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GALEN L. GOLDSMITH

galengoldsmith@yahoo.com

Tyndale STEP Project, Tyndale House, Cambridge, UK

The live drama of Israelite prophecy was elicited when a prophet saw history and human nature from the standpoint of God, and so was impelled to speak for God. Prophetic speech was set in historical circumstances that can never be repeated, but it does not leave that moment as it found it because prophecy is a moment in history in which God’s perspective intends to alter the course of events.1 Whether ancient prophets spoke first and wrote later, or carefully composed a speech and delivered it, prophetic texts retain the character of a performance that strikes its point in a few words.2 The oracle becomes literature as the critical moment recedes, leaving distilled insights and sharpened judgments aimed at the conscience.

Like parables, oracles elicit nuanced reflection with words that do not require literacy to understand. Prophets used cinematic images to characterize historical settings and human behavior, so that the parallels between fact and fiction create a new design for understanding reality.3 They invented a metaphorical context that continually measures inhumanity by eloquent and unprecedented standards. The main subject is the historical situation the prophet commented upon. The historical facts are made to interact with an auxiliary subject, which is the thematic use of imagery. This new design has continuing relevance for new settings because it succeeds not only in stating a critical reality, but in prompting the hearer to draw conclusions that ultimately bear on generalized behavior.

Prophecy survived history to become art by holding history and metaphor in a tension that illumines both. Its factual structure, originally determined by the situation the prophet commented on, is soon unbound from its original context, but remains bound to how images characterized the facts. The fixing of the metaphoric representation of fact continues to influence subsequent evaluations of similar situations. Oracles that were acts of protest, judgment, or social commentary in a specific historic setting survived as literature because they continue to alter how people think and act.4

It would be naïve to suppose that oral teaching, though simple, is not sophisticated. Classical Hebrew prophecy, intent on changing the hearer’s attitude towards the world, exercised its genius to direct or redirect opinion, causing the hearer to arrive at the surprising (and possibly damning) conclusion, “How true!” A classic example is Nathan’s entrapment of David in the metaphor of the lamb taken from a poor man to be slaughtered by a rich man (2 Sam 12:5–13). David’s horror at the injustice turns against his own actions when Nathan disclosed the metaphorical parallel to Uriah the Hittite and his wife, Bathsheba, whom David had taken and then ensured that her husband would be killed in battle (2 Sam 11). Nathan’s adroitly told fiction caused David to see facts he had ignored. Trapped in self-condemnation, David repented. The mix of fact and fiction provided by Nathan deftly subjected the king’s hitherto unquestioned noblesse oblige to common and lawful standards of humanity. It is still a thriving moral paradigm.

The metaphors to which this discussion now turns are four of the most striking and effective prophetic images discovered by the author during a reading of the entire Hebrew Bible in Hebrew. They are joined here by no other thread than the excellence of each Hebrew mashal, remarkable for lively social critique, beauty, imaginative precision, and exegetical creativity. Each one achieves its point poetically, through sound and rhythm, and all used images as a way of causing people to think unwonted thoughts. Each one has quite distinctive exegetical problems, and so the discussion of each will be entirely different. The passages for which translations have been done and annotated were those in which appreciation of how the image operates could profitably govern the varied tasks of a translator. The aim of each exegesis is merely to understand how that image works; why is it so terrible, so good, so holy?

Hosea 7:3–9

Hos 6:7 to the end of chapter 7 is a series of laments in which adultery and idolatry are related forms of infidelity to God. In the Hosean thought-world of chapters 1–3, adultery is a metaphor for idolatry. The theme is refreshed in these laments by comparing adultery, violence and apostasy to how bread is baked, which is the fulcrum of the prophetic device. The metaphor opens with a complaint that indicts moral idiocy: “They do not say in their hearts that I remember their wickedness.” (7:2).5 Growing lawlessness (3–7) ripens into apostasy (8, 9) until Ephraim can be compared to badly made bread, broken by other nations. But still “they do not return to the LORD their God; for all this, they do not seek him” (10). The language of baking, heating ovens, swelling dough, is innocent enough, but its conjunction with personal, political and religious infidelity is shockingly apt.

The jagged texture of the text of Hosea has been at the center of a long history of comment that has included diachronic, tradition historical and synchronic descriptions.6 The baking metaphor is remarkable for abrupt syntax, broken grammatical structures and ambiguous vocabulary, and these factors naturally produce varied exegetical and translational solutions. One hypothesis is that the text is only a sketch of what the prophet said, written either by the prophet or his followers.7 The spoken word was flexible, adapted to the audience and left in the moment. Only an orator’s notes remain.

Alternatively, tradition history has held that the original utterances of Hosea were always transmitted by a group of adherents who were at liberty to retell them with minor variances. The exact words of the prophet cannot be determined because his message was mediated by how his students remembered, creatively re-used, and finally fixed his message in writing.8 In this view, the baking metaphor of Hosea 7 is a template by which both the court and the international policies of the king were critiqued for their general failure to turn to God.

Redaction criticism can then hold that the second metaphor regarding Ephraim is a re-invention of the ipsissima verba of Hosea in 3–7.9 The text bears this interesting explanation particularly well because 8 and 9 are in superior condition for translation. However, if 3–9 is not a single complex diatribe, the irony of those who consume their judges (7) being consumed by the nations (9) is a remarkably well done addition to the original prophecy.

Since the dates of Hosea are well known, 3–7 possibly refers to a specific assassination in Israel, giving rise to speculation that the baker was a key character in an assassination, so baking was part of a sitz im leben that could be compared to lust and ambition.10 The mashal made the baker’s craft a conceit for how a plan, once it is conceived, grips the imagination while at rest and awakens the heated intention to act.

From a purely literary reading, many examples of assonance in the choice of words creates a texture of associations that can be analyzed on several levels.11 Moreover, this poetic musicality demands dramatic performance to be fully appreciated. My translation below is composed with the aim of making effective Hosea’s comparison of bread baking to vice.

(3) In their wickedness they make the king glad12, and in their deceits, princes. (4) They are all adulterous as a burning oven.13 The baker lets the dough rest, he takes it up,14, he kneads15 it until it is leavened. (5) By day16 princes enraged 17 with wine weaken18 our king; he drew to his side19 deceivers.20 (6) For in their artifice, they prepare their hearts like an oven21; within them their anger22 lies inert through the night; in the morning it 23 bursts into flaming fire. (7) They are all heated like an oven; they consume24 their judges and all their kings are fallen. None of them call upon me. (8) Ephraim is mixed among the people; he is a cake not turned. (9) Strangers eat his strength and he doesn’t know it; mold25 is scattered over him and he knows it not” (Hos 7:3–9).

Rising bread dough easily doubles its size when at rest while a hot oven is prepared to arrest its swelling. It is anything but exciting. But to coordinate this placid routine with adultery engenders a kind of horror as the hidden agenda appears. It is so well-conceived as to make its point on first hearing or reading. When the reader understands, the strange disjunction of subjects has arrested prurient interest while engaging moral reflection. Deeply indecent but avoiding indelicacy, the comparison is like acceptable but hidden crime, or social sins that move along tried and true paths of convention. The innocent image bristles with angry language that tears away the mask of innocence. Baking does not indulge the passions; but describing passion, ambition or crime as baking gives the intellect an opportunity to dissect immorality dispassionately.

The metaphor has several purposes. One is to evaluate historic human actions by a standard that elicits judgment as to their quality and merit. Another is to frame the social comment in terms that ring true for this entire class of motive and deed. The main subject, in view of Hosea’s first chapters, is adultery, itself a metaphor for idolatry and political folly.26 The auxiliary subject is the phased process of baking bread. Prurient fascination exercised over the imagination by vice is arrested by the dispassionate association of inflamed sentiments with fermenting yeast. The tendency to enjoy the subject is thus suspended. The metaphor then heightens the ability to form a moral judgment by “a novel configuration . . . by the juxtaposition of two frames of reference of which the reader must be simultaneously aware.”27 These two domains collide —two contexts that are not actually comparable each interpret the other. The reader must discern in a euphemistic setting the mental, moral and emotional states that engender and drive wrongdoing on to its bitter end.

This prophetic image uses a well-known routine of the disempowered to expose what kings and princes do. People who bake daily bread can easily understand the judgment upon a ruling class burning with enthusiasm for pleasure and power. Even a woman’s imagination is called to judge priests and rulers as she might another woman. Making these high and fine intrigues as common as bread removes the privileges that shield them from public calumny. The metaphor thus brings judgment and with it the hope of justice, for what is exposed in this way is drained of good reason to cooperate with it. Hos 7:2 and 10 however, do not leave the subject entirely open to interpretation, but direct it: the fault—of which all are guilty, whether through adultery, regicide or apostasy—is failing to turn to the LORD.

Habakkuk 1:9–12

Like Hosea (737–720 BCE), Habbakuk (606–598 BCE) employed familiar images to say extraordinary things, but this passage dreaded something not yet accomplished. Its purpose was to cause people to understand something too unbelievable to be plainly said (v. 5), or perhaps to admit the unthinkable. The failure of justice and its perversion in Judah will result in bondage to a people whose “justice and dignity proceed from themselves.” The Chaldeans who will replace a society structured by the teachings of Moses are worse than disobedient to law; their law is what their strength allows them to do; they honor only themselves. Even though Judeans were not observing their obligations in Judah’s covenant with its God, to be reduced from servants of God to slaves of Chaldeans was inconceivable.

In order to get people to imagine what their new masters were and would do, Habakkuk used a series of metaphors from amoral nature; horses, the leopard, wolves, birds of prey, and finally the metaphor of the qdym, the hot east wind, in Hab 1:9. Pursuers, predators, and at last a wind devoid of conscience “articulate a referent so new or so alien to consciousness that this referent can only be grasped within the metaphor itself.”28 The yoke of the law, even if observed more in breech than by obedience, is humane; but this oppressor can only be described as bestial, or as an elemental force.

The wind does not think; it has no moral scruples or imagination; it comes, it goes, it does not know what it does or care what it leaves; it cannot be held accountable nor can it be dissuaded. Particularly winds from the east are a biblical symbol of divine judgment. Hebrew ruach contains an inherent image associating the wind with the spirit of God, so that “In these contexts of proclaimed judgment, the hot easterly winds, which wither crops and torment people, illustrate the nature of the events to come.”29 Hos 13:15 warned Israel that the Assyrians would come like the hwhy xwr mydq easterly blast, the wind (spirit) of the Lord to end their idolatry, parching the land, stripping the storehouses. Habakkuk’s warning to Judah took up Hosea’s awful prediction of Israel’s fall, particularly if his hmydq (MT) is the Hosean eastwind mydq, leading this discussion to a text critical problem.

The text of Hab 1:9 MT contains the difficult phrase, hmydq mhynp tm%gm. The first word is a hapax legomena assigned by BDB to the root Mmg from which the adverb, Mg is derived, which has the sense of something added to, also. The Arabic cognate of the verb likewise connotes gathering, assembling. Although the exact meaning of this noun is not known, its translations often imply ranks of invaders. Alternatively, LXX translated as if from trgm megorat for fear, horror which was followed by RSV “terror of them goes before them.” Megammat (megorat) pnyhm is a construct phrase in which pnyhm, literally their faces, can figuratively refer to the collective presence of troups, or perhaps terrors. Qadymah in MT, from Mdq qedem, is either a feminine before, or with final directional h eastwards. It too has variants in the ancient translations. The Habbakuk Pesher of Qumran in particular has the masculine form mydq meaning east wind, which agrees with Hos 13:15.30 Because the prophetic point comes into sharp focus by likening the presence of these massed, violent troups to the east wind this paper employs the Qumran variant as the probable original.

In the fairly literal translation below the bestial figures in v. 8 intensify in horror until the prophet strikes his clinching metaphor which begins with mydq, the ravages of the east wind (9–11), and closes in a sudden intense stillness inhabited by the everlasting (mdqm) LORD.

(9) He comes entirely for violence, their amassed presence an eastwind, driving captives like sand.31 (10) He mocks kings, and strong men are a joke to him, and against every fortification he heaps up dust32 to capture it. (11) Then the wind passes on, transgressing, desolating; this, his strength, is his god. (12) Art not thou from everlasting33 O LORD my God, my holy one? We shall not die. You have set him for judgment and established him for chastisement, O Rock.34 (Hab 1:9–12).

Between Mydq the eastwind, and Mdqm ht) )wlh art not thou from everlasting, the inconceivable is told with chilling clarity: the desolate sigh of the wind’s aftermath, captives heaped like sand against the city walls, the lawless called to bring the lawful to the law. At its end, divinity confronts inhumanity in a completed metaphor “whose power creates the participation whereby its truth is experienced”35

Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3 and Joel 3:1036

Isaiah 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes37 for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Micah 4:3 He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Joel 3:10 (MT 4:10) Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”

Insofar as these texts represent a thesis and antithesis, the question of which is the older has been labored as a point for comment. Although the discussion of the date of each is important, it is not entirely decisive in answering the question. The point is that the assumption that one text depended on another may not be the correct model at all. Instead, it is possible to assume a literary setting in which traditions were constantly interacting with the process of creating new texts or sayings, and that the results could be received both as tradition and as innovation.38

Isaiah and Micah were prophets in Jerusalem during the generation when the northern kingdom of Israel fell. Micah prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (742–698 BCE), and so of the three is the most solidly fixed in time. Isa 1–39 contains historical subjects ranging from the period of Assyrian domination of the Fertile Crescent up to the first years of Babylonian supremacy.39 Isa 40–55 pertains to the Exile, the return to Jerusalem under Cyrus of Persia; and 56–66 well fits Jerusalem’s restoration as an international hub. Isa 2:4 sounds a theme that received full treatment in Isa 56–66, but because Micah’s version existed in the Assyrian era, Isaiah’s need not be pushed into the Second Temple era. Only at a much more advanced stage of Israelite history could Mt. Zion be envisioned as the exalted center of international civilization.40 Isa 2:4 is as a pre-exilic seed from which grew the full-flowered vision of international peace created through worship of Israel’s God and observance of torah in Isa 56–66.

A parallel theme, stated as an act of God, exists in Psalm 46, a song of thanksgiving for divine protection of Jerusalem and its temple, particularly v. 10: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.” Micah and Isaiah were able to comment on the deliverance of Jerusalem from Ashurbanipal under Hezekiah, and Psalms adds its notion of divine intervention leading to the end of warfare in a separate genre. Variations between Isaiah, Micah and Ps 46:10 are compatible with how an oral tradition could be tailored for different purposes without altering its practical effect.41 All three briefly indicate a theological potential within Israelite thought to conceive of universal peace within the kingdom of God.

Despite these several visions of peace, it is still not clear whether Joel 3:10 (MT 4:10) contradicted their tradition or they are a contradiction of Joel’s tradition. The difficulty of dating Joel complicates rather than solves the question because Joel reads exactly like a classic pre-exilic doom prophecy in many respects, but contains some indications of archaizing composition that heavily depended on earlier material. 42

The book of Joel provides a different kind of clue about the original tradition, one that does not depend on when he wrote. The entire book is a parable about salvation wrought upon agricultural imagery. Its coherence is a virtue of how well it selects and applies rural scenes to the varied themes of judgment of Israel, her restoration, and judgment of her tormentors. Joel sustained his parable without fully disclosing its meaning until, at 3:13 (MT 4:13), it becomes clear that the harvest under the sickle and the grapes in the press are people.

One among a profusion of agricultural scenes, Joel’s proclamation to take up arms and be courageous makes perfect sense in militias as early as the amphictyonic tribes of Judges, so it has been argued that Joel represents the older, original tradition.43 But whether this proclamation was reflected at an early date, or borrowed much later, is less germane than its origin in praxis rather than in prophecy. Taking up arms is the usual; a promise that arms will become agricultural tools and every man will be at peace is still prophetic. The thesis is ordinary; its antithesis is revolutionary. What clearly matters is the succinct reversal of common sense and the way the world is. If these three prophetic voices constitute a Bakhtian dialogue in which one voice reverses and redirects the original intentions of another, the great success of the venture is with Isaiah and Micah, even if they wrote before Joel.44

The fact that each version was crafted differently to serve the message of each prophet is a property of oral tradition which cohered through the sound of words.45 All three prophets recognized a traditional form for mustering rural militia so well known that it could even be reversed and still be recognizable. Isaiah and Micah held the traditional proclamation in tension with their new message by retaining its vocabulary while reversing its content.46 The effect was to heighten the utopian scene by holding the thesis within its antithesis, “A traditional image set in an unexpected context causes the hearers to look with new eyes . . . They receive new information in both domains that converge in the image.”47

Zechariah 2:5 (MT 2:9)

Before World War II, Buber and Rosenzweig theorized that Hebrew scripture deliberately repeated key words (Leitwörter) to create the spiritual message (Botschaft). On the level of Hebrew grammar, the technique is a function of the versatile Hebrew root, which has two or three signature sounds in every verbal conjugation. The root’s consonants are also recognizable in nouns, adjectives, and proper names, so the consonantal sounds bind many meanings, and sometimes even contradictory meanings, into a single category marked by assonance. It was a form of art to choose a stem and repeatedly use it in varied grammatical iterations to create a message which derived its meaning from repeating sounds in its vocabulary. The technique well suits oral teaching and learning by ear because it facilitates memorization for the orator, and simplifies the task of the listener by providing refrains, and clearly marking themes. For example, the Exodus deliverance and wilderness traditions contain narrative and poetry that are well-structured for oral presentation because its themes are simply and memorably embodied through repeated use of key stems. Other Israelite authors working in varied genres could take up the Botschaft by using the same forms and vocabulary. Additionally, traditional vocabulary and form could be used to make a new tradition rooted in the old, so that the tradition sounded unified, but was allowed to evolve. Rosenzweig and Buber argued that thus the message of the Hebrew Bible was unified even in its multiplicity and translated it accordingly. On this theory, every effort was made to choose a single German root to put in the place of every key Hebrew root.48 Taking their lead, Everett Fox attempted the same technique in an English translation at the turn of the 21st century.49

Zech 2:5 is marked by the vocabulary of the Mosaic tradition of Exod 3:12–15 in which the Hebrew name Yahweh was associated with the similar sounding verb ehyeh, or I am. The etymology of names in the Hebrew Bible, although often inexact from the lexicographer’s standpoint, does reliably strike the character in a single word. Without establishing its etymological history, it is still clear that the Mosaic call narrative defined Yahweh for the Hebrew Bible in association with hayah--be, become, happen, befall.50 The name and verb share many of the same consonants, hence are assonant, and so the Biblical meaning of the name is held in the root that defines it. The Torah contains a number of speeches by Yahweh that are studded with ordinary forms of hayah, indicating that the wordplay of the Mosaic etymology was a substantial tradition. Speeches by Yahweh that enjoyed assonance between the name and hayah include reassurances of protection, scenes of creation, and covenantal promises. Isaac, Aaron, Moses, Joshua, Gideon and David were all reassured by Yahweh, saying “I am with you.”51 A similar reassuring promise from Yahweh is found in Jeremiah and Ezekiel: “I am your God and you are my people.” More forbidding is the threat in Hos 1:9, “I am not with you.” The homophony of subject and action, name and verb, constituted a poetic theology which has a role in how the Hebrew Bible characterized its central character. All of these examples of a theological characterization of Yahweh relative to hayah depend on pronouncing the name as it is written. The tradition was audible before substitutes began to be read out loud in the place of its letters.

Zech 2:5 (MT 2:9) reiterated the oral tradition by using the Mosaic association of Yahweh with Ehyeh (I am); but Zechariah’s version is well beyond ordinary in this class of texts, for though hayah by its very nature resists imagery, (thus upholding Mosaic laws prohibiting the making of idols,) Zechariah embellished it fabulously. The Exodus deliverance stories and the fiery chariots and horsemen of Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:11; 6:17) are invoked with his imagery of glory within the city and walls of fire round about her.52 Zechariah’s actual subject is the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem, but as is the rule with classic prophecy, the wall is not going to save Jerusalem. The signature “I, I am with you” that reassured Israel’s ancient heroes with an invisible presence was the salvific dimension to trust in. Zechariah therefore conceived of the unseen presence of the LORD with the luminous image of a wall of fire, impenetrably removing her fate from an earthly to a spiritual fortress. Going one step further, not armed forces, provisions, wealth and great art or architecture were the glory of Jerusalem, but the numinous LORD alone, “I am the glory within her.” Steeped in the prophetic tradition in which God alone can save the people, the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem was her strength and shield. Zechariah’s apocalyptic imagery has added to the ancient patriarchal promise a messianic fervor.53

The following translation is, in the tradition of Buber, Rosenzweig and Fox, an effort to show how Zechariah used the play of Hebrew words from Exod 3:12–15 to recreate the Exodus deliverance while developing the pneumatological possibilities inherent in a folk etymology based on a word like “being.” In Hebrew, the proper divine name also must make sense as a form of being, so it has an exegetical equivalent in English that echoes the verb. Hence, my translation:

And I, I Am54 unto her, says Being-who-creates-being,55 as a wall of fire round about her, and I am56 glorious57 within her (Zech 2:5).

Although early post-exilic Jerusalem was a frontier, literary activity had certainly been intense during the Exile when these promises were most needed. Zechariah pointedly evoked the heroes to whom the old promises came, but his new message smelted the simple, ancient language of reassurance, shaped it anew and encrusted it with images of wonder, carrying Botschaft into a spiritual dimension. He deliberately recalled the marvels of the Exodus deliverance with twofold purpose; to encourage people who were in danger, and to plant them firmly in the land by insisting that God alone is sufficient for Israel. Exalting the Mosaic tradition with one image that can be visualized easily and another that makes untouchable the city’s greatness, he was able to formulate a theological attitude by choice of special linguistic means.58

Conclusion

This study included four extremely effective examples of ancient Israelite rhetoric which certainly were delivered orally. All but Zechariah drew metaphors of which most people had first-hand experience to create sayings that would be easily understood by non-literate listeners on the first proclamation. Zech 2:5 (MT 2:9) has an inner-textual echo of a necessarily oral tradition, but must have depended on the post-exilic corpus of Hebrew sacred writings. All four examples have distinctive complexities.

What may be said of this particular set of oracles is that highly sophisticated performance is characteristic of all four, and that literary composition is more the servant than the primary vehicle of oracular utterances. Their vocabulary, diction, and syntax can all be analyzed as drama, both for literary value and for oral effect. They are all economical with words as is poetry; they work with memorable reiterations of similar sounding words; and, they employ simple imagery through which any listener can interpret public, moral and spiritual life. Moreover, they still speak to the conscience of those who will hear. Transcending the situations that evoked prophetic comment, the collision of history with imaginative representation of its moral and spiritual dimensions produced iconic illuminations of the character of human behavior and the Spirit of God.59

1. Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets: Two Volumes in One (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2009; repr., New York: Harper & Row, 1962).

2. Joachim Schaper, “Exilic and Post-exilic Prophecy and the Orality/Literacy Problem” VT 55 (2005): 324–42. For discussion of type and quality of metaphor, cf. Kirsten Nielsen There is Hope for a Tree: The Tree as Metaphor in Isaiah (JSOTSup 65; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2009).

3. Max Black, “Metaphor,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55 (1954–55): 273–94.

4. Norman Perrin, “The Parables of Jesus as Parables, as Metaphors, and as Aesthetic Objects: a Review Article,” JR 47 (1967): 340–46.

5. That is, Isa 29:15; 44:9; Ps 94:7, 8.

6. For a summary of this discussion, see Gale A. Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea: A Redaction Critical Investigation (SBLDS 102; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1987).

7. Ibid., 2, 8, 22.

8. Ibid., 7–10.

9. William McKane, “Prophecy and the Prophetic Literature,” in Tradition and Interpretation: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (ed. George W. Anderson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 178; Yee, Composition and Tradition, 181–83.

10. Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea (AB 24; Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1980), 459, 448. Isa 28 and 29 contain a similar lament for the wickedness and drunkenness of the ruling classes, suggesting a specific historic event behind both compositions.

11. Gerald Morris, Prophecy, Poetry and Hosea (JSOTSup 219; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 93–95, notes word play on P) in P) anger, P)n adultery, hp) baker, myrp) Ephraim—all sharing some consonants. Then also r( ‘r — in r(b burn, rw( awake, or ry(m stir which puns with ry( city. mbr)b their ambush sounds like r(b burn, which also similar to ry( city.

12. BHS suggests wxms rejoice should properly be wx#$m anoint so that “the day of our/their king” in v. 5 would be his inauguration.

13. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 447–8, 455–6, redivide -m hr(b rwn@t wmk to get they are all adulterers, like a burning oven Mh r(b rwn@tk.

14. ry(m BDB Hiphil masculine singular participle: rouse from sleep; or qal: stir up to activity (against), awake, arouse the dawn, stir up a fire. Does the baker keep coals low while the dough rises and then fires the oven up for baking, or was the oven kept hot during the process of kneading and rising? LXX, the most ancient witness of how bread was made indicates that the oven is kept “glowing with flames for hot-baking, on account of the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.”

15. Three verbs in succession: twb#$y rest, ry(m awake, #$wlm stir, well correspond to the three stages of setting dough to rise, pounding it down and kneading it the second time.

16. MT has ywm mlknw “day of our king,” but the BHS apparatus (Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible, Edition for Logos Software Users [Stuttgart: German Bible Society; Haarlem: Netherlands Bible Society, 2006) for Hos 7:5 suggests bywm mklm “on the day of their king” indicating an inaugural day, cf. Tg Jonathan for the Minor Prophets: “The day they appointed their king over them” (K. J. Cathcart and R. P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets [ArBib 14; Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, 1989], 43.)

17. tmx can mean “hot rage” in its usual sense, but also poison in this context.

18. hlx is ordinarily intransitive, but Ibn Ezra thought the hiphil form could be transitive (cf. Prov 13:12), hence “the princes have made the king sick” (The Commentary of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra on Hosea [ed. and trans. Abe Lipshitz; New York: Sepher-Hermon, 1988], 72–73, nn. 13, 14, and 76, n. 15). Versions differ greatly. LXX, Syr, Tg derive from llxh, begin, rather than MT, hlxh be sick, be weak. LXX: In the days of our kings, the princes began to be inflamed with wine: he stretched out his hand with pestilent fellows. Vg: dies regis nostri coeperunt principes furere a vino extendit manum suam cum inlusoribus, “On the day of our king, the princes began to be furious with wine; he extended his hands with the insolent.” Tg: The day they appointed their king over them, the princes began to drink wine with him. He drew to his side (mshk ydw) a troop of deceivers. Also, j. Avodah Zarah 1:1 reads MT myrs wlxh “the princes killed” (cf. Cathcart and Gordon, Targum of Minor Prophets, 43).

19. K#$m is read in parallel to dy xl#$ stretch forth the hand, or dy Ntn lit. gave the hand, often warlike acts. K#$m is used for military lines or forming ranks in Job 21:33 and Judges 4. dy K#$m is not found elsewhere. Of the weakened or sickened king it might be said that he unwittingly admitted to his presence people whose real intentions were concealed, so Tg interpreted “he drew to his side” (Cathcart and Gordon, Targum, 43).

20. The parallel of Ccl with Cr( ruthless in Isa 29:20 makes the former a very strong word, even deadly deception.

21. Adultery is compared to an oven in v 4; and although BHS conjectures that the second use of rwnt here is missing its parallel to adultery, the verb brq indicates a metaphoric shift to warlike heat, or anger.

22. Tg and Syr have anger instead of MT baker. Douglas K. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (WBC 31; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987) translated “All night their fury slumbers, in the morning it blazes up like a roaring fire” (114, 116). Andersen and Freedman, Hosea (449–50) take it to be a description of an assassination in which a baker participated.

23. Andersen and Freedman take )wh to mean the oven (Hosea, 459).

24. This is a Janus or double faced image: Those who devour their judges are devoured by the nations in 8, 9.

25. Tanakh boldly stretches hby#, a word for old age indicated by grey hair, into mold for old bread, thus deciding that the baking metaphor should still govern interpretation of this verse.

26. Jer 9:2, “they all commit adultery, an assembly of treacherous men.” Cf. dgb in Mal 2:15.

27. Ian G. Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 13.

28. John Dominic Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).

29. Wilf Hildebrandt, An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995) 10. Cf. Hos 12:1; 13:15; Jer 18:17; Ezek 13:11; 17:10; 19:12; Jonah 1:4, 4:8.

30. Textual variations include MT: hmydq mhynp, feminine, facing eastwards or conjecture by BHS, hmdq forward facing, but Habakkuk Pesher from Qumran has masculine, mydq east wind, cf. LXX, Tg, Syr: “The appearance of their faces”; Vg: “their faces move forward.”

31. lwxi sand.

32. rp( dust is parallel to lwx sand, so still possibly a metaphor for captives or victims heaped against the city walls as a berm to scramble over.

33. Mdqm meqedem.

34. rwc is a double entendre in this context because it often refers to utter reliability of Israel’s God, but it can be used of foreign gods actually hewn from stone, and by extension, their worshippers become the inflexible instrument of chastisement.

35. John Dominic Crossan “Parable as Religious and Poetic Experience,” JR 53 (1973): 330-58.

36. The English Standard Version is quoted in this section because, in these verses, it bears a word for word correspondence to the Hebrew text.

37. xykwhw was translated by LXX e1legcei, chose. The sense of rebuke, punish, discipline, has been followed by the Good News Version, KJV, and Douay Rheims American edition. Because people can be nations, the New Living Translation envisions international justice.

38. Bertil Wiklander, Prophecy as Literature: A Text-Linguistic and Rhetorical Approach to Isaiah 2–4 (ConBOT 22; Lund: Gleerup, 1984), 206.

39. Isa 6:1–9:7 pertains to the Syro-Phonecian war during the time of Ahaz (735–33 BCE); Isa 20:1–6 notes the Phillistine revolt against Assyria (713–711 BCE); Isa 36–38 reports Isaiah’s interactions with Hezekiah during Sennacherib’s seige of Jerusalem in 701 BCE; Isa 39 relates to the rising Babylonian power during Merodach -baladan (721–710 BCE) (with HBC, 548).

40. Against an early date for Isa/Mic is the universal and eschatological expectation like those of Isa 40–65. But John D. W. Watts, Isaiah (WBC 24; Waco, Tex.: 1985), 28–29, and John Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 115, are most impressed by its genius, and so attribute it to pre-exilic Isaiah. Wiklander (Prophecy as Literature, 181, 201) places Isa 2:2–4 between 734–622, the reigns of Hezekiah or Josiah, composed by a scribal school that used diverse materials from diverse times and genres for rhetorical purposes. Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39: with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 97–99, places it in the reign of Cyrus.

41. Hans Walter Wolff, Micah (trans. Gary Stansell; Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsberg, 1990), 85. For a full comparison of Isa 2:2–4 and Mic 4:1–3 and ancient translations with the conclusion that the final form is post-exilic because of its international vision see William McKane, The Book of Micah: Introduction and Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 121.

42. For example, Joel 3:6 (MT 4:6) mentions Judeans enslaved to Mynwyh (LXX #Ellhne/j) “the Hellenes,” for which there is an exilic precedent in Ezek 27:13, “Hellas . . . traded with you [Tyre] in the persons of men.” Joel’s date of composition, however, can be argued either as contemporary with Ezekiel, or archaizing.

43. There are debates about all of these passages as to date. But cf. Jer 46:3, 50:14, 51:11 for similar calls to arms. See too, Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology (trans. D. M. G. Stalker; 2 vols.; London; SCM, 1975), 2:408.

44. On this point, John Strazicich, Joel’s Use of Scripture and the Scripture’s Use of Joel: Appropriation and Resignification in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (BibInt 82; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 233, n. 97, cites Mikhail Bakhtin’s well-known essay, “Discourse Typology in Prose,” in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views (ed. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomovska; Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press 1971), 176–97 (185).

45. Raymond F. Person, The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature (SBLStBl 2; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002).

46. Wolff, Micah, 85; Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12 (trans. R. A. Wilson; London: SCM, 1972), 25.

47. Neilsen, Hope for a Tree, 51.

48. For a full explanation how Hebrew Leitwörter (Leading Words) create Botschaft (Message), see Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation (trans. Lawrence Rosenwald and Edith Fox; Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994).

49. Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: a New Translation with Introductions, Commentary and Notes (New York: Schocken, 1995).

50. Evidence of its importance as a symbol of an unseen, unparalleled and infinite Deity is found in the Judaic practice of reading Adonay, or “my lord” instead of Yahweh in order to sanctify the name. Yawe from LXX of Theodoret and Epiphanius, –yahu (i.e. Eliyahu) and yeho- (i.e. Jehoshaphat) of compound theophoric names and the contracted form yah all favor a first closed syllable with patah. Galatinus introduced the pronunciation Jehovah in 1520 without regard for MT vocalization and Le Merecier, J. Drusius, and L. Capellus argued for grammatical and historical propriety. Traditionally lexicons, see Buxdorf (91), Davidson (300), Gesenius (336), Mandelkern (323), and BDB (218), list it as a derivative of hyh or hwh because hyh) in Exod 3:10–14 has continuously shaped efforts to locate the root of the word, resulting in theological definitions such as “self-existent, self-creative, eternal.” The school of thought on this context that parses it as a causative hiphil is represented by P. Haupt, “Der Name Jahwe,” OLZ 12 (1909): 211–14; W. F. Albright, “Contributitons to Biblical Archaeology and Philology: The Name Yahweh,” JBL 43 (1924): 370–78; idem, review of B. N. Wambacq, L’épithète divine Jahvé Seba’ôt: Étude philologique, historique et exégétique [Bruges: Desclée, De Brouwer, 1947] in JBL 67 (1948): 377–81; idem, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (Garden City, N.Y.; Doubleday, 1968), 168-172; F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 60–75; D. N. Freedman, “The Name of the God of Moses,” JBL 79 (1960): 151–56; Jean Kinyongo, “Origine et signification du nom divin Yahvé ala lumiere de récents travaux et de traditions sémitico-bibliques,” BBB 35 (1970): 69–82; J. P. Hyatt, “Was Yahweh Originally a Creator Deity?,” JBL 86 (1967): 369–77.

Other strands of interpretation have precedents in other biblical traditions. First, Tg Neofiti’s Memra associated the divine name with speaking (R. Hayward, Divine Name and Presence: The Memra [Oxford Center for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies; Totowa, N.J.: Allenheld, Osmun, 1981]), a derivation from supposed Ugaritic hwy “to speak” (A. E. Murtonen, A Philological and Literary Treatise on the OT Divine Names yhwh, ’lwhym, ’lw’, ’l (StudOr 18/1; Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica, 1952), 90]; R. A. Bowman, “Yahweh the Speaker,” JNES 3 [1944]: 1–8), for all of which Gen 1:1–2:4 serves as precedent. Second, arguments from Arabic hwy, hwh in afel in three senses: “befall” (R. De Vaux, The Early History of Israel [Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster, 1978], 345); “blow” linked to storm-god metaphors (T. J. Meek, Hebrew Origins [New York: Harper, 1960], 99–101); and “love, be passionate, be jealous” (S. D. Goiten, “YHWH the Passionate: the Monotheistic Meaning and Origin of the Name YHWH,” VT 6 [1956]: 1–9; cf. DeVaux, Early History, 345f; and the metaphor of the marriage covenant in prophecy and Exod 20:5 = Deut 5:9; Exod 34:4; Deut 4:24). Third, it is thought to be an elemental sound, yah (G. R. Driver, “The original form of the name ‘Yahweh’,” ZAW 5 [1928]: 7–25) perhaps first derived from the personal pronoun, ya huwa from Arabic “O He!” (S. Mowinckle, “The Name of the God of Moses,” HUCA 32 [1961]: 121–33; cf. Martin Buber, On the Bible: Eighteen Studies [ed. Nahum N. Glatzer; New York: Schocken, 1982], 44–62) for which Biblical precedents are ykwn) or )wh yn) in Deut 32:39; Isa 41:4; 43:10, 13, 25; 46:4; 48:12; 51:12; 52:6 and )wh ht) in Ps 102:28.

51. Gen 26:3, Isaac; Gen 31:3, Jacob; Exod 3:12; 4:12, 15, Moses, Aaron; Deut 31:23, Moses to Joshua; Josh 1:5; 3:7, God to Joshua; Judg 6:16, Gideon; 2 Sam 7:9 = I Chron 17:8, David. C. Isbell interprets the verb in Exod 3:12a to be a divine name and sign, “The Divine Name Ehyeh as a Symbol of Presence in Israelite Tradition” HAR (1978): 104, 111. Cf. “I am with you” (Exod 3:12, 14; Ps 50:21; 2 Sam 6:7); “I am not with you” (Hos 1:9).

52. Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) describes inner biblical exegesis in which traditions were creatively reworked in later texts (425–26) as “Spiritualization of the tradition.”

53. Cf. Lyle Story, “Zechariah’s Two Sons of Oil: Zechariah 4,” Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research 2 (2010): 31–56.

54. The emphatic use of the personal pronoun yn) is kept distinct from the first person singular pronoun in the verb form of hayah for the purpose of indicating that this verb is identical to Exod 3:14 b in which it is a divine name. The nominal function of the verb is exaggerated by capitalization. For other emphatic uses of the pronoun with ’hyh see Jer 11:4: 24:7: 30:22: 32:38: Ezek 11:20: 14:11: 34:24: 36:28: 37:23: and Zech 8:8.

55. Reading the Tetragrammaton with BDB as a self-causing, self-existent form of being, so perhaps an internal hiphil of hyh, allowing that, at least in scripture, the holiness of the name would have excluded use of hiphil in hyh for any other purpose.

56. The play of Hebrew words toggles between the nominal and verbal statement “I Am” as a name, and “I am” as a verb. Because Hebrew ehyeh (I am) is a verb that is a divine name (I Am), when it is used in a speech by Yahweh the verb always sounds like the name of Exod 3:14b, even if it is not a proper name in syntax. The theory of leading words holds that it is the sound of the word that carries its content, which Hebrew does gracefully. But to translate into a target language in a way that makes the associative sounds obvious results in a much more awkward, forced sentence. This was acknowledged in the 1936 German translation by Buber and Rosenzweig as published in their Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung (see now the English translation, Scripture and Translation [n. 48 above]) and is evident in Fox’s Five Books of Moses. However, Fox’s attempt to emphasize theological implications of an elegant but packed Hebrew verse is far too heavy-handed because the English “I am” in the place of Hebrew ehyeh does not sound like “the LORD” which would ordinarily be in the place of Hebrew Yahweh.

57. dbkl literally, to, for or unto glory.

58. Cf. Harold Fisch, “Analogy of Nature, a Note on the Structure of Old Testament Imagery,” ST 6 (1955): 161–73 (162); Christine Downing, “How can we hope and not dream? Exodus as metaphor: A study of the biblical Imagination” JR 48 (1968): 35–53; and Neilsen’s treatment of biblical imagery in her Hope for a Tree, passim.

59. I would like to thank the libraries of the Iliff School of Theology and the Tyndale House for their hospitality during the course of this research.