The Personal Is Political: Covenantal and Affectionate Love ('hb, 'ahb) in the Hebrew Bible Author(s): Susan Ackerman

Source: Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 52, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 437-458 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1585137 . Accessed: 10/02/2011 19:08
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THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: COVENANTAL AND AFFECTIONATE LOVE ('AHEB,'AHABA)IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
by

SUSAN ACKERMAN
Hanover, United States

In 1963, William L. Moran published an influential article on the love of God in the book of Deuteronomy, in which he proposed that Deuteronomy's understanding of love ('dheb,'ahabd)is not at all our modern notion, which defines love in terms of a tender psychological feeling; a strong personal attachment; a sympathetic understanding; a deep, natural, and genuine affection.' Rather, according to Moran, love in Deuteronomy is a concept grounded in political language. More specifically, Moran argued that the love of God in Deuteronomy-(1) which is something that can be commanded, (2) which stands intimately related to the concepts of fear and reverence, and (3) which is expressed in terms of loyalty, service, and unqualified obedience to the demands of the law-is a love that has its basis in the ancient Near Eastern concept of covenant in general and, in particular, in the covenant demands of fealty and devotion that ancient Near Eastern suzerains upon their vassals. Indeed, Moran substantiated his argument imnposed by listing numerous specific parallels between the language of love as found in ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal treaties and as found in Deuteronomic texts describing Yahweh's relationship with Israel. Moran further buttressed his conclusions by identifying at least three narrative passages from the Deuteronomistic History that, although concerned with relationships between human beings rather than the divine-human relationship, nevertheless seemed to him to depend on the same understanding of love as an obligation of covenant: first, 1 Kgs. v 15 (English v 1), where Hiram of Tyre is said to have been of the "lover" ('ohgb) Israel's King David, which Moran took to mean,

"The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy", CBQ25 (1963), pp. 77-87. ? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002 Also available online - www.brill.nl VetusTestamentum 4 LII,

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based on J. Bright's interpretation of 2 Sam. v 11, that David and Hiram were in a treaty relationship with one another; second, 2 Sam. xix 7 (English xix 6), where Joab rebukes David for grieving over the death of his rebellious son Absalom while "hating those who love you that ('ohabeka)", is, according to Moran, those "servants"(xix 6; English xix 5) who had remained loyal to David and his monarchy throughout Absalom's revolt; third, 1 Sam. xviii 16, where all Israel and Judah are said to "love" ('jh&b) David, which is to say, all Israel and Judah offered David their allegiance as he worked to secure his monarchical claims. Moran also suggested briefly, and in a footnote, that the love between David and Jonathan that is described in 1 Sam. xviii 1, 3, and again in 1 Sam. xx 17 and 2 Sam. i 26,2 was a love "sealed" (the usage is Moran's) by the covenants the two are said to have made with each other in 1 Sam. xviii 3; xx 16; and xxiii 18.3 Although not everyone has been convinced,4 the vast majority of commentators who have considered the biblical concept of love subsequent to Moran have accepted his conclusions and, consequently, have primarily focused their attention upon refining Moran's thesis.5 For example, both J. A. Thompson, writing in 1974, and Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, writing in 1983, elaborated upon Moran's passing observation regarding the covenantal connotations implicit within the love of David and Jonathan.6 Thompson further, in a 1977 article,

2 Reading with the LXX in 1 Sam. xx 17, which describes Jonathan as "again" swearing to David out of his love for him (versus the MT, which has Jonathan again causing David to swear). The original oath to which the Greek of 1 Sam. xx 17 refers is the one sworn by Jonathan in 1 Sam. xx 12-13. See further P. K. McCarter, I Samuel(AB 8; Garden City, NY, 1980), p. 337. 3 "The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God", p. 82, n. 33. 4 See, e.g., E. W. Nicholson, God and His People(Oxford, 1986), pp. 78-81; this reference brought to my attention by E. J. Adler, "The Background for the Metaphor of Covenant as Marriage in the Hebrew Bible" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1989), pp. 75-77. 5 In addition to the studies discussed below, note the following articles: P. R. Ackroyd, "The verb love--aheb in the David Jonathan narratives-A footnote", VT 25 (1975), pp. 213-214; D. J. McCarthy, "Notes on the Love of God in Deuteronomy and on the Father-Son Relationship between Yahweh and Israel", CBQ 27 (1965), pp. 144and 147; idem, Treaty Covenant (AnBib 21; Rome, 1978), pp. 160-161, n. 6;J. W. McKay, "Man's love for God in Deuteronomy and the father/teacher-son/pupil relationship", VT 22 (1972), pp. 426-435; L. L. Walker, "'Love' in the Old Testament: Some Lexical Issuesin Biblicaland Patristic Interpretation Observations", Current (Grand Rapids, MI, 1975), pp. 277-288. 6 J. A. Thompson, "The significance of the verb lovein the David-Jonathan narratives in 1 Samuel", VT 24 (1974), pp. 334-338; K. D. Sakenfeld, "Loyalty and Love:

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identified multiple other instances in the Hebrew Bible where the language of love appears to imply the concept of covenant fealty,7 suggesting, for example, that the slaves described in Exod. xxi 2-6 and Deut. xv 12-18 who choose to stay bound to their masters out of "love" probably are motivated less by feelings of genuine attachment and natural affection and more by their desire to retain certain advantages that are a part of the master-slave covenantal relationship (material advantages, according to Deut. xv 16, and advantages concerning a male slave's ability to maintain a relationship with his wife and children, according to Exod. xxi 4-5). Thompson also proposed that the of descriptions of Abraham as the "lover" ('oheb) Yahweh in Isa. xli 8 and 2 Chr. xx 7 reflected Abraham's status as the deity's covenant partner, as established in Gen. xv 18 and again in Genesis xvii; similarly, that the prophetic condemnations of Israel's and Judah's love for other gods, as found, especially, in Hosea and Jeremiah,8 are informed by covenantal language, with the implication being that because the people had violated their obligations as vassals to love the suzerain Yahweh, and Yahweh alone, the covenant between God and nation would soon collapse. Yet while scholars such as Thompson and Sakenfeld have been eager to find these many instances throughout the Hebrew Bible where the terms 'dheband 'ahbdacarry covenantal overtones, they have correctly insisted that this meaning is relatively specialized and does not apply to what Thompson describes as "the numerous examples of the natural affection shown between members of a family or between friends."9 Still, a closer look at these "numerous examples of... natural affection", especially the numerous examples found within the Bible's narrative corpus,10reveals that there are some interesting similarities between the way 'dheband 'ahadba construed within these are
The Language of Human Interconnections in the Hebrew Bible", Michigan Quarterly Review22 (1983), pp. 190-204; reprinted in Backgroundsfor Bible (ed. D. N. Freedman the and M. P. O'Connor; Winona Lake, IN, 1987), pp. 215-230. 7 "Israel's 'lovers"', VT 27 (1977), pp. 475-481. 8 Thompson specifically discusses Hos. ii 7, 9, 12, 14, and 15 (English ii 5, 7, 10, 12, and 13); ix 10; Jer. viii 2. 9 "Israel's lovers", p. 480; see similarly, the description Sakenfeld offers ("Loyalty and Love", p. 203 [MichiganQuarterly Reviewpublication]) regarding the love of Ruth for Naomi. '0 The Song of Songs, anomalous in so many respects when compared to the rest of biblical literature, is also anomalous regarding the usage of 'aheband 'ahdbddescribed in this paper. See further my discussion in the body of this paper below, and also in n. 16.

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accounts of interpersonal relationships and the way these terms are construed within certain covenantal texts. This is not to say, let me be quite clear, that the Bible conceives of interpersonal love as being identical to covenant love, or even that it conceives of interpersonal love and covenant love as being generally of the same type: as Moran has convincingly demonstrated, the larger context of covenantal love is political, whereas the context of love as depicted in the interpersonal relationship is emotional, with family members or close friends exhibiting feelings of genuine attachment and affection toward one another. Yet despite these significant differences, I believe that there are some important points of overlap between the construing of 'adhb and 'ahdbdas found in the interpersonal relationship texts and the construing found in covenantal texts, especially the construing found in the divine-human covenant texts of Deuteronomy that were originally analyzed by Moran. It is these points of overlap that I explore in Part I of this paper." Then, in the paper's second section, I turn to consider some of the implications of my initial findings: how the points of overlap that exist between the Bible's construing of covenantal and interpersonal love illuminate the way 'dhIband 'ahdbdare used in certain otherwise enigmatic texts.

I begin my inquiry regarding the points of overlap between covenantal and interpersonal 'aheb and 'ahdbd with some observations concerning the interpersonal relationship accounts. In these texts, 'dheb and 'ahdbdare used most often to describe the attraction of one person to a member of the opposite sex. Yet curiously, when these texts
" In undertaking this sort of comparison, my goal is simultaneously significantly more modest and somewhat more ambitious than certain studies that have preceded mine. In comparing only the lexical items 'aheband 'ahabaas they are used in covenantal and interpersonal relationship texts, I consider just one aspect of the larger metaphorical correlation between covenant and marriage documented by scholars such as Adler, "The Background for the Metaphor of Covenant as Marriage"; F. C. Fensham, "The Marriage Metaphor in Hosea for the Covenant Relationship Between the Lord and His People", JJNSL12 (1984), pp. 71-78; J. Galambush, Jerusalemin the Book of Ezekiel: The Cityas Yahweh's ife (SBLDS 130; Atlanta, 1992), pp. 25-88; and G. P. Hugenberger, A as Developed Marriage from the Marriage Covenant: Studyof BiblicalLaw and Ethics Governing Perspective Malachi (VTSup 52; Leiden, 1994). Yet because I will consider other types of of interpersonal relationships in addition to marriage in my discussion (parent-child relationships in particular), I will expand on the range of correlations considered in prior comparative studies.

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use 'ahebor 'ahabdto describe the attraction members of the opposite sex feel for one another, the terms (with only one exception, which I will discuss more thoroughly in Part II) refer to the man's love for the woman. Isaac is said to have loved Rebekah (Gen. xxiv 67); Jacob to have loved Rachel (Gen. xxix 18, 20, 30) and possibly, albeit to a lesser degree, to have loved Leah (Gen. xxix 30);12 Samson is said to have loved Delilah (Judg. xvi 4, 15); and Samson's Timnite wife seems to presume that he loved her at some point as well (Judg. xiv 16). Also, Elqanah is said to have loved Hannah (1 Sam. i 5); Solomon to have loved his many foreign wives (1 Kgs. xi 1, 2); Rehoboam to have loved Ma'acah (2 Chr. xi 21); and Ahasuerus to have loved Esther (Esth. ii 17). Yet none of these women is ever described as giving her sexual partner her love in return, nor, but for the aforementioned and yet-to-be-discussed exception, is any woman in the Bible's narrative corpus ever said to love a man. Likewise, in narrative texts that describe the feelings of attachment that exist between a parent and a childwhich is the second-most common interpersonal context in which the terms 'dheband 'ahdabd appear-it is only the parents who are described as loving. Abraham is said to love Isaac (Gen. xxii 2); Rebekah to love Jacob while Isaac loves Esau (Gen. xxv 28); Jacob/Israel to love bothJoseph (Gen. xxxvii 3, 4) and Benjamin (Gen. xliv 20); and David to love Amnon (2 Sam. xiii 21).'3 However, no child in the narrative tradition-or, indeed, anywhere in the Bible-is described as loving his or her parents. How to account for such a one-sided usage of 'dhebor 'ahdbd? Before to suggest how Deuteronomy's divine-human covenant texts turning might help answer this question, let me address some explanations that I believe will not work. First, I believe it is not possible to explain the one-sided usage of 'dhebor 'ahdbdwithin the interpersonal relationship accounts simply by appeal to the Bible's preferred perspectival stances: to claim, say, that because the Bible's authors tend to subscribe to the dictum that "children should be seen but not heard",'4 they generally

Gen. xxix 30 reports that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, which suggests Jacob was not without affection for the older sister. Yet two verses later, in Gen. xxix 32, Leah gives voice to the hope that "now" ('attd),because she has given birth to Reuben, Jacob will love her, which suggests she has not found herself the object of Jacob's affection prior to that point. 13 So 4QSama (partially restored) and the LXX; this text has fallen out of the MT. See further P. K. McCarter, II Samuel(AB 9; Garden City, NY, 1984), pp. 319-320. 14 The only Hebrew Bible text I can think of in which a child is said to speak is

12

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do not reveal to us a child's point of view; or, similarly, to claim that because the Bible is an almost exclusively male-oriented document, it typically tells us only men's perspectives on things and does not concern itself with women's experiences. Granted, such a thesis would explain why the biblical authors can describe for us a parent's love for a child and yet refrain from speaking of a child's affections for his mother and/or father. Likewise, it would explain why the biblical authors can reveal a man's love for the woman or women in his life without considering whether those women love the man in return. Still, it falters when confronted with the fact that the Bible is willing to speak of a woman's love within the context of relationships other than sexual, when describing a mother's love for her child, for example, as in Rebekah's love for Jacob (Gen. xxv 28), or when describing one woman's love for another, as in Ruth's love for Naomi (Ruth iv 15). The biblical text, that is, does not so much ignore women's perspectives in general as it ignores women's perspectives specifically when they concern a woman's love for a man. Moreover, even though the Bible does refrain from using the terms 'dhebor 'ahdbdwhen describing women in their relationships with men or when describing children in their relationships with their parents, it does not actually ignore how women feel about their male partners, nor how children feel about their fathers and mothers, which brings me to my second "wrong" explanation: that we cannot conclude, just because the women and the children of the biblical tradition are not explicitly described as "loving" their male partners and their parents, that the Bible's women are to be understood as indifferent or uncaring with regard to men and that the Bible's children are to be understood as lacking in affection for their mothers and fathers. To be sure, some of the Bible's women and children undoubtedly did not return the love of those who loved them. Delilah's actions in selling Samson to the Philistines, for example, hardly suggest that she reciprocated his love for her. Nevertheless, the Bible's narrative accounts of interpersonal relationships generally offer portraits of husband-wife and parent-child interactions that suggest mutuality in terms of feeling. Jacob's

the story of the akedahin Gen. xxii 1-14. There, in verse 7, Isaac, who seems to be pictured as a near-adolescent (he is not yet married but is physically mature enough to carry the wood for the sacrificial fire and mentally mature enough to question deviations from normal sacrificial ritual), asks his father Abraham where they are to get the lamb for the burnt offering.

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beloved Rachel is devoted enough to him that she is willing to betray her father by stealing his household gods and then conceal her theft through deception (Gen. xxix 19, 33-35); the trust Isaac places in Abraham as they climb one of Moriah's mountains prior to the son's near sacrifice seems similarlyto indicate that the love the father extended toward the child was shared (Gen. xxii 1-15, especially verses 7-8). Isaac, moreover, is said to need comfort after Sarah's death, which intimates the narrative's conviction that the boy also loved his mother in (Gen. xxiv 67). Yet still, the specific language of '"heb/'ahdbad these particular examples is only used of Jacob with regard to Rachel and of Abraham with regard to Isaac. This lexical peculiarity thus remains in need of elucidation. Why, despite the sense of mutually-held affection that is found in most of the interpersonal relationship accounts, are the actual terms 'adhband 'ahdbdreserved throughout these narratives for male partners and parents alone? A third explanation comes closer to providing an answer by suggesting that "loving" in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts should be understood as an initiating action that determines or sets the stage for what is to follow.'5 It is Ahasuerus' love for Esther, for example, that drives the plot of the Esther narrative, and hence this love is explicitly signaled in Esth. ii 17. Likewise, Samson's love for Delilah is explicitly signaled in Judg. xvi 4, 15 because it is determinative for the story of Delilah's mastery over Samson that follows, and Jacob's love for Rachel is carefully noted in Gen. xxix 18, 20, 30 because it is this love that motivates Jacob to serve Laban for fourteen years. Because the Bible, moreover, is such a male-oriented document, its narratives almost always understand men's concerns as having determinative power and thus its almost exclusive focus on men as loving as opposed to women. Still, in those few instances where women's concerns drive the plot, this explanation argues, their love can be foregrounded. Rebekah, then, can be said to love Jacob in Gen. xxv 28 because this is what motivates the following story of the deception of Isaac, and Ruth can be said to love Naomi because this is what drives the younger woman to abandon Moab and return to Israel with her mother-in-law in order that she can eventually marry Boaz and bear their son Obed. Similarly, in the otherwise enigmatic Song of Songs, it is the young woman's love for her paramour that is atypically stressed

15

Suggested to me by Phyllis A. Bird (private communication).

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(Cant. i 7; ii 5; iii 1, 2, 3, 4; v 8) because it is she who is the center of attention and whose feelings inspire the text's action.16 Yet as compelling as this explanation is in many respects (especially with regard to the Song of Songs), it does not satisfy me completely. If Ruth's love for Naomi is to be understood as foregrounded because it is the emotion that sets the stage for the action that follows, then why is the explicit description of this love so curiously located in the text, not cited until the penultimate pericope of the book (Ruth iv 13-17) and then cited only in terms of hearsay, reported secondhand by Naomi's women companions? More curious still: why some peculiar silences regarding love in other interpersonal relationship accounts? The story ofJacob's and Rachel's marriage, for example, is surely the most romantic, or "loving," in the Bible's narrative corpus: Jacob so loves Rachel that he is willing to work an initial seven years, and then another seven, in order to marry her; Rachel so loves Jacob that she is willing to steal from her father and then lie to him in order to benefit her husband. However, even though it seems to be her love for Jacob that motivates Rachel to steal from and then deceive her father, and even though it is her actions that are foregrounded in the narrative describing those deeds (Gen. xxxi 19-42), the specific lanis guage of 'dheb/'ahdba not used of her within the Gen. xxxi 19-42 used of Rachel in Genesis account. Nor is the language of 'dhjb/'ahabd xxx 1-21, the stories of Rachel giving her maid Bilhah to Jacob and bargaining with Leah for Reuben's mandrakes. Yet arguably, Rachel's actions in these two narrative episodes are again motivated by love and, again, certainly she is the actor who is foregrounded.'7 That is: in both Gen. xxx 1-21 and xxxi 19-42, the conditions that the explanation currently under consideration requires are present-Rachel's love is an initiating action that sets the stage for the stories that follow-but in neither case are the terms 'aheband 'ahabdused in relation to her. Especially curious to me is that the terms 'aheband 'ahdbd are not used of Rachel in the Genesis xxx pericopes, given that these pericopes are embedded in a larger text (Genesis xxix 1-xxx 24) in are more richly represented (Gen. xxix which the terms 'dheb/'ahdbd
The "maidens" of the Song of Songs are also said to love the young man (Cant. i 3, 4). Only once, though, and obliquely, is the man's "love" for the Song's principal maiden described, in Cant. ii 4, where the young woman claims, "his intention towards me was love ('ahabd)." 17 Rachel is, for example, the subject of eleven verbs in Gen. xxx 1-21, while Jacob is the subject of only five.
16

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18, 20, 30, 32) than in any other of the Bible's narrative accounts. Why, I wonder, in a context where love seems otherwise at the forefront of the narrator's mind, is Rachel's love for Jacob not described? Of course, these sorts of arguments from silence are by nature weak and thus cannot be taken as sufficient reason for dismissing this third explanation altogether. Nevertheless, the silences I have described do give me enough pause that I am drawn, as I have already intimated, to return to Deuteronomy and see if that text's use of the terms 'aheb and 'ahabacan more fully illuminate the ways in which 'dheband 'ahaba are used in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts. Interestingly, it turns out that the terms 'dheband 'ahabdare used in Deuteronomy's divine-human covenant accounts in a way similar to the way these terms are used in the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts, that is, in a way that is peculiarly one-sided. According to Deuteronomy, Yahweh loves Israel as the covenant relationship requires. Indeed, Yahweh is said to love both the Israelites who are imagined as the audience of Deuteronomy's exhortations (Deut. vii 8; xxiii 6 [English xxiii 5]) and to love these Israelites' ancestors (Deut. iv 37; x 15). The Israelites are likewise commanded, again as the covenant relationship requires, to love Yahweh in return (Deut. vi 5; x 12; xi 1, 13, 22; xviv 9; xxx 6, 16, and 20). But, strikinglyin my opinion, Deuteronomy never describes the people or their ancestors as actually offering Yahweh this love. The same pattern holds in the related narrativesof the Deuteronomistic History. As we have seen, the Deuteronomistic History is certainly a corpus that knows generally of the concept of covenantal love (as in the covenantal love of David and Hiram, for example), and it is also a corpus that knows more specifically of the divine-human covenant relationship presumed in Deuteronomy, in which Yahweh's love is extended toward the Israelites (see, e.g., 1 Kgs. x 9) and in which the people are commanded to give their love to Yahweh in return (see, e.g., Josh. xxii 5; xxiii 11). But although Yahweh, according to the Deuteronomistic History, upholds the divine side of this bargain, the people, as in Deuteronomy, are never said to extend their love to God as the covenant relationship requires. One might argue, of course, that this is exactly the portrayal of the people we would expect to find in the Deuteronomistic History, as one of the main purposes of that document is to describe the Israelites as a community that almost constantly fails with regard to its covenant obligations. Still, there are some Israelites whom the Deuteronomistic History does regard as faithful to

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the covenant-reformer kings like Asa, Hezekiah, andJosiah, for example-and we might think that these individuals, at least, would be said to manifest the love of covenant fidelity. But, astonishingly, this happens only once in the entire Deuteronomistic corpus, in the description of Solomon's love for Yahweh in 1 Kgs. iii 3.18 This same one-sided depiction of love as manifest in Yahweh's and Israel's covenant relationship is found in the prophetic books and in the Psalms. Its presence in the prophetic tradition, perhaps, is not so hard to explain, for often these texts' primary purpose, like that of the Deuteronomistic History, is to castigate the Israelites for covenant disobedience. Hence, while the prophetic books do contain confessions regarding Yahweh's covenantal love for Israel, they are not inclined to describe Israel as extending love in the form of covenant fidelity to Yahweh in return. But it is still somewhat surprising that even within the oracles of a prophet like Second Isaiah, who characterizes the covenant relationship between God and Israel as one that is soon to be reconciled and restored, there is no mention that the people will give God their love as part of this reconciliation, and this despite the fact that it is within these oracles that we find what is perhaps the Bible's most powerful expression of Yahweh's love for the people, Isa. xliii 4). the first-person confession that "I love you" ('dhabtikd; Similarly surprising is to find the same phenomenon in the chapters ofJeremiah that are devoted to reconciliation and restoration (Jeremiah xxx-xxxiii), that is, to find again only professions of God's love for Israel (Jer. xxxi 3) and none regarding the love the restored Israel will extend to Yahweh in return. Likewise in the Psalms, although these hymns are generally full of expressions of devotion, there is no mention of Israel extending love toward Yahweh, and only once an expression of an individual psalmist's love for his God (Ps. cxvi 1).'9 What all these data suggest to me is two things. First, as posited above, there is a connection between the way that the terms 'aheband 'ahabaare construed within the Hebrew Bible's interpersonal relation-

"1 This text makes clear that the love in question here is the love of covenant fidelity through its further description of Solomon as one who "walks in the statutes of his father David", that is, one who observes the requirements of the covenant. 19 There are, however, occasional descriptions of an individual psalmist's love for Yahweh's house, or for Yahweh's commandments, or for Yahweh's statutes, or Yahweh's tora (Pss. xxvi 8; cxix 47, 48, 97, 113, 119, 127, 140, 159, 163, 167) and also occasional praises of those who love Yahweh's name and salvation (Pss. v 12 [English v 11]; xl 17 [English xl 16]; lxix 37 [English lxix 36]; lxx 5 [English lxx 4]; cxix 132).

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ship accounts and within the descriptions of the divine-human covenant relationship found in Deuteronomy and, indeed, throughout much of the Hebrew Bible: in both cases, 'aheband 'ahaba are used in a way that is very one-sided. Second, in both cases, the party who is described using the terms 'adhbor 'ahaba is typically the hierarchically superior party in the relationship: the male partner in relationships between members of the opposite sex; the parent in relationships between parent and child; Yahweh in the relationship between the deity and Israel. Again, let me be quite clear: this is not to say that the Bible conceives of male-female, parent-child, and divine-human love as generally being of a common type. Rather, the emotional love manifest in biblical accounts of interpersonal interactions is to be distinguished in multiple respects from the political love that characterizes the divine-human covenant relationship. Nevertheless, the specific way in which the terms 'dheband 'ahabaare construed in accounts of male-female relationships, of parent-child relationships, and of the divine-human relationship does seem well described by the two common qualities I have just rehearsed: first, that male-female, parent-child, and divine-human love are construed in a way that is very one-sided, and, second, that, in each of these relationships, it is typically the hierarchically superior partner who is characterized as "loving". II These two observations regarding the nature of biblical love can help explain certain otherwise puzzling features in both the interpersonal relationship accounts and the divine-human covenant accounts. For example, if, as my first presumption suggests, the concept of love is so similarly construed as one-sided within accounts of male-female and parent-child relationships, on the one hand, and within accounts of the divine-human covenant relationship, on the other, then this helps explain why the biblical authors can move so readily between politically-based images of God as Israel's loving suzerain and interpersonally-based images of God as Israel's loving husband or parent. The prophet Hosea, in particular, seems to rely on the kindred natures of covenantal and interpersonal love as he slips easily between various descriptions of God as a lover. Thus, while the "love" Yahweh promises to extend to Israel according to Hos. xiv 5 (English xiv 4) seems very much the love of covenant fidelity (it stands in parallelism with the concept of the people's loyalty), the "love" Yahweh gives to

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Israel according to iii 1 is that of a husband for a wife, whereas in xi 1 and 4 the description of God's "love" that is evoked is the love of a parent for a child. A similar sort of slippage between the language of political and interpersonal love is found in Ezekiel xvi, although there the loving relationship described is construed negatively, as the city Jerusalem stands accused of abandoning Yahweh in favor of other "lovers" (Ezek. xvi 33, 36, and 37), who are identified in Ezek. xvi 26, 28, and 29 as the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Babylonians. Because these are the three nations that, at various points during the century preceding the exile, had claimed Judah as a vassal, we surely as are to understand the terms 'adhb/'ahadb used in this passage as the covenantal connotations found in suzerain-vassal treaties.20 having Yet because the text simultaneously condemns Jerusalem as a whore for consorting with these nations and as an adulteress for abandoning her husband Yahweh, we must also see this passage as dependent upon an understanding of love rooted in the language of interpersonal relationships. The Assyrian "lovers" of Samaria described in Ezekiel xxiii are likewise to be simultaneouslyunderstood both as that city's covenant partners within the context of a suzerain-vassal treaty and her sexual partners after whom she lusted (see especially xxiii 5).21In the oracles of Jeremiah, too, the prophet seems to slip readily between the language of political and interpersonal love in describing Jerusalem's "lovers" both as her covenantal allies-the Assyrians and Egyptians with whom she has entered into treaties-and as the objects of her sexual desire (Jer. ii 33-iii 5).22 My second presumption regarding the terms 'dheband 'ahabd-that they are typically ascribed only to the hierarchically superior partner within male-female, parent-child, and divine-human relationships-suggests, however, that, although prophets like Hosea, Ezekiel, andJeremiah can readily slip from the imagery of covenantal to the imagery of interpersonal love, there are certain constraints upon the roles the covenantal/interpersonal lovers can be assigned. In Ezekiel xvi and xxiii, for example, the nations of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, which hold the covenantally superior position of loving suzerain, are likewise assigned

As pointed out by Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 476. The covenantal connotations of "love" in Ezekiel xxiii are again, as in n. 20 above, discussed by Thompson, "Israel's lovers", pp. 476-477. 22 Once more, as in nn. 20 and 21 above, see Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 477, for a discussion of the covenantal connotations of "love" in this text.
20 21

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the interpersonally superior position of loving male in the descriptions of their sexual relationships with the "whoring" cities ofJerusalem and Samaria (Ezek. xvi 33, 36, 37; xxiii 5, 9, 22). Likewise in Jer. ii 33iii 5, it is Judah's covenantally superior suzerains, Assyria and Egypt, that are described as the male (and thus interpersonally superior) lovers of the female Jerusalem. This same pattern is also found in Jer. xxii 20, 22 and xxx 14, all of which refer to the woman Jerusalem's covenant overlords as her male "lovers".23 Interestingly, however, there are three other passages in JeremiahJer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10-where the Israelites are referred to not as the objects of the verb 'dheb,but as its subjects. Such a usage may initially seem to contradict my thesis that 'dheband 'ahabdshould typically be ascribed only to Israel's covenant superiors, whether Yahweh, as in Jer. xxxi 3, or the Assyrians and Egyptians, as in Jer. ii 33-iii 5; xxii 20, 22; and xxx 14. But I suggest the usage of 'dhebin Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10 does not in fact contradict the thesis I have proposed here. Crucial to consider in this regard is the object of Israel's love in these verses. In Jer. ii 25 and viii 2, this object is clearly other or gods: habbe'dlim, "the Baals", in Jer. ii 25, and kol sebd'hassadmayim, "all the host of heaven", in Jer. viii 2.24Jer. xiv 10 is less explicit, speaking only of the Israelites as having "loved to wander", but since it is Yahweh the people are said to have abandoned in this wandering, and since their abandonment of Yahweh is described in terms of "iniquity", "apostasy", and "sin" (xiv 7), it seems most likely that, as in ii 25 and viii 2, the prophet intends to castigate the Israelites in xiv 10 for straying from the worship of Yahweh in favor of the worship of other gods. But are these other gods to be understood as replacing Yahweh as Israel's suzerain within the divine-human covenant relationship, which, according to my thesis, would require that they be described as the subjects, rather than the objects, of the verb 'aheb? Certainly for someone like Jeremiah, a zealous proponent of the worship of Yahweh alone, the answer to this question must be no. Indeed, it could be argued that because Jeremiah seeks to belittle the worship of other gods in any way possible, he deliberately chooses a grammatical construction-making these other gods the objects of 'aheband 'ahdbdrather than the subjects-that signals the prophet's conviction

23 24

Note as well the related Lam. i 2, 19. But, regarding Jer. ii 25, cf. Thompson, "Israel's lovers", p. 477.

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that these gods occupy a status position that is completely antithetical to that which the suzerain Yahweh holds in relation to Israel. Yet even if this last point over-interprets, I would nevertheless maintain that my general claim with regard to the use of 'dheband 'ahdbdholds in Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10. As my thesis would expect, the objects of the Israelites' love are certainly not imagined by Jeremiah as holding a position of hierarchicalsuperioritywithin a divine-human covenant relationship. Even more interesting in this regard are three verses in Hosea in which the Israelite community is also cast as the subject, and not as the object, of the verb 'aheb:Hos. iii 1; ix 1; and ix 10. Again, this may initially seem unexpected according to the terms of my thesis. It is important to note in each of these cases, however, that, as in Jeremiah, the objects of Israel's love are other gods or things connected with the worship of other gods: "raisin cakes", according to Hos. iii 1; the wages of prostitution earned through the worship of other gods, according to Hos. ix 1; and the god Baal (the "thing of shame" worshipped at Baal-peor), according to Hos. ix 10. Hosea, that is, seems to embrace in these verses exactly the same principle regarding 'dheband 'ahdbd that Jeremiah does in Jer. ii 25; viii 2; and xiv 10 and that my thesis would predict: that these other gods can be cast as the objects of the Israelite community's love because they do not, in Hosea's opinion, hold a position of hierarchical superiority within a divine-human covenant relationship. Indeed, Hosea seems so committed to embracing this principle concerning these other gods' lack of hierarchical superiority that he adopts it even when it introduces some very awkward metaphorical constructions into his text. In Hos. iii 1, for example, Yahweh commands the prophet to take for himself an adulterous woman in order to represent symbolically the way Yahweh has extended his love to Israel, even though the Israelites, like Hosea's lover-to-be, are adulterous and "turn to other gods and are lovers ('ohdbe) raisin cakes". According of to the terms of this metaphor, the prophet, like Yahweh, is understood as male; the prophet's lover-to-be, obviously, is understood as female. Were the metaphor to hold, we would expect the adulterous Israelites to be imagined as female as well. But these cake-loving Israelites are in fact rendered in the text as male. Why does Hosea adopt this imagery? Certainly the reason cannot be that Hosea is incapable of imagining the Israelites as female, given that all the oracles within which Hos. iii 1 is embedded (Hos. i 2-iii 5) depend on an

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understanding of Israel as Yahweh's wife. Rather, I suggest that Hosea unexpectedly imagines the Israelites as male in iii 1 because Hosea's understanding of the terms 'dheband 'ahdbatells him that, within the context of sexualized relationships (which is certainly the context in iii 1), the partner who is described as "loving" (i.e., the cake-loving Israelites) must also be described as the hierarchically superior member of the partnership, that is, as the male. Because he is driven by this principle, Hosea sacrifices the integrity of his metaphor. Likewise in Hos. ix 1, which depends on a metaphor that compares Israel to a prostitute, we might well have expected the prophet to depict Israel as female. But again, this expected gendering of Israel as female is lacking, even though the metaphorical construction that results is somewhat bizarre. To explain, I would once more suggest that, as in iii 1, Hosea is driven by a grammatical understanding that typically assigns 'aheband 'ahdbdonly to the male partner in descriptions of sexual relationships (and, as in iii 1, the context in ix 1 is clearly sexual). Thus Hosea sacrifices a certain metaphorical integrity (envisioning the prostitute Israel as female) in favor of the principles regarding 'aheb and 'ahabdthat my thesis would predict. Note, moreover, that when Hosea does describe the Israelite community as female, especially in Hos. ii 4-22 (English ii 2-20), he seems again committed to the grammatical understanding that typically assigns 'dheband 'ahabdonly to the male partner within sexual relationships. He thus always characterizes the female Israel of ii 4-22 as the object, not the subject of '"heband 'ahdba,and this even though the lovers of Israel who are mentioned throughout this passage (ii 7, 9, 12, 14, and 15 [English ii 5, 7, 10, 12, and 13]) are Baal and the other gods who elsewhere in Hosea, and also in Jeremiah, are characterized as the objects, not the subjects of the Israelites' 'aheb and 'ahdbd. Indeed, Hosea himself, in ix 10, characterizes Baal (the "thing of shame" worshipped at Baal-peor) as the object of the Israelites' love in a passage that depicts Israel as male. To me, this is yet more evidence of how important gender constraints are to Hosea when he uses 'aheb and 'ahdbd describe sexualized relationships:a male Israel can be described, to as in iii 1; ix 1; and ix 10, as loving other gods, but a female Israel can be described only as the object of other gods' love, even when, as in ii 4-22 and in ix 10, it is the same other god-Baal-in question. Note, finally, regarding Hosea, how rigorously the prophet maintains the descriptions of Yahweh as lover my thesis would expect, describing the hierarchically superior deity always as the subject of

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'aheb/'ahabd,whether Yahweh is being depicted as the hierarchically superior and thus loving suzerain within the context of political covenant (Hos. xiv 5 [English xiv 4]), or as the hierarchically superior and thus loving husband within the context of a marital relationship (Hos. iii 1), or as the hierarchically superior and thus loving father within the context of a parent-child relationship (Hos. xi 1, 4). Never, though, is the loving Yahweh depicted as the hierarchically inferior vassal, wife, or child, nor is Yahweh ever depicted as the object of an inferior's love. Interestingly enough, however, the biblical tradition elsewhere can imagine Yahweh not as father, but as mother to Israel's child, presumably because, within the context of a parent-child relationship, "mother" still holds a hierarchically superior position.25This observation also helps explain why mothers can be said to love their children in the Bible's accounts of interpersonal relationship (because parents are in a hierarchically superior position to children), but why wives can never be said to love their husbands, nor women in general their male sexual partners (because in relationships between adults, women are in a hierarchically inferior position to men). Yet what of the one narrative account in the Bible in which a woman is said to love a man, 1 Samuel xviii, where Michal is twice said to love David (verses 20 and 28)?26Crucial to recognize here is the position of status Michal holds at this point in the text in comparison to David. She is the king's daughter, while he is a shepherd boy who has only recently entered into Saul's service and whose fame is just beginning to grow. He is thus her social inferior, a fact which the text signals repeatedly. In xviii 23, for example, David turns away the offer of marriage to Michal that is brought by Saul's servants because, "I am poor and of little account" (see similarly 1 Sam. xviii
25 See, for example, Num. xi 12; Deut. xxxii 18; Job xxxviii 8, 29; Isa. xlv 9-10; xlvi 3-4; xlix 15; lxvi 13. For the most recent discussion (with bibliography), see C. in A Meyers, "Female Images of God in the Hebrew Bible", Women Scripture: Dictionary in Books, of Namedand UnnamedWomen the HebrewBible, theApocryphal/Deuterocanonical and the New Testament (ed. C. Meyers, with T. Craven and R. S. Kraemer; Boston, 2000), pp. 525-528. 26 In her 1983 MichiganQuarterly Reviewarticle "Loyalty and Love", Sakenfeld suggests that Michal's love for David is, like the love expressed by Saul's servants, by Jonathan, and by all Israel and Judah, the love of covenant loyalty and fidelity, this because of Sakenfeld's assumption that "Michal loved David before she even met him personally" (p. 200). But there is little textual basis to support this reading, and in her 1992 entry "Love (OT)", in ABD 4 (ed. D. H. Freedman; New York, 1992), Sakenfeld, correctly in my opinion, classifies the love of Michal for David as "the attraction of one person to another of the opposite sex" (p. 376a).

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18). When Saul, however, sets a marriage price for Michal that David feels he can afford, David readily sets forth to attain the requisite one hundred Philistine foreskins, finding himself "well-pleased" with the idea that he might marry Michal (xviii 26). Yet this is not because David reciprocated Michal's affections for him, as the stories of their interactions in the rest of the Samuel account make clear. Rather, David's goal was to further his monarchical ambitions through such a status-enhancing marriage, and this is my point here: that it is Michal's enhanced status in relationship to David's that puts her in a position to "love". In this text at least, class trumps gender, and so the hiercan be assigned archically superior position associated with 'aheb/'ahaba to the woman. It may similarlybe that the reason Ruth can be described as "loving" Naomi in Ruth iv 15, despite the fact that Ruth holds the normally status-inferior position of a child (daughter-in-law) in relationship to Naomi's status-superior position as parent (mother-in-law), is because Ruth has, in iv 13, married and given birth to a son whereas Naomi remains a childless widow and thus a woman who occupies a very marginal position in the Israelite social order. In Ruth iv 15, that is, the status that comes with marriage and motherhood may trump the status that comes with age, so that the younger Ruth, because she has acquired the status-enhancing assets of husband and son, can assume the hierarchically superior position associated with 'dheb/'ahabd that would otherwise belong to Naomi. Such a position of hierarchical superiority within interpersonal relationships, however, can give rise to occasions where the superior asserts his or her dominance, through force or through some other exercise of power. In the Bible, while such incidents are rare, they do occur, and this observation helps explain one last aspect of how the terms 'dheb/'ahabdcan be used in biblical literature: the use of 'dheb and 'ahdbawithin stories of rape. The story of Amnon's rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel xiii is particularly telling in this regard. Three different times in that account, Amnon is said to have loved Tamar: in verse 1, in the lines of the narrative that introduce Amnon and Tamar and describe his feelings for her; in verse 4, where Amnon confesses his passion to his confidant and co-conspiratorJonadab; and in verse 15, when, after the rape, Amnon's feelings are said to turn from love to hate. As commentators have often noted, the text's use of "love" in all three of these instances jars our modern sensibilities, for we can see nothing of caring or affection in Amnon, neither in his duplicitous acts that bring Tamar into his bed-chamber nor in his forcing her to lie with

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him against her will. Indeed, some commentators have found the use of "love" to be so jarring in this passage that they refuse to understand the terms 'aheb/'aha'baas having their usual meaning here. Phyllis Trible, for example, renders the terms as "desire" in each of the three verses where they are used, to indicate that throughout the passage, Amnon was driven by "lust, not love".27Likewise, Danna Nolan Fewell and D. M. Gunn understand that Amnon's protestations of love are "merely lust",28and W. H. Propp describes Amnon as "lust-crazed".29 But if we understand 'aheb and 'aha'ba have the connotations that to we have uncovered in this essay, then we can see why the biblical authors might find it appropriate to use these terms in 2 Samuel xiii. More specifically, if we understand that 'aheband 'ahabad typically connote a position of hierarchical superiority, and that they thus can connote a position of dominance, then we can see why the biblical authors might find it appropriate to use these terms in a story that describes a crime of domination. Indeed, the fact that the biblical authors thrice evoke the terms 'aheb and 'ahabd, and thrice evoke them in lieu of alternate terms that refer to sexual desire,30mustsuggest that these narrators found the use of 'dheband 'ahabdto be appropriate. Yet to say that the story's narrators found the use of 'aheband 'ahdbdto be appropriate is not to say these narrators condone Amnon's actions, as the tenor of the rest of the story makes clear. Rather, 'aheb and 'ahdba seem used subtly and almost ironically to suggest the narrators' condemnation. Thus, while the narrators' description of Amnon's "loving" does seem to signal their understanding that Amnon holds a hierarchically superior and even dominant position in his relationship with Tamar (because he is a male in relationship to a female and also because he is the king's heir), these narrators nevertheless indicate throughout the story that to hold this dominant position is not a license to dominate, to abuse a position of power through, say, the wanton use of force. Indeed, while one would hardly call the Bible a feminist text,
27 "Tamar: The Literary-Feminist Readings Royal Rape of Wisdom", in Texts of Terror: of Biblical Narratives (OBT 13; Philadelphia, 1984), p. 47; see also Trible's comments on p. 46, "Amnon cares not at all for his sister. He acts against her will to pursue his lust". 28 "Tipping the Balance: Stemberg's Reader and the Rape of Dinah", JBL 110 (1991), p. 196, n. 3. 29 W. H. Propp, "Kinship in 2 Samuel 13", CBQ 55 (1993), p. 39. 30 I think, for example, of hsq, especially as it is used in Deut. xxi 11, where the Israelites' "desire" (hsq) for captive women is driven by their beauty, the same motivation that seems to drive Amnon in 2 Sam. xiii 1.

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the critique it offers of violence masquerading as love in 2 Samuel xiii anticipates in some sense the modern feminist critique of those who misconstrue rape as an act of passion rather than a crime of power.31 The story of Shechem and Dinah in Genesis xxxiv also uses the terms 'dheband 'ahaba in conjunction with rape, although again in a way that has disturbed and stymied commentators. The problem stems from what appears to be a discordant juxtaposition of the description of the rape and the professions of affection that immediately follow (xxxiv 2-3):
And Shechem, son of Hamor, the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her, and And his soul clung to took her, and laid her, and raped her (way'annehd). the young woman, Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved (wayye'ehab) and he spoke to the young woman's heart.

For some, the solution to this apparent discord is to deny that the original intercourse was a rape. Lyn M. Bechtel, for example, argues that the verb commonly rendered "he raped her" in xxxiv 2, way'anneha, should actually be translated more literally as "he humiliated her", meaning that Shechem had intercourse with Dinah outside of a sanctioned marital relationship and even outside the prospect of a sanctioned relationship (given that Shechem was not an Israelite and, so, presumably not an acceptable marital partner for Dinah).32But, Bechtel argues, since there is no mention of force and no mention of Dinah objecting (in contrast, say, to the objections Tamar voices in 2 Samuel xiii), and also since there is no mention of rape later in the story, "there is no indication that Dinah is raped".33N. Wyatt, too, resists seeing Shechem's taking of Dinah as a rape, arguing that because there is no indication that force was used and no indication that the sex was non-consentual, we should repoint the Piel 'innd,"to humiliate (sexually)" as a Qal and understand it as meaning "to respond (sexually)", with no connotation of coercion.34 Hence there are no obstacles to Shechem's subsequent professions of love. Most scholars, however, do

31 Although now twenty-five years old, the classic presentation remains S. Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women,and Rape (New York, 1975). 32 "What if Dinah is not Raped? (Genesis 34)," JSOT 62 (1994), pp. 19-36. 33 "What if Dinah is not Raped?" p. 31. 34 "The Story of Dinah and Shechem", UF 22 (1991), pp. 435-436. For further discussion of the meaning of 'innd in Gen. xxxiv 2, see T. Frymer-Kensky, "Law and Philosophy: The Case of Sex in the Bible", Semeia45 (1989), p. 100, n. 9; A. A. Keefe, "Rapes of Women/Wars of Men", Semeia61 (1993), p. 81.

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see Shechem as a rapist whose uttering of compassionate avowals subsequent to an act of violation needs to be explained. According to some, his words imply a "change of heart".35Fewell and Gunn, for example, believe that Shechem now seeks to act honorably and to make restitution for his crime.36Others, however, see Shechem's proclaimed affections as insincere. Thus S. A. West argues that "the sentiments expressed were probably rooted in sexual lust, rather than true love for Dinah".37Still others chart a middle ground, including M. Sternberg, who sees Shechem's expressions of love as sincere yet does not believe they "quite counterpoise, still less cancel out" the description of the rape.38While there is "the replacement of violent behavior by violent emotion," violence, Sternberg implies, still remains.39 Sternberg's understanding of these lines is perhaps closest to my own, although I would differ regarding the specifics of interpretation. In particular, I would urge that we understand that the "love" that Shechem is said to manifest after the rape has implicit within it the connotations of hierarchical superiority and even dominance this essay has uncovered. If this is so, then we need follow neither Bechtel and Wyatt in explaining away the rape, nor those scholars who try to justify or to discount Shechem's apparent change of heart. Rather, we can see that the seemingly discordant juxtaposition of rape and love is not necessarily so discordant after all. In fact, the juxtaposition, which is now to be understood as a juxtaposition between a crime of domination and a relationship described by a term connoting dominance, seems almost appropriate. Almost appropriate, I stress, for in the same way that 'dhgband 'ahabawere used subtly and even ironically in the Amnon-Tamar account, so too is there a subtle and even ironic construing of love in Genesis xxxiv. On the one hand, as I have just argued, the "dominant" connotations of love, and the dangerous tendency of dominance to lead to domination, are stressed. Yet, on the other hand, the verb "to love" in Genesis xxxiv is located between two other expressions that connote affection (wattidbaq and napsobedMnah

35 This From phrase comes from S. P. Jeansonne, "Dinah", in The Women Genesis: of Sarah to Potiphar'sWife (Minneapolis, 1990), p. 91. 36 "Tipping the Balance", p. 197. 37 "The Rape of Dinah and the Conquest of Shechem," Dor le Dor 8 (1979), p. 148. 38 ThePoetics Biblical Literature theDramaof Reading and Ideological Narrative: of (Bloomington, 1985), p. 447. 39 Poetics,p. 447.

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and these expressions ("his soul was drawn 'al-lgbhanna'dra), waydabber to Dinah" and "he spoke tenderly to the girl") do indicate affection without implications of power. By positioning "love" in such a way, Genesis xxxiv evokes, alongside its images of love's potential to abuse, the sense of 'dheb and 'ahdba as terms implying genuine attachment and sympathetic understanding.There is, in short, an ambiguity embedded in the use of the term "love" in Genesis xxxiv, which is perhaps only appropriate for a story that overall has been described as one of "unresolved ambiguity".40 Indeed, as we have now seen, "love" as it is used throughout the Bible's interpersonal relationship accounts and the accounts of the divine-human relationship is a concept tinged with ambiguity and a certain fluidity of meaning. Thus, Deuteronomy's politically-based conception of divine-human love can give way, in texts like Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, to images of God's affectionate love that otherwise are more typically found in the stories of men's relationships with women and parents' relationships with their children. At the same time, however, the Bible's accounts of male-female and parent-child relationships, although frequently suggesting mutual affection, rigorously maintain a one-sided pattern of use for the terms 'dheband 'ahdbd,which reflects the hierarchical construing of love that more typically characterizes Israel's suzerain-vassal covenant relationship with Yahweh. "The personal is political", claims the great Women's Liberation slogan of the 1970's. Through its overlapping characterizations of covenantal and affectionate love, the Bible (while again hardly to be described as a feminist text) seems to intimate that it agrees.
Abstract This paper explores points of connection between texts describing Yahweh's covenantal love for Israel and texts concerning the interpersonal loving relationships of men and women and parents and children. Although these covenantal and interpersonal relationships are to be distinguished in many ways, they do hold certain features in common: both are construed in a way that is very one-sided, and, in both, it is typically

Jeansonne, Womenof Genesis, 97; see further the extensive discussion of "ambip. guity" in Genesis xxxiv that was begun by Stemberg, in Poetics,pp. 441-481, and then was responded to by Fewell and Gunn, in "Tipping the Balance", pp. 193-211; by Stemberg, in "Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counterreading", JBL 111 (1992), pp. 463-488; and by P. Noble, in "A 'Balanced' Reading of the Rape of Dinah: Some Exegetical and Methodological Observations", Biblnt 4 (1996), pp. 173204.

40

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the hierarchically superior partner who is characterized as "loving". Understanding these principles helps explain the way the terms 'aheband 'ahdbdare used in some otherwise enigmatic passages: (1) texts from Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah that speak of other nations or other gods as Israel's "lovers"; (2) 1 Samuel xviii and its descriptions of Michal's love for David; and (3) Genesis xxxiv and 2 Samuel xiii, which disconcertingly use the language of love in conjunction with the act of rape.