shemesh the son of yahweh

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Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Shemesh the Son of YahwehAuthor(s): Samuel I. FeiginReviewed work(s):Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jan., 1938), pp. 225-242Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1452038 .

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SHEMESH THE SON OF YAHWEHBy SAMUEL I. FEIGINThe Oriental Institute

The University of ChicagoUPON the return of the ark of Yahweh from the land of

the Philistines, the following event took place:"And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping the wheatharvest in the valley; and they lifted up their eyes, andsaw the ark, and rejoiced to see (nflR1S1n11 l). Andthe cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemiteand stood there, where there was a great stone. And theycleaved the wood of the cart and offered up the cows asa burnt offering unto Yahweh" (I Sam. 6.13 f.).This event is described with more detail in the followingsentence:"And the Levites took down the ark of Yahweh . . . and

put upon (Vy)' the great stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered up burnt offerings and sacrifices the sameday unto Yahweh" (I Sam. 6.15).

Although the verse seems to be a later interpolation todispel the impossible thought that men who were notLevites had touched the ark, nevertheless the fact thatthe ark was placed upon a huge stone, namely, in a localshrine, is an historical fact. At the time when the bookof Samuel was composed, "the great stone (Li'iTTN :3R),2MT has 5i, but 7Y is requiredhere. This is the readingin twenty-one manuscripts. See Kittel, Biblia Hebraica,3rd ed., 1933, s. v.

2 MT has HZiKIt,,2, but it is evident that 1,,7 is requiredhere,as is actually found in three manuscripts. See Kittel, op. cit., s. v.The reading 7ft is of course a play upon "the great mourning" causedby this event (see Rashi, to the verse). The use of the feminine adjec-tive T'n?..;Taused 5K:, mourning, to be read as 73. which is the nameof a city and therefore the definite article was omitted.225


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whereon they set down the ark of Yahweh, in the fieldof Joshua the Beth-shemite" was still very well known(I Sam. 6.18b).

Immediately following is a story which seems verystrange:

"And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because theyhad looked in the ark of Yahweh; and he smote thepeople, seventy men, fifty thousand men; and the peoplemourned because Yahweh had smitten the people with agreat slaughter" (I Sam. 6.19).This resulted in the removal of the ark from Beth-shemesh.

"And the men of Beth-shemesh said, 'Who is able tostand before Yahweh, this holy God, and to whom shall itgo up from us?'" (I Sam. 6.20).

Finally they sent the ark to Kiriath-jearim (I Sam.6.21-7.1).What actually happened is quite clear. The plaguewhich devastated the land of the Philistines also attackedBeth-shemesh.3 But the Beth-shemites believed the plagueto be the result of the visit of Yahweh's ark and thereforethey removed the ark from Beth-shemesh.The verse which tells of the plague (I Sam. 6.19) con-tains numerous difficulties:

1) The omission of any specific indication of the subjectof the verb "and he smote."42) The omission of the number of the slain in the first

clause of the verse.3) The repetition of "men" after both numbers "seventy"and "fifty thousand."

3 See A. T. Olmstead, History of Palestine and Syria, 1931, p. 295.4 The Syriac has an additional 2i6Ao after 2- oo, but it is clear

that this is not the original text. The Syriac also renders 1'l '. by^o&,= instead of oga. It is evident that 1'1 '? is a misreading.

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4) The omission of the copulative waw between thesetwo numbers.

5) The incredibility of the record that 50,070 men werekilled in one small community.6) The superfluity of the statement "and he smote the

people."Some of these difficulties were also felt in ancient times.

The ancient versions and Jewish commentaries add thecopulative between the numbers.5 The Targum makes adistinction between "the seventy elders" and "the fiftythousand common people," thus: "And he killed seventymen from among the elders of the people and fifty thousandmen from among the community." Jerome follows hisJewish teachers here and distinguishes between viros andplebis: et percussit de populo septuaginta viros et quinquagintamillia plebis. The Talmud solves the difficulty by thesupposition that every one of the seventy men was asworthy as fifty thousand men. Two rabbis, Rabbi Abbahuand Rabbi Eleazar were discussing the matter. One saidthere were seventy men, each of whom was equally asimportant (7'lptp) as fifty thousand. The other said therewere fifty thousand and every one was as important asseventy Sanhedrin (Sotah 35b). Josephus (Antiquities6,1:4) omits the large number entirely. Of course, theinterpretations given in the versions do not solve thedifficulties of the original texts.

Isaac Abravanel, in his sixth question in the introductionto the chapter, asked why God smote the inhabitants ofBeth-shemesh who were glad to see the ark and sacrificedto God. He doubts the statement of the Talmud that theinhabitants were punished because they did not leavetheir work. He regards as strange the explanation of the

s Thus LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, Targum, Kimhi, Gersonides.

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commentators that the punishment was meted out becausethey opened the ark to see the contents. "They rejoicedto see," he argues, infers that they rejoiced to see thecoming of the ark, not that they opened it. And how is itpossible that in a small place as Beth-shemesh, so manymen died and for such a slight offense. In his expositionof the verse, Abravanel adds the question as to the repeti-tion of "men" after each number. Abravanel explainsthat only seventy men died for one of the reasons men-tioned in the Talmud; the number "fifty thousand men"refers to the general number of dead caused by the ark.The expression "in the men of Beth-shemesh" 'W3Rm eexplains "together with the men of Beth-shemesh."

Hassenkampf suggests a slight emendation: t2l. Q32..tI'N Rt?n D? "seventy men, five from every thousandmen."6 According to him, the original had 19RD t F?(without the final fI), and it had been copied 97t Do3.n(without the '), which later was misread as '.r.n "fifty."This would be in agreement with Josephus, who mentionedonly the "seventy men."

But this suggestion has its difficulties:1) Seventy men comprising five from every thousand

would imply that Beth-shemesh had fourteen thousand men,quite a large population for a little town, designated byJosephus as a "village." Prof. Baron explains 97v asmeaning "family." However, fourteen large families worthyof the designation "thousand" in a village are incredible.Moreover, tN' l97~ is not "from a family."

2) Why should exactly five out of every thousand die?It is true that there were five Philistine rulers, but there6 See S. Baron in his interesting study, "The Population of Israel inthe Time of the Kings," p. 6, n. 30, a reprint from ,: 11nD1tD''IDK

ni,n yni, 1933, p. 81.

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is no reason why the number of Beth-shemites killed shouldbe in direct proportion to the number of Philistine seranim.

3) It is not customary to mention, without a specialreason, the relation of the number of dead to the popula-tion. There is no need to state that the seventy constitutedfive per thousand.

4) tO'.7K ;] l ?n is not correct Hebrew. In Hebrewthe distributive is expressed by repetition of the numberwith 7 preceding the word describing the group to whichthe counted one belongs.7 The customary expression wouldbe accordingly, 9]R Dll';ntD n O'. t rin "five menper thousand." It is permissible, however, to omit therepetition of the number, as in ,'IR7lM'R O'. iD.lR ;t i;13?=, 9R1 1 (Judg. 20.10) "ten men per hundred,a hundred per thousand, and a thousand per myriad."Thus the text could have l R I.rn but not I.Dn

5) This emendation disregards the difficulty of theomission of the name of the smiter.M. H. Segal,8 of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,

suggests that the two numbers are due to two variants,i. e., one variant had "seventy men," and the other had"fifty men." In order to distinguish between these twonumbers some scribe added p9R, and thus originated theincredible number "fifty thousand." But if the word 9]Mis an addition by a scribe for purposes of distinction, why

7 Cf. Num. 1.4; 13.2;31.4; Josh. 22.14. See GeseniusKautzsch,Hebrdische rammatik,8thed., ?134q. The use of the partitive tPin the expression nderconsideration,s not coveredby its use withD3lOnd rVt;7in Josh.4.2 and Nehem.11.1,respectively. For, inthosecases, hegoverningerbdemandst, whilehere heconstruction'.00: 1!' doesnot.8 Samuel, in ,y'7 tw1,D oy -pn, ed. by Abraham Kahana (2nd ed.,1922),p. 26. Usuallythe secondnumber,"fiftythousandmen,"isregarded s a gloss,but nonewould add an incredible umberas agloss.

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did he not add it after the first number, so that it wouldread "seventy thousand men, fifty men"?

Ehrlich9 reads tdt n: !t) 13 1 "The men of Beth-shemesh were smitten." But the repetition, "The men ofBeth-shemesh were smitten... he smote the people,"militates against this emendation. Moreover, why shouldthe verb be in the passive?

Casparilo follows the restoration t ]) 1It 'd3H1[]4'1.and translates it as Da erkrankten die Bewohner von Bet-Semes; but besides the fact that the text needs emendation,we see from the second part, 31 : '3 that the word inquestion was ?1!; "to become sick" is In7l! rather than1n1... But Caspari also admits that Iyl1,! would fitbetter and gives the alternative translation verschieden,which, however, has no foundation in the text.

LXX offers instead of the word 211 he smote," a phraseKal OVK 7riJVlVtravol vtol 'IeXovLov. On the basis ofthis text two restorations were proposed:

1) Wellhausen, followed by Nowack,"' read '3 1p) H'!1a1 ?1:1 . .. 1nD'; and translated: Die Sohne Jekonja'saber kamen nicht gut davon unter den Einwohnern vonBet-SemeS dass sie sich die Lade Jahve's besahen: er todtetevon ihnen siebzig Mann.

2) Klostermann'2 and his followers restore ['3 lnn 91(!)Dn.3 1l n;11 iKN (DI)nil?! t?ottn",0b:t [1n]n,t )'. :31t). "And the sons of Jechoniah did not rejoicewith the men of Beth-shemesh when (!) they saw the arkof Yahweh and he smote from them (!) seventy men."9 Randglossen zur Hebrdischen Bibel, III (1910), 191.Io Die Samuelbiicher, (Kommentar zum Alten Testament, hrsg. vonErnst Sellin), 1926, p. 80."I Wellhausen, Der Text der Bilcher Samuelis, 1871, p. 66; Nowack,Samuel, (Handkommentar zum Alten Testament), 1902, p. 30.12 Die Bicher Samuelis, (Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den Heiligen

Schriften), ed. by Strack and Zockler, 1887, p. 21.

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This reading is accepted by most of the critical com-mentators,I3 and modern translators.14

Wellhausen's restoration was justly abandoned for thefollowing reasons:

1) The Greek orfauevoLaaveans "they rejoiced." Itala'snon sustinuerunt, "they did not support," is a free renderingof the Greek.2) Why should the writer use the passive and not theactive form, when both the sinner and the punisher arewell known? We should expect something like '31 Rl

014 'YVt0=ntH3m .5nm limRtittfd xr=to "Dr?')"And the sons of Jechoniah from among the men of Beth-shemesh looked into the ark of Yahweh and Yahwehsmote from them seventy men."Against Klostermann's restoration is to be said thatalthough the verb 7Oru-levtlav is not found elsewhere inLXX, nevertheless, there is no reason to render it by therare lril. This verse is clearly connected with verse 13.In the latter we have ni1nI InDtVl "And they rejoicedto see," while in verse 19 punishment is meted out becausethe sons of Jechoniah did not rejoice. Accordingly, weexpect here the same verb, InrtD, as was really suggestedby Thenius, who reads inlDt, and by Ewald, who readscorrectly lnftI.'s

'3 S. R. Driver, Notes on the HebrewTextof the Booksof Samuel, 1890,p. 46; Henry PreservedSmith, ICC, 1899, pp. 48 ff.; K. Budde, DieBiicher amuelnMarti'sKurzerHand-CommentarumAltenTestament,1902,p. 46; M. H. Segal, oc.cit.

'4 R. Kittel in Kautzsch's Die Heilige Schriftdes Alten Testaments,4thed., 1922,p.417;LeroyWaterman, heOldTestament,nAmericanTranslation,d.by J. M. P. Smith,1927,pp.438f.; KarlA. Leibmach,Die Biicher Samuel, (Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments, d. byF. Feldmann nd H. Herkenne), 936,p. 39.IsSee Otto Thenius, Die BiicherSamuels, (KurzgefasstesExegetischesHandbuchzum Alten Testament),2nd ed., 1864, p. 27; H. Ewald.Geschichte es VolkesIsrael, II (2d ed., 1853), 545, n. 2.

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Possibly the Greek translator chose the unusual orjaf'it-oav instead of the ordinary rvsoppavOrlaav,s in verse 13,in order to distinguish between expressive, active joy andpassive agreement to something. The sons of Jechoniahdid not show aversion but they accepted the ark withoutspecial satisfaction: "They did not accept joyfully."Although nobody else noticed it, Yahweh did notice itand punished them.The situation is explained by scholars as follows: Allthe men of Beth-shemesh were glad to see the ark. Butthe sons of Jechoniah, being adherents of a Canaanite orAmorite cult,'6 were not glad to see it.

However, this seemingly correct restoration is impossiblefor the following reasons:1) It is very unlikely that words should be omitted inthe beginning of the chapter and not be missed by anyone,while they were still in use in a copy in Alexandria andprobably elsewhere.

2) Even according to the restored text we do not knowwho the smiter of the sons of Jechoniah was.3) The sin is supposed to be that the sons of Jechoniahdid not rejoice over the ark. But the restored text doesnot say so at all; it has "and the sons of Jechoniah did notrejoice in the men of Beth-shemesh," which is not a sin.17Had the text intended to say that the sons of Jechoniahdid not participate in the joy of the men of Beth-shemeshin the ark, it would have stated nN; T:' 'I= '93 nt !1l' lin'1 tt)t? n1' ' r. Klostermann, of course, felt thedifficulty and translated it, therefore, as if the sons of

I6 See Budde, loc. cit.; Hugo Gressman, Die Schriften des AltenTestaments, II, (2nd ed., 1921), part 1, p. 18.I7 See Nowack, loc. cit., who remarks correctly that both Il9' and

InMtlwould require an object.

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Jechoniah had not been satisfied with the Beth-shemiteswhen the latter greeted the ark: (Aber die Sohne Jechonjashatten sich nicht willig gezeigt) mit den Bethsemesiten, alssie die Lade Jahves begriissten. It is very unlikely, however,that the text should express in such a vague way thedissatisfaction of the sons of Jechoniah with the ark.Moreover, the deprecation of the action of the men ofBeth-shemesh concerning the ark by the sons of Jechoniahwould be expressed directly, e. g., "And the joy of themen of Beth-shemesh in the ark of Yahweh was evil in theeyes of the sons of Jechoniah." Also, li']1l.t 1l is hardlydie Lade begriissten,nor yet sich um die Lade bekiimmerten,sich ihrer annahmen.

4) It is more than surprising that the sons of Jechoniah,a name compounded with the element 71, should be theopposers of the ark of Yahweh.

5) If the sons of Jechoniah were smitten because theywere not glad about the ark of Yahweh, why, then, shouldthe rest of Beth-shemesh worry about it? Moreover, seeingwhat happened to the sons of Jechoniah, who were notrejoicing in the ark, how did they dare to send the ark ofYahweh away? Sending away the ark is the clearestexpression of not being glad about the ark.

Although none of the treatments discussed satisfactorilysolves the problem, they do suffice to suggest that theoriginal Hebrew from which came MT did at one timeinclude certain words which underlie the Greek. It seemsto me that MT is correct as it stands except for the omissionof those words and certain difficulties due to conflation.

The latter should be disposed of first. They center on theincredibility of the number smitten. I would suggest thata second text read ' ,'tOWnC3 " !. The 'N was, in this

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text, an abbreviation for 0)'.18 A copyist originally insertedthe first two words after T171 s a variant on 'tRN J.10)? M1 . Then he inserted the last two after their variantt 'D .3t:. Originally, symbols must have been employedto distinguish the variants thus written into a text, justas the Babylonian omens distinguish additions by meansof the marks of a slanting MIN.19 And just as the omissionof these marks by a later copyist caused confusion, so alsohere.20 In the text read by Josephus the marks remained andwere recognized by him. Hence he followed the main text.

A later copyist caused further confusion by reading theabbreviation 'N as 97R. This mistake caused the supplyingof the Itd' after l?R. in the text. The omission of thecopulative waw between t'.K and P'tnD is quite naturalunder this view of the history of the text.2'

As we see there is no need to change any word in theoriginal text once these accretions are recognized andremoved. There is, however, an addition to be made to

I8For the use of abbreviations n the Old Testament comparePerles,Analektenzur Textkritikdes Alten Testaments,1895, pp. 4-35; SecondSeries, 1922, pp. 1-10; Margolis,Jewish Encyclopaedia, , 42; ZATW,1907, p. 267; his Hebrew commentary to Zephaniah in Kahana'sedition, op. cit., 1930, p. 96; Gesenius-Bergstrasser,HebrdischeGram-matik (29th ed., 1918), p. 33, ?5k; Montgomery, JQR, N.S., 1935,pp. 264f.'9 It is possiblethat only a spacewas used to set apartsuchaccretionsfrom the main text.20 Prof. W. C. Grahamcalls my attention to the similar confusionscaused by the omissions of the copyists of the originalmarks used by

Origenin his Hexapla.21It is my view (See fforeb,II, 1935, 17-19) that a similarmisreadingof K for Jl7 instead of '1t is responsiblefor the incrediblenumber,185,000dead in Sennacherib'sarmy, in II Kings 19.35=Isa. 37.36.Possibly the "forty-two thousand" from Ephraim who fell in theirflight fromJephthah (Judg. 12.6) should also be reduced to "forty-twomen," the copyist misreading 'K as O7l "thousand"instead of V'I"men." In both these cases the needed W'Mas not restored.Note also that the LXX had the original CDY but rendered it "atthem" because "at the people"seemed superfluous o the translator.

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it on the basis of the LXX reading 7'1?' '? IMrtV b!.This reading was certainly not invented by the translator.The only question is what may be derived from the Greekas the original reading.It has already been suggested that the sons of Jechoniahwere smitten because they were not glad about the arkcannot be logically integrated in the general purport of

the narrative. Consequently it is clear that the '!., insteadof '1], in the popular text used by the Greek translator inEgypt, is an intentional interpolation made after thewords next following had come to have the form they nowdisplay, that is M1X' 'M In1t$. The suggestion offeredhere is that the original behind this word was a propername which was the subject of the verb ['b1.

What, then, was this name? We expect here the name ofYahweh or of an angel of Yahweh who smote the men ofBeth-shemesh.22 But ;1;'1 or ;11;' RD would be onlyone or two words, while here we have three words. Wemay suggest that we have here the name of the angel whosmote. Thus we expect to find in the text: (1) the name ofthe angel, (2) his relation to Yahweh, and (3) the nameof Yahweh.

Let us begin with (3). In ancient times the word Jecho-niah was written as 1'1l'. As is well known the final formof the letters !D:3 is the original form of these letters.This is proven not only by the history of Hebrew andAramaic scripts, which have not the present curved formof these letters, but even by the square Hebrew scriptwhich used the final form indiscriminately in all the posi-tions of the word, and not only at the end. This was inuse as late as the first century C. E. as noticed first by

22 For Yahweh as a smiter cf. Ex. 9.15, Num. 11.1-3, 33; II Sam.24.15. For the angel of Yahweh as the smiter cf. II Sam. 24.16f.,II Kings 19.35=Isa. 37.36.

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Chwolson.23 It is clear that it could easily be a miscopyof ,1Ir'. The first and the last letters are identical. 1] isnothing but a long ,, the two parts of which were laterseparated and written as 1l. On the other hand, 1 wasshortened to *.24 Thus the name ;1;1' became F'3"'.

As for (2), the word '3 certainly does not resemble[RJ2. We suggest, accordingly, that the original had

m1; I1 "the son of Yahweh." For the archaic form ofthe construct in the same word, compare ili3in '3 (Gen.49.11), "his ass's colt."25 However, the old form wasforgotten and misread as ')3 "the sons of." This resultedin the pronunciation nDtO,later lnt$O. The original was,accordingly, n?to. Thus we have ,'lT'l. nI= O "SMH,the son of Yahweh."

As for (1), the question is who is ntO!? The city wherethe plague occurred is Beth-shemesh, "the house of thesun." Evidently there was a temple of Shamash, "thesun god," here. When the city was captured by the Israel-ites, Shamash would become, accordingly, "a son ofYahweh." Shamash, the son of Yahweh, smote the menof Beth-shemesh because they did not show due respectfor the overlord of the country, for Yahweh. Is it possible,then, that an original 0tt) could have been corrupted,as above suggested, to MntO?

23 See Gesenius-Bergstrasser, p. cit., ?5d, n. 3. Cf. lHt'. 1 1}.?(Zech. 11.7), "verily the poor among the flock," which goes back to1'; a".a4? "the merchantsof the sheep," as LXX has renderedit.This mistake arose because the text had written the word "1-j'1.By mistake, the first 1 remainedunconnectedand the word was latermisreadas two words,"'1 lP?. See my "Notes on Zechariah11.4-17,"JBL, XLIV, 206.24 That 1 could have been written longer, so that it would resemblea 1, is seen from the interchangeof these two letters. See JamesKennedy, An Aid to the Textual Amendmentof the Old Testament,edited by N. Levinson, 1928,pp. 18, 61. For the interchangeof 1 and'cf. Kennedy, ibid., p. 65 ff.25 Cf. Gesenius-Kautzsch,op. cit., ?90,1.

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The first two letters of these words are identical. Theoriginal second tt was corrupted to n. For examples of thiskind compare: (1) "And David sent away the people,one third under the command of Joab and one third underthe command of Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, the brother ofJoab, and one third under the command of Ittai, theGittite." (II Sam. 18.2). It is clear that instead of nMt.l"he sent away," we have to read &t)~l1 "he divided intothree divisions," as in the Lucianic text of the LXX.26(2) The Persian governor of Syria and Palestine, Tatnai,asked the elders of Judah who had built the temple: "Whogave you a permit to build this house and to finish thisRn?SR?" (Ezra 5.3). Esdras (6.4) renders the phrase;n~I^ kN ?InW "and perform all other things." It isT S:? - S T S T S - %.clear that instead of bV~_t his text had the word StltN"the other." We have in these cases a miscopy of n for f.(3) "And David, the king, said unto all the congregation:'Solomon my son, nrM God hath chosen him'" (I Chron.29.1). The word "one" following after "son" is difficult.It is usually rendered: "Solomon my son, whom alone Godhath chosen."27 But there is no necessity to mention this,as only one son could have been chosen as a king. More-over, David did not intend to praise him but to say thathe is young and tender. It is clear that instead of thisunfitting word, the original had 1ON "whom." "Solomon,my son, whom God hath chosen" is well fitting. The t)was miscopied to n, and the 1 was copied here, as in manyinstances, as a t.28 The proposed original has the supportof LXX eds ov.29 (4) "And Abraham lifted up his eyes,and saw, and behold a ram 'nK was caught in the thicket

26See Kittel, Biblia Hebraica, s. v., and cf. Waterman, op. cit., p. 524.27 M. Mielziner, The Holy Scriptures, published by the Jewish Pub-lication Society, 1917, s. v.; Waterman,op. cit., s. v.28 For confusionof these letters see Kennedy, op. cit., p. 58 f.29 See Kittel, Biblia Hebraica, s. v.

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by his horns" (Gen. 22.13). The word in question "after,"always caused trouble to translators, copyists and com-mentators. Many Mss. and translations have instead?n1 "one."30 But why should the number be mentioned?He needed only one ram for a sacrifice. Some others emendit to l'1nS "behind him."3' However, if this were the case,we would expect "And Abraham turned and saw, behold,a ram behind him." A human being cannot lift up his eyesand see behind him without turning. As the text standswe expect, "he lifted up his eyes and saw before him."

The difficulties are eliminated by the supposition thatthe original had 'ItR which was miscopied to InM. "AndAbraham lifted up his eyes and saw, behold, a ram whichwas caught in the thicket by his horns" makes good sense.Possibly the miscopy was due to a confusion in sound.

Kennedy cites examples of confusion of this kind where a,1 stands for t)32 and where V) tands for r.33 Whatever thereason for this confusion may have been, phonetic orgraphic, such confusions certainly have taken place. Sucha miscopy of n13Ofor WDWs, therefore, possible.

In ancient times the text seemed correct. The fact thatShamash the sun god, being a son of Yahweh, smote themen of Beth-shemesh, seemed quite natural. The sun,moon and stars had been appointed by Yahweh himselfas rulers over the nations (Deut. 4.19); the sun was torule the day and the moon the night (Gen. 1.16). E16himhad sons (Gen. 6.2, 4; Job 1.6; 2.1), and these sons were in30See Kittel, Biblia Hebraica,s. v.; Holzingerin Kautzsch-Bertholet,Die HeiligeSchriftdes Alten Testaments,. v. Against it, cf. Ch. Heller,Peshitta n HebrewCharacters,Genesis, 1928,p. 25, note 5.3I Kittel, Biblia Hebraica,s.v.; Max Landsbergin the Jewish Pub-lication Society's translation; Theophile J. Meek in The AmericanTranslation, . v.32 Kennedy, op. cit., p. 18f.33Kennedy, op. cit., p. 22 f.

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the service of Yahweh. The host of heaven stood on bothsides of Yahweh and served in his council (I Kings 22.19-23),as did the sons of El6him in Job. Thus Shamash would bea son of Yahweh.

In some center there was current a notion that God"who had ascended into heaven and descended, whogathered the wind in his fists and bound the water in hisgarment, who established all the ends of the earth," hada son (Prov. 30.4). It is true that it was said concerningGod and his son: "What is his name, and what is his son'sname, if thou knowest?" But this expression does notinfer that the name of Yahweh or the name of his son wasnot known. "The name of God" simply refers to God'snature, to his existence, the name being synonymous withexistence in Semitic conception. In Beth-shemesh, thename of the son was Shemesh, in other cities it has beenas the name of the local native deity.34

However, a later redactor considered "Shamash, the sonof Yahweh" blasphemous and scratched out these words.Then the text read 'f.a .. -.]!.The copyist omitted the gap left by the omission of theword and the sentence remained without a subject. Inthe popular edition the original remained but was cor-

rupted to 11 '3: 1M?t 15. The inappropriate '11waslater corrected to ;1'3D' '3 nflMO '1i "and the sons ofJechoniah did not rejoice."What was the offense of the Beth-shemites? The textstates it quite plainly, "because they looked into the arkof Yahweh." The ark was always covered, but now ithappened to be uncovered. Looking into the ark wasregarded as a sin which would endanger the ones who did

34 For the development of the idea of son of God in Jewish literature,cf. Duncan Black Macdonald, The Hebrew Philosophical Genius, 1936,pp. 36 ff.

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it. Even the Levites were not supposed "to look on whilethe sacred objects are being packed, in which case theywould die" (Num. 4.20). "The seeing of Yahweh" was aspecial ceremony at the great festivals and required sanc-tification. Looking into the ark was, therefore, a trans-gression. In reality the text has "and they saw the arkand they were glad to see" (I Sam. 6.13). The word ni1*?is superfluous. The LXX misread it as inrRp. "towardsit" (ets a7ravT7fLvvavT7js). But there is no need for thisreading. "They rejoiced to see," namely, "they rejoicedat the sight." Also the wording "because they looked intothe ark of Yahweh" indicates that this "looking into" wasnot permitted. We should expect ,;1' ]1lnl rn .Ib '"because they saw the ark of Yahweh," but seeing the arkwas the usual thing. In time of war, everybody saw theark. But to look into the ark meant to see the objectssymbolizing the deity itself, and this was an offense whichwas severely punished.35The Targum renders m;111'1N:. lsN as l"M.'l Iy'1 1t_'"'T 11 i'rmT7 "because they rejoiced that theysaw the ark of God when it went into exile." Klostermannfound in 1Nb'TM a support for the Greek r7VicUvtaav swell as for his restoration l'1l 4l1 which is, of course, outof the question.

Rabbi Abbahu and Rabbi Eleazar explained the offensein different ways. One said they were continuing harvestingwhile they were bowing down. The other said they alsouttered the following words: "Who enraged thee that thoubecamest enraged, n11'rtbt tID? b ]KiD,and who came tothee that thou becamest appeased?" nfD'"DNII y rn 1qi0(Sotah 35).

3SCf. Ehrlich, loc. cit., Kimhi, Abravanel and others explain thatthey opened the ark and saw what was in it. Cf. also Morgenstern nHebrewUnion CollegeAnnual, V (1928), 83, and n. 106.

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Both the Targum and Rabbi Eleazar explain the phraseas if it contained some general offense against the ark.The Targum assigns it to the time when the ark was taken,Rabbi Eleazar to the time when it was returned.

The expression... ,; H'l could, as is well known, mean"to be glad at somebody's trouble," "to gloat over some-body." Thus 1rl;' 1iV1_ Itl 'ID may mean that "theygloated over the ark of Yahweh." Beth-shemesh was notan Israelite city. Most of the population was opposed tothe Israelites and their god Yahweh as well as his ark.They were, therefore, glad to see the ark exiled and theIsraelites defeated. Joshua, the Beth-shemite, was anIsraelite and he accepted the ark gladly. He may havemourned when the ark was exiled. But the original inhab-itants of Beth-shemesh were glad when the ark was exiled.Although they now had to show respect for the ark whenit came as a victor to their city, they were punished fortheir former attitude.

The citizens of Beth-shemesh regarded the plague asthe action of their local god Shamash and believed that ithad been done for the overlord Yahweh. For this reasonthey thought it best to send away Yahweh, this holy God,that they might have no opportunity to offend him. Pos-sibly also in the last part, the text had ['3. WVttOt371 'D

iTll',but the plague might have been ascribed to Yahwehhimself, since Shamash was Yahweh's agent.

Of course, "Shamash, the son of Yahweh," does notrefer to a son by birth. Compare the expression for thesubjugation of Ahaz, '2. J.1 ?.1. "I am thy slave andthy son" (II Kings 16.7), namely, from now on he will bethe agent of the King of Assyria in Judea. Thus alsoShamash was only the agent of Yahweh in Beth-shemesh.Thus this restoration affords us a glimpse of the old popular

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religious conceptions of Israel. "Shamash, the son ofYahweh" was apparently not the only son. There weremany more sons of this kind. But only "sons of God" ingeneral on the one hand and "angels of God" on the otherhand were permitted to survive. However, the conceptionsof angels and sons of God were not in agreement with puremonotheism and they were combated in various periodsin Jewish history.36

36 Cf. D. Neumark, binw, ,lpi,Dl,vlvn, I,1921, pp. 16 ff., 59 ff.

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