JOB 19 IN THE LIGHT OF THE KETEF HINNOM INSCRIPTIONS AND AMULETS
eodore J. Lewis e Johns Hopkins University
As a tribute to Bruce Zuckerman I combine here two of his favorites texts, the Ketef Hinnom inscriptions and the biblical book of Job. His work on the former is well known through the new edition that he published with his colleagues G. Barkay, A.G. Vaughn and M.J. Lundberg in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research in .1 His work on the latter dates back to his Yale dissertation on the Targum of Job and includes his Job the Silent: A Study in Historical Counterpoint.2
. Incantations in the Hebrew Bible?
Yehezkel Kaufmann raised one of the most intriguing questions with regard to Israelite religion: “Why … has the biblical period le so meager a residue of beliefs [about apotropaic spells] that not a single outspoken incantation in the style of Babylonia, Egypt, or even later Judaism, survives?”3 Kaufmann is indeed correct that incantations and various spells were well known throughout the ancient Near East and, curiously (due to their putative absence in the Hebrew Bible), very prominent in later Judaism. Moreover, the amount of data we now possess regarding incantations in later Judaism is so much more than what was available in Kaufmann’s days. Compare especially the incantation material from Qumran (Q, Q, Q, and Q [QapocrPs]),4 Jewish amulets and incantations from Late Antiquity,5 and the hundreds of Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls.6
1 G. Barkay, A.G. Vaughn, M.J. Lundberg and B. Zuckerman, “e Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation,” BASOR (): –. 2 B. Zuckerman, “e Process of Translation in QtgJob: A Preliminary Study” (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., ); idem, Job the Silent: A Study in Historical Counterpoint (New York: Oxford, ). 3 Y. Kaufmann, e Religion of Israel from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (trans. and abr. by M. Greenberg; New York: Schocken, ): . See Kaufmann’s fuller exposition on pages –, –. Kaufmann is not alone in his assertions. Cf. recently John Walton’s remarks that “incantations [were] a concept totally absent from Israelite ritual.” See J.H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern ought and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, ): . See too M. Dietrich and O. Loretz, “Beschwörungen in ugaritischer Sprache,” in TUAT II/ (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, ): ; D.R. Miller, “Incantations in Ancient West Semitic Corpora and in the Hebrew Bible: Continuity and Discontinuity” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, ). 4 See D.L. Penney and M.O. Wise, “By the Power of Beelzebub: An Aramaic Incantation Formula from Qumran [Q],” JBL (): –; E. Puech, “Les deux derniers psaumes davidiques du rituel d’exorcism, QPsApa IV –V ,” in e Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (D. Dimant and U. Rappaport, eds.; Leiden, Brill ): –; P.S. Alexander, “e Demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in e Dead Sea Scrolls Aer Fiy Years: A Comprehensive Treatment (vol. ; P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam, eds.; Leiden: Brill, ): –; E. Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (E.G. Chazon, ed.; Leiden: Brill, ): –; B. Nitzan, “Hymns from Qumran—Q–Q,”in e Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (D. Dimant and U. Rappaport, eds.; Leiden, Brill, ): –. 5 J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes, ); J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes, ). 6 S. Shaked, “Form and Purpose in Aramaic Magic Spells: Some Jewish emes,” in O cina Magica: Essays theodore j. lewis
Kaufmann’s view was nonetheless a rush to judgment. ough we may not have the precise literary genre of an “incantation” (though, admittedly, the constituent elements of the genre are murky), there are numerous ways in which the power of words were used in an eective manner in the Hebrew Bible analogous to the way words were used eectively in incantations. Several literary genres come immediately to mind: imprecations (e.g., Ps :–, Ps :., Obad – ), curses (cf. Sam :; Job :), curse rituals (Deut :–; Num :–), sympathetic magic (Jer :–), execrations texts (cf. Jer :–; Amos :–:) and perhaps even an exorcistic formula (cf. Isa :).7 Moreover, the Hebrew Bible itself attests to the production of incantations and their use in ritual contexts that required specialized training. A listing of various types of intermediaries is telling: – h¯ov¯er h¯aver “enchanter of spells” (Deut :; cf. Isa :,)8 – ˙hôv¯er ˙h˘av¯arîm m˘ehukk¯am “expert enchanter of spells” (Ps :) – ˙m˘enah¯eˇs˙ “omen interpreter”˙ (Deut :; cf. Gen :,) – m˘ekaˇsˇs¯ep˙ “sorcerer” (Exod :;9 :; Deut :; cf. Mic :)
on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity (S. Shaked, ed.; Leiden: Brill, ): –. For the Schøyen Collection, see S. Shaked, Aramaic Magic Bowls (Oslo: Hermes, forthcoming). See too L.H. Schiman and M.D. Swartz, Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Geniza: Selected Texts from Taylor-Schechter Box K (She eld: JSOT, ); P. Schäfer und S. Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza ( vols.; Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum , ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, –); D. Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls: Incantation Texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late Antiquity (London: Kegan Paul, ). For a recent overview and bibliography of Jewish magic of this period including rabbinic literature, Palestinian amulets, magic bowls, handbooks, and heikhalot literature, see M.D. Swartz, “Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity,” in e Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. IV e Late Roman-Rabbinic Period (S.T. Katz, ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., ): –. e sheer volume of Jewish magic texts from Late Antiquity together with their use of biblical vocabulary cannot help but pique the interest of the biblicist desiring to study similar phenomena in Iron Age Israel. And yet when the two corpora are juxtaposed, their dierences far outweigh the similarities. Many facets of the Jewish texts from Late Antiquity share more in common with contemporary Greek magical papyri. Moreover, in the world of Late Jewish Antiquity, the Hebrew Bible, rather than being in formation as it was in the Iron Age, was functioning as an authoritative (or at least cultural) guide. In analyzing the various amulets and magic bowls, J. Naveh and S. Shaked (Amulets and Magic Bowls, n : ) comment: … the direct biblical quotations and the biblical allusions, and sometimes the made-up biblical verses … underline the fact that the amulets were composed in a milieu where the Bible was the sacred scripture, and quoting it, or at least pretending to quote it, was deemed to be of special magic power. In their updated study (Magic Spells and Formulae, n : ), they once again write: Jewish incantation texts very oen make use of biblical verses. is phenomenon is clearly visible in all varieties of Jewish magic, in the Mesopotamian bowls, the Palestinian amulets, as well as the magic material from the Cairo Geniza, and is also widely attested in late mediaeval and modern Jewish magic practice … e use of biblical verses in magic contexts is of course oen derived from their liturgical prominence. 7 So Z. Zevit (e Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches [London: Continuum, ]: ) who suggests that Isa : may actually be employing “an exorcistic formula” to rid one of impurity with the words k˘emô d¯aw¯ah s¯e" which he translates “Like illness, go out!” 8 e root hbr occurs˙ in Isa :, in parallel to the root kˇsp. Both terms refer to spells. Not only are both types of spells described˙ as being forbidden in Deut :, there is also record of the death penalty being prescribed for a m˘ekaˇsˇs¯ep¯ah, ‘sorceress’ (Exod :). [See the same pair kˇspm//hbrm in the Ugaritic incantation text KTU ..– ; cf. too RS ..' = RSO .] ˙ For the various etymological proposals for hbr, see J.H. Tigay, e JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: JPS, ): , n. . In Isa :,˙ hôv¯er h˘av¯arîm m˘ehukk¯am “an expert enchanter of spells” is used in parallel to the m˘elah˘aˇsîm, “snake-incantation˙ specialists.”˙ hbr is˙ used speciÞcally of a snake charmer in Sir : and in the Babylonian˙ Talmud in Shabbat a. See M.J. Geller,˙ Akkadian Healing erapies in the Babylonian Talmud (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschasgeschichte, ): , n. . 9 e m˘ekaˇsˇs˘epîm in Exod : are speciÞcally skilled at handling serpents.