Volume 136, Issue 3

This article examines the Hebrew Bible’s use of legal metaphors in its depiction of the material cosmos (exemplified by the use of חקק) and compares it with the same phenomena in Mesopotamian texts (exemplified by the use of kittu ). This study shows that the two metaphors are of two different types: the one around חקק is »legislative«, in which the creator-legislator imposes laws on the cosmos to ensure the regularity in its working; the one around kittu is »judicial«, in which the divine judge reveals his decision over divinatory cases truthfully through cosmic phenomena.

According to Leviticus 7:12–15, the sacrifice of thanksgiving involved three kinds of unleavened bread (Lev 7:12), and prohibited anyone from leaving any of its flesh until morning (Lev 7:15). This article proposes that this dual requirement was intended to provide a symbolic link to the Passover meal (Exod 12:8–10), which acknowledged God’s salvation of his people from bondage and slavery. This symbolic significance is confirmed through an examination of the use of the term »the sacrifice of thanksgiving« in the Psalter, in which the thanksgiving offering usually serves as a response to God’s rescue from distress and as an expression of praise for God’s salvation. This comparison aids our understanding of the symbolic significance of the thanksgiving offering in relation to the remembrance of the Exodus event.

The Book of Kings is the main source for reconstructing the chronology of the monarchic period in Israel, but it contains many contradictions and raises difficulties that make the reconstruction disputed to this day. The prevailing approach tends to attribute historical credibility to the biblical data, while few have suggested that some of the numbers have been deliberately manipulated to create symbolic or meaningful schemas. The purpose of the present study is to reinforce the artificiality of these numbers by presenting two cases of a »climax-decline pattern« at key points in the Book of Kings’ chronology, in which a king with the longest reign in the history of a kingdom is followed by a period of deterioration towards disaster over the same duration. If these regnal years have been reworked to incorporate them into the book’s literary design, then they may mislead the historian who wishes to use them to reconstruct a relative or absolute chronology.

This essay offers a novel framework for the definition of biblical wisdom as a genre by suggesting self-presentation as a key to understanding the genre’s dynamics. By framing the material as sapiential, the authors/editors provide a hermeneutical tool for readers, based on a set of shared conventions. Forming the scarlet thread of the genre, this »self-identification« is »thickened« by a set of fluid features – many of which are related to the labile conventions associated with the wise. This spinal cord links later works to the tradition even when expectations change.

This article provides a philological assessment of the statement in Ezra 4:12b and offers a new translation. We focus on the word יַחִיטוּ. We propose to construe the form as originally *יְחִיטוּ, G-stem prefixing conjugation of חיט, »to inspect«. In order to substantiate our proposal we refer to a series of cognates in Aramaic and other Semitic languages. Two newly edited Aramaic documents from Elephantine are mentioned, as well as texts from Bactria, passages from the Gilgamesh Epic, and the story on the Tower of Babylon.

Georg Lorenz Bauer (1755–1806) is known for coining the term »historical-critical« and writing one of the first works of Old Testament theology, but he is hardly remembered for publishing what is arguably the first independent work of Old Testament ethics. His two-volume Biblische Moral des Alten Testaments (1803) still ranks among the most extensive publications on the subject. This article situates Bauer’s work within the history of OT ethics research, arguing that it was the first of its kind, while providing an overview of its contents, methodology, and reception.

There is currently no satisfactory etymology for the hapax legomenon רַפְסֹדוֹת rapsōdôt in 2Chr 2:15 (Eng. 16), although its meaning is agreed to be »rafts, floats«. It is proposed here that the word comes from the phonetically identical Greek word ῥαψῳδία (the ancestor of English rhapsody ), which literally means »linked song«. Logs linked together into rafts recalled verses linked together into songs.