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The Rephidim Episode According to Josephus and Philo

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The Rephidim Episode According to Josephus and Philo 0606-07_ETL_2007/4_05_Begg 20-02-2008 09:57 Pagina 367 Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 83/4 (2007) 367-383. doi: 10.2143/ETL.83.4.2025343 © 2007 by Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. All rights reserved. The Rephidim Episode according to Josephus and Philo Christopher T. BEGG The Catholic University of America In the narrative of the Book of Exodus, “Rephidim” (Exod 17,1) is Israel’s fourth halting-place (after “Marah” [15,23], “Elim” [15,27], and “the wilderness of Sin” [16,1]), following their departure from the Red/Reed Sea in 15,22. This new stopping-point becomes the setting for the dramatic “water miracle” related in Exod 17,1-71. In this essay I wish to examine the retellings of the Rephidim episode by two approximately contemporary ancient Jewish authors, i.e. Josephus in his Antiquitates judaicae (hereafter Ant.) 3.33-382 and Philo in his De Vita Mosis (hereafter Mos.) 1.210-2133. My study of these two relectures of Exod 17,1-7, in turn, will take into account both the various text-forms (MT, LXX, the Targums) of the biblical passage and its treatment elsewhere in early Jewish (e.g., Wisd 11,4- 14; the Mekilta, Exodus Rabbah, Midrash Tanhuma Yelammedenu) and Christian (e.g., 1 Cor 10,4, Origen, “Homilies on Exodus” 11) tradition4. 1. Josephus Exod 17,1 provides the exposition for the following story: in accordance with the word of the Lord, the Israelites proceed “by stages” from the “desert of Sin” to Rephidim (LXX ¨Rafidín)5, where they find no water. Josephus’ 1. On Exod 17,1-7, see the detailed discussion in C. HOUTMAN, Exodus II (COT), Kampen, 1989, pp. 320-331. 2. For the text and translation of this passage I use Josephus. IV: Jewish Antiquities Books I-IV (LCL, 242), tr. H.St.J. THACKERAY, Cambridge, MA – London, 1930, pp. 334- 337. I have likewise consulted the text of the passage in E. NODET, Flavius Josèphe, Les Antiquités juives, Livres I à III. I: Introduction et texte, Paris, 1990, pp. 114-115 and the translation and notes on this in ID., Flavius Josèphe, Les Antiquités juives, Livres I à III. II: Traduction et notes, Paris, 1990, pp. 137-138, as well as the annotated translation of L.H. FELDMAN, Judean Antiquities 1-4, Leiden, 2004, pp. 240-241. On Ant. 3.33-38, see also the summary remarks of G. BIENAIMÉ, Moïse et le don de l’eau dans la tradition juive ancienne: Targum et midrash (AnBib, 98), Rome, 1984, pp. 85- 87. 3. For the text and translation of Mos. 1.210-213, I use F.H. COLSON, Philo VI (LCL, 289), Cambridge, MA – London, 1935, pp. 384-387. 4. On this material overall, see L. GINZBERG, The Legends of the Jews III, Philadel- phia, PA, 1968, pp. 50-52; ID., VI, pp. 20-21, nn. 119-124; BIENAIMÉ, Moïse (n. 2), pp. 59-76. 5. Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Onq. Exod 17,1 append an extended explanatory notice to the site name “Rephidim” that they take over from their Hebrew Vorlage: “… a place where their hands neglected the commandments of the Law, so that their wells dried up”. This 0606-07_ETL_2007/4_05_Begg 20-02-2008 09:57 Pagina 368 368 c.T. BEGG rendition (Ant. 3.33a) highlights the severity of the people’s plight at their new stopping place: When, departing thence6, they reached Raphidin (¨Rafideín)7 in extreme agony (talaipwpjqéntev)8 from thirst – for having on the earlier days lit upon some scanty springs9, they then found themselves in an absolutely waterless region – they were in sore distress10 … The next section of the Rephidim pericope, Exod 17,2-3 features an ini- tial complaint by the people (v. 2a), a rejoinder in the form of a double ques- tion by Moses (“Why do find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to the proof?”, v. 2b), and a new, intensified challenging of their leader on the people’s part (v. 3). Josephus (3.33 in fine) reduces the people’s double comment presupposes an understanding of “Rephidim” as consisting of the words rpw and ydym, “they slackened their hands”, i.e. in observing the law, with the resultant punishment that their water gave out. One finds similar comments concerning “Rephidim” elsewhere in Jewish tradition; see, e.g., b. Sanh. 106a; Mek. Vayassa¨ (on Exod 17,1); Midr. Tanh. Yelammedenu 25 (in the first and third of these sources, Israel’s slackening off in its obser- vance of the Torah at Rephidim is said to have called forth punishment in the form of Amalek’s assault upon the people at the site as cited in Exod 17,8). On the whole topic, see BIENAIMÉ, Moïse (n. 2), pp. 63-67. According to Origen (“Homily on Exodus” 11.1; see M. BORRET, Origène Homélies sur l’Exode [SC, 321], Paris, 1985, p. 326) “Raphidin” means “sound judgment” (sanitas iudicii; as HOUTMAN, Exodus II [n. 1], p. 324, points out, Origen comes to this rendering by resolving the place name into its [purported] com- ponents, i.e. apr and fid), while S. ‘Olam Rab. 5.1 states that Israel left Elim for Rephidim on the 23rd day of the month Iyyar. 6. In Exod 17,1 the people arrive at Rephidim from “the wilderness of Sin”, after jour- neying from “Elim” (Exod 16,1), where they had experienced the double feeding miracle of the manna and the quail (16,2-36). In Josephus, the people’s preceding itinerary is a dif- ferent one: leaving “Mar” (see Ant. 3.3 = “Marah”, Exod 15,22), they arrive at “Elis” (= “Elim”, Exod 15,27) in 3.9 and remain there until their departure for “Raphidin” in 3.33. Thus in Josephus, in contrast to the Bible, the feeding miracles of Exodus 16 (described by him in 3.25-32) take place, not “in the wilderness of Sin” (as Exod 16,1 indicates), but rather in Elis/Elim. From his reproduction of the itinerary notice of 17,1, Josephus omits the indication that the people’s advance was “according to the commandment (literally: mouth [ip] of the Lord”. 7. Josephus’ form of the place name corresponds to that of LXX Exod 17,1; MT reads “Rephidim”. 8. This verbal form harks back to the same term used by Josephus in connection with the people’s arrival at Mar(ah) in Ant. 3.3 (“worn out [tetalaipwpjménoi]) with cease- less marching and lack of food”); see also the cognate noun in 3.11 (at “Elis”, the people blame Moses “for their misery” [talaipwrían]). The term will recur in reference to the people’s situation at Rephidim in 3.37; see below. 9. The above indications concerning the extremity of the people’s plight vis-à-vis every- thing they have suffered hitherto lack a parallel in 17,1 (I italicize such Josephan [and Philionic] elaborations of the biblical account in this essay). Compare Mek. Vayassa¨ on Exod 17,3 which declares that at Rephidim the people experienced the affliction of thirst in its fullness, in contrast to their experience at Marah (see Exod 15,23) where they did at least find water, albeit of a non-potable quality. 10. Once again (see n. 9), Josephus goes beyond Exod 17,1 in accentuating the sever- ity of the people’s plight. 0606-07_ETL_2007/4_05_Begg 20-02-2008 09:57 Pagina 369 THE REPHIDIM EPISODE ACCORDING TO JOSEPHUS AND PHILO 369 complaint to a single one, likewise eliminating the intervening response by Moses11: “… and again12 vented their wrath on Moses”13. The central moment in the Rephidim story comes in Exod 17,4-6a, the exchange between Moses and the Lord concerning the recalcitrant people. That exchange opens in v. 4 with Moses “crying out” to the Lord in words that betray his dis- orientation in the face of the people’s verbal assault on him: “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me”. The Josephan Moses appears more self-possessed (and altruistic) in the appeal he addresses to the Deity in 3.34, focussing as he does, not on his own difficult situation, but rather on what he is asking God to do for the people and the rationale for this14: But he, shunning for a while the onset of the crowd15, had recourse to prayer (êpì litàv16 trépetai17), beseeching God18, as He had given them meat in their 11. Josephus’ non-utilization of this element of the source text might be prompted by the consideration that, taken in the context of 17,2-3, it seems to depict Moses as an ineffectual speaker, whose attempt to reason with the people only exacerbates their ques- tioning of his leadership (see their response to his intervention in v. 3). 12. With this adverb, Josephus harks back to 3.11 where he cites the people’s “accus- ing and denouncing their general [Moses]” at “Elis” due to the paucity of resources they encounter at the site. 13. With this brief phrase Josephus conflates the people’s double complaint in 17,2a (“give us water to drink”) and 3 (“why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”). On the historian’s penchant for recasting biblical direct as indirect address, see C.T. BEGG, Josephus’ Account of the Early Divided Monarchy (BETL, 108), Leuven, 1993, pp. 12-13, n. 38. 14. With this feature of the Josephan Moses’ prayer as compared with that cited in the Bible, compare Mek.
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