The Levite's Concubine (Judg 19:2) and the Tradition of Sexual Slander

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Vetus Testamentum brill.com/vt

The Levite’s Concubine (Judg 19:2) and the Tradition of Sexual Slander in the Hebrew Bible: How the Nature of Her Departure Illustrates a Tradition’s Tendency

Jason Bembry Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College [email protected]

Abstract

In explaining a text-critical problem in Judges 19:2 this paper demonstrates that MT attempts to ameliorate the horrific rape and murder of an innocent person by sexual slander, a feature also seen in Balaam and Jezebel. Although Balaam and Jezebel are condemned in the biblical traditions, it is clear that negative portrayals of each have been augmented by later tradents. Although initially good, Balaam is blamed by late biblical tradents (Num 31:16) for the sin at Baal Peor (Numbers 25), where “the people begin to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab.” Jezebel is condemned for sorcery and harlotry in 2 Kgs 9:22, although no other text depicts her harlotry. The concubine, like Balaam and Jezebel, dies at the hands of Israelites, demonstrating a clear pattern among the late tradents of the Hebrew Bible who seek to justify the deaths of these characters at the hands of fellow Israelites.

Keywords judges – text – criticism – sexual slander – Septuagint – Josephus

The brutal rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19 is among the most horrible stories recorded in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical account, early translations of the story, and the early interpretive tradition raise a number of questions about some details of this tragic tale. In this article I examine a

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15685330-12341336Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access 520 Bembry particular question about the very beginning of the story.1 What precipitated the concubine’s departure from her husband?2 When we examine the Hebrew text of Judg 19:2 along with the Greek traditions, a number of answers surface, and they are quite distinct from each other. In this article I will examine these options, arrange them side by side for a clear comparison, and determine the one most likely to reflect the earliest tradition.3 The answer to the question leads to a discussion of other episodes in the Hebrew Bible involving sexual slander. I argue that the representation of the Levite’s concubine belongs to a pattern of demonization of people who are killed by Israelites by later tradents who attribute sexual misconduct to the slain. The charges of sexual wrongdo- ing are designed to bolster the justification for their deaths. The first two sections of this paper compare the Masoretic Text (hereafter MT) of Judg 19:2 with the two Greek versions of this verse preserved in LXX B (Vaticanus) and LXX A (Alexandrinus), and consider as well the exegetical traditions reflected in Josephus’s Antiquities, Targum Jonathan, and Pseudo-Philo. The third section of the paper compares the presentation of the Levite’s wife with descriptions of the death of Balaam (Num 31:8; Josh 13:22) and Jezebel (2 Kgs 9:33) and is followed by a brief conclusion.

1 I want to thank my colleagues Gene McGarry and Jeff Miller and my graduate assistants Patrick Harvey, Renata Vicente, Kelli Allen, and Kolby Pinkston for reading this manuscript and providing helpful feedback. 2 Exactly what is meant by “concubine” in this story is not easily determined. Often assumed י ִּפֶל ֶג ׁשto have some connection to the Greek word παλλακή or παλλακίς, the Hebrew word applies to a secondary wife, acquired either to be a surrogate mother on behalf of a barren primary wife or, as is more likely in the present context, perhaps given this label if her family was not able to offer an adequate dowry. See Jack Sasson, Judges 1-12 AB6d (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 376. 3 Precisely how the story of the Levite and the concubine connects to the broader narrative of Judges 19-21 is beyond the scope of this article. Later I will note at least one connection this account has with the latter portion of the larger story of the civil war and its aftermath. To that extent it appears to me that Judges 19-21 has cohesion. I concur with Cynthia Edenburg who says, “Independent material might lie behind the different sections [the story of the concubine, the war with Benjamin and the restoration of Benjamin], but any attempt to sever a section from its place in the present narrative results in disrupting the chain of circum- stances that advance the plot.” See Cynthia Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole: Composition and Purpose of Judges 19-21 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 13. For those who assume that Judg 19:1-30a was an independent story originally, see Hans-Winfried Jüngling, Plädoyer für das Königtum: eine stilistische Analyse der Tendenzerzählung Ri. 19, 1-30a; 21:25 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981). More recently see Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Beobachtungen zur ehemaligan literarischen Selbständigkeit von Ri 19” in “Ruft nicht die Weisheit …?” (Spr 8,1): Alttestamentlische und epig- raphische Textinterpetationen, ed. Kristinn Olason. ATSAT 91 (St. Ottilien: Eos, 2011), 228.

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I Judg 19:2 in the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint

MT LXX A LXX B

καὶ ἐγένετο ἐνται̑ς ἡμέραις καὶ ἐγένετο ἐνται̑ς ַוְיִהי ַבָּּיִמים ָהֵהם ּוֶמֶל ֵאין 19:1 ἐκείναις καὶ βασιλεὺς οὐκ ἡμέραις ἐκείναις καὶ οὐκ ְבִּיְׂשָרֵאל ַוְיִהי ִאיׁש ֵלִוי ָּגר .ἦν ἐν Ισραηλ. καὶ ἐγένετο ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ ְבַּיְרְּכֵתי ַהר־ֶאְפַרִים ַוִּיַּקח־לֹו ἀνὴρ Λευίτης παροικω̑ν καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ Λευίτης ִאָּׁשה ִפיֶלֶגׁש ִמֵבּית ֶלֶחם ἐν μηροι̑ς ὄρους Εφράιμ, παροικω̑ν ἐν μηροι̑ς ὄρους ְיהּוָדה καὶ ἔλαβεν ὁ ἀνὴρ ἑαυτῷ Εφράιμ, καὶ ἔλαβεν αὐτῷ γυναι̑κα παλλακὴν ἐκ γυναι̑κα παλλακὴν ἀπὸ βηθλέεμ Ιούδα. Βηθλέεμ Ιούδα.

καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ ἡ καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ ̓ αὐτου̑ ַוִּתְזֶנה ָעָליו ִּפיַלְגׁשֹו ַוֵּתֶל 19:2 παλλακὴ αὐτου̑ καὶ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτου̑, καὶ ֵמִאּתֹו ֶאל־ֵבּית ָאִביָה ֶאל־ֵבּית ἀπη̑λθεν ἀπ ̓αὐτου̑ εἰς τὸν ἀπη̑λθεν παῤαὐτου̑ εἰς ֶלֶחם ְיהּוָדה ַוְּתִהי־ָׁשם ָיִמים οἴκον του̑ πατρὸς αὐτη̑ς, εἰς οἴκον πατρὸς αὐτη̑ς, εἰς ַאְרָבָּעה ְָחָדִׁשים Βηθλέεμ Ιούδα καὶ ἐγένετο Βηθλέεμ Ιούδα καὶ ἦν ἐκει̑ ἡμέρας τετράμηνον. ἐκει̑ ἡμέρας δ ̓μηνω̑ν.

I begin with the text of Judg 19:2a in the MT, which asserts that the woman was unfaithful to her husband.4 The Hebrew reads:

ַוִּתְזֶנה ָעָליו ִּפיַלְגׁשֹו ַוֵּתֶל ֵמ ִא ּת ֹו

His concubine played the harlot against him and she went away from him.5

to play the“) זנה The first important observation concerns the use of the verb is used 60 times זנה upon, against”). The verb“) ַע ל harlot”) and the preposition in the MT, and on the five occasions when the text indicates the partner

4 The female protagonist is referred to both as “concubine” and “wife.” Susan Ackerman argues that this woman is a secondary wife and thus one who has no autonomy or authority to act on her own. See Ackerman’s argument in her book, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 236-7. 5 All translations in this article are my own unless otherwise noted.

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access 522 Bembry against whom the person “plays the harlot” the preposition varies. In Ps 73:27 under”) is“) ַּת ַח ת from”). In Ezek 23:5 the preposition“) ִמ ן the preposition is from under”). In Hos 1:2“) ִמ ַּת ַח ת used. Similarly, in Hos 4:12 the preposition is ֵמ ַע ל from behind”), while in Hos 9:1 the phrasing is“) ֵמ ַא ְַ ח ֵ ר י the preposition is to refer to זנה paired with ַע ל from over; against”). Only in our text, Judg 19:2, is“) in Judg 19:2 is ַע ל + זנה the partner of the adulterous spouse.6 So while the use of unique, no firm conclusions can be drawn, given the relatively few attestations with a preposition. In any case, sexual unfaithfulness is the apparent זנה of cause of the woman’s subsequent departure to her father’s house, where she stays for four months.7 The MT then narrates how the husband arose to go after her “to speak to her heart in order to bring her back.”8 The Hebrew phrase “to speak to her heart” is used to indicate a level of genuine intimacy in Hos 2:16 (Eng v.14) where Yahweh speaks to his beloved Israel in the wilderness. These words are also used in Gen 34:3 where Shechem is wooing Dinah, although the relationship there follows what is assumed to be rape. As Trible notes, the phrase is employed in contexts of relational strife where the woman is either the offended or offending party.9 The phrase is also used in Gen 50:21 of Joseph speaking tenderly to his brothers after he reveals himself to them. In Isa 40:2 Yahweh commands someone to bring comfort to Israel and to speak tenderly to her. The phrase also appears in Ruth 2:13 where Ruth seems surprised that Boaz speaks tenderly to her even though she is a stranger and does not work for him. These three texts (Gen 50:21; Isa 40:2, and Ruth 2:13) demonstrate that “speaking to the heart” is opposed to speaking/dealing harshly with someone—the very treatment Joseph’s brothers had previously received from him, something Israel received according to Isaiah 40, and something Ruth expected as a foreigner from a wealthy landowner. Finally, in 2 Sam 19:7 Joab urges David to

but in both cases the object of the preposition is ַע ל is used twice with זנה ,In Ezek 16:15-16 6 not a person. In 16:16 the phrase appears in a reference to playing the harlot over a shrine the people had made, pointing to the place where such misbehavior took place. In v.15, how- likely conveys an explanation for the misbehavior. Translating the ַע ל ever, the preposition your name” parallels the previous stich, “you ( ַע ל) phrase “you committed harlotry because of trusted in your beauty.” 7 Jüngling notes that this is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the initiative for marital separation originates with a woman. See Jüngling, Plädoyer für das Königtum, 88. 8 I am reading the Qere here—“in order to bring her back” instead of the Kethib’s “in order to bring him back.” It simply does not make sense that “him” would be the object of the action in this context. 9 Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 67.

Vetus TestamentumDownloaded from 68 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 519-539 04:14:41PM via free access The Levite’s Concubine and the Tradition of Sexual Slander 523 speak kindly to the people after Absalom’s death. The common thread in the attestations of this phrase is the notion of tenderness in one’s speech, whether it be between lovers (real or metaphorical) or between people who had previously been at odds. In light of the meaning of this phrase, it is difficult to reconcile the woman’s behavior with the Levite’s response.10 Is this the kind of language we would expect from a husband in the ancient Near East whose wife had “played the harlot” against him? It seems more likely that the husband’s desire to speak tenderly to her indicates a measure of culpability on his own part for the separation.11 If the Levite was merely coming to take her back without regard to requisite persuasion, the text might easily say, “he went to take her back.”12 We might also question the woman’s acceptance by her father after being unfaithful to her husband.13 Of course, we can imagine a narrative world where word of her deed had not reached Bethlehem within the four months. Such is possible but, even so, it is strange. Additionally, when the Levite arrives at the home of his father-in-law, the MT says it is the concubine who brings him into the house and her father is glad to meet him (v.3). There seems to be no sign of tension or conflict, neither between the couple nor between the Levite and the father-in-law. While some

10 James Barr noted that “there is no hint of [the woman prostituting herself] elsewhere in the story.” See James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 286. 11 J. Alberto Soggin, Judges, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 284. See also Robert G. Boling, Judges AB 6a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 274. 12 The relevance of “speaking to her heart” is not addressed by Ackerman, who merely asserts that this woman’s status is dictated by the men around her. I agree that this story is clearly a part of the patriarchal world of the bible. Yet to deny that this story might allude to some level of autonomy on the part of the woman is an overstatement. She left her husband, she was not immediately sent back by her father, and the Levite seems to assume that some sort of persuasion is necessary for her to return with him. Additionally, Boling notes that “it is strange that the woman would become a prostitute and then run home.” Boling, Judges, 273. 13 Soggin, Judges, 284. Mieke Bal has suggested that what is actually at stake within this story is the conflict between patrilocal and virilocal marriage. Bal suggests that the concubine has been unfaithful to the virilocal system (which would have applied to her as a concubine on the basis of anthropological analogues), and so the conflict regarding where she should live is actually between her father and her husband. Bal reads v.2 as “the concubine was unfaithful in the direction of her husband,” meaning that she was unfaithful because she went to her husband, leaving her father. See Mieke Bal, “Dealing/with/Women: Daughters in the Book of Judges,” in Women in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Alice Bach (New York: Routledge, 1999), 326-7. While thought-provoking, Bal’s case is not persuasive because it relies heavily on highly speculative assumptions about the nature of concubinage.

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access 524 Bembry have interpreted the father-in-law’s actions in a sinister light,14 I am convinced that his hospitality further illustrates the convivial context of this encounter and a willingness among all parties involved toward reconciliation. At the very least the MT’s version of the story appears a bit disjointed on the surface, and it raises certain questions about the true nature of the couple’s separation. These inconsistencies invite a number of questions along the lines of what Gale Yee calls an intrinsic analysis, a matter to which I will turn at the end of this article.15

LXX B When we turn to the LXX versions of this story we find further interesting details. The Vaticanus text of Judg 19:2a reads:

καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ ̓ αὐτου̑ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτου̑, καὶ ἀπη̑λθεν παρ ̓αὐτου̑ εἰς οἶκον πατρὸς αὐτη̑ς, εἰς Βηθλέεμ Ιούδα

And his concubine went from him and she departed from him unto the house of her father unto Bethlehem Judah.

Like the MT, the LXX B attests two verbs that describe the nature of her departure, but both are virtually synonymous—ἐπορεύθη (“he/she went”) and ἀπη̑λθεν (“departed”). No reason is given here for the woman’s actions. The Hebrew Vorlage behind the LXX B text is not immediately clear since both verbs, ἐπορεύθη (“went”) and ἀπη̑λθεν (“departed”) overwhelming represent to go”), especially in the immediate context“) הלך forms of the Hebrew verb of the book of Judges.16 The wording “she went and went out from him” is not a grammatically felicitous phrase in Hellenistic Greek. Since this verbal

14 Gale Yee argues that the father-in-law’s actions are deliberately demeaning to the Levite: “The flamboyant display of generosity by the father-in-law symbolizes the moral and con- ceptual subordination of the guest to the host …. The Levite is taken down a few more notches by his father-in-law’s shrewd hospitality.” Gale Yee, “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17-21 and the Dismembered Body,” in Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. Gale Yee (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 163. 15 Yee, “Ideological Criticism,” 151. in all but הלךOf the 21 times ἀπέρχομαι appears in Judges, it reflects the Hebrew verb 16 to drag”). In the immediate context of Judges“ מׁשך one occasion (4:6 where the verb is If we .הלך there are eleven occurrences of ἀπέρχομαι, all of which represent the verb ,19 include the other two chapters that comprise the literary unit to which Judges 19 belongs, while one הלך three additional uses of ἀπέρχομαι appear, 2 of which represent the verb -to go out.” Of the 91 times πορεύομαι is used in Judges, it con“ יצא reflects the verb (21:24) .(with but three exceptions (2:15, 12:1, and 19:3 הלך sistently represents

Vetus TestamentumDownloaded from 68 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 519-539 04:14:41PM via free access The Levite’s Concubine and the Tradition of Sexual Slander 525 combination appears nowhere else in the LXX and is rather redundant, it seems that the LXX B might not be reflecting the true Hebrew Vorlage. In order to explain the difference between LXX B and the MT, Paul Harlé and Thérèse Roqueplo note the similarity between the initial verb in this Greek translation of Judg 19:2a, ἐπορεύθη, and ἐπορνεύθη from the verb πορνεύω (“to play the harlot.”).17 The difference is the addition of the letter nu to the latter form. While the former takes a passive construction because the verb is depo- nent, the latter form is in the passive to note the reflexive sense of “prostituting one’s self.”18 This explanation is also suggested by Susan Niditch and Walter Gross.19 There is one other text in Judges that shares some similarities with the differences noted above between MT and LXX B. The MT of Judg 2:15 reads as follows:

ְבֹכל ְַאֶׁשר ָיְצאּו ַיד־ְיהָוה ָהְיָתה־ָבּם

In everywhere they went out, the hand of Yahweh was against them.

The Greek versions differ here, however. LXX B has “at every point at which they went out the Lord’s hand was against them.” LXX A, on the other hand, has “at every point at which they would prostitute themselves …” While LXX B is clos- er to the MT, employing the verb ἐξεπορεύοντο (“they went out”), LXX A reads with sexual nuance, employing the verb ἐπόρνευον ָיְצאּו or interprets the verb (“they prostituted themselves”). It is clear that “they went out” is more at home to go“) יצא in this context of confrontation with enemies (see 2:14). The verb out”) is often used in militaristic contexts to denote going out to battle (see Num 27:17; 1 Sam 18:16; 29:6). Just as the graphic confusion between the Greek verbs “to go” and “to prostitute one’s self” in Judg 2:15 illustrates the ease with which these two verbs are confused, the same problem obtains in LXX B’s Judg 19:2a. It is likely that the current reading in LXX B is the result of an inner-Greek corruption by simple accidental miscopying. The original Greek reading of LXX B was, there- fore, ἐπορνεύθη ἀπ ̓ αὐτου̑ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτου̑, καὶ ἀπη̑λθεν, “his concubine prostituted herself away from him and she departed.” At some point in the copying

17 Paul Harlé and Thérèse Roqueplo, Les Juges (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1999), 241. 18 Note that LSJ mentions this in the entry for πορνεύω. 19 Susan Niditch, Judges: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 189. Walter Groß, Richter, HthKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2009), 806.

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access 526 Bembry tradition the initial verb ἐπορνεύθη was miscopied as ἐπορεύθη resulting in the translation “his concubine went from him and departed.”

LXX A The Alexandrinus text of Judg 19:2 reads:

καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτου̑ καὶ ἀπη̑λθεν ἀπ ̓αὐτου̑ εἰς τὸν οἶκον του̑ πατρὸς αὐτη̑ς, εἰς Βηθλέεμ Ιούδα καὶ ἐγένετο ἐκει̑ ἡμέρας τετράμηνον.

And his concubine became angry at him and she departed from him to the house of her father in Bethlehem Judah and she was there four months.

As in the MT and LXX B, two verbs appear at the beginning of the verse. The second verb in LXX A, ἀπη̑λθεν, is identical to the second verb in LXX B. In LXX A, however, the first verb differs from what is found in LXX B. LXX A registers -played the har“) ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ֶנ ה the woman’s anger, as opposed to the MT’s accusatory lot”) and LXX B’s neutral/opaque ἐπορεύθη (“she went”). Some have suggested meaning “to be angry.”20 זנה a secondary meaning for a homophonous root -the second having the mean ,זנה Koehler and Baumgartner lists two roots for ing “to be angry” with Judg 19:2 as the only biblical attestation.21 These sugges- tions assume a cognate meaning with the Akkadian verb zenû, which has the meaning “to be angry.” mostly with forms of the זנה The LXX tradition renders the Hebrew verb Greek verb ἐκπορνεύω (“to commit fornication”; thirty-eight times, according to Hatch-Redpath) or πορνεύω (“to prostitute”; sixteen times, according to Hatch- are rendered using nouns cognate with זנה Redpath). The remaining uses of πορνεύω (“illicit sex”; three times) or πόρνη (“prostitute”), which is the usual prostitute”).22 Nowhere does“) זֹוָנה equivalent for the substantivized participle with verbs or nouns conveying anger. In fact, there are three זנה the LXX render appears in the MT, and the LXX A and B זנה places in the book of Judges where consistently render them with forms of the verb ἐκπορνεύω (Judg 2:17; 8:27, 33; each time Israel is the subject). On the other hand, the verb o̓ργίζω (“to become

20 G. R. Driver, “Mistranslations in the Old Testament,” Die Welt des Orients 1 (1947): 29. 21 HALOT 275. in a nonliteral fashion. Isa 23:17 reads, “Tyre will זנה In one case the LXX renders the verb 22 with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.” The LXX renders ( ְ ו ָ ז ְנ ָת ה) play the harlot this verb with εἰναι ἐμπόριον “to be merchandise/commerce.” This translation is likely an attempt by the Greek translator to provide a dynamically equivalent translation.

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.outside of Judges 19 זנה angry”) is never used to translate the Hebrew verb These data combine to suggest that the LXX translators do not have the verb .in their Vorlage זנה was not in the LXX A’s Vorlage, we must reconstruct a different זנה If the verb verb. A number of commentators have offered other solutions that posit some other Hebrew verb with the meaning “to be angry.” One commentator suggests to be angry”).24 In Judges“) אנף to be enraged”).23 Others suggest the verb“) זעף LXX A, when the verb o̓ργίζω (“to be angry”) appears outside of our verse (Judg 2:14, 20; 3:8; 6:39) or the noun o̓ργή (“anger”) is used alongside the verb θυμόω (“to become angry”; Judg 9:30; 10:7; 14:19)—in all seven cases the MT attests the to become angry”). Each of these occurrences uses the construction“) חרה verb anger was kindled”). If a preposition is used to denote the object of“) ַא ף + חרה with the meaning “against.” In ,ב the anger (Judg 2:14, 20; 3:8; 6:39; 10:7), it is these seven cases only two (Judg 9:30 and 14:19—the same two that lack the preposition indicating the object of the anger) describe human anger, while the other five describe that of Yahweh. Only once in Deuteronomy–Kings is with Yahweh as the subject אנף a form of o̓ργίζω mirrored by the hithpael of -we are left with a rather sub ,חרה or אנף ,Kgs 11:9). Yet if we posit either root 1) stantial change vis-à-vis the MT. Some have suggested that the word o̓ργίσθη (“she became angry”) might to be“ זנח be connected to a Hebrew Vorlage that had the verb zayin-nun-het whereby the final letter has—זנה angry” rather than the MT’s zayin-nun-he been confused or misread at some point in the tradition.25 Positing the verb as the original Hebrew Vorlage for LXX A raises interesting points. The זנח graphic confusion between the Hebrew letters he and het has great potential, the difference being only the connected or unconnected left vertical stroke with the top horizontal stroke. If one compares the way the two letters were written around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls text of 1QIsaa (2nd century is ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ֶנ ה BCE), a close similarity obtains. Additionally, the MT’s attestation of actually not the form we should normally expect for a third-he verb. The so- is the most , ו ַ ִּת ֶ ז ן called apocopated form, where the he of the root is lost as in common form of this class of verb when prefixed with a waw-consecutive.26

23 Boling, Judges, 274. 24 George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1895), 409. 25 Soggin, Judges, 284. 26 This grammatical anomaly was noted already by G. F. Moore, Judges, 409. The Hebrew Bible in general and the Deuteronomistic History in particular attests some of these anomalous forms. Yet they are relatively rare and appear to represent secondary, analogical

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Hermann-Josef Stipp’s claim that these forms are occasioned by the following cannot be sustained (ע word when its initial consonant is a guttural (in 19:2 an as the זנח in light of the data.27 The fuller form is normal, however, if we posit .זנח is precisely the expected form of the root ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ַנ ח ,original verbal root. That is -to reject”) appears nineteen times in the MT and is trans“) זנח The verb lated by the Greek verb ἀπωθέω (“to reject”) the vast majority of those times.28 Although the verb itself never conveys the sense of anger on its own, three are in poetic parallel in the Psalms with a verb conveying anger זנח uses of (60:3; 74:1; 89:39). Only one of the nineteen attestations employs a preposition זנח with the verb, Lam 3:17, using a prefixed mem conveying “from.” The verb sometimes conveys no stated object (Pss 44:10; 44:24; 74:1; 77:8; 89:39; Lam 3:31) or renders the object either with a pronominal suffix on the verb (Pss 43:2; 60:3, 12; Zech 10:6) or an independent object (Ps 88:15; Hos 8:3, 5; Lam 2:7). Since perhaps , ַע ל used with the preposition זנח Judg 19:2 is the only attestation of the LXX A translators derived the meaning “was angry” from the combination connecting this meaning to a homophonous Semitic root, zenû (“to , ַע ל + זנח of be angry”), also attested in Akkadian. The reconstruction of the Hebrew underlying LXX A with the least obstacles First, the MT’s attested . ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ַנ ח in my opinion assumes the original verbal form again, the difference being a ,ותזנח is almost identical to ותזנה ,unpointed form slight gap between the left vertical and top horizontal stroke on the final letter or analogous minor changes if we posit a Hebrew script similar to what is seen in 1QIsaa dated to the 2nd century BCE. Koehler-Baumgartner’s suggestion that could have the secondary meaning “to be angry” and thus be the זנה the verb original verb here, simply interpreted with this posited secondary meaning, ,Second . ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ֶנ ה rather than ו ַ ִּת ֶ ז ן is less likely because the proper form would be does not clearly convey “to be angry” anywhere in the זנח while the verbal root

developments. See Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 544. I want to thank my former student and now colleague Adam Bean for pointing this out to me. 27 Stipp is correct that a number of these anomalous forms are followed by guttural-ini- ;see 1 Kgs 16:25 ַּי ַוְ ַע ֶׂש ה see Josh 19:50; 1 Kgs 18:32; 2 Chron 26:6. For ו ַ ִּי ְב ֶנ ה tial words (for 2 Kgs 3:2; 2 Kgs13:11; Ezek 18:19). Exceptions to this supposed pattern are 1 Kgs 17:15 and 19:8. Furthermore, there are numerous examples of the apocopated form that are followed by guttural-initial words. See Gen 1:7, 16, 25; 18:27; 23:10, 14; Exod 4:30; 1 Sam 14:48; 1 Chron 7:24. Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Narrativ-Langformen 2. und 3. Person von zweira- dikaligen Basen nach qalY im biblischen Hebräisch. Eine Untersuchung zu morpholo- gischen Abweichungen in den Büchern Jeremia und Könige,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 13 (1987): 109-49. 28 The Chronicler prefers the hiphil of this verb to render the notion of “rejecting”—never using the qal form (1 Chron 28:9; 2 Chron 11:14; 29:19).

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coupled with the likely ַע ל + זנח MT, the otherwise unattested combination of connection with the Akkadian cognate zenû provides such a possibility, one that might have been known by the LXX A translators. For these reasons, the ַוִּתְזַנח ָעָליו ִּפיַלְגׁשֹו ַוֵּתֶל ִאֵמ ּת ֹו :most likely Vorlage for LXX A would be the following “His concubine became angry at him and she departed from him.” The text of LXX A specifies the nature of the departure over against LXX B’s awkwardly redundant reading. LXX A provides a plausible reason for the separation, one that fits the overall context of the story’s progression. While it lacks the sexual overtones of the MT, LXX A suggests that some sort of marital strife is behind the woman’s departure.

II Interpretive Retellings of Judges 19

In this section I will examine another set of texts that narrate the story of Judges 19—Josephus’s Antiquities, Targum Jonathan, and Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities. I begin with Josephus’s account of this story from Judges (Ant. 5:136-137), where we see a slightly different account of the initial events. Josephus writes:

There was a Levite, a man of a commoner family, who belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, and dwelt therein: this man married a wife from Bethlehem, which is a place belonging to the tribe of Judah. Now he was very fond of his wife, and overcome with her beauty; but he was unhappy in this, that he did not meet with the like return of affection from her, for she was averse to him, which did more to inflame his passion for her, so that they quarreled one with another perpetually; and at last the woman was so disgusted at these quarrels, that she left her husband, and went to her parents in the fourth month. The husband being very uneasy at her departure, and that out of his fondness for her, came to his father and mother-in-law, and made up their quarrels, and was reconciled to her.

As is sometimes the case in Josephus’s “rewritten scripture,” the biblical account receives some clarification in details and occasionally departs from the version attested in the MT. Josephus never refers to the woman as a “concubine”, and her beauty becomes a central tenet of the story.29

29 It is possible that Josephus is attempting to disassociate the Levite from concubinage, which might have been an object of disparagement to Josephus’s Roman audience. See Louis H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Potrayal of the Benjaminite Affair (Ant. 5: 136-174) of the

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The Levite is depicted as infatuated with the woman’s beauty, and in fact it seems that his unrequited infatuation is the source of their squabbles that ef- fects her departure. While he notes that their continual strife led to the separation, no hint of sexual infidelity appears in Josephus’s version.30 Since it is clear that Josephus’s account of Judges is freer than his rendering of 1-2 Samuel, the deviations from the MT and LXX traditions are not surprising.31 Still, Josephus is not known for effacing sexual references, especially regarding the sexual behavior of women.32 The Targum of Judg 19:2 shares an affinity with Josephus’s account. Targum and his concubine despised him“) ובםרת עליהו להינתיה ואזלת Jonathan reads and she went”).33 As in the MT and the LXX texts, two verbs are used to convey the woman’s actions. Additionally, the preposition used in the Targum is the The description of the woman as despising the Levite . ַע ל reflex of the Hebrew is rather different from the MT. No hint of infidelity appears in the Aramaic version of the story. The Targum’s description is more closely aligned with Josephus’s depiction of unrequited love. Yet, while certainly worthy of mention in this discussion, the relative lateness of Targum Jonathan means that it car- ries less weight in the quest to establish a chronology of textual development. The next text to examine is the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo, whose work dates from around the same time as Josephus (first century CE).34 While Pseudo-Philo omits the first part of the biblical story, in which the woman leaves the Levite but both are eventually reconciled, the text does provide an interesting interpretive element that supports the conclusion of this article. The relevant portion of Pseudo-Philo’s retelling appears in Biblical Antiquities 45:3. The text reads:

And [the assailants] entered by force and dragged him and his concubine out, and they cast him off. And when the man had been let go, they abused his concubine until she died, because she had transgressed

Concubine and its Repercussions (Judges 19-21),” The Jewish Quarterly Review 40 (Spring 2000): 271. 30 Feldman, “Josephus’ Potrayal of the Benjaminite Affair,” 271. 31 Walter Ray Bodine, The Greek Text of Judges; Recensional Developments HSM 23 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 93. 32 Louis H. Feldman, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 565. 33 See Willem F. Smelik, The Targum of Judges (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 607. 34 See Frederick J. Murphy, Pseudo-Philo Rewriting the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 3.

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against her man once when she committed sin with the Amalekites, and on account of this the LORD God delivered her into the hands of sinners.35

There are a number of differences between the MT and Pseudo-Philo’s account, including the omission of the departure/reconciliation episode noted above, and the added detail about the assailants forcing their way into the house and seizing both the man and his concubine. Yet for our purposes, the most interesting addition to this retelling is the explicit connection made between the rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine and the sin against her husband that she committed with the Amalekites. Pseudo-Philo’s combination of the phrase, “sinning with the Amalekites” with the phrase “transgressed against her husband” makes the sexual nature of the woman’s sin rather clear. In this account, the woman’s death is blamed on her earlier transgression. Attention to moral causality and divine justice is a thematic element in Pseudo-Philo, and the “measure for measure” punishment indicated here has parallels in early rabbinic teaching.36 Again, this particular element of Pseudo-Philo’s account will be central to my final explanation of how Judges 19 has been shaped in the biblical tradition and later interpretive traditions.

III The Levite’s Concubine as a Victim of Sexual Slander

When we combine the Greek traditions of the LXX and Josephus and compare them with the MT’s version of this story, we are immediately struck by the contrasting explanations for the concubine’s departure. We have an awkwardly worded simple departure with no stated reason in LXX B, departure because of anger in LXX A, and departure due to arguments rooted in unrequited infatuation in Josephus, and to a lesser extent in the Targum. All of these versions contrast with the MT’s explanation, namely the woman’s sexual unfaithfulness against her husband. I suggest that the MT constitutes the latest version of this story. I argue that the earliest version of the story was closest to LXX A which suggests there was anger involved in the breakup. The Hebrew Vorlage

35 Translation by D. J. Harrington, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 2:359-360. Italics omitted. 36 See Murphy, Pseudo-Philo Rewriting the Bible, 247. For the notion of “measure for measure” punishment see Jacob Neusner, “Reward and Punishment in Classical Judaism” in The Encyclopedia of Judaism, ed. Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, and William Scott Green, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (Boston: Brill, 2005), 4:2327.

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-she was angry at him”—was most likely the story’s origi“ ַוִּתְזַנח ָעָליו—of LXX A nal wording. Josephus likely expands on the anger theme, giving the departure some plausible explanation that involves marital strife. Harlé, Roqueplo, Niditch and Gross are correct when they suggest that LXX B originally ex- pressed the kind of sexual infidelity attested in the MT. Their explanation of an inner Greek corruption whereby one letter was miscopied from the original reading is correct. The original phrase in LXX B, “she prostituted herself and went out”, became the rather stilted line, “she went and she went out”, a verbal combination no where attested in the rest of the LXX. LXX B’s original wording, “she prostituted herself”, is based upon the change that took place among the MT’s tradents, putting the letter he in place of het, an alteration that involved the slightest pen stroke, changing the original wording “she became angry” to “she played the harlot.” The literary transformation of Judg 19:2 unfolded as follows: First, the oldest His concubine became angry“ ַוִּתְזַנח ָעָליו ִּפיַלְגׁשֹו ַוֵּתֶל ִאֵמ ּת ֹו :Hebrew Vorlage read at him and she departed from him.” This line was the Vorlage for the Targum and the LXX A, our clearest extant witness to the oldest reading. Josephus’s account is also based upon either the original Hebrew Vorlage or a Greek source that mirrored LXX A. Sometime later MT tradents made one simple change— the final het became he with a slightly truncated , ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ֶנ ה became ו ַ ִּת ְ ז ַנ ח the verb pen stroke. Although slight in terms of the ink on the surface, the change was by no means accidental. In what follows I will explain how this change came to be, a narratival alteration that is part of larger biblical pattern. The MT’s version is likely explained by a late ideologically driven desire to mitigate the horrific nature of the story of a raped and murdered innocent. The late biblical tradents likely were faced with the troubling question about how such a horrible thing could happen to an unsuspecting Israelite woman at the hands of fellow Israelite men. I suggest that the horror of the event was attenu- ated by late tradents who depicted her as sexually unfaithful to the Levite. If she was previously guilty of sexual misconduct, her rape and murder may be interpreted as a fitting punishment; the implication is that if she had behaved chastely, she would not have been assaulted. If my suggestion is correct, this would be the textual/narratological equivalent of blaming the victim so as to lessen the sting of a story so profoundly shameful in Israel’s past—even though the original purpose of the story may have been to demonstrate the lawless- ness of the period prior to kingship. In this sense the process of blaming the woman for her death is strikingly close to Pseudo-Philo’s explanation of her death as a punishment for her “sin with the Amalekites.” The inconsistencies in the story as it stands in the MT that I noted above invite a deeper analysis into the process whereby this text was shaped along

Vetus TestamentumDownloaded from 68 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 519-539 04:14:41PM via free access The Levite’s Concubine and the Tradition of Sexual Slander 533 ideological lines. I mentioned the work of Gale Yee earlier in conjunction with the importance of looking for ideological clues to explain how this story achieved its current form. While I am convinced that Yee’s approach to this story is sound, I depart from her conclusions.37 In what follows I want to build a case for an ideologically motivated transformation of this story within the textual—translational and interpretive—tradition. I am convinced that we must connect the demonization of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19 to the treatment of other figures slain by Israelites, such as Balaam, son of Beor and Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab. Understanding how these two people are demonized and associated with illicit sexuality in the biblical text can shed light on the case for the unnamed woman in Judges 19. We begin with Balaam, who is transformed in the Hebrew Bible from a prophet who obeys Yahweh to the idolater and devious mastermind behind the incident involving “playing the harlot with the daughters of Moab” at the Baal of Peor (Numbers 25). Although Balaam appears nowhere in the original story of Israel and the Moabite women, he is linked to the Baal Peor incident by late traditions in Num 31:8, 16, where he is said to have been killed by the Israelites because he counseled them to be unfaithful to their God at Peor.38 None of the other biblical references to the sin at Peor (Deut 4:3; Josh 22:7; Hos 9:10; Ps 106:28-31), however, mentions Balaam. This late tradition that connects Balaam to Peor has also influenced the text of Josh 13:22, an additional account of Balaam’s death, which connects him to the practice of divination. This late tradition in Numbers is likely an attempt to demonize him as a foreigner and one who was involved with heterodox practices. That this demonization of Balaam is a later interpretation is clear from the old poetry of the Balaam story in Numbers 22-24, which depicts him in a positive light.39

37 Yee reads the entirety of Judges 17-21 as Deuteronomistic propaganda designed to justify Josianic centralization by demonizing the “country Levites.” So she reads the Levite of Judges 19 as one who is humiliated by his concubine and her father, and further humiliated by this gang of assailants to whom he throws the concubine to exact revenge on her for her wanton abandonment of his house. The Levite then arranges the assembly of the tribes through a gruesome display of the dead woman’s body parts as a personal vendetta, fomenting a civil war to get revenge on these men. See Yee, “Ideological Criticism,” 157-67. 38 Jonathan Miles Robker, “The Balaam Narrative in the Pentateuch / Hexateuch / Enneateuch,” in Torah and the Book of Numbers, ed. Christian Frevel, Thomas Pola, and Aaron Schart (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 350. See Num 23:28 where Balak takes Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the desert. This verse might have also played a role in connecting Balaam to the events that happen at Peor in Numbers 25. 39 It is clear that most of the original poetry about Balaam did not intend to depict him neg- atively. Later tradents had a vested interest in vilifying Balaam, likely because of his status

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Numbers 25 is likely a pastiche that combines the account of the sin committed with the Moabite women with a Priestly account of a couple, an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, executed en flagrante by Phineas appears in the earlier account of the Baal of Peor זנה in Num 25:8. The verb story in Num 25:1, “The people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab.” When the priestly account was combined with the earlier narrative in Num 25:1-5, the en flagrante execution amplified the sexual aspect of the story of the Israelites and the Moabite women. Postbiblical interpretive traditions built upon the association of Balaam with the sin of Peor. Josephus (Ant. 4:129-30) depicts Balaam advising Balak on how best to conquer the Israelites. Balaam suggests that Balak send the most beautiful Midianite women into the Israelite camp in order to seduce the young men into renouncing their God and worshiping the gods of the Midianites. In the New Testament, Rev 2:14 speaks of Balaam putting a stumbling block before the Israelites, encouraging them to idolatry and immorality (πορνευ̑σαι). Pseudo-Philo (Bib. Ant. 18:13-14) goes further, claiming that Balaam advised sending the Midianite women into the camp naked so as to seduce Israel. The trajectory of Balaam’s descent into sordid ignominy in the interpretive tradition is quite clear. Jezebel’s iniquity, which is initially limited to idolatry, is extended to include her scheming that leads to the death of Naboth, and eventually her depiction harlotries”; LXX πορνει̑αι) and sorcery in 2 Kgs 9:22.40 In“) ְזנּוִנים as one guilty of ְזנּוִנים the narratives that include Jezebel there is nothing that would intimate in her behavior, if by this term we mean illicit sexual behavior. Of course, the -is used elsewhere to refer metaphorically to being un ְזנּוִנים / ”use of “harlotry faithful to Yahweh. In the metaphorical depiction of Oholibah and Oholah, references to the cities of Jerusalem and Samaria respectively in Ezekiel 23, ְזנּוִנים is used to describe their actions in rather explicit detail. Cognates of ְזנּוִנים appear within this same context (זנה built upon the same root) ַּתְזנּות such as as well (see Ezek 23:7, 8, 14, 18). While in the overall picture these two women are clearly metaphors for the two cities, the use of terms often translated as

as a foreigner. See Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, JPS Torah (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 470-71. Martin Noth long ago argued that it was impossible to assume that the tradition of a demonized Balaam was part of the original story in Numbers 22-24. See Martin Noth, Numbers OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 231. Baruch Levine suggests that the denigration of Balaam began with the story of the talking donkey and from there to the account in Numbers 31 where Balaam is killed. Later his vilification is amplified in Numbers 31 regarding his association with the Baal of Peor incident and in Deut 23:5b-6 where Balaam is said to have attempted to curse Israel. See Baruch Levine, Numbers 21-36 AB 4a (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 240. 40 In the New Testament Jezebel is used as a cipher of fornication in Rev 2:20-23.

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“harlotry” to denote sexual activity is clear from the references to “uncovering nakedness” in 23:10 and “flaunting nakedness” in 23:18. Additionally, in Nah 3:4 .is used metaphorically of the city of Nineveh ְזנּוִנים are ַּתְזנּות and ְזנּוִנים and its substantival forms זנה Elsewhere, when the verb used metaphorically to refer to worshiping other gods, the locution mentions gods or specific deities as we see in Exod 34:16 (after their gods); Lev 17:7 (goat demons/satyrs); Deut 31:16 (foreign gods); Judg 2:17 (other gods). In Hos 4:12 the prophet says “a spirit of harlotry” leads astray and “[my people] play the harlot away from their God.” Again, in Hos 5:4 a “spirit of harlotry” is noted among the people, in the context of their not knowing Yahweh. These references to sexual behavior are clearly metaphorical references to devotion to other deities. is used of one particular woman and there is no mention of ְזנּוִנים Yet when deities, it seems that the meaning is not metaphorical. The clearest example -by har“) ִלְזנּוִנים of this occurs in Gen 38:24 where Tamar is said to be pregnant lotry”). Other examples come from the book of Hosea where the prophet is -and have “children of har ( ֵאֶׁשת ְזנּוִנים) ”instructed to take a “wife of harlotry in Hos 1:2. The reference to “children of harlotry” is repeated ( ַיְלֵדי ְזנּוִנים) ”lotry in 2:4. While ( ַנ ְַאפּוִפים) ”appears in poetic parallel with “adultery ְזנּוִנים in 2:6 and some commentators insist that Hosea’s marriage is merely metaphorical,41 it appears to me to be quite real.42 At the very least we must admit that even if the entire story of Hosea and Gomer is to be read along the same metaphorical lines of Oholibah and Oholah in Ezekiel, the depiction is still couched within a clearly sexual context. Like Tamar in . ְזנּוִנים This brings us back to Jezebel who is accused also of Genesis 38, Jezebel is a lone woman and there is no reference to other deities in the context, suggesting that this harlotry is not metaphorical. If harlotry were a metaphor for idolatry here, I would expect our text to accuse Jezebel of enticing Israel to “play the harlot after other gods” or “away from Yahweh” in keeping with the biblical idiom. Although other texts in 1-2 Kings do make mention of her religious heterodoxy, nowhere are those practices couched in ,appears no where in 1-2 Kings זנה the “harlotry” metaphor. In fact, the verb only appears once in 1-2 Kings—here in 2 Kgs 9:22, the reference to זנּוִנים and Jezebel. When rulers are denounced as bad examples in 1-2 Kings, the Hiphil

41 See Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 15. Wolff refers to this as “metaphorical—ritual” whereby Gomer had “taken part in the Canaanite bridal rite of initia- tion that had become customary.” See also Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah WBC 31 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 27. Stuart suggests that “to marry any Israelite woman was to marry a ‘prostituting woman,’ so rife was the religious promiscuity of Hosea’s day.” 42 See A. A. MacIntosh, Hosea (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 8.

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to make someone sin” is used.43 The uniqueness of the term used of“ חטא of Jezebel has the look of a later addition and departs from the usual expression for apostasy in 1-2 Kings. The closest connection that can be made between Jezebel and the harlotry metaphor for apostasy is in 2 Chron 21:13 where the Judahite King Jehoram is said to cause the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah to play the harlot as the house of Ahab did to Israel. Yet there is no mention of Jezebel. Additionally, since Jezebel is identified as a Phoenician, non-Israelite Baal-worshiper, she can hardly be accused of unfaithfulness to Yahweh. Furthermore, a literal interpretation of Jezebel’s “harlotry” appears in Josephus as well. In a slight departure from the biblical version, the early Jewish interpreter claims that Jehu told the Israelite King Joram that his mother was a witch and a harlot just before he killed him (Ant. 9: 118).44 These points suggest that the accusation in 2 Kgs 9:22 is not about Jezebel’s devotion to foreign gods, but rather an attempt to associate her with illicit sexuality, comparable to the treatment Balaam received at the hands of late biblical tradents. Both Balaam (Num 31:8) and Jezebel (2 Kgs 9:33) are killed by Israelites. From the biblical tradents’ point of view, those deaths are deserved. I am not arguing for a clear one-to-one correspondence between the woman of Judges 19 and Balaam or Jezebel. All three biblical personages have been depicted, however, within registers of improper sexuality (with descriptors based on the and a plausible case can be made that these depictions represent ,(זנה root editorial shaping by later biblical tradents who sought to demonize each char- acter further in order to show that their deaths in the stories were somehow deserved. A further example of the demonization of biblical characters who die violently is the depiction of Eli’s sons. They are said to be guilty initially of manipulating the sacrificial system so as to acquire the greater share of the meat from the animal offerings (1 Sam 2:12-17). Eli hears of their behavior and rebukes them (vv.22-23). Specifically, the MT states that Eli heard “all that they were doing and that they were sleeping with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting.” Neither 4QSama nor LXX A and B attests this line about the women at the tent of meeting. In fact, those three texts actually state that “Eli heard what his sons were doing to the sons of Israel.”

43 Jeroboam son of Nebat is the parade example of a king who “caused Israel to sin” (1 Kgs 16:26; 22:53; 2 Kgs 3:3; 10:29; 13:2, 11;14:24; 15:9, 18, 24, 28; 17:21; 23:15). None of these texts use causing the people—זנה the harlotry metaphor for this king’s action (as in the Hiphil of to play the harlot or the like.). 44 The strength of this point is lessened a bit by the fact that some Greek manuscripts of this part of Antiquities omit the words “and a harlot”.

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The MT seems to have added the specific charge of sexual misconduct and changed the original line to “what his sons were doing to all of Israel.” Since Josephus’s account mirrors the MT over against the texts of 4QSama and LXX A and B, it would appear that this addition is likely quite late.45 The addition demonizes the sons sexually, further justifying their eventual deaths in battle when the ark is lost. The alteration of the line removes what could be read as a more gender specific reference to their misconduct—their practice of seizing choice meat from the men who came to offer it at the shrine. Changing “sons of Israel” to “all of Israel” allowed for the additional charge of sexual misconduct to be included in v. 22. It is clear that this type of editorial shaping is most at home in a later context, one that would likely postdate the earliest LXX traditions, as the example of Eli’s sons likely suggests. Note that the book of Jubilees, typically dated to 170-150 BCE,46 depicts Rebekah telling Jacob not to marry Canaanite women because they do things that are sexually impure (Jub 25:1). This account expands the biblical story in Gen 27:46-28:2 where nothing is explicitly said about the women’s sexuality. While the Jubilees account is not an attempt to justify the death of these women, its negative sexual depiction of them is of a piece with the editorial shaping already present within the late biblical traditions. Two centuries later, Pseudo-Philo’s account of Judges 19 would provide a clear example of a writer who was willing to reshape the tradition to augment the culpability of a victim of rape and murder by using motifs similar to those employed by the writer of Jubilees and by the biblical tradents who added to the story of Eli’s sons. By asserting the sexual nature of the woman’s sin with the Amalekites, Pseudo-Philo made the tragedy seem deserved.

IV Conclusion

I have argued that of the three versions of the departure of the Levite’s concubine attested in MT, LXX B, and LXX A, the latter is closest to the original story. The woman left because she was angry. The original Hebrew of the story to be angry” but was deliberately changed to the verb“ זנח employed the verb to play the harlot.” Josephus, and to a lesser extent the Targum, affirm“ זנה

45 P. Kyle McCarter, 1 Samuel, AB 8 (New York: Doubleday, 1980), 81. Note that Pseudo- Philo does not know of the sexual misconduct tradition surrounding Eli’s sons. See Bib. Ant. 52:1-2. 46 James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., CSCO 510-511, (Scriptores Aethiopici 87-88 (Lovain: Peeters, 1989), 1:vi.

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access 538 Bembry the marital strife that provides a reason for the anger attested in the original Hebrew and LXX A. The MT’s depiction of the unfaithfulness of the concubine against her husband constitutes a version later than LXX A and Josephus. LXX B originally reflected the adjusted Hebrew text that now appears in the MT. The rather awkward “she went and went out” that now appears in LXX B re- sulted from an inner-Greek corruption whereby the original word ἐπορνεύθη (“she prostituted herself”) became ἐπορεύθη (“she went”), probably by acci- dent. The woman’s depiction in the MT is a deliberate alteration of the original story that involved a slight change to one letter. The editorial adjustment appears in keeping with the way other biblical characters are presented, namely characters that eventually die a death that seems to be justified by the way they lived their lives. The alternative of identifying the MT’s version as the earliest of the accounts listed here is less appealing on at least two grounds. First, it is difficult to imagine that an original story depicted the woman as adulterous and that subsequent Greek traditions erased that component or replaced it with an assertion that her departure was the result of her anger or the Levite’s unrequited infatuation. Second, the unfaithfulness of the woman seems rather an- cillary to the larger narrative of Judges 19-21 and is thematically unconnected to its broader context. If we assume, however, that LXX A provides the original story, then the concubine simply appears as a woman who was angry, parted from her husband, and then tragically, after her husband had wooed her back, became a victim of senseless wanton acts. The concubine’s situation would appear more like that of the women at Shilo who were unwittingly seized and forced to become wives for the Benjaminite men in Judges 21. Both the women of Shilo and the concubine (in LXX A) would be assumed to be totally innocent victims of violent actions. Assuming that the woman was demonized by the late biblical tradents to mitigate the horror of the story is in keeping with the way biblical tradents portrayed Balaam and Jezebel in order to justify their deaths at the hands of the Israelites. The impulse to clarify the woman’s sexual misconduct was also felt by Pseudo-Philo, who mentions the specific sin for which she is punished in a “measure for measure” manner, further illustrating the tradition’s tendency. Without Pseudo-Philo and the example from Jubilees where Rebekah impugns the sexuality of Canaanite women (Jub 25:1), one might suggest mere scribal error for the issues we have raised for Judg 19:2. With the biblical examples and extra-biblical examples, however, a pattern emerges among the tradents, suggesting that the explanation for the concubine’s departure was deliberately changed along ideological grounds. It is impossible to know when such an impetus to change the biblical stories began or even to know precisely what precipitated it. Yet the points raised in this paper demonstrate the presence of this tendency among the late biblical

Vetus TestamentumDownloaded from 68 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 519-539 04:14:41PM via free access The Levite’s Concubine and the Tradition of Sexual Slander 539 tradents. Seeing the story of the Levite’s concubine in this light leads to two conclusions. First, our observations about the editorial shaping of Judg 19:2 provides us a glimpse into the workshop of the late biblical tradents. They have a tendency to demonize some people who are killed by Israelites. Villifying the Levite’s concubine with an accusation of “playing the harlot” likely mitigated the tragedy of a raped and murdered innocent in the minds of the tradents, precisely the effect Pseudo-Philo seeks in his retelling. Second, the portrayal of the Levite’s concubine in the final form of Judg 19:2 is yet another example of the penchant to blame a victim of rape known throughout human history.47 So the analysis here speaks to a fundamental human problem of victim- demonization while helping to shed light on textual reshaping and enabling us to reconstruct the most likely version of the beginning of this tragic story in the book of Judges.

47 For the way demonization of rape victims continues today, see Melanie Randall, “Sexual Assault Law, Credibility, and ‘Ideal Victims’: Consent: Resistance, and Victim Blaming” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 22 (2010) 397-434. The myth of “ideal victims” as applied to rape cases assumes that culpability of the victim is on a kind of scale that can mitigate the culpability of the perpetrator. This myth is deeply rooted in the notion that a woman’s sexual history is relevant to a rape charge.

Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 519-539 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:14:41PM via free access