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The Theologies of Commandment in Biblical Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Jon D. Levenson
Jon D. Levenson
Affiliation:
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181
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Extract

Critical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible a hundred years ago held a much lower estimation of the role of law in the religion of ancient Israel and of the value of biblical law than do scholars today. Julius Wellhausen, for example, whose work was the most influential of the nineteeth century, maintained that in its creative period, Israel had no law, but only “usage and tradition” which “were looked on to a large extent as the institution of the Deity.” Thus, the prophets, whom Wellhausen stressed, did not preach out of any legal tradition in his view, but rather “out of the spirit which judges all things and itself is judged of no man.” In their canonical shape, however, the materials ancient Israel bequeathed us are so strongly nomistic that even Wellhausen could not deny that at a certain point law became central, displacing the spirit. That point marks the transition from Israelite religion to something new called “Judaism,” which is distinguished by the idea of a written Torah. Judaism, in Wellhausen's theory, represents the senility of Israel, for “a body of traditional practice should only be written down when it is threatening to die out, and … a book should be, as it were, the ghost of a life which is closed.” This transition from usage to codified law reflects a fundamental change in the nature of the relationship of God and Israel, a change from a purely natural relationship to one of covenant.

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Articles
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 73 , Issue 1-2 , April 1980 , pp. 17 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

1 Wellhausen, Julius, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973) 393Google Scholar. The Prolegomena first appeared in 1878.

2 Ibid., 398.

3 Ibid., 410.

4 Ibid., 417.

5 Eichrodt, Walther, Theology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961) 1. 74–82.Google Scholar

6 Greenberg, Moshe, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in The Jewish Expression (ed. Goldin, Judah; New York: Bantam, 1970; reprint ed.. New Haven/-London: Yale, 1976) 18–37.Google ScholarPubMed

7 See n. 5.

8 Mendenhall, George E., “Ancient Oriental and Bibilical Law,” BA 17 (1954) 26–46Google Scholar; and “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” BA 17 (1954) 50–76.Google Scholar The two essays are reprinted in Campbell, Edward F. and Freedman, David Noel, BAR 3 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970) 3–53.Google Scholar On research into covenant, see McCarthy, Dennis J., Treaty and Covenant: A Study in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (2d ed.; An Bib 21A; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978).Google Scholar

9 Eichrodt, Theology, 1. chap. 4.

10 Wright, G. Ernest, The Old Testament against its Environment (SBT 1/2; London: SCM, 1950) 59.Google Scholar

11 Rad, Gehard von, Old Testament Theology (New York/Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962) 1. 200–201.Google Scholar

12 Rad, Gerhard von, The Problem of the Hexateuch (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966) 1–78; and idem, Old Testament, 1. passim.Google Scholar

13 Wright, George E. and Fuller, Reginald, The Book of the Acts of God (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960) 88–91.Google Scholar

14 Sanders, James A., “Adaptable for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon,” in Magnolia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God (eds. Cross, Frank M. et al.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1976) 537. It is from Sanders' masterful essay that I have adopted the terms ethos and mythos, by far the most precise for the purpose. Incidentally, as a sociological observation, Sanders' dictum is probably unimpeachable. But one cannot assume that Israel perceived the relationship of these two items in the context of modern sociology rather than ancient culture.Google Scholar

15 The quickest way to get a sense of this phenomenon is to look up the remarks on Psalm 119 in almost any work which treats it theologically. These comments of Weiser, Artur (The Psalms: A Commentary [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962] 740)Google Scholar are typical: “It only remains to point out that the kind of piety, based on the law, such as is presented to us in the psalm does not yet exhibit that degeneration and hardening into a legalistic form of religion to which it succumbed in late Judaism and which provoked Jesus' rebuke.” But what Weiser gives with one hand he takes away with the other: The Psalm, he writes, “carries with it the germs of a development which was bound to end in the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes.”

16 Von Rad, Old Testament, 1. 201.

17 E.g., in Theology, 2. 133.

18 Ibid., 2. 168.

19 McKenzie, John L., A Theology of the Old Testament (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974) 283–84.Google Scholar

20 Gemser, B., “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law” (VTSup 1; Leiden: Brill, 1953) 50.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 55–56.

22 This kind of investigation has some affinities with the Rabbinic and medieval Jewish endeavor called Ṭa ‘ămê Hammiṣwôt, literally, “the reasons for the commandments.” On this, see the classic study of Isaac Heinemann, Ṭ‘my Hmṣwwt Bsprwt Yśr’l (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Meir Hobab, 1942). On the Hebrew Bible, see 1. 14–21.Google Scholar

23 Mendenhall, , “The Conflict between Value Systems and Social Control,” in Unity and Diversity (eds. Goedicke, Hans and Roberts, J. J. M.; Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1975) 169–80.Google Scholar

24 Cross, , Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1973) 271 n. 224.Google Scholar

25 Levenson, Jon D., “Who Inserted the Book of the Torah,” HTR 68 (1975) 203–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Contrast McKenzie, who writes (Theology, 212) of the compilers of the Pentateuch and historical books who worked under the influence of Wisdom: “It followed as a matter of course that the Gentiles were utterly without wisdom and that the Jews had nothing to learn from them.” Deut 4:5–8 demonstrates that even where McKenzie's second proposition may apply, the first need not.

27 Cf. Rad, von (Wisdom in Israel [Nashville/New York: Abingdon, 1972] 61–62), who observes: “The modern exegete is always tempted to read into the old texts the tensions with which he is all too familiar between faith and thought, between reason and revelation …. Against this, it can be categorically stated that for Israel there was only one world of experience and that this was apperceived by means of a perceptive apparatus in which rational perceptions and religious perceptions were not differentiated …. One can, therefore, only warn against trying to see the specific factor in wisdom simply as the manifestation of a rationality which was independent of faith.” Of course, if von Rad was right about the unity of the Israelite Weltanschauung, then we must add that just as rationality could be artlessly incorporated within a structure of faith, so could faith appear, as in Deut 4:5–8, within a structure of universal reason.Google Scholar

28 Again, it is von Rad (Old Testament, 1. 200) who provides a refreshing break with the trend: “The so-called Wisdom Psalms, particularly Pss. I and CXIX, only play variations upon the theme which Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomist had already struck up: men are to keep these words in their hearts and they are to be present to them in every situation in life (Deut VI.6f; Josh 1.8).”

29 E.g., Whybray, R. N., Wisdom in Proverbs (SBT 1/45; London: SCM, 1965)Google Scholar; Scott, R. B. Y., Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (AB 18; Garden City: Doubleday, 1965) xxxi–xxxvGoogle Scholar; McKane, William, Proverbs: A New Approach (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970).Google Scholar

30 I owe this explanation for the congruity of aspects of Wisdom and covenant originally to Professor Baruch Halpern (oral communication, 1974). See Gemser, “The Importance,” 64, and now McCarthy, Treaty, 163 n. 12.

31 Note also that King Hezekiah, a Deuteronomistic hero and precursor of Josiah (1 Kgs 18:3–7), was credited among the wise with the transmission of Solomonic proverbs (Prov 25:1). There is no sign that anyone at the time found this incongruous.

32 These are especially frequent in Deuteronomy, whose affinities with sapiential theology have been noted. See Weinfeld, Moshe, “Deuteronomy—The Present State of Inquiry,” JBL 86 (1967) 249–62Google Scholar; and Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University, 1972) passim.Google Scholar

33 Add ’attâ with the Syriac.

34 Read ‘ômēd with LXX.

35 “The self-revelation of creation” is von Rad's term (see Wisdom, 144–76).

36 E.g., in Weiser, Psalms, 197–204.

37 Dahood, Mitchel, Psalms (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965) 1. 121.Google Scholar

38 I follow Dahood (Psalms, 1. 124) here in preference to the traditional translation “warned.”

39 Read bĕrîtî ‘et hayôm ûbĕrtîtî ‘et hallaylâ for reasons of sense.

40 Read tûpar with LXX.

41 Read the qĕrê.

42 On the background of this type of covenant, which differs from the better known treaty form, see Weinfeld, , “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970) 184–205Google Scholar; and Levenson, , Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (HSM 10; Missoula: Scholars, 1976) 145–47Google Scholar; idem, “On the Promise to the Rechabites,” CBQ 38 (1976) 508–14Google Scholar; and idem, “The Davidic Covenant and its Modern Interpreters,” CBQ 41 (1979) 205–17. Given the fact that Jeremiah 33 is speaking of grants rather than treaties, we should not see “the laws of heaven and earth” (v 25) as stipulations of covenant, but rather as decrees as secure and inviolable as those with which YHWH granted Israel, David and the Levites their eternal survival.Google Scholar

43 For reasons of sense, delete the conjunction on ‘ēd.

44 Cross, “The ‘Olden Gods’ in Ancient Near Eastern Creation Myths,” in Cross et al., eds., Magnolia Dei, 334.

45 There may remain commandments whose ultimate theological backdrop is other than the six ideas explored above. In most cases, of course, laws are simply stated, without elaboration. When this is so, it is fruitless to speculate about the ultimate rationale. The authority of YHWH simply to proclaim law may have historical roots, however, in the idea of the Canaanite deity El as a judge whose decree (tḥm ‘il) is final. See Cross, Canaanite Myth, 183–86.

46 A similar case is the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, of which the most interesting recent treatment is Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (London: Pelican, 1970) 54–72Google Scholar. Douglas argues that observance of these norms constitutes a reaffirmation of the fundamental structural boundaries through which the act of creation took place—sea, land, heavens, etc. The dietary laws prevent a threatening blurring of the categories of creation.

Note also that there are laws supported by the concept of imitatio Dei which are neither distinctly protological nor historical (heilsgeschichtlich) in nature, such as the commandment to be holy (Lev 20:26; 21:8).

47 Gemser, “The Importance,” 51–52.