Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
361
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
Andrew Mein
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay,
Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
Ideological Map
Constructing Biblical Israel's Identity
F.V. Greifenhagen
ISBN 0-8264-6211-1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
vii
ix
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 2
EGYPT IN GENESIS
24
Chapter 3
EGYPT IN EXODUS
46
Chapter 4
158
Chapter 5
206
Chapter 6
225
Chapter 7
256
Appendix:
272
Bibliography
Index of References
Index of Authors
277
307
321
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is a revised version of my dissertation, 'Egypt in the Symbolic
Geography of the Pentateuch: Constructing Biblical Israel's Identity'
(Duke University, Durham, NC), completed in the summer of 1998. Parts
of the dissertation have been extensively rewritten or reorganized. However, with the exception of a few additional references, the material has
not been updated.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people who in various ways made
this study possible. Teachers and mentors at the University of Manitoba,
and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary and Graduate Theological Union
in Saskatoon, especially William Klassen, Erwin Buck, Roger Uitti,
Terence Donaldson, Michael Poellet and David Jobling, sparked and
nourished my interest in biblical studies and provided encouragement on
the way. My doctoral advisor, James L. Crenshaw provided gentle guidance, unfailing support, and an exemplary model of engaged scholarship.
Other faculty at Duke University, especially Bruce Lawrence, Carol
Meyers, Eric Meyers, Melvin Peters, Regina Schwartz and Orville Wintermute, contributed in various ways to this project and to my development as
a scholar, and Gay Trotter, secretary of the graduate program in religion,
expedited many matters. Special thanks are due to many classmates,
especially Karla Bohmbach, Ann Burlein, Charles Carter, Sandra Gravett,
Barry Jones, Raymond Person, and Donald Polaski, for their gracious
friendship, collegiality and support.
It was difficult to continue to research and write my dissertation,
and then to revise it for publication, while carrying a full teaching and
administrative load. My sincere appreciation to my employer Luther
College, and its faculty and staff, for providing as congenial and supportive an environment as possible, with special thanks to the academic dean,
Bryan Hillis, for his friendship and exceptional encouragement. Also
thanks to Brian Sveinson for helping to put things into perspective, to
Leona Anderson and William Stahl for coming to the rescue in the midst
of computer problems, and to Marion Lake and the staff at inter-library
loans at the University of Regina.
viii
ABBREVIATIONS
AB
ABD
AfO
AJSL
ANET3
BA
BARev
BASOR
BDB
BHS
Biblnt
BN
BZ
BZAW
CAH
CBQ
CD
CRBS
DBAT
DJD
EvT
GKC
HBD
HOTTP
HTR
Anchor Bible
David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary
(New York: Doubleday, 1992)
Archivfur Orientforschung
American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures
James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating
to the Old Testament (3rd edn with supplement; Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1969)
Biblical Archaeologist
Biblical A rchaeology Review
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs,
A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1907)
Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (4th rev. ed., 1990)
Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary
Approaches
Biblische Notizen
Biblische Zeitschrift
Beihefte zur ZA W
Cambridge Ancient History
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Codex Damascus/Damascus Document
Currents in Research: Biblical Studies
Dielheimer Blatter zum Alten Testament und seiner Rezeption
in der Alten Kirche
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
Evangelische Theologie
Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and
trans. A.E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910)
PJ. Achtemaier et al. (eds.), Harper's Bible Dictionary (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985)
Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament
Text Project. I. Pentateuch (New York: United Bible
Societies, 2nd rev. edn, 1979).
Harvard Theological Review
x
HUCA
IBC
IDB
IDBSup
IEJ
JANESCU
JAOS
JBL
JEA
JJS
JNES
JSJ
JSOT
JSOTSup
LXX
MT
NIB
NICOT
NJPS
NRSV
OBO
OrAnt
OTG
OTL
DTP
OTS
PEQ
RB
REB
ResQ
RevQ
SBL
SBLDS
SBLMS
SJOT
SP
ST
S WB A
Abbreviations
TDOT
Th WAT
TTod
TU
TynBul
UF
VT
VTSup
WBC
ZAH
ZA W
xi
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
The Old Testament is full of the shadows cast by Pharaoh's sun, and the
resulta mixture of admiration, distrust, envy and emulation, often at the
same timeshows through its pages, from the nostalgia of the Children of
Israel in Sinai to the denunciations of Ezekiel and Jeremiah (Ray 1995:17).
These shadows are particularly long in the Pentateuch, which contains over
half of the explicit references to 'Egypt' (cnUQ) or 'Egyptian' (nUD) in
the Hebrew Bible.1 Evidently, at least on the basis of vocabulary, Egypt
appears as an especially important topos in the Pentateuch. The purpose of
this work is to explore this topos and to inquire as to its particular
significance in the ideology embodied in the rhetoric of the Pentateuch.
Egypt as Place
At first glance, the significance of Egypt in the Pentateuch seems obvious.
Egypt is a place in the northeast corner of the African continent with
a distinct people, history, culture and literature. It is to this Egypta
determinable and distinct ancient geographic, cultural and historic entity
that can be translated into a spatial referent on a mapthat the term
'Egypt' in the Pentateuch, or in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, is generally assumed to refer.2 But this assumption itself has a history, beginning
1. A total of 376 times, constituting 53% of the 711 explicit references to 'Egypt'
(D'HUD) or 'Egyptian' (HUD) in the Hebrew Bible. The density of these references in
the Pentateuch is 0.47 occurrences per 100 words, over twice the average density in the
Hebrew Bible as a whole. Similarly, over half the occurrences in the Hebrew Bible of
related terms, such as 'Pharaoh' (niHS) or 'Nile' ("IN"1), are found in the Pentateuch,
with two to three times the average density of these words elsewhere in the Hebrew
Bible. See Table 1 in the Appendix.
2. This geographical reification of the Egypt of the Bible is evident, for example,
in the standard Bible dictionaries, which, in their entries, present Egypt as first and
foremost a geographically locatable and limitable entity (e.g. Huffmon 1985; Plumley
1993; and the various articles on Egypt \nABD II: 321-412). An exception is the article
by Philip S. Alexander, under the heading' Geography and the Bible', on 'Early Jewish
Geography' ABDII: 977-88, which includes an awareness of mental maps; i.e. maps
that exist in the consciousness of individuals, groups or cultures.
3. Examples include Georg Ebers' Aegypten und die Biicher Moses. Sachlicher
Commentarzu den aegyptischen Stellen in Genesis und Exodus (1868) and Wilhelm
Spiegelberg's Agyptische Randglossen zum Alien Testament (1904). For a comprehensive account of this history, see Engel (1979). I am indebted to Engel's book for the
broad framework of the history of research concerning Egypt and the Bible.
4. For example, Feet's judgment on the portrayal of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible is
that 'It is all the sort of vague general knowledge which any ancient tourist spending a
few weeks in Egypt at almost any date after about 1600 BC might have acquired from
his dragoman' (1922: 93).
5. A very early example is E. W. Hengstenberg's Die Biicher Mose 's undAgypten
nebst einer Beilage Manetho und die Hyksos (1841), translated into English as Egypt
and the Books of Moses or The Books of Moses Illustrated by the Monuments of Egypt
(1845). In this century, see especially A.S. Yahuda, The Accuracy of the Bible: The
Stories of Joseph, the Exodus and Genesis Confirmed and Illustrated by Egyptian
Monuments and Language (1934).
1. Introduction
6.
See Williams (1971, 1975), Talmon (1983), Redford (1985), and Kitchen
(1988) for convenient summaries.
7. The term 'ancient Israel' is deliberately used, in the sense suggested by P.R.
Davies (1992), to designate the scholarly amalgam of the Israel found in the biblical
texts and the historical Israel that can be reconstructed from contemporaneous archaeological and textual evidence.
8. For example, Vergote( 1985,1959) and Kitchen (1973,1966) argue that details
of the Joseph story indicate accurate knowledge of Egyptian custom and environment.
For a more nuanced view, see Humphreys (1988: 154-75).
9. There are many examples, among them Stiebing (1989see especially pp. 19799) and Bright (1981see especially p. 120).
10. On the Late Bronze Age Egyptian empire in Palestine, see Weinstein (1981)
and Na'aman (1981). While Redford (1992a) claims that the emergence of Israel in the
highlands occurred without any essential contact with Egypt, Coote (1990) equates the
appearance of Israel with a tribal military force in the lowlands that acted as a proxy of
Egypt. On the problems of interpreting the so-called 'Israel Stela' of Pharaoh Merneptah (ANET3), which describes some level of contact between Egypt and an entity
called Israel in the 13th century BCE, see the comprehensive analysis by Hasel (1994).
11. Possible Israelite or Canaanite influences on Egypt in these areas have been
explored to a lesser extent. For the unconventional view that the Nile delta was part of
ancient Canaan, see Nibbi (1988).
12. See especially Gorg, who sees Egyptian influence on the architecture of Solomon' s temple (1981 b, 1985a, 1991), on the priestly classification system evident in the
first creation story (1984b), on the Azazel ritual (1986a), and on the etymology of HOB
(1988), among many other suggestions. According to Gorg, these influences supposedly
emerged due to the close relationship between Egypt and Israel during the Solomonic
era, signified by Solomon's marriage to a daughter of the Pharaoh. On this possibility,
see also Bryce( 1979).
13. For example, the Egyptian idea of the sun god has been seen in the Hebrew
Bible (Dion 1991; Rendsburg 1988); see also the debate between Taylor (1996) and
Wiggins (1996, 1997) on the possibility that YHWH was seen as a solar deity.
14. Giveon (1978) points out the near absence of polemic against Egyptian religion
in the prophets and yet the frequent portrayal of Egyptian gods on imported and locally
made seals found in Palestine. Furthermore, there is very little evidence of Egyptian
temples in Palestine, even during the period of Egyptian imperial control in the Late
Bronze Age (although Barkay [ 1996] claims to have found evidence for a Late Bronze
Age Egyptian temple in Jerusalem).
15. Gorg finds Egyptian derivations for names such as Goliath (1986c), Sabaoth
(198 5b), Tahpenes/Genbath (1987a), Nehushtan (1981 a), and Ahuzzath/Phicol (1986d),
among others. Egyptian connections have also been posited for the biblical terms 'righteousness' plH (Shirun-Grumach 1985) and 'magicians' DQQ~in (Quaegebeur 1985),
and for the biblical concept of the heart (Shupak 1985).
16. 'Hebrew and Egyptian wisdom literature from the late New Kingdom onwards
can be shown, ceteris paribus, to share a similar vocabulary, and even to be constructed on parallel lines' (Ray 1995: 24, referring to Shupak 1993).
1. Introduction
but relationships are also posited in the genres of hymns and songs, and in
political propaganda.17
Egypt as Place: Critique
Thanks to these studies of the historical, societal and literary connections
between ancient Israel and Egypt, scholars have claimed to be able to flesh
out in more detail the 'Egypt' to which the Pentateuch points but which it
rarely describes. In the process, it is assumed that the term 'Egypt' in the
Hebrew Bible is a simple geographic reference, one that can be translated
unproblematically into a spatial referent on a modern map.18 This assumption reflects the concerns of biblical geography, which seeks to identify
actual locations, roads, regions and political boundaries by correlating the
Bible with the data of archaeology and other ancient documents.19
However, is the Egypt that emerges from such studies the Egypt of the
Pentateuch? Let us take a specific example. It has often been asked whether
the installation of Joseph to a high leadership position in Egypt described in
Gen. 41 matches actual ancient Egyptian practice. Some answer affirmatively, pointing to parallels from the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties
(e.g. Vergote 1959,1985;Kitchen 1966,1973); others find more compelling
parallels in later Assyrian examples of investiture (e.g. Redford 1970). But
should the primary question be whether the ancient Near Eastern sources
support the historical authenticity of the ceremony described in the biblical
text?20 W.L. Humphreys (1988), for instance, concluded that the ceremony
17. Particularly striking examples include the Wisdom of Amenemope and its
relationship to Prov. 22.17-24.22 (Ruffle 1977), the Hymn to the Aten and Ps. 104
(Tobin 1985), and Egyptian lyric poetry and the Song of Songs (Fox 1985). For recent
translations and discussions of these Egyptian parallels, see Hallo (1997). However,
the affinity between the Joseph narrative and Egyptian wisdom-literature (von Rad
1966a) has been largely demolished by the critiques of Crenshaw (1969), Redford
(1970) and Whybray (1974), G.W. Coats (1973), however, claims to have salvaged a
wisdom influenced core in the Joseph story, originating, he thinks, in the Solomonic
period or even in Egyptian circles prior to Solomon.
18. SeeSoja(1971:9-ll)onthe modern Western bias of rigidly and geometrically
defined territorial 'property' (epitomized by the nation-state) which affects readings of
the geography and spatial organization of ancient and non-Western societies.
19. E.g. G.A. Smith (1931), Holscher (1949), Simons (1959), Baly (1974, 1979),
Avi-Yonah (1977), Aharoni (1979), G.I. Davies (1979), Kallai (1986), Brown and
North (1990). A convenient overview is found in Ben-Arieh (1982).
20. Westermann suggests that too much can be made of parallels, since 'the rites
1. Introduction
Cognitive Maps
To understand what 'Egypt' in the Pentateuch is or might be from the
perspective of the Pentateuch's rhetoric and ideology, the notion from
human geography24 of'cognitive maps' or 'mental maps' is useful. Such
maps consist of the ideas of space that one carries in one's head, so to
speak, somewhat accurate regarding the known territory in which the one
lives, but becoming increasingly fuzzier as one moves away from this
known space.25 Cognitive maps are the product of a selective perception
which actively excludes, augments, distorts and schematizes in the service
of a variety of purposes such as identity and preference.26 They 'include
notions of preference as well as vague ideas and value judgements about
places that speakers and authors have never seen' (Michalowski 1986:
131). Such maps exist not only as purely mental constructsthey also
appear inscribed in literature, media, artifacts of popular culture, and so on.
Geographers have explored people's cognitive maps by asking them to
literally draw mapsof their neighbourhood or even of the world.
Invariably, such maps place a more detailed and disproportionately large
depiction of the person's own familiar lived space in the center; around
this center the map becomes increasingly distorted (in relation to 'real'
geographical space) by notions of preference and alienness, by stereotypes
and so on, that are more informative of the person's own concerns and
situation (often bound by class and ethnicity) than of what is actually out
nature of various biblical toponyms, such as the four rivers ofParadise (1977b, 1987b),
Ophir and Tarshish (1981c), and Uz (1980)often finding Egyptian connections.
Other examples are found in Blok (1996), Lemche (1991), Frye (1990, 1982),
Josipovici (1988), Cohn (1981), and Brueggemann (1977).
24. Human geography takes seriously the largely subjective geographic ideas, and
their effects, of all kinds of peoplewhether those ideas are true or false. See Wright
(1947).
25. 'Often "mental maps" consist of fuzzy conceptualizations of the space that
surrounds the known territory in which everybody lives, a territory, which in some
cases may include places that do not even exist' (Michalowski 1986: 131. See also
Billinge 1981). For example, Gorg (1981 c) argues that biblical Ophir and Tarshish are
'ideal-typical' toponyms designating rather general 'far away rich lands' rather than
specific locations.
26. Downs and Stea (1973 and 1977) describe mental maps as functioning to construct and maintain identities and to provide a framework for the preservation of
memories. In their view, although mental maps have a relationship with 'reality', they
do not simply reproduce 'reality' but represent it in a selective and oblique fashion.
1. Introduction
narrows to one family: that of Abraham and Sarah, the direct ancestors of
biblical Israel. From this point on, the Pentateuch concerns itself with the
development of this family into a people. By the end of the Pentateuch,
biblical Israel is a full-fledged reality: 'This very day you have become the
people of the Lord your God' (Deut. 27.9). Thus the Pentateuch fittingly
ends with the death of Moses, whose biography is inextricably intertwined
with the genesis of biblical Israel.29 With the death of Moses, the work of
forming Israel has been completed. In other words, what we have in the
Pentateuch is an account of ethnogenesis: the emergence of biblical Israel
as a self-conscious people or ethnic group.
Egypt is a very significant component in this process of ethnogenesis.
An essential element of the construction of ethnic identity is the contrast
between 'us' and 'them'; ethnic identity is constructed over against an
'other' or 'others'.30 While Philistines and Babylonians are prominent as
'others' elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, in the Pentateuch it is Egypt that
is the major 'other' over against biblical Israel.31 In fact, at times the
29. This ending of the Pentateuch, with the death of Moses and with Israel outside
of the Promised Land, has seemed inconclusive in light of the stress of the Pentateuch
on the divine promises to the ancestors. Thus, scholars have often postulated an
original Hexateuch (Genesis through Joshua) in which the narrative culminates on a
more satisfying note with the conquest of the land (e.g. von Rad 1966b). However, see
the critique of the concept of a Hexateuch in Clines (1978: 81-83), who rather finds the
overriding theme of the Pentateuch to be, quite purposively, the partial fulfillment
implying also the partial non-fulfillmentof the divine promises to the ancestors. This
theme allows the Pentateuch to be viewed as an open-ended document. I am largely
persuaded by Clines's analysis but tend to see the genesis of biblical Israel itself as
completed by the end of the Pentateuch. The open-ended question at the end of the
Pentateuch then becomes one of whether Israel will now live up to what it issee
especially the blessings and curses in Deut. 28, and the choice offered between life and
death in Deut. 30.15-20. (See also Mann [1988], who sees the ending of the Pentateuch
as a suspended movement of departure.)
30. A bountiful literature exists on the construction and function of ideologies of
ethnicity. I have depended especially on the accounts in A.D. Smith (1992, 1994),
Eriksen (1993), de Vos and Romanucci-Ross (1982), Royce (1982), R. Cohen (1978),
and Earth (1969).
31. See Table 1 in the Appendix. Brueggemann(1994a) argues for the overriding
significance of the image of Babylon in the Hebrew Bible. However, this significance
is largely confined to the prophetic literature (the Latter Prophets) and to the historical
works on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (the Former Prophets). Polemic against
Babylon is noticeably absent from the Pentateuch. On the Philistines and Israelite
identity in the Former Prophets, see Jobling and Rose (1996).
10
Pentateuch insists with great vigor on the difference between Israel and
Egypt.32 Therefore, where and how Egypt appears on the cognitive or
symbolic map of the Pentateuch will provide essential information as to
the 'identity polities' of the producers of the text.
Furthermore, ethnic identity is invariably characterized by an ideology
of the kinship of the members of the group, undergirded by the myth of a
common origin. An ethnohistorical consciousness oriented towards the
mythic past and ritually represented in the present functions to create a
sense of belonging within the ethnic boundary and a sense of unique
difference across the ethnic boundary.33 The mythic past often includes the
story of a paradigmatic leader or hero who goes through an identity crisis.
The Pentateuch provides for biblical Israel just such a narrative of common origin and kinship in the story of the ancestors, and of a paradigmatic
leader or hero in the story of Moses.
One can, in fact, speak of the master origin narrative of the Pentateuch:
biblical Israel has its roots in Mesopotamia and finally is ready to possess
its Promised Land in the Cisjordan. On the way, however, there is a detour
through Egypt: the ancestors, coming from Mesopotamia, live only as
temporary residents in the land promised to them in the Cisjordan by the
deity, but then migrate to Egypt. In Egypt, the ancestors become a people,
and the stage is set for the possession of the Promised Land. In terms of
this master origin narrative, Egypt occupies the ambivalent status of being
both an unfortunate detour that postpones the possession of the land and a
necessary detour for Israel as a people to come into being.
What is the rhetorical and ideological purpose of this master origin
narrative within the context of the initial production and circulation of the
Pentateuch? In contrast to increasing archaeological evidence for a moreor-less indigenous origin for historical Israel in the Cis- and Transjordan,34
32. See especially the plague account in Exodus, discussed below in Chapter 3.
33. Once ethnic identity is triggered, cultural rationalizations to undergird this
identity are created by the groups involved; these include the creation of histories,
which, although containing authentic traces or seeds, must be read as ideologically
aimed origin myths that reveal more of how the present of the history's composition
creates the past than how they authentically report on mat past.
34. The interpretation of the archaeological data for the emergence of Israel in the
central hill country of the Cisjordan is vigorously debated, as exemplified in the discussions of Dever (1995) and Finkelstein (1996) on just when and how a historical
Israel can be identified in the archaeological record. Since ethnicity resides principally
in a complex sociological and psychological process of establishing and maintaining a
group's sense of social boundaries rather than in the cultural stuff these boundaries
1. Introduction
11
12
while other traits, often widely shared with other groups, are ignored.38
Moreover, the boundaries constructed by ethnic discourse are not nearly as
impervious, isolating and absolute as they are made out in that discourse to
be.39 Interaction across the boundary commonly takes place, and, in such
interaction, the extent and shape of the boundary is constantly negotiated
and manipulated.40
Thus, although the Pentateuch largely portrays Egypt in negative terms
as that against which Israel is defined, the Hebrew Bible hints at alternative views in that it does not present a monolithic conception of Egypt
as always inimical to Israel. P.A.H. de Boer has highlighted what he calls
'a twofold and ambivalent assessment of Egypt' (1991: 166) in the
Hebrew Bible: on the one hand, a place of nourishment and refuge; on the
other hand, the 'house of slavery'.41 So also in the Pentateuch one finds a
positive view of Egypt: it is a well-watered place with plenty of food,42 an
which are used in ethnic discourse to trigger ethnicity and to define membership in
ethnic groups.
3 8. The signals used to mark an ethnic boundary can vary widely depending on the
particular situation, but generally they have to do with blood, bed, territory, and culture: (1) Ethnic identity is invariably characterized by an ideology of the kinship of the
members of the group, undergirded by a myth of common origin. (2) Ethnic boundaries
nearly always are constructed to facilitate ideologies of endogamy. Certain rules of
behavior are meant to safeguard the purity of the group. At the same time, however,
ethnic anomalies, such as mixed marriages, must be accounted for. (3) Ethnic boundaries often include an ideology of space; a space, territory or homeland with which
the particular group is associated. This space need not be inhabited by the members of
the group, nor need it necessarily be a 'real' space. (4) Ethnic boundaries usually
include cultural markers, which can include language, names, cultic participation, distinctive dress, distinctive occupations, and other culturally specific behaviors. However,
only such behaviors as are deemed especially distinctive will be singled out as marking
an ethnic boundary.
39. The very constitution of such boundaries involves interaction across them: the
group inside presents a certain profile to be 'read' by outsiders, and outsiders respond
in ways that support or modify the boundary.
40. This point is especially highlighted by Earth (1969). See also Eriksen (1993:
30-32), and the critiques described by Brah (1994).
41. According to de Boer, a generally positive assessment of Egypt predates the
more dominant negative view of Egypt. Thus de Boer dissolves the tension in the
Hebrew Bible between these two views through the typical historical-critical procedure
of separating out the variant views and assigning them different dates. From an ideological-critical perspective, conflicting viewpoints can coexist in the same text as
markers of contemporaneous ideological tensions.
42. The well-watered Jordan Valley is compared favorably to Egypt (Gen. 13.10),
1. Introduction
13
acceptable and welcoming refuge in times of threat and disaster,43 and its
inhabitants are a people with whom intermarriage takes place.44 However,
admittedly the dominant view is negative: Egypt means oppression for
Israel, especially in Exodus and Deuteronomy.45
This two-sided and ambivalent evaluation of Egypt suggests that establishing the boundaries of identity with reference to the 'other' can proceed
in two ways, only one of which insists on contrastive difference. Certainly,
the boundaries of identity are often marked by negation or contrast, in
which the 'other' is what one is not and what one must reject in order to be
who one is.46 But the boundaries of identity can also be marked by
sublimation or preservation, in which the other is what is complementary
to one's identity.47 And neither do these two ways need to be mutually
exclusive; in fact, the actual establishment of boundaries for identity most
likely operates dialectically between these two poles. And so the Pentateuch's evaluation of Egypt will be seen to be both positive and negative.
However, the Pentateuch's negative evaluation clearly aspires to be dominant, and it is this dynamic in particular which will be explored in the
analysis in the following chapters.
Excursus One: Ethnicity in the Archaeological Record
Whether or not archaeological data can indicate ethnicity is vigorously debated in the
context of the emergence of Israel in the central hill country of the Cisjordan, as exemplified in the discussions of Dever (1995) and Finkelstein (1996). Dever argues that
an ethnically distinct proto-Israel can be identified in the archaeological remains of an
and the traditions of 'murmuring in the wilderness' provide many vignettes of the
attractiveness of Egypt as a land of plenty (eg. Exod. 16; Num. 11 and 20).
43. Abram finds Egypt a refuge during a time of famine (Gen. 12.10) as do also
Jacob and his sons (Gen. 45-^47).
44. Abram took Sarai's Egyptian maid Hagar as a concubine (Gen. 16), Joseph
married the daughter of an Egyptian high priest, and his father Jacob blessed the offspring of this mixed marriage.
45. See the characterization of Egypt as D'TUB JTD ('house of bondage') in Exod.
13.3, 14; 20.2, and Deut. 5.6; 6.12; 7.8; 8.14; 13.6,11.
46. One identifies oneself or one's group over against the 'other'. The 'other'
becomes the mirror image of what one does not want to be. In psychoanalytic terms,
the 'other' is the projection from out of one's self or one's group of undesirable traits
or qualities.
47. One identifies oneself or one's group with the 'other'. The 'other' becomes the
mirror image of what one wants to be. In psychoanalytic terms, the 'other' is the introjection within oneself or the group of desirable traits and qualities from outside.
14
Early Iron Age I (thirteenth century BCE) wave of new settlements in the highlands of
the Cisjordan. Finkelstein argues that the material culture of the area does not display
characteristics that can be attributed to a distinct Israelite ethnicity, rather than to
socio-economic or environmental factors, until the Late Iron II period (late ninth and
eighth centuries BCE). Finkelstein argues that uniquely Israelite ethnic features were
introduced and developed by the monarchy as a means of uniting vast areas with mixed
populations in the face of conflict with other emerging polities.
Ethnicity is very difficult to identify in the archaeological record. Since ethnicity resides principally in a complex sociological and psychological process of establishing
and maintaining a group's sense of 'we-ness' internally and 'they-ness' externally, and
thus focuses on social boundaries rather than the cultural stuff these boundaries enclose, it is notoriously fluid and multiple. Although ethnicity may be expressed by
language, script, ritual behavior, physical features, dietary choices, architectural forms,
clothing style, mortuary practices, the style of artifacts such as pottery, weapons and
jewelry, a simple one-to-one correspondence between these cultural traits and ethnicity
cannot be assumed. These traits may express status, 'style', or processes of assimilation or acculturation as much as ethnic distinctiveness (Finkelstein 1996: 203). In fact,
different ethnic groups may share the same material culture, being distinguished largely
by social networks that leave little or no material trace.
Since ethnicity is largely a subjective category of self and other ascription, ethnicity
in the past will be difficult to pinpoint from the purely material data of archaeology. As
Dever has admitted, 'we may be able to ascertain some of what people actually did, but
not what they thought they were doing, much less who they thought they were' (1995:
207). If such data is undergirded by reliable and contemporary written documentation,
then perhaps access to the subjective reality of ethnicity is possible. The Hebrew Bible
has been used to provide such documentation, but the uncertainty and debate over the
dating of its texts makes it an unreliable source, especially for earlier periods. The
quest to find evidence of Israelite ethnicity in the archaeological record of the Late
Bronze and Early Iron Ages seems at this point improbable; only a rather uncritical
reading of the biblical texts as documents dating back to this period has enabled the
quest to proceed at all. On this issue see the divergent views of Dever (1993, 1995),
Finkelstein (1997) and T.L. Thompson (1997). Emberling (1997) and Small (1997)
provide good overviews of the problem from a strictly archaeological perspective,
unfettered by prior assumptions of traditional biblical scholarship.
1. Introduction
15
literary texts may refer to the 'real' world, they also have a work-like
function constituted by their rhetoric which constructs the 'real' world to
which they also respond.48 In Mieke Bal's words:
Rather than seeing the text as a transparent, immaterial medium, a window
through which we can get a glimpse of reality, I see it as a figuration of the
reality that brought it forth and to which it responded. And rather than seeing
the text as literary in the esthetic sense, as a fiction that has no connection to
reality, I will try to show how the literary and linguistic choices made in the
text represent a reality that they both hide and display (1988: 3).49
This means that an investigation of Egypt in the Pentateuch will be primarily focused, not on reconstructing actual historical connections between
Egypt and Israel, but on the ideologies regarding Egypt manifested in the
rhetoric of the Pentateuchal text. These ideologies have a particular historical context; namely, the time and place of the text's production. In other
words, the Pentateuch's ideologies about Egypt illuminate the historical
context of its production, and vice versa.
This ideological approach to the biblical text has at least three interrelated methodological implications. First, a text will be potentially most
informative and trustworthy about the historical period contemporaneous
with its initial production, circulation and consumption. Secondly, the
focus of investigation will necessarily be on the final form of the text
rather than on hypothetical prior stages of the text's development. And
thirdly, the stance of interpretation will be that of the resisting reader.50
Each of these implications requires further explanation.
The Context
A text will be potentially most informative and trustworthy about the
historical period contemporaneous with its initial production, circulation
and consumption. That is, although a biblical text may preserve information from periods prior to its composition, the selection, organization
and presentation of this information tells the interpreter more of the
context of the text's production than of the period being described by the
text. Thus, although the Pentateuch describes an exodus from Egypt as an
48. Zagorin (1990) provides a good overview of the disputed positions of LaCapra
and particularly Hayden White among historians today.
49. Similarly, see Geller (1982).
50. These three methodological implications correspond to the three members of
the interpretive triad: 'the world behind the text', 'the world of the text', and 'the world
in front of the text'. See Tate (1991).
16
event that happened in the past, the historicity and date of this event are
not of primary interest; rather, from an ideological standpoint what is of
interest are the ideological implications of how the exodus event is narrated and the images of Egypt and Israel of which it attempts to persuade
the readers or listeners. The primary historical context for these implications is the period in which the Pentateuch was first produced and circulated as an authoritative document.
Since the biblical text of the Pentateuch purports to describe a past more
distant than the historical context of its own formation, its ideologies will
not necessarily or likely appear on the text's surface. These ideologies
need to be made manifest by careful attention to the rhetoric of the text.
Furthermore, once such ideologies are exposed, the information they yield
about the context of the text's production will tend to consist less of
discrete items such as datable events and persons, and more of broader
insights into social and cultural worlds.51
The Text
The focus of investigation will be on the final form of the text. This
methodological implication is first meant to distinguish the ideological
approach employed here from traditional historical-critical approaches that
tend to dissect the biblical text into its various developmentally linked
strata. In contrast, the focus of this study is not on the origin, development
and history of traditions in the biblical text, but rather on the 'biblical
imagination''that collection of perspectives which the compiled, edited,
and canonized text mediates' (Cohn 1981:4); it is on the final form of the
text rather than on its prehistory (Greenstein 1989).
The final form of the text is, however, not thereby privileged as if it
speaks with one unified voice. The gaps, inconsistencies and contradictions in the biblical text, used by historical-critical analysis to fragment
the text, will be noted here as clues to the biblical text as a site of
contestation between different but largely contemporaneous ideological
perspectives.52 For example, the tension between positive and negative
51. Parker makes a similar argument about the historical usefulness of all ancient
narrative sources: 'Ancient narratives, whether in inscriptions recovered in modern
times by archaeologists, or in a Bible transmitted for centuries by religious bodies,
must be appreciated as narratives before they can be used as historical sources. Then
they may yield more interesting historical information about the mental or social world
of their authors than about the events to which the narratives refer' (1996: 221).
52. '.. .a text is a site of ideological struggle, deeply implicated in its own historical
1. Introduction
11
18
1. Introduction
19
20
1. Introduction
21
22
1. Introduction
23
Chapter 2
EGYPT IN GENESIS
2. Egypt in Genesis
25
eastward direction from the garden (Gen. 3.24; 4.16) until arriving in the
plain of Shinar, which is the region of Babylonia (Gen. 11.2) (Wallace
1992). The Jacob cycle, geographically, revolves around an exodus or
expulsion to the eastJacob flees from the wrath of his brother Esau and
lives with his uncle in the 'old country' of Aram in northwest Mesopotamiaand a subsequent return to Canaan.
These points of contrast are particularly interesting in light of the proposal that the Pentateuch was composed, not out of several hypothetical
parallel literary sources as in the classic Wellhausen documentary hypothesis, but rather by the editorial linking of various originally independent
units of tradition.4 It is thus not intrinsically surprising that, as possibly
originally independent traditions, the primeval and Jacob cycles show a
dominant Mesopotamian orientation, in contrast to the Joseph cycle, and
to some extent, the Abraham cycle, which are oriented more towards
Egypt. The following analysis of Genesis will demonstrate that, in the
linking of these cycles in the final text of Genesis, an attempt has been
made to subordinate the Egyptian orientation, especially that of the Joseph
cycle, to the Mesopotamian orientation of the primeval and Jacob cycles,
and that the clearest evidence of such subordination appears in the way
Egypt is presented in the Abraham cycle. This suggests a clash of ideologies, which will further be explored within the context of the Persian
period in later chapters.
In the following, the image and significance of Egypt will be analyzed
as it unfolds, beginning with the first mention of Egypt in Gen. 10, and
ending with the final mention of Egypt in the closing verse of the book.
Egypt in the Primeval Cycle (1.1-11.32)
While the primeval narrative cycle is primarily oriented towards Mesopotamia, Egypt appears twice in the segmented genealogy towards the end
of the primeval cycle known as the Table of Nations (Gen. 10).5 This
towards the east. The story of the Tower of Babel is clearly connected with Mesopotamia in terms of its location in Shinar (Gen. 11,2), which is Babylonia (Gen. 10.10),
the disparaging pun on the name 'Babel', and the tower itself as a likely reference to
Mesopotamian ziggurats. Furthermore, the flood story in the midst of the primeval
cycle (Gen. 6-9) has clear affinities with Mesopotamian tales.
4. Advanced in current scholarship especially by Rendtorff (1990).
5. In the 70 nations or peoples listed in this genealogy, one finds a picture of the
world as the author(s) understood it at their time, not primarily in terms of
26
geographical locations but more in terms of 'the political, linguistic and cultural connections between peoples' (Alexander 1992:980). The DnXD, 'Egypt' of the Hebrew
text is transliterated by the LXX as MEapaip only here; elsewhere the LXX always
translates D'HISD as AiyuTTTos.
6. Strictly speaking, D'HUQ in the Table of Nations refers to the eponymous
ancestor of the Egyptian people. The usage D'HUQ flN, 'land of Egypt', that appears
later, however, clearly indicates that the term can also refer to a land.
7. The main difference between'13, 'nation' andDJJ, 'people' seems to be that the
former is based more on social and political ties, the latter more on kinship ties.
8. The LXX clearly differentiates between Egypt as a territory (Ai yu TTTOS) and as
a people (Aiyurmoi), thus adding a differentiation that is not always explicitly present
in the MT. When the word stands on its own in the Hebrew text, only contextual clues
allow for a differentiation between these two meanings; and in many cases a differentiation may not be possible.
2. Egypt in Genesis
27
28
perceived as close geographically or spatially, but distant in terms of kinship. The reader is therefore prepared to see that, though Egypt may loom
large in Israel's origin and history, ultimately Egypt is excluded from the
lineage that leads to Israel.
Egypt in the Abraham Cycle (12.1-25.18)
While 'Egypt' occurs in the Abraham cycle less frequently than in the
Joseph cycle, the term appears at strategic points in the narrative, clustering around two narrative movements. First, 'Egypt' occurs in the narrative
movement of the ancestor Abraham into Egypt and out again (12.1013.13), followed by a subsequent gradual distancing of the ancestor from
Egypt in the series of so-called 'wife-as-sister' stories (20.1-18; 26.6-16);
this movement concerns the theme of land. Secondly, 'Egypt' appears in
the narrative movement of Egypt out to the ancestor in the account of
Abraham's attempt to gain an heir through Hagar the Egyptian (chs. 16
and 21); this movement concerns the theme of offspring and proper lineage. The themes of these narrative movements are obviously connected to
the divine promise to the ancestors of land and offspring, first introduced
in 12.1-3 and reiterated throughout the ancestral cycles. This divine
promise can be seen as the ideological motor of the ancestral narratives,
and, indeed, as the theme of the entire Pentateuch (see especially Clines
1978). The implication of Egypt in this ideology will be explored in the
following.
Going Down to Egypt (12, 13, 20, 26)
The movement of the patriarch Abram in and out of Egypt in Gen. 12 sets
the pattern for the first narrative movement. When famine threatens, the
patriarch goes down (TV) to Egypt to settle there as a resident alien
(12.10). That is, Egypt has an initial positive valuation as a place of food
and survival. But then Egypt becomes an ambiguous place that both
threatens danger and promises enrichment. At the border Abram is anxious
that Egypt may mean death for him; so he prevails upon Sarai to present
herself as his sister in order to reverse the perceived threat and to claim not
only life but also enrichment (12.11-13).14 The strategy works; Abram
lives and is indeed enriched (12.16), but Pharaoh and his household are
struck with plague (12.17). Thus a fundamental ambivalence is associated
14. Abram's words 'that it may go well pB"1) with me' (12.13), in view of the goods
he will gain in Egypt, can be understood as a reference to his hopes of enrichment.
2. Egypt in Genesis
29
15. Gen. 12.16; 13.2. It seems that his nephew Lot was similarly enriched since
after the Egyptian experience they could no longer live together because their
possessions were so great (13.5-7). The notice of Abram's possessions acquired before
all this in Haran (12.5) does not give the same picture of impressive wealth.
16. While the MT uses two phrases in apposition to describe the plain of the Jordan:
'like the garden of YHWH, like the land of Egypt'; the LXX separates the two phrases
with KOI, 'and'. Wevers (1993: 180) argues that the Greek conjunction differentiates
between the two comparisons'after all, the garden of God is hardly the land of
Egypt'and that the LXX here faithfully interprets the Hebrew. However, this interpretation depends upon a prior assumption, not explicit in the text, that YHWH'S garden
and Egypt cannot be comparable, and it flies in the face of the most obvious reading of
the text, which is that the garden of YHWH and Egypt are viewed analogously.
30
Israel,17 Egypt poses a definite danger. The taking of Sarai into the house
of the Egyptian Pharaohsignifying her assimilation as a proto-Israelite
into the Egyptian kinship structurerepresents the threat of the intrusion
of Ham into the chosen lineage leading from Shem to Israel. A child of an
Egyptian father, even of a Pharaoh, will not do as part of this chosen
lineage. And so plague strikes to put an end to this disapproved union.
The dangers associated with Egypt eventually outweigh the benefits,
and so Egypt cannot be a place of permanent settlement for Abraham. The
patriarch is expelled (n"?2J) and goes up (n^U) from Egypt, albeit far
wealthier than before. Thus, almost at the very beginning of the story
cycles that narrate the origins of Israel, the audience of the Pentateuch
encounters a proto-exodus movement: a pattern of entering Egypt because
it is clearly advantageous to do so, but also leaving or being expelled from
Egypt because it cannot become a permanent home.18 Similarly, the
disastrous decision of Lot to opt for the Jordan plain, likened to Egypt but
destined for destruction (13.8-13), prefigures the later yearning of the
exodus generation to return to Egypt (Wenham 1987: 300). Thus an
ideological pattern around the term 'Egypt' is being established, which
will influence the reading of the following narratives, predisposing the
audience (1) to see Israel's origins as clearly non-Egyptian, (2) to see any
connection between Israel and Egypt as temporary and fraught with
danger, and (3) to see any yearning on Israel's part for Egypt as disastrous.
The narrative of Abram and Sarai's experience in Egypt is the first of
three sequential incidents in Genesis expressing the so-called 'wife-assister' or 'endangered ancestress' motif.19 The same motif appears twice
more in Gen. 20 and 26. However, these further instances show an interesting distancing from Egypt. In neither Gen. 20 nor 26 does the story take
place in Egypt itself; the action happens rather in Gerar, an area between
17. Steinberg (1993) notes that the genealogical strategy of the ancestral accounts
in Genesis focuses on establishing a single appropriate heir until one arrives at the sons
of Jacob in Egypt; then the strategy switches from a vertical to a horizontal concern
and all of Jacob's sons are accepted as heirs.
18. The vocabulary used of Abram's journey to (IT) and from (fl^S, n^EJ)
anticipates the same vocabulary used to described Israel's entrance into and exit from
Egypt.
19. A more accurate label would be the 'endangered ancestor' motif. In line with
the patrilineal disposition of the biblical text, it seems clear that the concern of the
narrative in these incidents is more with the danger to the ancestor posed by a threat to
his spouse.
2. Egypt in Genesis
31
32
arranges for Hagar, her Egyptian slave girl, to conceive a child by Abram.
The fertility of Egypt is thus highlighted in contrast to the barrenness of
the Israelite ancestress; just as Egypt has food during famine, so it harbors
fertility during barrenness. In order to make the Egyptian connection clear,
the text repeatedly insists on Hagar's Egyptian identity (16.1, 3; 21.9;
25.12). But, just like Abram's move to Egypt, Sarai's decision, while seeming on the surface to have the desired result, conceals a hidden danger. A
verbal allusion to Gen. 3 underlines the potential problem. There, the deity
berated Adam for listening to Eve (3.17), who took of the fruit and gave of
it to her husband (3.6); so also here the same language is used to describe
how Abram listens to Sarai, who takes Hagar and gives her to her husband
(16.2-3). In both cases, the desired result leads to unforeseen consequences
(Wenham 1994: 7-8). Hagar conceivesEgypt is indeed fertilebut the
result is that she steps outside of her proper role and looks down upon
her mistress. This leads Sarai to afflict (!"[]#) Hagar, causing Hagar to flee
(!"[~Q) back in the direction of Egypt (16.6).23
Just as Abram entered Egypt and left, so also the Egyptian Hagar, having entered Israel, so to speak, now leaves. But the narrative pattern of
Abram is not repeated in mirror fashion. Before Hagar reaches Egypt, the
deity turns her back, announcing that she will indeed bear a son for Abram
(16.7-12). This Egyptian woman receives a theophany and a promise of
descendants; furthermore, she names the deity (16.13)! This favorable
valuation of Egypt leads one to speculate that perhaps indeed the promised
lineage can pass through Hagar's son. Abram later hopes for no less when
he petitions the deity, 'O, that Ishmael may live in your sight' (17.18).
But it is not to be. The second part of the Hagar story concerns the
displacement of her son Ishmael by Sarah's son Isaac. At Isaac's weaning
festival, Sarah sees Ishmael 'Isaacing' (21.9)that is, somehow acting the
role of the heir that she (and the deitysee 17.15-22) envision for Isaac
alone. So she prevails upon Abraham to drive out (ETI3) Hagar and her son
(21.10). This time Abraham is unwilling to listen to his wife and needs to
be persuaded by the deity before he indeed expels (piel of n^ttf) the
Egyptian and her son (21.11 -14).24
Again, an Egyptian origin for Israel has been avoided; the line of
Abraham beginning in Mesopotamia has remained unadulterated. Egypt,
for all its positive characteristicsin this case, fertilityis rejected. An
Egyptian mother will not do any more than an Egyptian father. Ishmael,
23. These verbs foreshadow the Exodus account (Trible 1984: 9-35).
24. Again, the verbs foreshadow the Exodus.
2. Egypt in Genesis
33
like Cain, Ham and Esau, turns out to be one of the cul-de-sacs in divine
history.
But not entirely. Once expelled, Hagar procures a wife for Ishmael from
the land of Egypt (21.21), just as Abraham will later arrange for a wife for
Isaac from Mesopotamia (24.1-67).25 Ishmael is destined to become a
people inhabiting a liminal or intermediary region between Israel and
Egypt (25.12-18); there Ishmael will later play a decisive mediating role in
bringing Israel back into Egypt again in the person of Joseph.26
So, whether the ancestors go to Egypt or Egypt comes to the ancestors,
the concern of the narrative is to highlight the danger Egypt poses to the
chosen lineage despite its obvious attractiveness in terms of food, fertility
and wealth. On the symbolic map of the Pentateuch to this point, Egypt is
portrayed as looming too close for comfort, and yet it is a comfort. Hence
the deep ambiguity of 'Egypt' in the narrative, an ambiguity that can be
interpreted as an ideological struggle, waged within the text, between proand anti-Egyptian tendencies.
Egypt in the Jacob Cycle (25.19-36.43)
The word 'Egypt' appears only once in this entire narrative cycle, when
Isaac is explicitly warned by the deity not to go down to Egypt as his
father Abraham had done (26.2). Although tempted to go to Egypt, Isaac is
stopped; he also marries the proper woman from the 'old country'
Mesopotamiaas he should. Jacob also marries the proper women, and
even spends a significant amount of time in the 'old country'; throughout
much of his life he seems to have no contact with Egypt whatsoever.27
Thus, the overall orientation of the Jacob cycle towards Mesopotamia is
underlined and the significance of Egypt, at least in this cycle, is
negligible. This all changes with the following story of Joseph.
25. Note the care taken in the narrative to keep Egypt and Mesopotamia distinct.
26. Gen. 25.1-6 also mentions the children of yet another wife of Abraham's:
Keturah. Keturah's children are given gifts but do not inherit the patrilineage anymore
than does Ishmael. There seem to be significant overlaps between the genealogies of
Ishmael and Keturah's sons, leading to speculation that Keturah is a variant of Hagar.
Significant for this investigation is that the genealogy of the Midianites is traced back
to Keturah; in the Joseph story both Midianites and Ishmaelites are involved in the conveyance of Joseph to Egypt and so perhaps both are cast in a mediating role between
Israel and Egypt. See also the later important role of Midian in Exod. 2 and 18.
27. Not so his brother Esau, who marries a descendant of Ishmael (28.9).
34
2. Egypt in Genesis
35
36
2. Egypt in Genesis
37
38
2. Egypt in Genesis
39
to be for Israel much as the ark was for Noah and his family (7.23).47 Will
this move, however, mean the assimilation of Israel into Egypt, as suggested by the case of Joseph himself?
It is precisely at this point that the land of Goshen is first introduced
(45.10); Joseph, it seems, has in mind a separate territory where Israel will
live together. But where is this territory? As Goshen is not mentioned in
Egyptian sources, scholars have made many attempts to provide a spatial
referent for the place, using the sparse clues in Genesis and Exodus.48
Somewhere in the eastern Nile delta is the most likely location,49 although
references to a Goshen in Joshua point to southern Judah.50 But in contrast
to this emphasis on a separate territory for Israel in Egypt is the impression
given elsewhere (particularly in Exodus) that Israel lived among the
Egyptians and had spread throughout the land of Egypt. Furthermore,
Pharaoh offers Israel the best pICD) of all the land of Egypt, the fat of the
land (45.18, 20).51
The discrepancy between Joseph's desire to settle Israel in a separate
territory, and Pharaoh's desire to offer Israel the best of all the land, leads
to complex negotiations when the family of Israel finally does enter Egypt.
Joseph is reunited with his father first in Goshen.52 He counsels his brothers
to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds, with the hope that, since 'all
shepherds of the flock are myin, 'an abomination' to Egypt' (46.34),53
they will be settled separately in Goshen. Pharaoh, on the one hand, offers
47. The concept of a 'remnant' or 'survivors' is important in postexilic understandings of the survival of Israel; in this respect, it is significant that in the Joseph
story, the remnant or survivors take root not in the Cisjordan but in Egypt.
48. For example, Goshen in the biblical accounts seems to be a place suitable for
cattle, close to Joseph who may have lived in Heliopolis, close to the official residence
of Pharaoh, along the Nile, and somehow associated with Pithom and Rameses.
49. A popular localization is the Wadi Tumilat.
50. Josh. 10.41; 11.16; 15.5. Usually these references are interpreted as pointing to
a different place and a different tradition.
51. Not only does this cast the Pharaoh in a positive light, it also brings up again
the motif of enrichment in Egypt.
52. Here Goshen seems to be a liminal place on the border of Egypt with Canaan.
53. Again, as in the previous mention of the Egyptian taboo against eating with
foreigners (43.32), we have here an interesting ancient ethnographic observation about
the Egyptians, which at the same time posits an unbridgeable gap between Israel and
Egypt. Whereas the Egyptian taboo against eating with foreigners appears also in
Herodotus and other early Greek writers, a taboo against shepherds is not found in
other sources. Perhaps it is an expression of the dislike sophisticated urbanites or
settled farmers may have felt for unruly nomads.
40
them the best of the land of Egypt, but on the other, gives them permission
to settle in Goshen. A later notice by the narrator, however, indicates that
Israel received land in the best part of the land of Egypt that is none other
than the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had indeed instructed (47.11)!
Finally, both the land of Egypt and the land of Goshen are mentioned one
after the other as the place where Israel settled (47.27-28).
What is one to make of this confusion? It seems that the narrative wants
to say that Israel clearly settled in Egypt, but not entirely in Egypt. Perhaps
here the concept of a 'mental map' may be used to interpret Goshen less as
an actual location and more as an ideological construct that seeks to maintain the separateness of Israel while in Egypt.54 Goshen quickly drops out
of view after this point has been made.55 Thus, Goshen seems to serve an
ideology of the separateness of Israel from Egypt, which, however, sits
somewhat uncomfortably with a vaguer notion that Israel was at home
within Egypt itself. The story of Joseph thus far has been largely one of
assimilation into Egypt. With the appearance of his brothers, however,
Joseph remembers his Israelite roots. His transfer of Israel to Egypt, is
therefore not meant to repeat his own story of assimilation; rather, the
introduction of Goshen indicates a desire to maintain a distinct identity.
But with the entrance of Israel into Egypt, the focus shifts to Jacob, and
with him comes an intrusion into the Joseph story of the viewpoint of the
prior ancestral accounts with their ambivalent, yet largely negative, image
of Egypt. How is the viewpoint of the ancestral accounts to be reconciled
with the move of Israel to Egypt? On his way to Egypt, Jacob receives a
theophany (46.2-4) in which the deity reiterates promises, just as has
occurred regularly in the previous ancestor accounts. But there are some
significant differences. Whereas Isaac had been told by the deity not to go
down to Egypt as Abraham had done (26.2), Jacob is now told not to be
afraid to go down to Egypt (46.3). Whereas previous promises to the
ancestors of many descendants and a great nation were to be fulfilled
either in an unspecified context or in the context of Canaan, here the
promise of increase is explicitly located in Egypt (DO, 'there', 46.3).56 But
54. That place of separateness, while perhaps not a definite location, was probably
associated with that area of Egypt best known to the producers of the text, namely, the
eastern delta and its bordering territories.
55. Goshen is mentioned only once more in Genesis (50.8) and then appears twice
in Exodus (8.18; 9.26).
56. See 47.27 where, indeed, Jacob's family is 'fruitful and multiplies' in Egypt.
Joseph's name is explicitly connected with fruitfulness in 49.22 (see also 41.52).
2. Egypt in Genesis
41
lest the audience (mis)understand that the promises of the deity have been
redirected into Egypt, God promises not only to go with Jacob down to
Egypt,57 but, significantly, also to bring him back up again (46.4). In
contrast to Joseph, who sees Egypt as an ark for a remnant of survivors,
here Egypt is transformed into a temporary place for the birth of a nation.58
The narrative stresses that all the seed of Jacob enters Egypt (46.6-7),
and, to emphasize this point, they are listed and enumerated, all 70 of them
(46.8-27). This enumeration includes even the two sons born to Joseph in
Egypt, which the narrative twice insists on including among those who
entered Egypt as part of Israel (46.20, 27).59 Whereas to this point the
ancestor accounts have been concerned to weed out the wrong lines of
descent or 'cul-de-sacs' in the ancestral genealogy of Israel, in Egypt that
concern is reversedall of Jacob's descendants are included.60 The
promise of increase to the ancestors is to take place in Egypt.
But what has become of the promise of land to the ancestors? The
narrative twice informs the reader that Israel gained landholdings (mnN)
in Egypt (47.11, 27). Previously, however, the deity had promised landholdings in Canaan (17.8), and Abraham had indeed proleptically acquired
the cave of Machpelah as a burial site (23.4, 9, 20). The only other time
the ancestors were offered land was by the people of Shechem (34.10)
and that ended in disaster. So these landholdings in Egypt are troublesome.
Do they betray the promises to the ancestors? Do they bode disaster?
Later, on his death bed Jacob reiterates the promise of landholdings in
Canaan (48.4), and insists on being buried in the family property at
Machpelah (49.30; 50.13). Thus there is a tension here between the
landholdings of the ancestral promises and the landholdings granted to
Israel in Egypt. Land in Canaan is only a promise while land in Egypt is a
reality. The question is whether, just like the promise of increase, the
promise of land to the ancestors has also been deflected into Egypt.
57. Since YHWH has been described as already being with Joseph in Egypt (39.2),
the notion of the deity's descent with Jacob into Egypt represents an ideological
tension between the characters of Joseph and Jacob in the narrative.
58. The motif of individual enrichment in Egypt has thus been completely
expanded and transformed into the genesis of a people.
59. None is left in Canaan; Israel makes a complete transition to Egypt. The
number 70 brings to mind the Table of Nations in Gen. 10 where Egypt first appeared.
60. See Steinberg (1993: 140-42) on this shift in genealogical strategy with the
entrance of Israel into Egypt.
42
2. Egypt in Genesis
43
But loose ends and ambiguities still complicate the ideological rhetoric.
First is the matter of the two sons bora to Joseph in Egypt of an Egyptian
wife, Manasseh and Ephraim, who are the eponymous ancestors of two of
the largest and most prosperous tribes of Israel. This incursion of Egypt
into the lineage of Israel, so soundly repudiated previously in the case of
Hagar and Abraham, is here nullified by Jacob's adoption of Joseph's two
sons as his own; twice Jacob reiterates 'they are mine' (48.5). Thus the
Egyptian mother is conveniently bypassed, and perhaps also the Israelite
father who had become far too Egyptianized himself. By this legal fiction,
a threat to the chosen lineage is again avertedEgypt has no part in the
chosen people. But Joseph does not accept this solution: in the immediately following scene he presents Manasseh and Ephraim as 'my sons,
whom god gave to me here'; that is, in Egypt (48.9). There is an unresolved tension in the narrative between the perspectives of Jacob and
Joseph,63 pointing to an ideological tension surrounding the origin
traditions of Israel in the context of the text's production.
Secondly, Jacob insists that he should not be buried in Egypt (49.29-32),
and when he dies and is embalmed, a funeral procession winds its way
back to Canaan for the burial (50.2-14).64 This 'exodus' of Jacob from
Egypt, with its strange round-about route around the Dead Sea through the
Transjordan, seems to be meant proleptically to evoke the route of a very
different exodus to come.65 But in contrast to the exodus to come, this
particular exodus, significantly, takes place with the explicit permission of
Pharaoh (50.6) and is accompanied by all the prominent people of
Pharaoh's household and of Egypt as well as an armed Egyptian guard
(50.7,9). Moreover, the Israelites leave their children and livestock behind
(50.8), and Joseph explicitly promises Pharaoh to return (50.5). If exodus
merely consists of burial in the Promised Land, then living in Egypt poses
no obstacles.66 Furthermore, the Canaanites are portrayed as being so
63. Israel/Jacob also reverses the birth order of Manasseh and Ephraim. Whereas
for Joseph, 'forgetting' his father's house had preceded 'fruitfulness', for Jacob
'fruitfulness' takes precedence over 'forgetting'.
64. One notes that the Egyptians are portrayed as grieving over Jacob's death for
70 days (50.3) which surely conveys a positive picture of Egypt.
65. A much more direct route leads from Egypt to Hebron. However, just as the
Israelites leaving Egypt in the exodus are diverted from a direct route to the Promised
Land (Exod. 13.17-18), so also the funeral procession follows a similar indirect route.
66. One seems to have here a depiction of how Israelites could be residents of
Egypt and yet still fulfill their obligation to be buried in the land of promise.
44
impressed by the mourning of the funeral procession that they name the
place after the Egyptians (50.11). From the Canaanite point of view in the
narrative, the mixed company of Israelites and Egyptians is seen as
Egyptian; Israel and Egypt are not distinct.
This brings to two the number of proto-exoduses or prefigurations of the
exodus in Genesis. One proto-exodus account is placed carefully near the
beginning of the ancestral accounts in the story of Abraham's sojourn into
Egypt; a story that is repeated in an increasingly muted form in the
subsequent two occurrences of the so-called 'wife-as-sister' motif. And, at
the very end of Genesis, all the adult Israelites in Egypt carry the corpse of
Jacob up to the Promised Land, just as in the exodus account they will
carry the corpse of Joseph with them.
Finally, at the end, Joseph also dies (50.24-26).67 On his deathbed he
demonstrates that he has been reclaimed by the ancestor cycle: just like his
father Jacob, he makes his brothers, the sons of Israel, swear to bury him
in the land promised to the ancestors. Even Joseph finally repudiates
Egypt, thus supporting the point of view of the ancestral narratives that
Israel does not belong there. Nonetheless, Egypt still has the last word:
Genesis ends by informing the audience that Joseph dies, is embalmed and
placed in a sarcophagus in Egypt (50.26). A narrative that has asserted the
need to get out of Egypt, still ends there.68 According to the pattern of
'entry into and exodus from Egypt' established by the accounts of the
Egyptian sojourns of Abraham and Jacob, the story is left hanging unresolved. Another story is neededwhich the following scroll of Exodus
handily supplies.
Summary: Egypt in Genesis
What, then, is 'Egypt' in Genesis? Certainly one does not learn many
pertinent geographical facts about the place: the only precise toponyms
mentioned are Rameses and On, the Nile appears only in Pharaoh's
dreams, and the territory of Goshen eludes specification. By and large,
geographically Egypt is pictured as being 'out there' beyond Canaan; one
goes down into it and one comes up out of it. Neither is there much strictly
ethnographically descriptive data: only some exotic details about divi-
67. He lives to see three generations of his children, and yet, although he is the
second youngest of his brothers, he still predeceases them all (50.22-24)!
68. The very last word in the scroll of Genesis is, ironically, D'HUD, 'Egypt'.
2. Egypt in Genesis
45
69. Both Jacob and Joseph are embalmed in Egyptthis distinctive Egyptian
practice could signify 'Egyptianization'. However, Jacob is quickly returned to the
ancestral tomb at Hebron, whereas Joseph remains in a coffin in Egypt.
Chapter 3
EGYPT IN EXODUS
Almost half of the occurrences of 'Egypt' in the Pentateuch appear in the
book of Exodus (see Table 2 in the Appendix), indicating that in the overall ideological strategy of the Pentateuch, Egypt figures most prominently
in the narrative of Israel's escape from bondage. This may seem selfevident and unsurprising, given the Egyptian setting of much of this book.
However, the seeming naturalness of the appearance of 'Egypt' should not
obscure the ideological work towards which it is directed in the persuasive
rhetoric of the Pentateuch. It has already been shown that, in the previous
book of Genesis, Egypt functions as an ambivalent marker of identity,
figuring prominently in Israel's origin narrative and yet having to be
framed as a negative and secondary stage in Israel's development. How
Egypt continues to function in the ideologies of Israel's identity is the
subject of the following analysis of the book of Exodus.
The term 'Egypt' occurs in Exodus most frequently in the first half of
the book, and in this first half references to Egypt show a steady increase
in density, peaking dramatically at the climactic point of the 'escape from
Egypt' (13.17-14.31). Immediately following this climax, there is a
sudden decrease in the number and density of occurrences of 'Egypt' in
the rest of the book (see Table 4 in the Appendix). Interestingly, the Song
at the Sea, according to some interpreters one of the most ancient texts in
the Hebrew Bible, contains no explicit reference to Egypt; the mention of
'Pharaoh' in 15.4 is the only explicit connection with Egypt in the poem.
The book of Exodus opens with a prologue (1.1-2.25) that introduces
the main protagonists and the narrative complication that sets the plot into
motion. It also sets the stage for the ideological contestation over Israel's
identity that takes place in the book. Accordingly, these two chapters will
be analyzed in detail with the goal of elucidating the main themes of
identity, themes that will be further played out in the rest of the book.
3. Egypt in Exodus
47
Prologue (1.1-2.25)
Israel in Egypt (1.1-7)
'Egypt' appears in the first verse of the scroll of Exodus as part of the
heading or title of a list of the sons of Jacob/Israel who accompanied him
into Egypt: nonHQ D'K3n bfcOfr1 '33 miDEJ n bttl 'And these are the names
of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt' (1.1). The list functions to link
the Exodus scroll with the Genesis scroll: the waw copulativum at the very
beginning of Exod. 1.1 in the MT suggests the continuation of a narrative,1
but, more importantly, the list recapitulates, in summary form, a similar
list found in Gen. 46.S-27.2 Thus, rhetorically, the scroll of Exodus begins
by asserting that the coming narrative is not to be understood apart from
the history of the ancestors as narrated in Genesis.3 Furthermore, it is
emphatically stated that the people about whom the following story will be
told are not native or indigenous to Egypt; it is only because they 'entered
Egypt' (1.1) from outside that they can now be described as being 'in
Egypt' (1.5). The introduction to the scroll, therefore, places what is to
follow within the anti-Egyptian framework established in Genesis, albeit
in a contested fashion.
However, the textual tradition exhibits confusion about the place of
Joseph in this genealogical list. The MT and Samaritan Pentateuch of
Exod. 1.1 -5 do not list Joseph with the other brothers; rather, after giving
the total of Jacob's offspring, these witnesses note that Joseph was (already) in Egypt (1.5b). In the LXX, again Joseph does not appear in the list
of the sons of Jacob, but the note regarding his location in Egypt appears
1. Durham (1987: 3-4) stresses the importance of the copula at the beginning of
Exodus as a marker of continuity with Genesis, and criticizes those translations that
follow the LXX in omitting it. The waw copulativum also appears in the MT at the
beginning of Leviticus and Numbers, suggesting that Genesis through Numbers was
conceived of as continuous narrative by the final redactors of the Pentateuch (at least in
the Masoretic tradition). The LXX lacks the copulative KCU at the beginning of Exodus,
but has it at the beginning of Leviticus and Numbers. This suggests that in the Hebrew
Vorlage of the Old Greek textual tradition, Exodus was seen as a new or original
beginning that continued into Leviticus and Numbers.
2. The order of names of the sons in the two lists differs somewhat; the Exodus
list also includes only the names of the first generation.
3. Before the advent of large scrolls or the codex, each 'book' of the Pentateuch
would have appeared on a separate scroll. One of the means to link one scroll
sequentially to another would be by recapitulating material from one scroll in the
introduction of the following scroll (see Haran 1985a, 1990, 1993).
48
right at the end of the list, before the total of Jacob's offspring is given.
But in the Qumran manuscript 4QExodb,4 Joseph is listed with the rest of
Jacob's sons and there is no mention of his location in Egypt. The question
raised by these textual discrepancies is whether Joseph belongs with the
brothers who entered Egypt or not; that is, whether he is a legitimate part
of Israel or not.5
Furthermore, the textual witnesses differ over the total of Jacob's offspring who entered Egypt. The number in the MT of Exod. 1.5 is70.6 This
is the same number that the MT counts at the conclusion of the similar list
in Gen. 46.27, as well as in Deut. 10.22. The LXX and4QExodb, however,
count 75 at Exod. 1.5.7 This discrepancy is again caused by the problem of
whether Joseph and his family are to be counted among the descendants of
Jacob/Israel. The total of 75 is arrived at hi the LXX by counting an
additional 5 (Egyptian) offspring of Joseph,8 whereas the MT total of 70
includes only two sons of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh.9
Cross (1995: 135-36) and Klein (1974: 15) argue that 4QExodb witnesses to the most original text. Rather than searching for a putative original, however, Steinmann (1996) argues that in the textual tradition of
Exod. 1.1-5 one finds two differing, perhaps competing, ideologies. One
ideology, represented by the MT and the Samaritan Pentateuch, presents
the family of Jacob as fractured and disunited; here, the position of Joseph
and his offspring is tenuous. The other ideology, represented by 4QExodb,
and developed by the LXX, presents the family of Jacob as united; here
Joseph and his offspring appear to be wholly included.
4. As reconstructed by Cross (1995: 134-36).
5. The confusion over the position of Joseph is also explicit in the Genesis list to
which the Exodus list is related: Gen. 46.26 and 27 give two different totals (66 and
70) for the number of Jacob's offspring who entered Egypt, depending on whether
Joseph's offspring are counted or not. In the LXX the totals are 66 and 75.
6. 70 is likely an artificial and symbolic round number (Van Daalen 1993: 563,
Westermann 1986: 158). Traditionally, 70 is also the number of the nations of the
world according to the Table of Nations in Gen. 10 (Wenham 1987: 213). Therefore,
the MT total at Exod. 1.5 portrays the Israel who entered Egypt as a microcosm of the
macrocosm of the entire world (Wenham 1987: 214).
7. The LXX also counts 75 at Gen. 46.27 and, in many manuscripts, at Deut. 10.22.
8. See LXX of Gen. 46.27.
9. One might recall also the tenuous position of Joseph on various lists of the 12
sons/tribes of Israel. Sometimes Joseph is listed as one of the sons/tribes (Gen. 46; 49),
at other times Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh are listed instead of Joseph, and in
yet other instances both Joseph and Ephraim/Manasseh are mentioned (eg. Num. 26;
Deut. 33).
3. Egypt in Exodus
49
50
3. Egypt in Exodus
51
52
framework within which the king gives voice to this recognition: it is the
framework of ethnic differentiation, of discourse that differentiates
between 'us' and 'them'.21 There is a constant play back and forth between
these two polarities in the king's speech: 'Look, the people of the sons of
Israel are more numerous and powerful than we. Come, let us deal
shrewdly with them..." (1.9-10a).22
Through the king's speech, the narrative constructs an ethnic distinction
between Israel and Egypt. The new king inverts the goodness of the
blessing of increase in 1.7 by seeing it as a threat. In light of the Joseph
story with its positive presentation of Israel's increase in Egypt, this
inversion involves a deliberate interpretational shift by the king.23 The
king asserts that Israel is anti-Egyptian and will therefore fight on the side
of Egypt's enemies; furthermore, he argues that Israel does not feel at
home in Egypt and will leave as soon as the opportunity presents itself
(1.10).24 In the narrative context, these are purely hypothetical speculations. The Israelites themselves are given no voice to either confirm or
challenge the king's inflammatory speculations. Yet these speculations
support the narrator's emphasis that Israel is not indigenous to Egypt.
The rhetoric of the king's speech in Exod. 1.9-10 is therefore intended
to persuade the audience of the distinction being constructed; it is not at
all necessary that the distinction was already accepted or presupposed by
the audience. That the speech is propaganda can be recognized by the
exaggeration that is used: the king inflates the numbers and strength of the
Israelites so as to incite the fears of his people.25 In summary, the king
constructs a differentiated identity for Israel by portraying them as not his
people, that is, as not Egyptian; and he makes that differentiation into one
21. Investigations of ethnic discourse have highlighted that such boundaries between
'us' and 'them' are most often drawn between near neighbours in order to create a sense
of differentiation (see Chapter 1).
22. The singular verbs used by the king in the MT to describe the actions of Israel
serve to heighten the sense of Israel as one people. Contrast LXX and versions that use
the plural and thus emphasize the plural collectivity of Israel.
23. That the increase of Israel in Egypt is a sign of (divine) blessing may indeed be
part of the ideology that the present text is attempting to subvert and oppose. The king
also subtly gives the increase implied in Joseph's name a negative twist by using the
Niphal of the verb "p1*, 'to be joined to', to foster the fear that Israel will join Egypt's
enemies (1.10).
24. The theme of 'going up from Egypt' is here introduced, and will quickly
become the goal of the narrative.
25. That Israel is more numerous than the Egyptians (1.9) is clearly hyperbole.
3. Egypt in Exodus
53
26. To an Egyptian diaspora Judaism, the message might be: 'See, it is the Egyptians themselves who reject you as being one of them or belonging in Egypt!'
27. The king's imagined fear that Israel will turn against Egypt makes most sense
against a background in which those identified as Israelites were actively involved in
Egyptian society, likely including the army. In this connection, it is interesting to note
the Hellenistic portrayal of Moses as a commander in the Egyptian army, who leads an
Egyptian expedition against Ethiopia (cf. Josephus, Ant. 2.238-53; Rajak 1978;
Runnalls 1983). One can also note the presence of Israelite soldiers in Egypt already in
the Persian period (at Elephantine), and prominence of Judeans in the Ptolemaic armies
and government of Egypt (cf. Kasher 1978,1985: 29-74; Modrzejewski 1995: 21-44,
83-87).
28. Numerical increase can be blocked through far more direct methods such as
selective or wholesale killing, but such methods are not considered until 1.15.
29. The introduction of the semantic field of "QI7 ('work, slavery, service, worship') here anticipates its importance in the later narrative. That is, now that the people
Israel have been constructed as a distinct entity, whom are they to serve? The whole of
Exodus can be seen as a competition between two answers to this question: either they
are to serve Pharaoh or YHWH. Furthermore, it becomes clear that for the dominant
ideology of the narrative, it is clearly impossible for Israel to serve YHWH in Egypt,
and so no alternative but an exodus is possible.
54
this king does not know Joseph (1.8).30 In fact, the beginning of Exodus is
a massive negation of the positive image of Egypt found in the Joseph
story. Israel's enslavement involves the building of mjDDQ "HJJ 'supply/
store cities' named Pithom and Ramses (l.llb).31 Whereas the Israelite
hero Joseph had initiated a program of storing food in Egyptian cities in
order to provide salvation from famine (Gen. 41.35-36,48-49, 56), here,
now that Joseph is no longer known, that program is inverted and the store
cities signify oppression for Israel.32
Despite (or because of) its oppression, Israel continues to increase
(1.12a); in fact the verb j"~lS is used, connoting a bursting out beyond
boundaries.33 This excessive increase causes Egypt to experience an 'ethnic
dread' of Israel (1.12b).34 Again, the narrative presents Egypt as the first to
express this revulsion of one ethnic group towards another; the rhetoric of
the king (1.9-10) seems to be having an effect. Egypt responds by increasing the oppression; the Egyptians become ruthless and add all kinds of
building work as well as work in the field (1.13-14).35
30. Knowledge will be an important motif in the following Exodus account. The
deity will be presented as knowing that Israel and Egypt are distinct, but both Egypt
and Israel will need to be taught this knowledge so as to separate Israel from Egypt as
the deity's own people.
31. The LXX adds the name of a third city: 'On, which is Heliopolis.' The names of
these cities are the only specific toponyms in the beginning of the book of Exodus, and
have often been interpreted as genuine historical recollections that help in ascertaining
the veracity and date of the exodus. However, the phrase in which the names occur has
all the appearance of a gloss (v. 1.11 a moves smoothly into v. 1.12), and was perhaps
interpolated into the text in order to provide Egyptian color (so Redford, who also sees
the gloss as reflecting an Egypt no earlier than the Saite period1963,1987:138-44).
32. This contrast with the Joseph story is lost in the LXX which has Israel being
forced to build rroAE i? oxupas 'strong/fortified cities'.The account in Exod. 1.9-11 of
the MT also echoes the language of the account of the Tower of Babel in Gen. 11.1-9.
An ironic comparison can be made: just as the building of the Tower of Babel frustrated the attempts of primordial humanity to remain united and resulted in its dispersal
and division, so also the Egyptian king initiates building projects to prevent the
dispersal of the people but his endeavors are negated by the exodus of Israel.
33. Note again that there is no explicit awareness of a separate territory of Goshen
for Israel here. Rather, the notion of bursting beyond boundaries gives the impression
that Israel could not be contained in any one place.
34. The verb j*1p is used in the majority of cases in the Hebrew Bible for a sort of
dread or revulsion experienced between ethnic groups (Gen. 27.46; Lev. 20.23; Num.
22.3; IKgs. 11.25).
35. In these two verses, the root "C#, 'work/serve' appears five times, and also the
3. Egypt in Exodus
55
In summary, by the end of this textual section detailing the origin of the
oppression of Israel in Egypt (1.8-14), a binary opposition between Israel
and Egypt has been constructed, and in this binary, Egypt is given a
negative valence. It is Egypt that first overtly differentiates itself from
Israel, that strikes out against Israel with oppression, and that is said to
loath or detest Israel. Just as Egypt seems to have been convinced by the
rhetoric of its king, so also the unresisting reader is led by the narrative to
be hostile to the Egyptians and to sympathize with the Israelites. At the
same time, the reader implicitly acquiesces to the differentiation between
Egypt and Israel that the producer of the narrative is at pains to make.
Genocide (LI5-22)
In 1.8-14, an antagonistic differentiation between Israel and Egypt has
been constructed. Now, that differentiation is played out in a different
register: Hebrews versus Egyptians. The term 'Hebrew' now becomes the
dominant term for the rest of chs. 1 and 2 (1.15, 16, 19; 2.6, 7, 11, 13).
What does this different register mean? Brueggemann interprets it in economic terms: 'Hebrews' are the 'have-nots' of society versus the Egyptian
'haves' (1994b: 695, 696). He depends here on the possible derivation of
"H3U, 'Hebrew' from the Akkadian habiru/hapiru in ancient Near Eastern
documents dating from the social upheavals in the Late Bronze Age,
usually interpreted as referring to a social element of fugitives, refugees
and outlaws (Lemche 1992). The term thus has connotations of trespass,
foreignness, and low social standing. However, in the Hebrew Bible "~IDU
always stands for members of the people Israel, usually from the perspective of non-Israelites;36 that is, the meaning of the term shifts from the
socioeconomic to the ethnic register.37 But these two registers are not
mutually exclusive: ethnic labels applied to a group by those outside the
group often carry derogatory connotations of low social standing, trespass
and alienism. The Hebrew etymology of ''"ntf itself suggests someone
who comes from beyond or from the other side.38 The introduction of the
words ~pB, 'harshness', "T1D, 'be bitter' andrTEip, 'severe', giving an overwhelming
sense of Israel's cruel subjugation by Egypt.
36. Israelites are Hebrews from the perspective of the Egyptians in the Joseph and
Exodus stories, and from the perspective of the Philistines in 1 Samuel.
37. The one exception is the law concerning Hebrew slaves inExod. 21.2-11 where
the old social differentiation between habiru/hapiru and hup'su ('peasants') seems to
have survived (Lemche 1979, 1975).
38. BDB: 720. The term is reminiscent of the somewhat derogatory English
56
term 'Hebrew' thus introduces into the differentiation between Egypt and
Israel a sense of social and economic marginalization, allowing Israel to
be feared and loathed from the Egyptian perspective as an intrusive
foreign element. From the Israelite perspective, the use of the term would
reinforce a sense of not belonging in Egypt.
Having tried forced labor, the king of Egypt, or Pharaoh,39 now initiates
a second strategy of killing the male newborns of the Hebrews (1.15-16).
That the sons are to be killed whereas the daughters are specifically to be
spared on the surface seems foolish in that it would deplete Pharaoh's
labor force. Yet, if kinship passes through the male,40 this policy would be
an effective means to assimilate Israel to Egypt; the Hebrew daughters
would have only Egyptian families into which to marry.41 However,
Houtman (1993: 262) suggests that one finds here the motif of the ruler
who fears the birth of a rival and therefore conspires to kill all newborn
male children; this suggestion is especially viable if this text is read as a
prelude to the birth of Moses in ch. 2.42
Thus, the Pharaoh's genocidal strategy continues the narrative's rhetoric
of differentiation by playing on the tropes of fear of assimilation (from the
narrative Israelite perspective) and fear of a rival (from the narrative
Egyptian perspective). But this ideology of differentiation is expressed
here, not by the king (as in 1.9-10), but by the midwives. It is they who
speak of a contrast between the Egyptian and Hebrew women when asked
expression for someone who does not belong to one's class: 'from the wrong side of
the tracks'.
39. Until now, the narrative has used the title 'king of Egypt' (except for one
appearance of the title 'Pharaoh' in the parenthetical remark in Exod. 1.1 Ib). Now the
titles 'Pharaoh' and 'king of Egypt' are used interchangeably. Magonet (1995: 81)
suggests that the choice of title is not merely a stylistic variant but may be part of the
particular narrative strategy at each point: 'it might be argued that the title "King of
Egypt" emphasizes the full authority vested in him as he tries to persuade the midwives
to do his bidding, whereas their courage in defying him is reflected in their addressing
"Pharaoh" when they resist his orders.'
40. Patrilineal descent is the assumed norm in the Hebrew Bible.
41. Cassuto (1983: 14) suggests that the king's policy is modeled on the story of
Abram in Gen. 12 where the male is threatened while the female is desired and brought
into the Egyptian harem. As demonstrated in Chapter 2, the story of Abram in Egypt
prefigures the dangers of assimilation Israel will face in Egypt.
42. Although the focus of Pharaoh here is on the killing of Hebrew male newborns,
in 1.22 all male newborns (Egyptian boys are not explicitly exempted) are to be killed,
thus strengthening the motif of Pharaoh's fear of the birth of a rival.
3. Egypt in Exodus
57
by Pharaoh why they have not complied with his orders: 'the Hebrew
women are not like the Egyptian women' (1.19a). The phrase by which the
midwives describe this difference, m'TIDi! jn^N KOD CHCDn run nTHD
n'n (1.19b), allows for at least two opposing interpretations. First, understanding friTI as an adjective meaning 'having the vigor of life' (BDB:
313), the phrase reads 'because they [the Hebrew women] are vigorous
and give birth before the midwife comes to them'.43 That is, the Hebrew
women are portrayed in very positive terms while the Egyptian women
appear weak in comparison. Secondly, understanding PlTf as the plural of
the noun '(wild) animal' (BDB: 312), the phrase reads 'because they are
(wild) animals and give birth before the midwife comes to them'. That is,
the Hebrew women are portrayed as barbarians who breed and give birth
like wild animals while the Egyptian women appear cultured and civilized
in comparison.44
Rather than opting for one meaning over the other, double-sided ethnic
stereotyping can be seen at work here. From an ethnocentric Hebrew
perspective, a complimentary ethnic stereotype of Hebrew women and a
derogatory one of Egyptian women is heard. But from an ethnocentric
Egyptian perspective, exactly the opposite is heard. The Egyptian king
naturally hears the stereotype in the second way, as derogatory to Hebrew
women.45 The midwives cleverly save their skin by allowing the king to
hear what he already believes while at the same time implicitly criticizing
Egyptian women over against Hebrew women.46
Thus the differentiation between Egyptian and Hebrew is again seen
to be not a simple fact but a social construct, an ideology. This ideology
of differentiation is, however, rendered problematic by the identity of
the midwives: are they Hebrew or Egyptian? They are described as
rVQUn m'ra (1.15), usually translated as 'Hebrew midwives'.47 How43. This translation is the one commonly adopted in English versions, for example
NRSV, NJPS.
58
ever, is the genitive here adjectival, meaning that the midwives are
Hebrew, or objective, meaning that they are midwives for or to the
Hebrews? 4S The first alternative allows the midwives only a Hebrew
identity whereas the second leaves open the possibility that they could be
Egyptian. If Hebrew, then they serve purely as ethnic heroes.49 If Egyptian, however, not only do they foreshadow the Egyptian princess who
will save Moses but they also problematize an absolute differentiation
between Hebrew and Egyptian50 since they transgress ethnic loyalties and
are rewarded for it.51
The question of the midwives' identities is an old one. Philo and Josephus describe the midwives as Egyptian and the rabbis debated the
matter.52 Again, rather than deciding the question one way or the other,
one can read the ambiguity of the text and its interpretations as pointing to
an ideological tension within the narrative. The midwives could be both or
either Hebrew or Egyptian, and they thus question the distinction or
boundary made between Hebrew and Egyptian women by the dominant
ideology of the text.
Pharaoh's genocidal initiative fails: 'the people' continue to increase
(1.20b).53 Therefore, Pharaoh calls on 'all his people' to perform the murders that the midwives seem incapable of doing (1.22), by throwing newborn sons into the Nile but allowing daughters to live.54 It is noteworthy
48. On the distinction between adjectival and objective genitives, see Waltke and
O'Connor (1990: 9.5).
49. The ethnic hero is a common topos in ethnic discourse.
50. There is always leakage around an ideology's strategies of containment. In
Exod. 1 and 2, this leakage particularly occurs around the sign of women.
51. God provides them with 'houses' (1.21), which, if they are Egyptian, may
signify that they were incorporated into Israel. Note also that it is in conjunction with
the midwives that the deity is first mentioned in the book of Exodus.
52. See Houtman (1993: 251-52) and Leibowitz (1976: 31-35).
53. Given the ambiguity of the midwives' identity, the term 'the people' in this
verse also becomes ambiguous. The reference seems to be to Israel (see 1.9) but the
introduction of the somewhat ambiguous term 'Hebrews' and the ambiguity of the
midwives' identity allows for thinking of other possibilities. For example, 'the people'
might here refer to Hebrews, whether Israelite or not, or to a group of Egyptians who
are being labeled as Israel or Hebrews although they may consider themselves Egyptian.
54. The words IDIT^D ('all his people') are a clue that the midwives can be
understood as Egyptian. In 1.9, the king speaks to 'his people'; in 1.22, he speaks to
'all his people'. Between these two occurrences, he speaks to the two midwives. The
implication is that in 1.22 he is speaking to more of his people than just the midwives;
i.e. the midwives are considered part of Pharaoh's people, as Egyptians.
3. Egypt in Exodus
59
that the MT does not specify which newborn sons are to be killed; only the
LXX, Samaritan Pentateuch and other versions indicate that it is 'sons born
to the Hebrews' who are to die. The MT, in other words, allows for the
possibility that both Hebrew and Egyptian sons are to be killed.55 If the MT
reading is a textual slip, it is one that is quite revealing of the ideological
tension within the narrative between a dominant view that constructs
absolute difference between Egypt and Israel and a submerged view that
questions such difference.
Birth of the Ethnic Hero (2.1-10)
The Israel constructed in the previous chapter of the book of Exodus has
so far remained a fairly amorphous entity, the main characteristic of which
is miraculous increase. No individual of this collective has yet stood out.
No opportunity has yet been given for Israel to speak. This situation
begins to change with the narration of the birth and early life of the ethnic
hero. With Moses, Israel begins to take definite shape. But, as we will see,
Moses is a figure fraught with ambiguity and his identification with Israel
is at times quite tenuous. As the paradigmatic hero of Israel, Moses'
ambiguous identity mirrors that of Israel itself.
Moses, as an adult, will emerge from an Egyptian household, but the
narrative is very concerned at the beginning to show that Moses' true
origins are from outside Egypt. Both his father and mother are identified as
Levites (2.1), Levi being one of the sons listed as having entered Egypt
with Jacob (1.1-5). In fact, his mother is identified literally as the daughter
of Levi himself (2.1 ).56 Furthermore, Moses is breastfed by his biological
mother (2.7-9). The likelihood of foreign elements in Moses' family tree is
made very remote. In this way, Moses, in his own history, replicates the
text's ideology of Israel's distinctiveness; originally a pure Israelite, he,
like Israel, will take a detour through the house of Egypt, but will reemerge in order to claim his true Israelite identity. As we have already
seen, this master narrative of Israel's origins has already been initiated in
5 5. This is further evidence for the motif of the ruler threatened by the birth of a
rival that may form one of the literary backgrounds to the narrative.
56. The MT reading 'I'rr'CTIK 'the daughter of Levi' is modified in the LXX to
TCOV 6uyc<TEpeov AEUI 'of the daughters of Levi', an attempt to mitigate the chronological problem that arises if the MT is taken literally. If Israel had lived in Egypt for
430 years before the Exodus (Exod. 12.40), it would be impossible for Moses' mother
to be literally a daughter of Levi. The obvious literal reading in MT Exod. 6.20 and
Num. 26.59 may be meant to underscore Moses' genealogical connection with Israel.
60
the book of Genesis; here, we see it put into play in the book of Exodus.
At the same time, however, Moses' origins will later betray some
problems. The genealogy of Levi, outlined later in 6.16-25, identifies
Moses' mother as his father's paternal aunt (6.20), a relationship that is
considered incestuous by the law code of Leviticus (18.20). Moreover, his
father marries up a generation, when the usual practice portrayed in the
Hebrew Bible is for a man to marry either in the same generation or down
one generation. And finally, Moses' birth is described (2.1-2a) such that
one assumes that he is the firstborn; however, suddenly an older sister
appears (2.4), and later a brother (4.14 and passim), who, in at least one
text, is described as three years older than Moses (Exod. 7.7).57 These
ambiguities indicate hints of alternative traditions in which Moses might
be other than what the text is at pains to portray him.
Moses' mother literally obeys the Pharaoh's decree (1.22) by putting her
child into the Nile, indicating that she is narratively identified as among
the people of Pharaoh (i.e. Egyptians) to whom his decree is directed.58
Ironically, she does so in such a way as to actually subvert the king's
command, putting her child in an ark (Ton) which she places among the
reeds (^D) along the banks of the river (2.3). The word i"DP is a backward
link to the story of Noah in Genesis (6-9), the only other place in the
Hebrew Bible where the word mn for 'ark' is used. As the ark in Genesis
was the vehicle of an entirely new beginning for humanity, so it also
functions here to mark a new beginning for Israel. Moses is thus like
Noah; just as Noah saved his family through the waters of the flood from
the rest of wicked humanity, so also Moses will save Israel from the
wicked Pharaoh and the Egyptians by leading them through the Sea of
Reeds (^O'D1) (Exod. 14).59 However, in the immediate narrative context,
57. Aaron and Miriam are also portrayed as later rebelling against Moses' leadership (Num. 12). The relationships between Moses, Aaron and Miriam are pictured in
various, and sometimes apparently conflicting, ways in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Miriam is described as related to Aaron alone in Exod. 15.20. Or, in many of the
passages in which Moses and Aaron are mentioned together, Aaron's name could
easily be removed without affecting the significance or meaning of the passage (Spencer 1992a: 3), suggesting that Aaron is perhaps a later addition.
58. Since Pharaoh addressed his decree to 'all his people' (1.22), by implication,
Moses' mother is counted as one of Pharaoh's people. That is, on the literal level of the
text Moses' biological mother is considered Egyptian.
59. Deliberate connections with Genesis seem to be forged repeatedly in the first
two chapters of Exodus. The narrative intention seems for the macroscopic or universal
3. Egypt in Exodus
61
62
3. Egypt in Exodus
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64
Israelite/Hebrew is explicitly drawn in blood. And the victim, interestingly, is not an Israelite or a Hebrew but an Egyptian.
Moses, now grown up, 'goes out' ,70 presumably from the royal Egyptian
household of his upbringing, to his kin.71 This movement, prefiguring the
grand movement of Israel out of Egypt,72 promises an identification of
Moses with his non-Egyptian Israelite roots. This promise seems to be
fulfilled by the narrative, which repeatedly uses the term 'his brothers/kin'
to emphasize Moses' solidarity with the Hebrews/Israel. Moses sides
with the Hebrews and kills an Egyptian who is beating 'a Hebrew man
from among his kin' (2.lib). By this action, it seems that Moses has
himself made a drastic decision to identify with the Hebrews and sealed it
with murder.
But when Moses 'goes out' a second time, he finds that the people with
whom he has identified reject him, viewing him in the same light as they
see Pharaoh. When Moses tries to intervene in a quarrel between the two
Hebrews, he demands HD1? ('Why?') (2.13b), just as the Pharaoh had
previously demanded 'Why?' of the midwives (1.18b). Whereas the midwives had given Pharaoh an evasive answer that both confirmed the king' s
prejudices and subtly made fun of his people, the Hebrews here soundly
reject Moses' attempt to identify with them. For the first time the narrative
gives access to the Hebrews' point of view; from their perspective the
murder of the Egyptian by Moses was not an act of solidarity or liberation;
instead it only confirmed for them the image of the oppressor. In the eyes
of the Hebrews, Moses was exactly what he appeared to be, a member of
an oppressive Egyptian royal house.
Having been rejected in his attempt to identify with the Hebrews, now
Moses also has his Egyptian identity repudiated, for the Pharaoh seeks to
kill him (2.15a). To save his life he is forced to flee,73 without a sure
Egyptian or Israelite identity. This uncertainty is typical of the early life of
70. The Hebrew word NIT ('to go out') is one of the programmatic words in the
account of the exodus.
71. The Hebrew word here is Vi~IN, literally 'his brothers'.
72. Fretheim (1991b: 41-45) farther points out how 2.11-15a portrays Moses as
embodying the experience of Israel in terms of conflict with Egypt and flight, and that
it also anticipates the future office of Moses as judge over Israel (see Exod. 18).
73. Moses flees away from Egypt. Most of the other examples of persons in the
Hebrew Bible who are forced to flee for political reasons, flee to Egypt (cf. Hadad the
Edomite [1 Kgs. 11.14-22], Jeroboam [1 Kgs. 11.26-40], Uriah the prophet [Jer. 26.2023]). Thus, the pattern of Moses' flight is an inversion of the more common biblical
pattern.
3. Egypt in Exodus
65
ethnic heroes, but in the case of Moses it also seems to indicate that, on the
wider ideological plane of the narrative, the differentiation between
Hebrew and Egyptian is still unstable.
Furthermore, the image of Moses is tarnished almost from the beginning
by this episode. Moses commits a premeditated murder, looking around
first to make sure there are no hostile witnesses74 and afterwards surreptitiously hides the body (2.12). He presumes not only to identify himself with the oppressed Hebrews but also to act in the capacity of leader
and judge over them, without any validation, human or divine.75 He then
flees in fear rather than heroically resisting the oppressor. One can see an
anti-Moses tradition at work here, or, as Silver puts it, an attempt to
diminish Moses' heroic role. While such a diminishment may be attributed
to theological reasons, on an ideological level it may be due to Moses'
Egyptianness.76
Liminality in Midian (2.15b-22)
Moses flees to the land of Midian (2.15b).77 In the preceding scroll of
Genesis, Midian has appeared twice: as one of the sons of Abraham and
Keturah (Gen. 25.2, 4), and, alternating with the Ishmaelites, as the
caravan traders who convey Joseph as a slave to Egypt (Gen. 37.28, 36).
Midian is thus placed in Genesis as a close kin of Israel and yet as a
branch of the family rejected as a bearer of the promises to the ancestors.
In other words, according to the geneaological ideology of Genesis,
Midian will eventually be a dead end for Moses.
In the present Exodus narrative, however, Midian signifies a liminal
74. An alternative interpretation is that Moses was looking around for help in
stopping the beating and seeing none, took matters into his own hands (see Leibowitz
1976: 43-46).
75. On a theological level, the narrative has Moses' efforts fail here because the
deity has not yet properly commissioned him.
76. In contrast to the heroic treatment of David in the Hebrew Bible, successive
editions of the Torah 'seemed to have struggled against Moses' reputation rather than
to have elaborated it' (Silver 1982: 17). 'The Torah's editors took every possible
precaution to drive home the point that power and authority belong to God and that the
community must be conscious always that Moses is simply God's agent, God is the
Master' (Silver 1982: 21). On an ideological level, however, the Pentateuch in its final
text form may be attempting to undercut or refute an image of Moses as hero
celebrated by Judeans in Egypt, thus accounting for the ambiguous portrayal of Moses.
77. A similar motif of the flight of the disgraced hero appears in the Egyptian story
of Sinuhe (ANET: 18-22).
66
space (Turner 1969), neither Egypt nor Israel, where Moses can find temporary refuge and work out his identity.78 The liminality of Midian mirrors
the liminality of Moses. However, once identities have coalesced or
settled, the liminal place is no longer necessary. So one finds in the later
Pentateuch a gradual shift towards a rejection of Midian. Whereas Moses
finds refuge in Midian (Exod. 2-4) he later divorces his Midianite wife
who takes her sons back to Midian with her (Exod. 18.2-4).79 Similarly,
whereas Israel is organized according to the advice of a Midianite priest
(Exod. 18) and asks for Midianite guidance in the wilderness, later Midian
refuses to join Israel (Num. 10.29-32), and the involvement of Midian in
Israel's participation in idolatrous fertility rituals at Peor leads to Israelite
hostility towards Midian (Num. 25). Finally, one of the last acts of Moses
is to command the extermination of the Midianites (Num. 31).
In Midian, Moses encounters the daughters of his future father-in-law at
a well, a biblical topos associated with marriage alliances and the striking
of new agreements.80 Moses is accepted into a Midianite family and
marries one of the daughters. All of this raises the issue of the identity of
Moses; previously, the question has been whether Moses is Israelite or
Egyptian, but now there is also the possibility that he has adopted a
Midianite identity.
From the narrative point of view of the Midianites, Moses is an
Egyptian.81 What Moses thinks of himself is less clear. He does not
identify himself to his Midianite host, but is willing to settle in Midian and
78. Archaeologically, Midian has been identified with a sophisticated culture that
arose in the Late Bronze Age in the northern Arabian peninsula east of the Arabah
(Mendenhall 1992: 817). However, the biblical narrative is more interested in Midian
as a foil for Israelite identity.
79. The verb used in Exod. 18.2 is the piel of FT^EJ, literally 'to send away', a
technical term for divorcing a wife (see Deut. 24.1, 3).
80. See Gen. 21; 24; 26; 29.
81. The daughters of Reuel refer to Moses as an *~)iQ ETK 'an Egyptian man'
(2.19), exactly the same words used to describe the Egyptian whom Moses murdered
(Exod. 2.11). Durham (1987: 23) regards this as nothing more than a narratorial
connecting device. Others (e.g. Cassuto 1983: 25) speculate that Moses was wearing
Egyptian clothes and/or speaking Egyptian. But these solutions only buttress the
ideology of the text which wants to distance Moses from Egypt. In contrast, a reading
that resists the dominant anti-Egyptian ideology of the text will see this reference as
one of the places in which the text slips and reveals something of the alternative
ideologies that it is opposing.
3. Egypt in Exodus
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68
3. Egypt in Exodus
69
YHWH
MOSES
ISRAEL
Figure 1. Characters in the Struggle over Identity in Exodus
Moses will be central to the ideological contest over identity in the rest
of the scroll of Exodus. Essentially, YHWH and Pharaoh/Egypt will vie for
ownership of Israel. The central question will be whether Israel belongs in
Egypt or not. Moses will stand in the midst of this agonistic struggle, having an ambiguous relationship with the other major players in this drama
of identity: Egypt, YHWH and Israel (see Figure 1). The following analysis
of the remainder of Exodus will be structured around the narrative construction of the identities of these players, as seen in five major narrative
segments.
70
3. Egypt in Exodus
71
72
99. Two different plans are also apparent in the contrast between words Moses is
commanded to speak to the elders of Israel (3.16-17) and the words they are then to
speak to Pharaoh (3.18). To the elders Moses is to convey YHWH'S plan to bring Israel
up out of Egypt to another land, whereas to Pharaoh they are to announce merely their
desire to travel three days into the wilderness to worship their God. The separation of
Israel from Egypt thus involves a deliberate ruse or deception of the Egyptians.
Cassuto (1983:43), however, sees the words to Pharaoh in 3.18 as merely the opening
gambit in a series of negotiations, according to the conventions of ancient Near Eastern
negotiations in which one begins small and then asks for more.
3. Egypt in Exodus
73
from Egypt. The 'signs' that Moses performs will successfully persuade
Israel, according to the first plan. However, according to the second plan,
the 'wonders' that Moses performs will fail to persuade Egypt, not by its
own fault but because of the deity's machinations.100 YHWH will ensure
that the situation escalates to the point of death by hardening the Pharaoh's
heart, suggesting that the Pharaoh might otherwise have been willing to
accede to some less drastic and final form of differentiation.101 Ironically,
while the king of Egypt first suggested the differentiation of Israel from
Egypt (1.9-10), it now becomes clear that it is YHWH who most desires
this differentiation. YHWH'S identity, as the God of Israel, becomes dependent on Israel's ethnic differentiation from Egypt.
The narrative is careful to locate YHWH outside of Egypt. Moses' encounter with YHWH takes place outside both Egypt and Midian (3.1).102
YHWH claims that he has 'come down' to deliver Israel (3.8)the same
verb "TT ('to descend') is regularly used to describe the journey to
Egypt.103 In other words, the text adamantly presents this deity as not
native to Egypt. In fact, the God who reveals himself to Moses cannot, it
seems, be worshiped properly in Egypt at all, for in his presentation to
Pharaoh (3.18), Moses is to request permission for Israel to go a three
days' journey out of Egypt so that the God of the Hebrews can be
worshiped.104 The text, therefore, not only identifies the God known to
100. Because of these diametrically opposite effects, Cassuto (1983: 55) claims that
the 'wonders' of the second plan are completely different from the 'signs' of the first
plan. However, 'signs' and 'wonders' are often coupled in Deuteronomy (see 4.34;
6.22; 7.19; 26.8; 28.46; 29.2; 34.11), suggesting that the two terms form a hendiadys.
101. The motif of the 'hardening of Pharaoh's heart' becomes prominent in the
narrative of the plagues. Pharaoh hardens his own heart in 7.13, 22; 8.15 and 9.35;
YHWH hardens Pharaoh's heart in 4.21 andin9.12; 10.20,27; ll.lOand 14.4,8(10).
102. Durham (1987: 30) calls it a 'new, strange and distant place'i.e. a no-place.
On the reference to wilderness in 3.1, see Talmon (1966) on the desert motif in the
Bible. Note, however, that later Moses meets Aaron at the 'mountain of God' (4.27).
The narrative seems to understand this place as close to the border of Egypt, suggested
by the swift transition from the meeting of Moses and Aaron to their presentation to the
elders of Israel. (Josephus, in his retelling of the exodus, explicitly places the meeting
of Aaron and Moses near the border of EgyptAnt. 2.13.279.) The location of YHWH
on the border of Egypt mirrors the attempt of the narrative to locate Israel in the same
place; that is, outside of and separate from Egypt, but close enough to make Egypt the
'other' against which identity must be asserted.
103. For example, Gen. 12.10; 26.2; 39.1; 42.2-3, etc.
104. See also 3.12; 4.23. Houtman (1993: 373) argues that the God associated with
the Hebrews cannot be worshiped on territory that is the domain of the gods of Egypt.
74
Israel in Egypt with the God of the Genesis ancestors, but also simultaneously claims that this God cannot be worshiped properly in Egypt.
In the context of the production of the final form of the text, a huge claim
is being presented against the possibility of legitimate YHWH worship
in Egypt.105
However, in order to effect the differentiation and exodus of Israel from
Egypt, YHWH must, temporarily at least, move into Egypt itself. And so he
does in the guise of Moses' staff, the one with which Moses is to perform
signs, identified as the 'staff of God' (DTI ^Kn HCOQ) in 4.20. In Egypt, this
staff will function to perform magic (7.9-12), to bring on some of the
plagues (7.15, 17, 19, 20; 8.12, 13; 9.23; 10.13), and to divide the sea
(14.16). YHWH is metonymically identified with this staff which embodies
his power and presence; in the figure of the staff, it is as if YHWH invades
Egypt to do battle against the Egyptians. The deity who claims Israel as
separate from Egypt, and who is presented as not native to Egypt, can be
present in Egypt only as the one who effects the strategy of ethnic
distinction.
The Identity of Israel
Whereas the king of Egypt had disavowed the 'sons of Israel' by defining
them as the negative pole of the ethnic 'us-versus-them' polarity (1.9-10),
YHWH here claims Israel as 'my people' (3.7, 9, 10). Thus the ethnic
dichotomy constructed in the previous two chapters of Exodus is further
sharpened into an opposition between YHWH'S people and Pharaoh's
people. That Israel is now to be regarded as a separate people is further
suggested by the reference to its organizational structure of elders (3.16,
18), such as any discrete people would have been supposed to have.106
105. During the Persian period there was at least one YHWH temple in Egyptat
Elephantine. In the Hellenistic period there was an additional YHWH temple at Leontopolis. Furthermore, some of the earliest evidence for the emergence of the synagogue
comes from Egypt. Although claims against the legitimacy of diaspora Judaism would
not necessarily single out the diaspora community in Egypt, it seems that the Egyptian
community is especially targeted here. In contrast, for instance, Ezek. (10-11) pictures
the divine presence as going to Babylon with the exiles after abandoning the Jerusalem
temple after the disaster of 586 BCE.
106. Every people was likely supposed by the biblical writers to have such a
structurethe elders of Egypt are mentioned in Gen. 50.7 and those of Moab and
Midian in Num. 22.7. However, these elders of Israel quickly fade from the reader's
view in Exodusin the later narrative Aaron seems to take their place and function
(see Fretheim 1991b: 66).
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76
3. Egypt in Exodus
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115. Israel is claimed as YHWH'S firstborn son only here in the Hebrew Bible;
elsewhere this epithet is applied once by the deity to Ephraim (in parallelism with
Israel) (Jer. 31.9). Otherwise, Israel is occasionally described as a son of God (Hos.
11.1) or as children of God (for example: Deut. 14.1; 32.5-6, 18-20).
116. The syntax of Exod. 4.23 is awkward in that the verb tenses seem to refer to an
event in the past'I said to you', 'you refused to let him go'and yet all of this is still
to come in the narrative's future. What seems to be involved here is a prolepsis, or
anticipation of a future act as if presently accomplished. From the perspective of the
deity, the foreknowledge of Pharaoh's resistance settles the matter of Israel's
fundamental, even divine, difference from Egypt.
117. Just as Israel, as YHWH'S firstborn son, is a collective, so also it seems that by
the parallel firstborn son of Pharaoh is meant Egypt, not just literally Pharaoh's
biological firstborn son.
118. Levenson (1993a: 40-42) warns against interpreting the notion of Israel as
YHWH'S firstborn in purely figurative terms. The involvement of YHWH in the births of
Israel's ancestors in Genesis indicates that more than a mere metaphor is involved.
Levenson also points to the interesting passage in Hos. 11.1, which indicates that 'the
divine father fell in love with the boy in Egypt, leading him forth...' (1993a: 39). The
Hosea passage seems to suggest, in contrast to the Genesis accounts, an alternate
tradition in which Israel's divine sonship begins in Egypt. Without the prologue of
Genesis, the passage in Exod. 4.21-23 could be interpreted in accordance with this
alternative tradition.
78
3. Egypt in Exodus
79
tive to come will describe the people as doubting and resisting. When the
people are portrayed again as bowing in homage much later after the
instructions for Passover have been given, once more no explicit object of
their homage is mentioned (12.27b). Not until after the crossing of the sea
and the annihilation of Egypt in the waters is it said that 'the people feared
YHWH and believed in YHWH and in his servant Moses' (14.31b). The
ethnogenesis of Israel, the formulation of Israel's identity as unique and
distinct from Egypt, is presented in the narrative as a long process that
does not near completion until after the plagues and the crossing of the
sea. In other words, Israel's distinct identity is won through contest with
Egypt and is not secured until Egypt is beaten.
The Identity of Moses
Caught in the battle between YHWH and Pharaoh over Israel's identity is
Moses. A hybrid Egyptian-Israelite, yet called by YHWH to separate Israel
from Egypt, Moses embodies in himself the ambiguities of Israel's developing identity over against Egypt.
The encounter of Moses with YHWH is structured around a series of four
objections that Moses raises to YHWH'S call.123 Such resistance is apart of
other call narratives in the Hebrew Bible;l24 what is striking in this case is
the number and persistence of Moses' objections. Although this could be
interpreted theologically as highlighting the initiative of YHWH over
against human motivations,125 ideologically what seems to be happening is
an undermining or deflation of a heroic picture of Moses.126 And yet vestiges of a heroic, even mythical, image of Moses still remain. For instance,
Moses is instructed to be as 'God' to Aaron (4.16).127 On the surface this is
123. Fretheim(1991b: 52). The number of Moses' objections hinges on the interpretation of 4.13. The phrase here is ambiguous: on the surface it could be an expression
of assent: 'please, Lord, send whomever you want' but under the surface it may conceal a subtle objection: 'anyone, that is, except for me!' Many translators and commentators prefer the second option (e.g. NRSV and NJPS).
124. For example, Jeremiah objects to his call (Jer. 1.6) and repeatedly laments his
circumstances after being called (Jer. 11.18-12.6; 15.10-21). Jonah outright flees from
the task given to him by the deity (Jon. 1.1-10). Gideon demands proof before
accepting his divine calling (Judg. 6.11-24).
125. Houtman(1993: 325), for instance, interprets the extensive resistance of Moses
as 'stamping the entire mission as God's undertaking'.
126. A heroic picture of Moses is found in Jewish Hellenistic literature; see, for
example, the portrait of Moses in Artapanus (see Holladay 1983: 199-215).
127. See also 7.1 where Moses is to be as 'God' to Pharaoh, and Aaron is to be as
'prophet' of Moses.
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(4.16). Thus the narrative displays a certain tension between the roles of
Moses and Aaron, further indicating some anxiety in the text over the
status and identity of Moses.
Moses himself does not seem to be clear about his identity; his first
objection to YHWH is "D3S 'D ('Who am I?', 3.11). On the surface, a
stereotypical way of addressing a person of greater power and authority
with suitable humility,133 this expression can also be read, in the context of
the identity politics of the narrative, as an index of the uncertainty of
Moses' identity. YHWH'S response addresses this uncertainty. While the
words 'I will be with you' (3.12a) respond to Moses' feeling of inadequacy, the following words 'when you have brought the people out of
Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain' (3.12b) implicitly answer
Moses' lack of identity. The second 'you' in the latter phrase is plural,
implying that, from the narrative perspective of YHWH, Moses is part of
Israel.
From the narrative perspective of Moses, however, this identification
with Israel is not at all clear. Although YHWH identifies himself to Moses
as the 'God of your father' (3.6),134 Moses anticipates talking to Israel, not
about the 'God of our ancestors', but about the 'God of your ancestors'
(3.13), as if he were not included in the Israel whom he is addressing.
Moreover, Moses also doubts that the sons of Israel will accept his
message as coming from YHWH (4.1), indicating that from his narrative
perspective he may not perceive himself as being accepted by Israel as a
genuine Israelite.135 That YHWH gives Moses three signs to present to
Israel (4.2-9) furthermore points to the possibility that his commission and
message required the sort of authentication that might be demanded of an
outsider.136 In these ways, the identification of Moses with Israel is
brought into question.
Whereas Moses made a rather straightforward narrative transition from
Egypt to Midian (2.15-21), his return to Egypt is narratively very complicated, involving episodic jumps, temporal distortions, and geographic
133. For example, when David addresses Saul (1 Sam. 18.18) or the deity (2 Sam.
7.18; 1 Chron. 17.16; 29.14), or when Solomon addresses the deity (2 Chron. 2.6).
134. YHWH commands Moses to use the identical phrase in 3.15 and 16.
135. Moses has already previously experienced rej ection at the hand of Israel (Exod.
2.13-14).
136. Conversely, the signs themselves may have been understood as Egyptian in
character. Besides adding Egyptian color to the story, the signs would portray Moses as
an Egyptian magician, thus further highlighting his Egyptianness.
82
137. Moses first asks his father-in-law permission to return to Egypt, which is
granted (4.18); suddenly, YHWH intrudes again, ordering Moses back to Egypt (4.19).
Moses, with his family, returns to Egypt (4.20); YHWH again intrudes with instructions
about 'wonders', not 'signs'(as in 4.8-9), which Moses is to perform, not for Israel (as
in 4.1-9), but for Pharaoh (4.21). In 4.23 future events are spoken of in the past tense.
In 4.24, Moses and his family are on the way again. Suddenly Aaron appears and
meets Moses at the 'mountain of God' (4.27) where Moses had his revelation (3.1),
even though the narrative has twice indicated that Moses is on the way to Egypt if not
already there (4.20. 24). Finally, Aaron speaks the words and performs the signs for the
people, presumably back in Egypt (4.30), and the people respond. Besides these
narrative dislocations, there are elements of narrative continuity in this section as well:
the staff (of God) in 4.17, 20; and the 'wonders' and 'signs' (4.21, 28).
138. Conversely, perhaps what is masked here is a tradition that Moses never left
Egypt at all, and that his encounter with YHWH took place within Egypt.
139. Fretheim (1991b: 75) suggests that the narrative confusion is typical of the
depiction of transitions, and that the movement from Midian to Egypt is here viewed
from different angles. Similarly, Durham (1987: 60) suggests that here the compiler
has brought together every reference to Moses' return to Egypt known to him. Both
suggestions are plausible but do not explain just why such strategies are employed at
precisely this point in the narrative, with this particular transition, and not at other
transitional points, such as Moses' displacement from Egypt to Midian. It is my
contention that the surface narrative tension is isomorphic to the deeper ideological
tension that the text is attempting to mediate.
3. Egypt in Exodus
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84
3. Egypt in Exodus
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86
The first encounters of Israel with Pharaoh upon the return of Moses to
Egypt fail in realizing their objective. Moses' and Aaron's demands of
Pharaoh (5.1-5) result in rejection and negative consequences (5.6-14).
The complaints of the supervisors of the Israelites to Pharaoh (5.15-18) are
likewise followed by negative results (5.19-23). Consequently, Moses
must be called and commissioned again, because it seems that his first call
and commission end in failure.149 Thus in ch. 6 of Exodus, the audience of
the scroll encounters a reprise of material from ch. 3 and 4.150 This particular cycle of failure followed by a second beginning provides a rich set
of insights into the ambiguous dynamics of identity construction in the
Exodus narrative.
The Identity of Israel
It is clear that from YHWH'S dominant narrative perspective, as reported in
the call of Moses, the separate identity of Israel, necessitating an exodus
from Egypt, is firmly established. However, from the narrative perspectives of Egypt and Israel, this separate identity remains uncertain or
unconvincing. While the king of Egypt first voiced a distinction between
Israel and Egypt (1.9-10), and also expressed a desire to single out the
Hebrews for genocidal treatment (1.15-19), the present Pharaoh's responses to his first encounter with Moses and Aaron do not present the same
clear distinction. The term 'Israel' (5.2) appears once in the Pharaoh's
discourse, only to immediately be replaced by multiple occurrences of the
more general and ambiguous term 'people' (DU). Pharaoh refers numerous
times to 'the people' (5.4, 6, 7), once to 'the people of the land' (5.5), and
once to 'the men' (5.9). In each of these instances, the specific reference is
unclear; while one might assume that Israel is meant, the references could
just as well be to a working or slave class among the Egyptians. Therefore,
according to Pharaoh's point of view as depicted in the text, it is uncertain
whether Israel as a separate definable entity exists.151
A textual problem centering on Pharaoh's reference to 'the people of the
149. This is the opinion of Fretheim (1991b: 89-90). This interpretation also accords
with the two-step 'build-up and climax' structure that is encountered in narrative in the
Hebrew Bible, where an initial abortive attempt is followed by a second successful
attempt (Gordon 1992).
150. Altogether, ch. 6 of Exodus shows more signs of compilation or editing than
other parts of Exodus. Many interpreters see in 6.2 to 7.7 or 7.13 a strand of priestly
material that has been inserted into the JE narrative.
151. The same ambiguous usage of 'the people' continues in 5.10, 12.
3. Egypt in Exodus
87
152. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads f ~!Kn DJJO, 'from the people of the land' instead of the MT ]Hfcn CI?, 'people of the land'; this maybe an alteration due to assimilation to the parallel passage in 1.9 and/or simplification of the text for an easier
reading (HOTTP 94). The MT presents the more difficult reading.
88
3. Egypt in Exodus
89
people'. And, since non-human plurals often take feminine singular verbs
(GKC: 145k), it may be possible that DI3 ('people'), while a masculine
noun, as a collective could take a feminine verb form.158 The resulting
reading is: 'and look, your (masculine singular) servants are beaten and
your (masculine singular) people have sinned/are guilty'.159 In this case,
the Israelite supervisors are portrayed as positing a difference between
their people (Israel) and Pharaoh's people (Egypt).160
Secondly, one can posit a scribal error in the MT and so repoint the verb
KC3FT as a second masculine singular and add a preposition before DU in
order to make it into a proper object of the verb: "]5I? "? PKCprn. The resulting reading is: 'and look, your servants are beaten and you (second person
masculine singular) have sinned/are guilty against your people'. This is
indeed the reading found in the LXX, Syriac and Pesher versions; it is also
the suggested reading in BDB (p. 766), and has been adopted by the
NRSV.161 In this case, the Israelite supervisors present themselves as part of
Pharaoh's people, that is, as part of Egypt. Although the difference on the
surface may be due to the mediating position that the supervisors occupy
as part of middle management, under the surface the difference concerns
the self-understanding of Israel in Egypt. These textual difficulties may be
158. Waltke and O' Connor (1990: 105) indicate that singular nouns that are collectives are often feminine but they do not cite the noun DU as an example. Cassuto (1983:
71) notes thatDU is treated as feminine in Judg. 18.7 and Jer. 8.5 because of the influence of nearby feminine nouns. Of course a simple emendation to the third masculine
singular NEni would also solve the problem.
159. HOTTP (p. 95) prefers this reading (giving it a B rating), and also translates the
verb as a future tense'and your people will be guilty'by reading the preceding
waw as a waw consecutive. Cassuto (1983: 71) argues that a waw consecutive is not
involved. Cassuto (1983:71) provides the interesting argument that the supervisors are
portrayed as meaning to blame Pharaoh and therefore started out by saying 'you are
guilty', but out of deference they swallowed the last part of the verbal form and added
'your people'.
160. Two suggested emendations come to a similar interpretation. The verb NEF1
could be repointed as a feminine noun in construct, making the problematic phrase
read "]ftV nfctsrn ('and the sin/guilt [is] your people's'). (HOTPP [p. 95] rejects this
reading as due to scribal error and/or misunderstanding of ancient Hebrew linguistic
data.) Or KEF! could be repointed as a second masculine singular and a waw added
before DU resulting in "]Qri riNtprn: 'and you and your people have sinned/are guilty'
(Durham 1987: 67).
161. See also Brueggemann(1994b: 728). HOTTP (p. 96) rejects this reading as due
to simplification of the text and/or scribal error and/or misunderstanding of ancient
Hebrew linguistic data.
90
162. It is conceivable that the LXX version is original on the grounds that it is the
more difficult reading and was thus altered by subsequent scribes who thought it was
an obvious error to portray the Israelite supervisors as speaking of Israel as part of
Egypt.
163. Contrast the far more welcoming response Moses and Aaron receive in 4.2933!
3. Egypt in Exodus
91
not clear whether YHWH'S hand or Pharaoh's hand is meant.164 Also, there
is potentially a great difference between being let go and being driven out.
The uneasy amalgamation of different exodus traditions may be indicated
here, one tradition attributing the exodus to YHWH'S mighty actions in
forcing Pharaoh to let the people go, and another tradition attributing the
exodus to a forced expulsion by the might of Pharaoh.165 While it is the
first tradition that the narrative desires to make dominant, traces of an
alternative tradition are retained, making a definitive version of the exodus
even in the final text form questionable and showing the ideological labor
at work in the text.
From YHWH'S dominant narrative perspective, a separate identity for
Israel, necessitating an exodus from Egypt, is absolutely necessary. However, from the narrative perspective of Egypt, reported by Pharaoh, and the
narrative perspective of Israel, reported by the supervisors of the sons of
Israel, this separate identity remains uncertain and unconvincing. The text
thus has woven into it two ideological tendencies: the dominant one,
which sees the distinctiveness of Israel as necessitating an exit from
Egypt, and the submerged one, which sees Israel as somehow Egyptian or
at home in Egypt.166
The Identity ofYHWH
That the Pharaoh does not seem clearly to acknowledge Israel as a
separate entity is connected to Pharaoh's ignorance of YHWH, Israel's God
(5.2). Much of the following plague narrative will be concerned with
making YHWH known to Pharaoh and the Egyptians167 since the acknowledgment ofYHWH simultaneously entails recognition of Israel's distinct
status. By defeating Pharaoh, YHWH will gain recognition for himself and
164. The phrase HpTn T3 is repeated twice in 6.1. See the LXX variant 'an
outstretched arm', influenced by parallel passages such as 12.33. Cassuto (1983: 74)
argues that the first hand is the deity's and the second is Pharaoh's.
165. The second tradition of expulsion reminds one of the slanderous tales current in
Hellenistic Egypt and recorded by Manetho, which attributed the origin of the Jews to
the expulsion of a community of lepers from Egypt (see Stern 1976: 62-86).
166. In a later chapter, the possibility will be raised that these two perspectives may
correspond with the world view of Judeans of the Persian period in Palestine and in
Egypt, respectively.
167. See 7.17; 8.10,22; 9.14, 29; 10.2, 8, 24; 11.7; 12.31; 14.4, 17. The concern is
with making YHWH known not only to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, but also to Israel
since Israel cannot acknowledge its own identity without recognizing YHWH as its
God.
for his people Israel. To this end, the narrative portrays YHWH and
Pharaoh in parallel fashion: the prophetic formula 'Thus says YHWH'
(5.1)168 corresponds with 'Thus says Pharaoh' (5.10), YHWH threatens
with the sword (5.3) as does Pharaoh (5.21), and both YHWH and Pharaoh
are accused of causing evil (5.22-23).169 The narrative initially situates
YHWH and Pharaoh on the same level in similar roles in order to highlight
the conflict that is being sparked between them.170 Their conflict will
center on the ownership of Israel; at stake is whether Pharaoh will continue to see Israel as merely a part of his Egyptian domain or acknowledge
Israel as a separate entity to which YHWH has claim.
It is significant that this second call and commission seem to occur in
Egypt (see especially 6.28), in contrast to the location of YHWH'S previous
revelation to Moses outside of Egypt.171 One finds here possibly the trace
of a tradition which locates the origins of Israel as a distinct people not
outside of but in Egypt itself; however, this tradition has been submerged
under the dominant ideology of Israel's origins external to Egypt by being
incorporated as the second step in a twofold repetitive narrative progression.
The possibility of a tradition of an Egyptian origin for Israel finds
support in the strong case made by YHWH in 6.2-8 for discontinuity
between the Exodus narrative and the ancestor stories of Genesis. The
ancestors did not know the deity as YHWH but rather as El Shaddai
(6.3).172 Four times the deity here presents himself with the formula
168. This formula appeared once previously in the book of Exodus at 4.22. It will
appear 8 more times in Exodus, 7 of these times in the plague narrative: 7.17,25; 8.16;
9.1, 13; 10.3; 11.4. The formula does not appear elsewhere in the Pentateuch.
169. The word used is U"l, translated here in the NRSV as 'mistreatment'. The same
word also appears in 5.19. Cassuto (1993: 72) and others wonder whether there is here
an allusion to Re, the chief deity of the Egyptian pantheon. In other words, an ethnic
pun or slur may be involved, in which the Egyptian chief God is connected with evil.
170. Of course, the fact that Pharaoh was considered divine or semi-divine in
Egyptian belief further makes him a worthy opponent for YHWH.
171. Verse 6.28 is oddly highlighted by a following paragraph break in the MT. It is
difficult to know whether the emphasis in this verse is on YHWH'S presence in Egypt,
or Moses' presence in Egypt, or both, or the fact that divine revelation or contact can
happen in Egypt.
172. The transition from one name for the deity to another can have a purely literary
function, quite apart from indicating the historical origins and development of Israel's
religion. Cassuto (1983: 78-79) makes the interesting observation that the name El
Shaddai is often used in the literary context of fertility or increase. It thus accords with
the part of the promises to the ancestors regarding increase into a nation or people, a
promise that seems now in the narrative to have been fulfilled. The name YHWH,
3. Egypt in Exodus
93
miT '] ('I am YHWH', 6.2, 6, 7, 8), as if to underline this new name.173
Explicit reference by YHWH to the triad Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as
'your ancestors' (as previously in 3.6, 15, 16; 4.5) is absent. And in 6.7
YHWH asserts that he will take Israel as his people and that he will become
their God. The language here suggests adoption or marriage or taking
possession, language that presumes the beginning of a new relationship
rather than the continuation of an old one.174 These elements of discontinuity with the ancestral accounts of Genesis heighten the sense that the
creation, in Egypt, of Israel as YHWH'S people is a new beginning.175
At the same time there are also strong elements of continuity.176 The
land promised to the ancestors is precisely the land that YHWH now
promises to grant to Israel (4.8). The verb *?fcW ('redeem'), appears for the
first time as a description of the exodus (6.6),177 connoting the continuation of an established familial relationship between YHWH and Israel; it
places YHWH into the role of the kinsman who is obligated to rescue a
member of the extended family from a difficult situation or obligation
(Unterman 1992: 650-52).178 The term thus implies that Israel already
however, is associated in the literary context of Exodus with getting this people, this
nascent Israel, out of Egypt.
173. This is the first occurrence of this formula of divine presentation in the
Pentateuch. Cassuto (1983: 76) demonstrates that the phrase is the normal way that a
monarch presented himself in ancient Near Eastern texts found on stelae, and so argues
that it is not a formula of revelation or theophany as much as a formula asserting
authority. That is, YHWH here is not so much revealing himself as asserting his kingly
authority over the people he has chosen for his own vis-a-vis Pharaoh.
174. The verb in 6.7 is in the imperfect tense, indicating perhaps future action; this
seems to point to the events at Mt Sinai as the time when Israel fully becomes YHWH'S
people. While in Egypt, Israel is still under Pharaoh's authority, necessitating a strong
counter claim from YHWH. The first half of Exodus is the only place in the Pentateuch
where the phrase 'my people' is found frequently on YHWH'S lips, indicating that the
narrative is very concerned here with establishing the authority of YHWH over Israel.
175. Further on the discontinuity between Exodus and the ancestor traditions, see
Moberly (1992), who argues that this discontinuity is a deliberate theological or
ideological feature of the text serving to portray the events related in Exodus as an
entirely new beginning.
176. See Brueggemann (1994b: 733) who sees a dialectic between continuity and
discontinuity here.
177. Previously in the scroll of Exodus, the exodus has been referred to by the verbs
KiT ('to bring out', hiphil in 3.10,11,12) and "] ('to deliver', hiphil in 3.8; 5.23 and
also here in 6.6).
178. The semantic field of b^3 (Gen. 48.16; Exod. 6.6; 15.13 and many times in
94
belongs to YHWH but has only temporarily come under the power of Egypt.
The text oscillates between these elements of continuity and discontinuity connected with the deity, indicating an ideological dissonance
between at least two differing understandings of Israel's origins. One
asserts Israel's continuity with the ancestral traditions of Genesis and thus
posits the origins of Israel with those ancestors outside of Egypt; the other
claims discontinuity with those traditions and so stresses a new beginning
in Egypt. Elements of both continuity and discontinuity are preserved in
the final text form since the producers of the text seem to want to stress
both Israel's primal origin in the ancestors of Genesis outside of Egypt and
yet also the novelty of Israel's genesis as YHWH'S people inside of Egypt.
Both Israel and Egypt must be persuaded of YHWH'S claim on Israel.
Therefore, YHWH asserts that through the exodus both Israel (6.7) and
Egypt (7.5) will know YHWH. Moses and Aaron are mandated to go to both
the Israelites and to Pharaoh in order to free Israel from Egypt (6.13).179
Both Pharaoh/Egypt and Israel need to be convinced that the identities of
YHWH and Israel are interwoven. As 6.7 and 7.5 make clear, the knowledge
of YHWH as Israel's God is inextricably linked with the exodus of Israel
from Egypt. Israel's identity, and YHWH'S identity as Israel's God, hinge on
the exodus of Israel from Egypt; conversely, as long as Israel stays in Egypt
Leviticus and Ruth) and the related term HIS, 'to ransom' (Exod. 13.13, 15; 21.8;
34.20) constitutes an ideological interpretive lens through which the narrative presents
and understands the birth or formation of Israel as a distinct people through the exodus.
One form of redemption is whereby an indentured Israelite could be redeemed from
servitude by a monetary payment (Lev. 25.47-55, see also Exod. 21.8). However, if the
narrative similarly envisions YHWH as redeeming Israel from indentured servitude in
Egypt, the problem is that YHWH does not seem to make a payment of any sort. In
contrast, the plundering motif (3.21-22; 11.2-3; 12.35-36) indicates that, if anything,
the Egyptians seem to make payment to Israel. A second form or model of redemption
is that of the 'blood redeemer' who avenges murder or severe harm inflicted on a
relative (Num. 35; Deut. 19; and Absalom's killing of Amnon, his sister's rapist in 2
Sam. 13-14). YHWH'S killing of the Egyptian firstborn and drowning of the Egyptian
army in the sea would then similarly be the action of the 'blood redeemer' to avenge
the oppression of Israel by Egypt (see Unterman 1992:653). The plundering motif may
then indicate an attempt by the Egyptians to ransom their lives from the death penalty
imposed by the blood redeemer (on this sort of ransom, see Exod. 21.28-32). However,
Pharaoh's genocidal policies towards Israel constitute murder, and since a murderer's
life cannot be ransomed (Num. 35.31), the attempt fails.
179. In 6.13, the LXX omits the mandate to go to the sons of Israel (HOTTP: 96-97
sees this as a simplification of the text) and has YHWH commanding Moses and Aaron
to go only to Pharaoh.
3. Egypt in Exodus
95
neither YHWH nor Israel can be who they really are, at least according to
the dominant ideology of the text.180
The Identity of Moses
If the overriding ideological concern of the text is the establishment of a
firm non-Egyptian identity for Israel, then the identities of Moses and
Aaron, Israel's leaders in the exodus, must also be firmly grounded both
within Israel and outside of Egypt. It has already been noted that the
identity of Moses is portrayed in ambiguous terms. Moses, for instance,
does not seem to identity himself clearly as a part of Israel. In response to
the recriminations of the Israelite taskmasters, Moses complains to YHWH,
using the terms 'this people' and 'your people' of Israel (5.22-23). In
response to a challenge to his leadership, he distances himself from the
people.181 This division between Moses and the people reflects the tension
in the narrative regarding Israel's identity and perhaps mirrors similar
tensions in the audience of the scroll.
On the other hand, however, in ch. 6 a genealogy provides a legitimate
place within Israel for Moses and Aaron (6.14-25).182 The genealogy
begins by listing, in order, Jacob/Israel's sons. But after a cursory treatment of Reuben and Simeon (6.14-15), a detailed treatment of Levi
follows (6.16-25), and the other sons of Jacob are not mentioned at all.
This shift is surprising in light of what the audience may have expected
given the previous genealogical lists in Gen. 46 and Exod. 1, and so may
have been designed intentionally by the producers of the text to highlight
the very explicit purpose of this genealogy in legitimating Aaron and
Moses.
Such concern for genealogical legitimation is reminiscent of the postexilic reconstructionist concerns for pure lineage reflected in EzraNehemiah, and may suggest that some sort of resistance to the legitimacy
180. And therefore no compromises can be made with Pharaoh; thus, the motif of
the hardening of Pharaoh's heart (7.5; also previously at 4.21) which will play an
important part in the upcoming plague narrative. The notion that Israel cannot really be
Israel in Egypt would be a strong message to Judeans settled in Egypt in the Saite,
Persian or Ptolemaic periods (see Chapter 6).
181. Compare the similar dynamic in 2.14-18 where Moses flees to Midian.
182. Note the double emphasis on, and the chiastic arrangement of, the names of
Aaron and Moses at the end of the genealogy (6.26-27). The genealogy is surrounded
by a frame of repetitive material (6.11-13 and 26-30), suggesting that it has been
interpolated into the text. Resumptive repetition (Wiederaufnahme) of material as a
frame around an interpolation seems to have been an ancient editorial practice.
96
of Moses and Aaron among the target audience for the scroll of Exodus
needed to be overcome. However, this effort at genealogical legitimation
is itself ambiguous. For one thing, the effort to provide Aaron and Moses
with an unassailably pure Levitical lineage results in having their father
marry his father's sister, a type of marriage that is forbidden in Leviticus
(18.12; 20.19).183 For another, an Egyptian etymology seems to lie behind
several of the names in the genealogy.184 Thus both the purity and nonEgyptian character of the genealogy are undercut.
Although the genealogy concludes by twice mentioning both Moses and
Aaron (6.26-27), it is in reality far more concerned with Aaron. Descendants of Aaron extending all the way to one of his grandchildren are
mentioned, but no descendants of Moses are listed, even though at least
one son of Moses is already known.185 Genealogically, Moses disappears
while Aaron lives on in his descendants.186 This dynamic fits the general
diminishment of the heroic Moses that has already been noted earlier in
the Exodus scroll. In contrast, in 7.1, Moses is given the status of a God
183. Durham (1987: 83) suggests that the importance of providing a pure genealogy
for Aaron (and Moses) has here overridden the taboo against marrying one's father's
sister. The LXX tries to rectify the problem by describing Amran's wife here as the
daughter, not the sister, of his uncle. But the LXX agrees with the MT in Num. 26.59,
where Jochebed, the mother of Moses and Aaron, is described as Levi's daughter.
184. The names Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Merari, Putiel, Assir and Phinehas likely
have Egyptian etymologies (Noth 1966; Zadok 1986). The name Putiel is particularly
interesting in that it may be a hybridized name of both Hebrew and Egyptian origin.
185. Moses' son Gershom appears in Exod. 2.22. Moses packs up his wife and sons
(plural) in 4.20. A second son of Moses, Eliezer, is named later along with Gershom in
Exod. 18.3-4. A few further descendants of Moses are listed in 1 Chron. 23.15-17, but
in a context where they are clearly seen as secondary to Aaron's descendants who
become priests. There is some confusion between Gershom, Moses' son, and Gershon,
one of Levi's sons (1 Chron. 5.27; 6.1, 16 lists Levi's son as Gershom, but this is
usually considered a scribal error). A different line of descent from Moses through
Gershom is suggested in Judg. 18.30, where a priesthood descended from Moses is
associated with a cult deemed illegitimate by the narrative (textual variants read
Manasseh instead of Moses here); see Garsiel (1991: 136-38). 1 Chronicles 26.24-28
describes various descendants of Moses as levitical officials in charge of the treasuries.
The second son of Moses, Eliezar, may be confused with Aaron's son Eleazar. Moses'
Cushite wife in Num. 12 seems to be someone different from Zipporah, but no children
connected with this wife are mentioned.
186. Durham (1987: 83-84) suggests that at the time the final form of the Tetrateuch
took place, the legitimacy of Moses was firmly established but the legitimacy of Aaron
was still being debated. However, it could be argued that the text seeks not just to
legitimize Aaron, but also to displace the elevated status of Moses.
3 Egypt in Exodus
97
vis-a-vis Pharaoh, while Aaron is to act as his prophet.187 The text labors,
therefore, as in the erasure of Moses' descendants from the genealogy, to
subvert any such tradition of an exalted status for Moses.188 While it is
important that Moses be portrayed as non-Egyptian, it is also ideologically
important for the text to portray him as not heroic or of divine stature.189
The ambiguity of Moses' identity is further manifested by his resistance
to this second of YHWH'S commissions with the explanation that he is a
person of'uncircumcised lips' (6.12,30). This comment is usually understood as a reference to some sort of speech disability like the one
described by Moses in 4.10.19 However, the word b~lU ('uncircumcised')
may imply that Moses felt that his success would be prevented by his
outsider ('uncircumcised') status.191 Since the Egyptians seem to have
practiced circumcision of a sort and refused access to the royal court to
those they considered uncircumcised (Galpaz-Feller 1995), Moses could
be referring to his outsider status vis-a-vis Pharaoh. However, he could
just as well be referring to his lack of insider status among the Israelites;192
the possibility that he was not circumcised at all was already raised in
4.24-26. Again, the uncertain identity of Moses is highlighted.
Conclusion
After an initial attempt ended in failure (Exod. 5), Moses is commissioned
a second time (Exod. 6). The play of continuity and discontinuity with the
ancestor traditions of Genesis suggests two main perspectives on Israel's
origins: from outside Egypt, and from within Egypt. The struggle of the
first perspective for dominance is reflected in the need of both Israel and
Egypt to be persuaded of YHWH'S plan for Israel's identity and exodus,
187. It has already been suggested that 4.16, where Moses is to be as a God to Aaron
and Aaron is to be his mouth, not only subordinates Aaron to Moses, but also may
indicate a tradition of a (semi) divine status for Moses. The word 'prophet' is used in
Exodus only of Aaron (here) and of Miriam (15.20).
188. As Durham (1987: 86) remarks: 'at every crucial point, the presence of Moses
is either forgotten or at least obscured by the Presence of Yahweh'.
189. The image of Moses as both Egyptian and as heroic or even (semi-) divine may
have been held by Judeans settled in Egypt.
190. Brueggemann (1994b: 735), however, cautions against too quickly making a
connection between the two texts.
191. Ezekiel 32 and 44 make extensive use of the epithet 'uncircumcised' as a
category of exclusion and derision.
192. Abraham institutes circumcision in Gen. 17. Exodus 12.48 excludes the
uncircumcised from participation in the Passover.
98
193. Where MT and English translation differ in verse numbering, the verse numbers
in the English translation are enclosed in square brackets
3. Egypt in Exodus
99
194. The contest with the Egyptian magicians is of the popular folk genre 'contest
between magicians' (see S. Thompson 1966: V, 2.67, 309).
195. Irwin(1977:195) draws attention to a similar motif in the Egyptian story 'The
Wax Crocodile'. Houtman (1993: 137-38) suggests that the pP ('snake') in the
biblical story should be understood as a crocodile.
196. See also 7.22; 8.3 [7]; and 8.14 [18], where the phrase appears asnrreta. It is
usually connected to the root OK1? (see Judg. 4.21) with its connotations of secrecy and
stealth. Alternatively, it may suggest the connotation of the blazing brilliance of a
magical illusion (from the root BH *?), or the connotation of entangling in magical spells
(from the root 01^).
197. The term D'QBin is itself an Egyptian loan word, meaning 'priest-reader'. All
three terms designate the same group of people: those learned in secret knowledge and
thus capable of interpreting dreams and displaying supernatural powers. Their presence
at the royal court is indicative of their power and prestige. See also Gen. 41, which is
also set in the Egyptian court, and Dan. 1-2, set in the court of Babylonia. That these
are all non-Israelite contexts suggests that an exotic foreign, if not forbidden, practice
is being described.
198. Note that, whereas the sign of the snake was given in 4.1-5 to persuade Israel,
here it is directed towards convincing Pharaoh. Also, the snakes here are the more
awesome and fearsome (pP), with their connotations as monsters or dragons of chaos,
(e.g. Gen. 1.21;Ps. 74.13; Isa. 27.1) rather than the EJm ('snake') of 4.1-5. However,
the term tOTT] is picked up again in 7.15.
100
already turned most of the water in Egypt into blood,199 very little water
remained for the magicians to demonstrate their power.200 Similarly, the
magicians are able only to duplicate, but not reverse, the annoying second
plague of frogs (8.3 [7]). A humorous picture is presented of frogs jumping everywhere, even into Pharaoh's bed and into the ovens and kneading
bowls (7.28 [8.3]). Pharaoh is unable to turn to his own magicians for
help, but must request that Moses and Aaron bring an end to the frog
plague (8.4 [8]). And then, ironically, the cure is no better than the plague
itself; the frogs die everywhere and stink up the land (8.9-10 [13-14]).
The ineffective power of the magicians reaches its limits with the third
plague of gnats; this plague the magicians are not able to duplicate (8.14
[18]). In their defeat, they acknowledge that some sort of divine power is
atwork: 'the finger of (a) God, this!' (8.15 [19]). Couroyer(1956a) argues
that this phrase is an Egyptian expression, here referring to the staff of
Aaron and Moses, which is seen by the magicians from their Egyptian
perspective as a divine or magical tool. The phrase itself appears elsewhere in the Pentateuch only in Exod. 31.18 and Deut. 9.10, where the
two stone tablets of the covenant are described as having been written by
the 'finger of God'.201 Intertextually, therefore, the magicians may be portrayed more sympathetically at this point as recognizing in the plagues
YHWH'S Torah or teaching.202
The magicians appear one last time in the sixth plague; they cannot
stand before Moses because they are afflicted with boils along with all the
other Egyptians (9.11).203 This last trace of their contest with Moses and
Aaron signifies their final humiliation and defeat, for they cannot even
protect themselves from the effects of the plague.
The whole series of encounters with the Egyptian magicians can be read
199. The impression given by 7.19. However, 7.21 -22,24 seem to indicate that only
the water in the Nile was turned into blood.
200. Unless the magicians changed the blood back into water before changing it into
blood again, which would paint an even more ludicrous picture.
201. On the possible Egyptian background of the writing of the tablets of the
covenant by the finger of God, see Couroyer (1956b).
202. Durham (1987: 110) argues that the magicians are not denigrated but seen as
worthy opponents.
203. The phrase ''DS1? "TQU usually means to present oneself before someone, but it
can also have the connotation of making a stand or holding one's ground against
someone (e.g. Judg. 2.14); the magicians are thus pictured satirically both as physically
not being able to present themselves and as not being able to hold their ground against
Moses in the performance of wonders.
3. Egypt in Exodus
101
102
may have been part of a positive portrayal of Egypt among the intended
audience of the scroll.
Thus the narrative attempts generally to discredit Egypt. The contest
with the Egyptian magicians ridicules the view of Egypt as a place of
wisdom and magical power, while the reversal of creation signified by the
plagues casts suspicion on images of Egypt as a place of plenty. But the
plague narrative also strives more specifically, in a variety of ways, to
differentiate Israel from Egypt. For instance, Israel is mentioned as exempt
from the effect of some of the plagues: the fourth plague of flies (8.18-19
[22-23]), the fifth plague of livestock disease (9.4,6-7), the seventh plague
of hail (9.26), the ninth plague of darkness (10.23), and the tenth plague
involving the death of the firstborn (11.7; 12.21-27). Some commentators
assume that the text means to exempt Israel from all of the plagues, even if
the exemption is not explicitly mentioned for every plague. But this
assumption is questionable, especially in the case of the first three plagues
before the exemption of Israel is even mentioned.206
The narrative emphasizes that the effect of many of the plagues was felt
throughout all the land of Egypt. During the first plague 'there was blood
in all the land of Egypt' (7.19, 21), implying that Israelites could be
among the Egyptians who could not drink from the river and had to dig for
water (7.21,24). The second plague of frogs extends to all the borders of
Egypt (7.27 [8.2]). When the frogs die, they are described as expiring in
houses, courtyards and fields (8.9 [13]) without any indication of whose
these properties are, and the identity of those who heap the dead frogs into
piles is also not specified (8.10 [14]); again, by implication, Israelites
could be among those affected. Similarly, the third plague of gnats takes
place 'in all the land of Egypt' (8.12-13 [16-17]); in fact, 'all the dust of
the earth' in Egypt is turned into gnats (8.13 [17]);207 again, without any
indication of exemption, one could easily assume that Israelites were also
affected.
206. Philo already argued (Vit. Mos. 1.143) that the theme of the distinction of Israel
from Egypt was implicit in all the plagues and that Israel was spared from the effect of
the plagues from the start (see Childs 1974: 157). But such a view depends on reading
distinctions made in the narrative of the later plagues back into the earlier plagues.
While such 'back-reading' is a legitimate interpretive move and may actually indicate
the dominant ideology of the producers of the text, it should not be used to obscure the
traces of other ideologies against which the producers of the text may have been
writing.
207. The LXX tones this hyperbolic statement down by saying 'in all the dust of the
land there were gnats'.
3. Egypt in Exodus
103
104
3. Egypt in Exodus
105
opponent of Nehemiah (Neh. 2.19; 6.1-2,6). Thus, while the name in the
LXX seems to have been meant to point to some place in the eastern delta
of Egypt, in the MT it remains unattached to any extrabiblical toponyms.
The eastern delta was a place that outsiders often entered in order to find
pasture for their flocks, as ancient Egyptian records show (e.g. ANET:
259); the reference to Rameses and Pithom in Exod. 1.11, cities that
interpreters usually locate in the eastern delta,215 support this general
location. But Goshen also refers in Joshua (10.41; 11.16; 15.51) to
locations in southern Judah.216 It seems that, at least in the MT, Goshen
remains unlocatable and functions perhaps more as a symbolic territory,
ambiguously located on the margins between Egypt and Canaan.217 In the
plague narrative, then, Goshen functions twice to mark a utopic distinction
between Israel and Egypt,218 while the remainder of the narrative portrays
Israel as dwelling among the Egyptians.219
While exemption from some of the plagues and residence in Goshen are
incomplete means whereby Israel is distinguished from Egypt, a much
stronger case is made in the language of the deity. The dialogues between
YHWH and Moses and Pharaoh abound in the ethnic rhetoric of'us' versus
'them'. The discourse of YHWH is especially strong in the use of the
contrast between ^ftV ('my [i.e. YHWH'S] people') and ~[DI? ('your [i.e.
Pharaoh's] people', see 7.26-29 [8.1-4]; 8.16-19 [20-23]; 9.13-19). The
distinction is not quite as starkly drawn, however, in the discourse of
Pharaoh and Moses. Pharaoh speaks of 'DU ('my people', 8.4 [8]; 9.28),
but never of 'your people'. Moses speaks of ~p# ('your [i.e. Pharaoh's]
people', 8.5 [9], 7 [11]), but never of 'my people'.220 Conversely, while
215. Uphill (1968, 1969), however, suggests that Pithom is to be located at Heliopolis near present day Cairo.
216. In these instances, the LXX reads fooop instead of FEDEM, suggesting that in the
LXX tradition these places were considered different from the Goshen in Egypt.
217. See the analysis of Goshen in Chapter 2 on Genesis.
218. Ethnic discourse often includes an ideology of space: a territory or homeland
that is associated with the particular group. However, this space need not be inhabited
by the members of the group, nor need it necessarily be 'real' space. Fictive or Utopian
spaces often function as part of the ethnic discourse of colonial or diasporal groups. On
these types of ethnic groups, see A.D. Smith (1992).
219. Egypt and Israel are not physically separated until the pillar interposes itself
between the Egyptian and Israelite camps (14.20).
220. Moses' words in 8.6 [10] 'so that you (i.e. Pharaoh) will know that there is no
one like YHWH our God' seem to create the classic dichotomy between 'us' and 'them'
in the MT. The LXX here, however, reads OTI OUK EOTCO aXAo? TrAr|V Kupiou ('that
106
The ethnic distinction between 'my people' and 'your people' is immediately evident; it would be clear to the audience of these words that a
distinction between YHWH'S people and Pharaoh's people is divinely
mandated. However, the manner of the distinction is less obvious.
there is none besides the Lord'), thus emphasizing a universal monotheism instead of
an ethnic dichotomy. In this case the LXX displays a universalizing tendency as
opposed to the ethnic dichotimization in the MT.
3. Egypt in Exodus
107
First, the rare verb n^S is used. This verb appears in the Pentateuch
only in Exodus and always there in the context of some sort of differentiation of Israel: in 8.18 [22] the separation of Goshen, in 9.4 separation
between the livestock of Egypt and Israel, in 11.7 separation between
Egypt and Israel, and in 33.16 separation of Israel from all the people of
the earth.221 Thus its primary signification of ontological or spatial separation seems to be firmly established in the scroll of Exodus. However, the
verb appears three more times in the Hebrew Bible in Psalms 4.4 [3], 17.7
and 139.14, where it has a sense of uniqueness or distinction more by
virtue of being extraordinary rather than separate. In these instances, the
verb H ^S functions very much like the orthographically similar verb K ba,
which means 'to be extraordinary' in the sense of being either marvelous
or incomprehensible or impossible.222 This overlap of meanings compromises the strict sense of spatial or ontological separation indicated by the
use of the verb H ^S in Exodus, and suggests that the separation of Israel
from Egypt is more one of degree than kind. That is, Egypt is ordinary
while Israel is extraordinary, which does not necessarily imply that they
must be separate in origin or location.
The LXX also hints at this alternative meaning in that, for each instance
of ri^B in the MT of Exodus, it reads rrapaSo^a^oo ('to make wonderful,
extraordinary', 8.18 [22]; 9.4; 11.7) or sv6oi;aco ('to hold in high esteem',
33.16).223 When a sense of strict separation or division is meant, the Pentateuch usually employs the verbs ^"Q or "HE .224 The distinctive use of n ^S
in Exodus, with its different concept of separation, seems to indicate some
221. Thenotion of separationis reinforced by theuse of]13...]''3, 'between' in9.4
and 11.7, and by the use of the partitive |G, 'from' in 33.16.
222. BDB: 811, on the basis of an Arabic cognate, suggests that n bs and K bs are
actually parallel forms; in Ps. 139.14, they appear in juxtaposition. Both verbs seem to
be based on some notion of separation: n ^S on separation per se, implying spatial or
ontological separation, and N bs on separation from the ordinary or expected, implying
more of a separation of degree.
223. The LXX could possibly have read the verb N ^S in its Hebrew Vorlage in these
instances. The Samaritan Pentateuch, for instance, reads N^S in 9.4 and 11.7 (but not
in 8.18 [22]).
224. For "?~D, see especially Lev. 20.24-26 where this verb is used of the separation
between Israel and the nations. The verb ~I~S is similarly used of the separation of
peoples and nations; see especially Gen. 13.9,11,14 (separation of Lot, ancestor of the
Ammonites and Moabites, from Abraham), Gen. 25.23 (separation of Esau, ancestor of
the Edomites, from Jacob), and Deut. 32.8 (division of the human race into separate
nations with fixed boundaries).
108
3. Egypt in Exodus
109
that a clean animal, such as a sheep, be sacrificed as a substitute; alternately, the unclean animal's neck must be broken (Exod. 13.13a; 34.20a;
Num. 18.16; Lev. 27.27).229 Finally, male firstborn of humans require
a substitute in the form of some sort of ransom, usually a payment of
money to the sanctuary (Exod. 13.13b, 15; 34.20b; Num. 3.11-13, 44-51;
18.16).230
The question is what these procedures of substitutionary ransom have to
do with YHWH'S determination to make a distinction between Israel and
Egypt (8.18-19 [22-23]). Israel has already been identified as YHWH'S
male firstborn in Exod. 4.22-23. Moreover, the Pentateuchal legislation
regarding the ransoming of the firstborn described above twice includes a
motive clause justifying the legislation by reference to the killing of the
Egyptian firstborn in the tenth and final plague (Exod. 13.14-15; Num.
3.11-13). Thus, the phrase 'I will set a ransom between my people and
your people' (8.19 [23]) could be read as a proleptic reference to the tenth
plague which will distinguish between Israel, whose firstborn will live,
and Egypt, whose firstborn will die. If so, however, based on the substitutionary logic of the ransom procedure, what sort of exchange, either
monetary or sacrificial, is involved? The only monetary transaction involved in the exodus is the 'plundering' of Egypt by Israel. According to
the logic of ransom, this would signify a payment whereby the Egyptians
ransom themselves, but this does not seem to be the case. Another
possibility is that the death of the Egyptian firstborn functions as a sacrificial substitute for the Israelites. When Israel is born as a distinct people,
as the firstborn of YHWH (Exod. 4.22-23), the substitutionary ransom
required of every firstborn male must be paid. In this case, Egypt is the
substitutionary sacrifice. The ethnogenesis of Israel as a people, in terms
of the metaphor of ransom, involves the drawing of distinctions via substitutionary violence.231
229. In the case of a vow (Lev. 27.27), an unclean animal could be ransomed by
paying to the sanctuary its assessed value plus one-fifth.
230. The type or amount of ransom for the human male firstborn is not specified in
Exod. 13.12-16 or 34.19-20. hi Num. 3.44-51, the Levites count as substitutes, but a
ransom of 5 shekels apiece is set for human male firstborn over and above the number
of Levites. See also Num. 18.16. Leviticus 27.3-8 provides a list of monetary
equivalents for human lives, ranging from 5 to 50 shekels depending on age and
gender, for the purpose of ransoming from a vow; in this list, the male from one month
to five years of age is equivalent to 5 shekels.
231. The use of the root mS in Deuteronomy (7.8; 9.26; 13.6[5]; 15.15; 21.8; and
24.18) is quite different in that it refers exclusively to the rescue of Israel from Egypt
110
Thirdly, the textual variants show that the meaning of Exod. 8.19 [23] is
difficult or contested. The LXX reads Scooco SiacrroAr] ava (jeaov TOU
EMOU Aaou Kai ava (jeaov TOU oou Aaou ('I will grant/sanction/permit a
difference between my people and your people'). The term 5iaoroXr|
('distinction, difference') does not seem to translate the MT term ms
('ransom'), and is possibly a translation of P "?B, from the verb n bs ('to be
separate/distinct'). However, when nbs appears in the MT in other passages in Exodus where the distinctiveness of Israel is asserted (9.4; 11.7;
33.16), there the LXX does not translate the verb as SiaoxoAAco ('to
separate, distinguish'). Thus, perhaps yet another term lies behind the LXX
translation.232 Durham (1987: 111-12), following G.I. Davies (1974:49192), proposes an emendation of the MT ma to n~ns, from the verb "HS
('to divide'), which the LXX does translate twice (Gen. 25.23; 30.40) with
SiaojoAAco.233
These textual variations point out two different understandings of
YHWH'S intention in Exod. 8.18-19 [22-23]: one is that of ransom, with its
allusion to the redemption of the firstborn through a substitutionary
sacrifice, and the second is that of division, separation or distinction.
Either understanding speaks of a distinction between Israel and Egypt, but
the understanding of ransom articulates more directly with the final plague
(and the following climax at the sea) in which the distinction is signified
quite literally by the death of Egyptians. This overlapping of notions of
substitutionary ransom with notions of differentiation make the difference
between Israel and Egypt far more compelling; indeed, rather than merely
as the ransoming of slaves from slavery, without any connotation of the ransoming of
the firstborn. The instances in Deuteronomy thus resemble the use of the root "7K3 in
legislation regarding the redemption of property (Lev. 25.24-34) or kin (Lev. 25.47-55)
that have been sold because of dire need. However, since the exodus does not seem to
involve a payment to the Egyptians, Deuteronomy seems to refer more specifically to
the concept of the C"in VlM ('redeemer/avenger of blood', Num. 25; Deut. 19) who
avenges a homicide by killing the perpetrator. In any case, the functions of ms and
bm can overlap, as they seem to do in the discussion of ransoming property, animals
or human beings from vows in Lev. 27 (Snaith 1967: 268; Budd 1984: 36).
232. The LXX translates as TrapaSoKEco ('to make marvelous/mysterious') in Exod.
9.4 and 11.7, and as evSoKEco ('to make glorious') in 33.16, both possibly readings of
N bs. Although the LXX uses 61 otoToAXco to translate some 21 different Hebrew verbs,
il'PS is not among them. Once, in Lev. 22.21, the LXX uses SiotOToAAco to translate the
closely related verb &"?).
233. Durham (1987: 111) sees the word n~l~IS as meaning something like a 'protective shield'.
3. Egypt in Exodus
111
Again, a distinction between 'them' and 'us', between Egypt and Israel, is
starkly drawn. However, whereas YHWH'S two previous assertions of the
234. The dog generally appears in the Hebrew Bible as an unclean, loathsome creature, and thus in formulaic expressions of opprobrium and self-abasement (Botterweck
1995). Conversely, in Egypt, while the dog figured as a metaphor for 'slave/servant', it
was also considered with affection as a domestic pet and functioned as a symbol in the
religious cult, particularly that of Anubis, the dog-headed God of the dead. The dog is
also associated with death in the Hebrew Bible, but with a shameful death (dogs are
pictured as eating unburied corpsese.g. 1 Kgs 14.11; 16.4; 21.24). The figure of the
dog in 11.9 thus may imply that the sons of Israel will be protected from the shameful
death that will befall the Egyptians. Durham (1987: 145) interprets the phrase 'to
sharpen the tongue' as describing an attitude of malice.
235. Again, the Samaritan Pentateuch here reads N^S instead of HI7S, and the LXX
translates irapaSoKEco, most likely also reading K^B.
112
separation of Israel and Egypt appear in speeches that Moses is commanded to speak to Pharaoh (8.16-18 [20-23]; 9.1-4),236 in this third and
final instance the speech has no explicit addressee.237 Moreover, in the
phrase 'that you will know that YHWH distinguishes/separates between
Egypt and Israel', the verb I7T ('to know') is not singular, referring to
Pharaoh, as in 8.18 [22], but plural.238 So who is being addressed?
At first glance, the speech in 11.4-8 seems to be addressed to Israel,
since the immediately preceding verses (11.1-3) are directed to Israel.239
Furthermore, Moses has just previously indicated that he will never see
Pharaoh again (10.29), seeming to bring his audiences with Pharaoh to an
end. But a subtle shift occurs in v. 11.8: Moses now seems to be speaking
not YHWH'S words but his own words, and Pharaoh and his court, not the
Israelites, are being addressed.240 Some commentators have solved this
problem by seeing either different sources in the text241 or by bracketing
11.1-3 as parenthetical.242 It seems, however, that the text in its present
form presents an ambiguity that cannot be conjured away but rather is a
clue to the dynamics of the formation of biblical Israel's identity. That is,
although YHWH'S assertions of distinction between Israel and Egypt are
236. In both cases the actual delivery of the speech is not reported, only the actual
occurrence of the threatened plagues (8.20 [24]; 9.6-7). One can assume that the
narrative means for its audience to understand that Pharaoh heard the speeches and that
therefore, within the narrative world, it is Pharaoh that needs to hear and learn of the
distinction between Israel and Egypt. Of course, by reporting only YHWH'S command
to Moses to deliver the speech, the narrative betrays that its true concern is that the
audience hear the speech and be convinced of the distinction between Israel and Egypt.
237. Furthermore, in 11.4-8 Moses is portrayed as actually delivering this divine
speech without any explicit prior authorization from YHWH.
238. The LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch both read the verb as a singular here.
239. Admittedly, however, in 11.1-3 the ambiguous DI?n ('the people') is used and
not the more specific 'sons of Israel'. This ambiguity does not exist in the LXX reading
of 11.3: 'And the Lord gave favor to his people in the sight of the Egyptians... also, the
man Moses was very great before the Egyptians and before Pharaoh and before all of
his servants.'
240. And the phrase at the end of 11.8 indicates that only now does Moses leave
Pharaoh's presence, and not earlier, as was implied by 10.29.
241. For example, against Noth (1962: 94), who suggests that the speech in 11.4-8 is
addressed to Israel, Childs (1974: 133) argues that 11.4-8 is continuous with 10.29 in
the J source.
242. For example, Cassuto (1983:131) wants to see 11.1 -3 as parenthetical since he
cannot conceive of YHWH speaking to Moses in the presence of Pharaoh and his court.
3. Egypt in Exodus
113
243. The text singles out Pharaoh as requiring knowledge of YHWH and of the
distinction between Israel and Egypt in 5.2; 7.17; 8.6 [10]; 9.14,29; and 10.7. Egypt is
mentioned as requiring this knowledge in 7.5, and 14.4, 18. The formulaic phrase
repeated in many of these instances is 'you/they will know that I am YHWH' (7.5, 17;
8.18 [22]; 10.2; 14.4, 18) with the variants 'you will know that no one is like YHWH/
me' (8.6 [10]; 9.14 and 'you will know that to YHWH (belongs) the land' (9.29).
244. That Israel is the one who needs to learn to know YHWH is already suggested
by 6.7, where YHWH announces to Moses that he will take Israel as his people and they
will know that he is YHWH, and by 10.2, where the future didactic function of the
telling of the story of the plagues is to make YHWH known to Israel.
245. See Durham (1987: 96, 99-100), who argues at length that the plagues themselves are not meant to bring Pharaoh or his people to belief in YHWH (otherwise there
would be no hardening motif), but are rather directed to convincing Israel (both the
Israel in the text and the Israel that constitutes the audience outside the text) that YHWH
is its God and they are YHWH'S people.
246. This orientation towards the past in the case of Egypt is also evident in 9.18,
24.
114
3. Egypt in Exodus
115
solution but brings the negotiations to an end so that the final break can be
made between Israel and Egypt.
Therefore, as the intensity of the plagues increase, Pharaoh is portrayed
as increasingly willing to negotiate and make concessions. He even displays
a growing piety toward Israel's God.249 But at every turn, Pharaoh's
increasing flexibility is thwarted by the hardening of his heart. Pharaoh's
heart is hardened sometimes without the mention of an explicit agent (7.1314, 22; 8.15 [19]; 9.7, 35); at other times it is either Pharaoh himself (8.11
[15], 28 [32]; 9.34) or YHWH (7.3; 9.12; 10.1,20,27; 11.10; 14.4,8, 17)
who is the agent of the hardening. However, as the narrative progresses, the
agent of the hardening is identified increasingly as YHWH; after the eighth
plague of locusts, when Pharaoh is portrayed as most willing to negotiate, it
is YHWH alone who continues to harden Pharaoh's heart and prevent him
from reaching a compromise with Moses.250 Pharaoh has no alternative for
he is divinely destined to take Egypt to destruction.251
The motif of the hardening of the heart represents the intrusion of the
level of the cosmic contest into the level of human negotiation. But on the
cosmic level the contest is one-sided; it has already been decided in favor
of YHWH and so really is no contest at all. In the context of the seventh
plague of hail, YHWH quite clearly announces that his intention is to wipe
Egypt off the face of the earth (9.15)252 and that he is prolonging the
plagues only so as to display his power and humble Egypt (9.16-17).
249. He asks Moses to pray for him (8.24 [28]; 9.28), he acknowledges that he is in
the wrong (9.27), that he has sinned against YHWH (10.16), and finally, when Israel
leaves, he asks for a blessing (12.32). Of course, this piety may be negatively
interpreted as a sign of Pharaoh's opportunism and cynicism.
250. See Brueggemann (1995) for a totally different interpretation in which the lack
of compromise is glorified and the responses of Pharaoh are seen as signs of either the
humiliation or untrustworthy cunning of a recalcitrant vassal who engages in futile
negotiations in bad faith.
251. It is interesting how commentators attempt to exonerate YHWH from responsibility for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart: 'God as subject (of the hardening)
intensifies Pharaoh's obduracy' (Fretheim 1991b: 98); 'lest the Pharaoh pay too much
attention too soon and come prematurely to less than an unquestioning belief, he
(YHWH) will harden the Pharaoh's resistance so that he will pay no attention to Moses
and so bring about Yahweh's rescue of the Israelites in such a manner as to provoke
even the Egyptians to belief (Durham 1987: 86).
252. This verse is often translated as a conditional statement (see NRSV, NJPS), but
Durham (1987: 127) argues convincingly that neither the verse nor its surrounding
context suggests a conditional sense.
116
YHWH reiterates these sentiments just before announcing the eighth plague
of locusts; he has hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his courtiers in order
to prevent any human resolution of the contention between Moses and
Pharaoh. Thus, the signs of the plagues will be fully performed in the
midst of Egypt (10.1; see also 11.9) so that the Israelites can tell their
children and grandchildren how YHWH 'toyed with Egypt' (10.2).253
YHWH apparently does not have only the exodus of Israel in mind; he also
intends the utter humiliation of Egypt by which he will gain glory for
himself (10.3; 14.4, 17). The plundering of Egypt (11.2-3; 12.35-36)
represents the apex of Egypt's humiliation; just as the victorious party
would plunder the enemy after a military defeat, so also here Egypt will be
stripped of its riches.254
Thus is underlined the divine desire portrayed in the narrative to
construe an Israel that is so completely separated from Egypt as to require
the humiliation and even the destruction of Egypt. The cosmic contest
between YHWH and Pharaoh overwhelms the more prosaic human world
in which things are never as neatly or sharply divided, in which ambiguity,
negotiation, compromise, contingency and the blurring of boundaries is
part of everyday experience. The text attempts to do away with such
uncertainties, but to do so invokes a deity who insists on a reality of stark
contrasts in which Israel is not only completely other than Egypt but in
which Egypt must also be destroyed in order for Israel (and its God) to
exist. The ethnogenesis of Israel as portrayed in the dominant ideology of
253. The verb used here is the hithpalel of ^S with connotations of diverting or
amusing oneself by making a fool of someone else (e.g. Num. 22.29); see Durham's
translation (1987: 131): 'how I amused myself aggravating Egypt'. It also carries more
violent connotations of abuse: see Judg. 19.25 where the verb is used to describe a
gang rape.
254. Various theories have been proposed to account for the motif of the plundering
or despoiling of Egypt as part of the exodus. Daube (1963: esp. 55-61) finds the pattern
for the exodus in the slave release legislation of Deut. 15.12-18 and thus suggests that
the plunder represents the payment due a released slave. Knight (1976: 82-83)
interprets the plunder as due payment for the years of labor that Israel provided the
Egyptians. Coats (1968:453-57) sees in the plundering motif the remnant of a tradition
of exodus by stealth in which items were deceptively 'borrowed' from the Egyptians.
The interpretation that seems best to fit the narrative context of the cosmic contest
between YHWH and Pharaoh, however, is that of Durham, who sees the plundering as
part of the humiliation of Egypt by YHWH: Egypt is picked clean through a process that
is supernaturally enabled by YHWH. On the practice of plundering in ancient Israelite
warfare, see, for example, de Vaux (1961: 255-56).
3. Egypt in Exodus
117
118
3. Egypt in Exodus
119
tension between the view that Israelite worship is not possible within
Egypt and the view that it is. The text desires its audience to take the first
view, but has also preserved a trace of the second view.
Related to the issue of the legitimacy or possibility of worship of YHWH
in Egypt is the question of whether YHWH is portrayed as being present in
Egypt or not. When YHWH announces that he will set apart the land of
Goshen where his people live so that they will not suffer the fourth plague
of flies, he appends the following purpose clause: 'so that you (i.e.
Pharaoh) will know that I, YHWH, (am) in the midst of the land' (8.18
[22]). Given the mention of Goshen earlier in the verse, 'the land' here
would most naturally refer to Goshen. However, later YHWH announces to
Pharaoh that he will send all his plagues 'so that you (i.e. Pharaoh) will
know that there is no one like me in all the land' (9.14). Furthermore,
YHWH intends for Pharaoh to be effaced 'from the land' (9.15), and has
only spared him so far in order that 'my name will be declared in all the
land' (9.16). Finally, the end of the seventh plague of hail is promised 'so
that you (i.e. Pharaoh) will know that the land belongs to YHWH' (9.29). In
these cases, the whole land of Egypt seems to be meant.263 And if YHWH is
in Egypt and means for his name to be declared throughout Egypt, and if
indeed the land of Egypt belongs to him, then it certainly seems possible
that YHWH can be worshiped or served in Egypt.264 This possibility, however, exists in tension with the problem of Israelite sacrifice in Egypt,
discussed above, and with the overall impression given by the narrative
that YHWH only enters Egypt with Moses in order to constitute and rescue
Israel and then leaves Egypt with the exodus of Israel.
Further, Moses is in contact with YHWH while he is in Egypt.265 YHWH'S
263. These references to 'the land' have, however, also been interpreted as referring
to the earth or the world in general; see, for example, the NRSV and NJPS translations of
9.14, 15, 16,29. If so, then a very elevated ideology of YHWH as the supreme God of
the whole world is being propounded. This may indeed fit with the kind of monotheism
that is developed in Second Isaiah, and with the sort of ecumenical 'God of the
heavens' ideology promulgated by the Persian empire (see T.L. Thompson 1995; Bolin
1995). But it also stands in tension, then, with the emphasis elsewhere in the narrative
that worship of YHWH by Israel in Egypt is impossible.
264. Note, however, that when YHWH goes out into the midst of Egypt (11.4) to
execute the tenth plague, his presence in Egypt means death for the Egyptians, not the
possibility of worship or service.
265. Moses is the main protagonist by the end of the plague narrative. However, in
the first three plagues and the preceding sign of the staff turning into a snake, Aaron
plays a very active role; in fact, there is some confusion as to whose staff is used in
120
3. Egypt in Exodus
121
hardened their hearts (9.34; see also 10.1) even though subsequently those
officials advise Pharaoh to let the people go (10.7).270 The text, in the
interests of constructing and maintaining a separation between Egypt and
Israel, thus abruptly seems to foreclose on the possibility that Egyptians
might be sympathetic or receptive to Israel's God. And yet in the process
of establishing the boundary between Egypt and Israel, the text contains
these tantalizing glimpses that compromise the boundary's impermeability.
YHWH'S identity is constructed in the text such that Israel cannot
worship or serve YHWH in Egypt, thus necessitating Israel's separation
from Egypt. But again there are traces in the text of an alternate view that
sees some sort of worship or service of YHWH by an Israel in Egypt as
possible, even if only the service of prayer (without sacrifice) together
with an occasional pilgrimage. The tension between these two views is a
clue to the historical situation that this narrative in its final text form is
designed to address.
Conclusion
The plague narrative presents a complex tapestry in which various narrative threads dealing with the interrelated identities of Israel and Egypt
are intertwined. The dominant voice of the plague narrative, heard especially in the pronouncements of YHWH, is one that wishes to construct an
irrevocable and absolute difference or separation between Israel and
Egypt. But at the same time other voices can be reconstructed from various clues in the text, voices that blur the boundary between Egypt and
Israel. The contest with the Egyptian magicians, while serving to discredit
the vaunted wisdom and power of Egypt, also portrays the capability of
the wise ones of Egypt to come to a recognition of Israel's God. The
rhetoric of 'us' versus 'them', while strong in YHWH'S speech, is muted in
the speech of Pharaoh and Moses. The exemption of Israel from the
plagues is incomplete and ambiguous. The possibility that Israel can worship or serve YHWH in Egypt is fleetingly glimpsed. Against these alternative views, however, the dominant voice of the text thunders 'that you
will know that YHWH distinguishes/separates between Egypt and Israel'
(11.7). The divine voice forecloses on the human level of negotiation and
compromise, aiming for such a complete separation of Israel and Egypt
that the deception, humiliation and destruction of Egypt is required. In the
270. See also 11.7 where Moses predicts that Pharaoh's officials will urge Israel to
leave, a prediction fulfilled in 12.33 when Egypt urges the people to hasten their
departure.
122
tension between this dominant voice and the alternatives which it seeks to
overcome is mirrored the relationship between the text and at least some
of its intended audience. That is, the rhetorical intent of the producers of
the final text form is to persuade the intended audience to accept as true
and valid the portrayal of Israel as absolutely separate from Egypt, and to
overcome alternative perspectives in which a more positive relationship
between Israel and Egypt is envisioned.
Leaving Egypt (12.1-15.21)
The actual exodus or separation of Israel from Egypt is finally attained
when the tenth plague, in which the firstborn of Egypt die, has its desired
effect in that Pharaoh lets Israel go. However the climax of the narrative
plot is not immediately reached. YHWH effects one more hardening of the
heart of Pharaoh so that he changes his mind and decides to pursue Israel
with his army. The climax of the narrative, therefore, does not occur with
the death of the firstborn and the departure of Israel from Egypt, but rather
when Egypt is utterly destroyed in the waters of the Sea while Israel is
saved. With this climactic act, the separation between Israel and Egypt
is made complete. The entire narrative aims for this climax; the focus is
entirely on the differentiation of Israel from Egypt.
Ritualizing Identity
Woven into the narrative are instructions for the performance of two ritual
complexes: Passover and the redemption or ransoming of the firstborn.271
That the instructions for these rituals come at this point of the narrative,
instead of being reserved for the later legal material that is revealed at
Sinai, indicates that they are integral to the constituting of the final separation of Israel from Egypt. Passover and the ransoming of the firstborn are
rituals that are meant to commemorate, and thus actualize, maintain and
perpetuate, the distinctions and boundaries of Israel's identity which the
narrative presents as divinely mandated.272 The instructions for these two
271. Instructions for Passover (including the festival of unleavened bread) appear in
12.1-28, 43-49 (with reference to the firstborn in 12.12) and 13.2-10. Instructions for
the ransoming of the firstborn appear in 13.1-2 and 11-16, enclosing instructions for
the festival of unleavened bread.
272. These rituals are introduced in 12.2 by a calendrical instructionthe month in
which they are to be observed is to be the first month of the year for Israel. Thus, these
rituals are to define the beginning of a new year just as they define the beginning or
birth of Israel.
3. Egypt in Exodus
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124
mark the lintel and two doorposts of the houses in which the sacrifice will
be eaten (12.7, 22). This blood functions to ward off the tenth plague;
when YHWH sees the bloody marks he will 'pass over' (11023) that dwelling, sparing those inside (12.13, 23, 27).277 The bloody mark signifies
doubly in the narrative. First, according to the logic of YHWH'S ownership
of the firstborn (4.22), the blood seems to signify that a substitute for the
firstborn, that is, the Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Secondly, the
blood signifies that the occupants of the house count themselves as part of
the Israel that the narrative is constructing. Whereas YHWH had previously
distinguished between Israel and Egypt through the plagues without
requiring either the assistance or consent of those thus set apart, in this last
plague the mark of distinction must be applied by those who identify
themselves with Israel. While the contest between YHWH and Pharaoh has
given birth to the idea of biblical Israel as a people separate from Egypt,
the boundaries of this Israel must now be marked and affirmed by the
people themselves. Hitherto, the people have had a very passive role; now
they are called to draw the line in blood. And that is perhaps why the
blood on the doorway, while ostensibly functioning as a marker for YHWH,
is actually described as a H1K ('sign') for Israel (12.13).
The sign of blood makes problematic the notion of a separate territory,
Goshen, as the primary means of distinguishing Israel in Egypt, as already
noted above in the discussion of the plague narrative. That is, the sign of
blood would be unnecessary if Israel already lived in a separate territory.
Rather, Israel here is distinguished by the actions of individuals, or, more
accurately, household groups,278 who heed YHWH'S instruction through
Moses and thus identify with Israel. The boundary that distinguishes Israel
is thus shown as shifting and flexible. The mark of blood demonstrates that
living within Goshen would be no guarantee of membership in YHWH'S
people, nor would living without it be an automatic exclusion;279 only
277. The verb RDS is used only of the sparing of Israel from the plagues (12.13,23,
27), while the verb "QI7 ('to pass over, through') is used of the destruction that will hit
the Egyptians. This dichotomy in vocabulary underlines the distinction between Israel
and Egypt.
278. The Passover instructions, while directed at the 'whole congregation of Israel'
(12.3, 47), are enacted in houses (12.3-4, 7, 13 etc.), which denote not only or primarily physical structures, but rather kinship groupings. Note the rTONTTD ('extended
families') in 12.3, and the mnSEJQ ('clans') in 12.21. On these terms as descriptions of
the social structure of Israel, see Gottwald (1979: 257-92).
279. These dynamics are extremely important if the scroll is addressing a situation in
which some of Israel lives in the diaspora. If Goshen is a figure of Israel's own
3. Egypt in Exodus
125
drawing the line in blood would demonstrate or be a sign of one's inclusion in 'us'.280 The other side of the same coin is that, at least theoretically,
those not yet counted among Israel could also draw the line in blood and
be included. As earlier Egyptian 'God-fearers' had safeguarded their cattle
and slaves by heeding the warning about the seventh plague of hail (9.20),
so also, by the same logic, it would seem possible, although the narrative
certainly contains no explicit warrant for it, that Egyptian household
groups could draw the line in blood, be spared the effect of the tenth
plague, and be identified as part of Israel. Therefore, the mark of blood
simultaneously differentiates between Israel and Egypt and potentially
blurs the boundaries of that differentiation.
The exclusion of leaven is the other main ritual action of the Passover.
For seven days, absolutely nothing leavened is to be eaten; even the
possession of leavened products or the presence of leaven is prohibited
(12.15, 17-20; 13.3, 6-7).281 The prohibition has been variously explained,282 but, in the context of the exodus narrative, the most compelling
explanation is that it is a means of differentiation, and indeed itself
symbolizes differentiation.283 Leavening, involving the admixture of an
territory or homeland, then the last plague shows the homeland to be no guarantee of
inclusion and the diaspora to be no guarantee of exclusion.
280. Note that the tenth plague is described as comprehensive; all the firstborn of
Egypt are hit and there is no house in Egypt without death (12.29, 30). No explicit
exemption for Israel is mentioned.
281. Two words are used of leaven in these prohibitions: ~IN!D, referring to the
leavening agent itself, and f DH, referring to leavened dough and dough products.
Elsewhere in the Pentateuch, leaven is absolutely prohibited in connection with
sacrifices to the deity or with grain offerings (Exod. 23.18; 34.25; Lev. 2.11; 6.17),
although it is permitted of offerings which would be eaten by the priests or others (Lev.
7.13; 23.17).
282. The view found in the New Testament and among the rabbis is that leaven is
emblematic of corruption and decomposition; however, since leavened bread is
otherwise not considered to be spoiled, this view is a questionable explanation of the
prohibition at Passover. The view that leavened bread is prohibited as characteristic of
settled life in contrast to the prevalence of unleavened bread in nomadic diets finds a
counterpart in the narrative itself, which attributes the lack of leaven to the haste in
which the Israelites had to leave Egypt (12.34, 39). The same explanation reoccurs in
Deut. 16.3, where, moreover, it is given a negative valence since the resulting
unleavened bread is called the 'bread of affliction'. However, such a historicizing
explanation not only sounds like an explanation after the fact, but also does not account
adequately for the strong connection between the prohibition and membership in Israel.
283. Kellerman (1980:490) speculates that the offering of leavened bread was likely
126
3. Egypt in Exodus
127
12.48). Those included are 'all the congregation of Israel' (12.47), conceived of as mTK ('native') to the land (12.48)288 and including purchased
slaves who have been circumcised (12.44). The family group of the "1J
'resident alien' can also be included if all the males are circumcised
(12.48). Thus, the main criteria of inclusion are kinship, permanent residence and circumcision.289
The various rules of inclusion and exclusion in 12.43-49 form a chiasmus around the central rules in 12.46: the Passover sacrifice is to be eaten
in one house,290 none of the meat is to be taken outside of the house, and
the bones are not to be broken. These rules, reinforced by the surrounding
chiasmus, concern the unity of the Passover-eating community and the
prohibition of crossing boundaries. The Passover rite is one that constitutes a particular bounded people who are separate from others. And yet,
at the same time, the legitimate presence of some 'outsiders' in the Passover community is acknowledged; the 13 ('resident alien') falls under the
same min ('Torah, instruction') as the miN ('native, indigene') (12.49).
In other words, in the midst of regulations for a ritual celebration of
distinctiveness, the door is left slightly ajar for the acknowledgment and
participation of outsiders who otherwise might constitute the leaven that
needs to be purged from Israel's midst. This loophole in the Passover
regulations, allowing for a somewhat more porous boundary between
'us' and 'them', contrasts with the symbolism of the absolute prohibition
of leaven.
Moreover, in the Egyptian context it is Israel, according to the dominant
ideology of the text, that is the "D and Egypt that is the mTN. 291 Although
the rules of Passover, as they stand in the present text, presuppose Israel's
settled status in the land of Palestine, and are thus placed anachronistically
here in Exodus, their literary context is quite suggestive. That is, if the
'Migrant laborer' might also be an apropos translation given the connection with the
T3&. Cassuto's translation 'settler' (1983: 150) is quite different and based on direct
extrapolation from the root 3271.
288. Interestingly, the term mil?, meaning literally to arise from the land, in a
Palestinian setting could imply that Israel is indigenous to Palestine, hi an Egyptian
setting, such as in Exodus, the implication would be that Israel is indigenous to Egypt.
289. The importance of circumcision has already been pointed out in 4.24-26.
290. That is, within a cohesive kinship grouping, as much as within a single physical
building.
291. The status of Israel as 'resident alien' in Egypt is several times used as a motive
clause of Pentateuchal legislation. See the analysis of such motive clauses later in this
chapter and in the following chapter.
128
Israel addressed as mTK by these rules is still in Egypt, then the text
is unconsciously admitting the possibility of Israel's native roots and
origin in Egypt in contradiction to its dominant concern to deny such a
possibility.
The second ritual woven into the narrative of the tenth plague and the
departure of Israel from Egypt is that of the ransoming of the firstborn
(13.1-2,11-16).292 The ritual, probably in origin an ancient fertility rite, is
reinterpreted as a memorial of the last plague in which all the Egyptian
firstborn, human and animal, die (13.14-15).293 It thus functions here to
actualize and perpetuate the differentiation between Israel and Egypt;
whereas YHWH kills the Egyptian firstborn, the firstborn of Israel can be
redeemed or ransomed. Every time the ritual of the redemption of the
firstborn is carried out, Israel is reminded that it is not of Egypt.294 The
embedding of instructions for the prohibition of leaven (13.3-10) in the
midst of these instructions for the ransoming of the firstborn (13.1-2,1116) makes this purpose clear.
In summary, the rituals of Passoverthe Passover sacrifice, the prohibition of leaven, and the redemption of the firstborn, whatever their origins
or previous purposes may have beenare here presented as rituals commemorating and actualizing the separation, in perpetuity, of Israel from
Egypt. That is why these rituals are presented in the context of the final
plague, the one announced by YHWH as providing the knowledge that
'YHWH makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel' (11.7). That such
knowledge must be supported by a multiplicity of repeated ritual actions
suggests, again, that alternative views were being contested, alternative
views that did not see the same necessary distinction between Israel and
Egypt.
292. This ritual has already been extensively discussed above, especially in connection with 4.22-23 and 8.19 [23].
293. The last plague is also described in 12.12 as YHWH'S judgment on the gods of
Egypt (see also Num. 33.4). Since in the Hebrew Bible the firstborn are conceptualized
as god's property, by killing the Egyptian firstborn, YHWH, in effect, steals from the
gods of Egypt what, by this logic, belongs to them, and thus shows them to be weak
and ineffectual in comparison to him.
294. The words 'it will be a sign upon your hand and a frontlet (?) between your
eyes' (13.16) could refer to some sort of mnemonic devicelater Talmudic tradition
sees here a reference to phylacteries. However, rather than referring to a literal symbol,
these words could also be meant as a metaphor for constant remembrance. See also
13.9.
3. Egypt in Exodus
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130
formation (13.18)300 and HQITn ('boldly', 14.8).301 Perhaps most importantly, after coming through the sea, the people finally 'fear YHWH and
trust in YHWH and his servant Moses' (14.31).302 The impression given is
of a strong, triumphant and distinct people, confident in their newly won
identity.303
Yet at this key moment, when Israel is birthed by actual physical
separation from the matrix of Egypt, its distinctiveness is brought into
question. Israel is described as leaving Egypt accompanied by a numerous
or great 3"jU ('mixture', 12.38). The same word, vocalized identically,
appears in only two other places in the Hebrew Bible: in Lev. 13.47-59,
where the term refers to the woof of cloth, and in Neh. 13.3, where, after
the reading of the Torah, the returned exiles separate/divide (^"O) all
mixture from Israel.304 The Nehemiah reference suggests that, according to
at least one strand of postexilic thought, the Israel constituted in the
exodus was not entirely pure and its impurity was not rectified until much
later at the time of Nehemiah and Ezra.305 The Leviticus reference,
hyperbolic (see the similarly large, but more exact numbers given in Num. 1.46;
26.51). The intention of the narrative seems to be to impress its audience with the
immensity of this new people.
300. The meaning of the term CTEJlQn is uncertain. A similar word in Arabic
suggests an army (perhaps organized into five parts?) (BDB: 332). Cassuto (1993: 156)
translates the word as 'in proper military formation'. The Arabic cognate could also
suggest 'courageously' (BDB: 332), which would correspond with the phrase i~IQ~l T3
in 14.8. A third possibility is that the term derives from the root 271 n and thus means
'hastening' (BDB: 301).
301. The phrase HQ~l TD, used as well to describe Israel's exodus in Num. 33.4, can
also mean 'presumptuously' (see Num. 15.30; Deut. 32.27), which would give 14.8 an
ironic twist.
302. The previous references to the obeisance of the people (4.31; 12.27) do not
explicitly describe the object of their homage.
303. The notice that Israel was driven out of Egypt (12.39), however, belies this picture. See also 6.1 and 11.1 for the tradition that Israel was driven out of Egypt. From
the perspective of the Egyptians, the exodus is a flight (14.5), not a triumphant march.
304. A similar term, vocalized slightly differently, in 1 Kgs 10.15; Jer. 25.20, 24;
50.37 and Ezek. 30.5, most likely refers to Arabian peoples (see especially the parallelism in Jer. 25.24), but the exact referent is not known. Similar also, but again vocalized
differently, is the term used of the 'swarm' that constitutes the fourth plague (8.16-28
[20-32]). Again, the similar term for 'raven' may be suggestive, since the raven is
excluded from the diet of Israel as unclean and detestable (Lev. 11.15; Deut. 14.14).
305. The prohibition of leaven as part of the Passover commemoration and actualization of the exodus would symbolically accord with the purging of mi? from Israel in
3. Egypt in Exodus
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however, suggests the opposite; just as cloth requires both woof and warp
in order to exist, so also the iny would be a necessary constituent part of
Israel. Whether the term D"]U has negative or positive connotations, it
indicates that the Israel that emerges from Egypt is a heterogeneous group
which includes more than just those who can trace descent back to the
family of Jacob.306 Given the narrative setting in Egypt, these additional
others, although they are not further specified or described, could possibly
include Egyptians. In 12.38, then, one finds an isolated trace of a tradition
of a heterogeneous Israel with possible Egyptian elements, if not roots,307
a tradition at odds with the main ideological thrust of the narrative.
The portrayal of Israel at the moment of the exodus as a distinct people
with an established identity is also tempered by the anxiety manifested in
the text that this people will desire to return to Egypt; that is, that they will
abandon their new hard-won separate identity and dissolve back into their
former Egyptian context. The desire to return to Egypt will be a major
motif in the coming wilderness wanderings, and, significantly, it is
introduced here even before Israel has fully left Egypt. YHWH decides to
lead Israel by a roundabout route through the wilderness, rather than by
the more direct route through the land of the Philistines, because he is
concerned that, in the face of battle, the people will regret their decision,
change their minds (CH3 ),308 and return to Egypt (13.17-18). The exodus is
the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Note that Passover and Unleavened Bread in Ezra
6.19-22 is celebrated by those who had returned from exile together with those who
had separated themselves ("n) from the impurities of the nations of the land (Ezra
6.21).
306. Note the hapax legomenom ^IDBDK in Num. 11.4, translated as 'rabble' (NRSV)
or 'riffraff (NIPS), seemingly describing some heterogeneous collection of peoples
attached to Israel in the wilderness. The story of the ruse of the Gibeonites in Josh. 9
also suggests that the Israel that settles in Palestine is less than genealogically pure
and includes heterogeneous elements, even among those who serve in the Israelite
sanctuaries.
307. The possibility of strong Egyptian roots is also suggested by the lengthy period
of Israel's presence in Egypt, 430 years according to the notice in the MT of 12.40. This
number is difficult to reconcile with the 4 generations mentioned in 6.16-20 and Gen.
15.16 (and the 400 years of Gen. 15.13). The SP andLXX of 12.40 solve the problem
by including in this figure also the time of the ancestors in Canaan; that is, they fold the
narrative of Exodus into that of Genesis. If the MT figure were taken independently at
face value, it would point to a very antique origin of Israel in Egypt.
308. The verb Oil signifies the feeling of regret after a decision or action that seems
to have turned out badly, as well as the resolve to change one's mind. This verbal
action is often attributed to YHWH (Gen. 6.6-7; Exod. 32.12-14).
132
3. Egypt in Exodus
13 3
134
'plundering' (3.22; 12.36) and then only in a concluding phrase that could be an
interpretive addendum. In addition, the ambiguous verb ^UD is used, rather than the
more usual b^EJ (e.g. see Exod. 15.9); bU] has strong connotations of deliverance (see
BOB: 664-65).
319. The phrase becomes a characteristic way of referring to Egypt in Deuteronomy
(5.6; 6.12; 7.8; 8.14; 13.6, 11); it is also part of the Decalogue in Exodus (20.2).
320. The reference to the bones of Joseph is also, of course, a deliberate link
between the exodus account and the account of the ancestors in Genesis (see Gen.
50.25). However, when the promises regarding the land are mentioned in this section
of Exodus, they are promises made to 'you and your fathers' (13.5, 11) without any
specific mention of the names of the three patriarchs.
321. The pillar that guides Israel in 13.21 -22 becomes a means of separating Israel
from Egypt in 14.19-20. The MT text in 14.20 literally reads, 'there was the cloud and
the darkness and it illumined the night', seeming to confuse the two functions of the
pillar as a cloud by day and afire by night (13.21-22). The LXX reads, 'and there was
darkness and blackness and the night passed'. The ambiguity of the pillar in the MT
evokes a similar ambiguity regarding the identity of Israel. That is, even when Israel
and Egypt are finally physically separated, that which separates them is uncertain.
3. Egypt in Exodus
135
the sea, YHWH'S overwhelming and utterly complete victory over Egypt is
stressed. Israel has absolutely no part to play except for that of observer.
YHWH looks down upon Egypt (14.24a),322 throws the Egyptian camp into
disarray (14.24b), misguides the wheels of the Egyptian chariots (14.25a),
and then, when the waters return, shakes the Egyptians into the water to
drown when they attempt to save themselves (14.27). Not one Egyptian
survives (14.28);323 Egypt is utterly annihilated.324 The progressive
distinction between Israel and Egypt is brought to its climax when Israel
sees 'Egypt dead upon the shore of the sea' (14.30).325
It is at this point that Israel finally acknowledges that the power of
YHWH is greater than the power of Egypt (14.3 la).326 And so the people
fear YHWH and trust/believe in YHWH and his servant Moses (14.3 lb).327
Previously, only Moses (3.6), the midwives (1.17, 21), and some of
Pharaoh's servants (9.20) are described as fearing YHWH or God. Now
Israel fears YHWH. Previously, the people are said to believe (4.31), but no
object of their belief is described. Now Israel believes in YHWH who has
distinguished it from Egypt.
At this moment of climax, the narrative hovers on the brink of a Utopian
dissolution; the 'other' so necessary for the stabilization of identity no
longer needs to exist. Israel can stand as Israel without contrast because
Egypt, Israel's other, has been destroyed. In a burst of song, this moment
322. The verb *|pK? indicates that YHWH looks down upon Egypt in disapproval; the
same verb is used when YHWH observes Sodom and Gemorrah (Gen. 18.16; 19.28).
323. The same phrase'not one remained/survived'is used to describe the end of
the fourth plague of the swarm (8.27 [31 ]) and the end of the eighth plague of locusts
(10.19). The language describing the destruction of the locusts (10.19) is formally very
similar to the language used to describe the destruction of the Egyptians (14.28).
324. The Egyptians have earlier had a premonition that the identity of Israel will
mean death for them (12.33). In response to Israel's fear of death in the wilderness
(14.11-12), Moses has told them that they will never see Egypt again (14.13). Israel's
final view of Egypt is as corpses upon the seashore (14.30). All of these elements
combine to paint a picture of total annihilation.
325. On a pragmatic level, of course, only the army of Egypt is destroyed in the sea.
Numerous references in Exod. 14 describe the pursuing Egyptians as an army (14.4-9,
17-18,23-28). However, the army of Egypt functions as a synecdoche for all of Egypt,
or the idea of Egypt, and so elsewhere in Exod. 14 the word 'Egypt' is used alone
(14.4, 9, 10, 13, 17, 23, 25, 26, 27, 30).
326. The word T in 14.31 is emblematic of power.
327. The mention of Moses here in addition to YHWH is intriguing, given the narrative's attempts to generally downplay a heroic portrait of Moses. Perhaps one finds
here a trace of the more heroic or elevated Moses that the text elsewhere suppresses.
136
3. Egypt in Exodus
137
boundaries that set Israel apart are more porous than the dominant narrative lets on, and especially in which a pro-Egyptian voice is raised to
counter the relentless anti-Egyptian thrust of the leading voice of the text.
Even when Egypt is seemingly decisively erased in the waters of the sea,
the text can pause only momentarily to savor this absolute triumph over
the 'other', which is soon shown to be fantasy. An identity without any
contrasting other is impossible. As becomes clear in the next major narrative sequence in Exodusthe wilderness wanderingswhat has been
repressed returns. Egypt will come back repeatedly to haunt Israel's
memory.330
Wilderness and Sinai (15.22-40.38)
Israel is now physically separated from Egypt, but the process of its
ethnogenesis is not complete. The notion of Israel's distinct identity must
now be internalized, and the wilderness provides the liminal setting for
this completion of the identity formation process.331 The process includes
scenes of rebellion, a covenant at Sinai, and an occasion of apostasy that
almost aborts the process itself, finally culminating in autopic portrayal of
YHWH in the midst of his people. The main focus of the narrative's
ideology is the continuing differentiation of Israel from Egypt. However,
the figure of Moses re-emerges as a complication to this narrative purpose.
The Identity of Israel vis-d-vis Egypt
Whereas previously the narrative offered only hints of perspectives
opposing its anti-Egyptian rhetoric, now such perspectives are increasingly
given a voice. The voice is that of Israel, but it is a voice of murmuring
and rebellion. On the journey from Egypt to Sinai, the people three times
voice their resistance to their new identity and their attachment to their
former Egyptian identity, as was already foreshadowed in 14.10-14.332 The
138
3. Egypt in Exodus
13 9
tinue to emphasize the polarity between Egypt and Israel; Egypt is associated with disease while Israel is associated with a divinity that heals.334
But, at the same time, this polarity is threatened in that if Israel disobeys, it
will be treated just like Egypt, and the distinction between the two will
collapse, hi other words, the identity of Israel as not-Egypt is here
revealed, not as a given or divinely mandated fact, but as a contingency
dependent upon constant obedience to the world-defining rules of YHWH.
Egypt, which just previously seemed to have utterly disappeared into the
sea, returns to haunt the precarious identity of Israel with the possibility of
dissolution.
The second instance of Israel's resistance occurs in the wilderness of
Sin, where the 'whole congregation (mU) of the sons of Israel' complains
(p *?) against Moses and Aaron (16.2):
Would that we had died by the hand of YHWH in the land of Egypt, when
we sat by the flesh pot, when we ate bread to satiation; For you have
brought us out to this wilderness to kill all this assembly (v~p) with famine
(16.3).
Again, the resistance of the people is described with the verb p1? ('to
murmur, complain').335 From the perspective of Israel, Egypt is highlighted
as a place of plenty while the wilderness is typified as a place of lack.336 In
fact, death in Egypt, even at the hand of YHWH, is preferred to death in the
wilderness by famine. Israel here even implicitly identifies itself with the
Egypt that bore the brunt of YHWH'S hand in the plagues.337 Note also that
the people, in their complaint, refer to themselves as 'all this assembly',338
and not as Israel, thus perhaps evoking the 'mixed crowd' (12.38) that left
Egypt. These glimpses into Israel's point of view highlight, at this stage of
334. The appellative 'healer' stands out, since most cases of the formula of divine
disclosure in Exodus simply state 'I am YHWH' (6.2, 6, 8, 29; 7.5, 17; 10.2; 12.12;
14.4, 18). See, however, also 31.13: 'I am YHWH your sanctifier.'
335. Apart from Josh. 9.18, this verb appears only as part of the 'murmuring and
rebellion in the wilderness' motif in Exod. 15, 16, 17 and Num. 14, 16, 17.
336. In the earlier complaint in 14.11-12, Egypt even has an abundance of graves.
One also recalls the status of Egypt in the ancestral accounts of Genesis as a place of
plenty in time of famine.
337. The 'hand of YHWH' functions in the plague narrative to strike down Egypt and
to bring out Israel (7.4-5 passim); that is, it functions to discriminate between Israel
and Egypt. Here, however, Israel wishes that the hand of YHWH had been directed
against it and Egypt indiscriminately.
338. Durham (1987: 215) translates 'this whole crowd'.
140
the narrative, the tenuous and unfinished nature of the people's identity visa-vis YHWH'S definition of who they are to be.
The response of YHWH to the people's complaint is to turn the
wilderness of lack into a place of regular nourishment; bread is provided
miraculously in the morning and meat in the evening (16.4-8,12-14). But,
as in the response to the previous complaint, this incident also becomes an
occasion of testing (TIDD, 16.4). Specific instructions are given to keep no
leftovers for the next day (16.19) except for the Sabbath, when no food
will be provided (16.23). Some of the people fail the test; they either keep
leftovers when the next day is not a Sabbath (16.20) or they seek to gather
food on the Sabbath (16.27). Moses' anger (16.20) and YHWH'S rebuke
(16.28-29) in the face of these infractions attest to the importance of
Sabbath observance for the identity of Israel. Sabbath observance is here
presupposed as constitutive of Israel's identity over against Egypt even
though specific Sabbath legislation does not appear until later in the scroll
(20.8-11; 31.12-17; 3S.2-3).339
That the formation of Israel's identity is inextricably linked with the
knowledge of the deity that brought them out of Egypt is pointed out twice
in this incident (16.6, 12). As already argued, the plagues were meant to
bring both Egypt and Israel to knowledge of YHWH; for Egypt, this
knowledge meant destruction, while for Israel it meant separation from
Egypt. Apparently, insofar as the plagues were meant to engender Israel's
knowledge of YHWH, and thus knowledge of itself as a distinct people,
they were only partially successful. Although Israel is out of Egypt it still
needs to know YHWH, which is to say that Israel still needs to know its
own identity as YHWH'S distinct people. The narrative is aware that the
identity it envisions for Israel is fragile and contingent, and so must be
engendered anew every generation. Therefore, instruction is given that an
omer of the manna be preserved so that each generation may be reminded
of the deity who is defined primarily as the one who brought his people
out of Egypt (16.32-34).340
339. Just as the legal stipulations for the observance of Passover and the redemption
of the firstborn were inserted into the narrative of chs. 12-13, before the revelation of
Sinai, in order to underscore the importance of these rituals as defining Israel's
separateness from Egypt, so also here the Sabbath regulations appear before they are
formally legislated in order to define Israel's uniqueness over against the people's
desire to return to their old Egyptian identity.
340. That YHWH is defined primarily as the one who brought Israel out of Egypt is
shown by the prominence of some form or variation of the formula 'YHWH your God
3. Egypt in Exodus
141
who brought you out from the land of Egypt' in the Hebrew Bible. This formula forms
the introduction to both versions of the Decalogue (Exod. 20.2; Deut. 5.6), and appears
frequently in the scroll of Exodus (e.g. 6.7; 7.5; 18.1; 29.46; 32.11). In contrast, in
Gen. 15.7, YHWH is defined as the one who brought Abraham out of Mesopotamia, an
identification reiterated in the prayer of Ezra in Neh. 9.7.
341. The switch from the plural to the singular seems disconcerting in English
usage. It was also disconcerting to the ancient translators: the LXX, Syriac and Targum
versions all retain the plural throughout the verse, as does also the Samaritan
Pentateuch. However, in biblical Hebrew the singular functions here either to represent
the people as a collective (HOTTP: 108) or in a distributive sense to single out the
members composing the aggregate (as in Exod. 13.8, 15).
142
the person of Jethro, who comes to confess YHWH as the one who delivered
the people from the power of Egypt and who is therefore greater than all
other gods (18.9-11).342 In Jethro's kerygmatic assertion, 'Blessed be
YHWH who has delivered you from the hand of Egypt and the hand of
Pharaoh' (18.10), is found the antithesis of the people's resistance.
And yet Jethro is an outsider, a Midianite. Although he brings with him
Moses' Midianite wife Zipporah and their two sons, these members of
Moses' family never appear again in the narrative of the Pentateuch.343
While Jethro officiates at sacrifices (18.12) and advises Moses on how to
establish Israel's legal administration (18.13-26), he then leaves for his
own country (18.27). Just as Midianites facilitated the entrance of Israel
into Egypt by their part in the Joseph story in Genesis,344 so also now a
Midianite, Jethro, facilitates the exit of Israel from Egypt. But Midian does
not join Israel;345 in fact, Israel is commanded later to engage in a holy war
of genocide against Midian (Num. 31). Midian thus functions temporarily
to facilitate the consolidation of Israel's unique identity in the transitional
or liminal period in the wildernesshere as a foil over against Israel's
342. Verse 18.11 in the MT literally reads: 'Now I know that YHWH is greater than
all the gods; indeed (or because of) in the matter in which they acted presumptuously
or rebelliously against them.' The problem is to ascertain the antecedents of the
pronouns 'they' and 'them'. BHS suggests a lacuna in the text while NRSV transposes a
phrase from 18.10 in order to make the phrase mean that Egypt acted presumptuously
against the Israelites (an interpretation that seems also to be found in Neh. 9.10). As it
stands in the MT, the phrase seems to refer to the other gods, presumably the gods of
Egypt, acting presumptuously against the Israelites, thus connecting with the notice in
12.12 that YHWH will execute judgments on the gods of Egypt. This is the interpretation of NJPS and Durham (1987: 239-40). The LXX, reading 'because of this, that they
attacked them', seems to refer to the attack of the Amalekites, narrated just previously
(17.8-16). These textual difficulties do not significantly affect Jethro's basic affirmation of YHWH as the God who separated Israel from Egypt.
343. Only here is the audience of the scroll informed that Zipporah and Moses' two
sons have been back in Midian with Jethro all this time (the last time they were encountered was on their way to Egypt with Moses in ch. 4). Moses seems to have sent them
back, perhaps even divorcing Zipporahthe piel of PI^EJ [18.2] is often used in this
sense. Although they seem here to be reunited with him, Zipporah never again appears
by name in the Hebrew Bible, and Eliezer and Gershom do not appear again in the Pentateuch (unless Gershom is a variant of Gershon, a name appearing once in Genesis and
several times in Numbers).
344. Midianites (alternatively Ishmaelites) are responsible for conveying Joseph to
Egypt (Gen. 37.28, 36; 39.1).
345. In Num. 10.29-30, Moses asks his father-in-law to join Israel, but he refuses.
3. Egypt in Exodus
143
longing for its old Egyptian identitybut is just as sharply separated from
Israel as is Egypt when that function is fulfilled.
In summary, once the physical separation of Israel from Egypt has been
effected, the narrative allows the voice of Israel to come to expression. It
is a voice that longs for its former identity in Egypt, and associates Egypt
with plenty and the presence of YHWH. In this voice, the pro-Egyptian
ideology that the text is attempting to combat is made manifest, but it is
cast as a rebellious and complaining voice. Moreover, in this voice, Egypt
returns as the 'other' over against which the identity of Israel continues to
be constructed; the Utopian moment at the sea, in which the necessity of
the other was dissolved, could not be sustained. Finally, in contrast to
Israel's rebellious voice, the narrative offers the counter-example of
Jethro, who affirms the centrality of the exodus to the identity of Israel and
its God. And yet this affirmation comes from an outsider; the people have
yet to make this affirmation their own. It is only at Sinai that the people
will finally confirm their new identity apart from Egypt in the form of an
agreement or covenant with YHWH.
At Sinai YHWH designates Israel as a distinct and special people, and the
people formally assent to a relationship with YHWH that is premised on
their distinct identity.346 Here the ethnogenesis of Israel is advanced a further step in that Israel is legally constituted as a people defined by the
covenant. The preparations for the making of the covenant in Exod. 19
proleptically anticipate the sealing of the covenant in Exod. 24,347 and so a
structural inclusio serves to set apart and highlight this section.
Since the necessary prologue to the formation of Israel as a people is
separation from Egypt, YHWH begins the covenant-making process by first
recounting what he did to Egypt and how on eagle's wings he brought the
346. The biblical terminology of 'covenant' (tY~Q) is used to describe the agreement reached between Israel and YHWH at Sinai. Underlying the biblical concept are
the forms of ancient Near Eastern treaties and loyalty oaths (Mendenhall and Herion
1992). The exodus of Israel from Egypt and the events at Sinai signify the transference
of Israel from a vassal relationship in Egypt subject to Pharaoh to a vassal relationship
in the wilderness subject to YHWH. In contrast, the promise made to Abraham in the
ancestor accounts of Genesis is of the form of a divine charter. Genesis and Exodus
thus differ in their conceptualization of the relationship between (proto-) Israel and its
God.
347. Exodus 19.7-8 has Moses setting before the people 'all these words which
YHWH had commanded him' (even though the detailed covenant stipulations do not
begin until Exod. 20), and all the people answering as one 'all which YHWH has
spoken we will do'. These words are recapitulated almost verbatim in 24.3, 7.
144
348. 'Without that affirmative response, indeed, there would have been only "sons of
Israel", the descendants of Jacob. With the affirmative response, "Israel", a community of
faith transcending biological descendancy, would come into being' (Durham 1987:262).
349. Egypt is additionally described here in a negative way as aO''"QU fTO ('house
of slaves'see the first appearances of this description in 13.3, 14). This negative
portrayal does not appear again until Deuteronomy, where it is used frequently (5.6;
6.12; 7.8; 8.14; 13.6, 11).
350. Note the repeated appearance of the autokerygmatic phrase 'I am YHWH (your
God) who brought you out/up from the land of Egypt' (with minor variations) throughout the legal material of the Pentateuch, particularly in the Holiness Code of Leviticus
with its emphasis on the separateness of Israel: Exod. 29.46; Lev. 11.45; 19.36; 22.33;
25.38; 26.13; Num. 15.41; Deut. 5.6.
3. Egypt in Exodus
145
The "12 ('resident alien'/'sojourner') refers to settled or temporary residents who have no familial or tribal affiliation with the dominant residents
of a territory, and therefore usually lack full rights and are dependent on a
patron for protection from abuse. This legislation presumes that Israel
occupies the role of the dominant kinship group settled in the land, and so
stands as a collective over against the resident aliens in its midst. In that
situation, Israel's own experience in Egypt is to provide the motivation
and the measure for its non-abusive treatment of the resident alien.
Given the narrative's dominant interest in portraying Israel's Egyptian
experience as oppressive, Israel's experience is easily interpreted as a
negative example of the maltreatment of the resident alien.351 Israel is thus
enjoined not to repeat such maltreatment when it itself achieves a position
of dominance. However, Israel's Egyptian experience in this legislation
could also be interpreted as a positive example that Israel is to emulate.
The Joseph story, for instance, provides a positive example of how Egypt
treated the resident alien. To a lesser extent, Abraham's experience in
Egypt (Gen. 12) and the plundering motif in the exodus narrative point to
Egypt as a place where resident aliens become enriched. In other words,
the legislation itself is not intrinsically positively or negatively inclined
towards Egypt, but the context in which the legislation is read will determine whether Egypt is seen as a positive or negative example. By making
separation from Egypt foundational for Israel's constitutive legal tradition,
the text of Exodus places this legislation regarding the resident alien into a
context whereby it is most naturally read as anti-Egyptian. Had the same
legislation been placed in a context friendlier to Egypt, such as that of the
Joseph story, it could be read as pro-Egyptian.
The legislation regarding the resident alien not only contributes to a
negative image of Egypt in its present context, but it also plays a part in
the portrayal of Israel vis-a-vis Egypt. Describing Israel as a resident alien
in Egypt implies that Israel was not and can never be fully at home there
but in actuality belongs elsewhere. In Egypt Israel can never be a mTN
('native, indigene'), only a "U,352 thus undergirding the separation of Israel
from Egypt and the view that Israel's origins are to be found outside of
351. The verbs f n b and H3i3 have been used previously of the Egyptian oppression
of Israel (1.11-12;3.9). Both verbs are brought together to describe Egypt's oppression
of Israel in the credo of Deut. 26.5-9.
352. This notion would strongly undermine the legitimacy of a Jewish diaspora
community in Egypt, at least one that sees itself as rooted in any significant fashion in
Egypt.
146
Egypt. However, other legal traditions in the Pentateuch call the distinction between IT1TK and "13 into question. For example, Israel is specifically
enjoined that the same legal code is to apply to 1"!1TN and 13 alike,353 and
various legal stipulations are directed to both niTK and "II354 Israel is even
commanded to collapse the distinction between niTN and "13 precisely on
the basis of its experience in Egypt:
As a native among you shall be for you the resident alien residing with you,
and you shall love him as yourself, for you were resident aliens in Egypt
(Lev. 19.34a).
3. Egypt in Exodus
147
the tribes in Canaan, than from Egypt (23.23-33; 34.11-26). This generalization is explicitly voiced in Moses' words to YHWH: 'And we will be
distinct/separate, I and your people, from all the people who are upon the
face of the earth' (33.16b).358 Thus, gradually the concern for differentiation from Egypt is opening up to include new foci for contrastive identity.
In summary, the constitutive moment at Sinai, when Israel is given
definitive shape through a covenant with YHWH, is framed within the
context of separation from Egypt. The exodus through which Israel becomes distinct from Egypt provides the necessary historical prologue to
the presentation of Israel's covenantal obligations. Yet within those covenantal obligations are legal traditions regarding the proper treatment of the
resident alien that unsettle a too-facile distinction between Egypt and
Israel, and make problematic the notion of an impermeable boundary
between the two. And finally, the focus for contrastive identity begins to
shift from Egypt to the tribal peoples of Canaan, although differentiation
from Egypt remains the underlying paradigm.
By the end of the scroll, Israel's identity as YHWH'S people separate
from Egypt seems finally to be secured, but not until that identity is endangered and rescued. In the narrative of the golden calf (Exod. 32-34),
Israel almost loses its newly birthed identity. In an ironic reversal of the
plague narrative, in which YHWH had to persuade Pharaoh to let Israel go,
in this narrative Moses has to persuade YHWH to stick with Israel. In the
end, after repeated entreaties, YHWH'S covenantal relationship with Israel
is renewed and Israel's distinctive identity is assured.359 And so the scroll
of Exodus can end with a second utopic moment, with the indwelling of
YHWH in the newly constructed tabernacle, indicated by the cloud and
YHWH'S glory (40.34-38).360 While the tabernacle has been fused with the
tradition of the tent of meeting, unlike the tent of meeting which was
located on the margins of the camp (33.7), it is located in the middle of the
358. The LXX here reads 'we will be glorified beyond all the nations', a translation
perhaps based on the verb N^S instead of il^S (see the remarks on 8.19 [23]; 9.4 and
11.7 above).
359. The proleptic instructions for the tabernacle's construction and for the institution of worship cannot be actualized until after Israel's identity has been endangered
and rescued. The material concerning the tabernacle (25.1-31.18; 35.1-40.33) frames
the narrative of Israel's apostasy and restoration (32.1-34.35), highlighting the
centrality of this narrative to the text's construction of Israel's identity.
360. The cloud as an indication of YHWH'S presence has already been encountered
in 13.21-22; 14.19-20, 24; 19.9; 33.9.
148
3. Egypt in Exodus
149
narrative. Only he is able to go up and down the mountain; strict boundaries circumscribe the movement of everyone else, including YHWH.364
Moses' ability to transgress these boundaries is due to his role as intermediary between Israel and YHWH; in this capacity, Moses functions like a
"[N^D ('messenger/angel') of the deity. In this respect, it is interesting to
consider the tradition reported in Exod. 14.19; 23.20-23; 32.34; 33.2;
Num. 20.16 and Judg. 2.1-5 that an angel guided Israel out of Egypt, in the
wilderness and into the Promised Land. Although no explicit connection is
made between this guiding angel and Moses, the later tradition of the
ascent and divine enthronement of Moses at Sinai, found in Jewish Egyptian, Samaritan and rabbinic sources (Meeks 1968) suggests the possibility
that a more heroic and even semi-divine portrayal of Moses is obscured
behind the figure of this angel.
In any case, the people are depicted as believing that it is Moses, not the
deity, who has brought them out of Egypt. While Moses and the narrator
interpret the people's complaints as directed towards YHWH (16.7-8; 17.2,
7), the people themselves complain against Moses (15.24; 16.2; 17.2, 3).
They blame Moses, not YHWH, for bringing them out of Egypt, a place of
plenty, into the wilderness, a place of sure death. Even though Moses had
announced that the miraculous provision of food in the wilderness would
cause the people to know that YHWH had brought them out of Egypt
(16.6), it seems that the lesson did not sink in. In fact, the people explicitly
express a desire for death at the hand of YHWH in Egypt (16.3). The
people's question, 'Is YHWH among us or not?' (17.7) indicates that, from
Israel's narrative perspective, the plenty of Egypt is connected with the
presence of YHWH, while the lack of the wilderness expresses YHWH'S
absence. Moses, however, is present and to blame for their predicament.365
In contrast, YHWH insists that he is present with Israel because he
brought Israel out of Egypt:
364. A strict boundary ("733, HUp) is set around the mountain that the people are not
to break down or through (0~in) (19.12-13, 20-24). The same boundary constrains
YHWH; the people are warned not to break through the barrier lest YHWH burst forth
(f ~IS) against them (19.22, 24). Moses transgresses boundaries here that the people
cannot cross, but later he is not allowed to cross a boundary that all the people cross,
namely the Jordan River into the Promised Land.
365. While most of the plague narrative tended to emphasize the power and central
role of YHWH, in comparison to which Moses was only an instrument to carry out the
deity's work, it is Moses who is originally commissioned to bring Israel out of Egypt
(3.10, 12). Later on, in the incident of the golden calf, YHWH admits that Israel is
Moses' people, whom he has brought out of Egypt (32.7).
150
3. Egypt in Exodus
151
152
also 33.1). This statement is striking in that previously YHWH has insisted
that he will bring the people out of Egypt so that they will be his people
(e.g. 3.7-12; 6.6-7; 1 A;passim). On the narrative level, it seems that the
crisis of the people's apostasy is so acute that YHWH is ready to jettison
the whole project of the ethnogenesis of Israel and so distances himself
from the people. On the ideological level, however, one can perceive in
this agreement between the perspectives of the people and of YHWH hints
of an alternative definition of Israel, of an Israel that is predominantly
shaped by, and claims as its origin, the Moses of Egypt.
Ironically, Moses is portrayed as the one who disagrees with this perspective. He challenges YHWH, 'Why, O YHWH, does your anger burn
against your people whom you brought out from the land of Egypt?'
(32.11), and urges YHWH to repent and change (Dm) 'regarding the evil/
wrong (you intend) against your people' (32.12).375 Repeatedly, Moses
emphasizes that the people are not his but YHWH'S. The narrative uses the
voice of Moses, even over against the usually authoritative voice of
YHWH, to undermine precisely the notion that Israel is essentially defined
by Moses and thus to support the ideology of Israel's identity as YHWH'S
unique possession.
To change YHWH'S mind proves, however, to be no easy matter. At least
three times Moses must plead and argue to persuade YHWH to reclaim and
maintain his ownership of Israel. First, Moses persuades YHWH not to
destroy his people; he evokes YHWH'S honor or reputation in Egypt, which
will be ruined if Israel is wiped out, and reminds YHWH of the promises to
the ancestors (32.12-14).376 Moses then subjects the people to a trial by
ordeal (32.20)377 and a violent purge (32.25-29)378 in an effort to cleanse
375. The roles of Moses and YHWH are here the reverse of what they were in Exod.
3-4. In the call of Moses, YHWH had to persuade Moses to accept his commission; here
Moses has to persuade YHWH not to give up his project of the ethnogenesis of Israel.
376. The allusion to the ancestral stories of Genesis as a means of affirming Israel's
essentially non-Egyptian roots is familiar from the story of the call of Moses (3.6,1516). The argument about upholding YHWH'S reputation in Egypt continues the motif of
the demonstration of YHWH'S power to the Egyptians in the plagues.
377. Moses grinds the golden calf to powder and mixes it with water that he makes
the sons of Israel drink. This procedure is somewhat reminiscent of the destruction of
idols elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. 2 Kgs 23.6), but it especially exhibits
parallels to the test of a wife's faithfulness on the occasion of her husband's jealousy as
outlined in Num. 5. So also Israel's faithfulness to its God and its God-bound identity
is at stake here.
378. Moses recruits the Levites to engage in a slaughter of three thousand of their
3. Egypt in Exodus
153
Moses here twice explicitly links himself with the people, thus circumventing the attempt to single him out as unique. And yet Moses is indeed
presented in the narrative as unique. He is the only one who can climb the
mountain to YHWH,381 and YHWH even speaks with him face-to-face as
one talks with a friend (33.11).382 And yet Moses uses his unique status
precisely to dissolve his distinctiveness into the distinctiveness of the
people: 'we shall be distinct, I and your people, from all the people who
are upon the face of the earth' (33.16b). At the same time, Moses continues to insist that the people are YHWH'S, addressing YHWH consistently
kin and neighbors. He also confronts Aaron, who tries to blame the people (32.24) and
claims that the golden calf formed by itself (32.24).The narrator, however, blames both
Aaron and the people, resulting in the unusual syntax of 32.35: 'And YHWH sent a
plague on the people because they made the calf which Aaron made.1
379. This plague (*p3) evokes the plagues in Egypt that YHWH promised not to
inflict upon Israel if it was obedient to his words (15.26).
380. The verb "7JM in 33.6 recalls the similar use of the same verb in the plundering
motif (3.22; 12.36).
381. Even the covenant meal on the mountain in which the 70 elders of Israel participate (24.9-11) does not diminish Moses' uniqueness, for even here the text several
times insists that only Moses actually encounters YHWH (24.2, 15-18).
382. In contrast, however, when Moses requests a theophany, he is only granted a
view of YHWH'S back since no one can see YHWH'S face and live (33.20, 23).
154
about 'your people'. For a second time, YHWH is persuaded, although his
response focuses entirely on Moses with no mention of the people: 'Indeed, this very thing you have said I will do, for you have found favor in
my eyes and I know you by name' (33.17).383
For a third and final time, Moses pleads with YHWH: 'If, please, I have
found favor in your eyes, my lord, then, please go, my lord, in our midst;
for it is a stiff-necked people, and (so) pardon our iniquity and our sin and
take us as your inheritance/possession' (34.9).384 Again Moses identifies
himself unequivocally with the people. Finally, YHWH responds decisively
by making a covenant, thus replacing the former broken covenant, and by
having Moses inscribe a new set of tablets (34.27-28). And the presence of
YHWH with the people is now assured, for YHWH promises that he himself,
and not an angel as previously mentioned (33.2), will drive out the tribes
of the land before them (34.11).
Yet, while Moses both identifies himself with the people, and sees them
as YHWH'S people, YHWH continues to identify them as Moses' people
while at the same time maintaining a sense of difference between them
and Moses. YHWH speaks to Moses of 'your people', not 'my people'
(34.10a), thus reiterating the people's own sense of identification with
Moses. But in the same sentence, YHWH differentiates between Moses and
the people in speaking to Moses of 'all the people in whose midst you are'
(34. lOb). The same differentiation appears in YHWH'S later declaration to
Moses: 'I have made with you a covenant, and with Israel' (34.27). Moreover, Moses' shining (or horned) face, and his need to veil his face (34.2935), underline his difference from the people.385
The whole incident of the golden calf and its aftermath thus plays on the
aspect of uniqueness in identity formation. From the narrative perspective
of the people, Israel is closely identified with Moses, who both comes
from Egypt and is perceived as (semi-) divine in that he is interchangeable
383. The dialogue between Moses and YHWH in 33.12-17 is also significant in its
emphasis of the theme of knowledge: the root UT appears six times in these six verses,
recalling the importance of this theme in the plague and exodus narratives.
3 84. Moses' plea, with its twofold use of the particle of entreaty 83, echoes the same
twofold plea of 33.13; it also evokes the invitation of YHWH in 19.5 that Israel be his
special treasured possession.
385. Both Sasson (1968: 384-87) and Moberly (1983: 108-109) see in the word |~p
a deliberate parallelism with the calf that the people substituted for Moses. The change
in Moses' appearancehis face shines or has a horned appearancehas also been
explained as a horned cultic mask signifying divine priestly authority or as the aura
that signifies Moses' elevation to semi-divine status.
3. Egypt in Exodus
155
with the divine symbol of the golden calf. The narrative perspective of
YHWH agrees withthatof the people insofar as it identifies Israel as Moses'
people and at the same time ascribes a unique status to Moses in that he can
be substituted for the people as a new starting point. From these two perspectives, Moses is both identified with, and yet distinct from, the people.
Over against these perspectives is that expressed by Moses. Whereas the
people and YHWH identify Israel primarily with Moses, Moses insists
repeatedly that Israel belongs to YHWH. And whereas the people and YHWH
place Moses in a unique position apart from the people, Moses constantly
links himself with the people as one of them. In fact, Moses uses the unique
favored status attributed to him by YHWH, not to glorify himself, but to
plead for the restoration of the people's unique status by identifying
himself with the people. Ironically, while Moses is successful in persuading
YHWH to restore the people's unique status, YHWH continues to maintain
Moses' own distinctiveness. Moses' attempt to be seen as one of YHWH'S
people is rebuffed. Moses remains an exalted yet liminal figure, central to
the constitution of Israel as YHWH'S people rescued from Egypt, and at the
same time marginal in relationship to membership in Israel.386
This clash of narrative perspectives on the place of Moses in relation to
Israel is integral to the conflict of ideologies in the narrative over Israel's
identity in relation to Egypt. Moses, for all the efforts to distance him from
his Egyptian background, has strong Egyptian associations. The various
perspectives on Moses thus represent a variety of ways in which the
connection of Israel with Egypt was conceptualized in the context of the
primary producers and consumers of the scroll of Exodus. First, there is
the people's view of Moses as a (semi-) divine 'strong one/bull' who leads
them out of Egypt and through the wilderness, a view opposed by YHWH
and Moses; this reflects an ideological conflict regarding the status of
Moses as an exalted Egyptian Israelite hero. Secondly, there is Moses'
view of himself as one of YHWH'S people contrasted with YHWH'S view of
Moses as separate from the people; this reflects an ideological conflict
about whether an Egyptian, no matter how exalted and beneficial for
Israel, can really be a member of Israel. Thirdly, there is YHWH'S ambivalence about whether the people belong to him or to Moses; this reflects an
386. In order to be a mediating figure between the mundane and transcendent
worlds, Moses must exist on the margins; the tent of meeting where YHWH and Moses
meet, for instance, is located on the edge of the camp (33.7-11). But on the level of the
clash of ideologies in the narrative, the marginalization of Moses may have more to do
with his Egyptian associations.
156
ideological conflict about the status of Israelites from Egypt and whether
they can claim membership in the true Israel descended from the eponymous ancestor who originally migrated from Mesopotamia.
Summary: Egypt in Exodus
The scroll of Exodus, as analyzed above, is a sustained argument for a particular distinctive, non-Egyptian identity for Israel. The scroll begins by
setting up the classic ethnic polarity between 'us' and 'them', between
Israel and Egypt, and then expends its rhetorical effort in persuading its
audience to acquiesce to this binary opposition. Just as the Israel in the
narrative only gradually comes to an awareness and acceptance of its
identity separate from Egypt, so the audience of the scroll is likewise
gradually persuaded, via its identification with the Israel in the narrative,
to come to the same conclusion about itself. The evocation of the 'master
narrative' of Israel found in the ancestor stories of Genesis, in which
Israel's true origins are to be found in Mesopotamia and in which Egypt,
therefore, represents only a temporary detour, proves to be a powerful
argument. The image of Egypt as a place of plenty and security is effectively attacked as the voice of rebellion and complaint. However, the main
persuasive force in the narrative is the voice of YHWH, who unequivocally
insists that Israel and Egypt are distinct and actively seeks to actualize this
distinction by the physical and emotional separation of Israel from Egypt.
And yet the distinction between Israel and Egypt is continually compromised by ambiguity and hints of alternative understandings. When Israel is
given a voice in the narrative, this voice speaks predominantly of an Israel
that is rooted in Egypt and is reluctant to participate in an exodus. The
very origins and composition of Israel are problematized by notions of
heterogeneity that poke holes in absolute ethnic boundaries. Moreover, the
spectre of a return to Egypt perturbs the ideological master narrative in
which a return to Egypt is unthinkable. But it is especially in Moses that
the ambiguities of identity formation in the narrative come together.
Moses is a hybrid straddling the boundary between Egypt and Israel; he is
also the hero who leads Israel out of Egypt. While the narrative attempts to
distance Moses as much as possible from his Egyptian background, in the
end his identification with Israel remains suspect. Furthermore, the narrative consistently attempts to undercut a heroic or even mythical portrait
of Moses.
These strong rhetorical moves indicate that the scroll of Exodus is engaged in a contest of ideologies in the context of its production, circulation
3. Egypt in Exodus
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Chapter 4
EGYPT IN LEVITICUS, NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY
The Pentateuch is characterized by an intertwining of narrative and summary, in the form of genealogy, list and law (Blenkinsopp 1992:34). However, one or the other genre tends to be in the foreground in different parts
of the Pentateuch. While narrative is the dominant genre in Genesis and in
the first half of Exodus, after Exod. 19 the genre of summary, especially
legal prescriptions and institutions, is more prevalent. This invites a somewhat different approach to the analysis of Egypt as portrayed in Leviticus,
Numbers and Deuteronomy. Whereas the analysis thus far has proceeded
more or less sequentially, as befits the temporal unfolding of narrative, in
this chapter more of a thematic approach will be employed. The themes will
be ones that have already been introduced in the previous analyses of Egypt
in Genesis and Exodus; in the following pages, new permutations and
further developments of these themes will be highlighted.
But first, a brief look at the occurrences of Egypt within the specific
shape of each of these three books seems warranted. The scroll of Leviticus recounts further laws and statutes that are revealed to Israel at Sinai.
The number of explicit references to Egypt in the scroll is rather small
only 11 occurrencesmost of which appear in the latter half of the book,
especially in the so-called Holiness Code (chs. 17-26). Egypt does not
explicitly figure in the regulations of Leviticus regarding the organization
of Israel's cultic lifethe sacrificial system and the ordination of cultic
personnel. However, when the focus shifts from specialized ritual
requirements of cultic specialists to matters of concern for the layperson,
such as regulations regarding purity, community life, festivals and so on,
then Egypt reappears. These regulations outline forms of behavior that
function to make Israel distinct from other peoples, as indicated by the
frequent admonition throughout the latter part of Leviticus that Israel is to
be holy as YHWH, its God, is holy.1 Egypt's appearance among these
1.
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160
The first autokerygmatic statement, 'I (am) YHWH your God', is matched
by a second one, 'I (am) YHWH, the one bringing you up from the land of
Egypt to be for you (a) God'; that is, the very definition of YHWH is
connected with the separation of Israel from Egypt. Furthermore, not only
does YHWH separate Israel from Egypt, but he is essentially himself one
who is set apart (2Jnp); so also Israel, the people whom he constitutes
through the exodus from Egypt, is to be set apart. The root paradigm for
Israel's holiness is separation from Egypt.
The two autokerygmatic declarations enclose an admonition to avoid
swarming, creeping animals, and, as Lev. 11.41-42 makes clear, such
animals are not to be part of Israel's diet.4 If the dietary restrictions
function to set Israel apart, and if the distinctiveness of Israel is tied
closely to the exodus from Egypt, then one might suspect that these dietary
regulations are set over against what the producers of the text took to be
characteristic Egyptian dietary habits.5 However, the dietary regulations
4. Swarming Q"TO) may be contrary to holiness because it signifies an unpredictable, chaotic movement that is not proper to any element (Wenham 1979: 178) and
which thus threatens to breach the boundaries of proper order. Note that the seemingly
unnatural swarming increase of Israel in Egypt (Exod. 1.7) arouses dread on the part of
Egypt (1.12).
5. In actuality, of course, Israel shared a host of cultural practices, including various prohibitions, with its Near Eastern neighbours. Circumcision and pork avoidance,
for example, were also found among the Egyptians (Chan 1985: 97); pork avoidance
161
exhibit their own internal taxonomic logic,6 quite apart from any necessary
reference to the contrasting dietary habits of other peoples. Furthermore,
some of them, such as the prohibition of pork, may have developed out of
the particular environmental constraints of Palestine.7 Therefore, it is more
likely that a set of dietary restrictions emerging from a context in Palestine
is here adopted as distinctive of Israel. The reference to Egypt in the concluding section then does not so much point to an opposition to specific
Egyptian dietary habits as it formulaically incorporates the dietary regulations into the more general theme of Israel's distinct!veness generated by
the exodus.
As was already observed in the latter part of Exodus, the 'other' over
against which Israel is defined is shifting from Egypt alone to include also
the tribal peoples of the land that Israel is to inherit. This shift is discernible especially in the second explicit mention of Egypt in Leviticus, which
occurs at the beginning of a list of sexual restrictions:
I (am) YHWH your God. That which is done in the land of Egypt, in which
you lived, you will not do; And that which is done in the land of Canaan,
into which I am bringing you, you will not do, and their prescriptions you
will not walk in/follow. My judgments/ordinances you will do, and my
prescriptions you will keep, to walk in/follow them. I (am) YHWH your God
(Lev. 18.2b-4).
Here the prescriptions and ordinances of YHWH for his people Israel are
differentiated from both what is done in Egypt and what is done in
Canaan. That Canaan is mentioned following Egypt mirrors the narrative
movement from Egypt to Canaan. An extra phrase is attached to the prohibition of Canaanite behavior, and the conclusion of the list (Lev. 18.2430) matches the proscribed behaviors only to the abominations (ETCUm)
of the nations or inhabitants of the land towards which Israel is journeying,
and not to the behavior of Egypt. These characteristics indicate a shift
from a primary emphasis on differentiation from Egypt to more of a
concern with differentiation from Canaan. The mention of Egypt in 18.3
seems to be largely formulaic; the real concern of the prohibitions is with
differentiation from Canaan.8
seems to have been a widespread custom among all Semitic peoples with the exception
of the Babylonians (de Vaux 1972: 266).
6. See especially the analyses by Mary Douglas (1966, 1975 , 1993) and Soler
(1979).
7. See Marvin Harris (1985: 68-84). For sophisticated analyses based on archaeological faunal remains in Palestine, see Hesse (1990) and Zeder (1996).
8. This conclusion is further supported by the ending of Lev. 20, a chapter that
162
Again, one could speculate that the sexual behaviors proscribed in the
following regulations were seen by the producers of the text as somehow
characteristic of either the Egyptians or the Canaanites, or both. For example, consanguineous marriages between brother and sister, prohibited in
Lev. 18.9, 11, were common in Greco-Roman Egypt and practiced occasionally among the royal families of Pharaonic Egypt (Cerny 1954).
Bestiality, prohibited in Lev. 18.23, may be a reflection of the prominence
of zoomorphic representations in the Egyptian cult.9 However, the greater
contrast occurs within the Pentateuch itself: Abraham is married to his
half-sister Sarah (Gen. 20.2, 12; 12.13) in violation of the taboo in Lev.
18.11 (also 20.17), Amram, Moses' father, marries his paternal aunt (Exod.
6.20) in violation of the taboo in Lev. 18.12 (also 20.19), and Jacob's
marriage to both Leah and Rachel (Gen. 29.21-30) violates the taboo in
Lev. 18.18.' Interestingly, all these violations take place outside of Palestine, in either Mesopotamia or Egypt. It seems therefore that, instead of
focusing on prohibiting the customs of Canaan along with those of Egypt,
the text, more in keeping with the previous narrative in Genesis and Exodus, could have focused on the customs of Mesopotamia alongside those
of Egypt. That Mesopotamia is absent, while a concern for separation from
Egyptian customs is linked to a similar separation from Canaanite customs, seems to betray an anti-Egyptian (and anti-Canaanite) but proMesopotamian ideological stance on the part of the producers of the text.
The differentation of Israel from Egypt is evoked in several more
occurrences of the autokerygmatic formula 'I am YHWH, who brought you
out from the land of Egypt'(Lev. 19.36; 22.33; Num. 15.41). The example
from Lev. 19 is of special interest in that, midway through the chapter, one
finds a set of regulations prohibiting the mixture or confusion of what the
producers of the text saw as incompatible categories: 'Your cattle you will
not (inter) breed (between) two kinds, your field you will not plant (with)
two kinds, and a garment (of) two kinds (T]i2,D2Jn) you will not put upon
mirrors many of the sexual taboos of Lev. 18. The end of Lev. 20 contains some of the
most explicit language about separation (20.24,26) but explicitly refers, not to Egypt,
but only 'the nation which I am driving out before you, because all these things they
did and I abhorred them' (20.23).
9. However, such representations are known also from other ancient Near Eastern
sources.
10. The institution of levirate marriage (Gen. 38.8; Deut. 25.5-10) also technically
violates the taboo in 18.16 (also 20.21).
11. This word is evidently a technical term for some sort of fabric made of two
163
yourself (19.19). Thus, the God who separated Israel from Egypt (19.36b)
demands that his people maintain their distinctiveness to the extent even of
avoiding behaviors that involve mixtures and thus model the possibility of
heterogeneity. Again, the invocation of the exodus from Egypt at the end
of this list of regulations likely functions not so much to oppose specific
Egyptian practices as it does to raise the issue of differentiation itself,
which the text inextricably links with Egypt.12
That mixtures are to be avoided, most especially mixtures between
Israel and Egypt, is graphically portrayed in the only piece of actual narrative in the scroll of Leviticus, the account of the blaspheming son in 24.1023. On the surface, this narrative addresses the legal question of how
blasphemy is to be punished. It is formally similar to three other Pentateuchal cases of ad hoc judgments: Num. 9.6-14, which addresses the
question of whether someone who has touched a corpse can celebrate the
Passover; Num. 15.32-36, which addresses the question of the appropriate
penalty for working on the Sabbath; and Num. 27.1-11, which addresses
the question of whether daughters can inherit in the absence of eligible
sons. The Leviticus case differs however, in that, while these other cases
refer to the people involved either in general, unspecified terms13 or place
them expressly within Israel,14 the blasphemer in Leviticus is explicitly
described as the son of an Egyptian father and an Israelite mother, the
product of a mixed Israelite-Egyptian union.
Several conspicuous elements of the narrative connected with the
blasphemer's mixed origins demand attention. First, his Israelite mother is
named and her genealogical connection to the tribe of Dan is traced
(24.11). In contrast, his Egyptian father remains nameless and devoid of
the context of kin; the only important descriptive piece of information
about this father, from the perspective of the narrative, is his ethnic
identification as an Egyptian. Furthermore, the son is twice referred to as
the 'son of the Israelite woman' (24.11, 12).15 Secondly, the presence of
different kinds of thread; in Deut. 22.11 it is defined as a mixture of wool and linen.
Significantly, the term may be a loan word from Egyptian (Lambdin 1953: 155).
12. So also Egypt is evoked in Lev. 22.33 at the end of a series of regulations
concerning the separation ("IT]) and special status of sacrificial offerings and donations.
13. Certain unspecified people touch a corpse in Num. 9; an unspecified 'man' is
discovered collecting sticks on the Sabbath.
14. The daughters of Zelophehad in Num. 27 are explicitly linked by genealogy
with the Israelite tribe of Manasseh.
15. However, it is unlikely that the narrative specifies the Israelite kinship of the
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165
166
Israel is to live in booths throughout the seven days of the festival. Thus,
both the instruction regarding living in booths and the connection of
booths to the exodus from Egypt appear as a supplement.
Secondly, Lev. 23 is the only one of the festival calendars in the Pentateuch to make a specific connection between the festival of booths and the
exodus from Egypt. The two festival calendars in Exodus (23.14-17; 34.1823) connect the exodus explicitly only with the festival of unleavened
bread (34.18, cf. 23.15).20 And the festival calendar in Deut. 16 specifically connects both the festivals of Passover/Unleavened Bread and weeks,
but not the festival of booths to the exodus.21 Leviticus 23 thus stands out
in that it specifically connects only the festival of booths to the exodus
from Egypt, making no such connection for either Passover/Unleavened
Bread or weeks.22 The addendum or supplement of Lev. 23.39-43 thus
gives particular value to the festival of booths, over against all the other
festivals, as a means of perpetuating the memory of the exodus or
separation from Egypt. Significantly, the postexilic celebration of booths
described in Neh. 8.13-18, which is closely followed by a solemn
separation of Israelites of pure descent from all 'foreigners' (Neh. 9.1-2),
is clearly analogous to the festival calendar in Leviticus.23 Moreover, the
eschatological celebration of booths imagined in the postexilic text of
Zech. 14.16-19 follows upon a plague and plundering of the nations,
strongly reminiscent of the plagues and motif of plundering that enable the
separation of Israel from Egypt in the narrative of Exodus. In other words,
the conspicuous connection in Leviticus between the festival of booths and
the exodus articulates with particular ideologies of separation found in
certain postexilic texts.
Thirdly, the connection made between the festival of booths and the
20. Furthermore, in Exodus, Sukkoth is referred to only as the 'festival of ingathering'; the term 'festival of booths' occurs only in Lev. 23 and Deut. 16.
21. The festival of Passover/Unleavened Bread is emphatically connected with
the exodus three times in Deut. 16.1,3,6. The connection of the festival of weeks with
the exodus (16.12) occurs in the Hebrew Bible only in the festival calendar of
Deuteronomy.
22. It may also be significant that the addendum does not refer to the 'festival of
booths' as in 23.34, but rather to the 'festival of YHWH' (23.39) as if this were the only,
or most important, of the festivals.
23. Fishbane (1985:109-12) describes both the similarities and differences between
the Nehemiah and Leviticus passages. While the differences preclude a direct dependence of Nehemiah on Leviticus, the similarities indicate that both passages utilize a
parallel tradition.
167
booths that the Israelites lived in during the exodus from Egypt is clearly
artificial. As Gerstenberger remarks, 'it would be nonsensical to assume
that from station to station (cf. Num. 33) the desert provided the Israelites
with enough tree branches for thousands of refugees to build provisional
shelters' (1996: 349). None of the narratives of the desert wanderings
mentions booths. So the festival of booths is here rather arbitrarily made
into a celebration, not only of the harvest, but also of the genesis of Israel
as a people through separation from Egypt. This connection with the
exodus, together with the supplemental nature of the material and its clear
connection with decidedly postexilic texts, hints that the festival of booths
has become in the Persian period a particular locus for the expression of an
ideology of Israelite identity focusing on contrast with, and separation
from, Egypt.24
Finally, it is noteworthy that, while separation from Egypt is a major goal
of the text, Egypt yet geographically remains Israel's neighbor. Whenever
the borders of the Promised Land are delineated, the southern border abuts
on Egypt,25 and thus Egypt continues to be Israel's proximate 'other'.
From Egyptian Generation to a New Generation
The scroll of Numbers marks the transition from the generation of Israel
that emerged from Egypt to a new generation birthed in the wilderness.
Apparently, the exodus alone was not sufficient to produce an Israel
separate from Egypt; an even more radical break is required and it is
supplied in the scroll of Numbers by the definitive end of Israel's
Egyptian-born generation. The Egyptian generation is enumerated in a
24. One further example of ritual enactment of separation from Egypt is found in
Num. 15.41, where an autokerygmatic statement of YHWH as the one bringing Israel
out of Egypt follows instructions for the making of tassels on garments. Just as the
Passover or Sukkoth ritual memorializes and re-enacts separation from Egypt as the
constitutive core of Israel's identity, so the tassels are to act as a daily reminder of
Israel's distinction from Egypt.
25. In the promise to Abraham, the southern border of the Promised Land is
designated as the 'river of Egypt', likely referring to the Nile (Gen. 15.18). In Exod.
23.31, the southern border is set at the Red/Reed Sea. Numbers 34.5 identifies the
southern boundary as the 'wadi of Egypt', a designation appearing only here in the
Pentateuch, but elsewhere to designate the southern border of Israel/Judah (Josh. 15.4,
47; 1 Kgs 8.45; 2 Kgs 24.7 passim). The 'wadi of Egypt' is likely referring to a
fluctuating borderline further north in the Sinai Peninsula, variously identified with
Wadi Besor or Wadi el-'Arish (see Hooker 1993; Na'aman 1986: 246-49).
168
26. Of course this homology contrasts with other, less dominant, traditions that
speak of the Israel that emerges from Egypt as a 'mixed crowd' (Exod. 12.38; Lev.
24.10-23; Num. 11.4).
27. The present text of Num. 26.3-4 is confusing and may contain a gap; the NRSV,
for instance, supplies the phrase 'Take a census of the people' at the beginning of v. 4.
(Cf. NJPS and see Budd 1984: 286, 292; HOTTP 252). Such textual uncertainty is an
indication of ideological tension.
28. The mighty deeds of Moses, rather than YHWH, are referred to in 34.11 -12.
169
have seen every great deed which YHWH did' (11.7),29 are ostensibly the
new generation of Israel; the former Egyptian-born generation that actually witnessed the mighty deeds of YHWH in Egypt has passed away (e.g.
2.16). The intention may be to present the eyewitness of the addressees in
terms of the liturgical remembrance and representation that takes place, for
example, at Passover.30 However, in terms of the chronology of the
narrative, a strong sense of continuity between generations is presented
which is contrary to the discontinuity signaled by the motif of the demise
of the Egyptian-born generation.31
The census of the two generations in Numbers contains an interesting
feature: the tribe of Levi is explicitly omitted from the census of Israel
(1.47-49; 2.33) and is enumerated quite separately and differently (3.14
4.49).32 The exclusion of the Levites from the general military census is
explained by virtue of their special job of serving in, carrying and
guarding the tabernacle (1.48-53; see also 8.5-15,19). In this occupational
role, they are exceptionally claimed by YHWH to function, one-for-one, as
substitutes for the firstborn of the Israelites (3.12, 41, 45; 8.16-18).33
Numbers etiologically traces YHWH'S claim to all Israel's firstborn to the
tenth plague against the Egyptian firstborn (3.13; 8.17), as in Exodus
(13.14-15). However, in contrast to the rules regarding the firstborn in
29. See also 29.1 [2], 16.
30. Participants in the Passover ritual are instructed to tell their children, 'It is
because of what YHWH did for me, when I came out from Egypt' (Exod. 13.8),
indicating that at Passover the exodus is ritually re-enacted and re-experienced.
31. Another example upsetting the discontinuity between the Egyptian-born
generation and the new generation is found in 5.3, where Moses insists 'not with your
ancestors did YHWH make this covenant [i.e. the covenant at Horeb/Sinai] but with us,
who are all here alive today'. The impression given is that the generation that received
the Sinai covenant (the Egyptian-born generation) is addressed as the generation that
will inherit the land.
32. While all males of fighting age, that is, 20 years old and up, in the tribes of
Israel are enumerated (1.3, 45), the Levites are first enumerated according to the
number of males one month old and up (3.15), and secondly, according to the number
of males 30-50 years old (4.3, 23, 30, 39, 43, 47).
33. The firstborn of Israel over and above the number of the Levites are to be
redeemed by a monetary payment to the priesthood of five shekels (3.46-48). Even the
livestock of the Levites are to function as a substitute for the firstborn of Israel's
livestock (3.41, 45). Later in the scroll, however, the substitutionary function of the
Levites is disregarded; 18.15-18 calls for the redemption of all human firstborn and
the firstborn of unclean animals in Israel with a monetary payment of five shekels, and
the sacrifice of all firstborn of clean animals.
170
Exodus and Leviticus, here Levites, and not an unspecified ransom, provide the substitute for the firstborn. The Levites are specifically separated
out from the rest of Israel34 so that no *\ti ('plague') will strike the sons of
Israel for approaching the holy (8.19b); they function as a 'shielding
priestly buffer zone' (Olson 1996: 18) protecting Israel from the holiness
of YHWH'S indwelling presence (Budd 1984: 18-19). The 'line in blood'
that is drawn in the final plague of exodus to make a definitive life-ordeath separation between Israel and Egypt is here drawn to mark a similar
life-or-death distinction within Israel.35 Egypt, in other words, continues to
function ideologically in the text as a principle mandating differentiation,
not just externally but also internally.36
The purging of the old Egyptian-born generation from Israel extends
even to Moses, Israel's leader in the exodus. In the preceding analysis of
Exodus, it was noted that, in contrast to Aaron's, mention of the descendants of Moses is noticeably absent from the genealogy of Exod. 6.16-25,
even though Moses is described in Exodus as married and fathering children. Similarly, although himself a descendant of Levi, no descendants of
Moses are listed in the Levitical genealogical lists in Num. 3 or 26, even
though Num. 3 begins 'and these are the generations of Aaron and Moses'
(3.1).37 It seems that the lineage of Moses, who has at least two sons
according to Exod. 2.22 and 18.3-4, has been erased from the Levitical
lists.38 Moreover, the similarities in names between Gershom, Moses' first
34. See the use of "m ('to separate') in 8.14.
3 5. The word *)M is used in Exod. 12.13 in reference to the plague of the death of
the firstborn; a similar plague may be in view here, which would be averted by the
consecration of the Levites.
36. Furthermore, by the logic of substitution operative in the firstborn legislation,
the Levites take the place of the Egyptian firstborn in substituting for the Israelite firstborn. A homology is thus structurally drawn between the Levites and the Egyptians,
suggesting the possibility that the Levites may have strong Egyptian associations. That
the Levites are not assigned any landholdings in the Promised Land may additionally
indicate that they of all the tribes of Israel are remembered as originating from outside
the land; Egypt, then, figures prominently as possibly their place of origin.
37. In fact, the genealogy of the Levites in 1 Chron. 23 is the only one in the entire
Hebrew Bible to list descendants of Moses. A priestly descendant of Moses is also
described in Judg. 18.30, although early scribes added a suspended 3 to this verse to
change the name Moses to Manasseh. Perhaps this was done to prevent the association
of the name of Moses with idolatry (Tov 1992: 57), but it can also be seen as a
deliberate erasure of any trace of Moses' lineage.
38. The Egyptianizing Joseph also has two sons, but having his sons adopted by
Joseph's father Jacob in this case solved the problem.
111
son, and Gershon, Levi's first son, between Eliezer, Moses' second son,
and Eleazar, Aaron's third son, and between Moses and the Levitical clan
of the Mushites, may mark traces of a Moses lineage that has otherwise
been expurgated (Rehm 1992:299).39 Although Moses is the great man of
God who leads Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, no textual trace
of his family is allowed to survive. One can speculate that, in view of the
anti-Egyptian stance of the Pentateuch, the exclusion of Moses' family is
due to the strong association of Moses with Egypt.40
Not only is the lineage of Moses excluded from the Levitical genealogies, but Moses himself is excluded from the Promised Land. He is
reckoned with the old Egyptian generation of Israel and so must die with
them in the wilderness outside of the Promised Land. This exclusion of
Moses is striking on two counts. First, Moses is depicted as selflessly
working, not only to lead Israel out of Egypt, but also to avert from Israel
the consequences of its sin and rebellion; precisely by refusing YHWH'S
plan to make a greater nation out of himself, Moses persuades YHWH
against disinheriting Israel (14.11-19).41 Yet, despite this selfless service
and intercession, despite YHWH'S view of Moses as somehow more worthy
than Israel, and despite his lack of involvement in Israel's rebellion, Moses
is made to suffer, with the old Egyptian generation, exclusion from the
Promised Land.
Secondly, Moses' exclusion stands out in contrast to the exception that
YHWH makes for Joshua and Caleb. While Joshua has previously appeared
as a military leader in Israel (Exod. 17.9-14), and most prominently as
Moses' assistant (Exod. 24.13, 32.17, 33.11, Numbers 11.28), Caleb and
39. A further irregularity in the genealogy of Moses is the uncertain text regarding
Moses' parents in Num. 26.59, which literally reads, 'And the name of the wife of
Amram was Jochebed, daughter of Levi, who bore her to Levi in Egypt.' It seems that
the name of Jochebed's mother has been omitted, although the LXX, Syriac and
Vulgate versions present yet other readings. This textual uncertainty indicates ideological contention over the status of Moses in Israel.
40. Further support for this speculation is found in Num. 12.1, where Aaron and
Miriam speak against Moses because of his mixed marriage with a Cushite woman.
Although the identity of Cush is disputed (see Budd 1984: 136), Ethiopia, closely
associated with Egypt, is the most feasible candidate (the LXX makes this identification). However, the text immediately proceeds to a second reason for the opposition to
Moses, namely, a dispute concerning prophetic uniqueness; the notion of Moses'
mixed marriage is dropped and does not appear again.
41. Moses engages in exactly the same strategy on behalf of Israel in the earlier
incident of the golden calf (Exod. 32.7-14).
172
Joshua together are the chief characters in the story of the spies who are
sent out to recormoiter the Promised Land (chs. 13-14). Of the twelve
spies, only they encourage Israel to invade the land (14.6) and only they
survive the plague that kills the other spies (14.38). They alone are thus
singled out by YHWH as the only exceptions to the rule that the entire
Egyptian-born generation of Israel must die in the wilderness (14.30,
26.65, 32.12), the reason being that 'they wholly follow after YHWH'
(32.12).42 Yet their status pales in comparison to that of Moses, who is
praised as unequaled among Israel's prophets in the concluding encomium
of the Pentateuch (Deut. 34.10-12) and in YHWH'S panegyric in Num.
12.6-8. Nevertheless, Joshua and Caleb are allowed to enter the Promised
Land, while Moses is excluded.
The striking exclusion of Moses fits the dominant anti-Egyptian
ideology of the Pentateuch if Moses is seen as too closely associated with
Egypt. That is, even Moses must expire outside the land in order for the
break between Israel and Egypt to be final. However, while this reason
may be implicitly compelling as part of the overall ideological strategy of
the Pentateuch, on the narrative level a more explicit justification for
Moses' exclusion is required. And precisely such a justification is found in
the story of the complaint at the waters of Meribah (Num. 20.2-13). The
account in the scroll of Numbers is parallel to a similar story, also associated with Meribah, in Exod. 17.1 -7. As in the Exodus story, the people
complain of a lack of water, Moses (and Aaron) turn to YHWH for help,
water is miraculously provided from a rock, and the name of the place is
connected to the people's complaint. However, the story in Numbers has
its own unique features: YHWH commands Moses (and Aaron)43 to take
42. The exception of Joshua and Caleb is again mentioned in the retelling of the
story of the spies in Deut. 1.22-40. Caleb alone is mentioned as the exception in Num.
14.24 and Deut. 1.36, indicating that originally separate traditions about Caleb and
Joshua may have been fused in the present text, hi the end, Joshua figures more
prominently than Caleb in that he is commissioned as Moses' successor (Num. 27.1823, Deut. 31.14, 23). Note Kissling's argument that, in contrast to Moses, who is
sometimes portrayed as unreliable, Joshua is presented in the scroll of Joshua as a fully
reliable character independent of Moses (1996: 70). Earlier, on historical-critical
grounds, Dus (1976) argued that Joshua indeed was the true founder of Israel and that
only later, as a result of priestly politics, was the socio-religious work of Joshua
displaced onto Moses.
43. Aaron is mentioned in brackets because, as in many sections of the Pentateuch,
he is only partially integrated into the story and seems to have been incompletely
added to the text.
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the staff, but not to strike the rock (as in Exod. 17.6) but speak to it so that
it issues water (20.8); Moses addresses an unexpected and ambiguous
question to the assembled people, 'Listen, rebels! From this rock, will
we bring forth water for you?' (20.10); Moses strikes the rock twice and
water issues forth (20.11); and YHWH condemns Moses (and Aaron) for
their actions and excludes them from the Promised Land (20.12). It seems
that a priestly writer has here rewritten the story in Exodus in order to
explain the exclusion of Moses from the Promised Land (see, e.g., Budd
1984:217).
The exact nature of the transgression of Moses, however, remains
unclear. That Moses strikes the rock twice (20.11) seems to emphasize that
he is not literally following YHWH'S command to speak to the rock (20.8).
Moreover, his question to the people (20.10) is surprising and seems to
imply that he is either emphasizing his own agency (over against YHWH'S)
in providing the water or is exhibiting an unwillingness to provide the
water (Olson 1996: 126-27).44 The verdict of the narrative is clear, however; whatever the exact nature of his sin, Moses (and Aaron) is excluded
from the land along with the rest of the rebellious Egyptian-born generation of Israel. As YHWH says, 'you did not trust/believe in me to sanctify
me before the eyes of the sons of Israel' (20.12a).45 While Moses calls the
people rebels (20.10), ironically it is Moses (and Aaron) who are assessed
as rebels in this instance, as the narrative later makes clear (20.24; 27.14).46
That Moses should be punished to this extreme for a vaguely articulated
transgression is especially striking when compared to Aaron's seemingly
far more serious involvement with the sin of the golden calf in Exod. 32,
an involvement that does not result in any dire consequences for him.
Moses' punishment seems to exceed the extent of his crime. The narrative
needs to justify the absence of Moses (and Aaron) from the head of the
44. Moses' unwillingness might be positively motivated. Olson (1996: 127) notes
that in the past when the people requested meat (Num. 11), they received meat but also
a plague from God (11.33). Perhaps, therefore, Moses is cautioning the people that the
satisfaction of their desires may in this case also prove detrimental.
45. Num. 20.12 is the only time that the belief or trust of Moses in YHWH is
brought into question. Elsewhere, it is the people's trust in YHWH (Exod. 4.31; 14.31;
Num. 14.11;Deut. 1.32; 9.23) or in Moses (Exod. 4.1-9, 31; 14.31; 19.19) that is the
issue. That Moses did not sanctify YHWH in the eyes of the people suggests that
perhaps Moses did not fulfill the duty of a client to maintain the honor of his patron.
46. The verb H~lQ ('to rebel') links these passages about Moses (and Aaron) with
the motif of the rebelliousness of the people especially in Deuteronomy (1.26,43; 9.7,
23-24; 31.27).
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175
not cross the Jordan' (4.21a). Thus repeatedly the reason given for Moses'
exclusion from the Promised Land is the fault of the people in which
Moses is made to share. A double image of Moses is presented; on the one
hand, Moses is separate from the people since he does not participate in
their sin, but, on the other hand, Moses is classified with the people in
order to legitimate his death outside the Promised Land. On the one hand,
thus, the text portrays a heroic Moses who stands above the people, but on
the other hand, Moses is made one with the Egyptian-tainted generation
of Israel.
At the end of Deuteronomy, however, the sin of Moses at the waters of
Meribah is given as the reason for his exclusion from the Promised Land
(32.50-52), just as in Numbers (20.2-13). Therefore, within the scroll of
Deuteronomy there is a tension between two very different explanations
for Moses' death, one attributing it to the sin of the people and the other to
his own sin. Matters are complicated even more by the actual account of
Moses' death at the end of Deuteronomy (34.1 -8) which mentions neither
of these reasons, but seems more concerned to portray Moses' death as
due, not to old age, but to divine causation (34.5, 7).48 Yet even this
description conflicts with the portrayal earlier of Moses' frailty because of
old age (31.2).
The figure of Moses in Deuteronomy is thus fraught with ambiguity.
Deuteronomy contains contending traditions legitimizing Moses' death
outside of the Promised Land and differing portrayals of Moses' state of
health at death. Moreover, the narrator's concluding encomium emphasizes the incomparability of Moses and 'all the strong hand and all the
great terrifying deeds which Moses did in the sight of all Israel' (32.12).
Earlier, however, Moses speaks of the promise that 'YHWH will raise up
for you a prophet like me' (18.15), and it is YHWH who is credited with the
strong hand and the great terrifying deeds (see esp. 4.34 and 26.8). The
figure of Moses, the great leader associated with Israel's ethnogenesis,
thus gives rise to an anxiety about Israel's origins that is articulated in
conflicting traditions and portrayals. That Moses is somehow central to the
constitution of Israel is acknowledged, but simultaneously his enduring
status as Israel's founder is undercut.49
48. The phrase mn' 'B'bjJ ('at the command of YHWH') literally means 'by
YHWH'S mouth', thus giving rise to the legend that Moses died by a divine kiss. The
description of Moses' vigor and undiminished eyesight at age 120 in 34.7 supports the
text's intention here to portray Moses' death as divinely caused.
49. In Deuteronomy, the undermining of a heroic or even (semi-) divine status for
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Unlike Jacob's and Joseph's, not even the bones of Moses are allowed
to enter the Promised Land nor is his grave locatable.50 A midrash has
Moses complaining to God, 'You allowed Joseph's bones to be carried
into the land, why not mine?' And God replies, 'Joseph never denied his
origins, in Egypt he admitted he was a Hebrew (Gen. 40.15; cf. 39.14): but
when you were identified as an Egyptian by the daughters of the priest of
Midian (Exod. 2.19), you heard but held your peace' (quoted from Deut.
R. 2.8 in Goldin 1987: 221). Although this midrash stems from a time
much later than the production of the final text form of Deuteronomy, it
seems to correctly identify an important dynamic in the text that lies
behind the depiction of Moses' death outside the Promised Land. Namely,
direct continuity between Moses and Israel must be interrupted since
Moses is too closely associated with Egypt. And so only the record of
Moses' deeds and words outside of the land is allowed to survive, but no
enduring physical perpetuation, whether in the form of a gravesite or a
continuing family line. Not only does Moses perish outside the Promised
Land as part of the Egyptian-born generation, but unlike that generation,
his descendants have no share or inheritance (n^rTJ) in the good land
promised by YHWH (4.21).51
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The same complaint is reiterated three more times: once in the words of
Moses to YHWH (11.13), and twice in the words of YHWH to the people
(11.18, 20). In this voice of complaint, Egypt is positively assessed as a
place of plenty and variety in which Israel's hunger was satisfied for
free.55 In contrast, the present situation of the people is one of hardship.
The description of the effort required in order to gather and process the
manna (11.7-8) further underlines the contrast between what appears to be
a rather effortless life in Egypt and the arduous task of survival in the
wilderness. These sentiments are attributed to the Egyptian-born generation of Israel, and that this generation cannot seem to make a definitive
break with Egypt justifies the strategy in Numbers of replacing it with a
new generation to inherit the Promised Land.
In this complaint, voice is given to a pro-Egyptian perspective, one that
holds a positive evaluation of Egypt vis-a-vis the ethnogenesis of Israel,
but which the narrative seeks to undermine. The rhetorical strategy of the
narrative is to give this positive evaluation of Egypt a voice, but to make it
a voice of complaint and rebellion against YHWH, thus negating its
legitimacy. Overall, the memory of Egypt as a positive place of plenty is
not sanctioned, being branded as a false recollection produced by complaint and rebellion. Conversely, the memory of Egypt as a negative place
of slavery and oppression is officially sanctioned and given an institutionalized means of maintenance and perpetuation in ordinances such as
those for the celebration of Passover.
But the scroll of Numbers goes beyond only negating the legitimacy of
a pro-Egyptian perspective; it also demonstrates that such a perspective
are described as '3"lpD ('in his/its midst', 11.4), presumably in the midst of Israel.
Thus, the heterogeneous nature of the people is indicated while at the same time a
sense of distinction is maintained between the sons of Israel and the others with them.
55. The word DDn can mean 'at no cost', but it can also signify 'for no purpose'.
Thus, while the complainers may picture themselves eating in Egypt for free, the
narrative may subtly imply that, while in Egypt, the people were eating without any
purpose. (See the similar play of meanings in the use of D3PT in Job 1.9.)
179
leads to divine wrath and punishment. YHWH indeed heeds the complaint
of the people by providing them with meat in the form of quails, but this
meat will become strange or loathsome (11.20),56 and, just as they begin to
eat it, a plague strikes them (11.33).57 The divine response to the complaint is not just aid, but more punishment. Such complaints, and the
alternative pro-Egyptian perspective they embody, are not to be tolerated
in the body politic of Israel.
The climax to the theme of rebellion in the scroll of Numbers comes with
the story of the spies who are sent out to reconnoiter the Promised Land
(13.1-25). They bring back a report that verifies the fruitfulness of the land
(13.26-27), but emphasizes the danger posed by the formidable inhabitants
who are described as giants living in fortresses (13.28-29, 31-33). In
response, the people weep and raise a complaint against Moses and Aaron:
'If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only in this wilderness we
had died! Why is YHWH bringing us into this land to fall by the sword?
our women and our little ones will become plunder! Would it not be better
for us to return to Egypt?' And each man said to his brother,' Let us appoint
a leader58 and let us return to Egypt' (Num. 14.2b-4).
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59. The complete end of the Egyptian-born generation is emphasized by the use of
the verb nan (14.33, 35).
60. A certain On, son of Peleth, is also mentioned with Dathan and Abiram in 16.1,
but does not subsequently appear elsewhere in the story.
61. Source critics assign the rebellion of Korah to P, and the rebellion of Dathan
and Abiram to JE (Budd 1984: 181-86). In the present text, the rebellion of Korah
provides the dominant framework for the story, into which traces of the rebellion of
Dathan and Abiram are placed (Milgrom 1990:414-23). The end result in the final text
is a portrayal of rebellion against both the political authority of Moses and the religious
authority of Aaron.
62. The phrase is an idiom approximately equivalent to 'pulling the wool over the
eyes'; i.e. acting deceptively or hoodwinking.
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182
the people to bring a legal complaint p1"!) against Moses and Aaron
(Num. 20.2-3):
If only we had expired when our brothers expired before YHWH! And why
have you brought the congregation of YHWH into this wilderness, to die
there, we and our cattle? And why did you bring us up from Egypt to bring
us into this evil place, not a place of seed and fig and vine and pomegranate;
and there is not even water to drink!? (Num. 20.3-5).
Familiar features occur again: the notion that the exodus from Egypt is a
mistake leading to death in the wilderness, and the description of lack in
the wilderness, implicitly contrasted with plenty in Egypt. However, in
this case the complaint is directed not only against Moses but also against
God.66 It is also contradictory, in that both a lack of bread and a loathing
of the bread that was being provided in the wilderness (the manna) are
mentioned at the same time. Thus, the very shape of their complaint
undermines the integrity of those complaining. Divine retribution follows
immediately, without any chance for Moses to intercede until after the
punishment has already begun (21.6-7). So not only is a pro-Egyptian
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184
future, and by the desire, usually implicit, to return to Egypt (Romer 1991:
157).70 While the narratives of these complaints begin in the scroll of
Exodus, it is in Numbers that they are shown to lead to dire consequences.71 The ideological message conveyed by these narratives is clearly
one that stigmatizes or censures any critique of the necessity of exodus or
separation from Egypt; the question HE1? ('why?') in the complaints is
never given an explicit response except for divine disapproval of the very
question itself. Such a rhetorical strategy indicates that, in the audience
towards which the Pentateuch was directed, there existed a pro-Egyptian
perspective that called into question the Pentateuch's entire project of
constructing Israel's identity over and against Egypt. This perspective had
to be undermined and delegitimized in the strongest and yet most persuasive manner possible. And so, while this alternative perspective was
given a voice in the narrative, the voice it is given is one of rebellion
against YHWH that can only lead to disaster.
Prohibition of Return to Egypt
In the series of complaints in the wilderness, the height of the people's
rebellion was reached with the explicit suggestion that they return to Egypt
(Num. 14.4).n The notion of a return to Egypt is also implicit in many of
the people's complaints that describe Egypt in glowing terms in comparison to their present state in the wilderness. This ideological trajectory
culminates in the scroll of Deuteronomy with two explicit references to
returning to Egypt. First, in the 'law of the king' (17.14-20), the notion of
70. Only in Num. 14.3-4, however, do the people explicitly plan to return to Egypt.
71. Each of the narratives of complaint in Exodus has a corresponding narrative in
Numbers: Exod. 14.10-12, describing the people's reluctance to leave Egypt corresponds to Num. 14.1-4. describing their reluctance to enter the Promised Land; Exod.
16.2-3 describes a complaint based on lack of food, corresponding to the complaint
regarding the lack of meat in Num. 11.4-6,18-20; and Exod. 17.1-3 details a complaint
about the lack of water, corresponding to a similar complaint in Num. 20.2-5 (Romer
1991: 156). Numbers is thus building on the pattern already established in Exodus.
However, Numbers also includes the additional narratives of the complaint raised by
Dathan and Abiram (16.12-14) and the final contradictory complaint regarding bread
(21.5); this surplus indicates that the motif of rebellion and complaint reaches a climax
in Numbers. Deuteronomy generalizes the theme of rebellion by making it a longstanding characteristic of the people.
72. The notion of a return to Egypt was already raised before the people even
crossed the sea (Exod. 13.17).
185
The horses in this prohibition likely refer figuratively to the large professional armies of horses and chariots acquired by kings in the ancient
world; Solomon is later explicitly described as having a large army of
horses and chariots (1 Kgs 10.26) and as engaging in the importation of
horses and chariots from Egypt for resale to the kings of the Hittites and
of Aram (1 Kgs 10.28-29). Of special interest here are two items: first, that
a prohibition of YHWH against return to Egypt is invoked, a prohibition
that is not found explicitly elsewhere, and second, that a scenario is portrayed in which this proscribed return of the people73 to Egypt is used to
multiply the king's military resources.74
The second explicit reference to a return to Egypt appears as the culminating punishment (28.68) in a long list of curses that are threatened as
consequences of disobedience to the covenant (28.15-68):
And YHWH will return you to Egypt in ships on the road of which I said to
you, 'You shall not see it again!'; And you will put yourselves up for sale
there to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer
(Deut. 28.68).
Again, of interest here are two items: first, the quotation of a prohibition, this
time stemming from Moses, against seeing Egypt, or the road to Egypt,
again,75 and second, the depiction of a return of the people to Egypt in
boats,76 instigated by YHWH as apunishment, andrelatedto the trade in slaves.
73. The term DOT ('the people') is very general; it could refer to mercenaries or
slaves that were exchanged for horses, or, as suggested by Reimer (1990: 227-28), to
the ambassadors sent to Egypt to negotiate an exchange of military aid for horses, as in
the fable recounted in Ezek. 17.15. However, CUil seems often in the Pentateuch to be
a designation for Israel.
74. Similar polemic against relying on Egypt for horses and military aid is found in
Isa. 31.1; Ezek. 17.15; 29.16.
75. Reimer (1990: 224-25) argues that the parallel in Exod. 14.13 is the basis of
the Deuteronomy passage through a process of inner-biblical legal exegesis.
76. The detail about returning to Egypt 'in boats' is puzzling. While the exodus
route from Egypt to the Promised Land proceeds overland, a quicker route would
likely be one along the coast in boats. Some sort of maritime interchange with Egypt
seems to be envisioned (and condemned) in this verse. See Gorg (1984c), who, on the
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oppressive servitude (e.g. Deut. 28.43; Ezek. 34.27; Gen. 27.40), it is also
used more positively or neutrally to symbolize proper obedience, even to
YHWH (e.g. Jer. 2.20; 5.5; and chs. 27 and 28). Thus, the issue here is less
one of freedom from restraint79 and more one of serving the proper master.
In other words, YHWH broke Egypt's yoke in order that Israel might take
on his yoke and serve him, the implication being that serving Egypt and
serving YHWH are incompatible.80
Of course, this passage, although its context is one that emphasizes the
importance of obedience to YHWH, does not speak explicitly of the yoke of
YHWH, and neither does the rest of the Pentateuch. The figure of the yoke
is reserved as a negative figure identified only with Israel's 'others'. This,
however, erases the notion, on the one hand, that obedience to the particular ideology sanctified in the text by the invocation of the name YHWH
could also be seen as a yoke,81 and, on the other hand, that taking up the
yoke of a foreign nation can be interpreted as precisely the way that YHWH
means to be served. If Jeremiah can counsel Israel that to serve YHWH
means to submit to the yoke of Babylon (Jer. 27-28), then it is theoretically possible to argue the same for the yoke of Egypt. But this the text
does not want to allow.
Deuteronomy frequently associates Egypt with slavery. The characterization of Egypt as a 'house of slaves' is found throughout the scroll, beginning with the autokerygmatic statement at the beginning of the Decalogue:
'I am YHWH your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from
the house of slaves' (Deut. 5.6).82 Similar is the repeated reminder that the
addressees were once slaves in Egypt.83 The Passover in Deuteronomy is
also much more explicitly made into a reminder of oppression in Egypt: the
unleavened bread is described, uniquely in the Hebrew Bible, as the 'bread
of affliction' (16.3). The verse otherwise focuses on the explanation, already
encountered in Exod. 12.39, that the bread is unleavened because of the
hasty departure of the people in the exodus. The notice regarding the
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urine-watered cesspools.85 What seems at first glance to be a rather positive assessment of Egypt, is turned, via the use of a euphemism, into a
negative and degrading picture. Such an inversion fits well with the
strategy encountered before in the Pentateuch of articulating a proEgyptian perspective only in order to cast it in a negative light.
One further description of Egypt is unique to Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, although it appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible; that is, the
depiction of Egypt as the 'iron smelter' from which YHWH has taken the
people to be his own possession (4.20).86 This image of Egypt seems
negative at first glance; taken as functionally equivalent to the description
of Egypt as a 'house of slaves', it appears to indicate the white-hot agony
and pain of oppression. But the image of the iron smelter is also that of a
crucible in which a stronger and superior substance is produced. Egypt as
a crucible represents the liminal phase in a rite-of-passage.87 In the smelter, soft iron ore is heated and carburized, existing in a liminal state between what it was and what it will become, finally to be quenched and to
emerge transformed into a far stronger metal. So also Egypt is where Israel
exists in a liminal state, no longer a family but in the process of being
forged into a people or nation. In crossing out of Egypt through the waters
of the sea, Israel is 'quenched' and becomes a people. The image of Egypt
as an iron smelter thus draws on the positive transformative associations of
iron-producing technology,88 making Egypt into an indispensable element
in the ethnogenesis of Israel. At the same time, this image serves the
dominant ideology of the Pentateuch in that it not only presents Israel's
Egyptian experience as positively transformative, but also presents the
necessity of withdrawal from the smelter, that is, separation from Egypt.
Complicating the Insider-Outsider Boundary
The scrolls of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy fairly consistently
present Egypt in negative terms and support the ideology of Exodus that
insists on a separation of Israel from Egypt that allows for no possibility of
85. See the parallel passages of 2 Kgs 18.27 and Isa. 36.12, where the Qere
suggests the phrase 'waters of the foot' for the noun 'urine'.
86. See also 1 Kgs 8.51 and Jer. 11.4.
87. In the classic formulation of rites-of-passage as first outlined by van Gennep
and further developed by Victor Turner (1969), there are three phases: separation, a
liminal or marginal phase, and aggregation.
88. On the use of iron technology in the context of the formation of Israel, see
McNutt(1988, 1990).
190
Here Leviticus goes beyond the stipulation in Exodus (22.20 [21]; 23.9)
to refrain from oppressing the resident alien in that Israel is to love the
resident alien as if he or she were a native Israelite.92 The motive for such
89. The use of the paired terms "13 and mtK is especially prevalent in Leviticus
(16.29; 17.15; 18.26; 19.34; 24.16, 22; 25.23, 35,47). It also appears in the Passover
legislation in Numbers (9.14; 15.13-14,29, 30), mirroring Exodus (12.19,48,49), but
is absent in Deuteronomy.
90. See 17.8-15, where the contrast between the house/sons of Israel and the
resident alien, becomes the contrast between the indigene and the resident alien. In
19.34, the indigene is a person who is 'from you', meaning 'one of you' (the ]Q of
source or origin), whereas the resident alien is one who is 'with you'; i.e. dependent
upon you for protection as a client. For the producers of Leviticus, it is self-evident that
the indigene is a son of Israel.
91. Leviticus recognizes the vulnerable position of resident aliens by classifying
them with the poor f]JJ) in 19.10 and 23.22.
92. Just a few verses previous, Israel is admonished: 'You shall love your neighbor
(in) as yourself (19.18). By 'neighbor' is meant a fellow-citizen or a person with
whom one has reciprocal relationships; in other words, an associate located within the
dominant kinship group of Israel, an insider as opposed to the resident alien who is an
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192
by insisting at the same time that the distinction between native and
resident alien is to be disregarded or erased, the text also implicitly
undermines the distinction between Israel as resident alien in Egypt and
the native Egyptians.
More significant is that Israel is here addressed as, and equated with, the
native or indigene. If the context of enunciation is Israel in the wilderness,
for which the most recent landed experience is that of Egypt, the implication is that Israel was originally native to Egypt. If the context of enunciation is, however, understood proleptically as Israel in the Promised Land,
then the implication is that Israel is native to Canaan.94 Interestingly, both
options clash with the notion in Genesis of Israel's Mesopotamian origins.95
It seems that the categories of 'native' and 'resident alien' are fluid and
contingent upon the ideological interests of the users of these terms. To
portray Israel as resident aliens in Egypt and as indigenous in Canaan may
suit an ideology that seeks to promote Israel's lack of roots in Egypt and its
claim to ownership of Canaan, but that ideology trips over its inherent
contradictions, not least with a tradition of origins in Mesopotamia.
The regulations regarding the sale of property and debt-slavery in Lev.
25 offer a particularly interesting view of how Leviticus further understands the status of the resident alien and the native in relation to the
exodus from Egypt. The chapter contains references to a number of socioeconomic strata of society: from the lowest to the highest strata, one finds
references to slaves (CH2U), both male (132) and female (ni2) (25.6,39,
42, 44), then the seasonal laborer (TDC?) and tenant laborer (327in, 25.6,
23, 35,40,45,47, 50,53), then the resident alien (12,25.23, 35,47), and,
finally, the landholders, indicated by references to their inalienable
property (nTHN, 25.10, 13, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 41, 45, 46).96 Over94. These laws in Leviticus (and the rest of the Pentateuch), by virtue of their
concerns with the experience of a landed people, seem proleptically to be addressing
the Israel that is settled in the land of promise. In the temporal scheme of the narrative,
of course, it is the Israel-in-formation and on the move in the wilderness of Sinai that is
here being addressed; but for this Israel the designations 'native' and 'resident alien'
would presumably have little meaning. The interpretation of these terms in the
narrative thus depends on whether the liminal wilderness period is seen as leaning back
to the previous Egyptian experience or leaning forward in anticipation of the fully
formed and landed people of Israel who will emerge in the end.
95. The ancestors who hark back to Mesopotamia, including Abraham, Lot, Isaac,
Jacob and Esau, are consistently described in Genesis as resident aliens in the land of
Canaan (Gen. 17.8; 28.4; 36.7; 37.1; Exod. 6.4).
96. Interestingly, the term n~lTR ('native') is not used in this chapter.
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194
195
Israel's enslavement in Egypt in turn conflicts with the notion that Israel
was a resident alien in Egypt." This latter notion, in fact, leads to a surprisingly positive and inclusive evaluation of Egypt:
You shall not abhor an Egyptian for you were a resident alien in his land;
Sons born to them, in the third generation, may enter to them into the
assembly of YHWH (Deut. 23.8b-9 [7b-8]).100
99. Deut. 10.19; 23.8 [7] are the latest references to this notion in the Pentateuch.
100. The Egyptians are here classified with the Edomites, whom Israel is not to
abhor because they are kin (23.8a [7a]). Children of both ethnic groups, Edomite and
Egyptian, are allowed entrance to the Israelite 'cultic levy', which means that they
were not considered unclean (von Rad 1966c: 146).
101. Compare the absolute exclusion of the "ITCO ('bastard?'), Ammonite and
Moabite in 23.3-4 [2-3] and the command to exterminate Amalek in 25.17-19!
102. As Gerstenberger (1996: 426) notes, with v. 34 a different temporal category is
evoked: a schema of potential disasters now becomes a reflection on a past that has
already taken place. 'This entire section is thus dealing with the period of exile, specifically from the perspective of those who have already reflected upon and interpreted that
terrible event. Apparently even the Persian emergence is already history...'
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197
In these words are outlined the pattern of descent into Egypt, of affliction and outcry there, and of divine response resulting in an exodus from
Egypt, that constitutes the spatial movement of the master narrative of the
Pentateuch. Not only does this pattern negate any notion of an Egyptian
origin for Israel, but it also portrays Egypt in a totally negative light; no
trace, for instance, appears of Egypt's kindness to the family of Jacob
through Joseph. These words of Moses depict what the text projects as the
105. The verb NIT can connote the notion of source or origin (see BDB: 423).
106. The MT of 22.11 is slightly different: ammo KITH DUn ('the people who came
or are coming out from Egypt'), but the LXX and other versions repeat verbatim the
formulation in 22.5.
107. The MT reads IK'JflD ('brought him out') in 24.8; the LXX and SP read 'guided
him/them out'. The contusion between a singular or plural object is reflected in the
textual variants to both 23.22 and 24.8.
108. The notion that Israel was led out of Egypt by an angel appears several times in
Exodus (14.19; 23.20-23; 33.2-3). That this angel is not necessarily a circumlocution
for YHWH, but perhaps a reference to Moses as a divine guide and messenger has
already been considered in the analysis of Exodus above. The LXX in 20.16 reduces the
angel's role by subordinating it to the role of God in a circumstantial participle.
198
199
200
Notably, Israel is pictured here as emerging out of Egypt without reference to any prior stage predating Egypt. Even the reference to the 'ancestors' which soon follows (4.37) does not explicitly indicate any prior
stage of Israel's history; rather, by itself, this description literally speaks of
Israel as originating from Egypt. Similarly, in the credo (P.D. Miller 1990:
180) embedded in the catechetical instructions of 6.20-25, only the origins
of Israel out of Egypt are mentioned.
The case is quite different, however, in Moses' later allusion to the 70
ancestors of Israel who went down to Egypt (10.22),'13 and especially in
the credo embedded in the liturgy for the presentation of the first fruits
(26.1-11):
A straying/perishing Aramean was my ancestor, and he went down to Egypt
and sojourned there, consisting of a few men; and he became there a great
nation, mighty and numerous. And the Egyptians ill-treated us and afflicted
us, and imposed upon us harsh service. And we cried out to YHWH, the God
of our ancestors. And YHWH heard our voice, and saw our affliction and our
toil and our oppression. And YHWH brought us out from Egypt with a
strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with a great awe-inspiring action,
and with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us
this land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Deut. 26.5b-9).
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202
203
contains the notion of the ancestor entering Egypt from outside. The
variant in the Targums and Passover Haggadah suggests a definite distancing from any implication of Aramean ancestry for Israel; rather, the
Arameans are the enemy that would have destroyed the ancestor, had it not
been for Egypt.119 But, again, the notion of the ancestor entering Egypt
from outside is preserved.
The text of the credo and its textual variants therefore provides no
definite single account of Israel's origins, but instead seems to function as
an entree into a variety of origin traditions. While some of these traditions
posit an ancestral connection with the Arameans, others reject such a connection. Coincidence with the ancestral accounts of Genesis is not as
substantially explicit as is sometimes assumed.120 However, all of the
variants suggest that Israel's origins are to be located ultimately outside of
Egypt. Thus, this credo, coming near the end of Deuteronomy and thus
near the end of the Pentateuch, is a fitting conclusion to the Pentateuch's
master narrative of origins that begins, in the scroll of Genesis, outside
of Egypt.
Summary
The references to Egypt in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy present
the audience of these scrolls with a complex tapestry of associations that
in many ways continues and maintains the presentation and function of
Egypt established in Genesis and Exodus, but which also adds its own
particular nuances. A major concern is to separate Israel from Egypt, paint
Egypt in a negative light, and prohibit a return to Egypt. The discontinuity
of Israel with Egypt is emphasized.
In the legal material, Egypt functions as a marker or emblem of Israel's
distinctiveness without necessarily evoking a contrast with Egyptian
119. Laban here becomes the enemy that tried to destroy Jacob, an interpretation that
accords with some of the sentiment expressed in the stories of Jacob and his uncle
Laban in Genesis.
120. Deuteronomy usually refers to the 'ancestors' generically, without further
specification. The triad, 'Abraham, Isaac and Jacob', appears only six times in the
entire scroll (1.8; 6.10; 9.5, 27; 29.12; 30.20). Romer (1990) argues that the names of
the patriarchs were inserted into the scroll after its completion in order to link it with
the origin traditions of Genesis; originally the scroll betrayed no knowledge of the
Genesis traditions and the 'ancestors' referred to the generation of the exodus (and,
further, for the intended audience of the scroll, to successive disobedient generations
after the conquest). For a contrary opinion, see Lohfink (1991).
204
205
Chapter 5
THE PRODUCTION AND PROMULGATION OF THE
The analysis of Egypt in the Pentateuch in the previous chapters has highlighted a strong anti-Egyptian ideology that seems to be contending with
other views more friendly to Egypt. The task in this chapter is to attempt
to date this ideological contention by assessing the evidence for a possible
range of dates for the production and promulgation, as an authoritative
document, of what can heuristically be called the 'final text form' of the
Pentateuch.1 Keeping in mind that the Pentateuch at this stage likely
consisted of separate scrolls, it is necessary to assess the evidence both in
terms of the dating of individual scrolls and in terms of the date for the
concept of the Pentateuch or Torah as a linked five-scroll collection.
Furthermore, the notion of 'promulgation as an authoritative document'
requires attention to the possible dynamics and contexts of the production
and 'publication' of documents in the ancient world.
As historical-critical scholarship has shown, the Pentateuch incorporates
various earlier traditions. However, the exact nature of the composition of
the Pentateuch, and the sources and traditions upon which it draws, are
today hotly debated, disrupting the earlier virtual scholarly consensus
around the documentary hypothesis associated with Wellhausen.2 It is unnecessary for the purpose of this investigation to explore the various contending theories regarding the composition of the Pentateuch, except to
note the increasing tendency in Pentateuchal scholarship to focus attention
on the final form of the text as having its own literary integrity, and to date
1. On the heuristic concept of the 'final text form', see the discussion in Chapter 1
above.
2. Descriptions and analyses of the recent history of scholarship on the compositional origins of the Pentateuch abound; some reliable and thorough efforts include
Rendtorff (1993; 1997); Wenham (1996), Romer (1996), Whybray (1995) and
Blenkinsopp(1992).
208
210
212
the mid third century BCE in which earlier scrolls, no longer extant, existed.
However, it is difficult to specify, on the basis of the material evidence
alone, just how long this prior period might have been.17 A conservative
guess might be about 100 to 200 years, thus suggesting a date around 450350 BCE for the production of the final text form of the Pentateuch.
Clearly, on the basis of the extant manuscript evidence alone, 250 BCE
represents the terminus ad quern for the production of the final text form of
the Pentateuch. It may also be helpful to suggest a terminus a quo. This
remains a much more speculative matter, subject especially to the vagaries
of various theories of the composition of the Pentateuchal text. However,
a more fruitful approach is to investigate when, on the basis of the
archaeological record, material conditions existed making it both possible
and desirable for a composition of the nature of the Pentateuch to be
produced in historical Israel. Or, to put it another way, when did scribal
abilities and patronage (usually called 'scribal schools') of a sufficient
mass to produce extensive literary documents exist in historical Israel?
On the basis of inscriptional remains and the scribal practices of Israel's
neighbors,18 Lemaire (1981, 1992a, 1992b), for example, has argued that
scribal schools existed very early in Israel, appearing perhaps already
during David's reign in the tenth century BCE. In contrast, Jamieson-Drake
(1991) has argued that the archaeological evidence, such as settlement
paleographic and radiocarbon dating indicate that the patch is about 30-50 years
younger than the original scroll (Jull 1995). Another example is provided by 4QJuba, a
scroll originally written c. 125-100 BCE. Apparently the outer sheet of the scroll became damaged or too worn; a scribe recopied the text in a later hand, dated to c. 50
BCE, and then the newer sheet was sewn to the older scroll (VanderKam and Milik
1994: 1-2). It seems reasonable, therefore, to postulate a period of about 100 years as
the life of a scroll in use. Eventually, scrolls would become worn out and unusable;
humidity especially would induce biological degradation. The only early scroll fragments that have survived from Palestine, therefore, are those that were preserved in
desert caves with undisturbed conditions of almost total desiccation.
17. Documents were sometimes sealed in earthenware jars if they were meant to be
stored for a long time, as Jer, 32.14 seems to indicate, and as the Qumran remains
attest. However, just how long a scroll could be expected to survive under either
normal conditions of use or storage would vary with the specific context, especially
climate. No explicit estimate of the length of a scroll's life is given in descriptions of
ancient writing materials (Forbes 1957; Reed 1972; Poole and Reed 1972; Haran 1982,
1983,1985b; Lemaire 1992b; Wiirthwein 1995: 4-7), although usually leather is seen
as a more durable material than papyrus, being thus suited for writings intended for
long or frequent use, such as canonical compositions.
18. Certainly in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and likely also in Canaan.
19. See also Na'aman (1997) who agrees with Jamieson-Drake that Judah did not
evolve from a chiefdom to a state until the eighth century BCE, but also argues for the
presence of royal scribes already under David.
20. Such a terminus a quo does not take into account the caesura represented by the
deportations and ravages effected upon Judah by the Neo-Babylonians in the early
sixth century BCE. Although the ensuing exile is often painted as a period of great
literary activity in which much of the biblical material was compiled or composed, the
improbability of associating such activity with a period of dislocation and destruction
in the ancient world is highlighted by P.R. Davies (1992: 41-44). Even the survival of
documents from pre-exilic Israel through such a period must be questioned. Thus, a
more realistic terminus a quo may be no earlier than the beginning of a new community in Jerusalem under the Persians in the late sixth century BCE. However, one
must also note that the biblical picture of a devastated and empty land during the exile
is belied by archaeological evidence of continued Israelite material culture during this
period (on this issue, see the synthesis of Barstad 1996). Thus Israelite cultural life
continued during the exilic period and perhaps with it also continued literary production, although the destruction of the societal macrostructure by the Babylonians
would have seriously compromised the material conditions necessary for sustained
literary production.
214
216
218
220
him of the actual contemporary situation in the Judea of his time.41 The
third-century BCE Egyptian historian Manetho also wrote about the origin
of the Jews in Egypt, albeit in a denigratory fashion; his account has been
preserved by Josephus (Stern 1976:62-86; Gager 1972:113-18), and identifies Moses with an ex-Heliopolitan priest named Osarsiph. The anti-Jewish polemic of Manetho's account makes it unclear whether he is writing
specifically against the Pentateuchal account or more generally reporting
popular Egyptian views of his time; it has also been argued that the antiJewish passages are later interpolations into Manetho's account (e.g. Gager
1972: 116-18).
The most interesting work to consider is the writing of Herodotus, the
Greek historiographer of the fifth century BCE. Herodotus's History is
the oldest historical work in Greek preserved in its entirety; in its historiographical patterns and dimensions, compared to extrabiblical, Near Eastern
literature prior to the Hellenistic period, it provides the closest parallel to
the continuous biblical account found in Genesis through Kings (see esp.
Van Seters 1983: 8-54; 1992: 78-104). Not that Herodotus reports the
same events as found in the biblical account, but rather the manner and
conventions whereby Herodotus reports and organizes his account have
been seen as similar to those employed in the biblical account.42 Comparative studies of Herodotus and what has been called the 'Primary History'
(Genesis through Kings)43 have raised the question of whether either work
41. His description of the Jewish community as one that is ruled by priests seems to
be influenced by the contemporary situation of Judea in the Persian and Hellenistic
periods.
42. For example, Herodotus divides his work into nine books; Genesis through 2
Kings likewise comprises nine books. More cogently, 'In both works the material is
subordinated to a causal and corporate progression of events. The causes of the Persian
defeat in Hellas and of the Israelite exile respectively are explained, in both cases, as
models for proper behavior in the writers' own age as well as in the future' (Nielsen
1997: 7although he is referring primarily to the Deuteronomistic History; that is,
Deuteronomy through Kings).' [B]oth... stress the relationship between the rise or fall
of each nation and the state's leader's adherence to what is willed by the godhead.
Hence, they emphasize the defeat of a nation as a consequence of (often repeated and
escalating acts of) hubris or sin' (Mandell and Freedman 1993: 145-46). Stylistically,
'the two works have parallel motifs, parallel technical usages, and parallel literary
techniques' (Mandell and Freedman 1993: 160). Mandell and Freedman characterize
both works as 'tragic, primarily prose combined Roman a Clef and Documentary
Novel in epic format' (p. 170).
43. The term 'Primary History' for Genesis through Kings is that of David Noel
Freedman (1963,1987,1990), who postulates that this work was compiled, completed
222
before the fifth century BCE. This view is supported on different grounds by Cryer
(1994) but is contested by Ehrensvard (1997). See also P.R. Davies (1992: 102-105).
Another form of evidence for dating the Pentateuch is to attempt to find correlations
between Pentateuchal descriptions or legal stipulations and the archaeological record.
However, this sort of evidence is subject to a wide range of interpretation, and
furthermore may deal only with embedded ancient traditions in the Pentateuch rather
than the Pentateuch itself. For example, since an aniconic tendency seems to be part of
the ideology of the final text form of the Pentateuch (however, see the reservations of
Schmidt 1995), one could attempt to date the Pentateuch to the time when the
archaeological record indicates the beginning of a consistent aniconic practice in
Judahite society. The trend toward aniconism in Judean private name seals of the sixth
and fifth centuries BCE has been interpreted as evidence that the Pentateuchal ban on
images was in force by this time; yet, the same data can be interpreted as due to nonreligious factors such as growing literacy among the seal-owning elite and an
increasing distinction between the functions of seals and amulets (see Uehlinger 1993).
Conversely, Edelman's study (1995a) of images on coins minted in Cisjordan in the
Persian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid and Hasmonean periods, suggests that aniconism as religious legislation was not introduced until the late Persian or early Ptolemaic periods.
224
points to the Persian period as a time in which the process of the production of the Pentateuch likely took place, although it does not, of course,
guarantee that the final text form of the Pentateuch was completed in the
fifth century BCE.
Conclusion
The cumulative weight of the evidence examined above suggests the
Persian period as the most probable period during which the final text
form of the Pentateuch was produced. The extant manuscript evidence,
references to and citations from an authoritative Torah in non-Pentateuchal
biblical texts and non-biblical texts, and references to early Greek
translations of the Torah indicate that the Pentateuch in its present overall
shape existed most likely at least by the fourth century BCE; that is, by the
late Persian and/or early Hellenistic periods, if not somewhat earlier. If the
parallels with the writings of Herodotus are cogent, and if at least some of
the traditions concerning Ezra are reliable, then a date in the mid or late
fifth century BCE is possible. Although dates during the earlier Persian or
even exilic period (sixth century BCE) can be postulated, they are more
difficult to justify on the basis of the available evidence. Later dates in the
Hellenistic period or even in the Hasmonean period are also possible if the
above evidence is interpreted from a more skeptical position.49 In sum, it
seems reasonable to propose a date for the final text form of the Pentateuch c. 450-350 BCE, with the awareness that such a date can only be
tentatively proposed on the basis of the available evidence, and that it thus
remains possible that adjustments to either a somewhat earlier or a somewhat later date may be necessary.
49. For example, some argue that the genesis of the Pentateuch (usually together
with the Deuteronomistic History) is a product of the encounter with Hellenism
(Lemche 1993; P.R. Davies 1995changing from his focus on the Persian period in
his 1992 work; Bolin 1996) or the product of the Hasmonean need for a legitimizing
national tradition (T.L. Thompson 1995).
Chapter 6
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: EGYPT AND ISRAEL
1. The use of the term 'Jewish' is problematic since it presupposes that some sort
of normative or essential Judaism existed already in the Persian period. Rather, as
many scholars are recognizing, this period (and even later periods extending to the
rabbinic period) is characterized by many different forms of religion and culture
somehow connected to Judea. Thus, it would probably be more correct to speak of a
'Judean' diaspora rather than a 'Jewish' one. See P.R. Davies (1995) for a stimulating
discussion of the problem, and the suggestion of a three-stage development beginning
with an unreflective Judean culture, progressing to 'Juda-ism', in which this culture
becomes a conscious object of community and ethnic definition, and finally 'Judaisms'
in which the formulations go beyond the culture of Judea.
226
2. The Cyrus Cylinder (ANET: 316) is usually cited as evidence that such permission for the return of exiles is not only historically authentic but also not unique to
the exiled Judeans. However, as Williamson (1985: 13-14) cautions, especially on the
basis of the study of Kuhrt (1983), the evidence of the Cyrus Cylinder does not refer to
a general return of deported populations and is not as close to the biblical text as is
often claimed.
3. Ezra 1.8, 11; 5.14, 16.
4. Haggai 1.1. See also Hag. 1.12,14; 2.2,23; Zech. 4.6,7,9,10; Ezra2.2; 4.2,3;
Neh. 7.7; 12.47; 1 Chron. 3.19. On the confusion of, or overlap between, Sheshbazzar
and Zerubbabel, see the discussion of Williamson (1985: 17-18) and C. Meyers and
E.Meyers (1987: 9-14).
227
228
Egypt (c. 486 BCE) and then in Babylon (c. 484 and 482 BCE), which the
next Achaemenid monarch, Xerxes I, was required to subdue. Further
major defeats at the hands of the Greeks followed: at Salamis in 480, at
Plataea and Mycale in 479, and at the Eurymedon in Pamphylia in 466
BCE. The formation of the Athenian-dominated Delian League in 479 BCE
led to the empire's loss of its European territories and of its dominance
over many of the Greek communities in Asia Minor. Persian interests in
the eastern Mediterranean were deeply compromised by these setbacks,
and it seems that Persian policy toward the populations of the empire
became harsher.9 The potential of Greek subversion was especially
demonstrated by Greek involvement in a major Egyptian revolt, to which
we now turn.
As early as 465 or 464 BCE, with the death of Xerxes I and the accession
of Artaxerxes I, a revolt broke out in Egypt under the leadership of Inaros
and Amyrtaeus, native leaders from the western Delta.10 The rebels were
initially successful, defeating the satrap of Egypt, Achaemenes, in 460
BCE. Inaros called on Athenian aid and a Delian fleet sailing to attack
Cyprus was diverted to Egypt, and Memphis was besieged in 459 BCE.
This involvement of the Greeks was especially troubling to the empire
since it threatened the Persian hold over the entire Levant. A large imperial army was mustered under the leadership of the general Megabyzus,
and the rebels, together with their Greek allies, were defeated in 456 BCE.1'
Eventually a truce between Athens and Persia was negotiated in 449 BCE.12
Athenian influence, however, continued, and even expanded in Asia
Minor, and was not halted until the onset of the Peloponnesian Wars (431404 BCE).
The reigns of Xerxes I and Artaxerxes II are thus characterized by
increasing Persian difficulty in maintaining the empire's western border on
the eastern Mediterranean sea coast. The alliance between the Egyptian
9. With Xerxes I, for instance, one finds for the first time an emphasis on exclusive worship of Ahura Mazda as opposed to the previous more conciliatory Persian
policy of inclusive monotheism in which regional gods were equated with Ahura
Mazda (Bolin 1995: 136-39).
10. Revolts and other disturbances often accompanied the death of a king and the
subsequent uncertainty over the succession; for instance, revolts also broke out upon
the death of Cambyses in 522 and Darius I in 486 BCE.
11. While Inaros was taken captive, Amyrtaeus continued resistance in the Delta
until c. 449 BCE (Cook 1983: 127; Ray 1988: 276).
12. This truce was called the 'Peace of Callias' after the Athenian negotiator.
229
rebels and the Greeks especially threatened Persian ability to control the
Levant. Areas on the western frontier of the empire such as Yehud were
left open to anti-Persian influence and coercion, and thus also vulnerable
to the empire's desire to bring such areas under tighter imperial control,
not least because they stood on the path that the imperial armies would
take on the way to Egypt. The Egyptian revolt, with its Greek backing,
thus constituted a crisis that called forth extraordinary efforts by the
Persian empire in the mid fifth century to consolidate its hold on its
western territories.
It is precisely during this critical period in the mid fifth century that the
biblical accounts place the missions of Ezra (c. 458 BCE)B andNehemiah
(445^32 BCE).14 Furthermore, Hoglund (1992: 170-202) argues that
archaeological evidence indicates the establishment of a series of standardized garrisoned fortresses throughout the Levant at this time, located
so as to secure the road network.15 In his words, 'the appearance of these
garrisons in the mid-fifth century is the indelible fingerprint of the hand of
the Achaemenid empire tightening its grip on local affairs in the Levant'
(1992: 243). Large grain storage pits associated with some of these
fortresses suggest that these garrisons were also imperial supply depots
connected with Persian military actions against Egypt.16 The mission of
13. Of Ezra's mission, Grabbe remarks 'the mission may well have had the
Egyptian revolt as a background' (Grabbe 1992: 131).
14. The traditional order and dates for the missions of Ezra (458 BCE) and
Nehemiah (445 BCE) are here provisionally accepted, while recognizing the significant
debate on this issue (see Hoglund 1992: 40-44). What is important is not that the
missions of Ezra and Nehemiah took place exactly as depicted in the biblical accounts,
but rather that the biblical accounts depict these characters as active in the mid fifth
century in Yehud, at the height of Persian imperial concern over the stability of the
western frontier.
15. The fortresses examined by Hoglund exhibit a regularity of designthey are
precisely square with a central courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by casemate
rooms, that occupies 25-33% of the total area of the structureindicating a centralized
construction effort. They tend to be located away from population centers and on high
elevations overlooking major roadways.
16. See Hoglund (1992: 213). At Tel Michal, grain storage pits seem to date
already from the founding of a military depot at the site in the last quarter of the sixth
century, associated by the excavator with the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses. Such
granaries also appear in subsequent Persian period strata at the site (Herzog 1989). The
suggestion of Stager (1971) that such granaries functioned to store agricultural
surpluses for times of famine is less likely, given the general association of the sites
with military installations rather than settlements.
230
Nehemiah, depicted in the biblical accounts as concerned with the refortification of Jerusalem, and with economic reforms that could be interpreted as intending to lessen the impact of increased imperial demands,17
provides a compelling parallel to the archaeological evidence. The mission
of Ezra, portrayed in the biblical accounts as largely concerned with legal
reform, is suggestive of the imperial imposition of a new legal order to
tighten the empire's control over the region (Hoglund 1992: 220-25).I8
The Persian empire's response to the lessons of the Egyptian revolt can
thus be reasonably correlated with the memory, encoded in the scroll(s) of
Ezra and Nehemiah, of profound changes initiated in Yehud around the
middle of the fifth century BCE. One of these changes is associated with
the promulgation by Ezra, under imperial auspices, of a 'law of the God of
heaven' (K'Qtf 11 ^"H Km),19 a law that is elsewhere called the 'law of
YHWH',20 the 'law of God/your God',21 or the 'law/book of Moses',22 a
written document (~I2D)23 that is officially equated with imperial law
(ND^Q "H Nfll).24 Although there is no unequivocal correlation between
any element of the commission of this law and Pentateuchal legislation, it
seems that the author of the scroll(s) of Ezra and Nehemiah understood the
law brought by Ezra to be the Pentateuch (Williamson 1985: xxxviixxxix). If the Pentateuch was promulgated in the mid fifth century as an
imperially sponsored or initiated codification of law for Yehud (whether in
actuality or fictiously), then the Pentateuch's strong anti-Egyptian stance
fits well into the historical context. It would be in the best interests of the
leaders of the Judeans to disassociate their community from any Egyptian
connections so as to affirm their loyalty to the Persian cause at a time of
Persian troubles with serious Egyptian rebellion.
17. New local revenue would have been required to support an increased military
presence in the region.
18. The parallel often drawn between the missions of Ezra and Udj ahorresnet only
establishes the possibility of imperially initiated legal reform and codification. In other
respects, the missions of these two figures is quite different in that Udj ahorresnet
functioned immediately after the Persian conquest of Egypt when initial structural
integration of Egypt into the empire was required, whereas Ezra functioned at a time
when Yehud was already presumably integrated into the empire.
19. Ezra 7.12, 21.
20. Ezra 7.10; 13.9; Neh. 9.3.
21. Ezra 7.14, 25, 26; Neh. 8.8, 18; 9.3; 10.3, 29.
22. Ezra 3.2; 7.6; Neh. 8.1.
23. Nehemiah 8.1, 8, 13, 14, 18; 9.3; 10.35, 37.
24. Ezra 7.26. See Berquist (1995: 112).
231
The Judean situation was complicated by the presence of Judean communities already in Egypt at the time of the revolt. Although it seems that
the Egyptian rebels never extended their power into Upper Egypt, and so
the Judean garrison at Elephantine, for instance, remained loyal to the
empire, it seems reasonable to suppose that there was a concern on the part
of Jerusalem with the loyalty of the Judean communities in Egypt. By
bringing such communities under the authority of the official anti-Egyptian narratives and laws promulgated from Jerusalem, assimilation to
Egyptian ways could be mitigated and pro-Persian loyalties guaranteed.
And precisely such a dynamic is suggested by the correspondence from
Elephantine regarding the celebration of Passover and/or the festival of
Unleavened Bread, and the rebuilding of the YHWH temple (see pp. 237-38
below); namely, the Judean authorities were attempting to extend their
religious and cultural authority, again under imperial auspices, over
Judean communities in the Egyptian diaspora.
Persia's troubles in Egypt were only temporarily relieved by the withdrawal of the Greek threat due to the Peloponnesian Wars. Eventually, the
successor of Artaxerxes I, Darius II (423-^-04 BCE), was drawn into intervening against the Athenians in their war with Sparta (c. 414 BCE; Cook
1983: 130); various rebellions in Egypt are also hinted at by this time,25
Around the death of Darius II in 404 BCE, and the accession of Artaxerxes
II (404-359 BCE), full revolt broke out in Egypt under a second Amyrtaeus
(28th dynasty, 404-399 BCE), and Egypt became independent of Persian
control.
The next 60 years were characterized by repeated unsuccessful Persian
attempts to regain control of Egypt, and by various Egyptian forays into
the Levant, attempting to extend Egyptian hegemony into the area and
often in support of anti-Persian rebellions.26 For instance, a scarab of
Pharaoh Nepherites I (399-393 BCE), founder of the 29th dynasty, found at
Gezer, suggests that Egyptian control may have extended into Palestine
sometime during his reign.27 Pharaoh Achoris (393-380 BCE), in collusion
25. In 410 the Temple of Yahu in Elephantine was destroyed in what seems to have
been a rebellion of sorts. Cook (1983: 261) notes that Diodorus mentions troubles in
Egypt in 411 BCE.
26. Succinct overviews of the period of Egyptian independence are found in Ray
(1987) and Kaiser (1972).
27. If the mission of Ezra is to be dated to 398 BCE, as some commentators argue,
then the promulgation of the anti-Egyptian Pentateuch may be connected with the
beginning of Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt.
232
with Athens and rebels in Cyprus and Ionia, was active in Palestine, successfully repelling a Persian invasion of Egypt. Destruction layers dated
around 380 BCE at sites in the Shephelah and the Negev may be connected
with military efforts that restored Persian control over Palestine at this
time. During the prosperous reign of the 30th dynasty, several more
Persian attempts to invade Egypt came to nothing, and, in fact, Pharaoh
Tachos (362-360 BCE) was able momentarily to occupy the coastal plain
of Palestine and Phoenicia. The failure of the Persian invasion of Egypt in
350 BCE led to the revolt of Phoenicia under Tennes. Once Artaxerxes III
(358-338 BCE) had pacified Sidon, he was finally able to reestablish
Persian hegemony over Egypt in 343 BCE.
The effect on the tiny colony of Yehud of these military conflicts
between Persia and Egypt is not known, yet it seems likely that the movements of armies back and forth had an impact. On the one hand, there may
have been pressures to adopt either pro-Egyptian or pro-Persian attitudes
at various times, depending on who was in control. On the other hand,
Persian control of the vast empire was gradually disintegrating during the
fourth century and so Yehud may have been able to maintain a relative
autonomy; at any rate, there are no obvious references to imperial interference in Yehud's affairs during this century (Berquist 1995:126). There
is also no indication of the state of relationships between Jerusalem and
the Judean diaspora in Egypt; however, especially during the period of
Egyptian independence, one can imagine that such a relationship may have
been difficult to maintain.28 Certainly the anti-Egyptian message of the
Pentateuch would have been relevant at various times within the historical
context of the fourth century BCE, especially in association with Persian
attempts to reconquer Egypt. Thus, while the initial impetus for the codification and promulgation of the Pentateuch can be located in the context of
the mid fifth-century BCE imperial response to the Egyptian revolt, as
suggested above, it is also possible that the final text form of the antiEgyptian Pentateuch could have evolved during the tumult of the repeated
Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt 50-100 years later.
The intrigues and assassinations during the short reign of Arse (338-336
28. There is scant evidence for a Judean diaspora in Egypt during this time. Judean
military garrisons, now in the service of the native Pharaohs, probably continued to
exist, perhaps on analogy with the Greek mercenaries that Egypt certainly employed
during this time; see also the evidence discussed below. It seems likely that the Egyptians would foster a pro-Egyptian attitude in such garrisons, perhaps precisely the type
of pro-Egyptian attitude that the Pentateuch is at pains to discredit.
233
BCE) enabled Egypt to revolt yet again. The revolt was subdued by Darius
III (336-330 BCE) but his victory was shortlived; by 330 BCE Alexander of
Macedon had conquered the Persian empire, including Palestine and
Egypt, and a new Hellenistic period began. A Hellenistic period context is
argued by some for the production and promulgation of the Pentateuch;
this argument will be considered below.
To summarize: the historical survey above has highlighted a number of
periods during which Egypt figures prominently in the politics and military strategies of the Achaemenid empire. These include the initial conquest of Egypt in 525 BCE during the reign of Cambyses, the Egyptian
revolt of Inaros in the mid fifth century BCE during the reign of Artaxerxes
I, and the successful Egyptian revolt of Amarytaeus at the end of the fifth
century leading to over half a century of Persian-Egyptian conflicts during
the reigns of Artaxerxes II and III. During these periods, Yehud was a
territory of possible strategic importance since it was located on the Palestinian frontier between the satrapy Abar Nahara and Egypt.29
The range of dates of 450-350 BCE identified in the previous chapter as
the most likely period during which the final text form of the Pentateuch
was produced and promulgated coincides with the rebellions and eventually successful bid for independence by Egypt during the reigns of
Artaxerxes I and II. One can imagine that in such turbulent times, the
governing elite of Yehud would have been eager to demonstrate their
allegiance to their Persian overlords and their repudiation of any positive
Egyptian connections. It would have been in their self-interest to disassociate, or in some way distance, the origin stories and legal traditions of
their people from Egypt, and to persuade the local population in Yehud to
follow suit. At the same time they needed to deal with the reality of an
Egyptian Judean diaspora community, which would need to be persuaded
to make an anti-Egyptian (and thus pro-Persian) tradition their own. The
evidence for this Judean diaspora community in Egypt must now be
examined in more detail.
The Judean Diaspora in Egypt
The earliest attestations of Judean diaspora communities in Egypt come
from notices condemning such communities in Jeremiah (sixth century
BCE, if authentic),30 from the Elephantine Papyri (dating from 495-399
29. See the apt title of Kaiser's (1972) article: 'Zwischen den Fronten'.
30. It is not within the purview of the present discussion to debate the date of the
234
235
236
237
do not seem to be bound to the traditions as they are presented in the final
text form of the Pentateuch; either the Pentateuch was not yet promulgated
at this time or it was not known or acknowledged among these colonists
in Egypt.
That there was an attempt to bring the religious practices of the Elephantine colony under the direction and control of Jerusalem is indicated
by two pieces of evidence. The so-called Passover Papyrus (419 or 418
BCE) is a letter sent from a certain Hananiah, a Judean appearing to have a
senior position with the Persian administration,44 to the Judeans at Elephantine, ordering them to celebrate the festival of Unleavened Bread on
the standardized dates of the 15th to 21st of Nisan.45 These dates correspond to the instructions for observing a week of prohibition of leaven in
Exod. 12.18. The prohibition of leaven (see pp. 123-24 above), serves in
the Pentateuch as a ritual to manifest the purification of Israel from Egyptian associations. Thus, the intent of the letter may be to bring the celebration of Unleavened Bread at Elephantine into line with its celebration
in Jerusalem, with its anti-Egyptian associations.46 The involvement of the
Persian administration in religious matters is probably not unusual;47 the
Passover Papyrus also corresponds to later examples of letters from Jerusalem to the Egyptian diaspora urging the celebration of a new or reformed
44. That Hananiah came from outside of Egypt seems to be indicated by another
Elephantine Papyrus: Cowley 38 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.3 (Porten and Yardeni
1986-93)/B15 (Porten 1996), line 7. Porten speculates that Hananiah may have been a
relative ofNehemiah, who became governor of Yehud after Nehemiah (1968: 130), or
that he was an emissary of Darius II (1968: 280). Another suggestion is that he was a
member of the staff of the Egyptian satrap Arsames (Hamilton 1995: 109).
45. Cowley 21 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.1 (Porten and Yardeni 1986-93)/B13
(Porten 1996). The extant letter is quite fragmentary and has been extensively reconstructed on the basis of biblical and even rabbinic traditions (Porten 1996: 126,1979:
91-92). The extant fragments, however, do not explicitly mention either Passover or
Unleavened Bread. See Lindenberger (1994: 56-58), who offers two versions of the
letter: one based solely on the surviving text, and a second containing the extensive
reconstructions of Porten and Yardeni.
46. Passover was already known by the Elephantine community, as indicated by
earlier ostraca from Elephantine mentioning Passover. One of these, dated to c. 475
BCE (Lindenberger 1994: 44), however, may attest that Passover/Unleavened Bread
was celebrated at variable times in Elephantine (cf. Deut. 16.9). Therefore, part of the
letter's mandate may be to fix the time of Passover according to Jerusalem practice.
47. See the demotic papyrus dating to 492 BCE detailing the involvement of the
satrap Pherendates in the appointment of the lesonis, an important temple functionary,
for the Khnum priests at Elephantine: C1.3 (Porten 1996).
238
48. 2 Maccabees 1.1-9 (c. 124 BCE) urges the Egyptian diaspora to celebrate
Hanukah (Modrzejewski 1995: 122), and the colophon to the Greek edition of the
scroll of Esther (c. 114 or 77 BCE) urges the Egyptian diaspora to celebrate Purim,
perhaps as a replacement for a distinctly Egyptian Jewish festival (Moore 1992: 631).
49. The brief memorandum from Bagavahya, governor of Yehud, and Deliah of
Samaria, is found in Cowley 32 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.9 (Porten and Yardeni 198693)/B21 (Porten 1996). The two drafts of the petition to the governor of Yehud for
support in rebuilding the temple (see n. 40 above) mention the restoration of vegetable,
incense and animal offerings (line 25).
50. Cowley 33 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.10 (Porten and Yardeni 1986-93)/B22
(Porten 1996). Line 10 makes the implicit exclusion of animal sacrifices in the imperial
memorandum explicit.
51. R.E. Clements argues that the Deuteronomic law of cult centralization, in
which all legitimate worship involving sacrifice was to take place in Jerusalem alone,
was a development after the catastrophe of 587 BCE, and in response to 'serious voices
which had begun to look elsewhere for suitable places at which to continue older, but
in their own way thoroughly traditional, forms of Israelite cultic activity' (1996: 18).
One might add to Clement's argument the strong indications of imperial Persian
authorization for such a move implicit in the biblical portrayals of Ezra andNehemiah.
The extension of this cult centralization to the Judean diaspora communities would
thus fit the circumstances of the Elephantine correspondence.
239
conjunction with, and under the auspices of, Persian royal authorization.52
Furthermore, the Elephantine Papyri attest to a deterioration of relations
toward the end of the fifth century BCE with the local Egyptian population.
Several papyri speak of imprisonments and riots;53 the most traumatic
event for the colony, of course, was the destruction in 410 BCE of the temple to YHW by Egyptian soldiers, incited by the local priests of the Egyptian deity Khnum54 and in collusion with the local governor.55 The fifth
century was a period of rising nationalism in Egypt, characterized by a
number of revolts56 that eventually led to the restoration of Egyptian independence from the Achaemenid empire c. 404-400 BCE.57 In this context,
these attempts to assert control over the religious practices of the Judeans
of Elephantine may be evidence of a wider concern to engender and
support Judean allegiance to the Persians and against Egyptian nationalist
aspirations, not just in the province of Yehud, but also among Judean
colonists in Egypt.
It is not known whether the Judean colonists at Elephantine succeeded
in rebuilding their temple;58 the last datable documents recovered from the
52. The injunction to celebrate Unleavened Bread from the 15th to the 21st of
Nisan, for instance, is based on a royal decree of King Darius; unfortunately, a lacuna
in the surviving text does not allow a reconstruction of the text of the royal decree
(Porten 1996: 126).
53. Cowley 38, 56 and 34, 27 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.3-5 (Porten and Yardeni
1986~93)/B15-17 (Porten 1996).
54. The arrival of Hananiah in Egypt seems to have stirred up the enmity of the
Khnum priests against the temple of YHW (Porten 1996: 78, 125).
55. A series of four papyri narrate the destruction of the temple and the various
efforts to have it rebuilt: Cowley 30-33 (Cowley 1923)/TAD A4.7-10 (Porten and
Yardeni 1986-93)/B19-22 (Porten 1996).
56. Large-scale rebellions broke out in Egypt in 486-483 BCE, and again in 460454 BCE (Ray 1988: 275-76). The correspondence of the satrap of Egypt, Arsames, in
the last half of the fifth century, also mentions Egyptian insurrections several tunes
(Lindenberger 1994: 79, 82, 83).
57. Amyrtaeus revolted in 405/404 BCE but the Elephantine papyri continue for
some time to be dated according to the reign of the Persian monarchs. Cowley 7
(Cowley 1923)/TAD B7.2 (Porten and Yardeni 1986-93)/B50 (Porten 1996) is the
latest of these papyri, dated to the fourth year of the reign of Artaxerxes II (401 BCE).
However, a papyrus a year later is dated to the fifth year of Amyrtaeus (400/399 BCE),
indicating that the native Egyptian Pharaoh had finally extended his authority into
Upper Egypt: Cowley 35 (Cowley 1923)/TAD B4.6 (Porten and Yardeni 1986-93)7
B51 (Porten 1996).
58. A document from402 BCE-Kraeling 12 (Kraeling 1953)/TAD B3.12 (Porten
240
Judean colony refer to the reign of Pharaoh Amyrtaeus in 40059 and to the
accession of Pharaoh Nepherites I in 399 BCE,60 indicating perhaps a
smooth transition from Persian domination to local rule (Bresciani 1985:
522). However, the colony then seems to disappear and no further mention
of it is found in any sources. Nine fragmentary grave stelae with Aramaic
inscriptions from Edfu in Upper Egypt downstream from Elephantine,
have been tentatively dated on paleographic grounds to the fourth century
BCE (Kornfeld 1973), and are perhaps evidence of a continuing Judean
colony during the period of Egyptian independence (404-343 BCE). This
period was one of Egyptian piety, exploited by the ruling class, and a high
interest in magic, with an emphasis on distinctively Egyptian religious
elements such as animal cults (Ray 1987: 86-88).61 It was also a period of
instability, during which Egyptians constantly under threat of Persian
invasion,62 during which, not military settlers, but professional foreign
mercenaries working for cash, came to displace Egyptian warriors (Ray
1987: 85). Under these conditions, Judean colonists could certainly have
continued to exist in Egypt but relationships with Jerusalem, firmly within
the orbit of Persian control, may have been difficult.
From what is known of the Judean military colony at Elephantine, the
Judean diaspora in Egypt seems to present a distinct profile. First, it
clearly demonstrates a pre- or non-Pentateuchal religious milieu. As already discussed above, the presence of a temple of YHW at Elephantine in
which sacrifices took place, the mention of other deities, the autonomy of
women and the seeming acceptance of intermarriage all contrast with
some of the legal stipulations of the Pentateuch and certainly with the picture painted of the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah in the biblical scroll(s)
and Yardeni 1986-93)/B45 (Porten 1996)mentions the temple of YHW in the
description of the boundaries of a house, indicating that perhaps the temple had been,
or was being, rebuilt (Porten 1996:249). However, the temple site could still have been
used as a reference point even if it was in ruins (Lindenberger 1994: 56).
59. See n. 57.
60. Kraeling 13 (Kraeling 1953)/TAD A3.9 (Porten and Yardeni 1986-93).
61. The proliferation of mummified animal burials in Egypt, which began in the
seventh century BCE, 'possibly expanded as a nationalistic movement against Persian
domination in an attempt to express the superiority of traditional Egyptian religion',
and reached its zenith in the Greco-Roman period (Hoffmeier 1992: 376).
62. The Persians attempted some five invasions of Egypt in the first half of the
fourth century BCE before they were finally successful in 343 BCE. The Egyptians,
allied variously with Sparta, Ionia, Cyprus and Phoenicia, made several incursions into
Palestine (Bresciani 1985; Ray 1987).
241
242
243
of Ps. 20, and if it originated from Edfti or Syene, both associated with
Persian period Judean military colonies,70 then it may indicate the possibility of Judean assimilation to an Egyptian religious milieu.71 However,
the enmity of the priests of the Egyptian ram-god Khnum towards the
sacrifices in the YHW temple, an enmity that may have been rooted in a
rising sense of Egyptian nationalism and a resentment of the foreign troops
who undergirded Persian domination, and that led to the destruction of the
temple of YHW, indicates a relative religious differentiation from the native Egyptians. Similarly, the use of Aramaic rather than demotic indicates
a linguistic differentiation.72
The relationship of the Judean colonists at Elephantine with Jerusalem
and the province of Yehud is ambiguous. When the colonists sought
support for the rebuilding of their temple, they apparently first appealed to
the high priest and the nobles in Jerusalem, but received no reply;73 they
then wrote to the Persian governor of Yehud as well as to the authorities in
Samaria, and, when a reply eventually arrived, it was underwritten by both
the Jerusalem and Samarian authorities. While these authorities express no
overt condemnation of the Elephantine temple, they do seem to attempt to
exert a measure of control over the religious affairs of the colony, as is
seen in the restrictions placed on the type of offerings allowed in a rebuilt
70. Steiner (1995) traces the papyrus to the community of Arameans at Syene, with
whom the Judean colonists at the nearby island of Elephantine had close relations. The
papyrus containing the prayer was found in Thebes, which definitely had a Judean
community in the Hellenistic period; Nims and Steiner (1984) also point to the
possibility of a provenance in Edfu, which was a center of Horus worship. The papyrus
itself is dated to the late second century BCE, but could preserve much older traditions.
The tenuousness of the dating and provenance of the prayer to Horus, and of its relationship to Ps. 20, allow only the postulation of possibilities but no firm conclusions.
71. Nims and Steiner (1984) argue that the prayer to Horus represents an
Egyptianized version of Ps. 20. However, they acknowledge that it is difficult to
ascertain whether the psalm was Egyptianized by a highly syncretic Judean community
or whether it was Egytianized subsequent to leaving Judean hands. Others have seen
the origins of this text in an ancient Canaanite or Aramaic prayer that predates both Ps.
20 and the prayer to Horus, and served as the original source for both (Zevit 1990).
72. Conversely, the identification of the Jewish colonists with the Aramean
colonists in Syene was quite close, as witnessed by the use of Aramaic, the seemingly
shared veneration of the Aramean deities Eshembethel and Anathbethel, and the relative interchangeability of the labels 'Judean of Elephantine' and 'Aramean of Syene'
(Hamilton 1995: 108).
73. This lack of response may be significant if the Jerusalem priests were already
beholden to the Pentateuchal restriction of temple sacrifice to one place.
244
245
246
product of a very small group. Carter (1999), extrapolating from archaeological data, estimates that the population of Yehud during the Persian
period did not exceed 20,650, and that Jerusalem had only some 1,500
inhabitants.80 The literate elite involved in the production of the final text
form of the Pentateuch would therefore consist of only at most a few
hundred individuals at any given time.81 By itself, the province of Yehud
did not possess sufficient social and economic resources to develop and
maintain a literate elite capable of high-quality literary production, thus
leading some scholars to locate this type of production in the previous
period of late monarchic Judah, or in the Babylonian exile, or in the
following Hellenistic period (see pp. 249-55 below). However, the Persian
period is a time in which external imperial resources made literary production, as well as the construction and support of a temple and the
refortification of Jerusalem, possible.82 In other words, the final text form
of the Pentateuch was produced by a small literate elite in Jerusalem under
Durham (1987: 137) and Cassuto (1993: 127) offer rather weak arguments attempting
to reconcile the MT with Egyptian geography.
80. These are the figures that Carter estimates for Persian II. The estimates for
Persian I are even lower: Yehud13,350; Jerusalem1,250. One must remember that
the boundaries that Carter draws for the Persian period province of Yehud are quite
restricted, encompassing a territory of only some 1,900 square kilometres (1999: 102),
and that some Judeans lived outside those boundaries in neighboring provinces as well
as in the diaspora (1994: 140-41). Other population estimates are higher; Broshi
(1975), for example, estimated the population of Persian period Jerusalem at 4,800.
Much higher are the estimates of Weinberg (1972; reiterated most recently in 1996:6465), who argues that the population of Persian period Yehud was 200,000; however,
Weinberg's estimates are based solely on an intuitive, uncritical interpretation of the
various lists in Ezra-Nehemiah.
81. See Ben Zvi (1996) for a similar numbering of the elite behind the production
of the prophetic literature in its final forms; in a later article, he speaks of only a
'handful' of biblical writers in Achaemenid Yehud (1997:201,205). By 'literate elite'
is meant a segment of the population that exhibits 'high literacy'; i.e. competence in
the reading and composition of complex texts such as those found in the biblical
tradition, as opposed to lower levels of 'practical literacy' (Ben Zvi 1997: 195).
82. Carter (1999:292; 1994: 140-41) notes that financial support for the temple in
Jerusalem came not only from the population of Yehud itself, but also from Judean
populations in neighboring territories (but see the cautions of Ben Zvi 1997: 197-98).
Financial support also came from the empire itself as part of an imperial policy of
fostering loyalty by restoring cults and temples disrupted by the Neo-Babylonians. The
refortification of Jerusalem likewise was part of a wider imperial strategy to bolster its
western frontiers, as discussed above.
247
the active patronage of the empire.83 Since the size of this elite was rather
small, even with imperial patronage it probably tended towards the redaction of existing traditions and a limited repertoire more than to the composition of completely new texts and an extensive repertoire (Ben Zvi
1996:263; 1997:205-206). Thus, while the Pentateuch was likely redacted
in this period from pre-existing sources and tradition, its final redactional
profile and ideology would stem from this period. The ideology of this
elite, as the intellectual leaders of what may possibly have been an ethnically defined, Persian-sponsored, 'citizen-temple' community,84 would tend
both to delineate the boundaries between its membership and outsiders,
and to express its loyalty to its Persian patrons.
As for the audience towards which the final text form of the Pentateuch
was directed, it would consist of literate individuals who could read the
text and the illiterate public who could have the text read to them.85 It
seems reasonable that the majority of the audience was local to Yehud, yet
indications of contact between authorities from Yehud and the Judean
diaspora in Egypt, for example, suggest that the audience may also have
extended to include members of Judean diaspora communities. That the
Pentateuch, in accordance with the analysis in Chapters 24 above, seeks
to persuade its audience to take up an anti-Egyptian viewpoint suggests
that at least part of the intended audience consists of those who, to some
degree, hold a pro-Egyptian viewpoint which the producers of the Pentateuch find inimical to their sociopolitical goals. That is, among the local
population in Yehud, and perhaps also among communities of Judeans
83. As Ben Zvi (1996: 265) points out, the patron-client relationship between the
imperium and the producers of the final forms of Israel's biblical literature is indicated
by the absence of any condemnation of Persia, for instance, in the prophetic oracles
against the nations, even though almost every other ancient nation, both close to and
distant from Yehud, and including imperial powers such as Egypt, Assyria and
Babylon, is criticized. The only anti-Persian text seems to be Neh. 9.36-37, although
Persia is not mentioned directly.
84. The theory of 'citizen-temple communities' in the first millennium BCE was
first formulated by Soviet historians of the Near East, and was applied to Achaemenid
Yehud by Weinberg; see Weinberg (1992) for a convenient collection and translation
into English of his writings on the subject. For a comprehensive examination of the
issue, see Blenkinsopp (1991).
85. The biblical tradition gives evidence that it was formulated for such public
reading. See, e.g., Neh. 8.1-8; 2 Kgs 23.1-3//2 Chron. 34.29-33; Deut. 31.9-13. For a
consideration of these and other texts, and for an argument that the Pentateuch in
particular was composed for oral presentation, see Watts (1995).
248
living elsewhere, especially those in Egypt, there were those for whom
Egypt occupied a positive position in their cognitive or symbolic
geographies.86 In the context of Persian imperial concerns over the interlocking issues of the empire's hegemony over Egypt and the stability of its
western frontiers, such a geography was potentially subversive to imperial
interests, and thus the attempt by Persian loyalists to reinscribe in the
Pentateuch a different geography that shifts Egypt into a negative position.
The audience towards which the final text form of the Pentateuch was
first directed was likely not homogenous; besides those with a more proEgyptian stance, it probably included others inclined to a more antiEgyptian viewpoint. As Watts (1995: 554-55) argues, a rhetorical appeal
to such a mixed audience, with diverse and perhaps opposed interests,
often employs a strategy in which the concerns of each audience are
appealed to separately in the same text, even though this results in
ambiguity and contradiction.87 While the persuasive text generally seeks to
project a unitary vision, opposed groups in the audience must be convinced that their views are represented in the text's program in order to
gain their acceptance. The Pentateuch's sometimes ambivalent assessment
of Egypt suggests that both pro- and anti-Egyptian constituencies were
among the first audience of its final text form, even though the unitive
vision of the Pentateuch aims at an unequivocal differentiation between
Egypt and Israel.
Since the production of the Pentateuch was likely sponsored and made
possible by official Persian patronage, it remains to ask whether the Pentateuch was also aimed at a Persian readership; that is, was the Pentateuch,
like the codification of Egyptian law during the time of Darius I, also
meant to be translated into Aramaic for the use of the Persian governmental bureaucracy? While Wacholder (1990: 262-69) argues that Aramaic versions of at least some Hebrew biblical texts existed already in the
Persian period, conclusive evidence is lacking until the much later
targums. However, the fact that parts of Ezra and the early chapters of
Daniel, which may originally have had a Persian period provenance, are
rendered in Aramaic at least attests to the possibility of an early Aramaic
version of sorts of the Pentateuch. If so, then the Pentateuch's anti86. The positive position of Egypt might be due to a number of factors, such as
Egypt's long-standing historical dominance and influence in Palestine, and ancestral
traditions in Israel of Egyptian origins.
87. ' Juxtaposition of contradictory appeals is apparently more effective at gaining
audience support than vague statements that offend no one' (Watts 1995: 554 n. 38).
249
Egyptian rhetoric may also have been aimed to satisfy Persian patrons.
Nonetheless, at present it seems more prudent to see the rhetoric of the
Pentateuch as aimed chiefly at the mixed Judean audience delineated
above.
Alternatives: Before or after the Persian Period
In considering possible other periods that might provide a better, or at least
alternative, historical fit to the Pentateuch's specific view on Egypt, it
seems that the periods immediately preceding or following the Persian
period warrant consideration. These would include the latter years of the
Judean monarchy as it fell under increasing Neo-Babylonian domination
(late Iron IIC period) and the period of exile (Neo-Babylonian period),
occurring immediately before the Persian period, and the Ptolemaic
period, which follows the Persian period.
The latter years of the Judean monarchy were dominated internationally
by the collapse of the Assyrian empire and the emergence of a bipolar system of confrontation between the rising Neo-Babylonian empire and the
Saite or 26th dynasty of Egypt. Malamat (1988; 1975) outlines no less than
six critical shifts in Judah's foreign policy, from the death of Josiah at
Megiddo in 609 BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, in which
loyalty switched back and forth between Egypt and Babylon.88 The antiEgyptian diatribes in Ezekiel and Jeremiah may reflect some of the arguments that took place in the Judean court between proponents of the
pro-Babylonian and pro-Egyptian camps.89
88. These six shifts include: (1) Josiah's disastrous expedition against the Egyptians at Megiddo in 609 BCE leading to Egyptian subjugation of Judah; (2) the defeat of
Egypt by Babylon at Carchemish in 605 BCE leading shortly to the subjection of Judah
to Neo-Babylonian hegemony; (3) a rebellion and defection to the Egyptian camp in
the wake of Babylon's failed invasion of Egypt in 601-600 BCE; (4) Judah's surrender
to Babylon in 597 BCE and the deportation of some of its inhabitants; (5) Judah's
participation in a rebellious anti-Babylonian coalition with Egyptian backing in 594
593 BCE; and (6) the destruction of Jerusalem by the Neo-Babylonians and further
deportations in 586 BCE.
89. That only the views of the pro-Babylonian side are explicitly preserved in the
biblical tradition indicates the general pro-Mesopotamian orientation under which the
material was edited into its final text form. The contrasting prophetic messages of
Hananiah (anti-Babylonian) and Jeremiah (pro-Babylonian) in Jer. 28, for instance, are
connected by W.L. Holladay (1989: 127) with the anti-Egyptian coalition convened by
Zedekiah in Jerusalem in 594593 BCE. Gorg (1992) analyses the episode in Jer. 38 as
250
This situation of contention seems at first glance to provide an appropriate historical context for the equivocal anti-Egyptian rhetoric of the
Pentateuch. However, the fact that the final text form of the Pentateuch
contains clear references to an exile and a return from exile of the people
of Israel90 indicates that its final text form could not have been produced
any earlier than the exile or return from exile. Furthermore, given the rapid
shifts in Judah's foreign allegiances during this period, it is difficult to
pinpoint the institutional stability and patronage that would have undergirded one particular viewpoint. This does not obviate the possibility that
both pro-Babylonian and pro-Egyptian traditions from this period may
have been preserved into the Persian period, there forming part of the
situation to which the Pentateuch is addressed.
The period of exile in Babylon itself (586-530 BCE) could perhaps provide a context in which Judeans would have found it beneficial to express
pro-Mesopotamian and anti-Egyptian sentiments, since the Neo-Babylonians invaded Egypt at least once during this period.91 However, the
Neo-Babylonian incursions and deportations of 598 and 586 BCE, while
not utterly devastating Judah as much as the biblical tradition depicts,
nevertheless disrupted especially the macrostructure of society capable of
supporting a high literate elite.92 It is therefore unlikely that remnants of
a confrontation between pro-Egyptian and pro-Babylonian constituencies in Jerusalem.
90. See Deut. 4.26-31; 28.36-37,63-67; 29.27; 30.1-5. The verbal correspondence
between Deut. 30.1 andJer. 16.15, and between Deut. 30.4 andNeh. 1.9, is especially
striking.
91. In 567 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar sent an army against Egypt, ostensibly to reinstate
Pharaoh Apries, who had been deposed by Amasis in a military coup in 570 BCE; the
Babylonian army suffered a crushing defeat in the delta at the hands of the Egyptians
(Lloyd 1983:285; Kuhrt 1995: 593). Aprior Babylonian invasion of Egypt in 582-581
BCE is sometimes posited on the basis of Josephus (Ant. 10:180-82); see the discussion
in Miller and Hayes (1985:425,427), who also point to Ezek. 29.17-20 and speculate
that this was a time of anti-Babylonian uprisings in Syria-Palestine, including the
assassination of Gedaliah by Ishmael, probably with the support of Egypt. The third
deportation of Judeans mentioned by Jeremiah (52.30) may have been part of the NeoBabylonian response to this revolt.
92. Barstad (1996) debunks the biblical myth of Judah as an 'empty land' during
the exile, arguing that the deportation of the upper class would have had little effect on
the day-to-day operation of what was basically an agricultural society. However,
Jamieson-Drake argues that the Neo-Babylonian disruption of the controlling elite
destroyed the state centralization mechanisms of Jerusalem, leading eventually to
wider economic collapse and depopulation (1991: 75-76, 145-46); certainly, the
deportations would have had far more dire consequences for the survival and operation
251
the monarchic literate elite deported to Babylon would have enjoyed the
political and economic resources necessary for producing a work like the
Pentateuch,93 nor that the task would have been any more possible among
those who were allowed to remain in the land.94 Certainly, the disaster of
the destruction of the temple and of the monarchy in Jerusalem would
have made a great impression on the Judahite world view and gained a
prominent place in the collective memory of surviving Judahite communities, but the articulation of the meaning of these events in literate
form would need to await the necessary material and sociopolitical
conditions later in the Persian period.
Yet, precisely because the requisite resources for literary production
appear low also in Persian period Yehud, some scholars have suggested
that the production of biblical literature should be located in the following
Hellenistic period,95 inaugurated by Alexander of Macedon's swift
conquest of the Persian empire in the late fourth century BCE. Alexander's
death in 323 BCE touched off a period of unrest, the period of the so-called
Wars of the Diadochi, during which various of Alexander's generals
fought and schemed against each other to carve up the empire. Palestine
was fought in and over many times during this period. Ptolemy I of
of a high literate elite, which depends on accumulated surplus in urban centers with
institutional support. The trend toward ruralization, beginning in the exilic period
(Barstad 1996: 54-55) and continuing into the early Persian period (Hoglund 1991: 5760), would make conditions for literary production less than ideal. Nonetheless,
Barstad (1996: 20, 81) points to the scroll of Lamentations as an example of the high
literary production that could have taken place in exilic Judah. One should note,
however, that Lamentations was composed early in the exilic period according to most
interpreters (see Sailers 1994: 98-99) and focuses very narrowly on poetically
describing immediate circumstances; it thus differs in extent and qualitatively from the
'historical' and composite nature of the Pentateuch. For arguments against the dating
of Lamentations in the exilic period, see Provan (1990).
93. It is not until the fifth century BCE that there is evidence, in the form of the
Murashu tablets, of prosperous Judeans in the Mesopotamian diaspora who may have
had the resources to sponsor literary production (but see the cautions of Stolper 1992:
928).
94. Mizpah seems to have been the main administrative center of Neo-Babylonian
Judah, and was far too small to support high literate production (Ben Zvi 1997: 203).
95. Lemche (1993) makes this argument, adducing also evidence of Greek historiographical influence on the Hebrew Bible. Bolin (1996) argues that the final editing and
writing of much of the Hebrew Bible took place in the Hellenistic period since the
biblical references in Ezra and Nehemiah indicate that in the Persian period the biblical
traditions were only just being shaped and collected.
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Egypt96 eventually succeeded in bringing Palestine under Ptolemaic hegemony, inaugurating large-scale voluntary or forced migration into Egypt
of Judeans and others looking for economic opportunities or entering as
war captives, a migration which continued throughout the Ptolemaic
period.97 From this time, the Judean diaspora population in Egypt grew
enormously, such that, by the beginning of the first century CE, it is
estimated that the Jewish98 population in Egypt numbered about 300,000,
constituting some 20 per cent of the Greek speaking population of Egypt.99
The majority was located in Alexandria, where they constituted a good
third of the city's population of over one-half million inhabitants, but they
were also settled throughout the country.100
Although Judea fell under Ptolemaic, which is to say Egyptian, hegemony, and remained so for a century, the Seleucids of Mesopotamia did
not abandon their claim to Palestine.101 Over the course of the third
century BCE, a series of five wars, called the Syrian Wars, were fought
between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies.102 During this period, pro96. At first, from 323 BCE, Ptolemy was satrap of Egypt under Alexander's halfbrother and then under his son. In 305 BCE, he assumed the royal title and reigned over
Egypt and Palestine until 282 BCE.
97. According to Josephus, in the course of extending his hegemony over CoeleSyria (southern Syria and Palestine), Ptolemy captured Jerusalem and took many
captives from Judah and Samaria and settled them in Egypt; he also reports that Jews
migrated to Egypt voluntarily (Grabbe 1992: 211-12).
98. Commentators customarily seem to refer to the existence of Jews and Judaism
especially from the Hellenistic period on. It would be more accurate, however, to speak
of Judaisms, in the plural.
99. These estimates are from Modrzejewski (1995: 74), who gives a figure of 8
million for Egypt's total population, of which 1.5 million were Greek-speaking immigrants, including the Greek-speaking Jews, and the rest native Egyptians. For somewhat different, but comparable, figures, see Dunand and Zivie-Coche (1991: 252).
100. See the extensive lists of places of Jewish habitation in Egypt, based on papyri,
ostraca and inscriptions, in Tcherikover, Fuks and Stern (1957-64: III, 197-209).
101. After the Battle of Ipsus (301 BCE), the victors awarded Coele-Syria to
Seleucus, but Ptolemy seized the area and refused to cede control of it.
102. During the first three of these wars (274-71, 260-53, and 246-241 BCE), the
Ptolemies retained control of Coele-Syria. During the fourth war (221-217 BCE), the
Seleucid army pushed south through Palestine only to be defeated in the battle of
Raphia. During the fifth war (202-200 BCE), the Seleucids were victorious at the battle
of Paneion and the Ptolemies permanently lost control of Palestine. Thus, only towards
the end of the third century BCE did these wars range extensively into territory close to
Judea; for the most part, the Ptolemaic period was one of relative peace and stability
for Judea.
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Ptolemaic and pro-Seleucid factions seem to have been active in Jerusalem, especially in the politics surrounding the position of the high
priest.103 Judea continued to be a territory strategically located between
Egypt and Mesopotamia, now on the frontier between the Ptolemaic and
Seleucid spheres of influence.
One can envision that during this period, the interests of a pro-Seleucid
faction in Jerusalem would be served by the publication of a pro-Mesopotamian and anti-Egyptian Pentateuch. However, several factors militate
against the Ptolemaic period as the context for the production of the final
text form of the Pentateuch. First, the available resources for literary
production in Ptolemaic Jerusalem were no greater, and actually probably
less, than they were in Persian period Jerusalem.104 Secondly, the Ptolemies do not seem to have invested significantly in Judea the way the
Achaemenids did; as was argued above, imperial investment of resources
from outside of Yehud was precisely the determining factor in providing
the conditions for higher literary production in Yehud during the Persian
period. And thirdly, during most of this period Judah was firmly under
Ptolemaic control, probably providing little leeway for anti-Egyptian expression; while Ptolemaic rule involved oppressive taxation and resource
extraction under a highly centralized administration, it was at least initially
stable and peaceful.105
In 200 BCE Palestine finally came under firm Seleucid control, with
some military action apparently taking place also in Jerusalem. According
to Josephus, Antiochus III rewarded Judea for its support during his war
with the Ptolemies by issuing a decree granting tax concessions and
confirming the right of the Jews to practice their ancestral traditions
(Grabbe 1992:246-47,275). The hostilities between the Seleucids and the
103. Evidence of rivalry between the pro-Ptolemaic upper-class Tobiad family and
the then pro-Seleucid priestly Oniad family appears in the second half of the third
century BCE (Grabbe 1992:192-98). Eventually the Tobiad family itself split into proPtolemaic and pro-Seleucid factions, and later, during the Seleucid period, members of
the Oniad family were pro-Ptolemaic.
104. R.H. Smith (1990) notes that archaeological evidence indicates a flourishing of
the Levant in the Hellenistic period only later under the Seleucids; during the Ptolemaic period the area stagnated under a high tax burden, tight centralized control,
ruralization, prohibitive resource extraction, and likely a hotter than usual climate. Yet
it is precisely within this period that Harrison (1991) places the composition of
Qoheleth.
105. For an extensive overview of the socio-economic impact on Palestine of Ptolemaic rule, see Harrison (1991: 208-35).
254
Ptolemies did not end, however; in 170 and 168 BCE Antiochus IV
successfully invaded Egypt only to be forced by Rome to withdraw.
Around the same time, various struggles were taking place between contenders for the position of high priest in Jerusalem. Onias IV, son of the
deposed pro-Egyptian high priest Onias III, fled to Egypt and was there
allowed to establish a Jewish temple at Leontopolis.106 Antiochus IV
intervened in the struggle between the high-priestly contenders Jason
and Menelaus, attacked Jerusalem, pillaged the temple, and eventually
attempted to suppress Jewish practices (Grabbe 1992:276-84). As aresult,
the Maccabean revolt broke out, and gradually the Hasmonean family both
gained the support of most Palestinian Jews and wrested control from the
Seleucids. By 143-142 BCE Judah became an independent state, and under
Alexander Janneus (103-76 BCE) became a kingdom with a territorial
extent rivaling that of the biblical Solomon's.
The invasions of Egypt by Antiochus IV and the ousting of the now proPtolemaic Oniads from the high priesthood, or the Maccabean revolt and
the subsequent attempts of the Hasmoneans to legitimate their rule, with
Seleucid recognition and perhaps against the opposition of the Egyptian
diaspora community, provide possible contexts for the production of an
anti-Egyptian Pentateuch. That a letter was sent from Jerusalem to Egyptian Jews mandating the celebration of a new festival to celebrate the
Hasmonean liberation of the temple (2 Mace. 1.1-9) indicates that the
Hasmoneans were attempting to extend their authority also over Jews in
the Egyptian diaspora. However, the main problem is that these periods
are too late. As argued in the previous chapter, the manuscript evidence,
together with the knowledge of the Pentateuch displayed in other writings
from the Hellenistic period, support the appearance of the final text form
of the Pentateuch by at least the mid third century BCE.
In summary, the Persian period still provides the best overall historical
context for the production of the final text form of the Pentateuch, with
allowances for the possibility of a slightly earlier or slightly later date.
That so many periods give evidence of contention between pro-Mesopotamian and pro-Egyptian orientations is due to the geopolitical position
of Judah, located on the border between the two major areas of empire in
106. During the reign of Antiochus IV, the high priest Onias III came into trouble
with the Seleucid authorities, and his brother Jason usurped the priesthood. Jason soon
became embroiled with Menelaus, another contender for the position of high priest. It
is actually unclear from the sources whether Onias III or Onias IV fled to Egypt and
founded the temple at Leontopolis (Grabbe 1992: 277-81).
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the Fertile Crescent. This borderline position accounts both for the forces
leading eventually to the formation of the Pentateuch's particular stance in
the Persian period, and for the continuing relevance of the Pentateuch's
stance in succeeding periods.
Summary
In this chapter, the equivocal anti-Egyptian perspective of the Pentateuch
has been historically contextualized within the period of the production of
its final text form in the Persian period. The history of the Persian empire's
troubles in Egypt during this period, the geopolitical location of Yehud on
the front between the empire and Egypt, and the presence of Judean
colonists in Egypt, have been shown to provide a compelling sociopolitical
setting for the Pentateuch's anti-Egyptian rhetoric. In the audience towards
which the Pentateuch was directed were those on whose cognitive or
symbolic maps Egypt occupied a positive position, potentially subversive
of the interests of the Persian patrons of the elite of Yehud. This perspective the Pentateuch seeks to subdue by inscribing it within a symbolic
geography in which Egypt occupies a predominantly negative position.
While other periods, both before and after the Persian period, provide
other possible settings for the Pentateuch's anti-Egyptian rhetoric, the
Persian period remains the most compelling context for the ideological
contestation evident in the final text form of the Pentateuch.
Chapter 7
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
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the imperial strategies for creating local groups loyal to the empire; this
strategy is reflected in the desire of Ezra and Nehemiah to stop and reverse
the incidence of intermarriage in Yehud (Hoglund 1991: 65-68; 1992:
231-40). In such a situation, it would be necessary to access and articulate
a clear origin tradition to identify those who can legitimately lay claim to
control of Jerusalem and Yehud under imperial auspices. Origin traditions
are an essential element of ethnic identity in that they define the boundaries of the group by including only those who can lay claim to a certain
history of origination. The Pentateuch provides just such an origin tradition in its master narrative.
However, origin traditions also tend to be largely mythical, in that they
are put into play to serve the particular interests of boundary formation; in
the process, which is one of selective perception and memory, actual
historical events are obscured, distorted and reworked. The ethnic group in
actuality cannot claim in totality the pure origins posited by its founding
myths. Thus, while the Pentateuch promotes a master origin narrative
which begins in Mesopotamia, enough clues remain in the text that this
master narrative is overwriting other differing traditions of Israel's origins,
in particular, traditions that root Israel in Egypt rather than Mesopotamia.
Given the Persian period context in which imperial loyalty is required in
the face of the challenges to Persian hegemony on the western front,
epitomized by a rebellious Egypt, origin traditions rooted in Egypt would
not have provided beneficial sociopolitical capital for those in Yehud and
would need to be neutralized.
Rather than directly negating or challenging an alternative Egyptian
origin tradition, such a tradition is more subtly subverted in the Pentateuch
by being incorporated as a subordinate part into a master narrative that
places Israel's most antique origins in Mesopotamia, closer to the Persian
heartland. Thus the narratives of Joseph and Moses, which on their own
could stand as testimonies to Egyptian Israelite heroes, are linked in the
Pentateuch to the programmatic ancestral accounts of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, making Israel's time in Egypt a temporary detour rather than a
point of origin.
There are clues left in the narrative of the Pentateuch of an alternative
origin tradition that begins in Egypt and which may have traced Israel's
beginnings to Moses rather than to Abraham; the analysis in Chapters 2-4
above has attempted to uncover some of these clues. The overall shape of
the final text form of the Pentateuch itself also suggests that at least two
different narratives of biblical Israel's origin have been incorporated. The
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259
260
but also so that one clearly dominates over the other. Given the Mesopotamian origins of the Judean elite of the Persian period restoration community in Yehud (at least, insofar as they are depicted in Ezra and
Nehemiah), it is not surprising that Mesopotamian origins are championed.
Egypt as Negative Place (Axiology)
The dominant evaluation of Egypt on the Pentateuch's cognitive map is
negative; Egypt is a bad and dangerous place, associated with disease,
slavery and the loss of identity, and is to be rejected. Consequently, a
strong sense of discontinuity is constructed between Israel and anything
Egyptian. Israel, to be truly Israel under the approval of the deity, must be
purged of all things Egyptian. Thus, the 'endangered ancestor' series in
Genesis shows a progressive distancing from Egypt, the Egyptian Hagar
and her son are rejected from the lineage of Israel, the Israelites are
persuaded to physically exit from Egypt, the blaspheming half-Egyptian
son in Leviticus is stoned, and finally the entire Egyptian-born generation,
including Moses, must expire in the wilderness and only an entirely new
generation, untouched by Egypt, can inherit the Promised Land.
In this largely negative depiction of Egypt, both Egypt as a place of
residence and Egypt as a network of sociocultural associations are repudiated. To be truly Israel, Israel cannot live in Egypt; thus, the necessity of
the exodus. To be truly Israel, Israel cannot adhere to Egyptian values and
desires; thus, the necessity of purging the Egyptian-born generation. In the
Persian period context, this signifies a strong disapproval of the very
existence of an Egyptian diaspora community and of favorable contacts
with Egypt as place or culture. In effect, Judeans in Egypt were either
being told to make the exodus and come home to where they can be part of
the true Israel, or were being written off as illegitimate.6 Simultaneously,
Yehudites with leanings toward Egypt were being reprimanded for
expressing a mistaken and detrimental stance. In terms of the Achaemenid
empire's struggle with Egypt, the illocutionary act of the public reading of
the Pentateuch in Yehud (and perhaps elsewhere) would aim to have the
perlocutionary effect of engendering in its audience loyalty to the Persian
side against Egyptian nationalist aspirations. The rejection of Egypt in the
6. That the legitimacy of the Judean diaspora was a matter of dispute is indicated
by other, admittedly later, literature. For example, according to Goldstein (1991), the
Letter ofAristeas was composed to counter Hasmonean extremists who were insisting
that Jews should no longer live in the diaspora.
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262
263
264
sons as his own, and the silence about Moses' descendants. Separation is
also effected on the level of land; even within Egypt, Goshen functions to
maintain an (illusory) separation between Israel and Egypt. At times,
'they' are lampooned while 'we' are extolled; otherwise 'they' are usually
depicted as harboring destructive or assimilative intentions towards 'us'.
Similar concerns, placed in the Persian period, are expressed in Ezra and
Nehemiah.14
The binary of Israel versus Egypt is foundational for Israel's identity as
established in the Pentateuch, and the command is given for it to be commemorated and ritually actualized especially in the rites of the firstborn
an4 of Passover/Unleavened Bread, and, to a lesser extent, in the observance of the Sabbath and perhaps the festival of Booths. The boundaries
established by Israel's dietary and sexual rules in Leviticus are likewise
grounded in the distinctiveness mandated by the ethnic binary of Israel
versus Egypt, even while the actual contrast shifts to Israel's distinctiveness from the tribes of Canaan. As an emblem of Israel's distinctiveness,
Egypt functions here less as a means to engender pro-Persian loyalty, and
more as an ideological means of asserting primacy over other or divergent
elements of the Judean community.
Yet again the narrative often blurs the distinction between Israel and
Egypt, thus suggesting that the distinction itself is a construct that is being
promulgated in opposition to other alternative views in which Israel and
Egypt are seen as more closely related, perhaps by relationships of complementarity rather than contrast. There are hints that the differences
between Israel and Egypt are scalar rather than polar in nature. A mixed
multitude is part of the exodus. The narrative's attempt at a utopic dissolution when Egypt is annihilated in the sea is short-lived, as is also the
utopic picture at the end of Exodus of the perfect Israel arranged around
the presence of YHWH in the tabernacle. Most disturbing, however, to the
sense of the absolute distinctiveness of Israel that the Pentateuch attempts
to foster, is the hybridity of the heroes Joseph and especially Moses.
Displacement of Joseph and Moses by Abraham (Typology)
In the final text form of the Pentateuch, the characters Joseph and especially Moses play important roles. Yet, they constitute a problem for an anti14. Kinship and land are also prime concerns of the Persian period restoration
community as described in Ezra and Nehemiah. On land, see especially Carroll (1991,
1992); on the concern over kinship and intermarriage, see Smith-Christopher (1994)
and Eskenazi and Judd (1994).
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266
the boundary between Egypt and Israel, his membership in Israel is both
questioned and asserted. However, despite his leadership in the exodus and
his championing of Israel even to god's face, Moses is rejected as one of
the Egyptian-born generation and so must perish outside of the Promised
Land. One gets the sense from the Pentateuch that Moses is a unique
aberration from normative Israelite identity, an aberration that is allowed to
continue functioning as an icon for the origin of Israel's legal traditions, but
which is left safely behind in the past. That is, while the book of Moses, in
terms of the laws of the Torah and the stories of his exploits, continues to
live, Moses has no line of descent or patrimony in Israel.
The case is quite different with Abraham. While the Israelite-becomeEgyptian, Joseph, is bypassed, and the Egyptian-become-Israelite, Moses,
is removed, Abraham is placed at the very beginning of the master narrative of Israel's origins and proleptically enacts the following history which
his descendants live out in unbroken succession. The life of Abraham
stamps the Pentateuch with its pattern, and the repeated reference to the
triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ties the Pentateuch always back to the
determinative story of the patriarchs. Abraham thus displaces the importance of Joseph and Moses as originating figures in Israel, and is the
means for incorporating them into the Pentateuch's master narrative.17 As
argued above, this formulation of the Pentateuch's master narrative with
Abraham at the beginning is likely the result of the last redaction leading
to the Pentateuch's final text form.
Condemnation of Return to Egypt (Teleology)
Given the trajectory of the Pentateuch's master narrative, in which the
sojourn in Egypt is incorporated as a temporary detour, and which is
portrayals of Moses are conscious reworkings of the Pentateuchal narrative, they could
also represent old alternative Moses traditions current alongside those in the Pentateuch. The texts of these portrayals are conveniently collected in Holladay (1983,
1989), except for Hecataeus, for which see Stern (1976).
17. A possible extrabiblical parallel to this process is found in the Jewish (or
Samaritan) Hellenistic historian Pseudo-Eupolemus (early second century BCE), who
depicts Abraham (and Enoch) as the fathers of civilization, and the Babylonians as the
first civilized people, followed by the Phoenicians and finally the Egyptians. Egypt is
here demoted from its position as the fount of civilization by Mesopotamia, and Moses
is displaced as the original culture hero by Abraham, in a process similar to the one
that seems to be at work in the Pentateuch. See Droge (1989: 19-25) and Holladay
(1983: 157-87).
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always aimed at the goal of the Promised Land in the Cisjordan, it is not
surprising that a strong anxiety over, and condemnation of, returning to
Egypt is displayed by the narrative. Such notions of return are directly
condemned in the legislation of Deuteronomy, and are also cast as a voice
of rebellion against YHWH. While this condemnation obviously critiques
the Egyptian diaspora, it seems especially to be directed against the lure of
emigration from Palestine into Egypt. Such emigration took place at
various times but became especially widespread in the Ptolemaic era. In
the Persian period, the main avenue of immigration into Egypt was as a
military colonist (also characteristic of the Ptolemaic period), and thus
perhaps the legislation in Deuteronomy expressly forbids return to Egypt
in a military context.18 While the Persians probably appreciated the presence of foreign troops by which they struggled to maintain their hegemony
in Egypt, the Pentateuch forbids true Israelites to return to Egypt because
of fears that there they will not only succumb to Egyptian loyalties but
also forget who they really are and where they really belong.
The Pentateuch's adamant rejection of the notion of return to Egypt is
another way of expressing the root conviction that 'YHWH makes a
distinction between Israel and Egypt'. The separation between the two has
been established in the past; it is the task of the present generation to
maintain the distinction against the danger of its collapse. That these
warnings and condemnations are even required is ample indication that the
danger of the blurring of the boundaries between Egypt and Israel was
acutely sensed by the producers of the final text form of the Pentateuch.
Conclusions
The goal of this study has been twofold: to make manifest and investigate
the particular ideology centered in 'Egypt' on the Pentateuch's cognitive
or symbolic map, and to place that ideology within the historical context
of its production. The result is a view of the Pentateuch as a contestatory
document, promoting an essentially anti-Egyptian stance, especially in
relation to Israel's origin myths, while attempting to incorporate and
subordinate alternative pro-Egyptian views. The production of this
ideology in the final text form of the Pentateuch is attributed to a Persian
loyalist elite in Yehud during the period of the Persian empire's troubles
with Egypt. Although the results are to some extent speculative, enough
18. Note the depiction of Israel in the exodus as organized as a military force, an
allusion perhaps to the Jewish military settlers in Egypt during the Persian period.
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evidence, both from a close reading of the final text form of the Pentateuch, and from an examination of the historical period, has been presented to establish a high degree of plausibility for these results. In
conclusion, a few more general issues, raised or alluded to in this study,
and indicative of wider areas of research, will be discussed briefly.
Biblical Geography
Biblical geography, as noted in Chapter 1, has generally been concerned
with historical toponomy and topography, with the correlation of biblical
toponyms and data drawn from archaeology and other ancient documents
so as to be able to pinpoint actual locations on an empirical map. From
such a perspective, 'Egypt' in the Pentateuch is a determinative place, the
accuracy of the description of which in the Pentateuch can be investigated
and judged. In this study, however, it has been suggested that the 'Egypt'
in the Pentateuch functions less as an actual location and more as an
ideological site in the cognitive or symbolic geography of the producers of
the final text form. That is, while the producers of the text may certainly
have had some empirical notion of an actual 'Egypt', the 'Egypt' that is
created in the Pentateuch is more a representation of their ideological
interests. This suggests that when geographical entities are encountered in
the Hebrew Bible, the interpreter must consider the investment of such
entities in the ideological rhetoric and interests of the given text before too
quickly proceeding to historical geographical realia. This is certainly
pertinent when geographical entities of large scope and with many layers
of overlapping signification, such as Egypt or Babylon, are considered, but
the same could apply, mutatis mutandis, to smaller geographic entities
such as Goshen or locations such as biblical cities and towns.
The notion of cognitive or symbolic maps, of course, does not mean that
the notion of real locations or the helpfulness of empirical mapping are to
be discarded. In considering the historical context of the representation of
Egypt in the Pentateuch, this study has worked with the notion of Egypt as
a real place to the producers of the Pentateuch. However, even if
overdetermined and influenced by ancient traditions about Egypt, this real
Egypt is first and foremost the Egypt of the Persian period. And even then,
the Egypt of that period is invested with the peculiar ideological concerns
and anxieties of the producers.
Pentateuchal Criticism
In this study, the final Hebrew text form of the Pentateuch has been the
focus of attention, with little concern for the reconstruction of the text's
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prior history. This focus has not meant an ahistorical literary treatment, but
has enabled a more precise historical contextualization of the final text
form. The final text form itself provides a more certain basis for the establishment of historical hypotheses than hypothetical prior stages of the
text's history. In other words, the historical data of the Pentateuch are
most sure in the historical context of its final production. This does not
mean that the Pentateuch is devoid of prior traditions or that it is not
informed, perhaps, by prior written sources; however, to make detailed
and definitive claims for such a prehistory is a very tenuous procedure. It
seems more empirically productive to begin with the final formation of the
Pentateuch in the Persian period, and then to work backwards chronologically from that point in time.
Abstinence from the traditional dissective procedures of historical
criticism of the Pentateuch in this study does not constitute a claim that the
Pentateuch speaks with a unitive voice. Rather, the final text form, it has
been shown, is shot through with various ambiguities and tensions. In
other words, the Pentateuch appears as contestatory literature responding
to and incorporating contending and coexisting ideologies. The discordant
features of the Pentateuch's discourse are not so much sedimented survivals of chronologically successive stages in its formation as they are
evidence of clashing viewpoints contemporary with the period of its final
formation. This model is amenable to features of traditional Pentateuchal
criticism, whether they work on the basis of prior written sources, or of
supplements, or of the joining of various fragments of tradition, as long as
the focus is on the production of the final form rather than a lengthy
prehistory.
In this respect, textual criticism potentially has a significant part to play
in the manifestation of sites of resistance, anxiety and contestation in the
text. Aside from those variants that are clearly due to scribal error (although even in cases of error one might probe for the reasons that such
errors continued to be transmitted), textual variants should not too quickly
become problems begging for a solution (such as the 'original reading')
but be interpreted as potential indicators of the contending and concurrent
ideologies with which the final text form is struggling. That is, textual
variants can be seen as similar to Freudian slips, in which some aspect of
the anxiety of the final producers of the text is revealed.
Identity, Ethnogenesis and Origin Traditions
The main concern of the Pentateuch is the construction of Israel's identity,
and thus the Pentateuch could be termed the narrative of Israel's ethno-
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genesis. What becomes clear when the final text form of the Pentateuch is
analyzed in the context of its production is the analeptic nature of
ethnogenesis; that is, the importance of projecting into the past the present
needs of ethnic definition. Thus, origin traditions, more so than current
discernible differences in language, culture, or even religion, occupy pride
of place in the construction of identity and ethnicity. Furthermore, origin
traditions are not givens, but constitute sites of contention between various
conceptions of ideal identity. At least in the discourse of ethnogenesis of
the Pentateuch, it is the interplay of origin traditions emphasizing a
genesis either in Egypt or Mesopotamia that largely gives rise to the other
aspects of Israelite identity with which the Pentateuch is concerned.
The idea of 'Egypt' has been shown to play a large part in the construction of Israel's identity in the Pentateuch, mainly in terms of contrast:
Egypt stands for that which Israel is not. Thus Egypt plays the role of the
'other' or the 'them' in the classic binarism of ethnic boundary establishment and maintenance. However, identities can also be constructed on less
contrastive or oppositional bases. For example, identities can be reciprocal
or complementary, in which the 'other' or the 'them' do not represent the
contrary of 'us' but rather form, in a more positive sense, the ground of
possibility or the complement for the identity of 'us'. It seems that the
alternative more pro-Egyptian origin myths and traditions that the
Pentateuch attempts to subvert might have proposed such a complementary identity. To reconstruct these alternatives is important in restoring
to the construction of ethnic identity the dialectic between contrastive and
complementary identities. Straying too far in the direction of contrastive
identity leads to violent dualisms while an unbalanced embrace of
complementary identity leads to suffocating assimilation. If the divine
voice in the Pentateuch insists, 'so you may know that YHWH makes a
distinction between Egypt and Israel', perhaps these words can be read,
not in the sense that Egypt must be negated as 'other' in order for Israel to
exist, but rather in the sense that both Egypt and Israel might learn the
proliferation of life-giving difference.
Egypt as Heterotopia
And finally, this study suggests that the Egypt in or of the Pentateuch is a
heterotopia, a word coined by Michel Foucault (1986) to describe a
countersite in which other sites in a culture are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted. A heterotopia is like the image in a mirror.
The mirror is a real placeso also Egypt is a real place. But the image in
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the mirror exists in a sort of virtual space that causes observers simultaneously to see themselves there where they are actually not, and from
that vantage point to reconstitute themselves here where they actually are.
So also Egypt in the Pentateuch functions simultaneously as the projection
of Israel in its liminality there where it is not, and the reconstruction of
Israel from that vantage point here in the Pentateuch, as a strategy of
postexilic communities attempting to define themselves in response to
internal differences and external pressures.
Appendix
THE TERM n"~iift AND ITS OCCURRENCES IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND
THE PENTATEUCH
1. The term "11UQ in Hebrew can refer to an entrenched (fortified) or besieged city
(BDB: 848-49). The Arabic word misr today carries the additional denotation of Egypt
or things Egyptian.
2. On the form and etymology ofD'HUQ see Ringgren (1980) and Houtman (1993).
Appendix
273
Hebrew Bible
Torah/Pentateuch
Former Prophets
Latter Prophets
Writings
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
'Israel '
'Israelite '
'Egypt'
'Egyptian '
'Babylon '
0.82(2519)
0.74(591)
1.41 (980)
0.71 (508)
0.52 (440)
0.21 (43)
1.02(170)
0.61 (69)
1.44(237)
0.50 (72)
0.23(711)
0.47 (376)
0.13(88)
0.27(196)
0.06(51)
0.48 (99)
1.08(180)
0.10(12)
0.20 (33)
0.36(52)
0.09 (287)
0.00 (2)
0.05 (32)
0.29 (205)
0.05 (48)
0.01 (2)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.03(81)
0.00 (3)
0.01 (8)
0.08 (55)
0.02(15)
0.01 (3)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.05(166)
0.12(96)
0.07 (48)
0.01 (10)
0.01 (12)
0.28 (57)
0.07(12)
0.03 (3)
0.12(19)
0.03 (5)
0.09 (296)
0.01 (11)
0.32 (224)
0.03 (20)
0.05 (41)
0.04 (8)
0.02 (3)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
0.00 (0)
3. Based on Andersen & Forbes (1989), with the following modifications: figures
for 'poetry' and 'other writings' have been combined; occurrences of D'HUQ and "HUQ,
and ]U3D and n]i?]D, have been combined; and the five occurrences of "* b^lET and
eight occurrences of fl^S have been factored in. Densities are reported in occurrences
per 100 words. Numbers in brackets represent actual number of occurrences.
274
show the highest density in the Pentateuch, but are especially concentrated
in Genesis.
Table 2. 'Egypt' in the Books of the Pentateuch
Genesis
4
MT Occurrences of
\ OO
O'TiETTiD
Percentage of total occurrences 26
in the Pentateuch
Density of occurrences
0.48
(per 100 words)
LXX occurrences of A !(fAJJTTOf/iot 1 00
Percentage of total occurrences 26
in the Pentateuch
LXX pluses (chapter & verse)
47.5
47.6
47.23
25. 1 2
41.45
41.56b
Exodus
180
12
33
52
48
14
1.08
0.10
0.20
0.36
185
48
12
3
34
9
53
14
33.4
6.4
9.29
1.12
3.10
3.11
4.18b
7.11
8.3
ll.lOa
ll.lOb
18.8
40.15
8.1
9.22b
10.12b
10.13
18.10b
6.21b
4.
275
Appendix
Table 3. 'Egypt'In Genesis
Primeval
Cycle
1.1-11.32
Occurrences in MT/LXX
2/25
2
Percentage of total
occurrences in Genesis (MT/LXX)
Abraham
Cycle
12.1-25.18
14/13
Jacob
Cycle
25.19-36.43
1/1
Joseph
Cycle
37.1-50.26
83/84
14/13
83/84
Prologue 1.1-2.25
13/14
7.25/8
17/20
9.5/11
13/13
7.25/7
Plagues 7.8-11.10
54/54
30/29
Exodus 12.1-15.21
56/56
31/30
27/28
15/15
5. For these two occurrences on the Table of Nations, the LXX, rather than
translating D'HUQ as AiyuTTTO?/ioi, transliterates it as Meopai|j.
276
Sacrifices/
Priesthood
1.1-10.20
Occurrences in MT/LXX 0/0
Purity/
Atonement
11.1-16.34
1/1
11/11
Percentage of total
0/0
occurrences in Leviticus
8/8
92/92
0/0
0/0
(MT/LXX)
Explicit references to Egypt in Leviticus are few, and appear for the
most part in the Holiness Code. This code, significantly, focuses on behavioural prescriptions for the Israelite layperson that function to make
Israel distinct from other peoples.
Table 6. 'Egypt'in Numbers
Census I, preparation Wilderness
for leaving Sinai
wanderings II
1.1-10.10
10.11-25.18
Occurrences in
4/4
21/21
8/9
12/12
64/62
24/26
MT/LXX
Percentage of total
occurrences in
Numbers (MT/LXX)
5/5
9.5/9
43/44
82.5/83
3/3
6/6
1/1
2/2
(MT/LXX)
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'Levites and Priests', ABD IV: 297-310.
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'The Egyptian Sun-God Ra in the Pentateuch', Henoch 10: 3-15.
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'Is It Possible to Read Leviticus as a Separate Book?', in John F.A. Sawyer
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INDEXES
INDEX OF REFERENCES
BIBLE
Old Testament
Genesis
24, 25,
1.1-11.32
275
1-11
8
1
101
207
1.1
1.2
101
99
1.21
1.22
50
1.28
50
1.30
188
2.8
24
3
24, 29, 32
3.6
29,32
3.13
29
3.17
32
3.24
25
4.10
29
4.16
25
6-9
60
6.6-7
131
6.9
25
7.23
39
50
8.17
50
9.1
9.7
50
9.25
27
25,41,48
10
10.5
26
10.10
25
10.13-14
27
10.13
31
10.14
10.19
10.20
10.31
11.1-9
11.2
11.10-30
12
12.1-25.18
12.1-3
12.5
12.10-13.13
12.10-20
12.10
12.11-13
12.13
12.15
12.16
12.17
12.18
13
13.2
13.5-7
13.8-13
13.9
13.10
13.11
13.14
27
31
26
26
54
24,25
27
8,28,31,
56, 76,
145
24, 28,
275
28
29
28
24
13,28,29,
73
28
28, 162
29
28,29
28,34
29
28
29
29
30
107
12, 29, 76,
101, 188
107
107
14
15
15.1
15.7
15.13
15.16
15.18
16
16.1
16.2-3
16.3
16.6
16.7-12
16.10
16.13
17
17.1
17.2
17.6
17.8
17.9-14
17.12
17.15-22
17.18
17.20
17.23-27
18.16
19.24-28
19.28
20
20.1-18
242
196
37
141
131, 191
131
167
13,24,28,
31
32
32
32
32
32
50
32
97, 196
37
50
36,50
37,41,
192
84
126
32, 165
32
50
84
135
29
135
28,30,31
28
308
Genesis (cont.)
20.1
31
20.2
162
20.12
162
20.13
201
21
24,28,31,
66
21.8-14
165
21.9
32,35
32
21.10
21.11-14
32
21.14
201
21.21
33
21.22
31
21.32
31
50
22.17
23
199
23.4
41, 146
23.9
41
23.20
41
24
66, 242
24.1-67
33
24.21
35
24.40
35
24.42
35
24.56
35
34
25
25.1-6
33
25.2
65
25.4
65
25.9-10
199
25.12-18
33
25.12
32, 274
25.19-36.43 275
25.19
33
25.20
201
25.23
107,110
26
28,30,31,
66
26.1
31
26.2
31,33,40,
73
26.4
50
26.6-16
28
26.12-14
31
26.19-36.43 24
26.21-26
208
26.22
50
26.24
26.26
27.40
27.46
28.3
28.4
28.5
28.9
28.10-22
28.13
29
29.21-30
30.27
30.40
31
31.20
31.24
32.22-32
32.28
34.10
34.25-29
35.1-4
35.4
35.9-15
35.11
35.12
35.27-29
36.6-7
36.7
36.43
37.1-50.26
37.1
37.15
37.28
37.36
38.8
39.1-41.57
39.1
39.2-3
39.2
39.3-5
39.5
39.7
39.14
39.17
40.15
50
31
187
54
50
192
201
33
197
37
66
162
38
110
68
201
201
84
84
41
133
68
151
197
36, 37, 50
37
199
146
192
33
24, 34,
275
192
201
65, 142
65, 142
162
34
34, 73,
142
37
34,41
34
34
35
35, 176
35
176
41
41.1-57
41.8
41.24
41.35-36
41.37-57
41.38
41.44
41.45
41.48-49
41.51
41.52
41.56
42.1-47.12
42.2-3
42.7-8
43.32
44
44.5
44.15
44.18
45^7
45
45.1-2
45.3
45.4
45.7
45.8
45.9^7.12
45.10
45.13
45.18
45.20
46
46.2-4
46.3
46.4
47.5
47.6
46.6-7
46.8-27
46.20
46.26
46.27
46.28-29
5, 6, 36,
99
36
36, 101
36, 101
54
34
36
37
36, 63,
274
54
36,67
36,40
54, 274
37
73
38
38,39
38
38
38
38
13
38
38
37
37
38
38
34
39, 104
38
39
39
48, 50, 95
40
40
37,41
274
274
41
41,47,
200
41
48
41,48
104
Index of References
46.34
47
47.1
47.4
47.6
47.11
47.13-26
47.14-15
47.16-22
47.21
47.23-26
47.23
47.27-50.26
47.27-28
47.27
48.4
48.5
48.9
48.16
49
49.22
49.24
49.29-32
49.30
50.2-14
50.3
50.4-14
50.5
50.6
50.7
50.8
50.9
50.11
50.13
50.15-26
50.19
50.22-24
50.24-26
50.24
50.25
50.26
39, 104
76
104
104, 146
104
40,41,63,
132, 146
34,42
42
42
42
42
274
42
40
40-42, 50,
104, 132,
146
36,37,41,
50
43
43
93
48
40
151
43
41
43
43
42
43
43
43,74
40, 43,
104
43
44
41
34
37
44
42,44
181
134
44,49,51
Exodus
\-4
1-2
1
1.1-2.25
1.1-14
1.1-7
1.1-5
1.1
1.5
1.6
1.7-8
1.7
1.8-14
1.8
1.9-11
1.9-10
1.9
1.10
1.11-14
1.11-12
1.11
1.12-13
1.12
1.13-14
1.14
1.15-22
1.15-19
1.15-16
1.15
1.16
1.17
85
69
55, 58, 95
46, 47, 85,
275
69
47,49-51,
53,69
47-49, 59
47,49
47, 48,
200
49,61
61
49, 50, 52,
76, 104,
160,200
51,55
49, 51, 54,
69
54
52, 54, 56,
57, 63, 73,
74,86
52, 58, 76,
87
50, 52, 53,
63
191
145
53, 54, 56,
76, 105,
199
63
54, 76,
160, 274
54,76
123
55,63
86
56
53, 55, 57,
88
55,76
68, 70,
135
309
1.18
1.19
1.20-21
1.20
1.21
1.22
2-4
2
2.1-10
2.1-2
2.1
2.3
2.4
2.6
2.7-9
2.7
2.10-11
2.11-15
2.11
2.12
2.13-14
2.13
2.14-18
2.15-22
2.15-21
2.15
2.17
2.18
2.19
2.21
2.22
2.23-4.18
2.23-25
2.23-24
2.23
2.24-25
2.24
2.25
3^
3
64
55,57
68
58, 70, 76
58, 70,
135
56, 58, 60,
76
66
33, 55-58,
68
59,63
60
59,80
60
60
55
59,62
55
62
63, 64, 83
55, 63, 64,
66, 76,
191
65
81,181
55,64
95
65
81
64,65
67
83
66, 176
67
96, 170
83
68
76
68, 70, 83,
123
68
69, 70,
196
70
132, 152
86, 242
310
Exodus (cont.)
3.1-4.31
70, 85,
275
3.1
73,82
3.6
70-72, 81,
93, 135,
152
3.7-12
152
3.7-9
191
3.7
68, 74, 76
3.8
73, 76, 93,
117,181
3.9
74, 145
3.10
72, 74, 93,
149
3.11
75,81,93,
274
3.12
73,81,93,
117, 149,
262
3.13-15
72
3.13
71, 72, 75,
81
3.14
70,71
3.15-16
152
3.15
70-72,81,
93
3.16-18
82
3.16-17
72
3.16
70, 72, 74,
81,93,
129
3.17-18
117
3.17
76, 181
3.18
72-74,
117, 129
3.19
72
3.20
72
3.21-22
72, 75, 94,
104, 133,
151
3.22
75, 134,
153
4
80, 86,
142
4.1-9
72, 82,
173
4.1-5
99
4.1
4.2-9
4.5
4.8-9
4.8
4.10
4.13
4.14-16
4.14
4.16
4.17
4.18
4.19
4.20
4.21-23
4.21
4.22-23
4.22
4.23
4.24-26
4.24
4.25
4.26
4.27
4.28
4.29-33
4.29-30
4.29
4.30
4.31
5-14
5
5.1-7.7
5.1-5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4-23
72,81
81
70, 72, 93
82
93
97
79
80
60,80
79-81,97
82
82, 83,
274
82,83
82, 83, 96
77
72, 73, 82,
95
109, 128
72, 77, 92,
124, 129
73, 77, 82,
84
61, 83, 84,
97, 127
82-84
83
83,84
73,82
82
90
78
129
82
78, 130,
135, 173,
191
85
85, 97,
132
85, 275
86
92, 114
86,91,
113, 114,
117
90,92
191
5.4
5.5
5.6-14
5.6
5.7
5.9
5.10
5.11
5.12
5.13-14
5.15-18
5.15-16
5.15
5.16
5.19-23
5.19
5.21
5.22-23
5.22
5.23
6
6.1
6.2-8
6.2
6.3-4
6.3
6.4
6.6-9
6.6-7
6.6
6.7
6.8
6.9
6.11-13
6.12
6.13
6.14-25
6.14-15
6.16-25
6.16-20
6.20
86
86,87
86,88
86,88
86
86, 123
86, 88, 92
123
86, 104
88
86
88
88
88, 114
86
92, 101
90,92
92,95
88, 129
93
86, 95, 97,
242
67,90,91,
114, 130
92
86, 93,
139
196
92
192
191
152
93, 123,
139
93, 94,
113, 141
93, 139
123
95
97
94
95
95
60, 95,
170
131
59, 60,
162
Index of References
6.26-30
6.26-27
6.26
6.28
6.29
6.30
7-10
7-9
7.1
7.3
7.4-5
7.4
7.5
7.7
7.8-11.10
7.8-13
7.9-12
7.11
7.12
7.13-14
7.13
7.15
7.16
7.17
7.19
7.20
7.21-22
7.21
7.22
7.24
7.25
7.26-29
7.26
7.27
7.28
7.29
8.1-4
8.1
8.2
95
95,96
129
92
139
97
85
36
79,96
115
139
129, 152
94, 95,
113,139,
141
60,86
85, 98,
275
99
74
99, 274
99
115
73,86
74,99
114
74, 91, 92,
113,139
74, 100102
74
100
99, 102
73, 99,
115
99, 100,
102
92
105
114
102
50, 88,
100
88
105
1 14, 274
102
8.3
8.4-5
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8-9
8.8
8.9-10
8.9
8.10
8.11
8.12-13
8.12
8.13-14
8.13
8.14
8.15
8.16-28
8.16-19
8.16-18
8.16-17
8.16
8.17
8.18-19
8.18
8.19
8.20-32
99, 100,
274
120
100, 105
88, 105
105, 106,
113
88, 99,
100, 105
120
100, 105,
120
100
102, 105
91, 102,
105, 106,
113
105, 115
102
74, 120
100
74, 102,
103
99, 100,
102
73, 100,
115
130
105
112
102
92, 114
50, 88,
102, 103
102, 106,
109,110
40, 50, 99,
100, 103,
104, 107,
112,113,
119
98, 100,
106, 10810,113,
115, 128,
147
130
311
8.20-23
8.20
8.21
8.22-23
8.22
8.23
8.24-25
8.24
8.25
8.26
8.27
8.28-29
8.28
8.29
8.31
8.32
9.1-4
9.1
9.4
9.5
9.6-7
9.6
9.7
9.8-12
9.9
9.11
9.12
9.13-19
9.13
9.14
105,112
103, 112,
114
106,114,
120
102, 106,
109,110
91, 103,
104, 106,
107,11214, 117119
98, 106,
108-10,
113,114,
128, 147
120
103, 106,
112,115
106, 114,
117, 120
106,114,
117, 118
114,135
120
106, 115
117
135
115
112
92, 114
98, 102,
106, 107,
110, 113,
129, 147
103
102, 112
103
115, 129
120
103
100, 103
73, 115
105
92, 114
88,91,
113, 119
312
Exodus (cont.)
9.15
115, 119
9.16-17
115
9.16
119
9.18
113
9.19-21
103
9.20
120, 125,
135
9.22
103, 274
9.23
74, 120
9.24-25
103
9.24
103
9.25
103
9.26
40, 50,
102, 103
9.27
115, 120
9.28-29
120
9.28
105, 115
9.29
91, 113,
119
9.30
88, 117,
120
9.31-32
103
9.33
120
9.34
115, 121
9.35
73, 115
10.1
115, 116,
121
10.2
91, 113,
116, 139
10.3
92, 114,
116, 120
10.5-6
103
10.6
50, 88,
113
10.7
113,121
10.8-11
114, 117
10.8
91, 106
10.10
101
10.12
274
10.13
74, 245,
274
10.14-15
103
106
10.16-17
10.16
115, 120
10.17-18
120
10.18
120
10.19
135,245
10.20
10.22
10.23
10.24
10.25-26
10.26
10.27
10.28
10.29
11.1-3
11.1
11.2-3
11.2
11.3
11.4-8
11.4
11.6
11.7
11.8
11.9
11.10
12-14
12-13
12.1-15.21
12.1-28
12.1-13
12.1
12.2
12.3-4
12.3
12.6
12.7
12.12-13
12.12
73, 115
103
102-104
91, 114
106, 114
118
73, 114,
115
114
112
112
67, 114,
130
75, 94,
104, 116,
133, 151
75
112
112, 113,
120
92, 119
103
91,98,
102, 103,
106, 107,
110, 113,
121, 128,
129, 147
88, 112
116
73, 115,
120, 274
129
140
85, 122,
275
122
123
120
122
124
124, 129,
136, 186,
191
129
104, 124
104
101, 122,
12.13
12.14-20
12.14
12.15
12.17-20
12.17
12.18
12.19
12.21-27
12.21
12.22
12.23
12.24
12.25
12.26-27
12.26
12.27
12.28
12.29
12.30
12.31
12.32
12.33
12.34
12.35-36
12.35
12.36
12.37
12.38
12.39
12.40-41
12.40
12.41
128, 138,
139, 142
124, 170
123
123, 186,
191
125, 126,
129
125
129
237
126, 129,
146, 190
102, 104,
123
124, 129
124
124
123
123
123
123
79, 124,
130
120
103, 125
125
91, 148
115, 136
91, 121,
135
125, 126
75, 94,
104, 116,
133, 151
75
133, 134,
153
50, 129
130, 131,
139, 164,
168, 177
67,114,
125, 130,
187
50
59, 131
126, 129
Index of References
12.43-49
12.44
12.45
12.46
12.47
12.48
12.49
12.51
13
13.1-16
13.1-2
13.2-10
13.3-5
13.3-10
13.3
13.5
13.6-7
13.7
13.8
13.9
13.11-16
13.11
13.12-16
13.12
13.13
13.14-15
13.14
13.15
13.16
13.17-14.31
13.17-18
13.17
13.18
13.19
13.21-22
14-15
14
122, 123,
126, 127
127
126
127
124, 127,
129
97, 127,
190
127, 146,
190
126, 129
80
123
122, 128
122
209
123, 128
13, 125,
134, 144
76, 123,
134, 181
125
126
123, 141,
169
123, 128
122, 128
123, 134
109
108
94, 109
109, 123,
128, 169
13, 134,
144
94, 108,
109, 141
123, 128
46
43, 131
134, 184
130
134
134, 147
61
60, 80, 85,
135
14.4-9
14.4
14.5
14.8
14.9
14.10-14
14.10-12
14.10
14.11-12
14.11
14.13
14.16
14.17-18
14.17
14.18
14.19-20
14.19
14.20
14.23-28
14.23
14.24
14.25
14.26
14.27
14.28-29
14.28
14.30-31
14.30
14.31
15
15.1-21
15.1-8
15.4
15.9
15.11
15.13-18
135
73,91,
113, 115,
116, 134,
135, 139
76, 129,
130
73, 115,
130, 134
135
137, 177
184
73, 135
132, 133,
135, 139
132, 133
135, 185
74
134, 135
91, 115,
116, 134,
135
113, 139
134, 147
129, 149,
197
105, 129,
134
135
135
135, 147
135
135
135
136
135
129
113, 135,
180
79, 130,
135, 173
139
85
136
46, 136
134
138
136
313
15.13
15.19
15.20
15.22-40.38
15.22-25
15.22
15.24
15.25
15.26
16
16.2-30
16.2-3
16.2
16.3
16.4-8
16.4
16.6
16.7-8
16.12-14
16.12
16.19
16.20
16.23
16.27
16.28-29
16.32-34
17
17.1-7
17.1-3
17.2
17.3
17.4
17.5-6
17.6
17.7
17.8-16
17.9-14
18
18.1
18.2-6
18.2-4
18.2
18.3-4
18.8
18.9-11
18.10
18.11
93
136
60,97
137,275
177
85
138, 149
138
138, 153
13, 139
177
184
139, 149
139, 141,
149
140
140
140, 149
149
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
139
172, 177
184
141, 149
141, 149
141
141
173
141, 149
142
171
33, 64, 66
141
83
66
66, 142
96, 170
274
142
142, 274
142
314
Exodus (cont.)
18.12
142
142
18.13-26
18.20
60
18.27
142
143, 158
19
19.3
148
19.4
144
19.5-6
144
19.5
154
19.7-8
143
19.8
144
19.9
147
19.12-13
149
19.19
173
19.20-24
149
20
143, 209
20.2
13, 134,
141, 144,
186, 191,
194
20.8-11
140
197
20.16
21.2-11
55
108
21.7-11
94
21.8
21.28-32
94, 108
144, 190
22.20
22.21
144, 190
22.28
108
23.3
201
23.9
144, 190
23.14-17
166
23.15
166
23.17
117
23.18
125
23.20-23
149, 197
23.23-33
147
23.31
126, 137,
167
24
143
24.2
153
24.3
143
24.7
143
24.9-1 1
153
24.13
171
24.15-18
153
25.1-31.18
147
25.8
29.44-45
29.45-46
29.46
31.12-17
31.13
31.18
32-34
32
32.1-34.35
32.1-34.18
32.1-6
32.1
32.4
32.7-14
32.7-10
32.7
32.8
32.10
32.11
32.12-14
32.12
32.17
32.20
32.21
32.24
32.25-29
32.32-33
32.34
32.35
33.1
33.2-3
33.2
33.3
33.4-6
33.6
33.7-11
33.7
33.9
33.11
33.12-17
33.12
33.13
33.15-16
33.16
148
148
150
141, 144,
148
140
139
100
147
173
147
150
177
150, 151
151
171
151
149, 151
151
198
141,152
131, 152
152, 199
171
152
101
153
152
153
149, 153
153
152, 153
76, 197
149, 153,
154
153,181
153
153
155
147
147
153,171
154
153
153, 154
153
107, 110,
147, 153
33.17
33.20
33.23
34.1
34.9
34.10
34.11-26
34.11
34.18-23
34.18
34.19-20
34.19
34.20
34.23
34.24
34.25
34.27-28
34.27
34.29-35
35.1-^0.33
35.2-3
38.18-22
39.3-24
39.32
40.2
40.6
40.8-27
40.15
40.29
40.34-38
40.38
154
153
153
196
154
154
147
154
166
166
109
108
94, 109
117
126
125
154
154
154
147
140
208
208
148
148
148
208
274
148
147
148
Leviticus
1.1-10.20
1.13-15
1.17-2.1
2.11
6.17
7.13
8.18
8.22
9.4
9.6
9.7
11
11.1-16.34
11.7
11.9
276
208
208
125, 126
125
125
111
111
111
111
111
160
276
111
111
315
Index of References
11.15
11.41-42
11.44-45
11.45
13.47-59
16.29
17-26
17.1-26.46
17.8-16
17.8-15
17.15
18
18.2-4
18.3
18.9
18.11
18.12
18.16
18.18
18.23
18.24-30
18.26
19.10
19.18
19.19
19.20
19.26
19.33-34
19.34
19.36
20
20.2
20.17
20.19
20.21
20.23
20.24-26
20.24
20.26
22.18-20
22.21
22.33
23
23.4
23.17
130
160
160
144, 181
130
146, 190
158
276
146, 190
190
146, 190
162
161
161
162
162
96, 162
162
162
162
161
146, 190
190
190
163
108
38
190
146, 190,
191, 193
144, 162,
163
161, 162
190
162
96, 162
162
54, 162
107
162, 181
162
190
110
144, 162,
163
165, 166
165
125
23.22
23.34
23.37-38
23.39-43
23.39
23.42-43
24.2
24.10-23
24.10
24.11
24.12
24.16-22
24.16
24.22
25
25.6
25.10
25.13
25.14
25.15
25.17
25.23
25.24-34
25.24
25.25-28
25.25
25.27
25.28
25.29-30
25.32
25.33
25.34
25.35
25.36-37
25.36
25.38
25.39-41
25.39
25.40
25.41-42
25.41
25.42
25.44-46
25.44
25.45
190
166
165
166
166
165
146
163, 168
164
163
163
190
164, 190
164, 190
192, 194
192
192
192
193
193
193
190, 19294
110
192
193
192, 193
192
192
194
192
192
192
190, 192,
193
194
193
144, 194
193
192, 193
192
194
192
187, 19294
193
192
192
26
26.11-13
26.13
26.34
26.42
26.44-45
26.44
26.45
27
27.1-34
27.3-8
27.26
27.27
192, 193
94, 110
190, 192,
193
193
192
192
187, 193,
194
186, 195
186, 194
144
195
196
196
196
196
110
276
109
108
109
Numbers
1
1.1-10.10
1.3
1.45
1.46
1.47-49
1.48-53
2.33
3
3.1
3.11-13
3.12
3.13
3.14-4.49
3.15
3.41
3.44-51
3.45
3.46-48
4.3
4.23
4.30
4.39
4.43
159
276
169
169
130
169
169
169
170
170
109
169
169
169
169
169
109
169
169
169
169
169
169
169
25.46
25.47-55
25.47
25.48
25.50
25.53
25.55
316
Numbers (cont.)
4.47
169
5
152
211
6.24-26
8.5-15
169
8.14
170
8.16-18
169
8.17
169
8.19
169, 170
9
163
9.6-14
163
9.14
146, 190
10.11-25.18 276
10.29-32
66
10.29-30
142
10.29
83
11-21
137
11
13, 173
11.1
177
11.4-6
178, 184
131, 168,
11.4
177, 178
188
11.5
178
11.7-8
198
11.11-15
198
11.12
178
11.13
184
11.18-20
178
11.18
11.20
178, 179
171
11.28
11.33
173, 179
12
60,96
171
12.1
172
12.6-8
13-14
172, 174,
199
179
13.1-25
108
13.12
108
13.15
13.22
199
182
13.23
179
13.26-27
181
13.27
179
13.28-29
179
13.31-33
14
139, 168,
198
14.1-4
14.2-4
14.3-4
14.4
14.6
14.8
14.11-19
14.11
14.12
14.13
14.16
14.20-35
14.22-24
14.24
14.29-35
14.29
14.30
14.32
14.33
14.35
14.38
15.13-14
15.29
15.30
15.32-36
15.41
16-17
16
16.1
16.12-14
16.12
16.13-14
16.13
16.14
16.23-35
16.41-50
17
18.15-18
18.15
18.16
18.17-18
20
20.2-13
20.2-5
20.2-3
20.3-5
184
179
184
184
172
181
171
173
198
199
199
168
168
172
168
180
172
180
180
180
172
190
146, 190
130, 190
163
144, 162,
167
174
139
180
184
181
180
76, 181
181
181
181
139
169
108
109
108
13
172, 174,
175
184
182
182
20.5
20.8
20.10
20.11
20.12
20.14-21
20.15-16
20.16
20.24
21.5
21.6-7
21.6
21.7-11
21.8-9
22-24
22.3
22.5
22.7
22.11
22.29
23.22
24.8
25
26
26.1-36.13
26.3-4
26.4
26.51
26.59
26.64-65
26.65
27
27.1-11
27.14
27.18-23
31
32.12
33
33.1
33.4
34.5
35
35.31
188
173
173
173
173, 182
182
197
149
173
182, 184
182
183
108
183
197
54
197
74
197
116
197
197
66, 110
48, 159,
168, 170,
183
276
168
168
130
59, 96,
171
168
172
163
163
173
172
66, 133,
142
172
167
129
128, 130,
274
167
94
94
Index of References
Deuteronomy
1.1-4.43
1.5
1.8
1.19-40
1.22-40
1.26
1.27
1.32
1.36
1.37-38
1.37
1.38
1.43
2.16
3-32
3.26
3.27-28
3.27
4.20
4.21
4.26-31
4.32
4.34
4.37
4.44-28.68
4.44-26.19
5
5.3
5.6
5.15
6.4
6.10
6.12
6.20-25
6.21
6.22
7-9
7.8
159,276
215
203
174, 183
172
173
183
173
172, 174
176
159, 174
174
173
169
209
159, 174
176
174
189
159, 175,
176
250
196
73, 175,
200
200
159,276
159
209
169
13, 134,
141, 144,
186, 187,
191, 194
187, 194
274
203
13, 134,
144, 186,
187, 191,
194
200
187, 194,
274
73, 168
209
13, 109,
7.18-19
7.18
7.19
8.14
9.5
9.7
9.10
9.23-24
9.23
9.24
9.26
9.27
9.28
9.29
10.2
10.10
10.19
10.22
11.2-7
11.4
11.7
11.10
11.11
11.14
13.5
13.6
13.10
13.11
14.1
14.14
14.21
15.12-18
15.12
134, 144,
186, 187,
191, 194
168
188
73
13, 134,
144, 186,
187, 191,
194
203
173, 183
100
173
173
183
109
203
183
274
196
196
195
48
200
168
209
169
188
188
188
109, 186,
187, 194
13, 109,
134, 144,
186, 187,
191, 194
186, 187,
194
13, 134,
144, 186,
187, 191,
194
77
130
146
75, 116
75
317
15.15
16
16.1
16.3
16.6
16.9
16.12
16.16
17.14-20
17.16
18.10
18.15
19
19.14
21.8
21.17
22.3
22.11
22.19
22.29
23-28
23.2-3
23.3-4
23.7-8
23.7
23.8-9
23.8
23.26
24.1
24.3
24.18
24.22
25.5-10
25.6
25.17-19
26
26.1-11
26.5-9
26.6-7
26.8
26.14-15
27.1-31.30
27.9
28.15-68
109, 187,
194
166
166
125, 166,
187, 191
166
237, 247
166, 187,
194
117
184
185
38
175
94, 110
196
109
77
201
163
114
114
209
195
195
195
195
195
195
209
66
66
109, 187,
194
187, 194
162
77
195
191,256
200
145, 200
191
73, 175
209
159
9
185
318
Deuteronomy
28.26
28.27
28.36-37
28.43
28.46
28.60
28.63-67
28.68
28.69-32.52
29-32
29.1-2
29.1
29.2-3
29.2
29.12
29.16
29.27
30.1-5
30.1
30.4
30.15-20
30.20
31.2-3
31.2
31.9-13
31.14
31.23
31.27
32.1-34.12
32.5-6
32.8
32.12
32.18-20
32.27
32.50-52
32.51
33
33.1-34.12
33.1-12
34.1-12
34.1-8
34.5
34.7
34.10-12
34.11-12
34.11
Joshua
5.2-7
8.34
9
9.18
10.41
11.16
15.4
15.5
15.47
15.51
24.1-4
24.14
24.17
84
215
131
139
39, 105
39, 105
167
39
167
105
68
68,71
186, 187
Judges
2.1-5
2.14
3.12-30
4.21
5.28
6.8
6.11-24
8.24-27
8.24
14.3
18.7
18.30
19.25
149
100
151
99
150
187
79
151
34
61
89
96, 170
116
1 Samuel
18.18
12.2
12.26-29
12.28
14.11
16.4
16.21
21.2
21.24
151
151
151
111
111
51
188
111
2 Kings
12.11
18.27
23.1-3
23.6
23.25
23.28-36
24.7
176
189
247
152
215
234
167
1 Chronicles
5.27
6.1
6.16
17.16
23
23.15-17
26.24-28
29.14
96
96
96
81
170
96
96
81
2 Chronicles
2.6
34.29-33
81
247
Ezra
1.1-4
1.8
1.11
2.2
3.2
4.2
4.3
5.14
5.16
6.3-5
6.6-12
6.15
6.19-22
6.21
7
226
226
226
51,226
230
226
226
226
226
226
226
226
131
131
215
81
2 Samuel
7.18
13-14
19.41
81
94
51
1 Kings
8.45
8.51
10
10.15
10.26
10.28-29
11.14-22
11.25
11.26-40
167
189
61
130
185
185
64, 151
54
64, 151
Index of References
7.6
7.7-8
7.10
7.12
7.14
7.21
7.25
7.26
9-10
13.9
230
216
230
230
230
230
230
223, 230
215,236
230
Nehemiah
1.9
2.19
6.1-2
6.6
7.7
8-10
8.1-8
8.1
8.8
8.13-18
8.13
8.14
9.1-2
9.2
9.3
9.7
9.10
9.36-37
10
10.3
10.29
10.35
10.37
12.47
13
13.3
250
105
105
105
51,226
215
247
230
230
166
230
230
166
126
230
141
142
247
215
230
230
230
230
226
215,236
130
Job
1.9
178
Psalms
4.3
4.4
17.7
20
20.2-6
107
107
107
243
242
74.13
78
105
106
136
139.14
99
258
259
258, 259
258
107
Proverbs
22.17-24.22
Isaiah
1.24
6.2
6.6
14.29
27.1
30.6
31.1
36.12
151
183
183
183
99
183
185
189
Jeremiah
1.6
2.20
5.5
8.5
9.25-26
11.4
11.18-12.6
15.10-21
16.15
25.20
25.24
26.20-23
27-28
27
28
31.9
32.14
34.13
36.28
38
40-^3
44.1
50.37
52.30
79
187
187
89
61
189
79
79
250
130
130
64
187
187
187,249
77
212
187
196
249
235
234
130
250
Lamentations
3.39
177
319
Ezekiel
10-11
17.15
20
20.7-8
29.16
29.17-20
30.5
32
34.27
44
74
185
258
68, 71
185
250
130
97
187
97
Daniel
1-2
36, 99
Hosea
8.13
9.3
11.1
11.5
12
12.6-7
186
186
77
186
258,259
259
Jonah
1.1-10
79
Haggai
1.1
1.12
1.14
2.2
2.23
226
226
226
226
226
Zechariah
4.6
4.7
4.9
4.10
14.16-19
226
226
226
226
166
Apocrypha and
Pseudipigrapha
1 Maccabees
1.55-56
216
2 Maccabees
1.1-9
238,254
1.10-2.18
216
320
2 Maccabees (cont.)
2.13
216
2.14
216
Ben Sira
44-^9
44-^5
44.16
44.17-18
44.19-21
44.22
44.23
45.1-5
45.6-26
46-49
49.14
49.15
49.16
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
217
Qumran
CD VII
30
46
176
19
19
19
Talmuds
b. Git.
60a
Midrash
Deut. R.
2.8
Philo
Aet. Mund.
19
2.238-253
10.180-182
53
250
Apion
1.1
1.37-41
2.152
286
199
19
199
62
Papyri
Cowley (Cowley, 1923)
7
239
8-9
236
14
236
21
237
22
236
26
244
27
239
30-31
235
30-33
239
32
238
33
238
34
239
35
239
38
237, 239
44
236
56
239
B7.3
Bll
B13
B15-17
B15
B 19-22
B 19-20
B21
B22
B25-26
B45
B50
B51
C1.3
C3.15
236
244
237
239
237
239
235
238
238
236
240
239
239
237
236
Kraeling (Kraeling,
1953)
12
239
13
240
Papyrus Amherst
63
242
Other Ancient Sources
Aristobulus
3.2
19
20
176
19
Vit. Mos.
1.17
1.143
62
102
Josephus
Ant.
2.13.279
2.228
73
62
Diodorus Siculus,
Bib. Hist.
40.03
219
40
259
Letter ofAristeas
13
234
30
218
310-31
218
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Ackerman, S. 236
Aharoni, Y. 5
Albright, W.F. 24,209
Alexander, P.S. 2,26
Andersen, F.I. 273,274
Avi-Yonah, M. 5
Avigad,N. 186
Caird,G.B. 218
Callaway, P.R. 216
Carr, D. 215,217
Carroll, R.P. 6,234,264
Carter, C.E. 227,245,246
Cassin, E. 6
Cassuto, U. 56, 66, 67, 72, 73, 88, 89, 9193, 101, 112, 127, 129, 130,246
Ceray, J. 162
Chan,K.-K. 160
Childs,B.S. 71, 102, 112
Christensen, D.L. 159
Clements, R.E. 234, 235, 238
Clines, D.J.A. 9,28
Coats, G.W. 5, 116, 176
Cohen, A.P. 11
Cohen, R. 9, 11
Cohen, SJ.D. 120, 164
Cohn,R.L. 7, 16
Cook, J.M. 228,231
Coote, R.B. 3
Couroyer, B. 100
Cowley,A. 235-39,244
Crawford, S.W. 209
Crenshaw, J.L. 5,258
Cross, P.M. 17,48,208,209
Crusemann, F. 215,223
Cryer,F.H. 222
Currid,J.D. 24
322
Galpaz, P. 151
Galpaz-Feller, P. 97
Garsiel, M. 96
Geller, S. 15
Gerstenberger, E.S. 160, 167, 195, 196
Giveon, R. 4
Goldin,J. 176
Goldstein, J.A. 260
Gordon, C.H. 86
G6rg,M. 4,6,7,24,31,185,249
Gottwald, N.K. 124,223
Gould, P. 8
Grabbe, L.L. 223, 229, 252-54
Greenfield, J.C. 241
Greenspahn, F.E. 78,84
Greenstein, E.L. 16
Griffiths, J.G. 63
Groenewegen-Frankfort, H.A. 6
Guggenheimer, H. 202
Hall,R.G. 62
Hallo, W.W. 5
Hamilton, M.W. 237,243
Handy, L.K. 151
Haran,M. 20,47,211,212
Harris, M. 161
Harrison, C.R. Jr. 253
Hasel, M.G. 3
Hayes, J.H. 235,250
Healey,J.P. 87
Hengstenberg, E.W. 2
Herion,G.A. 143
Herzog, Z. 229
Hesse, B. 161
Hoffmeier, J.K. 240
Hoglund,K.G. 223,229,230,251,257
Holladay, C.R. 79,199,266
Holladay, W.L. 249
Holscher, G. 5
Hooker, P.K. 167
Horbury,W. 234,262
Houtman, C. 58, 61, 71, 73, 75, 76, 79,
80, 99, 272
Huffmon,H.B. 1
Humphreys, W.L. 3, 5
Irwin, D. 99
Index of Authors
Jameson, F. 51
Jamieson-Drake, D.W. 212,213,250
Janzen, J.G. 201
Jobling,D. 6,9,21
Johnson, J.H. 227
Jones, R.N. 235
Josipovici, G. 7
Judd,E.P. 264
Jull,A.J.T. 208,212
Kaiser, O. 231,233
Kallai,Z. 5
Kasher,A. 53
Keel,O. 6
Kellerman, D. 125, 126
Kennedy, C.A. 132
Kissling, PJ. 172
Kitchen, K.A. 3,5
Klein, R.W. 48
Knauf,E.A. 221
Knight, G.A.F. 116
Kornfeld,W. 234,240
Kraeling, E.G. 239,240
Kristeva, J. 136
Kuemmerlin-McLean, J.K. 36
Kuhrt,A. 226,250
LaCapra, D. 14, 15
Lambdin,T.O. 4,163
Larsson, G. 211
Latham, J.E. 126
Leclant, J. 6
Leibowitz,N. 58,65
Lemaire, A. 212
Lemche,N.P. 7,55,224,251
Levenson, J.D. 6, 77, 187, 216
Lewis, D.M. 234
Lindenberger, J.M. 237, 239-42
Lloyd, A.B. 250
Loewenstamm, S.E. 17, 176
Lohfink,N. 203
Loretz, O. 214
Lott,J.K. 234
Lundbom, J.R. 234
Magonet, J. 56
Malamat, A. 3,249
Mandell, S. 220,221
323
Mann, T.W. 9
Matthews, K.A. 209
McCarthy, D.J. 85
McNutt,P. 189
Meeks,W.A. 149
Meinhold, A. 258
Mendenhall, G.E. 66, 143
Meyers, C.L. 226
Meyers, E.M. 226,227
Michalowski, P. 7
Milgrom,J. 180, 183, 199
Milik,J.T. 210,212,219
Millard,A.R. 21,213
Miller, J.M. 21,235,250
Miller, P.O. 159, 195,200
Moberly, R.W.L. 93,154
Modrzejewski, J.M. 53, 234, 236, 238,
252
Moore, C.A. 238
Na'aman,N. 3, 167,213
Nibbi,A. 4
Nielsen, F.A.J. 220,221
Niemann, H.M. 6
Nims, C.F. 243
Nohrnberg, J. 57,265
North, R. 5
Noth,M. 21, 63, 67, 96, 112, 176
Noy, D. 234,262
O'Connor, M. 58,89, 133
Ollenburger, B.C. 6
Olson, D.T. 159, 170, 173
Orlinsky, H.M. 217
Parker, S.B. 16
Peet, I.E. 2
Petrie, W.M.F. 2
Pitard,W.T. 202
Plumley,J.M. 1
Pollak, E. 17
Poole,J.B. 212
Porten,B. 234-41,244
Provan, I.W. 251
Purvis, J.D. 217
Pury,A.de 215,258,259
Quaegebeur, J. 4
324
Stea, D. 7
Steinberg, N. 27,30,41
Steiner, R.C. 243
Steinmann, A.E. 48
Steinmetz, D. 27
Stern, M. 91,219,220,234,241,252,
259,266
Stewart, D. 21
Stiebing, W.H. 3
Stolper,M.W. 251
Talmon, S. 3, 73
Tate,W.R. 15
Taylor, J.G. 4
Tcherikover, V.A. 234,241,252
Thompsons. 99
Thompson, T.L. 14, 70, 119, 224, 242
Tobin,V.A. 5
Tov,E. 18,20, 170,210
Trible,P. 32
Turner, V. 66, 189
Uehlinger,C. 222
Ulrich,E. 208-11
Unterman, J. 93,94
Uphill, E.P. 105
Van Daalen, D.H. 48
VanderKam, J.C. 210,212,217-19
VanSeters,J. 31,207,220,258
Vaux,R. de 116,161
Vergote, J. 3,5
Vos, G. de 9
Wacholder, B.Z. 248
Wallace, H.N. 25
Waltke,B.K. 58,89,133,217
Ward,W.A. 104
Watts, J.W. 247,248,262
Weinberg, J.P. 246,247
Weinstein, J. 3
Wenham, G. 30-32, 48, 160,206
Wesselius, J.W. 221
Westermann, C. 5, 6, 38, 42, 48
Wevers,J.W. 18,29
White, H. 14, 15
White, H.C. 20
White, R. 8
Index of Authors
White, S. 210
Whitt, W.D. 259
Whybray,R.N. 5,21,206,207
Wiggins, S.A. 4
Williams, R.J. 3,4
Williamson, H.G.M. 216, 226, 230
Wimmer, S. 4
Wurthwein,E. 207-209,212
Wyatt,N. 6
Yahuda,A.S. 2
Yardeni,A. 235-40,244
Yurco,F.J. 62
Zadok,R. 63,96
Zagorin, P. 15
Zeder, M. 161
Zevit,Z. 243
Zivie-Coche, C. 252
325
195 Jon Davies, Graham Harvey and Wilfred G.E. Watson (eds.), Words Remembered, Texts Renewed: Essays in Honour of John F.A. Sawyer
196 Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible
197 William M. Schniedewind, The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to
Exegete in the Second Temple Period
198 T.J. Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison
199 J.H. Eaton, Psalms of the Way and the Kingdom: A Conference with the
Commentators
200 M. Daniel Carroll R., David J. A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Bible in
Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson
201 John W. Rogerson, The Bible and Criticism in Victorian Britain: Profiles ofF.D.
Maurice and William Robertson Smith
202 Nanette Stahl, Law and Liminality in the Bible
203 Jill M. Munro, Spikenard and Saffron: The Imagery of the Song of Songs
204 Philip R. Davies, Whose Bible Is It Anyway?
205 David J.A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of
the Hebrew Bible
206 M0gens Muller, The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint
207 John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible
in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium
208 Beverly J. Stratton, Out of Eden: Reading, Rhetoric, and Ideology in Genesis 2-3
209 Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, Political Rhetoric: The Case ofAthaliah
and Joash
210 Jacques Berlinerblau, The Vow and the 'Popular Religious Groups' of Ancient
Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry
211 Brian E. Kelly, Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles
212 Yvonne Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea's Marriage in
Literary- Theoretical Perspective
213 Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection: The Book of Job in Context
214 Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah
215 J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical
Women
216 Judith E. McKinlay, Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat and
Drink
217 Jerome F.D. Creach, Yahweh as Refuge and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter
218 Harry P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition, and the PostCritical Interpretation of the Psalms
219 Gerald Morris, Prophecy, Poetry and Hosea
220 Raymond F. Person, Jr, In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis,
Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah
221 Gillian Keys, The Wages of Sin: A Reappraisal of the 'Succession Narrative'
222 R.N. Whybray, Reading the Psalms as a Book
223 Scott B. Noegel, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job
224 Paul J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History: Profiles of Moses,
Joshua, Elijah and Elisha
225 Richard D. Weis and David M. Carr (eds.), A Gift of God in Due Season: Essays
on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A. Sanders
226 Lori L. Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis
227 John F.A. Sawyer (ed.), Reading Leviticus: Responses to Mary Douglas
228 Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite
States
229 Stephen Breck Reid (ed.), Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M.
Tucker
230 Kevin J. Cathcart and Michael Maher (eds.), Targumic and Cognate Studies:
Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara
231 Weston W. Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical
Narrative
232 Tilde Binger, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament
233 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms ofAsaph and the Pentateuch: Studies in the
Psalter, III
234 Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History
235 James W. Watts and Paul House (eds.), Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on
Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts
236 Thomas M. Bolin, Freedom beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Reexamined
237 Neil Asher Silberman and David B. Small (eds.), The Archaeology of Israel:
Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present
238 M. Patrick Graham, Kenneth G. Hoglund and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), The
Chronicler as Historian
239 Mark S. Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus
240 Eugene E. Carpenter (ed.), A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and
Content. Essays in Honor of George W. Coats
241 Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
242 K.L. Noll, The Faces of David
243 Henning Graf Reventlow (ed.), Eschatology in the Bible and in Jewish and
Christian Tradition
244 Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in
Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete
245 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?
246 Gillian M. Bediako, Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith
and his Heritage
247 Nathan Klaus, Pivot Patterns in the Former Prophets
248 Etienne Nodet, A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the
Mishnah
249 William Paul Griffin, The God of the Prophets: An Analysis of Divine Action
250 Josette Elayi and Jean Sapin, Beyond the River: New Perspectives on Transeuphratene
251 Flemming A. J. Nielsen, The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History
303 Ingrid Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A Literary Analysis
304 Wolter H. Rose, Zemah and Zerubabbel: Messianic Expectations in the Early
Postexilic Period
305 Jo Bailey Wells, God's Holy People: A Theme in Biblical Theology
306 Albert de Pury, Thomas Romer and Jean-Daniel Macchi (eds.), Israel Constructs
its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research
307 Robert L. Cole, The Shape and Message of Book III (Psalms 73-89)
308 Yiu-Wing Fung, Victim and Victimizer: Joseph's Interpretation of his Destiny
309 George Aichele (ed.), Culture, Entertainment and the Bible
310 Esther Fuchs, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew
Bible as a Woman
311 Gregory Glazov, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening of the Mouth in
Biblical Prophecy
312 Francis Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible
313 Martin O'Kane (ed.), Borders, Boundaries and the Bible
314 Bernard S. Jackson, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law
315 Paul R. Williamson, Abraham, Israel and the Nations: The Patriarchal Promise
and its Covenantal Development in Genesis
316 Dominic Rudman, Determinism in the Book of Ecclesiastes
317 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and
Scripture in the Hellenistic Period
318 David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX56-66
319 Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman (eds.), Creation in Jewish and
Christian Tradition
320 Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making
of the Bible
321 Varese Layzer, Signs of Weakness: Juxtaposing Irish Tales and the Bible
322 Mignon R. Jacobs, The Conceptual Coherence of the Book ofMicah
323 Martin Ravndal Hauge, The Descent from the Mountain: Narrative Patterns in
Exodus 19-40
324 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of
the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 1
325 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of
the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 2
326 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of
the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 3
327 Gary D. Salyer, Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in Ecclesiastes
328 James M. Trotter, Reading Hosea in Achaemenid Yehud
329 Wolfgang Bluedorn, Yahweh Verus Baalism: A Theological Reading of the
Gideon-Abimelech Narrative
330 Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak (eds.), 'Every City shall be Forsaken':
Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East
331 Amihai Mazar (ed.), with the assistance of Ginny Mathias, Studies in the
Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan
332 Robert J.V. Hiebert, Claude E. Cox and Peter J. Gentry (eds.), The Old Greek
Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma
333 Ada Rapoport-Albert and Gillian Greenberg (eds.), Biblical Hebrew, Biblical
Texts: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman
334 Ken Stone (ed.), Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible
335 James K. Bruckner, Implied Law in the Abrahamic Narrative: A Literary and
Theological Analysis
336 Stephen L. Cook, Corrine L. Patton and James W. Watts (eds.), The Whirlwind:
Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in Memory of Jane Morse
337 Joyce Rilett Wood, Amos in Song and Book Culture
338 Alice A. Keefe, Woman's Body and the Social Body in Hosea 1-2
339 Sarah Nicholson, Three Faces of Saul: An Intertextual Approach to Biblical
Tragedy
340 Philip R. Davies and John M. Halligan (eds.), Second Temple Studies III: Studies
in Politics, Class and Material Culture
341 Mark W. Chavalas and K. Lawson Younger Jr (eds.), Mesopotamia and the Bible
343 J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham (eds.), The Land that I Will Show
You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in
Honor ofJ. Maxwell Miller
345 Jan-Wim Wesselius, The Origin of the History of Israel: Herodotus' Histories as
Blueprint for the First Books of the Bible
346 Johanna Stiebert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The
Prophetic Contribution
347 Andrew G. Shead, The Open Book and the Sealed Book: Jeremiah 32 in its
Hebrew and Greek Recensions
348 Alastair G. Hunter and Phillip R. Davies, Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on
Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll
350 David Janzen, Witch-hunts, Purity and Social Boundaries: The Expulsion of the
Foreign Women in Ezra 910
351 Roland Boer (ed.), Tracking the 'Tribes ofYahweh': On the Trail of a Classic
352 William John Lyons, Canon and Exegesis: Canonical Praxis and the Sodom
Narrative
353 Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten (eds.), Bible Translation on the
Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and
Religion
354 Susan Gillingham, The Image, the Depths and the Surface: Multivalent
Approaches to Biblical Study
356 Carole Fontaine, Smooth Words: Women, Proverbs and Performance in Biblical
Wisdom
357 Carleen Mandolfo, God in the Dock: Dialogic Tension in the Psalms of Lament
359 David M. Gunn and Paula N. McNutt, 'Imagining' Biblical Worlds: Studies in
Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan
361 Franz V. Greifenhagen, Egypt on the Pentateuch's Ideological Map: Constructing
Biblical Israel's Identity