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An Interpretation of the Babylonian Exile: A Study of 2 Kings 20, Isaiah 38–39

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

P. R. Ackroyd
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Extract

There is a certain ‘Looking glass’ quality to the title of this study—by which I mean that Lewis Carroll's White Knight, whose analysis of the relationship between names and titles is the classic one, might well have insisted that this is only what it is called, whereas in fact it is about an interpretation (namely my own) of an interpretation (namely that of the writer of 2 Kings 20 and that of the writer of the parallel but not quite identical material of Isa. 38-39), which is there offered not apparently of the Babylonian Exile but of certain incidents of importance in the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah around the end of the eighth century b.c. The introduction of the Babylonian Exile into this is not my own, since it is already inherent in one moment in the two narratives; but the understanding of the section in terms of interpretation of the Exile is something which needs to be discussed. It is here that I believe we may see the distinctive character of the narratives in their present forms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , August 1974 , pp. 329 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1974

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References

page 329 note 1 (SBT II, 3, 1967).

page 329 note 2 op. cit., p. 107, and bibliographical notes in n.3 there. For some more recent references, cf. also Childs, B. S., ‘Midrash and the Old Testament’ in Understanding the Sacred Text. Essays in honor of Morton S. Enslin on the Hebrew Bible and Christian Beginnings, ed. Reumann, J. (1972), pp. 45–59.Google Scholar

page 331 note 1 e.g. 2 Chron. 10.15 with its reference to the Ahijah narrative of 1 Kings 11.29–39, and cf. below on the latter part of 2 Chron. 32.

page 331 note 1 Isa. 39.1 has a reading wayyehezāq (), for 2 Kings 19.12 ḥizq^y¯hû (), which adds emphasis to this linking.

page 331 note 2 cf., e.g., Oppenheim in IDB, 3, 355.

page 331 note 3 Brinkman, J. A., ‘sennacherib's Babylonian Problem: an Interpretation’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 25 (1973), pp. 89–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, seep. 91.

page 333 note 1 cf. below p. 320.

page 333 note 2 cf. BHS, comparing akk. šapiru; LXX in the Isaiah text offer both renderings: πιοτολς κα πρΈσβɛις.

page 333 note 3 2 Kings has a slip, reading wayyišma' () for wayyismaḥ ().

page 333 note 4 The Isaiah text omits kol ().

page 333 note 5 Here 2 Kings omits kol ().

page 335 note 1 The text as it stands has a double statement. 'αšer yēş'eû mimmekā (): 'αšer tôlîd (). This could be a result of a double reading—(1) Your sons who have issued from you [(or as iQIsa has it ‘from your loins’ (mmcykh) ()] (2)Your sons whom you have engendered. The double expression, or even one part of it, following on the use of the word «sons’, underlines that the reference is specifically to members of the royal house, to the dynasty on which so many hopes and beliefs were centred. It is here that judgment falls.

page 336 note 1 The New American Bible has a similar rendering.

page 337 note 1 cf. Gen. 4.7 where haō' 'im () means: ‘Is it not if’, i.e. ‘Is it not true that …’ cf. further Labuschagne, C. J., ‘The Particles hēn () and hinneh ()’ in Oudt. Stud. XVIII (1973), pp. 1–14Google Scholar, see p. 3, n.5. For the ‘courtier’ style of idiom used here, cf. Selms, A. Van, ‘Halo in the Courtier's Language in Ancient Israel’, Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Papers, vol. I (1967), pp. 137–140.Google Scholar

page 339 note 1 Jer. 46.27 mērāḥôq () paralleled by mē'ereṣ šebî () Zech. 6.15 reḥōqîm () Isa. 43.6 bānay mērāḥôq () Jer. 51.50 mērāḥôq (); Ezek. 11.16 the Hiph'il of the verb rḥq () Cf. also the probably more general exilic reference of 'ad rāḥôq () in Mic. 4.3. These passages do not support a claim that such expressions are only used of exile in Babylon; they suggest that, granted a reference to Babylon, the theme of exile is thus underlined.

page 339 note 2 cf. Hempel, J. in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencylopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft 22, 2 (1954)Google Scholar, cols. 1963f. Without wishing to suggest that an even remoter analogy is of more than marginal interest, I may cite the following passage from Reed, A. W., An illustrated Encyclopaedia of Maori Life (Wellington, Auckland, N.Z. 1963), p. 106Google Scholar: ‘… notable explorers (i.e. the leaders of the Maori settlers envisaged as coming in the original canoes) … claimed formal possession of the country by viewing it from advantageous points, but their claims were subsequently to be established by occupation. It then remained in the possession of the tribe from generation to generation by ancestral right. …’ The comment is further made that continued occupation was necessary for this to remain so, and that this occupation was deemed to be expressed by the continuous lighting of domestic fires.

page 340 note 1 (1947. reprint 1969), pp. 248ff.

page 340 note 2 cf. Speiser, E. A., ‘Of shoes and shekels’, BASOR, 77 (1940), pp. 15–20Google Scholar = Oriental and Biblical Studies ed. Finkelstein, J. J. and Greenberg, M. (1967), pp. 151ffGoogle Scholar who also discusses the evidence for such a reference in I Sam. 12.3 and elsewhere.

page 340 note 3 Daube, p. 28, quotes a fragment of the Digest: ‘If my vendor from my tower points out neighbouring land to me who have bought it, and says that he delivers vacant possession, I begin to possess no less than if I had set foot within its boundary.”.

page 341 note 1 We may observe that this affects the interpretation of the parable. It is not to be understood as indicating trivial excuses, but valid ones: the man who has bought land must complete the transaction; the man who has married a wife must consummate the marriage, a point which is covered in the law of warfare in Deut. 24.5. If we have no immediate analogy for the buying and testing out of oxen, the second excuse, its position with the others strongly suggests either a case similar to the land, or an act involving putting into action what has clearly been expressed in intention. We may note too that the version in Matthew misses this point or deliberately suppresses it as irrelevant (Matt. 22.5).

page 343 note 1 For a fuller comment, see Ackroyd, P. R., I and II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah (1973), P. 198.Google Scholar A similar collating of events and anticipation of exile and restoration may be seen in a Chron. 12 where Shishak is said to have captured the fortified cities of Judah. Shishak's list of captured cities includes none in Judah proper, but only in the Negeb and Edom (in addition to his main campaign in Israel). Cf. Noth, M., History of Israel (E.T. 1960), p. 239fGoogle Scholar. and Mazar, B., ‘The campaign of Pharaoh Shishak to Palestine’, VTS 4 (1957), pp. 57–66Google Scholar, esp. pp. 64–66. It is Sennacherib's records which relate the capture of Judaean cities (cf. ANET, p. 288). A transfer of themes appears to have been made. It is then stated that the submission of king Rehoboam and his princes led to a divine promise that there would not be total destruction, but ‘I will give them deliverance in a short while’ (verse 7). The comment of verse 8: ‘For they shall be slaves to him, that they may know both my service and the service of alien rulers’ provides a reflection which is in reality one upon the experience of the exile and after. (Cf. my commentary noted above, pp. 131f.)

page 343 note 2 cf., e.g., Ahijah in 1 Kings 14, and certain of the Elijah and Elisha traditions.

page 343 note 3 The Isaiah form of the text has an important variant at this point, in that this theme is entirely lacking in the narrative proper, and may be found only in the form of an addendum in v. 21. It would appear that some later scribe, conscious that this element was missing, copied in here the relevant words from 2 Kings 20.7 and with them the opening of v. 8, in a slightly different and abbreviated form. It is unfortunate that the N.E.B. and the N.A.B. (cf. also B.H.S. and some commentators) have chosen to insert vv. 21–22 in the text of Isa. 38 after v. 6, and thereby attempt a harmonisation of the two texts. It is much more satisfactory to see in this form of the text a different handling of the material in which various differences point to another style of interpretation. Thus here the departure of Isaiah from Hezekiah's presence is unmentioned (2 Kings 20.4–53); the divine word is portrayed as coming as an immediate answer to the king's prayer and distress; the granting of the sign—as the text stands, and surely significantly—is not in response to a request for a sign (as in 2 Kings), but is offered as an immediate token of assurance. The presence of vv. 21–22 in the Isaiah text may be better seen as a scribal addition, amplifying the alternative presentation in Isaiah with a specific reminder of the other theme, which has not here been used at all. (Cf. further below on the significance of differences in the presentation in Isa. 38.)

page 344 note 1 It is arbitrary to emend MT's wayyeḥî () in order to obtain a link. The fact that LXX and Pesh. make such a link is to be seen as evidence of the harmonising tendency (cf. previous note).

page 344 note 2 It seems possible, expecially now in the light of Sawyer's, J. F. A. discussion of Josh. 10 (PEQ, 104 (1972), pp. 139–146)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, to see a miraculous element superimposed on an original natural phenomenon. The comments of J. Gray, I and II Kings (and ed., 1970), pp. 6ggf are very much to the point. To his comments may be added the observation that ‘shadow’ (ṣēl ()) is used in the Old Testament with two different types of metaphorical sense. The ‘shadow’ may be symbolic of what is ephemeral (e.g. Job 8.9); or it may express divine protection (e.g. Ps. 57.2, and note especially Lam. 4.20 where it is used of Yahweh's anointed in whom there was seen to be confidence for life).

page 344 note 3 cf. further on this below, p. 321 n.2.

page 345 note 1 cf. esp. Jer. 38.1–13 for a narrative presentation of the theme and 38.22 for a psalm fragment. On these passages, cf. my ‘Aspects of the Jeremiah Tradition’, IJTh, 21 (1971)1 PP.1–12 see P. 1f; Johnson, A. R., The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel (1949), pp. 92ff and literature there.Google Scholar

page 345 note 2 e.g. Ps. 22.31f; 14.7; 51.20f.

page 346 note 1 e.g. Deut. 28, 29, 30.

page 347 note 1 cf. Saggs, H. W. F., Assyriology and the study of the Old Testament (1969), p. 17Google Scholar; ‘“The Nimrod Letters”, 1952—Part I’, Iraq, 17 (1955), pp. 21–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘“The Nimrod Letters”, 1952—PartH’, ibid. pp. 126–60. This line of comment is followed by Childs, op. cit. pp. 80ff; and Gray, op. cit. pp. 664f.

page 348 note 1 e.g. Childs, op. cit. pp. 82ff, 93; Gray, op. cit. p. 668.

page 348 note 2 e.g. Deut. 30.

page 349 note 1 cf. my I and II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah (1973), pp. 191f.

page 350 note 1 It is not my intention in this study to draw wider conclusions regarding the nature of the Deuteronomic editing of the whole work from Joshua to 2 Kings. The commonly held view is that we must distinguish two editions, one before the disaster of 587 (even perhaps before Josiah's death in 609), and the other after 587, with possibly an appendix after 562. But does this view do justice either to the complexity of the material or to the overall unified impact which it has upon the reader?

page 350 note 2 cf. my ‘Historians and Prophets’, SEA, 33 (1968), pp. 18–54Google Scholar, see pp. 22ff.

page 351 note 1 cf. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 43.8, 67.1, 71.3, 77.1f.

page 351 note 2 cf. Daube, D., He that Cometh (Oct. 1966—a lecture delivered in St. Cathedral, London), pp. 1–6Google Scholar and the references given there, and in particular Bab. Berakoth 28b ‘prepare a chair (throne) for Hezekiah king of Judah who coming’; Bab. Sanhedrin 94a which notes that God intended to make Hezekiah the messiah; and the problematic saying attributed to Rabbi Hillel (Bab. Sanhedrin 99a) that there will be no messiah for Israel since they had already eaten him up (? = enjoyed him) in the days of Hezekiah. I am indebted to Dr S. Lowy of the University of Leeds who first drew my attention to this. I subsequently discovered Daube's lecture on the whole theme.