The Book of the Former Prophets

Preface

I hope that this book will be helpful to students at the college and graduate levels, the latter in Seminaries or Divinity Schools and in doctoral programs. I also hope that the book will be informative to any general reader interested in understanding more fully a major document in the faith traditions of Judaism and Christianity, as well as a story that has informed the self-understanding of North Americans beginning with those colonists who first came to this country from Europe. To aid the reader in seeing parallels with their own history I have occasionally inserted brief quotations from various sources on numerous topics ranging from video games to the war in Iraq. I have also provided a number of Excursuses on various subjects that occur repeatedly, as well as genealogies or similar information on key figures and their families. Finally, there is a brief glossary of key terms.

Sometimes I will refer to verses in the text as, for example, v. 46b or 46a. For readers unfamiliar with scholarly biblical citations, a and b refer generally to the first and second parts of a verse. Sometimes the NRSV will print part b with a separate indentation, for example in 1 Kgs 2:46, with part b beginning with So the kingdom. In this case, the Hebrew text has an indentation also. At other times, it is not obvious to the English reader where the break comes (it is indicated in Hebrew by a superscript symbol). E.g., in the previous verse (45), the division comes after blessed. In the following verse (3:1), the division comes after Egypt, at the semicolon, which often, but by no means always, may indicate a and b. (I use a similar system occasionally to cite pages in a scholarly book that has dual columns of text, e.g., p. 45a or 45b.)

All quotations of the biblical text are from the New Revised Standard Version, using the HarperCollins Study Bible edition, unless otherwise indicated. When I provide my own translation, I will so indicate with the abbreviation AT, for author’s translation. At times I will give the Hebrew word in question in transliteration. My system is informally phonetic, for example, using v for the soft b, as in yashav (where the Hebrew more technically is yashab). Those who know Hebrew should have little trouble determining the root word in question. I use a single quotation mark (‘) to represent the silent letter ‘ayin, and the reverse single quotation mark (’) to represent the letter ’alef.

Although you can read this book without consulting the Bible, your understanding and appreciation for the considerable artistic, historical, and religious merits of the biblical text will be enhanced by reading the two together, in whatever order you decide. Many readers may want to skip the footnotes in order to follow the narrative thread more smoothly. The notes take up interpretive issues in more detail, including the opinions of other scholars, comparative texts, and explanations of my own arguments. When there are extensive footnotes (e.g., on 1 Kings 16–19) the reader might benefit from reading the text at least in whole paragraphs and then consulting the footnotes, in order to keep the thread of the narrative and commentary. Other scholars will, I trust, recognize my inability to consult all of the commentaries on each of the biblical books, not to mention separate monographs and journal articles. (One scholar alone—J. P. Fokkelman—has written close to twenty-five hundred pages limited largely to 1 and 2 Samuel!) Had I attempted to do so, it would have taken another lifetime.

I thank Anne Herndon for plowing through the whole thing in rough form and providing numerous helpful suggestions for which the reader can be grateful. I thank my sister-in-law, Marta Weigle, for suggesting readings about the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish involvement in the American Southwest. I thank David Gunn and Pat Miller for their endorsements, and Pat also for his encouragement of my written work that goes back many years. Both of them endorsed the precedent for this book—The Book of the Torah—and I am delighted to have their names together again on the back cover.

Abbreviations

ANET Ancient Near Eastern Tests Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by James B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University, 1969

AT Author’s translation

DtrH a variant of numerous abbreviations designating the Deuteronomistic historian

LXX Septuagint, the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated around 250 BCE in Alexandria, Egypt

MT Masoretic Text, the Hebrew text with the accompanying diacritical marks that indicate vocalization, punctuation, etc.

NRSV New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

RSV Revised Standard Version of the Bible

YHWH The Tetragrammaton representing the consonants in the personal name of God, Yahweh (see glossary)

Abbreviations of Biblical Books Cited:

Gen Genesis

Exod Exodus

Lev Leviticus

Num Numbers

Deut Deuteronomy

Josh Joshua

Judg Judges

1–2 Sam 1–2 Samuel

1–2 Kgs 1–2 Kings

1–2 Chr 1–2 Chronicles

Neh Nehemiah

Ps Psalms

Prov Proverbs

Eccl Ecclesiastes

Song Song of Songs

Isa Isaiah

Jer Jeremiah

Lam Lamentations

Ezek Ezekiel

Hos Hosea

Mic Micah

Mal Malachi

Matt Matthew

Rom Romans

Jas James

Rev Revelation

Introduction

In my senior year of college I took

an advanced course in the Hebrew Bible that concentrated on the Former Prophets, the biblical books of Joshua through 2 Kings. The professor was Bernard Boyd, a legendary lecturer who had captivated me, like so many others, and converted me from a pre-med major to a religion major, much to the puzzlement of my friends. At the outset of this course, which had only a handful of students, Prof. Boyd presented each of us with a box of crayons. We then spent the rest of that session coloring in our Bibles, an activity that may seem more appropriate to kindergarten than an advanced college course. But the coloring was solidly academic: we were marking the various literary sources that the editors used in putting together the Former Prophets. Each source had a different color side bar or underline. I still have the Bible, and still find it helpful, even though the designation of many texts has changed in the scholarly community. The Deuteronomic editor was marked with red. In Samuel, the Early Source was marked in yellow, the Late Source in blue, and so on. A recent study of the Former Prophets uses a very similar technique, only with fonts and lines instead of colors.

¹

Most people read the narrative portions of the Bible as straightforward, seamless accounts, without even thinking about who might have written a particular story, when they were writing, and for whom (or against whom). Whether it’s Genesis or Judges (or for that matter, John), many people read the stories without considering the identity of both author and audience, not to mention the moment in Israelite history that might have shaped the author’s writing. Similarly, most people do not stop to consider the possibility that a particular biblical story is not simply the work of a single author but, in fact, may contain the words of two or more authors. Yet anyone who has taken a college course like Bible 101, or read scholarly works on the Bible, or has encountered biblical criticism in a Sunday school or synagogue class, knows that our very notion of what an author is does not fit with the writers of biblical narratives. We know that William Faulkner wrote the novel Go Down, Moses, but whoever wrote the biblical story of Moses is anonymous.² Indeed, all of the stories in the Hebrew Bible are anonymous. Even the titles of the books were supplied by later readers, and no book has a copyright page with author’s name, date, and place of publication. Even the word book is misleading, in that the original biblical documents were scrolls without pages.

Students in Bible 101 would learn that, in fact, biblical narratives are invariably the product of numerous authors, often reflecting different points of view from different times. There are many resources that describe the process whereby the biblical books came to be, and we shall not go into great detail about the process here.³ However, it is crucial to acknowledge that biblical narratives are the result of such a process. The final product—that is, the current text contained in contemporary versions of the Bible, like the New Revised Standard Version—is a composite document put together by numerous writers over a long period of time. You could think of biblical narratives as a literary montage. As a graphic art form, a montage is a hodgepodge of various bits and pieces ranging from pictures to symbols to abstract designs, often glued together. Imagine a group of artists putting together a single montage. They would bring to the composition what suits their own individual interpretation of how the final product should look, what it should say to the observer. Although the group might agree on an overall theme, they might also choose pictures or designs that either complement or clash with one another. Think how different the style and content might be between just two contributors—Norman Rockwell and Pablo Picasso! Moreover, if there is no prior agreement, the components of the final product might seem ironic or even completely incompatible.

Like the Pentateuch that precedes it, the Former Prophets is a literary montage.⁴ In academic discourse, the Former Prophets is part of a work called the Deuteronomistic history. The academic title derives from the connection between the book of Deuteronomy and the books that follow it. That is, many of the issues, themes, and images, and much of the literary style, that dominates Deuteronomy also appears to be shared by at least one of the writers who put together the Former Prophets. One could say that the Former Prophets originally had a preface, which is the book of Deuteronomy.⁵ Rather late in Israel’s history, however, some of the composers separated Deuteronomy from the Former Prophets to form the Pentateuch, also called the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy). The Former Prophets is so named to distinguish the books of Joshua through Kings from the books of the Latter Prophets (sometimes called the Writing Prophets), i.e., the books named for various prophets (e.g. Jeremiah, Amos, etc.). The canon of the Hebrew Bible thus contains three parts: the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the prophets (Joshua through Malachi), and the Writings. The Hebrew word torah is often translated as law, even though the Torah clearly includes stories and many other literary genres. One can already see the first two parts of the eventual canon in the New Testament phrase the Law and the Prophets (e.g., Matt 7:12; Luke 16:16; Rom 3:21).

In short, when we consider the writers of biblical stories we often need to think not only of authors but also of editors. An editor revises an existing work, making changes as needed, correcting what seem to be mistakes, adapting the material to the editor’s own understanding. We also use the word editorial to refer to a newspaper column that does not claim to report news neutrally but represents an editor’s opinion about an issue. That is, an editorial is biased in accordance with the editor’s views, and may well be polemical, directly or implicitly arguing against a different view. Biblical stories often are literary montages that reflect just such an editorial process. (Biblical scholars use the terms redactor and redaction synonymously with editor and edition.) The editors compiled their montage by combining a variety of sources and literary genres into a single narrative—historical annals, legends, folktales, laws, poems, songs, and administrative lists, to name a few.

⁶

To take one example, in 1 Samuel there is a story about how Saul came to be anointed the ruler of Israel. He was out looking for some lost donkeys and went to a seer for help in finding them. Saul was surprised when the seer threw a big party in his honor, and even more surprised when the seer (who proved to be the prophet Samuel) announced that God had appointed him the ruler who would save Israel from their enemies (1 Sam 9:1—10:8). There is barely a hint of anything wrong with Saul or the appointment of a ruler in this story.⁷ But the reader has already read 1 Samuel 8, in which the people demand a king, and God condemns their demand as a rejection of God’s own sovereignty. The original author of the lost donkeys story clearly thinks that a human king is needed, and that God has initiated the anointing of Saul, much the way God had appointed Moses to liberate the Hebrews from Egypt. The author of the demand for a king story thinks just the opposite: human monarchy inevitably subverts divine sovereignty, and God appoints Saul only grudgingly. As Alter says regarding another story, the joining of the two accounts leaves us swaying in the dynamic interplay between two theologies, two conceptions of kingship and history.

⁸

The example illustrates how there are two voices to be heard. They are arguing with each other, and at stake is a profound theological question: what is the nature of divine sovereignty, and how does it relate to human political institutions? If we hear the two distinct voices in the text, we acknowledge the tension between them, rather than trying to make the two say the same thing (scholars call the latter harmonizing). And, more importantly, we join the process of interpretation that the voices reflect: we consider what divine sovereignty means for us, and how we should understand our own political institutions and leaders in relationship to that sovereignty (or if at all!). In fact, it is remarkable that, whoever spliced the two stories together, did not simply remove the offending one, or edit out any conflicting view. Rather, conflicting views co-exist, as if the editors want their readers to engage in the discussion.

⁹

A rabbi once told me a joke about a Jewish man who was stranded on a desert island. After many months, a ship appeared and sent a boat to rescue him. When the pilot of the boat arrived on shore, he saw that the stranded man had built two synagogues. When he asked him why two synagogues, the man pointed to one of them and said To that one I don’t go. He was used to arguing about religion, and needed two synagogues in order to have one with which he did not agree. The biblical canon (both Jewish and Christian) is the product of a very long process of interpretation and argumentation in which various authors and editors express their views, sometimes even contradicting one another. Part of the richness of the text is this very multiplicity of voices. The text is polyphonic, not monophonic. At stake is nothing less that intellectual and spiritual honesty. When we acknowledge the multiple and even conflicting voices in the text we affirm the multifaceted truth that the text represents.¹⁰ Indeed, we affirm that truth is multifaceted.

Like editorials in newspapers, the biblical narratives also reflect the times in which the editors lived. Part of the meaning of a text may come from the historical context in which it is written. Again, however, unlike newspaper editorials, there is no date at the top of the page, no byline, and no title (Jerusalem Times) to tell us where and when the editor is working. An editor writing about Joshua (c. 1250 BCE) might be living in the sixth century, say, 550 BCE (yes, that’s seven hundred years later!). If so, then the editor’s situation may be radically different from that of the story. Joshua leads the occupation of the land of Canaan; the editor would be writing at a time when Israel had lost the land in military defeat and the editor might be among the exiles in Babylon. In fact, many scholars think that my example is precisely the situation of at least one of the editors of the Former Prophets. In 721 BCE the northern realm of Israel fell to the Assyrians, who hauled off many Israelites into exile. In 587 BCE the southern realm of Judah suffered the same disaster, now perpetrated by the Babylonians, who destroyed Jerusalem—in particular, the palace and temple—and carried away the king and prominent citizens to exile.

American history isn’t even long enough to match a seven-hundred-year gap, but let’s consider a much smaller gap. Imagine how differently a historian writing a history of America might conclude his work if he was writing at two different times: first, in 1961, a few months after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as President, when the White House was called Camelot and Kennedy had summoned Americans to join in pursuing a new frontier, and, second, in 1974, just thirteen years later, when Kennedy had been assassinated, then Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Kennedy’s brother, Robert, and after the shame and horror of the Vietnam War had divided the country (arguably the only war America had lost), and Camelot had descended into the petty disgraces of Watergate. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the novelist John Updike is said to have lamented that God might have withdrawn His blessing from America.¹¹ That is precisely the anxiety that haunts the Former Prophets, especially in its exilic edition.

How, then, do scholars determine the date of a biblical editor? It is a complicated process, and the results are often highly debated. Nevertheless, there are clues in texts that hint at the context of the editor. Again to draw an analogy with American history, imagine finding a history of the American Revolution purportedly written close to the event, in which the historian criticizes owners of inns for discriminating against African-Americans. We would see immediately that the account clearly was anachronistic, for such racial segregation did not become a major issue until the twentieth century, long after the even worse racial oppression of slavery was over, and the term African-American would not have made sense to anyone in the eighteenth century, for it was coined as part of the racial justice movement in the twentieth.

To take an example from the book of Joshua, Joshua gives a kind of valedictory speech in which he warns against disobedience to all that is written in the book of the law of Moses. The punishment for such disobedience, he warns, will be that you shall perish quickly from the good land that [God] has given you (Josh 23:16). It is quite possible that the editor is describing a situation that has already happened—the Babylonian exile. Through the words of Joshua the editor is saying to the current audience, Joshua told us so. Moreover, the phrase book of the law of Moses most likely refers to some form of the book of Deuteronomy, and appears at critical places in the Former Prophets (e.g. Deut 31:24; Josh 1:8; 24:26). In particular, the alleged rediscovery of this book prompts a massive attempt at national renaissance under the young King Josiah in the late seventh century (2 Kings 22–23). The connection between Joshua 23 and Josiah raises another possibility for dating: the text could come from the time of Josiah’s reform, rather than roughly fifty years later. In that case, Joshua’s warning would function to reinforce Josiah’s reform movement, in which the same warning is read from the book of the law (2 Kgs 22:8, 16). So Joshua’s valedictory address is really addressing the people of Josiah’s time, urging them to support Josiah’s religious, political, and economic changes. In other words, the editor of Joshua 23 is engaging in polemic, warning those who would oppose Josiah’s policies that they are a threat to national security. (It would not be the last time that politics would involve such a ploy!) Thus an exilic and a Josianic setting for an author would indeed be much like the hypothetical American historian above, before and after 1961, at the moment when a new frontier opened up, or at a time when disaster had closed the frontier.

Yet there is at least one more possibility: the author could be writing shortly after the fall of the northern realm of Israel in 721 BCE.¹² Also, only a few years later, King Hezekiah ascended to the throne in Judah and mounted a national reform movement similar to the later Josiah’s.¹³ Accordingly, the editor of Joshua 23 could be writing at this time, using Joshua’s valedictory address to explain the fall of the North and, at the same time, to bolster Hezekiah’s reform. Indeed, one editor of 2 Kings explained the fall of the North precisely this way: this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God (2 Kgs 17:7).

Thus there are at least three possible dates for the editor responsible for Joshua 23: the Babylonian Exile (c. 550 BCE), the time of Josiah (c. 640), and Hezekiah (c. 700). In fact, there are scholars who would defend each of these dates, as well as later or earlier dates. If we think of a Deuteronomistic History more broadly, there are those who have argued for a single editor working in the exile, and those who argue for several editors working during the times of Hezekiah and Josiah, as well as the exile.¹⁴ My own conclusion is that there are at least three stages of writing involved: stories from various older sources, a Josianic edition, and an Exilic edition.

At this point you might be thinking (regarding Joshua 23), what about the possibility that Joshua said it after all, and that the text preserves his words from roughly 1250 BCE? That is extremely unlikely—some would say, impossible. There are too many similarities to literature that is clearly seventh century (some of it non-Israelite literature) to allow for a thirteenth-century date. (Note again the analogy of language from American history above.) That does not mean that there are no texts in the Former Prophets that are quite old; clearly, there some that precede any of the major editions. But the relatively late date of the editions (Hezekian, Josianic, Exilic) suggests that the Deuteronomistic History is simply not history in the sense that we use that term. Again, editors certainly used historical sources—they sometimes refer to them, e.g. the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:13; 2 Sam 1:18); the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings (1 Kgs 14:19). Nevertheless, much of the Deuteronomistic History is more like historical fiction than history. Some scholars would even drop the adjective historical altogether. For example, Thomas Römer argues that the picture of the Solomonic empire is a complete fiction, and that the period of the Judges is nothing other than a literary invention.¹⁵ Nevertheless, he can also say that the work of the exilic Deuteronomists is "the first attempt to create a comprehensive history of Israel and Judah.¹⁶ J. P. Fokkelman puts it another way, speaking of 1 and 2 Samuel: the David of the narrative, however fictionally portrayed, is not fictitious."

¹⁷

As Robert Alter has written, fiction was the principal means which the biblical authors had at their disposal for realizing history.¹⁸ Any history worth its salt is far more than a list of facts. The historian also inevitably must interpret those facts: why did certain things happen, what is the significance of the event, what led up to the event and what are the ramifications? So any history is to some extent historical fiction. The word fiction, after all, derives from the Latin word meaning to form. A historian gives shape to the past. That is certainly what we see in the Deuteronomistic History: writers, editors, and redactors giving shape to the past in literary form. They shape the past in order to speak to the present, and the remarkable dimension of Scripture is that the text has continued to speak to people’s present down to this day. Accordingly, our reading of the book of Joshua will begin with an example from American religious history.

It is a fact that the united monarchy under David and Solomon broke apart under Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Most likely, the reasons for this split were political and economic: ancient tribal loyalties compounded by a royal policy of using forced laborers funded by taxes that disproportionately burdened the North, a policy that Rehoboam recklessly continued. For the editor, however, the reason for the split was God’s displeasure over Solomon’s numerous foreign wives and the introduction of other gods than the traditional God of Israel.¹⁹ The narrative holds these two together. The imposition of a theological interpretation addressed directly to the reader here and elsewhere is quite overt; more often, it is indirect and subtle. In any case, we need to read the overall Deuteronomistic History having in mind that, at any given point, the editor may well have an agenda that is more than reportorial.

We began with the observation that most people who haven’t taken Bible 101 read the biblical narratives without any awareness of the process that produced the present text. Here we come full circle, in a sense. It’s the old problem involving the forest and the trees. In looking at the process that produced the Former Prophets, we are looking at the trees. But if we only look at the trees, we will not see the forest. Both, in fact, are lovely. In biblical scholarship, interpretation that focuses on the present canonical text is called synchronic. Interpretation that focuses on the process that produced the text is called diachronic. To switch metaphors, synchronic interpretation follows the thread of the narrative, as it were, whereas diachronic looks at where that thread is not seamless but spliced together.

²⁰

Alongside the diachronic studies of the Former Prophets (and other biblical texts), there is a growing interest in a synchronic reading. What does the text say in the form that we have it now? What are the literary themes and motifs that appear throughout the narrative? What theological issues does it raise? How can we appreciate the artistry of the whole? Looking at the text synchronically prevents our reading it only as editorial opinion speaking to the specific time of the editor. In fact, sometimes diachronic studies seem to reduce the text to a kind of historical allegory in which, say, a figure like Joshua is merely a stand-in for Josiah, and what the text says depends totally on the historical context of the year 638 BCE. It is possible to see the Exile lurking around every corner. How do we square such an interpretation with countless readers who have found the text meaningful without knowing its historical setting?

Some scholars, of course, affirm the value of both the diachronic and the synchronic approaches, which is what this present study attempts to do. Campbell puts it succinctly in his book Joshua to Chronicles: We are not obliged to choose between these two . . . ; we can read the present text as it is (synchronic), while remaining aware of the potential process of its development (diachronic). In such a case, the final author . . . makes the entire text their own.²¹ A combination of the two methods provides the most complete reading. In a sense, the final author wins in that she has the last word. The final author says that we must in some way read one text along with another, even if the two texts were written three hundred years apart in very different situations. To do otherwise—to read the text only one way—would not adequately acknowledge the process that produced both the trees and the forest. As McKenzie says, Those who search for sources must be careful not to obscure the unity of the work, and those who study the creativity of the [Deuteronomist] must in turn not lose sight of the conclusions of older literary critics regarding the sources.²² To return to a previous metaphor, to read the text without acknowledging its composite nature is like looking at a montage and not recognizing how different are the pieces from Picasso and Rockwell; but to read the text without seeing the whole is to miss the artistry of the finished work (even if we do not know who the final artist was who placed the pieces side by side). As Robert Alter has so eloquently said, the multiplicity of literary sources produces a composite artistry that has it own esthetic and spiritual integrity.²³ The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This study will emphasize the synchronic approach without, I hope, failing to give the diachronic its due. The very title—The Book of the Former Prophets—recognizes the ecclesial process in which the books of Joshua through Kings were separated from the book of Deuteronomy, thereby making that book the conclusion of the Pentateuch or Torah. By beginning with Joshua, this study does not begin at the beginning of the original Deuteronomistic History (although I will often refer to Deuteronomy). Similarly, I include the book of Ruth, which is not considered to be part of the Deuteronomistic History, and, in the Hebrew Bible, is not in the Former Prophets but in that section called the Writings.²⁴ Nevertheless, I will also often listen to the different voices that make up the text. There is an irony in acknowledging and honoring the multiplicity of voices, in that one voice (the Deuteronomist) does not really like what the others say, even when allowing them to say it. We will encounter this voice over and over again, as well as voices that seem to call it into question. We can summarize it this way: there shall be only one God, one land, one sanctuary, and one people. Any voice that disagrees with this is heterodox, a word which literally means other opinion. This insistence on unity is the voice we will call orthodox, which means correct opinion, and therein lies the problem! Orthodoxy begs some questions: what if you live outside the land? What if you are not a full-blooded Israelite, and what does that mean anyway? What if (like the Jewish man above) you want to build two synagogues—but also attend them? What if you think that there are multiple ways of representing the divine?

The Former Prophets was so named because the figure of the prophet plays a major role, especially in the books of Samuel and Kings, but also because the theological and ethical world-view of the prophets pervades the narrative as a whole. On the one hand, the prophets affirmed the traditional identity of Israel as God’s chosen people. On the other hand, they had no reservations in criticizing Israel for failing to live up to the responsibilities of that calling. Amos puts it succinctly, representing the words of God: You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities (3:2). As one theologian has said, the prophets had a lover’s quarrel with their country.²⁵ True patriotism was not grounded in an absolute love of country, but in an absolute love of God. True patriotism was not an unconditional devotion—Israel, love it or leave it. Rather, patriotism involved calling the nation to account when need be.

In the summer of 2008, a sermon by the minister of Senator Barack Obama’s church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, inflamed many people because of these lines: The government wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America. God damn America. For many Americans, the very words God damn America, under any circumstances, seem unpatriotic, if not downright treasonous, but they happen to be fully within the covenantal tradition that runs throughout the Former Prophets. In Wright’s sermon the word damn is simply another word for curse in its biblical sense, i.e., as the opposite of blessing. From Joshua to the end of the books of Kings, we hear the echo of the words of Moses in Deuteronomy: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors (30:19-20). Wright was fully in the prophetic tradition in condemning America for a long history of injustice, beginning with the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans, "for killing innocent people, for treating her citizens for less than human [sic]."²⁶ So he rightly said that God damn America is in the Bible.

Anyone who is uncomfortable with the notion that God might curse a nation as well as bless it should not read the Former Prophets, because that is the premise behind the whole narrative. If we want to invoke God’s blessing, we must be willing to endure God’s curse. As the passage from John Winthrop at the beginning of the next chapter shows, the same premise has informed a religious understanding of America from the outset. Obviously, Updike is operating on that premise in the quotation above—what if God has withdrawn God’s blessing? What if it is more appropriate, at certain times, to say God curse America instead of God bless America? Directed at ancient Israel, that is the anxious question that pervades the Former Prophets.

By now it should be clear that you are not about to read a narrative that will hold you in suspense until you find out how it ends—it ends in disaster. The Babylonian Exile was an enormous rift in ancient Israel’s history and identity, forcing the people to rethink who they had been before and who they might be in the future, or even if there was a future awaiting them. The Former Prophets as a whole is one answer to those questions. We will look more thoroughly at the answers at the conclusion of this study, but from the very first page of Joshua it will be clear what might happen—if Israel disobeys God’s commandments, they will be destroyed. By the time we get to the beginnings of the northern realm, warning will have become doom, telling us of the outcome some two hundred years before the fall of the North in 721 BCE (1 Kgs 14:15–16). In some ways, the editors are like those annoying people who, on the way out of a film, tell those waiting to go in how the film ends. This foreknowledge suggests that the purpose of the editors—especially the exilic editors—is not to present us with a thriller (even though many individual stories may be thrilling to read). They are not interested in keeping us on the edge of our seats. They are writing a commentary on Israel’s history, not simply reporting Israel’s history. They are concerned to show how and why the story ends the way it does, and they are quite willing to sacrifice narrative suspense to make their point. The result will increasingly seem to put the characters in a hopeless situation—no matter what they or their descendants do, the outcome will be the same. But does the Former Prophets pose its exilic audience in a hopeless situation also? That question, to which we shall return at the end, has no easy answers. One thing is clear, however: Israel did not come to an end. Out of the exile emerged a people now called the Jews who, one would have to say almost miraculously, not only survived but thrived, a community that exists to this day thousands of years after Babylon crumbled into dust.

1. Campbell and O’Brien, Unfolding.

2. The popular notion that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) has no basis in Scripture. The book that Moses writes according to Deut

31

:

9

,

24

, most likely refers at most to chaps.

12

–

26

. Otherwise, Moses writes a hymnic poem that we call the Song of Moses, Deut

31

:

22

; chap.

32

. It would be awkward indeed to explain how Moses wrote about his own death (Deuteronomy

34

)!

3. For one example, see Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?

4. This present book is a sequel to my earlier work on the Pentateuch, Book of the Torah. Robert Alter has also used the metaphor of a montage in this sense; see Art,

140

. Perhaps we could phrase Alter’s emphasis in terms of an artful montage rather than an awkward hodgepodge. He recognizes that the biblical authors were editing and splicing . . . antecedent literary materials, but the purpose was to reveal two different dimensions of his subject (cf.

181

). He also uses the term collage (Alter, David Story, ix) instead of a stringing together of virtually independent sources. Halpern, First Historians,

219

, thinks of a patchwork of sources.

5. The editor known as the Deuteronomistic Historian probably composed chaps.

1

–

4

as an introduction to the history as a whole as well as the book. The original, groundbreaking study of the Deuteronomistic History was done by Noth in

1943

, now translated as The Deuteronomistic History.

6. For an annotated bibliography of those sources used by the Deuteronomistic Historian see Halpern, First Historians,

207

–

18

.

7. Certainly this is true for general readers, even though some scholars see rather subtle criticisms of Saul in the story, e.g., Alter, Art,

60

–

61

.

8. Ibid.,

152

, referring to David in

1

Samuel

16

and

17

. More generally on duplicate accounts, see his chap.

5

. In some ways, the books of Chronicles offer a parallel account to much of

1

Samuel through

2

Kings, but the focus is radically different, essentially reduced to the story of the Jerusalem temple (Campbell, Joshua to Chronicles,

117

). Notoriously, incidents like David’s adultery with Bathsheba are omitted. We will only refer to Chronicles on rare occasions.

9 As Smith, Memoirs,

6

, puts it, overall the Bible’s aim is not to present a single version of the past but an ongoing dialogue about different versions of the past. Different authors remember the past differently. Cf. Halpern, First Historians,

230

: Inconsistency in the text stems from sources, from a reverence toward them that transcends [the Deuteronomistic Historian’s] central themes. That is, the Deuteronomistic Historian does not carelessly sacrifice history for ideology. Antiquarian interest mottled theological interest as much as the reverse (

242

).

10. The phrase is Alter’s, Art,

140

. Alter argues that we must recognize multiple authorship when it is present (

19

) but also not allow rigid critical methods to blind us to the art (

21

).

11. The quote comes from Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago, as cited in Christopher Hitchens, Master of Conventions, Atlantic, September

2008

,

113

.

12. There was a brief united monarchy under David and Solomon, but North and South split up during the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Often the name Israel refers to the whole, united entity, but sometimes it refers only to the Northern segment.

13. One indication of subsequent editions under Hezekiah and then Josiah are the summary notices praising them. Hezekiah was so good that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him (

2

Kgs

18

:

5

), yet when we get to Josiah, Before him there was no king like him (

2

Kgs

23

:

24

).

14. The possibility of exile was real at least as early as the eighth century BCE. Thus a reference to exile could be a realistic warning about a future possibility, as well as an anachronism reflecting an author’s situation. As Halpern, First Historians,

172

, says, the threat of exile is pale evidence for exilic authorship.

15. Römer, So-Called Deuteronomistic History,

99

,

136

.

16. Ibid.,

114

(italics added).

17. Fokkelman, King David,

424

.

18. Alter, Art,

32

(the chapter title is Sacred History and the Beginnings of Prose Fiction). More fully, he says It is perhaps less historicized fiction than fictionalized history—history in which the feeling and the meaning of events are concretely realized through the technical resources of prose fiction (

41

; cf.

156

; more recently David Story, xvii). Cf. Campbell, Of Prophets,

119

–

20

: The endeavor is not to create a fictive theology, but to discern in the traditions embodying the past the deeper meaning and significance obscurely shrouded in them. On the other hand, Halpern, First Historians,

13

, recognizes the fictive quality in the Former Prophets (and all history), but insists that Much of the literature in question is antiquarian in its intent. . . . We must approach it not as fiction, and not as romance, but as historiography. Indeed, he concludes that the Deuteronomistic Historian sits squarely in the mainstream of narrative history, from Herodotus to the present (

234

; cf.

241

–

44

, and

267

and notes regarding Alter and others). See also Gottwald, Politics,

13

–

14

.

19. The historical reasons appear in

1

Kgs

12

:

1

–

14

; the theological interpretation appears in

1

Kgs

12

:

15

(with preceding texts for both). For another example, see Campbell, Of Prophets,

118

–

19

, where he concludes that the anointing of David (

1

Sam

16

:

1

–

13

) never happened but was not simply creative fiction, for elements existed which could legitimate its plausibility.

20. I have discussed this interpretive issue with respect to the Pentateuch in the introduction to The Book of the Torah.

21. Campbell, From Joshua to Chronicles,

79

. Campbell also suggests that the different voices in these texts may well offer alternative ways for a storyteller to tell the story. Cf. Smith, Memoirs,

161

: the Bible’s fuller understanding requires recognizing both its synchronic and diachronic dimensions, brought together into some sort of dialogue.

22. McKenzie, Deuteronomistic History,

167

b.

23. Alter, Art, where the phrase is the title of chap.

8

.

24. I am following the Septuagint (and Christian) tradition in which Ruth appears between Judges and

1

Samuel because that is its narrative setting in the days when the judges ruled (

1

:

1

).

25. William Sloane Coffin used the phrase in a sermon the date and title of which I cannot remember but at a time in the

1970

s when he was highly critical of the Vietnam War. See the anthology of his various sayings in Credo, especially Patriotism,

75

–

86

.

26. There is a striking parallel in the comment by Tran, Vietnam War,

234

, regarding America’s attitude toward Vietnamese: it rendered the stranger less than human.

one

Joshua

The book of Joshua is a complex combination of texts reflecting quite different literary and theological interests put together over a long period of time, immediately illustrative of the editorial process in the Former Prophets that we have outlined in the Introduction. There are exciting stories that all biblically literate children will recognize, like the defeat of Jericho, when the ear-splitting noise of trumpets makes its walls fall down, a story immortalized in the Negro Spiritual, Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. But then there are geographical survey lists that offer an antidote to insomnia. There are stories of the peaceful assimilation of Canaanites within the people of Israel; but then there are stories of Israelite genocide that raise the specter of ethnic cleansing, revealing a barbaric people and a gruesome God.

Despite the complexity, we can sketch the compositional stages in general terms.¹ Most likely there was an original assembly of conquest stories about entering the land, perhaps limited to the places of Jericho, Ai, and Gibeon (appearing loosely in chap. 2, some of chap. 6, and most of chaps. 8–10, ignoring brief editorial insertions). To the conquest stories someone added a group of texts that portray some of the events in terms of religious ritual. For example, 6:3–20 describes the fall of Jericho as a liturgical stratagem; most of chaps. 3–5 describes crossing the Jordan as ritual, perhaps associated with liturgical reenactments at the place called Gilgal.² There are covenant renewal ceremonies in 8:30–35 and chap. 24. Another perspective appears in chap. 11 with its focus on events in the Northern parts of the land.

Yet another stage appears in speeches typical of the Deuteronomist, interpreting the events within the theology of that movement (e.g., most of chap. 1; 2:10–11; 3:7–8, etc.)—indeed, framing the book by preface and epilog (chap. 1 and chaps. 23–24). At some stage the geological survey material was incorporated by the addition of chs. 14–21. Other concerns appear in smaller literary units (e.g., the East Jordan tribes in 1:12–18; 22:9–34).

Some scholars see the figure of Joshua as a model for King Josiah—that is, parts of the book of Joshua were composed or edited to serve as a kind of historical pattern for Josiah’s national and religious revival. Since that revival included an attempt to reunite all Israel under one king with territory extending to Israel’s original boundaries, what better way to promote the king than to associate him with Israel’s founding father of the conquest? It would be something like a history of the United States written in 1933 in such a way that George Washington looked a lot like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Washington’s policies a lot like the New Deal. Numerous parallels between the two figures suggest such a relationship: covenant renewal and honoring the book of the Torah;³ keeping the Passover festival;⁴ opposition to Canaanite religion.

⁵

The final product juxtaposes sociological and theological tensions without resolving them, offering a mirror to readers who are willing to be as honest about their own society and its history as were the biblical editors. Much of what appears in Joshua is not pretty. For Americans, an analogy would be reading a book like A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, who hangs out our dirty laundry alongside all the pretty garments of our childhood education (Plymouth Rock, Washington crossing the Delaware, winning the West, Southern plantation gentility).

The theological perspective that dominates Joshua is precisely what we see in a famous speech from American religious history, a speech clearly based on the biblical covenant tradition. Indeed, the speaker, John Winthrop, speaks from a situation identical to that of the character of Joshua—about to enter the Promised Land:

Thus stands the cause betweene God and us. Wee are entered into Covenant with him for this worke . . . We have hereupon besought him of favour and blessing: Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place wee desire, then hath he ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission [and] will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it, but if wee shall neglect the observacion of these Articles which are the ends wee have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intencions seekeing greate things for our selves and our posterity, the Lord will surely breake out in wrathe against us, be revenged of such a perjured people and make us know the price of the breache of such a Covenant . . .

[Then the blessing shall] be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are goeing . . . If our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship . . . other Gods, our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whither wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it.

—John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity. Written On Boarde the Arbella, On the Attlantick Ocean, Anno 1630 ⁶

⁶

Going by the Book (Chap. 1)

The book of Joshua begins after the death of Moses, whose presence dominated the Pentateuchal narrative from Exodus through Deuteronomy. The setting is something like the day before D-Day, as Israel stands on the East Bank of the Jordan River, looking into the land occupied by the enemy generally called the Canaanites. Before the story of the initial battle, however, the editors have provided a series of pep talks, first by God to Joshua, then by Joshua, then by the tribes whom Joshua has addressed.

⁷

Filling Moses’ shoes is a daunting task. The concluding paragraph of the book of Deuteronomy says, Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform . . . and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel (34:10–12). Now God addresses a new leader, but the difference between the two appears in their titles: Moses, the servant of the Lord, and Joshua, the assistant of Moses." Moses enjoyed an intimacy with God that no successor could match.⁸ Another, and more important, indication of the difference is the way in which Moses continues to be the mediator between Joshua (and Israel) and God—not in his person, but in his words. Moses did what God said; Joshua is to do what Moses said God said. It is true that God talks to Joshua also, but part of what God says is that Joshua is to follow the words of Moses, that is, the law that my servant Moses commanded you (v. 7). That law, of course, is contained in "this book of the law, by which the author means the book of Deuteronomy.⁹ Indeed, when God says this book of the law" it is almost as if God is handing Joshua a copy.

The opening speech focuses on two ways, the geographical way that has led to the current setting (vv. 1–6), then the theological way of Torah that Joshua must follow (vv. 7–9). Both ways require that Joshua be strong and very courageous, but two different kinds of battles are involved—taking the land and remaining faithful. It is as if the editor wants to emphasize the spiritual strength that must accompany Joshua’s military strength. The book of the Torah is the manual that Joshua is to meditate on day and night, resembling the assignment that Deuteronomy makes for Israel’s later kings (Deut 17:18–19); the Torah provides the blueprint for success. It is encouraging that God promises to be with Joshua, as God was with Moses, but that presence alone will not be sufficient for victory. Rather, Joshua (and, again, Israel as a whole) must walk the straight and narrow path, looking neither to the left or the right, that path being the way of Torah.

Excursus 1: The Treaty Model of God

My use of the term manual can be misleading in that it might suggest a simple list of rules to follow. In fact, many people have understood the Torah in this way, partly because the word often is translated as law—the book of the law or the law of Moses.¹⁰ The basic meaning is guidance or instruction, but especially when used to describe a document like Deuteronomy that shapes a people’s ethos, the word torah would be much closer to our word constitution in its political sense. Another translation would be polity from the Greek word politeia rather than law from nomos. S. Dean McBride, Jr. in particular has emphasized the important distinction between the two.¹¹ Polity refers to the social order spelled out in the document; law refers to specific ordinances or rules that the document contains.¹² There is no doubt that Deuteronomy contains laws (concentrated in

12

:

2

—

25

:

16

), but the laws are contained in a framework that grounds them in the people’s history (the Exodus experience in particular) and in their relationship to God (cf. Deut

5

:

1

–

6

). Much of the framework of Deuteronomy contains hortatory exhortations to the civic responsibility that the polity requires, as well as procedures that will enact the constitution and insure its transmission to future generations (e.g.,

26

:

16

—

31

:

29

). The laws are the specific requirements that govern the entire range of the people’s life as a community. Obeying the laws is no more important than remembering the history—indeed, it is less so, because forgetting their history easily leads to disobedience. The people’s mythos (its narrative identity) grounds its ethos (its way of living in society).

In Israel’s polity, the relationship with God is understood as a covenant. The Hebrew word (berit) can also be translated as treaty. The language is diplomatic as well as political. Our understanding of Israel’s covenant theology is enhanced by a comparison with treaty documents from ancient Near Eastern nations—i.e., treaties between two nations or rulers.¹³ Israel adapted the language and formalities of such treaties as a model for construing the people’s relationship to the divine. God is the suzerain, or to use the frequent (male) term, Israel’s king (more inclusively, Israel’s sovereign). The people are the vassal, i.e., God’s servants. The treaty model is one among numerous possibilities for construing a relationship with God. In this model, the vassal owes its allegiance to the suzerain because of the suzerain’s protection of the vassal in the past, including the suzerain’s saving the vassal from enemies (again, the liberation from Pharaoh of Egypt). The most important stipulation is the demand for absolute fidelity to the suzerain, prohibiting any such treaty agreements with other rulers who would thereby compete for the people’s allegiance and alter the social order. Treaties often refer to this allegiance as loving the suzerain. Such love refers more to covenant loyalty than to an emotion:

You [the vassal] shall love Assurbanipal [the suzerain] . . . king of Assyria, your lord, as yourself. You shall hearken to whatever he says and do whatever he commands, and you shall not seek any other king or other lord against him. This treaty . . . you shall speak to your sons and grandsons, your seed and you seed’s seed which shall be born in the future.

¹⁴

Such covenant love is the heart of Israel’s relationship with God (compare the language in Deut

6

:

4

–

7

). Thus the love of God so central to Western religions has it roots here.

¹⁵

The suzerain’s continuing protection of the vassal depends on the vassal’s loyalty. Obedience to the stipulations (or requirements) of the treaty will assure the suzerain’s protection; failure to obey will lead to punishment. The two options often appear in the form of blessings or curses (e.g., Deuteronomy

28

), but also are incorporated in the historical exhortations (e.g., Deuteronomy

8

). Just as human overlords would punish rebellious vassals who switched allegiance to other lords, so Yahweh¹⁶ will punish Israel when they switch allegiance to other gods.¹⁷ Indeed, the model of covenantal reward and punishment is widely assumed not only in the Former Prophets but also in the writing Prophets.

¹⁸

The abiding truth of the covenant model is its insistence on absolute allegiance to God, over against any contenders, whether gods in the theistic sense or those powers which are socio-economic or political.¹⁹ This model is potentially subversive of any power that would claim ultimate authority (e.g., a human king of Israel or a foreign power like Assyria—not to mention contemporary powers).²⁰ For contemporary readers, the phrase other gods may make little sense in theistic terms, but it makes a great deal of sense in terms of what one values above all else and for what one is willing to sacrifice everything.²¹ The quotation from John Winthrop at the outset of this chapter shows how the covenant language of ancient Israel could apply to English settlers in America in the

17

th century. The other gods who threaten to seduce the settlers are not gods in the usual sense; they are our pleasures and our profits—in short, materialism, greed, and wealth.²² Hundreds of years later, we can hear an echo of Winthrop’s terms in the admission of a man named

To return to the opening passage in Josh 1:1–9, it is also a fitting introduction to the entire narrative that stretches to the end of 2 Kings. There is the promise of God’s gracious presence, but there is the command to obey the Torah. The combination of promise and command

Brian: ‘I was operating as if a certain value was of the utmost importance to me. Perhaps it was success. Perhaps it was fear of failure, but I was extremely success-oriented, to the point where everything would be sacrificed for the job, the career, the company.’

²³

We shall return to the implications of Israel’s polity again and again for it undergirds much of the editorializing in the Former Prophets, especially that of editors from the Deuteronomic tradition. To anticipate, some of the most important implications will involve political relationships between Israel and other peoples (or between Israel’s rulers and other rulers), social relationships with non-Israelites (especially marriage), and worship practices. Above all, an ongoing issue will be the challenge to Yahweh’s absolute suzerainty by competitors—i.e., other gods (see Excursus

4

).

poses a tension that Israel will test again and again: what happens if Israel is disobedient? Will God withdraw the promise of presence if Israel does not follow the Torah, does not live by the book? If obedience produces success, will disobedience produce failure? In fact, will God then annul the covenant? It does not require much meditation on the book of the Torah to know that disobedience will have dire consequences, as the curses of the covenant with God reveal (Deuteronomy 28:15–68). But the same book also gives glimpses of a merciful God whose grace continues despite disobedience (Deut 4:30–31; 30:1–10). To the bitter end of the story, the tension between judgment and mercy will pose great risks for Israel, and also a great dilemma for God.

The introductory speech has already named the prize that awaits: the Promised Land. The next passage raises other questions that will persist throughout the narrative: what are the boundaries of the Promised Land, who constitutes Israel, and what space is the sacred center? The boundaries are sketched in v. 4—the Negev desert to the South, Lebanon to the North, the Euphrates River to the East, and, of course, the Mediterranean on the West. But some tribes will possess land on the East bank of the Jordan (trans-Jordan). Is that also the Promised Land, and are they part of Israel? The apparent answer to both questions is yes, but the answers will be challenged after the events projected in vv. 12–18 take place (13:8–33; chap. 22). Moreover, the boundaries of v. 4 are idealistic and never materialized, at least with respect to the Euphrates. Eventually, the Promised Land will shrink, and throughout the narrative divisions will occur that belie the apparent unity of the people. Already the point-of-view that sees the East bank land as "beyond the Jordan" presupposes the West bank as the real land, implying that trans-Jordan is the other side of the tracks.²⁴ As we will see in chapter 22, the primary concern will revolve around the question: Can there be more than one shrine that is the unifying sacred space of the community? This question will become a major issue in the narrative, especially after the construction of the Jerusalem temple (1 Kings 8).

Two Boy Scouts and a Lady of the Night (Chap. 2)

The story of Rahab and the spies is one of those stories that parents are likely to skip over when reading the Bible to children. Whores are not the role models we want to present as heroines. The biblical authors, however, were not so squeamish. They did not cover