SUSAN ACKERMAN
(Cant. i 7; ii 5; iii 1, 2, 3, 4; v 8) because it is she who is the center
of attention and whose feelings inspire the text's action.16
Yet as compelling as this explanation is in many respects (especially
with regard to the Song of Songs), it does not satisfy me completely.
If Ruth's love for Naomi is to be understood as foregrounded because
it is the emotion that sets the stage for the action that follows, then
why is the explicit description of this love so curiously located in the
text, not cited until the penultimate pericope of the book (Ruth iv
13-17) and then cited only in terms of hearsay, reported secondhand
by Naomi's women companions? More curious still: why some pecu-
liar silences regarding love in other interpersonal relationship accounts?
The story ofJacob's and Rachel's marriage, for example, is surely the
most romantic, or "loving," in the Bible's narrative corpus: Jacob so
loves Rachel that he is willing to work an initial seven years, and then
another seven, in order to marry her; Rachel so loves Jacob that she
is willing to steal from her father and then lie to him in order to
benefit her husband. However, even though it seems to be her love
for Jacob that motivates Rachel to steal from and then deceive her
father, and even though it is her actions that are foregrounded in the
narrative describing those deeds (Gen. xxxi 19-42), the specific lan-
guage of 'dheb/'ahdba is not used of her within the Gen. xxxi 19-42
account. Nor is the language of 'dhjb/'ahabd used of Rachel in Genesis
xxx 1-21, the stories of Rachel giving her maid Bilhah to Jacob and
bargaining with Leah for Reuben's mandrakes. Yet arguably, Rachel's
actions in these two narrative episodes are again motivated by love
and, again, certainly she is the actor who is foregrounded.'7 That is:
in both Gen. xxx 1-21 and xxxi 19-42, the conditions that the expla-
nation currently under consideration requires are present-Rachel's
love is an initiating action that sets the stage for the stories that fol-
low-but in neither case are the terms 'aheb and 'ahabd used in rela-
tion to her. Especially curious to me is that the terms 'aheb and 'ahdbd
are not used of Rachel in the Genesis xxx pericopes, given that these
pericopes are embedded in a larger text (Genesis xxix 1-xxx 24) in
which the terms 'dheb/'ahdbd are more richly represented (Gen. xxix
16 The "maidens" of the Song of Songs are also said to love the young man (Cant.
i 3, 4). Only once, though, and obliquely, is the man's "love" for the Song's princi-
pal maiden described, in Cant. ii 4, where the young woman claims, "his intention
towards me was love ('ahabd)."
17 Rachel is, for example, the subject of eleven verbs in Gen. xxx 1-21, while Jacob
is the subject of only five.
18, 20, 30, 32) than in any other of the Bible's narrative accounts.
Why, I wonder, in a context where love seems otherwise at the fore-
front of the narrator's mind, is Rachel's love for Jacob not described?
Of course, these sorts of arguments from silence are by nature weak
and thus cannot be taken as sufficient reason for dismissing this third
explanation altogether. Nevertheless, the silences I have described do
give me enough pause that I am drawn, as I have already intimated,
to return to Deuteronomy and see if that text's use of the terms 'aheb
and 'ahaba can more fully illuminate the ways in which 'dheb and 'ahaba
are used in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts. Interestingly,
it turns out that the terms 'dheb and 'ahabd are used in Deuteronomy's
divine-human covenant accounts in a way similar to the way these
terms are used in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts, that
is, in a way that is peculiarly one-sided. According to Deuteronomy,
Yahweh loves Israel as the covenant relationship requires. Indeed,
Yahweh is said to love both the Israelites who are imagined as the
audience of Deuteronomy's exhortations (Deut. vii 8; xxiii 6 [English
xxiii 5]) and to love these Israelites' ancestors (Deut. iv 37; x 15). The
Israelites are likewise commanded, again as the covenant relationship
requires, to love Yahweh in return (Deut. vi 5; x 12; xi 1, 13, 22;
xviv 9; xxx 6, 16, and 20). But, strikingly in my opinion, Deuteronomy
never describes the people or their ancestors as actually offering Yahweh
this love.
The same pattern holds in the related narratives of the Deuteronomistic
History. As we have seen, the Deuteronomistic History is certainly a
corpus that knows generally of the concept of covenantal love (as in
the covenantal love of David and Hiram, for example), and it is also
a corpus that knows more specifically of the divine-human covenant
relationship presumed in Deuteronomy, in which Yahweh's love is
extended toward the Israelites (see, e.g., 1 Kgs. x 9) and in which the
people are commanded to give their love to Yahweh in return (see,
e.g., Josh. xxii 5; xxiii 11). But although Yahweh, according to the
Deuteronomistic History, upholds the divine side of this bargain, the
people, as in Deuteronomy, are never said to extend their love to God
as the covenant relationship requires. One might argue, of course, that
this is exactly the portrayal of the people we would expect to find in
the Deuteronomistic History, as one of the main purposes of that doc-
ument is to describe the Israelites as a community that almost constantly
fails with regard to its covenant obligations. Still, there are some
Israelites whom the Deuteronomistic History does regard as faithful to
445
446
SUSAN ACKERMAN
the covenant-reformer kings like Asa, Hezekiah, andJosiah, for exam-
ple-and we might think that these individuals, at least, would be said
to manifest the love of covenant fidelity. But, astonishingly, this happens
only once in the entire Deuteronomistic corpus, in the description of
Solomon's love for Yahweh in 1 Kgs. iii 3.18
This same one-sided depiction of love as manifest in Yahweh's and
Israel's covenant relationship is found in the prophetic books and in
the Psalms. Its presence in the prophetic tradition, perhaps, is not so
hard to explain, for often these texts' primary purpose, like that of the
Deuteronomistic History, is to castigate the Israelites for covenant dis-
obedience. Hence, while the prophetic books do contain confessions
regarding Yahweh's covenantal love for Israel, they are not inclined
to describe Israel as extending love in the form of covenant fidelity to
Yahweh in return. But it is still somewhat surprising that even within
the oracles of a prophet like Second Isaiah, who characterizes the
covenant relationship between God and Israel as one that is soon to
be reconciled and restored, there is no mention that the people will
give God their love as part of this reconciliation, and this despite the
fact that it is within these oracles that we find what is perhaps the
Bible's most powerful expression of Yahweh's love for the people,
the first-person confession that "I love you" ('dhabtikd; Isa. xliii 4).
Similarly surprising is to find the same phenomenon in the chapters
ofJeremiah that are devoted to reconciliation and restoration (Jeremiah
xxx-xxxiii), that is, to find again only professions of God's love for
Israel (Jer. xxxi 3) and none regarding the love the restored Israel will
extend to Yahweh in return. Likewise in the Psalms, although these
hymns are generally full of expressions of devotion, there is no men-
tion of Israel extending love toward Yahweh, and only once an expres-
sion of an individual psalmist's love for his God (Ps. cxvi 1).'9
What all these data suggest to me is two things. First, as posited
above, there is a connection between the way that the terms 'aheb and
'ahaba are construed within the Hebrew Bible's interpersonal relation-
"1 This text makes clear that the love in question here is the love of covenant fidelity
through its further description of Solomon as one who "walks in the statutes of his
father David", that is, one who observes the requirements of the covenant.
19 There are, however, occasional descriptions of an individual psalmist's love for
Yahweh's house, or for Yahweh's commandments, or for Yahweh's statutes, or Yahweh's
tora (Pss. xxvi 8; cxix 47, 48, 97, 113, 119, 127, 140, 159, 163, 167) and also occa-
sional praises of those who love Yahweh's name and salvation (Pss. v 12 [English v
11]; xl 17 [English xl 16]; lxix 37 [English lxix 36]; lxx 5 [English lxx 4]; cxix 132).
447
ship accounts and within the descriptions of the divine-human covenant
relationship found in Deuteronomy and, indeed, throughout much of
the Hebrew Bible: in both cases, 'aheb and 'ahaba are used in a way
that is very one-sided. Second, in both cases, the party who is described
using the terms 'adhb or 'ahaba is typically the hierarchically superior
party in the relationship: the male partner in relationships between
members of the opposite sex; the parent in relationships between par-
ent and child; Yahweh in the relationship between the deity and Israel.
Again, let me be quite clear: this is not to say that the Bible conceives
of male-female, parent-child, and divine-human love as generally being
of a common type. Rather, the emotional love manifest in biblical
accounts of interpersonal interactions is to be distinguished in multi-
ple respects from the political love that characterizes the divine-human
covenant relationship. Nevertheless, the specific way in which the terms
'dheb and 'ahaba are construed in accounts of male-female relationships,
of parent-child relationships, and of the divine-human relationship does
seem well described by the two common qualities I have just rehearsed:
first, that male-female, parent-child, and divine-human love are con-
strued in a way that is very one-sided, and, second, that, in each of
these relationships, it is typically the hierarchically superior partner
who is characterized as "loving".
II
These two observations regarding the nature of biblical love can
help explain certain otherwise puzzling features in both the interper-
sonal relationship accounts and the divine-human covenant accounts.
For example, if, as my first presumption suggests, the concept of love
is so similarly construed as one-sided within accounts of male-female
and parent-child relationships, on the one hand, and within accounts
of the divine-human covenant relationship, on the other, then this
helps explain why the biblical authors can move so readily between
politically-based images of God as Israel's loving suzerain and inter-
personally-based images of God as Israel's loving husband or parent.
The prophet Hosea, in particular, seems to rely on the kindred natures
of covenantal and interpersonal love as he slips easily between vari-
ous descriptions of God as a lover. Thus, while the "love" Yahweh
promises to extend to Israel according to Hos. xiv 5 (English xiv 4)
seems very much the love of covenant fidelity (it stands in parallelism
with the concept of the people's loyalty), the "love" Yahweh gives to
448
SUSAN ACKERMAN
Israel according to iii 1 is that of a husband for a wife, whereas in xi
1 and 4 the description of God's "love" that is evoked is the love of
a parent for a child. A similar sort of slippage between the language
of political and interpersonal love is found in Ezekiel xvi, although
there the loving relationship described is construed negatively, as the
city Jerusalem stands accused of abandoning Yahweh in favor of other
"lovers" (Ezek. xvi 33, 36, and 37), who are identified in Ezek. xvi
26, 28, and 29 as the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Babylonians.
Because these are the three nations that, at various points during the
century preceding the exile, had claimed Judah as a vassal, we surely
are to understand the terms 'adhb/'ahadb as used in this passage as
having the covenantal connotations found in suzerain-vassal treaties.20
Yet because the text simultaneously condemns Jerusalem as a whore
for consorting with these nations and as an adulteress for abandoning
her husband Yahweh, we must also see this passage as dependent upon
an understanding of love rooted in the language of interpersonal rela-
tionships. The Assyrian "lovers" of Samaria described in Ezekiel xxiii
are likewise to be simultaneously understood both as that city's covenant
partners within the context of a suzerain-vassal treaty and her sexual
partners after whom she lusted (see especially xxiii 5).21 In the oracles
of Jeremiah, too, the prophet seems to slip readily between the lan-
guage of political and interpersonal love in describing Jerusalem's
"lovers" both as her covenantal allies-the Assyrians and Egyptians
with whom she has entered into treaties-and as the objects of her
sexual desire (Jer. ii 33-iii 5).22
My second presumption regarding the terms 'dheb and 'ahabd-that
they are typically ascribed only to the hierarchically superior partner
within male-female, parent-child, and divine-human relationships-sug-
gests, however, that, although prophets like Hosea, Ezekiel, andJeremiah
can readily slip from the imagery of covenantal to the imagery of inter-
personal love, there are certain constraints upon the roles the covenan-
tal/interpersonal lovers can be assigned. In Ezekiel xvi and xxiii, for
example, the nations of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, which hold the
covenantally superior position of loving suzerain, are likewise assigned
20 As pointed out by Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 476.
21 The covenantal connotations of "love" in Ezekiel xxiii are again, as in n. 20
above, discussed by Thompson, "Israel's lovers", pp. 476-477.
22 Once more, as in nn. 20 and 21 above, see Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 477,
for a discussion of the covenantal connotations of "love" in this text.
the interpersonally superior position of loving male in the descriptions
of their sexual relationships with the "whoring" cities ofJerusalem and
Samaria (Ezek. xvi 33, 36, 37; xxiii 5, 9, 22). Likewise in Jer. ii 33-
iii 5, it is Judah's covenantally superior suzerains, Assyria and Egypt,
that are described as the male (and thus interpersonally superior) lovers
of the female Jerusalem. This same pattern is also found in Jer. xxii
20, 22 and xxx 14, all of which refer to the woman Jerusalem's covenant
overlords as her male "lovers".23
Interestingly, however, there are three other passages in Jeremiah-
Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10-where the Israelites are referred to not
as the objects of the verb 'dheb, but as its subjects. Such a usage may
initially seem to contradict my thesis that 'dheb and 'ahabd should typ-
ically be ascribed only to Israel's covenant superiors, whether Yahweh,
as in Jer. xxxi 3, or the Assyrians and Egyptians, as in Jer. ii 33-iii
5; xxii 20, 22; and xxx 14. But I suggest the usage of 'dheb in Jer. ii
25; viii 2; and xiv 10 does not in fact contradict the thesis I have pro-
posed here. Crucial to consider in this regard is the object of Israel's
love in these verses. In Jer. ii 25 and viii 2, this object is clearly other
gods: habbe'dlim, or "the Baals", in Jer. ii 25, and kol sebd' hassadmayim,
"all the host of heaven", in Jer. viii 2.24 Jer. xiv 10 is less explicit,
speaking only of the Israelites as having "loved to wander", but since
it is Yahweh the people are said to have abandoned in this wander-
ing, and since their abandonment of Yahweh is described in terms of
"iniquity", "apostasy", and "sin" (xiv 7), it seems most likely that, as
in ii 25 and viii 2, the prophet intends to castigate the Israelites in
xiv 10 for straying from the worship of Yahweh in favor of the wor-
ship of other gods. But are these other gods to be understood as re-
placing Yahweh as Israel's suzerain within the divine-human covenant
relationship, which, according to my thesis, would require that they
be described as the subjects, rather than the objects, of the verb 'aheb?
Certainly for someone like Jeremiah, a zealous proponent of the wor-
ship of Yahweh alone, the answer to this question must be no. Indeed,
it could be argued that because Jeremiah seeks to belittle the worship
of other gods in any way possible, he deliberately chooses a gram-
matical construction-making these other gods the objects of 'aheb and
'ahdbd rather than the subjects-that signals the prophet's conviction
23 Note as well the related Lam. i 2, 19.
24 But, regarding Jer. ii 25, cf. Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 477.
449
SUSAN ACKERMAN
450
that these gods occupy a status position that is completely antithetical
to that which the suzerain Yahweh holds in relation to Israel. Yet
even if this last point over-interprets, I would nevertheless maintain
that my general claim with regard to the use of 'dheb and 'ahdbd holds
in Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10. As my thesis would expect, the objects
of the Israelites' love are certainly not imagined by Jeremiah as hold-
ing a position of hierarchical superiority within a divine-human covenant
relationship.
Even more interesting in this regard are three verses in Hosea in
which the Israelite community is also cast as the subject, and not as
the object, of the verb 'aheb: Hos. iii 1; ix 1; and ix 10. Again, this
may initially seem unexpected according to the terms of my thesis. It
is important to note in each of these cases, however, that, as in Jeremiah,
the objects of Israel's love are other gods or things connected with the
worship of other gods: "raisin cakes", according to Hos. iii 1; the wages
of prostitution earned through the worship of other gods, according
to Hos. ix 1; and the god Baal (the "thing of shame" worshipped at
Baal-peor), according to Hos. ix 10. Hosea, that is, seems to embrace
in these verses exactly the same principle regarding 'dheb and 'ahdbd
that Jeremiah does in Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10 and that my the-
sis would predict: that these other gods can be cast as the objects of
the Israelite community's love because they do not, in Hosea's opin-
ion, hold a position of hierarchical superiority within a divine-human
covenant relationship.
Indeed, Hosea seems so committed to embracing this principle con-
cerning these other gods' lack of hierarchical superiority that he adopts
it even when it introduces some very awkward metaphorical con-
structions into his text. In Hos. iii 1, for example, Yahweh commands
the prophet to take for himself an adulterous woman in order to rep-
resent symbolically the way Yahweh has extended his love to Israel,
even though the Israelites, like Hosea's lover-to-be, are adulterous and
"turn to other gods and are lovers ('ohdbe) of raisin cakes". According
to the terms of this metaphor, the prophet, like Yahweh, is under-
stood as male; the prophet's lover-to-be, obviously, is understood as
female. Were the metaphor to hold, we would expect the adulterous
Israelites to be imagined as female as well. But these cake-loving
Israelites are in fact rendered in the text as male. Why does Hosea
adopt this imagery? Certainly the reason cannot be that Hosea is inca-
pable of imagining the Israelites as female, given that all the oracles
within which Hos. iii 1 is embedded (Hos. i 2-iii 5) depend on an
understanding of Israel as Yahweh's wife. Rather, I suggest that Hosea
unexpectedly imagines the Israelites as male in iii 1 because Hosea's
understanding of the terms 'dheb and 'ahdba tells him that, within the
context of sexualized relationships (which is certainly the context in iii
1), the partner who is described as "loving" (i.e., the cake-loving
Israelites) must also be described as the hierarchically superior mem-
ber of the partnership, that is, as the male. Because he is driven by
this principle, Hosea sacrifices the integrity of his metaphor. Likewise
in Hos. ix 1, which depends on a metaphor that compares Israel to
a prostitute, we might well have expected the prophet to depict Israel
as female. But again, this expected gendering of Israel as female is
lacking, even though the metaphorical construction that results is some-
what bizarre. To explain, I would once more suggest that, as in iii 1,
Hosea is driven by a grammatical understanding that typically assigns
'aheb and 'ahdbd only to the male partner in descriptions of sexual rela-
tionships (and, as in iii 1, the context in ix 1 is clearly sexual). Thus
Hosea sacrifices a certain metaphorical integrity (envisioning the pros-
titute Israel as female) in favor of the principles regarding 'aheb and
'ahabd that my thesis would predict.
Note, moreover, that when Hosea does describe the Israelite com-
munity as female, especially in Hos. ii 4-22 (English ii 2-20), he seems
again committed to the grammatical understanding that typically assigns
'dheb and 'ahabd only to the male partner within sexual relationships.
He thus always characterizes the female Israel of ii 4-22 as the object,
not the subject of '"heb and 'ahdba, and this even though the lovers of
Israel who are mentioned throughout this passage (ii 7, 9, 12, 14, and
15 [English ii 5, 7, 10, 12, and 13]) are Baal and the other gods who
elsewhere in Hosea, and also in Jeremiah, are characterized as the
objects, not the subjects of the Israelites' 'aheb and 'ahdbd. Indeed,
Hosea himself, in ix 10, characterizes Baal (the "thing of shame" wor-
shipped at Baal-peor) as the object of the Israelites' love in a passage
that depicts Israel as male. To me, this is yet more evidence of how
important gender constraints are to Hosea when he uses 'aheb and
'ahdbd to describe sexualized relationships: a male Israel can be described,
as in iii 1; ix 1; and ix 10, as loving other gods, but a female Israel
can be described only as the object of other gods' love, even when,
as in ii 4-22 and in ix 10, it is the same other god-Baal-in question.
Note, finally, regarding Hosea, how rigorously the prophet main-
tains the descriptions of Yahweh as lover my thesis would expect,
describing the hierarchically superior deity always as the subject of
451
SUSAN ACKERMAN
452
'aheb/'ahabd, whether Yahweh is being depicted as the hierarchically
superior and thus loving suzerain within the context of political covenant
(Hos. xiv 5 [English xiv 4]), or as the hierarchically superior and thus
loving husband within the context of a marital relationship (Hos. iii
1), or as the hierarchically superior and thus loving father within the
context of a parent-child relationship (Hos. xi 1, 4). Never, though, is
the loving Yahweh depicted as the hierarchically inferior vassal, wife,
or child, nor is Yahweh ever depicted as the object of an inferior's
love. Interestingly enough, however, the biblical tradition elsewhere
can imagine Yahweh not as father, but as mother to Israel's child,
presumably because, within the context of a parent-child relationship,
"mother" still holds a hierarchically superior position.25 This observa-
tion also helps explain why mothers can be said to love their children
in the Bible's accounts of interpersonal relationship (because parents
are in a hierarchically superior position to children), but why wives
can never be said to love their husbands, nor women in general their
male sexual partners (because in relationships between adults, women
are in a hierarchically inferior position to men).
Yet what of the one narrative account in the Bible in which a
woman is said to love a man, 1 Samuel xviii, where Michal is twice
said to love David (verses 20 and 28)?26 Crucial to recognize here is
the position of status Michal holds at this point in the text in com-
parison to David. She is the king's daughter, while he is a shepherd
boy who has only recently entered into Saul's service and whose fame
is just beginning to grow. He is thus her social inferior, a fact which
the text signals repeatedly. In xviii 23, for example, David turns away
the offer of marriage to Michal that is brought by Saul's servants
because, "I am poor and of little account" (see similarly 1 Sam. xviii
25 See, for example, Num. xi 12; Deut. xxxii 18; Job xxxviii 8, 29; Isa. xlv 9-10;
xlvi 3-4; xlix 15; lxvi 13. For the most recent discussion (with bibliography), see C.
Meyers, "Female Images of God in the Hebrew Bible", Women in Scripture: A Dictionary
of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and
the New Testament (ed. C. Meyers, with T. Craven and R. S. Kraemer; Boston, 2000),
pp. 525-528.
26 In her 1983 Michigan Quarterly Review article "Loyalty and Love", Sakenfeld sug-
gests that Michal's love for David is, like the love expressed by Saul's servants, by
Jonathan, and by all Israel and Judah, the love of covenant loyalty and fidelity, this
because of Sakenfeld's assumption that "Michal loved David before she even met him
personally" (p. 200). But there is little textual basis to support this reading, and in her
1992 entry "Love (OT)", in ABD 4 (ed. D. H. Freedman; New York, 1992), Sakenfeld,
correctly in my opinion, classifies the love of Michal for David as "the attraction of
one person to another of the opposite sex" (p. 376a).
18). When Saul, however, sets a marriage price for Michal that David
feels he can afford, David readily sets forth to attain the requisite one
hundred Philistine foreskins, finding himself "well-pleased" with the
idea that he might marry Michal (xviii 26). Yet this is not because
David reciprocated Michal's affections for him, as the stories of their
interactions in the rest of the Samuel account make clear. Rather,
David's goal was to further his monarchical ambitions through such a
status-enhancing marriage, and this is my point here: that it is Michal's
enhanced status in relationship to David's that puts her in a position
to "love". In this text at least, class trumps gender, and so the hier-
archically superior position associated with 'aheb/'ahaba can be assigned
to the woman. It may similarly be that the reason Ruth can be described
as "loving" Naomi in Ruth iv 15, despite the fact that Ruth holds the
normally status-inferior position of a child (daughter-in-law) in rela-
tionship to Naomi's status-superior position as parent (mother-in-law),
is because Ruth has, in iv 13, married and given birth to a son whereas
Naomi remains a childless widow and thus a woman who occupies a
very marginal position in the Israelite social order. In Ruth iv 15, that
is, the status that comes with marriage and motherhood may trump
the status that comes with age, so that the younger Ruth, because she
has acquired the status-enhancing assets of husband and son, can
assume the hierarchically superior position associated with 'dheb/'ahabd
that would otherwise belong to Naomi.
Such a position of hierarchical superiority within interpersonal rela-
tionships, however, can give rise to occasions where the superior asserts
his or her dominance, through force or through some other exercise
of power. In the Bible, while such incidents are rare, they do occur,
and this observation helps explain one last aspect of how the terms
'dheb/'ahabd can be used in biblical literature: the use of 'dheb and
'ahdba within stories of rape. The story of Amnon's rape of Tamar in
2 Samuel xiii is particularly telling in this regard. Three different times
in that account, Amnon is said to have loved Tamar: in verse 1, in
the lines of the narrative that introduce Amnon and Tamar and describe
his feelings for her; in verse 4, where Amnon confesses his passion to
his confidant and co-conspirator Jonadab; and in verse 15, when, after
the rape, Amnon's feelings are said to turn from love to hate. As com-
mentators have often noted, the text's use of "love" in all three of
these instances jars our modern sensibilities, for we can see nothing
of caring or affection in Amnon, neither in his duplicitous acts that
bring Tamar into his bed-chamber nor in his forcing her to lie with
453
454
SUSAN ACKERMAN
him against her will. Indeed, some commentators have found the use
of "love" to be so jarring in this passage that they refuse to understand
the terms 'aheb/'aha'ba as having their usual meaning here. Phyllis
Trible, for example, renders the terms as "desire" in each of the three
verses where they are used, to indicate that throughout the passage,
Amnon was driven by "lust, not love".27 Likewise, Danna Nolan Fewell
and D. M. Gunn understand that Amnon's protestations of love are
"merely lust",28 and W. H. Propp describes Amnon as "lust-crazed".29
But if we understand 'aheb and 'aha'ba to have the connotations that
we have uncovered in this essay, then we can see why the biblical
authors might find it appropriate to use these terms in 2 Samuel xiii.
More specifically, if we understand that 'aheb and 'ahabad typically con-
note a position of hierarchical superiority, and that they thus can con-
note a position of dominance, then we can see why the biblical authors
might find it appropriate to use these terms in a story that describes
a crime of domination. Indeed, the fact that the biblical authors thrice
evoke the terms 'aheb and 'ahabd, and thrice evoke them in lieu of
alternate terms that refer to sexual desire,30 must suggest that these nar-
rators found the use of 'dheb and 'ahabd to be appropriate. Yet to say
that the story's narrators found the use of 'aheb and 'ahdbd to be appro-
priate is not to say these narrators condone Amnon's actions, as the
tenor of the rest of the story makes clear. Rather, 'aheb and 'ahdba
seem used subtly and almost ironically to suggest the narrators' con-
demnation. Thus, while the narrators' description of Amnon's "loving"
does seem to signal their understanding that Amnon holds a hier-
archically superior and even dominant position in his relationship with
Tamar (because he is a male in relationship to a female and also
because he is the king's heir), these narrators nevertheless indicate
throughout the story that to hold this dominant position is not a license
to dominate, to abuse a position of power through, say, the wanton use
of force. Indeed, while one would hardly call the Bible a feminist text,
27 "Tamar: The Royal Rape of Wisdom", in Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings
of Biblical Narratives (OBT 13; Philadelphia, 1984), p. 47; see also Trible's comments
on p. 46, "Amnon cares not at all for his sister. He acts against her will to pursue his
lust".
28 "Tipping the Balance: Stemberg's Reader and the Rape of Dinah", JBL 110
(1991), p. 196, n. 3.
29 W. H. Propp, "Kinship in 2 Samuel 13", CBQ 55 (1993), p. 39.
30 I think, for example, of hsq, especially as it is used in Deut. xxi 11, where the
Israelites' "desire" (hsq) for captive women is driven by their beauty, the same moti-
vation that seems to drive Amnon in 2 Sam. xiii 1.
the critique it offers of violence masquerading as love in 2 Samuel xiii
anticipates in some sense the modern feminist critique of those who
misconstrue rape as an act of passion rather than a crime of power.31
The story of Shechem and Dinah in Genesis xxxiv also uses the
terms 'dheb and 'ahaba in conjunction with rape, although again in a
way that has disturbed and stymied commentators. The problem stems
from what appears to be a discordant juxtaposition of the description
of the rape and the professions of affection that immediately follow
(xxxiv 2-3):
And Shechem, son of Hamor, the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her, and
took her, and laid her, and raped her (way'annehd). And his soul clung to
Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved (wayye'ehab) the young woman,
and he spoke to the young woman's heart.
For some, the solution to this apparent discord is to deny that the
original intercourse was a rape. Lyn M. Bechtel, for example, argues
that the verb commonly rendered "he raped her" in xxxiv 2, way'an-
neha, should actually be translated more literally as "he humiliated
her", meaning that Shechem had intercourse with Dinah outside of a
sanctioned marital relationship and even outside the prospect of a sanc-
tioned relationship (given that Shechem was not an Israelite and, so,
presumably not an acceptable marital partner for Dinah).32 But, Bechtel
argues, since there is no mention of force and no mention of Dinah
objecting (in contrast, say, to the objections Tamar voices in 2 Samuel
xiii), and also since there is no mention of rape later in the story,
"there is no indication that Dinah is raped".33 N. Wyatt, too, resists
seeing Shechem's taking of Dinah as a rape, arguing that because there
is no indication that force was used and no indication that the sex
was non-consentual, we should repoint the Piel 'innd, "to humiliate (sex-
ually)" as a Qal and understand it as meaning "to respond (sexually)",
with no connotation of coercion.34 Hence there are no obstacles to
Shechem's subsequent professions of love. Most scholars, however, do
31 Although now twenty-five years old, the classic presentation remains S. Brownmiller,
Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (New York, 1975).
32 "What if Dinah is not Raped? (Genesis 34)," JSOT 62 (1994), pp. 19-36.
33 "What if Dinah is not Raped?" p. 31.
34 "The Story of Dinah and Shechem", UF 22 (1991), pp. 435-436. For further dis-
cussion of the meaning of 'innd in Gen. xxxiv 2, see T. Frymer-Kensky, "Law and
Philosophy: The Case of Sex in the Bible", Semeia 45 (1989), p. 100, n. 9; A. A. Keefe,
"Rapes of Women/Wars of Men", Semeia 61 (1993), p. 81.
455
456
SUSAN ACKERMAN
see Shechem as a rapist whose uttering of compassionate avowals sub-
sequent to an act of violation needs to be explained. According to
some, his words imply a "change of heart".35 Fewell and Gunn, for ex-
ample, believe that Shechem now seeks to act honorably and to make
restitution for his crime.36 Others, however, see Shechem's proclaimed
affections as insincere. Thus S. A. West argues that "the sentiments
expressed were probably rooted in sexual lust, rather than true love
for Dinah".37 Still others chart a middle ground, including M. Sternberg,
who sees Shechem's expressions of love as sincere yet does not believe
they "quite counterpoise, still less cancel out" the description of the
rape.38 While there is "the replacement of violent behavior by violent
emotion," violence, Sternberg implies, still remains.39
Sternberg's understanding of these lines is perhaps closest to my
own, although I would differ regarding the specifics of interpretation.
In particular, I would urge that we understand that the "love" that
Shechem is said to manifest after the rape has implicit within it the
connotations of hierarchical superiority and even dominance this essay
has uncovered. If this is so, then we need follow neither Bechtel and
Wyatt in explaining away the rape, nor those scholars who try to jus-
tify or to discount Shechem's apparent change of heart. Rather, we
can see that the seemingly discordant juxtaposition of rape and love
is not necessarily so discordant after all. In fact, the juxtaposition,
which is now to be understood as a juxtaposition between a crime of
domination and a relationship described by a term connoting domi-
nance, seems almost appropriate. Almost appropriate, I stress, for in
the same way that 'dhgb and 'ahaba were used subtly and even ironi-
cally in the Amnon-Tamar account, so too is there a subtle and even
ironic construing of love in Genesis xxxiv. On the one hand, as I have
just argued, the "dominant" connotations of love, and the dangerous
tendency of dominance to lead to domination, are stressed. Yet, on
the other hand, the verb "to love" in Genesis xxxiv is located between
two other expressions that connote affection (wattidbaq napso bedMnah and
35 This phrase comes from S. P. Jeansonne, "Dinah", in The Women of Genesis: From
Sarah to Potiphar's Wife (Minneapolis, 1990), p. 91.
36 "Tipping the Balance", p. 197.
37 "The Rape of Dinah and the Conquest of Shechem," Dor le Dor 8 (1979), p. 148.
38 The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington,
1985), p. 447.
39 Poetics, p. 447.
457
waydabber 'al-lgb hanna'dra), and these expressions ("his soul was drawn
to Dinah" and "he spoke tenderly to the girl") do indicate affection
without implications of power. By positioning "love" in such a way,
Genesis xxxiv evokes, alongside its images of love's potential to abuse,
the sense of 'dheb and 'ahdba as terms implying genuine attachment
and sympathetic understanding. There is, in short, an ambiguity embed-
ded in the use of the term "love" in Genesis xxxiv, which is perhaps
only appropriate for a story that overall has been described as one of
"unresolved ambiguity".40
Indeed, as we have now seen, "love" as it is used throughout the
Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts and the accounts of the
divine-human relationship is a concept tinged with ambiguity and a
certain fluidity of meaning. Thus, Deuteronomy's politically-based con-
ception of divine-human love can give way, in texts like Hosea, Ezekiel,
and Jeremiah, to images of God's affectionate love that otherwise are
more typically found in the stories of men's relationships with women
and parents' relationships with their children. At the same time, how-
ever, the Bible's accounts of male-female and parent-child relationships,
although frequently suggesting mutual affection, rigorously maintain a
one-sided pattern of use for the terms 'dheb and 'ahdbd, which reflects
the hierarchical construing of love that more typically characterizes
Israel's suzerain-vassal covenant relationship with Yahweh. "The per-
sonal is political", claims the great Women's Liberation slogan of the
1970's. Through its overlapping characterizations of covenantal and
affectionate love, the Bible (while again hardly to be described as a
feminist text) seems to intimate that it agrees.
Abstract
This paper explores points of connection between texts describing Yahweh's covenan-
tal love for Israel and texts concerning the interpersonal loving relationships of men
and women and parents and children. Although these covenantal and interpersonal
relationships are to be distinguished in many ways, they do hold certain features in
common: both are construed in a way that is very one-sided, and, in both, it is typically
40 Jeansonne, Women of Genesis, p. 97; see further the extensive discussion of "ambi-
guity" in Genesis xxxiv that was begun by Stemberg, in Poetics, pp. 441-481, and then
was responded to by Fewell and Gunn, in "Tipping the Balance", pp. 193-211; by Stem-
berg, in "Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counterreading", JBL
111 (1992), pp. 463-488; and by P. Noble, in "A 'Balanced' Reading of the Rape of
Dinah: Some Exegetical and Methodological Observations", Biblnt 4 (1996), pp. 173-
204.
458 SUSAN ACKERMAN
the hierarchically superior partner who is characterized as "loving". Understanding
these principles helps explain the way the terms 'aheb and 'ahdbd are used in some oth-
erwise enigmatic passages: (1) texts from Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah that speak of
other nations or other gods as Israel's "lovers"; (2) 1 Samuel xviii and its descriptions
of Michal's love for David; and (3) Genesis xxxiv and 2 Samuel xiii, which discon-
certingly use the language of love in conjunction with the act of rape.

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The Personal Is Political: Covenantal and Affectionate Love ('hb, 'ahb) in the Hebrew

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL:

COVENANTAL AND AFFECTIONATE LOVE

('AHEB, 'AHABA) IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

Hanover, United States

In 1963, William L. Moran published an influential article on the

love of God in the book of Deuteronomy, in which he proposed that

Deuteronomy's understanding of love ('dheb, 'ahabd) is not at all our

modern notion, which defines love in terms of a tender psychological

feeling; a strong personal attachment; a sympathetic understanding; a

deep, natural, and genuine affection.' Rather, according to Moran,

love in Deuteronomy is a concept grounded in political language. More

specifically, Moran argued that the love of God in Deuteronomy-(1)

which is something that can be commanded, (2) which stands intimately

in terms of loyalty, service, and unqualified obedience to the demands

concept of covenant in general and, in particular, in the covenant

demands of fealty and devotion that ancient Near Eastern suzerains

imnposed upon their vassals. Indeed, Moran substantiated his argument

by listing numerous specific parallels between the language of love as

found in ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal treaties and as found in

Deuteronomic texts describing Yahweh's relationship with Israel.

Moran further buttressed his conclusions by identifying at least three

narrative passages from the Deuteronomistic History that, although

concerned with relationships between human beings rather than the

divine-human relationship, nevertheless seemed to him to depend on

the same understanding of love as an obligation of covenant: first,

1 Kgs. v 15 (English v 1), where Hiram of Tyre is said to have been

CBQ25 (1963), pp. 77-87.

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002

Vetus Testamentum LII, 4

Also available online - www.brill.nl

based on J. Bright's interpretation of 2 Sam. v 11, that David and

Hiram were in a treaty relationship with one another; second, 2 Sam.

('ohabeka)", that is, according to Moran, those "servants" (xix 6; English

offered David their allegiance as he worked to secure his monarchi-

love between David and Jonathan that is described in 1 Sam. xviii 1,

3, and again in 1 Sam. xx 17 and 2 Sam. i 26,2 was a love "sealed"

with each other in 1 Sam. xviii 3; xx 16; and xxiii 18.3

Although not everyone has been convinced,4 the vast majority of

commentators who have considered the biblical concept of love sub-

sequent to Moran have accepted his conclusions and, consequently,

have primarily focused their attention upon refining Moran's thesis.5

For example, both J. A. Thompson, writing in 1974, and Katharine

Doob Sakenfeld, writing in 1983, elaborated upon Moran's passing

observation regarding the covenantal connotations implicit within the

love of David and Jonathan.6 Thompson further, in a 1977 article,

is the one sworn by Jonathan in 1 Sam. xx 12-13. See further P. K. McCarter, I

Samuel (AB 8; Garden City, NY, 1980), p. 337.

erence brought to my attention by E. J. Adler, "The Background for the Metaphor of

Covenant as Marriage in the Hebrew Bible" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University

of California at Berkeley, 1989), pp. 75-77.

"The verb love--aheb in the David Jonathan narratives-A footnote", VT 25 (1975),

pp. 213-214; D. J. McCarthy, "Notes on the Love of God in Deuteronomy and on

"Man's love for God in Deuteronomy and the father/teacher-son/pupil relationship",

6 J. A. Thompson, "The significance of the verb love in the David-Jonathan narra-

tives in 1 Samuel", VT 24 (1974), pp. 334-338; K. D. Sakenfeld, "Loyalty and Love:

LOVE IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

guage of love appears to imply the concept of covenant fealty,7 sug-

Deut. xv 12-18 who choose to stay bound to their masters out of

"love" probably are motivated less by feelings of genuine attachment

tages that are a part of the master-slave covenantal relationship (mate-

rial advantages, according to Deut. xv 16, and advantages concerning

descriptions of Abraham as the "lover" ('oheb) of Yahweh in Isa. xli 8