I was re-struck this morning as I was reading in the Book of 1 Samuel by the contrast between some of the views of kingship in it and in the Book of Judges.  The books of Samuel are certainly not a monolith on this topic, however, since there are positive views of kingship found therein.  At any rate, I thought I’d lay out the contrast.

1 Samuel 8:4-18

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, 7 and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 Just as they have done to me,​​ from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. 9 Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
10 So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; 12 and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. 15 He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. 16 He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle​ and donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (NRSV).

Judges

I do not know that there is any one particular text to cite here, but the whole book is full of chaos and part of  the very little commentary that one gets on this chaos is:

In those days there was no king in Israel …

or something like it (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25).

I’m sorry to disappoint you after that provocative title, but this is a translation issue.  I was reading Judges again this morning in the NJPS.  I read Judges 16.1, which is translated as follows: “Once Samson went to Gaza; there he met a whore and slept with her.”  I thought to myself that I was not accustomed to seeing this phrase (‘ishah zonah) translated as “whore,” but rather as “prostitute” or “harlot” (these are represented by a number of translations including NASB, ESV, NET and others).  And, I’m not sure why, but “whore” struck me as a far more abrasive term, almost like the threefold statements that Bertrand Russel was famous for (see Pinker page 18) “I am exploring my sexuality; he is promiscuous; she is a slut.”  All three of these statements can be taken to mean generally the same thing, but they differ in the amount of emotion (?) they evoke.

I was wondering if whore and prostitute fit into this kind of mold.  What do you think?  Do these different words make a difference in the emotion they evoke?  Or, do they both basically evoke the same thing?

PS – I’m in no way making any comments about prostitution, i.e. whether it’s better to prostitute or whore.  Both are a blight, though even more of a blight is the fact that some are forced into it.  This is simply meant as a linguistic issue.

I was reading in the Book of Judges again this morning and was reminded of the interesting translation issue in Judges 11.31.

Parallel Translations of Judges 11.31

then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” (ESV)

“whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up as a holocaust.” (NAB)

then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (NASB)

then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” (NRSV)

This range of translations is fairly widespread.

What is at Issue in Judges 11.31?

The basic issue here involves whether Jephthah intended an animal sacrifice when he made his vow in Judges 11 or whether he intended a human sacrifice.  If the translation is “whatever,” this suggests that Jephthah intended an animal sacrifice.  If it is “whoever,” it suggests human sacrifice.  Each translation reflects a fundamentally different understanding of the religion practiced in Ancient Israel, i.e. one in which human sacrifice is acceptable and another in which it is not.  (On this topic I would recommend, Levenson’s The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity.  I side with Levenson.)

Here at least, I believe that both translations are possible.  “Whatever” would add an extra layer of twist to the story, whereas “whoever” would diminish that to a certain extent (though not completely).  Yet I think “whoever” would actually make more logical sense.  If Jephthah intended “whatever,” his daughter is not a “what,” she is a “who.”  So, he would not have had to sacrifice her.  What I would do here then would be to translate as “whoever” while marking the word with a note saying that “whatever” is possible.

This morning as I was reading in the Book of Judges in the New Jewish Publication Society (=NJPS) version of the Tanakh, I came across the word traditionally translated as “judges.”  The NJPS renders the word as “chieftans.” I have also seen it rendered as “leaders/rulers.”  I think the NJPS  and those that render it “leaders” are closer to the actual meaning of the word; however, the book is still titled “Judges” on each account.  My question is: Do you think the findings in the field of Biblical Studies could ever be strong enough for Bible versions to render the name of the book differently?

I personally don’t think so.  The title Judges is so traditionally ingrained, even though it is a bit of a misnomer, at least in the modern sense of the term “judge.”  So, no I don’t think I’ll ever hear a lector say “A Reading from the Book of Chieftans/Leaders.”

Related Posts:

Psalm 1.1 – Translation Comparison

Isaiah 41 – An Interesting Translation Issue

An Ancient of Days or The Ancient of Days: Does it Really Matter?

I was reading the Book of Judges this morning and though it was interesting how Luz supposedly get its name. (Check here for the wider context of Judges 1.23-26).

Judges 1.23-26

23 The house of Joseph sent out spies to Bethel (the name of the city was formerly Luz). 24 When the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, “Show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” 25 So he showed them the way into the city; and they put the city to the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. 26 So the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city, and named it Luz; that is its name to this day. (NRSV)

Why Luz?

So, why does this place get the name Luz when a man leaves his city (which oddly was already called Luz) and lets some spies know how to get into it to kill everyone?  Well, it’s hard to say because the lexicons are not very uniform on what the meaning of the word “luz” is.  The verbal root of luz is rendered “to turn aside, depart” (Brown-Driver-Briggs) and “to be lost to one’s sight” (Holladay).   Some of the derivatives of this word have to do with “deceit” or “cunning.”  However, a noun of the same spelling means “almond tree” (Brown-Driver-Briggs, Holladay).

I think the former verbal root and the derivatives from it give the idea as to how Luz gets its name.  It gets its name because a man who was “departing” his city when the Israelites came founded it.  Maybe because  a “deceitful,” treacherous man founded it, though I’m not sure the Israelite author would have viewed the man so negatively.  But, maybe it was named such on account of almond trees.

This morning I posted a link to Doug Chaplin’s thoughts on today’s Old Testament lectionary reading.  And, I just sat down to write my own thoughts about this strange text.  As Doug has said, there is certainly a lot going on here.  So, I wanted to post the reading in its entirety:

The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.
He passed through Gilead and Manasseh,
and through Mizpah-Gilead as well,
and from there he went on to the Ammonites.
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.
“If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
“whoever comes out of the doors of my house
to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites
shall belong to the LORD.
I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them,
and the LORD delivered them into his power,
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them,
from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all)
and as far as Abel-keramim.
Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection
by the children of Israel.
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah,
it was his daughter who came forth,
playing the tambourines and dancing.
She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said,
“Alas, daughter, you have struck me down
and brought calamity upon me.
For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.”
She replied, “Father, you have made a vow to the LORD.
Do with me as you have vowed,
because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you
on your enemies the Ammonites.”
Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor.
Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains
to mourn my virginity with my companions.”
“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months.
So she departed with her companions
and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
At the end of the two months she returned to her father,
who did to her as he had vowed (New American Bible).

The story is certainly difficult as it stands, but every time I have read it I think I have missed what I think is the most unfathomable part.  Look back at the beginning of the reading.  It says: “The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.”  Excuse me?  “The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah” and then he made this vow?  What is the spirit of the Lord doing appearing in this passage?  Certainly, “spirit of the Lord” does not mean the same thing in the Old Testament that it does in the New Testament.  In the Old Testament, it is often thought of in terms of empowering, though it comes and goes.  But, Jephthah is empowered by YHWH and then he makes this vow?

I think passages like this present us with two fundamentally different ways of reading the Bible.  Do we try to explain it away?  Do we try to explain it in such a way that we defend God?  Or, do we simply say that what happened here was wrong?  And, in the wrongness do we draw the lesson to beware of what actions people ascribe to the “spirit of the Lord?”  What do you think?

Today’s Old Testament reading is one of the most bizzarre Old Testament stories.  Jephthah makes a vow to the Lord that he will sacrifice whatever (or whoever) comes out of his door first if the Lord will deliver the Ammonites into his hands.  It turns out that the Lord does deliver them into his hands, but the first to come out of his door is his daughter.  He in turn sacrifices her, but not before allowing her time to bewail her virginity.  HERE is an article by Doug Chaplin (aka Clayboy) about the reason for her bewailing.  It is not what we in our modern society might think.  I intend to post my own thoughts on this story later.

As I said, I mis-clicked on Monday and thought there was no Old Testament reading.  But, there actually was one – Judges 2.11-19.  Here we find the predominant pattern of the Book of Judges.

1. The people sin (vs. 11-13) – The cycle starts with the people sinning.  Usually this sin is the sin of idolatry, though there is other wanton depravity mixed in with this.  The sin is often described as the people doing “evil in the sight of the Lord.”
2. YHWH gets mad and punishes the people (vs. 14-15) – He does this in most cases by handing the people over into the hands of oppressors.  Everything that the people of Israel set out to do is thwarted by God.
3. YHWH hears the cry of distress from the people and raises up a judge (vs. 16-18) – For more information on what a judge is click HERE.  In these verses, the people never really listen to the judge (vs. 17), but God delivers them anyway.
4. The judge dies and the people sin again, only this time worse than before (vs. 19) – Here is the real kicker.  After their deliverance, the people revert to their normal pattern of sin, only this time it is worse than before.  It is the “worse than before” part that really seems to be the kicker.

Well there it is. That’s just about all you need to know about the Book of Judges.  Just kidding.  The book is a lot more complex and interesting than that.  And, there are some real head-scratchers in there (Jephthah ?).  But, I think it does give us some pretty good insight into our human condition.  It would be easy to look at the people here in the Book of Judges and say “Boy, how stupid can they possibly be!”  Yet when we look at our own lives it becomes a bit more difficult because we see the same mistakes that we tend to make over and over again.

If interested in Judges, you might check out:

Yesterday I reported that there was no Old Testament lectionary reading.  I was actually incorrect.  I had clicked the wrong Monday on the lectionary calendar.  We actually do get some readings from Judges before the lectionary sells its soul by leaving out the Old Testament in favor of the likes of Revelation and 1 Thessalonians.  I will try to catch back up on the readings that I missed.  But, to get you started I thought it was important to point you somewhere to answer the question: What is a “judge?”

One of my favorite sites for answering questions like this is Google Books.  Even the limited previews give you access to some of the best resources available (though obviously with limitations).  HERE is a link to a section in the Oxford History of the Biblical World. Scroll down a bit and read the section entitled “Who should rule? The office of judge.”  This section goes into detail about the Hebrew word underlying the English translation “judge.”  It becomes quickly apparent that it is not limited to the modern meaning of the term.  Be sure to check out the article.

If you are interested in Judges, you might check out: