Ska Joan Louis - Basic Guide To The Old Testament

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AN: 2372491 ; Ska, Jean-Louis.; Basic Guide to the Old Testament, A
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A BASIC GUIDE TO THE
OLD TESTAMENT
Copyright © 2019. Paulist Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable
copyright law.
AN: 2372491 ; Ska, Jean-Louis.; Basic Guide to the Old Testament, A 2
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A BASIC GUIDE TO THE
OLD TESTAMENT
JEAN-LOUIS SKA
PAULIST PRESS
NEW YORK / MAHWAH, NJ
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The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition, Copyright © 1989 and 1993, by the Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover image by Eugene Ivanov / Shutterstock
Cover design by Joe Gallagher

Book design by Sharyn Banks
Originally published as L’Antico Testamento: Spiegato a chi ne sa poco o niente
© 2011 Edizioni San Paolo s.r.l.
Piazza Soncino 5
20092 Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), ITALY
www.edizionisanpaolo.it
English translation by Michael Tait
English translation copyright © 2019 by Paulist Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ska, Jean Louis, 1946– author. | Tait, Michael, translator.
Title: A basic guide to the Old Testament / Jean-Louis Ska.
Other titles: Antico Testamento. English
Description: New York : Paulist Press, 2019. | “Originally published as L’Antico Testamento: Spiegato a chi ne sa poco o niente © 2011 Edizioni San Paolo s.r.l.”
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009150 (print) | LCCN 2018020508 (ebook) | ISBN 9781587687822 (ebook) | ISBN 9780809154043 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Old Testament—Introductions.
Classification: LCC BS1140.3 (ebook) | LCC BS1140.3 .S5913 2019 (print) | DDC 221.6/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009150
ISBN 978-0-8091-5404-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-58768-782-2 (e-book)
English-language edition published by
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Produced by Paulist Press
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CONTENTS
1. Why Don’t People Read the Bible?

2. What Is the Old Testament?
The “National Library” of Israel
The Origin of the National Library of Israel
The Book of the Law of Moses, Linchpin of Israel’s Identity
The Great Shelves of the National Library of Israel
3. The Pentateuch, or the Constitution of Israel

Introduction
Telling in Order to Unite
The Exodus and Israel’s “Declaration of Independence”
Moses, the Prophet
The Story of the Beginnings: “Our” God Is the Creator of the Universe (Genesis 1—11)
How Do We Explain the Division into Five Books?
The Sources of the Pentateuch
4. The Historical Books (the “Former Prophets”) and the Voice of the Opposition
The Historical Books (Joshua, Judges, 1—2 Samuel, 1—2 Kings): A History with a Message
Joshua: Rabbi or Conqueror?
The Book of Judges: The Wrong Religion or the Wrong Politics?
The Books of Samuel: Monarchy or Prophetism?
The Books of Kings: Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold
The “Former Prophets” in the National Library of Israel
5. The Prophets: Writers, Journalists, Columnists, and Pundits of the Period

The Prophets: Writers and Actors in the Public Life of Their Time
The Prophetic Writers and the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Invasions
The Prophets and the Defense of National Solidarity
The Formation of the Prophetic Section in Israel’s National Library
6. The Wisdom Books, the “Gurus” of Israel

The Book of Proverbs: The Wisdom “Canapés”
Job: Model of Patience or Prometheus?
Qoheleth, the Biblical Diogenes
The Conformist Philosophy of Sirach
The Book of Wisdom: The Biblical Message Preached by an Alexandrian Rhetorician
7. The Last Shelves of the National Library of Israel

The Psalms, the Book of the Songs of Israel
The Book of Lamentations
The Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah
Some Supplements to the History of Israel
The “Short Stories” in Israel’s Library
The Surrealist Book of Daniel
The Canticle of Canticles and the Love Poetry of Israel
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8. Conclusion
Notes
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1
WHY DON’T PEOPLE READ THE BIBLE?

According to Umberto Eco, the Bible forms part of the GUB, the Great Unread Books. Clearly, he is
not wrong. However, that leads to this question: Why is the Bible read so little? There are many
reasons. One of these—which does not explain everything—is that, for a long time, the ecclesiastical
authorities of the Catholic world did not encourage the reading of the Bible, particularly after the
Reformation. As is well known, the rallying cry of the Reformation was sola Scriptura, and the
reaction of the Catholic hierarchy is equally well known. Things changed, however, especially after
the Second Vatican Council. Yet developments are slow, and there is still a long way to go before
being able to speak of a real “biblical culture” in the Catholic world.
What is the problem? In my opinion, it is twofold. First, our reading of the Bible is, for the most
part, a reading that I would call “anthological.” The method is simple: depending on circumstances or
occasions, the individual or the group chooses the passages that correspond best to the needs of the
moment. We do not read the Bible; we read only “selected passages.” The problem is that the passage
chosen already has a preestablished function. It must answer the question put to it by the individual or
group that chooses it. When that question is answered, no one asks another. This is, therefore, a
functional reading that aims at finding useful things in the biblical texts. It would be beneficial to
complement this “anthological reading” with a “contextual reading.” The principle is simple. When a
text is chosen for whatever reason, it is useful to place it in its context. A start would be to read the
material that precedes and follows the text, especially when it is very short and consists of one or two
verses. Next, it is worth looking at the chapter, then at the whole book from which the text comes.
Finally, one can read the notes and introductions to the book that can be found in the major editions of
the Bible in modern languages (New Jerusalem Bible, New Revised Standard Version, etc.).
The second problem is more serious. The Bible remains difficult because of its language, which is
not very accessible to contemporary readers. This is a problem not just for the Bible. We could say
the same of the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, Virgil’s Aeneid, or the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
Moreover, a work nearer to us like Dante’s Divine Comedy is difficult to read without the necessary
explanations and notes. That is why there are many publications that aim to provide the tools
necessary to smooth out the rough path that leads to the ancient texts. The biblical texts are not
completely inscrutable. However, there is a risk of understanding their meaning only partially or even
of taking the wrong path altogether. It is obvious that erroneous readings of the Bible exist. There are
also readings that can be examined again and enriched.
What is the aim, then, of this new, short introduction? It is meant to combine two objectives. The
first is to provide a simple tool for a first reading of the Bible. It therefore intends to answer the first
questions that are posed by the reader who has little familiarity with the Bible. The second is to help
with the critical reading of the Bible, that is, to maintain the right distance to avoid the problems that
arise when the text is taken literally.
An example will clarify what I mean to say. It is taken from the Book of Joshua, a book that is
particularly difficult. We are in chapter 6, and, under the leadership of Joshua, the people of Israel are
besieging the city of Jericho. They adopt a surprising strategy. For seven days, the priests march
around the city walls, blowing their trumpets. On the seventh day, the priest and the people must
complete seven marches around the city. They are waiting to begin the seventh march when Joshua
addresses the people with the following instructions:
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And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people,
“Shout! For the LORD has given you the city. The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to
the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall
live because she hid the messengers we sent. As for you, keep away from the things devoted to
destruction, so as not to covet and take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel
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an object for destruction, bringing trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and vessels of
bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.” (6:16–19)
The difficulties of this text are numerous. I shall list only the main ones. First, it is not easy to
understand the strategy adopted by Joshua. The “trumpets of Jericho” are very famous. However,
military strategy manuals never speak of trumpets as a means of causing city walls to collapse.
Second difficulty: the order given by Joshua. It concerns destroying every living being in the city of
Jericho apart from Rahab and her family. In contemporary language, this woman would be a
“collaborator.” In chapter 2, it is she who welcomes the two spies sent by Joshua, hides them, and
allows them to get out of the city safe and sound. As has been said, the rest of the city will be
“devoted to destruction.” With a wealth of detail, the narrative describes what is meant by this:
So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of
the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged
straight ahead into the city and captured it. Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the
sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.
(6:20–21)
The modern reader is appalled by this. On the one hand, the order is given to massacre a population
whose only fault is that of occupying a territory that the God of Israel has promised to his people,
which Israel is beginning to conquer. Why massacre the women and children, even the old folks? All
the animals are to be massacred too: oxen, asses, and sheep. Some people will be spared: those who
have collaborated with the conquerors. How do we interpret such an account? Isn’t what we have here
a pragmatism without scruples and, furthermore, one that is being justified theologically? How do we
reconcile a text of this kind with, let us say, the Sermon on the Mount and the love for enemies
preached by Jesus Christ?
The difficulties do not finish here. Archaeologists have excavated the ancient site of Jericho and
searched for traces of Joshua’s conquest. After many expeditions, they have reached the conclusion
that, in the period in which one can place the entry of Israel into the promised land, the city of Jericho
was not inhabited. In other words, the biblical account is without historical foundation. For the
archaeologists, the walls of Jericho never fell because they did not exist.
We shall attempt to resolve these three difficulties, one after the other. First: Why use the trumpets
to demolish the walls of Jericho? An initial answer is obvious. Trumpets formed part of an army’s
arsenal, even if their primary aim was not that described in Joshua 6. For example, they were used to
sound the attack. Elsewhere, we have some ancient accounts and representations of sieges,
particularly Assyrian reliefs. In no ancient document do we have an equivalent of the trumpets of
Jericho. The Assyrians, for example, employed mobile towers that came up to the walls and from
which archers launched torches or flaming arrows against those who were being besieged. Others
attacked the city gates with battering rams protected by huge shields. Finally, teams of sappers dug
out tunnels under the walls to make them collapse. In the Bible, we have the accounts in Judges
9:45–49 and 9:50–55; 2 Samuel 12:27–30; 2 Kings 17:5–6; 18:9–10; 18:17—19:37; 24:10–15; and
25:1–7. These accounts are very concise and do not mention strategies, except for Judges 9:48–49, in
which a citadel is burned, and 2 Samuel 12:27, in which Joab, David’s general, seizes the “city of
waters” of Rabbah, capital of the Ammonites, and then forces its inhabitants to choose between
surrender or dying of thirst.
We must conclude that Joshua 6 is not a true account of a battle. This first conclusion is essential
for understanding the passage. We are not in the “real” world because this is not a description of an
event that happened just as described in the biblical narrative.
There are other accounts that highlight the role of the priests and the trumpets. They are found in
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some very late texts: 2 Chronicles 13:12–14 and 20:28, for example. In both cases, we are present, not
exactly at a battle but rather at a liturgy. The enemy is defeated when the procession of priests begins
to cause the trumpets to sound. Like the subsequent narratives in Chronicles, the account in Joshua 6
exalts the role of the priests and of the liturgical instruments. In a few words, the texts show that
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Israel is not to seek its salvation in a powerful army, which it does not possess, and not even in
sophisticated strategies, which it does not have, but, rather, in the worship of its God. Without too
much risk, one could say that the text of Joshua 6 must be quite late because it reflects the mentality
of a period in which the priesthood of Israel had become a key institution. This is certainly the
postexilic period, the Persian period, or, perhaps, even the Hellenistic period.
Once we have set the text in its liturgical context, it becomes simpler to understand Joshua’s
instruction concerning the conquest of the city. We are not on a battlefield. The rules have, therefore,
little to do with military strategies. In confirmation of this, here, instead, are the rules to be applied in
the case of a siege according to the “law of war” of Deuteronomy 20:10–15:
When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your
terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. If
it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and
when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You
may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in
the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has
given you. Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of
the nations here.
These rules in Deuteronomy are more reasonable and understandable. Why then does Joshua seek
the destruction of the whole population of Jericho? Because we are in a sacred and liturgical world
where the rules of the absolute are in force: all or nothing. This is about the conquest of the first city
of the promised land. The conquest is being carried out in the name of the God of Israel, and all that
does not belong to him must be destroyed. It is necessary to clear the field to allow the God of Israel
to occupy all the conquered space. We are in a world without compromises.
At this point, it is not difficult to reconcile the interpretation just sketched out with the
archaeological data. The text of Joshua 6 is not a historical account. It is quite possible to imagine that
it arose to explain why the city was in ruins and uninhabited, and, above all, why there was no trace of
its population.
The reader has probably still a question to ask. What is the “truth” of the account if it does not
correspond to an event that really happened? Let us pull together what we have observed previously.
The account describes the conquest of the first city of the promised land thanks to a liturgy celebrated
with musical instruments sounded by the priests, the trumpets. The message is quite clear: the
conquest of the land, like its possession, is due not so much to military acts of bravery as to faith in
the God of Israel and his worship. We can also read in this passage a legitimation of the priesthood of
Israel, which performed an essential role at the dawn of the history of the people in the land.
Finally, a brief review from the methodological point of view. The problems posed by the text have
been resolved thanks to three main elements. First, a critical reading of the Joshua passage based on a
comparison with other biblical texts and with some documents from the ancient Near East shows that
the passage cannot be interpreted as an account of a historical event. Second, the same comparison
with other biblical texts has allowed us to grasp the liturgical intention of the passage. Third, the
historical and literary contexts do not allow a literal interpretation of the text. The massacre of the
inhabitants of Jericho is a symbolic action that says something about the worship of the God of Israel,
not the way to treat foreign populations.
To summarize, the meaning of the biblical texts is not always immediately accessible. What is needed
is a certain familiarity with the language, the culture, and the mentality of the biblical world or of the
ancient Near East. That does not mean to say that it is impossible to understand them. It means only
that, without adequate preparation and a necessary effort to understand, many of these texts remain
obscure, or only a small part of their meaning can be recovered. Therefore, we begin our journey
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through the Bible by starting off with some very simple questions.
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2
WHAT IS THE OLD TESTAMENT?

The “National Library” of Israel
How do we define the Bible? There are many ways to do this. Let us begin from some obvious
elements. In the Bible, we have a collection of books. In fact, Bible is a Greek word that means
“books.” This immediately raises a series of questions: Who wrote these books? Who collected them?
Who chose them and according to what criteria? Were some books excluded? Why? Clearly, I cannot
answer all these questions, and I shall limit myself to the essential ones. I shall speak chiefly of the
Old Testament.
The Bible is actually a library, a collection of the fundamental writings of the people of Israel. We
could say that it is its “national library.” Others would say that it is a “state archive.” I prefer to speak
of a national library because, today, the word archive has particular connotations. An archive contains
a great number of administrative texts whereas a library is more a collection of literary ones. The
Bible consists mainly of literary texts. For example, we find a series of accounts of the origins of the
universe and of the people of Israel, and a record of the principal events in the history of this people.
The prophetic books contain—if I can put it this way—the opinions of some great personalities of the
people of Israel concerning the key events and figures of this people. Finally, we have collections of
poetry, prayers, short stories, and reflections on the great problems of existence. The range of books
and literary genres is thus rather extensive. There are many sections and many shelves in Israel’s
national library.
However, let us return for a moment to the idea of a national library. Many ancient kings had a
state archive or a great library. Archaeologists have discovered the archives of many ancient cities.
Some of these ancient libraries are also well known. That of Alexandria is perhaps the most
renowned. Several centuries earlier, King Ashurbanipal made himself famous for constructing a huge
library at Nineveh. Today, the great modern states have national libraries that preserve all the literary
works published in that country.
The Old Testament can be compared to these national libraries. Although its size is clearly much
smaller, the concept is very similar. But how is this library made up? That is the question we shall
now address.
The Origin of the National Library of Israel

On several occasions, and more or less directly, the Old Testament speaks of archives. Often, there
is an allusion to the “Chronicles” (or “Annals”) “of the kings of Judah” or “of the kings of Israel.”1
From these allusions, we can deduce that there were state archives in both Northern and Southern
Kingdoms. Logically, there were also scribes who wrote down the main events of the kingdom, and
officials who preserved the more important public documents. Archaeologists have also found
administrative texts in various regions of Israel.
Later, the Greek Book of Esther2 mentions the existence of a royal library in Persia where King
Ahasuerus ordered the registration of Mordecai’s actions on behalf of the sovereign in denouncing the
conspiracy of the two eunuchs against him (Esth 2:21–23). The Hebrew text speaks more simply of
the “Book of the Annals” or the “Book of the Chronicles,” an expression that we have encountered
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previously in the Books of Kings.

In the Second Book of the Maccabees (first century BCE), we come across a passage, often cited,
which speaks of a “library” supposed to have been founded by Nehemiah. In the same way, Judas
Maccabeus collected Israel’s most important books and put them at the disposal of the Jewish
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communities of Egypt:
The same things are reported in the records and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, and also that he
founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of
David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. In the same way Judas also collected all the
books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us, and they are in our
possession. So if you have need of them, send people to get them for you. (2 Macc 2:13–15)
This text is interesting, but many gray areas remain. For example, among the works collected by
Nehemiah, the passage mentions books on the kings and prophets, writings of David, and letters of
the kings about liturgical offerings. However, it is surprising that there is no mention of the law of
Moses. In this passage, David seems more important than Moses. However, the context explains it.
This chapter is dealing chiefly with liturgical and cultic matters. In fact, Moses is cited several times
previously (2 Macc 1:29; 2:4, 8, 10, 11) as is the law (2 Macc 1:4; 2:3, 18). It is worth stressing,
however, the particular interest in the books revealed in the passage just quoted, which is part of a
letter of the Jerusalem community addressed to the Jews in Egypt (2 Macc 1:1). From now on, the
means of communicating important information is the “book” or the writing, and no longer just the
messenger. This is not something new. Previously, the prophet Jeremiah had sent a letter to the exiles
(Jer 29:1).
To return to our subject, the texts just cited can provide us with important elements that allow us to
understand why the people of Israel wanted to form a library, probably on the pattern of the archives
and the other libraries in the ancient Near East. They wished to show that they had a culture equal to
that of the great civilizations of the period. Israel could boast of a library that contained a considerable
variety of ancient documents. These documents proved the antiquity of Israel and the value of its
culture in the eyes of its own population and those of other nations.
However, there is another reason worth mentioning.
The Book of the Law of Moses, Linchpin of Israel’s Identity

Israel’s history is very eventful. The region inhabited by ancient Israel is located on the road that
leads from Mesopotamia to Egypt, which the great powers of the time, especially Egypt and
Mesopotamia, wished to control. The periods of—relative—peace were never long. In fact, the
territory of Israel was invaded and dominated by foreign powers more than once. At least three
essential events are to be noted here: (1) the end of the kingdom of Samaria and its integration into
the neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE; (2) the invasion of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, in 701 BCE
and the siege of Jerusalem: in all probability, at this time, Hezekiah became a vassal of the king of
Assyria (2 Kgs 18:14); (3) the two sieges of Jerusalem in 598–597 and 588–587 BCE, the fall of the
Holy City after the second siege, and the various deportations that occurred during this period. The
kingdom of Judah became a province of the Babylonian Empire.
The events just mentioned signify interruptions in the political, social, and religious life of the
people. The return from exile after Babylon’s conquest by Cyrus, king of Persia, and his edict of 539
BCE, probably took place gradually. The task of the returning exiles was immense: they had to
reconstruct and restore, in collaboration or in conflict with the populations that had remained in the
country.
Prescinding from the historical problems posed by Ezra and Nehemiah, these two figures needed
legitimization. Their reform had the support of the king of Persia, but it was important to justify it ad
intra, within the people of Israel, and to prove that it was rooted in their most authentic tradition. The
Books of Ezra and Nehemiah seek this legitimization primarily in a book, the book of the law of
Moses. Some key texts make this abundantly clear. I shall cite some of the more important ones.
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According to the biblical text, Ezra returns from Mesopotamia with “the law of [his] God which is
in [his] hand” (Ezra 7:14). Then, according to the account of Nehemiah 8, the same scribe, Ezra, reads
before all the people “the book of the law of Moses, which the L ORD had given to Israel” (Neh 8:1).
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Moreover, we see that all the important decisions in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are justified by
recourse to the “book,” often cited literally with the expression “as prescribed” or “as it stands
written.”3 From now on, the true authority is the book, particularly the “book of the law of Moses.”
Other texts show that the “book of the law of Moses” already had a similar authority well before
Ezra and Nehemiah. For example, the reform of King Josiah (640–609 BCE), the last great king of
Judah before the exile, was also based on a “book,” the one discovered in the temple according to the
account of 2 Kings 22; the celebration of the Passover ordered by King Josiah was carried out “as
prescribed in this book of the covenant” (2 Kgs 23:21); at the same time, the celebration of the Feast
of Tabernacles held after the reading of the law in Nehemiah 8 was performed according to what
“they found…written” in the book of the law that had just been read by Ezra (Neh 8:14–15).
Much earlier, David had urged his son, Solomon, to govern all his actions according to what “is
written in the law of Moses” (1 Kgs 2:3). Finally, Joshua, the great leader of the people of Israel, the
one who succeeded Moses at the head of the people to bring it into the promised land, received from
God the order to act always according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses (Josh 1:7–8).
It is this same Joshua who writes on stones on Mount Ebal the whole of the law of Moses (Josh 8:32)
and proclaims it before all the people (Josh 8:34–35).
A final text to be cited in this connection is Exodus 24:3–9. Here, having received the law of God
on Mount Sinai, Moses puts it into writing in a “book,” which he reads before all the people in a
covenant ceremony.
Thus, these texts about the “book of the law of Moses” appear in each of the key moments of the
history of Israel: it is the basis of the Sinai covenant (Exod 24:3–8); it is the guarantee of the success
of Joshua and of the conquest of the land (Josh 1:7–8); it is the first law proclaimed in the promised
land (Josh 8:31–35); and, later, becomes the foundation of the monarchy (1 Kgs 2:3). Later still, it
becomes the basis of Josiah’s reform before the exile, and cornerstone of the reconstruction of the
postexilic community of Jerusalem (Neh 8). Briefly, this “book of the law of Moses” is the supreme
authority in Israel. For example, it is superior to the monarchy. Both David, the true founder of the
monarchy, and Josiah, the greatest king after David (2 Kgs 23:25), recognize the superior power of
the law and make it their point of reference for every decision and every action. 4 All this shows that
the book acquired an exceptional importance in Israel.
In fact, this “book” appears in the fundamental texts of the history of Israel. For now, we set on one
side the thorny problem of their dating. I can say, however, that we have good reason to think that
these are all late texts that justify a more recent situation by projecting it into Israel’s past. For
example, it is difficult to think that the kings of Israel and Judah spontaneously admitted the
superiority of the law, whereas in the whole of the ancient Near East the king “makes” and proclaims
the law but is never subject to it.
The Great Shelves of the National Library of Israel

Before searching the different sections of Israel’s national library and leafing through some of the
more venerable volumes, we must stop for a moment and consult the catalogue to get our bearings. I
am speaking of the national library of Israel and so not of the Christian Bible. There are some
differences between Jewish Bibles and Christian ones. First, apart from the New Testament, of
course, some books are missing: these are the so-called Deuterocanonical books in Catholic Bibles,
which the Protestants call “Apocryphal.” They are written in Greek or transmitted by the Greek
translation of the Septuagint (LXX): Tobit, Judith, some chapters of Esther, 1—2 Maccabees, some
chapters of Daniel, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), and Baruch. Second, the order and arrangement
of the books are not the same. The Hebrew Bible is divided into three parts: the first is the Torah
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(“instruction,” “teaching,” “law”), that is, the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy). Then follow the prophetic books, divided into Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1—2
Samuel, 1—2 Kings; Christians prefer to call these “historical books”) and Latter Prophets. This
second group is subdivided into “Greater Prophets,” Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel,5 and the twelve
“Minor Prophets”: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah,
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Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Finally, the last section bears a very generic name: “the Writings.”
In fact, these books constitute the remainder of the Bible: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the so-called scrolls
(Ruth, Song of Solomon, Qoheleth [or Ecclesiastes], Lamentations, and Esther), and finally, Daniel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1—2 Chronicles. The order of books in this third section of the Hebrew Bible
can vary greatly from one manuscript to another, and the choice made by our modern editions is one
among many possibilities.
In the Hebrew Bible, the peak is reached at once with the Torah, the Pentateuch; from there begins
a long descent. The important books are at the beginning of the Bible, accounts of what happened
before the entry into the land and, largely, outside it. The prophetic books are presented for the most
part as commentaries on the Torah, and “the Writings” are meditations on the Torah. We shall read
some texts that confirm this view, such as Joshua 1:7–8 and Psalm 1.
On the other hand, in the Christian Bible we have a long history that begins with the creation of the
world and extends as far as the Books of the Maccabees in the Catholic Bible, or Ezra and Nehemiah
in the Protestant Bible. The intention is clear. The Christian Bible means to create a narrative thread
between creation and fall, on the one hand, and the New Testament, on the other. The history is an
upward one toward its summit, the advent of Jesus Christ that comes at the end of the journey. In the
Christian Bible, therefore, the climax comes at the end and not at the beginning, as in the Hebrew
Bible.
After the historical books come the wisdom books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth),
Song of Solomon, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach). In some way, they permit the reader to make
a meditative pause before tackling the four Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel).
The Christian Bible places in this section the Book of Lamentations attributed to Jeremiah, and adds
the Greek Book of Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary (cf. Jer 36:4, 32). Finally, we find the twelve Minor
Prophets (from Hosea to Malachi). In the Christian Bible, the prophets are not primarily
commentators on the Torah, as in the Hebrew Bible. They are rather seers who announce the coming
of the Messiah. Therefore, Daniel is numbered among the prophets, particularly because of the vision
of the Son of Man in Daniel 7. In the Greek version of the Septuagint, the Book of Daniel is, in fact,
the final book of the Old Testament, again for the same reason.6 In Jerome’s Vulgate, on the other
hand, the final book of the Old Testament is the Book of Malachi, which concludes with these words:
“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the L ORD comes. He will
turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not
come and strike the land with a curse” (Mal 4:5–6 [3:23–24 Heb]). The New Testament will apply
this prophecy to John the Baptist (cf. Luke 1:17; Matt 17:10–13). This text acts as a hinge between
the Old and New Testaments because it announces the coming of the forerunner, John the Baptist, the
final prophet of the Old Testament, who opens the gate to the Messiah (Matt 11:11–15; Luke 16:16).
Catholic Bibles have followed the order chosen by Jerome for the Vulgate.
These brief reflections permit us to say a word now on the first part, the most important part of the
national library of Israel: the Pentateuch.
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3
THE PENTATEUCH, OR THE CONSTITUTION

OF ISRAEL
Introduction
The first books of Israel’s national library describe, in a few words, the origin of the universe (Gen
1—11) and then the origins of the people of Israel (Gen 12—Deut 34). We can subdivide this second
part, which is much longer than the first one, into two: the first is about the ancestors of Israel, the
so-called patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph: Gen 12—50); then the deeds of Moses
(Exod—Deut).
If I had to find the type of modern document that corresponds best to the Pentateuch, I would think
of the constitutions of our modern states. The immediate objection to this is that a constitution is a
predominantly juridical text without narrative elements. That is true. The Pentateuch is a constitution
that contains, for the most part, a summary of the history of the nation. Or, to put it more simply, the
Pentateuch recounts how the nation and its constitution were born, in addition to telling us what this
constitution is. It therefore includes juridical texts enclosed within narratives.
This is not a wholly new phenomenon. The collections of laws of the ancient Near East were
preceded by a short historical prologue just like the vassal treaties. However, it is worth noting that
the quantity of narrative texts is much more considerable in the Bible.
There is another difficulty, well known to specialists: the differences and contradictions between
the various narratives and the different laws of the Pentateuch. A constitution must be uniform and
homogeneous, otherwise it cannot serve to unite all the members of a nation. Contradictions within a
constitution can create endless problems and debates.
Nevertheless, can it be said that the Pentateuch is Israel’s constitution? In my opinion, it can, and I
would like to explain why. There are three main reasons.
How Israel Is Constituted

The first reason is bound up with the intention of the five books that form the Pentateuch. I am
leaving apart for the moment the initial chapters on the creation, which, among other things,
demonstrate that the God of the universe is, in fact, the God of Israel. More important here are the
accounts about Israel’s ancestors that provide a kind of “ID card” of the Israelite. The principle is
genealogical; that is, the members of the people of Israel are defined primarily by links of blood. They
are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Therefore, they
are members of the twelve tribes of Israel. These accounts also explain the difference between
Israelites and Ishmaelites, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. They are relations who belong to
collateral lines.1
Furthermore, a member of the people of Israel is a descendant of the people of the exodus. His
ancestors were slaves in Egypt: they were freed by God, and it was God who led them across the
desert to the promised land. Thus, the Israelites have in common their ancestors and their history.
Finally, they have a common set of legislation: the law of Moses, with its civil law (in Latin: ius)
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and its sacred law (fas). The people’s ancestors accepted the law, proclaimed by God and transmitted
by Moses, in a covenant ceremony: the first generation to come out of Egypt concluded a covenant
with God at Mount Sinai (Exod 24:3–8); the second generation, born in the desert, concluded another
one in the plains of Moab before entering the promised land (cf. Deut 28:69).
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In conclusion, we can say that the Pentateuch forms the “constitution” of Israel because it explains
how the people is “constituted” from three points of view: genealogical, historical, and juridical.
Constitution and Documentation

Second, the Pentateuch contains a record of the ancient origins of the people of Israel. A modern
constitution is a definitive text, generally written at a precise moment in the history of the nation, and
approved officially by its representatives. This is not the case with Israel. However, we have a similar
situation in Great Britain, which does not possess a constitution as such. Rather, there exist in Britain
various foundational documents, for example, the laws of the Saxon king Alfred the Great (849?–99),
the Magna Carta (1215) and the Bill of Rights of 1689. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning another
ancient work on the history of England, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the
Venerable Bede (672–735). Therefore, Britain has ancient documents and a long juridical tradition
but not a definitive document to unify and harmonize the preceding ones.
The same goes for the Pentateuch, which contains all the documentation about the origins of Israel.
History and collections of laws are integrated in a corpus with a chronology of its own—from the
creation of the world to the death of Moses—but no unity of style or thought. The documentation has
not been rewritten, elaborated, or harmonized. Thus, I prefer to speak of an archive or library
containing different documents written in different epochs and reworked several times.
The Anonymity of the Authors of the Pentateuch

The third reason is less important, perhaps, but it too has value. Modern constitutions are
anonymous because they represent the collective will of a nation to live together, in the same
territory, and based on the same juridical principles. In some cases, however, it is well known who
wrote the constitution. For example, the Declaration of Independence of the United States was written
in great part by Thomas Jefferson, although he did not sign the document. It did not belong to him. It
belonged to the First Continental Congress of the United States and the colonists it represented, and
he drew it up in their name. Subsequently, it belongs to all the citizens of the United States. In other
words, it does not contain Jefferson’s ideas but rather his formulation of the ethical and juridical
principles aimed at providing a solid base for the young nation of the United States.
Other constitutions are the fruit of discussions, agreements, and compromises among the different
elements or parties who have participated in the nation’s formation. In this case, the constitution can
present some internal differences that mirror the ideals and the interests of different groups.
We could add a further example, that of the documents of Vatican II. Many of these were discussed
at length, amended, corrected, elaborated, and redacted several times to integrate elements coming
from different tendencies. The definitive texts reflect the common will to reach an agreement, but this
unity is not uniformity. What we have here is a plural unity.
We could object that tradition attributes the composition of the Pentateuch to Moses. However, it is
this same Pentateuch that attributes to Moses only the redaction of the so-called covenant code (cf.
Exod 24:4) and the law of Deuteronomy (Deut 31:9). Moreover, he might have written a report of the
battle against Amalek (Exod 17:4), a list of Israel’s stages in the desert (Num 33:2), and the song of
Deuteronomy 32 (cf. Deut 31:22).
We must add that Moses is not presented precisely as the author of the so-called law of Moses.
According to the texts of the Pentateuch, Moses received the law of God, that is, from a higher
authority recognized as such by the people and by Moses himself. Moses is not the author of the law;
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rather, he is its redactor or scribe. In other words, there is no biblical Thomas Jefferson.
Telling in Order to Unite
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As we have seen, the Pentateuch contains narrative and juridical elements. We shall now try to
understand better their purpose, beginning with the narrative sections.
After the events concerning the origin of the universe (Gen 1—11) and the patriarchs (Gen
12—50), we have a long account of the origin of the people of Israel, who came to birth under the
leadership of Moses. It is arranged into four principal sections: the story of the exodus, or the
departure from Egypt (Exod 1—15); the accounts of the stay in the desert (Exod 15—18; Num
11—34); Israel’s long wait at Mount Sinai (Exod 19—Num 10); and, finally, the four discourses of
Moses, which he uttered opposite Jericho on the last day of his life. These speeches form the fifth
book of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy. What is the significance of these narratives?
I will not dwell on the historical value. That would be too complicated. I will only say that what we
have here is not “history” in the modern sense of the word. The Pentateuch narratives do not aim to
give information about Israel’s past. Their primary object is to create the conscience of a people, to
form a common conscience and a feeling of belonging to a single nation. This became necessary
because Israel was more than once about to disappear from the map of the universe. Which ancient
people escaped the conquests of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans? Israel
survived all the vicissitudes of its tortured history. The Pentateuch contains one of the secrets of this
survival.
Why Is Abraham the Ancestor of Israel?

The Pentateuchal narratives thus seek to create a united people. This is the primary purpose of the
so-called stories of the patriarchs. All members of the people of Israel descend from the same
ancestors: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel. If
we compare the Pentateuch with other accounts of this type, what is surprising is that usually a people
has a single ancestor, and not three, like Israel. Rome was founded by Romulus after the elimination
of Remus. Hellas is the mythical founder of the Greek people. According to the Bible, Canaan is the
ancestor of the Canaanites, Ishmael of the Ishmaelites, Esau-Edom of the Edomites.
Moreover, a people bears the name of its ancestor or, at least, there is an etymological relationship
between the two. According to this well-known principle, Israel’s ancestor should be Israel, a name
that Jacob receives during the mysterious episode recounted in Genesis 32:23–33. In the Book of
Genesis, however, Israel’s ancestor is Abraham, not Jacob-Israel.
An immediate response to this could be that the ancestor chosen comes from the South not the
North. After the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE, the traditions of Israel passed to Jerusalem, capital of the
kingdom of Judah. They were preserved and passed on in the Holy City, and it was normal that the
ancestor of the whole people was—or became—someone from the South.
However, we are in the kingdom of Judah. So then, why not choose Judah as ancestor of all the
people? Especially because, after the exile, one speaks increasingly of “Judaeans.” But Judah is not
Israel’s ancestor.
Final surprise: the people’s ancestor is not even the founder of Jerusalem, the Holy City, which,
after the fall of Samaria and then the exile, becomes the real fulcrum of the people’s life. One could
think of a mysterious character like Melchizedek, king of Salem—which is certainly the same as
Jerusalem (Gen 14:18–20; Ps 110[109]:4). However, not even he fits the bill.
Abraham is, therefore, a very particular choice. Most of the traditions about him originate in
Hebron, a small town about forty kilometers south of Jerusalem. His character was probably known to
the inhabitants of Judah. Perhaps his name was connected with a sanctuary close to Hebron, the Oaks
of Mamre (cf. Gen 13:18; 18:1). However, we know very little about this.
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Hebron has an advantage that Jerusalem cannot claim: it was never conquered or destroyed by an
enemy army. Jerusalem was destroyed and profaned by the Babylonians and so, according to the
ancient mentality, was somehow “disqualified.”
If we put all these things together, we can understand why Abraham was the ideal candidate to
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become the ancestor of all the members of the people of Israel. He had a “clean sheet” of a past,
without any dirt. He came from a place that was “unharmed.” He was popular among the population
of the country, as is attested, for example, by Ezekiel 33:24: “Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste
places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the
land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’” The people who remained in the land
of Judah during the exile express themselves like this. The prophet Ezekiel does not exactly agree.
The important point, however, is precisely the fame of Abraham among the populations of the
province of Judah during the period of the exile.
Briefly, choosing Abraham meant affirming the superiority of the South over the other regions of
Israel. It also meant recognizing that, in the South, there remained a region that was “unspoiled.”
Finally, it was a way of recognizing that it was possible to share the traditions handed down in the
country, especially the promises made to Abraham. That is what I would now like to explain.
Abraham, Foundation of Israel’s Faith

Without too much risk of error, we can say that the accounts of Abraham and Sarah are pervaded
by divine promises: promise of a son, promise of the land, blessing, and divine protection. In two
particularly interesting texts, these promises are made in the context of a solemn covenant (in
Hebrew: berît) that God concludes with the patriarch (Gen 15 and 17). The covenant with Abraham is
distinguished from the others because it is not conditional. It is a solemn promise, in the form of an
oath for which God seeks nothing in return. Why?
It is necessary to read the texts in the period in which the Pentateuch was formed, namely, after the
exile. The great prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, explain the exile as the result of the
breaking of the Sinai covenant. God had promised his people help and protection, blessing, and
prosperity, if Israel was faithful to the covenant and observed his law. Israel was not faithful to its
God and so was struck with a curse. The question that immediately raised itself was, does Israel still
have a future? One solution was to seek a more solid and more ancient foundation than the Sinai
covenant. Israel found that in the patriarchs, particularly in Abraham: by contrast with the Sinai
covenant, the one with Abraham was unconditional and, therefore, irrevocable, because it depended
solely on God’s faithfulness to his promises, not on the fidelity of the people.
Abraham, Paradigm of Israel’s Existence

Beginning the story of Israel with Abraham does not only mean finding an ancestor. It also
signifies seeking a true “beginning.” Generally, the history of a people begins with the foundation of a
city or dynasty, or else with the conquest of an empire by a hero. In Israel, the story begins with a
nomadic or seminomadic shepherd, owner of numerous flocks, who lived in a tent. Why is this?
The history of Israel provides the first answer. The great cities of Israel, Samaria, and Jerusalem
had been conquered and destroyed. David’s kingdom ended with the Babylonian exile and was never
really restored. Israel’s other institutions, the temple worship, for instance, had known a long eclipse.
Only one institution survived all these vicissitudes without too much harm: the extended family or
“clan.” Thus, Israel could identify itself without hesitation with Abraham and Sarah and appropriate
the story of this first family.
The identification with Abraham as ancestor was facilitated by those responsible for the
composition of his cycle of stories (Gen 12—25). They made use of some elements and elaborated
others. I shall list only the main ones without entering into details because the list is long.
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For example, Abraham comes from Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:31; 15:7; Neh 9:7; cf. Josh
24:2–3). He crosses all through the promised land, from Shechem to Bethel as far as the Negeb (Gen
12:6, 8, 9) and then goes down into Egypt (12:10–20). From Egypt, he returns to Bethel (13:3–4)
before settling at the Oaks of Mamre, close to Hebron (13:18). Later, we find him again in the Negeb
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(20:1–18), then at Beersheba (21:32–33; 22:19). Sarah dies at Hebron (23:2), where she will be buried
just like Abraham (25:9).
Two points deserve notice. First, Abraham travels in anticipation of all the long paths the people
will cover in the future: like the exiles, he comes from Mesopotamia; like the people, he also spends
some time in Egypt. Thus, he can be the ancestor of those who will take part in the exodus under
Moses and of those who will return from the exile.
Second, Abraham travels through every region and visits all the important places of the promised
land: the North, especially Shechem and Bethel; the South, especially Mamre (Hebron); the far South,
the Negeb and Beersheba. We could add that he travels to Salem—the cryptic name of
Jerusalem—according to the mysterious account of Genesis 14:18–20. With great skill, the narrative
shows that no region can claim to have a monopoly on Abraham. Similarly, no region cannot claim
some connection with him. This goes first for the North, which, as we shall see, is linked much more
to Jacob. It remains true that Abraham has links with the region of Hebron and with the Oaks of
Mamre, where his tomb is located and, perhaps, where his memory was preserved. However, the
Abraham cycle has made maximum use of the figure of the nomadic shepherd to make him pass
through all the paths of the promised land and those his descendants would have to travel one day.
Abraham is, therefore, the ancestor of all without exception.
Abraham is also father and founder of Israel from many points of view. Genesis 15 is, perhaps, the
richest text from this perspective, even if it’s not the only one. However, once again, I am limiting
myself to the most important aspects. Abraham is the first biblical character who “believes” in God’s
promises (15:6). He is also the first “prophet” (20:7) who receives a revelation in typically prophetic
language (15:1). As we have seen, he lives the exodus before the exodus (12:10–20), and Genesis
15:7 uses the exodus formula to describe his coming from Ur of the Chaldees: “I am the L ORD who
brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans” (cf. Exod 20:2: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”). Abraham is the first person to construct altars
and to call on the Lord’s name in the promised land (Gen 12:7–8), and for the preparation of the
covenant, he is the first to sacrifice all the animals used in Israel’s worship (15:9–10), and God
concludes a covenant with him before that of Sinai (15:18).
In his conduct too, Abraham is an example—a paradigm—for his descendants. He is the first to
practice circumcision, sign of the covenant with God (Gen 17); he observes the law before its
proclamation under Moses (26:5); he pays the tithe at the sanctuary of Salem—Jerusalem (14:20); and
he is a model of obedience to God’s orders (12:1–4; 22:1–19; cf., in particular, 22:15–18), of
hospitality (18:1–15) and of intercession for the “righteous” (18:22–33). Abraham certainly functions
as an “identity figure” for all his descendants.
Isaac and the Right to the Land

Isaac’s character is much blander and more colorless compared with that of his father, Abraham.
Only in one chapter, Genesis 26, does Isaac act alone or almost alone. He travels with Rebekah, but
there is no mention of either his parents or his children.
Isaac is particularly linked with the well of Lahai-Roi (Gen 24:62; 25:11). Strangely, this well
appears for the first time in the Bible in Genesis 16:14. It is the place where the angel of the Lord
announces to Hagar that she will bear a son, Ishmael. The elements are too scanty to elaborate solid
theories, but there is an impression that there has been some confusion, superimposition, or
substitution between Ishmael and Isaac.
For our purposes, there is really a single question that matters: Why introduce the character of Isaac
into the trio of patriarchs, between Abraham and Jacob? In my opinion, the reason is simple. Abraham
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comes from Ur of the Chaldees, outside the promised land. Jacob will live for twenty years in Haran,
far from his country, and will die in Egypt. Neither lived all his life in the promised land. Only Isaac
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is born, grows up, lives, and dies in the land of Canaan. That is made explicit at the beginning of
Genesis 26. A famine rules in the land, and Isaac could be tempted to go down into Egypt as his
father Abraham had done (26:1, cf. 12:10). However, God appears to him and says (26:2–5),
Do not go down to Egypt; settle in the land that I shall show you. Reside in this land as an
alien, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give
all these lands, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your
offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands;
and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessing for themselves through your offspring,
because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and
my laws.
Isaac is the only patriarch who gives his descendants full right to the possession of the land because
he never left it.
Jacob and the Promise of Return

Of the three patriarchs, Jacob is the most colorful but perhaps also the most ambivalent. Two
elements stand out as important for our study. Jacob is a figure particularly celebrated in the Northern
Kingdom. Hosea 12 already speaks of this. By contrast with Abraham, who is “serious” and
exemplary, Jacob is much less edifying. Above all, he is cunning. Through his intelligence, he gains
what others obtain through privilege or force. He belongs to the family of popular heroes such as
William Tell in Switzerland, Till Eulenspiegel in northern Germany and Flanders, and Robin Hood in
England. There are clear differences among these figures. Despite this, Jacob belongs to this family of
popular heroes, very popular, even if his morality is not always exemplary.
The second element worth mentioning, as for Abraham, is the paradigmatic character of his
existence. However, this aspect is much less developed than in the Abraham cycle. Yet, on one point,
Jacob is like his grandfather, Abraham: he spends twenty years in Haran, in Mesopotamia, and ends
his life in Egypt, though he will be buried in the land of Canaan. One text has a particular significance
in this connection, a passage that forms part of the famous vision of Bethel. God, who appears to
Jacob while he is on his way to live in Haran, says to him, “Know that I am with you and will keep
you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done
what I have promised you” (Gen 28:15). We must read this as addressed to Jacob, the ancestor of a
people who will also travel the way of exile and listen to God who promises them a safe return into
their land. The other important passage, in a similar context, is the oracle God addresses to Jacob just
at the time when he is about to go down to Egypt, where he will find his son, Joseph (Gen 46:1–4):
When Israel [Jacob] set out on his journey with all that he had and came to Beer-sheba, he
offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. God spoke to Israel in visions of the night, and
said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “I am God, the God of your
father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I
myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph’s own
hand shall close your eyes.”
This oracle is clearly addressed to the ancestor as the personification of the people that bears his
name, Israel, above all in the last part, where God says, “I will also bring you up [from Egypt].” It is
not the patriarch Jacob-Israel who will “come up” from Egypt. Jacob dies there and only his body will
return to the land of Canaan to be buried there (50:1–14). It will be the “great nation” born in Egypt
that will come up later under the leadership of Moses. In sum, we have good reasons to see in Jacob a
figure emblematic of the people of Israel and, in the story of his life, elements that prefigure the
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destiny of the people of whom he is the eponymous ancestor.
Joseph, the “American” of Genesis
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In various ways, the story of Joseph (Gen 37—50) is different from the rest of the patriarchal
narratives. I record only the most obvious three elements. First, God’s promises to Israel’s ancestors
are no longer mentioned, except in two subsequent additions: in an appearance of God to Jacob
(46:1–5; this is the only occasion of an appearance of God in the story of Joseph) and in the final
verses of the story (50:24–25). Second, God intervenes only rarely in Joseph’s affairs (see, e.g.,
39:2–5, 21) and never speaks directly to the protagonist of the story; it is the Genesis story in which
God makes himself most discreet. Third, in Joseph’s story, living abroad does not constitute a serious
problem: there are no difficulties about food, worship, or marriage. In Genesis 41:45, Joseph marries
the daughter of an Egyptian priest; Abraham’s instructions to his servant for Isaac’s marriage
(24:1–4) or Rebekah’s (27:46) and Isaac’s for Jacob’s marriage (28:1–2) seem to have been buried.
Joseph’s story is also distinguished from the rest of the Pentateuch from the literary point of view.
The narrative skill is more refined, the study of psychology more profound, and the composition of
the account more elaborate. We are no longer in the world of popular tales; we are in an area closer to
the great literary schools of the time.
Why, then, do we find the story of Joseph at the end of the Book of Genesis? According to the
specialists, there are two main reasons. The first is that Joseph’s story is a satisfactory explanation of
why Israel is found in Egypt at the beginning of the story of the exodus (cf. Exod 1:1–7). The
conflicts among the brothers, Joseph’s arrival in Egypt, his career at Pharaoh’s court, the famine, the
reunion of the brothers with Joseph, and the arrival of the whole family in Egypt to be welcomed by
Joseph: all this provides an excellent prologue to the account of the exodus.
The second reason is of a wholly different order. It is necessary to put Joseph’s story back into its
historical context. In fact, Joseph’s destiny describes the life of a Hebrew or Jew of the “diaspora,”
outside the promised land. He becomes very powerful to the point of occupying the most important
position in the court of the Pharaoh of Egypt. In more modern terms, he is the immigrant who has
“arrived.” Today, it would be said that he is “the American uncle” or “the American cousin”: lucky,
rich, influential, and able to help the poor members of the family who had remained in their native
land. In the Book of Genesis, the family go to join him in “America,” that is, Egypt, to escape famine
and misery.
In this context, the story of Joseph demonstrates an essential fact: it is possible to live well as a Jew
in a foreign country, in the diaspora where life is better than at home. In fact, the survival of the
members of Jacob’s family depends on the success of Joseph, an emigrant, perforce, in a prosperous
land.
We could add a third reason to the two previously mentioned, one indicated by the literary studies
of our passage. Joseph’s story describes a family conflict that opposes a father to his sons and a son to
his brothers. The story finishes well, however, with the reconciliation and reunification of the divided
family. Israel’s history will also be often marked by internal conflicts, not only between North and
South but also within the various communities. Joseph’s story is that of a conflict that ends well, a
story that gives hope and instills courage whenever the people find themselves in similar situations.
Finally, it shows that power serves not only to oppress but rather to save by putting itself at the
service of the needy members of one’s own family and one’s own people. Lust for power and hatred
will not always triumph, nor are they inevitable. This is one of the basic messages of the story of
Joseph that invites its readers to write about similar experiences.
The Exodus and Israel’s “Declaration of Independence”

Israel’s Foundational Experience
The story of the departure from Egypt is the story par excellence of the people of Israel as such.
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Regarding the exodus, one can speak of the “foundation myth” or the “foundational experience.” By
contrast with the patriarchal stories, which privilege the genealogical principle and the ties of blood,
the exodus narrative draws attention to another principle of identity: that of free choice and the “social
contract.” Moreover—and we must emphasize this—the patriarchal events are focused on individuals,
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families, or, at most, a clan like that of Jacob. By contrast, the exodus narrative is concentrated on the
people as such. It is a collective experience, a common history lived by the first generation of the
people. Furthermore, the foundation myth has one of its points of cultic reference in the Feast of the
Passover, the celebration described in Exodus 12, which allows every generation to relive and to
actualize the exodus experience.
In the context of our brief study, the question to be asked is this: Why did the exodus become
Israel’s foundation myth? A brief comparison with other such myths shows that the account of the
exodus is singular in some ways. In fact, very often, the story of a people begins with the foundation
of its first important dynasty, or of a city, such as Rome, for example, in 753 BCE. In modern times,
the story of a nation begins when it gains its independence.
Every so often, however, the story of a nation can begin with a symbolic gesture that has an
unexpected result. The legend of William Tell in Switzerland is widely known. Closer to us, the
Boston Tea Party, on December 16, 1773, was organized to protest Britain’s taxation policy. In the
eyes of many historians, the destruction of tons of tea marks the beginning of the American War of
Independence. The storming of the Bastille in Paris, on July 14, 1789, has similar significance for the
French Revolution. In Colombia, on July 20, 1810, a flower seller in Bogotá refused to offer free
flowers for the arrival of the representative of the king of Spain. This is considered as the catalyst for
the independence movement in that country. Gandhi’s Salt March (March 12, 1930) had a profound
effect on the inhabitants of India and led, in the end, to the country’s independence in 1947. Gandhi
wanted only to break, peacefully, the salt tax imposed on India by the British, something he
considered unjust.
Even if there are clear differences between the periods and the historical contexts of the events just
mentioned, the exodus account has a similar significance. Of course, we do not know the historical
value of the biblical account. We can only assess its huge symbolic weight. The account of the exodus
has a unique value in the history of Israel. It is more important than the conquest of the land, than the
victories of Saul and David over the Philistines, the capture of Jerusalem by David, and the
construction of the temple by Solomon. The Lord is “God from the land of Egypt” (Hos 12:9; 13:4).
What is the reason for this? Without being too rash, we can seek the reason for the success of the
exodus in a recurring feature of the history of Israel, a people often subjected to foreign powers:
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Freedom from the foreign yoke was a strong desire in
many periods of Israel’s history. The doings of its people begin with an account of liberation aimed,
to a large extent, at preventing the temptation to fatalism. Israel was born free, the exodus story tells
us, and, if it has not been so always, this is because of circumstances, not because it is its destiny.
Israel is not a people of slaves.
Other elements in the account in Exodus 1—15 are of great importance for Israel’s collective
memory. Here I am thinking of the means of the liberation from Egypt. The freeing from slavery was
not the result of a violent action. Moses did not arm the people to organize a revolution against
Pharaoh. Nor did he resort to terrorist activities or to guerrilla warfare. He did not even use the strike
as a weapon, although it was already known in Egypt at that time. The only tool used by Moses to
liberate the people was the weapon of persuasion. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and spoke with
him. However, they used powerful arguments, those of the so-called plagues of Egypt.
There are many discussions about these plagues. Here, I suggest a rather simple interpretation,
which has the advantage of corresponding to the mentality of the time. Often, the specialists show that
the plagues of Egypt are, for the most part, phenomena well known in the country around the Nile.
For example, the water of the Nile is changed into “blood” every year at the time it floods: in fact, it is
carrying the silt, red or brown mud, which, before the construction of the Aswan Dam, fertilized all
the fields close to the river. Invasions of frogs, insects (locusts in particular), animal sickness,
epidemics, and darkness caused by sandstorms are common phenomena in Egypt. Only the hail is
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rather rare. Probably for this reason, the account in Exodus 9:13–35 is much more detailed than the
others. As for the death of the firstborn, a phenomenon difficult to explain at first sight, we would do
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well to remember that the first text that speaks of it (Exod 4:23) mentions only the death of the
firstborn of Pharaoh, a tragedy in a regime based on dynastic succession. Thus, in Exodus 12:29–34,
we have a typical embellishment of the original narrative.
All the events described are natural phenomena, which the narrative uses in a stylized way. The
principal argument of Moses—and of the Exodus account—is easy to grasp: the Pharaoh cannot
command nature, therefore his power is limited and not absolute. That means that his power over his
subjects is also limited.
The final demonstration of this fundamental truth is provided by Exodus 14, the so-called miracle
of the sea. As we know, the present text combines two distinct accounts: one describes a tide
accentuated by a strong wind from the east, and the other tells of the passage of Israel through the sea
between two walls of water, which then collapse on the Egyptians and cover them. However, the two
accounts coincide in one essential point: Pharaoh’s powerful army was defeated by the sea, not by the
Israelites. Consequently, there is a power superior to the impressive military power of the Egyptians:
nature—the creation—which depends solely on God. In the exodus narrative, we have a profound
reflection on freedom, human dignity, and power and its limits. Indeed, it contains a universal
message: freedom is an inalienable good that no human power has the right to suppress.
The Sojourn in the Desert, or the Trials of a Long Wait

Israel remains in the desert for forty years. This is one of the most established dates of the Old
Testament (cf., e.g., Ps 95[94]:10; Amos 2:10; 5:25). According to Numbers 13—14, the reason for
such a long sojourn is God’s punishment, because Israel refused to conquer the land. The first
question that we must ask, however, is why the longest part of the Pentateuch has the desert as its
setting (Exod 15—Deut 34). In some way, the desert is the true “location” of the Pentateuch. It is not
an ideal place, and we must distrust idealizations of it.
Again, we must seek the answer in the situation of many members of the people of Israel who find
themselves in the “desert,” on the march toward the promised land. They are free, certainly, but they
have not yet arrived in their land. This is the condition of the members of Israel who live in the
diaspora, and also of those who dwell in the promised land, but under a foreign government. They
live in a state of transition, of the “not yet.” The accounts of the stay in the desert are not to be read as
memories of the past. They are ways of interpreting or rereading the present in the light of the past.
Many of these stories describe “miracles,” especially the discovery of water and food in hostile
territory. Others, quite numerous, speak of the “murmurings” of Israel in the desert, that is, of the
rebellions of the people against their God and against their leaders, Moses and Aaron. 2 It is worth
dwelling on these two aspects for a moment.
The miracle stories probably originate in local traditions passed on by traders or travelers. We find
something similar in the Book of Genesis regarding Hagar, mother of Ishmael, the ancestor of the
Ishmaelites, famous desert traders (Gen 16:1–14; 21:8–21). Wells, oases, rocks, and place names are
often at the origin of such stories and legends. It is more than probable that, in their original version,
these stories were simple accounts of miracles performed by God to help his people in the difficult
conditions of life in the desert. The message was clear: Israel could live even in very precarious
situations; its God is always able to save it.
The stories of murmurings give a negative tone to the sojourn in the desert. It is necessary to say,
however, that this is a later development. The desert sojourn is seen as an idyllic time in Hosea and
Jeremiah, for example (Hos 2:14–15; 12:9; Jer 2:2–3). The positive view is transformed into a
negative one only in Ezekiel 20:11–16 and Nehemiah 9:16–17. Why? We are in a later period, after
the exile, and Israel is projecting backward into the past some of the problems of the present. There
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are conflicts, in particular between an elite that has returned from their exile with the “law of Moses”
and a part of the population that refuses to live according to these rules. The Books of Ezra and
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Nehemiah describe this conflict at length. The Book of Ezekiel also mirrors the exiles’ point of view.
It is significant that both the texts just cited (Neh 9:16–17 and Ezek 20:11–16) contain the same
reproof: in the desert, Israel refused to obey the laws of the Lord.
There is a second reason for rebellion that is often mentioned in the desert stories and by Nehemiah
9:17: the enduring desire to return to Egypt or, more simply, the nostalgia for Egypt.3 In these texts,
we can read the wish of many members of the people to remain in Mesopotamia (or Egypt) because
life in Israel is too harsh.
A moment in the desert sojourn deserves our attention: Exodus 32, the first important rebellion of
Israel, the episode of the golden calf. The text is complex and has given rise to various interpretations.
It is regarded, however, as Israel’s “original sin” after the Sinai covenant. What is the nature of this
sin of Israel? From the biblical point of view, it is the representation of God with an image. The calf is
a very common divine image in the ancient Near East. One could interpret Israel’s sin in a more
modern way by saying that Israel wished to replace the exodus story with a static symbol. This is
precisely what Aaron says when he presents the golden calf to the people: “These are your gods, O
Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exod 32:4). In Exodus 3, on the other hand, in
the scene of the burning bush, God had said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The L
ORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent
me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations” (Exod 3:15). These two
ways of “representing” God are very different. In the case of the golden calf, we have an image in
metal; in the case of Exodus 3, the memory of a story and of a mission, that of Moses. Of course, the
image evokes different aspects of the divinity. However, the memory of the story and the mission
contains an appeal to continue writing the story and to share in the same mission.
We Have “Our” Laws!

Long sections of the Pentateuch are devoted to the laws of Israel. We must not forget that in the
Jewish tradition, the Pentateuch is called Torah, that is, “teaching,” “instruction,” “law.” The New
Testament also speaks of “law” when it cites the Pentateuch.4 In fact, the Jewish world privileges the
juridical aspect of the Pentateuch, whereas the Christian world has always preferred the narratives to
the laws. Still today, Christians experience a certain antipathy toward the laws of the Old Testament.
“We are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:15), says St. Paul in a passage that is often repeated
but not always understood as it should be. Why, then, do we find in the Pentateuch different
collections of laws, and, what is more, ones that are not homogeneous? Before answering this
question, it is useful to analyze some aspects of Israel’s legislation with greater precision.
Among the principal laws of the Pentateuch, we recall the two Decalogues (Exod 20:1–17 and Deut
5:6–21); the covenant code (Exod 20:22—23:32); the holiness code (Lev 17:1—26:46); and the
Deuteronomic code (Deut 12:1—26:19). Beside these principal collections, there are others, less well
known or less important: for example, the so-called cultic decalogue (Exod 34:10–27); the laws on
sacrificial rituals (Lev 1:1—7:38); the laws on purity and impurity (Lev 11:1—15:33); the law of the
Day of Atonement (Lev 16); some laws on vows and on the tithe (Lev 27); the numerous laws
scattered throughout the Book of Numbers, like those on purity (Num 5:1–4), on theft (5:5–10), on
suspicion of infidelity (5:11–31), on Nazirites (6:1–21), on offerings (15:1–21), on unwitting sins
(15:22–31), on the function of the priests (18:1–19), on the patrimony of the Levites (18:20–32), on
the ashes of the “red heifer” to be used in case of impurity (19:1–22), on inheritance (27), on
particular sacrifices (28), on sacrifices to be offered in the seventh month (29), on vows (30), on the
Levites’ cities (35:1–8), on the cities of refuge or the blood feud (35:9–34), and on the inheritance of
daughters (36).
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Civil Law or Sacred Law?

One characteristic of Israel’s legislation is immediately striking: by contrast with the collections of
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laws of the ancient world, the Pentateuch combines and mixes civil law (ius) and sacred law (fas).
Why? I think that we are pointing to one of the basic characteristics of the Pentateuch here. For Israel,
there is no essential difference between sacred law and civil law. We can understand this in two
different ways. We could say that, in Israel, all life is “service of God,” that is, “liturgy.” Henceforth,
the people of the exodus, freed by its God from Egyptian slavery, has its God as its only true
sovereign. That is why various aspects of public life are all marked by the presence of God and the
sacred. For the same reason, in Israel’s legislation, there is often an equivalence between crime, on
the one hand, and sin, on the other. Thus, a transgression of the law is always somehow an offense
against God.
On the other hand, if we adopt the point of view of the people, every part of it is involved in the
cult, not just the priestly families who specialize in divine service. The whole life of the people is
“liturgy”; all are at the service of God. Therefore, each is somehow a “priest” destined for the worship
of God. One text, located at a strategic point, namely, at the very beginning of the Sinai theophany, in
Exodus 19:6, expresses this truth clearly: “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”
This statement has given rise to various interpretations. One thing is certain, however: through Moses,
God is addressing all the people and promising them a new dignity on condition that they observe the
covenant (19:5). The image employed by the text is simple. The sovereigns of the time ruled over a
territory and its inhabitants. On the other hand, they had a palace, or various palaces, a royal domain,
and their personal servants. According to Exodus 19:3–6, God rules as sovereign over the whole
world and all its inhabitants, that is, over every nation on the earth (19:5b). However, he has reserved
a nation for his personal service, and that nation is Israel.
Put another way, in antiquity, every god had his own temple and specialized personnel for his
service, even if it could be said that he was the god of every inhabitant of the region. The God of
Israel, who is, at the same time, God of the whole universe, reserves for himself a nation for his cultic
service and so makes Israel a kingdom of priests. That is why Israel combines sacred and civil law. In
Israel, the cult is the business of all, not just of the priestly class.
Why a Law Promulgated in the Desert?

All the laws of Israel are promulgated either on Mount Sinai or in the desert. They are proclaimed
by God and transmitted by Moses. Israel’s legislation is, therefore, that of a “government in the
desert,” not to say a “government in exile.” The desert sojourn is Israel’s “legislative period” and the
desert its “legislative place.” This is surprising. In the ancient Near East, laws are proclaimed in the
country and by the sovereign of that country. In Israel, they are proclaimed outside the country, and
not by a king but by a prophet. In fact, there are no “laws of David” or “laws of Solomon”: only the
law of Moses.
The first explanation of this singular fact is bound up with the discrediting of the monarchy in
Israel. It was suppressed by the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions and was never fully restored. In
the ancient world and in the biblical world, it was difficult to attribute a law to an institution that had
disappeared. On the other hand, if one wished to continue to live according to one’s own laws, it was
necessary to find a way to legitimize them. The solution was simple: the laws did not disappear with
the monarchy because they predated it, just as Israel predated the monarchy of Saul and David. The
laws are not even bound up with the territory of the promised land, and so are still valid when the
people live outside their land or without enjoying a real autonomy. In Israel, the law is more personal
than territorial.
All that shows that Israel holds fast to its law (Torah). Christians of today can be astonished at this.
It is very important, therefore, to place the idea in its historical context. To possess one’s own laws
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means being a real nation. For this reason, Israel integrated all its laws into the Pentateuch to prove
two basic facts: that it possessed laws and that these laws were ancient. Israel is, therefore, an ancient
nation like the other neighboring nations. Moreover, it is proud of its law as much as other nations
glory in their conquests, their culture, or their monuments. In fact, the text of Deuteronomy 4:8, the
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most explicit in this regard, claims, “And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as
this entire law that I am setting before you today?”
We can also understand better why there are many collections of laws in the Pentateuch that are not
harmonized. The Pentateuch’s first objective is not to give the people a set of legislation valid for
every place and time. Its principal aim is to provide Israel with proof that it is a nation that possesses
its own laws. In other words, the Pentateuch contains Israel’s juridical archive and juridical
“doctrine.” In more modern terms, we could say that the Pentateuch does not contain Israel’s positive
law. It is a reference work rather than a series of laws to be applied or, effectively, applied by the
judges. If we examine some accounts of trials, such as, for example, that of Jeremiah (Jer 26) or,
again, what happens for the marriage of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4), we do not find in any of these cases
a procedure in one of the codes of the Pentateuch. In everyday life, customary law and the principle of
jurisprudence were in force. Only in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah do we find texts in which a law
is being applied “as it is written,” with explicit reference to a written law. Careful study of the
passages in question shows, however, that every text is interpreted and that we never, or almost never,
have a literal application of the law.
Moses, the Prophet

Why choose Moses, exactly, as founder and lawgiver of Israel? And who is Moses? We have
already seen why Israel’s legislation predates the monarchy and even the entry into the promised land.
The mediator of the law—of the Torah—must also be more ancient than the monarchy and the entry
into the promised land. Probably, Israel’s tradition knew of a figure with the name Moses. We know
nothing of Moses from the historical point of view. To convey it in a nutshell, the biblical Moses is a
giant who hides the Moses of history forever. We can only say that he is not a total invention. That
would be less probable; the same principle enunciated by the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagoras
holds true: “Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed.”
Returning to Moses, I think four elements can stand up to historical criticism:
1. Moses bears an Egyptian name, probably abbreviated, that means “son of,” “begotten by.”
We find the same root in the proper names Rameses (“son of the god Ra”), Thutmose (“son
of the god Thoth”), and Ahmose (“son of the god Ah”). If Israel had invented its founder, it
would surely have assigned him a Semitic name, certainly not an Egyptian one.
2. Moses marries a foreign woman (Exod 2:21; Num 12:1), whereas the law—proclaimed by
him—prohibits marriages with foreigners (Deut 7:3–4). This element too, a very
problematic one, could have been invented only with difficulty.
3. Moses is connected to the Midianites (Exod 2:15–16; 3:1; 18:1; Num 10:29). In other texts,
the Midianites are numbered among the most inveterate enemies of Israel (Judg 6:1–6).
This detail, therefore, most likely comes from an ancient tradition and has not been invented
by more recent writers.
4. Moses dies outside the promised land (Deut 34:5). Various texts try to explain why Moses
was unable to enter. However, none manages to explain this in a totally satisfactory way
(Num 20:1–13; Deut 1:37–38; 3:23–28; 4:21–22). It would have been simpler to allow
Moses to set foot in the promised land. Moreover, the inhabitants of the land who were
opposed to the return of the exiles would have had a good argument for saying, stay in the
desert like Moses! Moses is a figure who belongs to the desert and not to the promised land.
When all the traditions were combined in a single account, the question was raised about
the death of Moses who led his people in the desert but did not accompany them into the
land. I do not think that this is something that could have been invented.
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There is a second prominent feature in the figure of Moses that is worth underlining. Moses is not a
king. He does not establish any dynasty, he has no army or guard, he wears no symbol of royalty,
scepter or crown, and has neither palace nor throne. Moses is a prophet. He begins his “career” when
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God calls him in a scene typical of the prophetic vocation (Exod 3:1—4:18). Furthermore, the final
words about Moses, spoken after his death, designate him as such: “Never since has there arisen a
prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deut 34:10, au. emphasis). Moses is
not just any prophet; he is the greatest of all the prophets of Israel. It is the epitaph carved on his
tomb. The choice is not indifferent. In short, salvation, in Israel, does not come from kings or military
leaders. It comes from prophets and, above all, from the greatest of them, Moses. For this reason, the
history of Israel is a “prophetic history,” a history written principally by the prophets, and one
containing a prophetic message we shall find in the so-called prophetic books. The message is simple:
Israel must not expect its salvation from powerful leaders and rulers, from an exceptional culture, or
from an invincible army. Its salvation lies in observing the law of Moses.
Before tackling the problems of the prophetic books, however, let us say something about the first
chapters of Genesis (Gen 1—11), which are given over to the origin of the universe.
The Story of the Beginnings: “Our” God Is the Creator of the Universe (Genesis
1—11)
I have allowed myself to defer to the end of this introduction the section on the first chapters of
Genesis. I shall try to justify this choice. These chapters are among the most recent parts of the
Pentateuch. Everyone knows that an author writes his words of introduction or the prologue to his
work after finishing the rest of it. In the same way, the opening chapters of Genesis are the first ones
we read, even if they were composed in a subsequent period. Moreover, the issues raised by these
chapters are relatively recent: a people inquires after its own origins and its own destiny before asking
about the surrounding universe. For example, questions on the origin of the universe and of humanity
are raised in Egypt and in Mesopotamia only when the first great empires are born. Certainly, the
question about origins exists everywhere but under different forms. There are accounts of the birth of
a particular creature or of the invention of a particular object. There are also accounts of the origin of
the human being or of the couple. However, the accounts that describe the Creation or the origin of
the universe with all that is in it are later.
Basically, the biblical accounts of the origin of the universe describe three phases. The first one
describes the first steps of the world and of humanity (Gen 1—5). The second recounts the first great
crisis of the universe: the flood (Gen 6—9). The third is devoted to the story of humanity immediately
after the flood and up to the appearance of Abraham, the ancestor of Israel (Gen 9—11). The present
world, therefore, is no longer the one God created at the beginning. It is the one that went through the
flood and began again with Noah and his family.
Why would Israel tell of the origin of the world? A first reason is what we call cultural
appropriation. What is this? To put it simply, Israel is a tiny nation, surrounded by great civilizations,
above all, in Egypt and Mesopotamia. When it encounters them, it is certainly aware of their
superiority. It could have reacted by adopting a more sophisticated culture. In Israel, instead, the
reaction was different. In many cases, the great ideas of the foreign cultures were copied, repeated,
integrated, and adapted in order to appropriate them. In the case of the great accounts of Creation
emanating from Mesopotamia—the best known is the Enuma Elish—Israel said to herself, “The
Creator of the world is our God! We too have an account of creation!” This is certainly the most
important change introduced by Israel’s writers. The Creator God is not a Mesopotamian divinity, for
example, Marduk, god of Babylon, but rather the God of Israel, who will then become the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In my view, the second account of Creation (Gen 2—3) arose in a similar
way. However, Genesis 1 mirrors the Mesopotamian influence strongly. It was written by the exiles
who were in close contact with the culture of Babylon and integrated into their culture many elements
from it. After the Edict of Cyrus (538 BCE), they returned to the land, invigorated by everything they
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had learned and acquired abroad. Those who had remained in the country, hearing the returners speak,
said to one another, “It is not necessary to study in Babylon to know how the world was created. We
know it very well! Our account is ‘made in Israel,’ not ‘made in Babylon!’” The second Creation
account, based on traditional elements known in Israel, provides a “Palestinian” equivalent to the
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“Babylonian” account of Genesis 1. A brief comparison will indicate the most evident differences. On
the one hand (Gen 1), we have an account that flaunts a knowledge of Mesopotamian culture,
particularly of astronomy and its extensive jargon; on the other hand (Gen 2), a text that mirrors the
mentality and concerns of families of Palestinian peasants.

First, the Creator God of Genesis 1 is a “great king” who gives orders and is immediately obeyed,
while the Creator of Genesis 2 is a craftsman who “dirties his hands.” Second, Genesis 1 is concerned
with the whole universe; Genesis 2, on the other hand, is limited to what is necessary for the survival
of a Palestinian farmer.
Third, the first account is wholly positive. Seven times it is said, “God saw that it was [very] good”;
5 the account of Genesis 2—3 is a more realistic explanation of why the human condition is painful
and no longer paradisiacal (3:14–19). This second account also speaks of the knowledge of good and
evil (2:9, 17; 3:5, 22).
The same goes for the description of the flood. Israel appropriated the essentials of the
Mesopotamian accounts of the flood, the best known being that on the ninth tablet of the Epic of
Gilgamesh and the myth of Atrahasis. The biblical account makes two changes to “nationalize” the
Mesopotamian account. First, Noah becomes the hero of the flood, and he forms part of the folklore
of Israel, famous on account of his “justice” (cf. Ezek 14:14, 20). Second, the account concludes with
a covenant (berît) between the Creator God and Noah and his family (Gen 9:8–17). This covenant
theme is basic to the theology of Israel.
It is worth dwelling for a moment on two other stories in Genesis 1—11, Cain and Abel (ch. 4) and
the tower of Babel (11:1–9). In its new context—the origin of the universe and humanity—the former
takes up and elaborates some ancient traditions on the origin of the various occupations or types of
existence: agriculture (Cain: 4:2), rearing of livestock (Abel: 4:2), city building (Cain: 4:17), the life
of nomadic shepherds (Jabal: 4:20), music (Jubal, player of the lute and flute: 4:21), metalwork
(Tubal-cain, teacher of every forger of bronze and iron: 4:22).
Genesis 11:1–9’s account of the building of a city and a tower has various meanings. We have seen
the influence of the Mesopotamian culture, particularly that of Babylon, on the authors of chapters
1—11 and on their way of conceiving the origin of the universe. The story of the tower of Babel
counteracts this influence ironically. The great Babylonian culture so admired by some—above all,
we could say, by the exiles who had returned to the land—also has less glorious aspects. For example,
the Babylonians do not know about stone and mortar (11:3). Furthermore, the impressive
concentrations of people in the great Mesopotamian cities are none other than a state of “confusion”
(11:9). In short, the story allows a smile at Mesopotamian culture and perhaps the “ridiculing” of it to
exalt by contrast and by implication another lifestyle: a land where villages and small cities are
constructed with stone and mortar, where the population is not concentrated in huge cities that are
unsuitable to live in, but where each one lives in ample space, in his own country, speaking his own
language and developing his own culture. Using the weapon of irony, the story intends to criticize the
totalitarian culture of Mesopotamia.
The genealogies of chapters 5, 10, and 11 of Genesis are well-known elements of Mesopotamian
culture. It is the simplest way of telling a story and of creating links between past and present.
Ultimately, these genealogies flow into that of the clan of Abraham (Gen 11:27–32) and explain the
close links between Abraham, ancestor of Israel, and the other peoples of the earth, at least those who
were known at the time.
In conclusion, I think it is necessary to emphasize something just mentioned at the beginning of this
section: the texts in Genesis 1—11 are mostly late. I am speaking of literary composition here, not of
the motifs employed. The starting point for the composition is the so-called priestly narrative,
composed after the return from the exile and much influenced by Babylonian culture. We encounter it
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in Genesis 1, in the narrative of the flood, and in the genealogies. The other stories were added
subsequently. As proof, I would like to mention just one fact: all the allusions to these stories are also
recent. The references to the initial chaos and to the creation of the universe are encountered in the
Books of Jeremiah and in the second part of Isaiah (Isa 40—55),6 but not before the exile. Also, the
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allusions to the Garden of Eden or to the primordial paradise are all recent.7 The fall (Gen 3) is
spoken of only in texts of the Hellenistic period such as Sirach (17:1, 6; 25:24) and the Book of
Wisdom (2:23–24). To find a reference to Cain and Abel, it is necessary to go to Wisdom 10:3: “But
when an unrighteous man departed from her [wisdom] in his anger, he perished because in rage he
killed his brother.” The unrighteous man here must be Cain. The flood is spoken of in Isaiah 54:9;
Sirach 44:17–18; and Wisdom 10:4, and the tower of Babel only in Wisdom 10:5. All this means that
the stories about the origin of the world are recent creations.
In conclusion, the principal aim of the events narrated in Genesis 1—11 is that of emulating similar
stories, especially the great Mesopotamian myths. Moreover, they demonstrate that the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the exodus, is also the Creator of the universe.
How Do We Explain the Division into Five Books?

It will be helpful to say something about the division of the Pentateuch into five books because this
can surprise the modern reader. Some of these books have their own internal consistency, Genesis and
Deuteronomy, for example. For the others, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, it is less obvious.
The introductions and conclusions of the books are an important element guiding our reading.8
Genesis begins precisely with the beginning of the world (“In the beginning…,” 1:1) and ends with
the words of Joseph making his brothers swear to carry his bones back to the promised land when
God leads his people back to their land (50:24–25). Joseph’s death (50:26) brings the story of Israel’s
ancestors, the so-called patriarchs, to an end.
Exodus begins with the list of the twelve sons of Jacob, the ancestors of the twelve tribes that form
the people of Israel in Egypt (1:1–7), and concludes when the glory of the Lord takes possession of
the tent of meeting, which Moses built according to the divine instructions (40:34–35). This is a
solemn moment because in the symbolic language of the Bible, it represents God’s enthronement as
Israel’s sovereign. Henceforth, the God of the exodus has a “palace,” his own dwelling place amid his
people, and Israel recognizes him as its only sovereign. In brief, Exodus describes how the people of
Israel, who were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, become free for the service of God in the desert. 9 The
book traces the journey from Egypt to the desert, from slavery to freedom and service, from the
oppression of Pharaoh to the sovereignty of God.
After God’s enthronement, Exodus 40:36–38 gives a brief sketch of the role of the cloud that
directs the departure of the people and guides them in the desert day and night. In other words, the
Lord of Israel takes command of the journey because, now, he speaks no longer from the summit of
Mount Sinai but rather from his “headquarters” in the midst of the people whom he accompanies and
leads during their wanderings in the desert toward the promised land.
The opening of Leviticus acknowledges the new factor introduced at the end of Exodus, since God
calls Moses “from the tent of meeting” (Lev 1:1). Briefly, the whole of Leviticus explains what it
means to live in close contact with the divinity. The laws on the cult—the service of the “sovereign”
God—on purity and impurity, on the holiness required of the people, are a consequence of the
presence of God in their midst. The two conclusions of the book (26:46; 27:34) seem to deny what
was stated previously because they place all the legislation of Leviticus on Mount Sinai. The
contradiction is only apparent because the tent has not moved yet, and the people are still around
Mount Sinai, which is, in the Pentateuch, the place where all the basic laws are proclaimed.
The difference between the Book of Leviticus and that of Numbers appears in the introduction and
the conclusion of the latter. In Numbers 1:1, as in Leviticus 1:1, God speaks to Moses from the tent of
meeting. The conclusion of the book, in Numbers 36:13, speaks of laws promulgated in the plains of
Moab, by the Jordan, opposite Jericho. Numbers describes all the vicissitudes of the journey between
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Mount Sinai and the Jordan. Divine orders, laws, and stories are woven together to show what it
means to “walk” under the guidance of God, the Lord of the exodus, just as Leviticus had shown the
meaning of life around the tent of meeting, the palace of Israel’s one, true sovereign.
Deuteronomy begins with a long preamble of exposition of the book’s content (Deut 1:1–5).
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Briefly, it is a collection of the speeches uttered by Moses on the last day of his life, in other words,
his spiritual testament. Deuteronomy no longer contains the “words of God” addressed by God to
Moses, as in Leviticus or Numbers (Lev 1:1; Num 1:1), but the words of Moses addressed to Israel.
Actually, Moses “interprets” the laws for the people (Deut 1:5).10 Deuteronomy is thus the first
commentary on the Torah, and one by the most authoritative of its interpreters, Moses. The
Pentateuch comprises simultaneously the Torah and its first official commentary, Deuteronomy.
The conclusion of Deuteronomy (34:10–12) affirms that Moses is the greatest of the prophets and
that the exodus is the foundational event in the history of Israel. With Moses’s death, this most
important stage of revelation has come to an end. At the same time, in this text, we find what we
could call the epitaph of Moses and the seal of quality appended to the Pentateuch. Everything that
Moses says—and which the Pentateuch transmits—is DOC, of denominazione di origine controllata
or appellation contrôlée, because the Lord of Israel knew Moses “face to face” and the
communication was, therefore, direct:
Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.
He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the LORD sent him to perform in the land
of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds
and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
In conclusion, we confirm once again that the Pentateuch has a principal function: that of creating
the identity of the people of Israel, thanks to the genealogical link in the patriarchal stories and to the
Torah, which contains the history and the law common to all the members of Israel. In this sense, we
can say with the German poet of Jewish origin, Heinrich Heine, that, for the Jew, the Torah is a
“portable homeland.”11 The identity of the people already exists before the entry into the land, before
the monarchy, and before the construction of the temple. That is why, as we shall see, it will also be
able to survive the loss of the land and the disappearance of the monarchy and of the temple.
The Sources of the Pentateuch

In this brief introduction, I cannot deal with the sources of the Pentateuch. There are many recent
works on the subject.12 In short, the present tendency in research distinguishes three main stages in
the composition of the Pentateuch:
1. Ancient collections of laws (e.g., the covenant code, Exod 21—23), isolated stories, or brief
narrative cycles
2. First important theological compositions, immediately after the exile: Deuteronomy and the
priestly narrative
3. A work of elaboration and rewriting after the reconstruction of the temple in the spirit of the
so-called holiness code (Lev 17—26).
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4
THE HISTORICAL BOOKS (THE “FORMER

PROPHETS”) AND THE VOICE OF THE
OPPOSITION
The Historical Books (Joshua, Judges, 1—2 Samuel, 1—2 Kings): A History with a
Message
The historical books survey briefly the principal events of Israel’s history from the beginning of the
conquest (Josh 1) to the end of the Babylonian exile (2 Kgs 25). The Book of Joshua describes the
conquest of the promised land under the leadership of Joshua. The Book of Judges is devoted to the
vicissitudes of the tribes of Israel during a troubled period marked by invasions and occupations by
foreign nations. With the Books of Samuel, we come to the beginning of the monarchy, first of Saul,
then of David. The Books of Kings follow the logical progression: they relate the principal events of
the united kingdom of Solomon, and then of the two separated kingdoms of the North and of the
South. The whole corpus concludes with the fall of Samaria (2 Kgs 17) and the fall of Jerusalem (2
Kgs 25). The predominant point of view is certainly that of a writer hailing from the South, very
critical toward the monarchy.
I do not intend to provide a complete introduction to the historical books.1 I would like just to
emphasize some salient points. One question above all will hold our attention: Is there a common
thread running through the whole of Israel’s history from the conquest by Joshua to the Babylonian
exile? Have we here a simple histoire événementielle, a chronicle that records only the most important
facts, or else do we find an effort at synthesis, an attempt to understand the longue durée—the “long
term”—that is, the task of grasping the causes of a long series of events? Finally, we shall seek to
identify more closely the authors of this “history.”2
In the Hebrew Bible, the historical books are called the “Former Prophets.” The choice is
significant because, in the rabbinic tradition, the great figures of Israel’s history are not the kings or
the military leaders but the prophets. We have seen that, for the Pentateuch, Moses is first and
foremost a “prophet,” in fact, the greatest of all the prophets (Deut 34:10). In the biblical tradition,
Joshua is a prophet, not just a conqueror. This is the clear message of Sirach 46:1: “Joshua son of Nun
was mighty in war, and was the successor of Moses in the prophetic office.” Along the same line, the
Book of Judges contains, in its first chapters, the speech of an “angel of the L ORD” (Judg 2:1–5) who
announces punishment for an Israel that is, at this point, unfaithful to the covenant with its God. The
books that describe the beginning of the monarchy are not called “books of Saul and of David” but
“of Samuel.” They are attributed to a figure presented as a “prophet” (1 Sam 3:20). Only the Books of
the Kings in their traditional title retain the memory of the monarchy. As we shall see, the story of the
monarchy ends tragically in both the kingdoms of the North and the South. The principal fault is
precisely that of the sovereigns who adopted a bad policy. Those who saved Israel, on the other hand,
were the prophets who, on many occasions, opposed the policy of the kings. Israel was saved thanks
to the prophets. The rulers, whose first duty was the protection of the people from every danger, had,
on the contrary, caused their ruin. We are witnesses, so to speak, of the bitter victory of the
opposition. Or, more precisely, the prophets were right—unfortunately—when they foresaw the
terrible consequences of a mistaken royal policy. This is one of the most important theses of the
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so-called historical books. It is also the reading of Israel’s history put forward by Sirach in his “Hymn
in Honor of Our Ancestors” (Sir 44—50), especially when he speaks of the monarchy (chs. 47—49),
where the kings are often combined with the prophets: Nathan and David (47:1–11); Elijah and Elisha
(47:24—48:15) in a section on the Northern Kingdom that mentions only Jeroboam among the kings;
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Isaiah and Hezekiah (48:17–25); Jeremiah and Josiah (49:1–7); and, finally, Ezekiel, Zerubbabel (one
of the last descendants of David), and Joshua, the high priest of the return (49:8–12).
Confirmation of this view is found in one of the most important passages of the historical books,
the long discourse of 2 Kings 17, which justifies the fall of Samaria and, by anticipation, that of
Jerusalem. At the same time, the text explains why the dynasties of the North and that of the South,
the dynasty of David, disappeared from the international scene. The passage that interests us is this (2
Kgs 17:13–15):
Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from
your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law
that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” They
would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the L
ORD their God. They despised his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their ancestors,
and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false; they
followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them
that they should not do as they did.
This passage is very clear: the prophets had warned Israel and Judah, but the two kingdoms had not
listened. Thus, it was not the prophets who were responsible for the disaster. Besides, the text claims
that the true cause of the catastrophe was precisely the failure to observe the law.
We are too familiar with some biblical passages. We could have attributed the end of the two
kingdoms to a mistaken foreign policy, to unsuitable alliances, or to fateful breaches of established
treaties. We could also have spoken of military weakness or of strategic errors. No. For the
anonymous author of 2 Kings 17, the cause of the tragedy has an ethical origin: the two nations have
acted wickedly. This is certainly one among many possible interpretations of the facts, and it is an
explanation that modern historians could throw into the debate. However, this interpretation is offered
by the Book of Kings itself or, to be more exact, inserted within the chronicle of the kingdom of
Samaria and of the kingdom of Judah. It is precisely the point that I wish to underline and to which I
shall return later.
Joshua: Rabbi or Conqueror?

We can take a step forward and analyze with greater precision the main features of the prophetic
reading of the historical books. What we have here are some texts, often very late, that have been
inserted at strategic positions and that point the reading in a very particular direction.
The first passage is found at the beginning of the Book of Joshua:
Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that
my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that
you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your
mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance
with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall
be successful. (Josh 1:7–8)
Two elements are fundamental in this short oracle addressed to Joshua. First, the success of
Joshua’s endeavors, that is, the conquest of the promised land and its allocation to the tribes of Israel,
is conditioned by the observance of the law of Moses. In other texts, God promises to help Israel
unilaterally. For example, in Joshua 1:5: “No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of
your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.” Two verses
later, as we have seen, the tone is different. It is hard not to think that the text of Joshua 1:7–8 was
written to correct that of 1:5. A first simple proof of this comes from the introduction to the oracle of
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Joshua 1:7: “Be strong and very courageous.” The formula is familiar as is its function: it generally
introduces an exhortation before a battle or a military campaign. A very similar ritual expression is
found in Deuteronomy 20:3, in the rules for war, and in Joshua 1:6, 7, 9, 18 (cf. Deuteronomy 31:7,
23).3 Only in Joshua 1:7 does this formula introduce a warning to observe the law. The text seems to
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be saying, “Be strong and courageous, Joshua, but not in waging war and facing the enemy on the
battlefield. Your courage must be shown first and foremost in observing the law of Moses.”
A further detail should attract our attention: the law of Moses is now contained in a written book.
The point of reference and the supreme authority in Israel is not a person, a king, for example, or a
military leader; it is a book, the book of the law of Moses.
According to the text, Joshua is more like a rabbi or a doctor of the law than a great conqueror, a
conquistador. The true ideal of Israel is a scholar and a scrupulous observer of the law. 4 In fact,
Joshua’s conquests and great achievements are due not to his military genius and administrative
talents but rather his fidelity to the law of Moses. In more modern terms, Joshua will be decorated not
with a military medal but rather with a medal of the Order of the Torah. It will be the first, to say the
least, among his decorations.
Other texts confirm the same idea. I cite only the more important ones. In a passage inserted into its
present context, Joshua 8:30–35, Joshua writes the whole of the law on an altar of stone erected in the
central part of the promised land, on Mount Ebal, and then proclaims it before all the tribes. This
event has a very precise significance. Henceforward, the law in force in the conquered land is the law
of Moses (Josh 8:32). In other words, at this point, the true sovereign of the conquered land is the
book of the Torah, enthroned on Mount Ebal, which all are bound to obey.
In his farewell discourse, in Joshua 23, Joshua bequeaths to the people his most precious
possession: the Torah. He delivers it in the form of advice: “Therefore be very steadfast to observe
and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor
to the left” (Josh 23:6). Joshua is repeating word for word what the Lord had said to him in Joshua
1:9. Henceforth, the Torah, which came from God through Moses, lies in the hands of the people. To
put it another way, it is their job to decide. Joshua delivers the Torah rather than the land because the
possession of the latter depends on the observance of the Torah, and, above all, because it is already
known that the people could be deprived of the land without losing the Torah.
At the end of a text, which is probably later than the discourse of Joshua 23, the account of the
covenant at Shechem (Joshua 24), Joshua adds the words of this covenant to “the book of the law of
God” (24:26). The monument to this that Joshua sets up is a huge piece of stone that reminds the
people forever of their responsibilities: “Joshua said to all the people, ‘See, this stone shall be a
witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the LORD that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a
witness against you, if you deal falsely with your God’” (24:27). Instead, the heroic acts of the
greatest conqueror known to Israel do not merit any monument.
The time of Joshua is certainly to be considered a golden age in the history of Israel. The main
reason for this, however, does not lie in his series of victories but rather in his unfailing fidelity to the
law, as we shall see immediately. It is quite clear, I think, that the story of the conquest has been
reread in the shadow of the Torah.
The Book of Judges: The Wrong Religion or the Wrong Politics?

Two texts act as the hinge between the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges: Joshua 24:29–31
and Judges 2:8–10. It is worth reading the two passages in parallel:
Joshua 24:29–31 Judges 2:8–10
After these things Joshua son of Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age
Nun, the servant of the LORD, of one hundred ten years. So they buried him within the
died, being one hundred ten years bounds of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill
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old. They buried him in his own country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Moreover, that
inheritance at Timnath-serah, whole generation was gathered to their ancestors, and
which is in the hill country of another generation grew up after them, who did not know
Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.
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Israel served the LORD all the
days of Joshua, and all the days
of the elders who outlived Joshua
and had known all the work that

the LORD did for Israel.
It is difficult to deny the relationship between these two passages. Without entering a long
discussion on their composition, we can say that they clearly intend to signal the generational
transition between the time of Joshua and that of the “judges.” The two texts contain a brief
announcement of the death and burial of Joshua. Then there begins the contrast between the
exemplary generation, contemporary with Joshua, and that which followed in the time of the judges
(Judg 2:10). It is immediately clear that the “golden age” is over and that a much less glorious period
is about to begin. The reason is given in the immediately following verse (2:11): “Then the Israelites
did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and worshiped the Baals.” A whole paragraph serves to
summarize the consequences of Israel’s infidelity to its God: invasions and oppressions, the saving
ministry of the judges sent by God and the cyclical relapses of Israel (2:11–23):
Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and worshiped the Baals; and
they abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of
Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around
them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger. They abandoned the L
ORD, and worshiped Baal and the Astartes. So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel,
and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the power of
their enemies all around, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they
marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them to bring misfortune, as the LORD had
warned them and sworn to them; and they were in great distress.
Then the LORD raised up judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who
plundered them. Yet they did not listen even to their judges; for they lusted after other gods
and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their ancestors had
walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD; they did not follow their example.
Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he delivered
them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD would be moved to
pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them. But whenever the
judge died, they would relapse and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods,
worshiping them and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or
their stubborn ways. So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel; and he said,
“Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their ancestors, and
have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that
Joshua left when he died.” In order to test Israel, whether or not they would take care to walk
in the way of the LORD as their ancestors did, the LORD had left those nations, not driving them
out at once, and had not handed them over to Joshua.
Whoever reads this text understands immediately that it is a reflection made with hindsight that
tries to explain the reason for a troubled and unhappy period. It is a “long-term” analysis, to adopt the
vocabulary of the Annales School. The message is clear: the cause of the miserable situation is to be
sought in the religious attitude of Israel, which has strayed from its God to adopt another, Baal (Judg
2:11), thus becoming unfaithful to the covenant concluded with the God of the exodus (2:20). In other
words, the causes are not political, economic, or military. Rather, they are ethical and religious. We
must not forget, however, that the concept of religion is much broader in the biblical world than in our
own. Israel’s infidelity to its God is not only a question of liturgy or devotional practice. Israel
“abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.”
Leaving the God of the exodus signifies forgetting the meaning of a history of liberation and the ideal
bound up with the common experience of this liberation. The consequences from the political and
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social point of view are obvious. Adopting the worship of Baal means adopting other behavior, other
politics, and other social and economic objectives. This is the message of the prophet Hosea, for
example.
The point that I want to demonstrate, however, is that the biblical “historians,” such as the great
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Greek historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, for example, do not limit themselves to a simple
chronicle of events. They formulate theories about the facts of a given period. They seek to
understand the meaning or the message of events and of the fate of their own people. A final note in
this connection: all this does not mean that, in the historical books of the Bible, we have a critical
history in the modern sense of the word. The question as to the historicity of the characters and of the
events is a different question, to be treated in a different way.
The Books of Samuel: Monarchy or Prophetism?

The events recounted in the Books of Samuel are well known: the birth and call of Samuel, the
choice of Saul, the rejection of Saul and the choice of David, rivalry of the two until the death of the
former, accession to the throne of the latter, and the lively events around David’s succession until the
accession of Solomon to the throne.
The tone of the Books of Samuel is different from the preceding ones. It is much less theological
and moralizing. More often, we find narratives that are well constructed and well written, which
please the specialists in narrative art. In more modern terms, it could be said that the tone is more
“secular.” For this reason, G. von Rad regarded these chapters as Israel’s first historiographical work.
5
But is this true? How are the failure of Saul and the success of David explained? What is the cause
of Solomon’s triumph over all his rivals in the succession to David? I cannot reply in detail to these
questions. Once again, I content myself with asking the biblical texts to see how they interpret the
events.
A first factor is given precisely at the beginning of the book, which tells of the birth of Samuel and
not of that of the future king. A detail confirms the surprising choice of the redactors or compilers of
the Books of Samuel. The account of Samuel’s birth ends with an etymology of the name chosen by
the mother for her long-awaited son: “In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him
Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the LORD’” (1 Sam 1:20). Now, in Hebrew, there is no
correspondence between the name Samuel and the verb to ask.6 In fact, the name that would
correspond to the verb in this case would be that of Saul, which means, exactly, “sought, desired,
asked for.”7 According to a very probable theory, the story has substituted the name of Samuel for
that of Saul. Or else, according to another possible explanation, the present account intends to show
that the real “son” desired by Israel is Samuel and not Saul.
In second place, we have the famous text of 1 Samuel 8. The elders of Israel come to Samuel
asking for a king. This is his reply to their delegation:
These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint
them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint
for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground
and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of
your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take
one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He
will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to
his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day
you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the L ORD
will not answer you in that day. (1 Sam 8:11–18)
This description of the “king’s rights” is a ferocious satire on the monarchy. Where does this text
come from? We do not know exactly, but its authors are surely people opposed to the monarchy. The
party of opposition has Samuel as its spokesman, presented as a prophet (1 Sam 3:20).
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Another episode permits us to narrow down the identity of the opposition party. This is the
so-called apology of Jotham in the Book of Judges (9:8–15):
The trees once went out
to anoint a king over themselves.
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So they said to the olive tree,
“Reign over us.”
The olive tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my rich oil
by which gods and mortals are honored,

and go to sway over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the fig tree,
“You come and reign over us.”
But the fig tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my sweetness
and my delicious fruit,
Then the trees said to the vine,
But the vine said to them,
“Shall I stop producing my wine
that cheers gods and mortals,
So all the trees said to the bramble,
And the bramble said to the trees:
“If in good faith you are anointing me king over you,
then come and take refuge in my shade;
but if not, let fire come out of the bramble
and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”
Joatham’s apology is another severe criticism of the monarchy. We can easily identify the
environment in which it arose. The producers of oil, wine, and figs almost certainly represent the
great landed proprietors. They defend their position by stressing the usefulness of their activity and
showing only scorn for a form of power they judge to be useless and harmful. Only villains and
knaves (“good-for-nothings”) aspire to royalty.
Of course, not all the kings of Israel and of Judah are condemned. Few, however, are defended:
David, Solomon (only partly), Asa (1 Kgs 15:11), Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22:43), Jehoash (2 Kgs 12:3),
Amaziah (partly: 2 Kgs 14:3), Azariah (2 Kgs 15:3), Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:3), and, above all, Josiah (2
Kgs 22:2) are among the few exceptions. All these rulers are kings of Judah, and this is obviously not
by chance.
Other passages witness to the critical vision of the monarchy held by the biblical authors. Saul and
David are anointed by Samuel (1 Sam 10:1; 16:13). Samuel twice condemns Saul for reasons that to
us appear almost laughable (1 Sam 13:8–14). In the first case, Saul waits for Samuel seven days to be
able to offer a sacrifice, and, in the end, offers it himself. The ceremony has just begun when Samuel
appears and rebukes Saul. He tells Saul that Saul has already lost the kingship because of his
disobedience. The second episode is similar. After a military campaign against the Amalekites, Saul
does not execute their king, Agag, immediately and does not “put to the ban” (i.e., does not destroy
completely) the best part of the booty (1 Sam 15). Samuel’s reaction is the same: Saul will lose the
kingship (15:23). One has the feeling that it is necessary to justify Saul’s failure at all costs. The
impression is not wrong. In any case, in this story, Saul is the loser, David the victor. As in other
cases, the reasons invoked are more religious than political. We note that in this case, as in so many
others, the criticism comes from a prophet and not from a rival politician or monarch.
The same goes for David himself in the episode of 2 Samuel 11—12. His adultery with Bathsheba
and the murder of Uriah, her husband, are grave matters in themselves. However, two aspects are
surprising. The first is that the less glorious, even scandalous episodes in the life of the greatest king
of Israel and Judah are recounted here. There are no parallels in other literature except when a king
falls into disgrace or else when a dynasty is defeated and replaced by another. David, however,
remains on the throne. The second aspect concerns the role of Nathan, the prophet. David, the greatest
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king of Israel and the founder of the dynasty that bears his name, is rebuked and condemned by a
prophet, Nathan. David’s reaction is exemplary: he pays heed to the prophet and admits his fault. Few
of his successors will follow him down this path, as we have seen (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 17:13–15). The
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text suggests that David will suffer the consequences of his crimes, but will not lose the throne. In
conclusion, one thing is to be noted: the critical voice of the opposition makes itself heard, even in the
case of David.
The passages we have analyzed briefly can be compared to the counterpoint in an ancient melody.
We cannot say that the whole narrative is arranged to demonstrate the thesis just mentioned. On the
contrary, we have the impression of reading, first, the irresistible ascent of David to the throne after
the failure of Saul (1 Sam 16—2 Sam 10), then, the vicissitudes of the succession until the coronation
of Solomon (2 Sam 11—1 Kgs 2). Many texts seek to justify David’s kingship: for example, 1
Samuel 24:17–23 and 26:21–25, where Saul, who has twice been spared by David, recognizes that
David has the right to the kingship; or the “prophecy of Abigail” in 1 Samuel 25:28–31. As said
earlier, the critical texts are added or inserted in counterpoint among the various episodes. The
reader’s task is to listen to the different voices, distinguish them, and assign to each its proper value. I
hope I have succeeded in making clear the complexity of an account that, far from being univocal,
balances the exaltation of the figure of the king with other passages that allow the voice of the
opposition to express itself clearly.
The Books of Kings: Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold

The division between the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings is rather artificial. Nonetheless,
we can point out some characteristics common to a large part of these texts. The most important
difference between the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings is of a literary type. The narrative
form dominates in 1—2 Samuel, whereas, in 1—2 Kings, we more often find a brief chronicle of the
reigns, whether in the North or in the South, accompanied each time by a judgment, often at the
beginning but sometimes at the end. The chronicle forms the framework of a literary work into which
are inserted some episodes that are more significant. Some of these are quite long, for instance, the
stories and legends about the prophets Elijah and Elisha that are collected in 1 Kings 17—2 Kings 13.
We have entitled this section devoted to the Books of Kings “Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold,”
paraphrasing a title of Gabriel García Márquez. Why? To justify this choice, here is a key text that
forms part of David’s testament to Solomon. It is certainly a very important passage because it is
located at a strategic moment: before dying, the founder of the dynasty entrusts his son with the secret
of his success.
When David’s time to die drew near, he charged his son Solomon, saying: “I am about to go
the way of all the earth. Be strong, be courageous, and keep the charge of the LORD your God,
walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his
testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and
wherever you turn. Then the LORD will establish his word that he spoke concerning me: ‘If
your heirs take heed to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and
with all their soul, there shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.’” (1 Kgs 2:1–4)
The reader cannot miss the echoes of the oracle addressed initially to Joshua and quoted in section
2 of this chapter, “Joshua: Rabbi or Conqueror?” (Josh 1:7–8): a similar introduction (“be strong”),
the exhortation to observe the law scrupulously, the reference to the “written law,” and the link
between observance of the law and success in one’s affairs. In our text, the new element is the
dynastic oracle: the future of David’s dynasty is linked to faithfulness to the God of Israel (and to his
law). It is just that which must be emphasized now. David’s death raises the problem of the
succession for the first time. David affirms that the future of the dynasty will be assured if his
successor remains faithful to the law. The key to the succession is also, at the same time, the key with
which to read the whole story of the monarchy in Israel and in Judah. We know in advance how to
interpret the final disaster: the cause will be infidelity to God and his (written) law. The same idea
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will be repeated in very similar words in a divine oracle addressed to Solomon during an apparition
“when [he] had finished building the house of the LORD” (1 Kgs 9:1–9).
In Israel, the monarchy is subject to the law. Today, we might call this a “constitutional monarchy”
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(see, e.g., Deut 17:18). Thus, the law provides a “yardstick” that allows each reign to be assessed, and
we should not be astonished to find, precisely at the beginning of the chronicle of almost every reign,
a familiar tune, that is, the judgement on the king in question according to his faithfulness to the God
of Israel that David spoke of to his son Solomon.8 The first to be unfaithful, according to 1 Kings
11:4, was Solomon himself: “For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other
gods; and his heart was not true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David.” All
Solomon’s wisdom, his great buildings, and the glory of his reign do not blot out the stain of his
infidelity.
The judgments on the sovereigns of the two kingdoms are not very detailed. They are stereotyped
formulas and give the impression that the writer wanted to “grade” each of the kings in accordance
with his own ethical and religious criteria. Almost all the kings are “written off” but, as we have seen,
a few are “successful.”9 The model is David (1 Kgs 11:4; 15:11; 2 Kgs 14:3; 18:3; 22:2), even if his
conduct was not always irreproachable. Of Hezekiah, for example, it is said, “He did what was right
in the sight of the LORD just as his ancestor David had done” (2 Kgs 18:3). The David spoken of in
these “marks” has certainly been smartened up for the occasion.
An essential element of the “grading,” if one can so speak, belongs to the “high places,” that is, to
the sanctuaries erected on the hills and dedicated to various local divinities, or, more simply, local
sanctuaries of the God of Israel. Some kings of Judah are condemned for having built them,10 or for
not having destroyed them.11 On the other hand, two kings are praised for having demolished them:
Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4, 22) and Josiah (2 Kgs 23:8, 13). In the Northern Kingdom, the most common
judgement is different. The king is generally accused of having imitated the sin of Jeroboam, who had
introduced two rival sanctuaries for the temple of Jerusalem, one in Bethel and the other in Dan, each
with its own priesthood (1 Kgs 12:25–33). First Kings 13:33–34 also speaks of “high places” with
their own priests. The “sin of Jeroboam” was to be repeated with exemplary regularity by all his
successors, regardless of the dynasty to which they belonged.12
What is the sin in question? The reader can guess that it could concern the status of the Jerusalem
temple, which does not tolerate rivals. Solomon is condemned for having built other sanctuaries in
addition to the famous temple (1 Kgs 11:1–13). However, one must wait for Josiah’s reform to grasp
that there is only one legitimate sanctuary in the whole of the territory of Israel and Judah (2 Kgs
23:1–20). The reform is brought about by the discovery of a book in the temple of Jerusalem (2 Kgs
22; cf. 23:22). In any case, it is Josiah’s reform, especially the centralization and purification of the
cult, that provides the criterion of judgment for all the kings of Israel and Judah.13 The writers have
interpreted the history of the monarchy in the light of a subsequent event, Josiah’s reform. As in other
cases, history is being read with hindsight, and the lessons of the present or of a recent past are being
projected retroactively into the distant past. Obviously, the judgment verges on prejudice and mirrors,
above all, a Jerusalem mentality that is chauvinistic and not very favorable to the Northern Kingdom.
If we sum up all we have learned so far, we can say that there are at least two important ways to
read the monarchy offered by the writers of the Books of Kings. One is based on the Torah, and, with
some exegetes, we could call it a nomistic reading.14 The second way, just identified, is more cultic,
for it is interested chiefly in the centrality of the Jerusalem cult.
There is a third way of reading the monarchy that we ought to mention: the prophetic. It is present
more sporadically than the cultic reading, but its importance cannot be denied. It appears strongly on
two occasions: with Elijah and his disciple Elisha, in a series of passages in 1 Kings 17—2 Kings 13,
and with the contribution of Isaiah during the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18—20). There are other
prophets mentioned now and then: for example, Ahijah the Shilonite (1 Kgs 11:29–39; 14:2–16);
Shemaiah, a prophet in the time of Rehoboam (12:22–24); the anonymous prophets of 1 Kings 13;
Jehu, son of Hanani (16:1, 7, 12); an anonymous Northern prophet who intervenes during the war
between the kingdom of Samaria and Syria (20:14, 22, 28); Micaiah, son of Imlah, in the account of
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the death of Ahab (22:13–27); the prophet sent by Elisha to anoint Jehu (2 Kgs 9:1–10); Jonah, son of
Amittai, who gives his name to the protagonist of the Book of Jonah (2 Kgs 14:25); and Huldah, the
prophetess consulted by Josiah after the discovery of the “book of the law” in the temple (2 Kgs
22:12–20).
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I cannot omit one of the greatest enigmas of the Old Testament, namely, the absence of Jeremiah
from the prophets mentioned in 1—2 Kings. He was present during all the events recounted in 2
Kings 22—25, but his name never appears. One explanation, among many others, could be his
pro-Babylonian position (cf. Jer 21:8–10 and 27) and perhaps also the ferocity of his attacks against
the temple and the city of Jerusalem (cf. Jer 5:1–9; 7). For the nationalism of the authors of the Books
of Kings, this was probably too much.
To return to our subject, the great events of the history of Israel and Judah are foretold by the
prophets and fulfilled exactly as predicted. Nothing happens by chance in the history of the monarchy.
Everything has a cause, and everything was foretold in advance by the prophets. I cite the more
important events: the division of Solomon’s kingdom (1 Kgs 11:29–39), the destruction of the
sanctuary of Bethel (1 Kgs 13), the symbolic death of the son of Jeroboam who was to be his
successor (14:1–18), the end of the house of Baasha (16:1–2, 12), the tragic ruin of the house of Ahab
(1 Kgs 22), and the fall of the two kingdoms (2 Kgs 17:13–19). On the other hand, things go well
when the prophets are listened to; for example, when Rehoboam obeys Shemaiah (1 Kgs 12:22–24),
when the kings of Israel listen to Elisha (2 Kgs 3:4–27; 6:8–23; 6:24; 7:20; 13:14–19), when
Hezekiah pays heed to Isaiah (2 Kgs 19—20), or when Josiah listens to Huldah, the prophetess who
interprets the “book” found in the temple (2 Kgs 22:12–20). One sentence acts as a refrain in such
passages to emphasize the efficacy of the prophetic word, whether positive or negative: “That
happened according to what the LORD said through the prophet.”15
One detail deserves highlighting. Hezekiah listens to Isaiah, and Jerusalem is not destroyed by
Sennacherib, king of Assyria (2 Kgs 19). Huldah announces the destruction of Jerusalem to Josiah,
but King Josiah, who tears his clothes when he hears the “book” read, will be spared. The lesson is
clear: if Jerusalem and its leaders had paid heed to the prophets, as Hezekiah and Josiah did, the city
would have been saved.
The various elements noted so far—the key role of the law, the centrality of Jerusalem and of its
temple, the key function of the prophets—can be juxtaposed in the same chronicle in an almost jarring
way. A single example will be enough to show this, that is, a brief passage on the reign of Jeroboam
II (c. 787–747 BCE):
In the fifteenth year of King Amaziah son of Joash of Judah, King Jeroboam son of Joash of
Israel began to reign in Samaria; he reigned forty-one years. He did what was evil in the sight
of the LORD; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he caused
Israel to sin. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the
Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant
Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. For the L ORD saw that the
distress of Israel was very bitter; there was no one left, bond or free, and no one to help Israel.
But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he
saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.
Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he fought,
and how he recovered for Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they
not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? Jeroboam slept with his ancestors,
the kings of Israel; his son Zechariah succeeded him. (2 Kgs 14:23–29)
One factor cannot escape the careful reader, that is, the violent contrast between the negative
judgment of this king in 2 Kings 14:24 and the rest of the passage. The sin of Jeroboam II—taken for
granted—seems very serious. It is not clear, then, why his reign lasted so long—forty-one years
(14:23)—why his achievements were sealed by a prophecy (14:25), why he was God’s chosen
instrument to save a humiliated and distressed Israel (14:27), and why he succeeded in diverting
God’s wrath from his people (14:28). In sum, the reign of Jeroboam II is one of the most positive
ones in the whole of the history of the Northern Kingdom. Once again, we observe that the biblical
writers superimpose their positive or negative judgements onto already existing chronicles without
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modifying their substance. In the Bible, the preference is to add and to juxtapose rather than to
redevelop all the material in the service of one or more leading ideas, as Thucydides did, for example.
A more detailed analysis is not possible within the framework of this brief introduction. It appears
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to me that we have sufficient elements to undertake a fruitful reading of a text that does not lack its
appeal despite a style that is heavy at times and an ideology that can seem too rigid. The aim of this
“history” has become clearer: it starts out from a wish to understand the destiny of the people and to
protect its identity when it loses possession of the land and when its principal institutions, the
monarchy and the temple, disappear.
The “Former Prophets” in the National Library of Israel

There remains a problem to be resolved at the end of our brief journey through the Former
Prophets: Who collected the various books, and who included them in Israel’s national library? Of
course, we do not know for certain. We have seen, however, that, as it is told to us, the history begins
in the desert opposite Jericho (Josh 1), and ends up in Babylon (2 Kgs 25). In other words, the
narrative starts off with Joshua’s conquest of the land and ends up with the fall of the kingdom of
Judah when the Babylonians occupy the last independent piece of the promised land. The possession
of the land is, therefore, a common thread that runs through the whole collection of books placed on
the shelf of the Former Prophets in our national library.
The various books also provide explanations for the loss of the promised land. We have mentioned
some of the more important texts, leaving others aside. For the most part, they are speeches uttered at
decisive moments in the story and use a typical phraseology and vocabulary we have encountered in
Deuteronomy:16
1. The double speech of God to Joshua before the conquest (Josh 1:1–6 and 1:7–9)
2. Joshua’s farewell discourse (Josh 23)
3. The speech of the angel of the Lord at Bethel (Judg 2:1–5)
4. The narrator’s discourse on the period of the Judges (Judg 2:6—3:6)
5. Samuel’s speech before the inauguration of the monarchy (1 Sam 12)
6. Solomon’s prayer at the consecration of the temple (1 Kgs 8)
7. The narrator’s discourse after the fall of Samaria (2 Kgs 17)
Not all these discourses reflect the same theology or ideology. Nonetheless, we can say that some
themes are often present: the importance of observing the law and faithfulness to the covenant with
the Lord (YHWH) alone, and the danger of the worship of other gods and of alliances with other
peoples.
Thus, the historical books, or Former Prophets, figure in Israel’s national library because they
explain the past, especially the loss of the land and of independence. However, they are also there for
another reason. They highlight the perennial values of Israel’s existence, those contained in the law of
Moses. Surviving the loss of the land and the end of the monarchy, these values allow the people to
pass through all the vicissitudes of their history.
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5
THE PROPHETS
Writers, Journalists, Columnists, and Pundits of the Period
We have already spoken of some prophets, particularly of Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah.
We have also seen that, in the Hebrew Bible, the prophets are regarded as commentators on the
Torah. In these few pages, I intend to offer a general picture of the prophetic world rather than a
complete introduction to each book. There are many high-quality introductions to the prophetic world.
It seems pointless to repeat here what has been said very well elsewhere.1
The Prophets: Writers and Actors in the Public Life of Their Time
Our principal concern will be to define more precisely the role of the prophets in ancient Israel.
Such a definition should help us to understand better the presence of essentially prophetic literature in
the Hebrew Bible. In other words, why does the national library of Israel contain a section entitled
“Latter Prophets”?
I propose to begin from a contemporary comparison. I think that the Old Testament prophets are
like the great journalists of today, particularly the columnists and pundits. For the sake of clarity, I
immediately reject an obvious objection: there were no journals in the biblical world, and what we
call mass media and public opinion are very modern concepts. According to the experts in the subject,
only from 1 to 5 percent of the population of ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia was capable of
reading and writing. In ancient Greece, where the writing system was simpler and education more
widespread, the figure was probably from 5 to 10 percent. Ancient Israel was probably somewhere
between the two. It is true, however, that this small percentage of the population was very influential.
It belonged to the ruling class or was at its service. The prophets who belong to this class formed the
collective conscience of Israel at a moment of its history. Moreover, they expressed judgements and
opinions that were confirmed by events. From this point of view, they are like today’s pundits.
What did they speak about? The Former Prophets (Joshua—2 Kings) were concerned with the past,
a past that was sometimes legendary and mythical, in an attempt to understand the present. The Latter
Prophets (Isaiah—Malachi) scrutinized the present to discover the emerging contours of the future.
Today, we would say that the prophets were dealing principally with current affairs. The term is
deliberately generic since, in the biblical world as today, the various aspects of public life are often
closely connected. It is difficult to speak of politics without mentioning religion, the economy, and
social questions. We find all these matters in the prophetic oracles under one form or another. Some,
Hosea, for example, preferred to discuss religious problems in the broad sense of the term; others, like
Amos, focused on social justice. Isaiah and Jeremiah concentrated on the politics of the king and the
rulers of their time, the former at the time of the Assyrian invasions, the latter during the period of the
Babylonian conquests. Micah defended the interests of the great landowners of the Judaean
countryside against the capital, Jerusalem. The so-called Second Isaiah (Isa 40—55) is a book that
judged the international situation of the day—the entrance of Cyrus, king of Persia, on the
international scene and the end of the Babylonian Empire—and assessed its results for the fate of
Jerusalem. For its part, the Book of Ezekiel analyzed the causes of the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE,
and elaborated a plan for the rebuilding and restoration of the city. One could apply to this book the
title of a recent work on the same subject: The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem.2 The Minor Prophets made
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their contributions in circumstances that are not always easy to discern. Joel contains a long
penitential liturgy and various reflections occasioned by a disaster that is not clearly identified.
Nahum echoes the song of joy in Israel that accompanied the fall of Nineveh, capital of the hated
Assyrians. Obadiah expresses the hatred of Jerusalem for Edom, which participated in the ruin of the
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Holy City at the hands of the Babylonians in 587 BCE (cf. Ps 137[136]:7). Habakkuk gives voice to
the fear that seized Jerusalem threatened by the Chaldeans, that is, the Babylonian Empire. Zephaniah
is very close to Jeremiah: he unleashes his anger chiefly against Judah and Jerusalem to censure their
perversion of the cult and their lack of political judgement. The book also contains oracles against
other nations, a traditional element in the prophetic books (Zeph 2:4–15; cf. Isa 13—23; Jer 46—51;
Ezek 25—32; Joel 4; Amos 1—2). Haggai is concerned with reminding the exiles who have returned
to Jerusalem of their duties, particularly to rebuild the temple. Zechariah, a composite book, contains
reflections on the conflicts following the return of the exiles. Malachi—the name means “messenger
of YHWH/of the LORD”—mounts bitter criticism of the postexilic clergy and announces an imminent
and punitive divine intervention.3
Clearly, at this point, the prophets are closely involved in the public life of their nation. Often, they
are figures who belong to the great aristocratic families of their countries. Two indications support
this opinion. First, they were often in contact with the royal court; they were regular or occasional
counselors of the king. Second, they were cultured and educated, and they left us writings that bear
witness to a certain literary education. It would be difficult to encounter these characteristics if they
were not in the highest strata of the population, that is, the ruling class.
Isaiah and Jeremiah, for example, were often received and consulted by their sovereigns. However,
they were not always listened to, and, according to their judgment and that of history, the kings were
wrong not to have heeded them. The same holds true for Elijah and Elisha, whom we frequently find
in conversation with their sovereigns. Elijah has a conflicted relationship with Ahab and Jezebel,
whereas Elisha is much more flexible.
According to Amos 1:1 and 7:14, the prophet Amos was a herdsman, that is, the owner of several
sheep. The same, rather rare, word from Amos 1:1 (nôqéd) is employed in 2 Kings 3:4 for Mesha, the
king of Moab: “Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder, who used to deliver to the king of
Israel one hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of one hundred thousand rams.” This is confirmed
by the term used in 7:14 (bôqér), which, clearly, signifies the owner of large animals. In fact, the term
derives from the same root as the word baqar, which means “large animal.” In verse 15, on the other
hand, there is mention of a “small animal” (sôn). The other term in verse 14, often translated with
“dresser of sycamore trees” (bôls šiqmîm), is very enigmatic. Perhaps Amos was an owner of
plantations of sycamores that were used to produce wood used in construction (cf. Isa 9:9). Or what
we have here is the ficus sycomorus, a tree that produces fruit three to four times a year. Whatever the
case, Amos was not just a simple shepherd or herdsman.
Jeremiah was a priest (Jer 1:1), like Ezekiel (Ezek 1:3). In Israel, as elsewhere, the priests were
generally educated because they were responsible for teaching the Torah and instructing the people in
matters of worship (see, e.g., Deut 33:10; Jer 18:18). However, Jeremiah belonged to a priestly family
that had been “exiled” to Anathoth (cf. 1 Kgs 2:26–27), while Ezekiel was one of the priests of the
Jerusalem temple. This detail could explain, at least in part, why the two prophets have quite different
positions on various points and not only on the role of the temple in the Holy City.
Very little is known of the other prophets. Of Micah, for example, it is said only that he is from
Moresheth, a small town of the kingdom of Judah, near to Lachish, to the southwest of Jerusalem.
According to what we can deduce from his oracles, he probably belonged to the class of large landed
proprietors of Judah. However, we do not have any direct information on his social position. Of the
other prophets we know even less, except for some genealogical information.
We could say that the prophets are “politicians,” even if I prefer to speak of “pundits,” because they
exercised their influence chiefly by taking courageous stands, rather than by their political decisions.
They had a vision of events and of the future that was neither demagogic nor opportunist. For this
reason, they were often opposed to their sovereigns, who allowed themselves to be guided by the
mirage of profit and immediate advantage. The long-term outlook was not the improved virtue of the
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king, and that is the reproof that springs most frequently from the pen of the prophetic writers.
The Prophetic Writers and the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Invasions

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The great prophets arise at the beginning of a definite period, that of the first Assyrian invasions.
Amos, who chronologically is the first of the writing prophets, was active under Jeroboam II
(787–747 BCE; cf. Amos 1:1). His book never speaks of the Assyrians but announces an imminent
invasion of the country (3:11; 6:14; cf. 7:9; 9:1–4) and the deportation of its population (7:11, 17).
The Assyrians used to deport the peoples they had subjected, and Amos was, perhaps, informed about
this, even if the allusions are too imprecise to allow more positive conclusions. The first Assyrian
king mentioned in the Bible is Tiglath-Pileser III (747–727 BCE), who intervened during the reign of
Menahem (2 Kgs 15:19–20), a successor of Jeroboam II. The threat was coming near, though not yet
precise for the prophet Amos. It would become so in the Books of Hosea (Hos 7:11; 9:3; 10:6) and
Isaiah (Isa 7:17, 20; 8:4, 7; 10:12; 19:23; 20:1, 4, 6; 36:2, 4, 8, 16; not all these texts are from the
prophet Isaiah).
However, what is the link between (written) prophecy and the Assyrian invasions? It is not easy to
determine it with total precision. Various elements come into play. First, the Assyrian threat creates a
new national awareness. The prophets are those who are the first to take account of the fragility of
situations that seemed strong and secure, such as the integrity of the territory and the independence of
the nation. The people, however, continue to live in a happy tranquility and do not notice the looming
peril. Amos is very clear about this: “All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say,
‘Evil shall not overtake or meet us’” (Amos 9:10). Later, Jeremiah will be angry with his fellow
citizens who do not understand the present situation and think that they can live “in peace” without
futile fears. At that time, the threat is no longer Assyria but the neo-Babylonian Empire, which will
sweep away the kingdom of Judah.
Jeremiah’s fellow citizens do not wish to listen to him because he is a “prophet of disaster” and an
inveterate pessimist:
They [the false prophets] keep saying to those who despise the word of the LORD, “It shall be
well with you”; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, “No
calamity shall come upon you.” (Jer 23:17)
One could easily enlarge the list of such texts. A saying of Isaiah sums up well the principal
accusation the prophets directed at their people:
The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand. (Isa 1:3)4
Jeremiah repeats the same idea with different images. Isaiah borrows his comparison from the world
of domestic animals, Jeremiah from that of migratory birds, always to stigmatize the lack of
clear-sightedness of the people who have less understanding of their own world compared with the
animals’ understanding of theirs:
Even the stork in the heavens
knows its times;
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane
observe the time of their coming;
but my people do not know
the ordinance of the LORD. (Jer 8:7)
In this context, “the judgement of the Lord” is the sentence pronounced on his people. Lack of
understanding and inability to recognize the “signs of the times” and to make the right decisions at the
appropriate moment are Israel’s greatest faults. They are also among the principal causes of the fall of
Samaria and Jerusalem.
A second factor is linked to the invasions, first, the Assyrian and, then, the neo-Babylonian. The
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international situation provoked intense debates on the policy to be adopted and, inevitably, created
deep divisions within the ruling class. The crux of the argument was whether it was necessary to forge
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an alliance with a foreign power or not. In the case of a positive answer, the question was, with
whom? International politics had a clear effect on internal ones. Parties and factions formed for or
against the agreements with foreigners.
Generally, the prophets are very opposed to such alliances. Today, they would be referred to as
isolationists. Or, to take up an image from the Book of Proverbs, they urge Israel to “drink water from
your own cistern” (Prov 5:15).5 Isaiah, for example, also uses the image of water to get his message
across:
Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and melt in fear [or:
rejoice] before Rezin and the son of Remaliah; therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the
mighty flood waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its
channels and overflow all its banks; it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over,
it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O
Immanuel. (Isa 8:6–8)
The source of Jerusalem’s water is the pool of Siloam.6 Isaiah denounces the leaders of Jerusalem
because they despise their own resources to go and search for help elsewhere. Rezin and Remaliah
are, respectively, kings of Damascus and Samaria. They want to force Jerusalem to join a coalition
against Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria. Ahaz, king of Judah, refuses and concludes, on the
contrary, an alliance precisely with Assyria (cf. 2 Kgs 16:5, 7–9) against Damascus and Samaria.
However, the translation of verse 6 is problematic. If we insert the oracle of Isaiah 8 into its historical
context, we can offer two interpretations. If we read “fear” in Isaiah 8:6c (corrected text), Isaiah is
asserting that Jerusalem has sought protection against Samaria and Syria by allying herself with
Assyria. For Isaiah, the consequence is that Assyria, symbolized by the Euphrates, will one day
invade the kingdom of Judah, the land of Immanuel (Isa 8:8). The prediction will come true in 701
BCE with the invasion of Sennacherib.
The second interpretation is based on the literal translation of 8:6c: “rejoices.” Jerusalem, or at least
one of its factions, wishes to make an alliance with Syria and the Northern Kingdom against
Tiglath-Pileser. For Isaiah, the consequence will be the invasion of the country by Assyria.
Be that as it may, Isaiah seems to have rejected both alliances, whether that with Rezin and Pekah,
the son of Remaliah, or that with Tiglath-Pileser. In the oracle of Isaiah 7:1–9, the prophet clearly
tells King Ahaz not to fear the attack of the ruler of Samaria and his ally, the king of Damascus. He
will say the same when Sennacherib besieges Jerusalem, at least according to Isaiah 37:22–35. He
will also be against the alliance with Egypt (Isa 28:7–22; 30:1–17; 31:1–3; cf. 36:6) and, finally, with
Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon (Isa 39). We do not know if all these oracles go back to the
historical figure of Isaiah. At least we can say that the prophet we encounter in the Book of Isaiah had
a very clear position and anticipated a form of political isolationism. Perhaps he believed that the
Holy City was impregnable (see Isa 7:1, 7; 26:1; 28:16–17; 29:1–7; 31:4–9; 37:33–35; cf. 2 Kgs
16:5). The city was not of great strategic or economic interest, at least before the reign of Hezekiah.
“We will live happy, we will live hidden” could have been Isaiah’s motto. In fact, one can interpret
the oracle of Isaiah 30:15–17 in this way:
For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused and said,
“No! We will flee upon horses”—
therefore you shall flee!
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”—
therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
A thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
at the threat of five you shall flee,
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until you are left

like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.
Jerusalem has only to remain quiet, in her “splendid isolation,” and not seek safety in risky military
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operations. She did not want this, and she was wrong, says Isaiah.
I have chosen the example of Isaiah because he is the prophet—or the book—that provides us with
the greatest number of factors with which to reconstruct the political position of a prophet, a position
profoundly rooted in his faith: “If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” (Isa 7:9b).
Other prophets had a similar viewpoint. I cite only some texts that are more representative of a
position widespread among the prophets, though bearing in mind the different contexts and some
important nuances.
The first is Hosea 7:11–12, a prophet almost contemporary with Isaiah:
Ephraim has become like a dove,
silly and without sense;
they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.
As they go, I will cast my net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air,
I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly.
Alliances with foreign powers are simply traps, says Hosea’s oracle, and only very unintelligent birds
like the dove fall into them. The satire is undoubtedly fierce. Another of Hosea’s texts runs along the
same lines (12:1):
Ephraim herds the wind,
and pursues the east wind all day long;
they multiply falsehood and violence;
they make a treaty with Assyria,
and oil is carried to Egypt.
The east wind is the terrible sirocco capable of breaking up ships (Ps 48[47]:8; cf. Ezek 27:26).
Probably, Hosea is alluding to the alliance of his namesake, King Hoshea, son of Elah, last sovereign
of Samaria, who first submitted to Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria (2 Kgs 17:3), and then betrayed
him to ally himself with So, pharaoh of Egypt (2 Kgs 17:4). This strategy proved fatal for the
Northern Kingdom, which was attacked and conquered by Assyria because of his disloyalty (2 Kgs
17:4–6).
At least a century later, the prophet Jeremiah continued the battle against foreign alliances. We find
the fountain image of Isaiah 8:6 again in Jeremiah 2:13:
For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
For Jeremiah, the source of living water is, of course, the God of Israel. The cisterns are the other
gods, the divinities of other nations. The same image returns some verses later, this time in a passage
that is clearly opposed to alliances with the great foreign powers (2:18):
What then do you gain by going to Egypt,
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria,
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
Jeremiah calls on Jerusalem to drink its water from a single source, the “fountain of living water,” a
metaphor for the God of Israel. In fact, the prophet is urging the city to seek its salvation from within,
from its own resources, and not from abroad, in dangerous alliances with foreign powers.
It is necessary, however, to add a clarification to what we have just said. Jeremiah was actually
pro-Babylon. We alluded to this when speaking of the prophets in 1—2 Kings. What is the
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explanation for this? It is because the situation changed radically after the first siege of Jerusalem in
597 BCE, during Jeremiah’s time. The city surrendered and was, therefore, spared, but the king and
part of the population were deported to Babylon, and the city paid a heavy tribute (2 Kgs 24:10–16).
Henceforward, Jerusalem formed part of the neo-Babylonian Empire. Jeremiah’s choice in the
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earlier-mentioned oracle (Jer 21:8, 10; 27) is realistic, and, in his case too, one could speak of
Realpolitik. For the prophet, rebellion is futile because it can only provoke a second disaster, even
worse than the first one. Moreover, Zedekiah is bound with an oath to the king of Babylon and has
promised fidelity. Breaking that oath would have catastrophic consequences. Alas, once again,
Jeremiah would be right.
After the exile, things changed. The monarchy was not restored, and the prophets’ criticism was
directed against other forms of power, for example, the priesthood in the Book of Malachi. The
problems are different. Most of the prophets sought to feed the hope of a people discouraged in the
face of the difficulties of the return and the rebuilding. When necessary, they also denounced abuses,
but, in general, the tone was more positive. This is the case in the final part of Ezekiel (Ezek 40—48),
the second and third parts of Isaiah (Isa 40—55; 56—66), and the Books of Haggai and Zechariah.
The postexilic prophets resemble those figures who, after the Second World War, managed to
mobilize spirits for the rebuilding and creation of a different world. I am thinking of Chiara Lubich
and Riccardo Lombardi (Il mondo migliore) in Italy, and Father Johannes Leppich in Germany. Right
to the end, and in every way, the biblical prophets sought to read a plan of God in what was
happening and to mark out a way for their people.
The Prophets and the Defense of National Solidarity

I can only hint at the numerous prophetic pages on social justice. I can simply open a brief
discussion on the reasons for this interest in social questions. It must be said that the defense of the
weak—the personae miserae, the poor, the strangers, the widows, and the orphans—is a
commonplace of the royal propaganda in the ancient Near East. It is normal, therefore, to find the
same set of themes in the biblical texts. One text illustrates this motif better than the others, Psalm
72(71):12–14, a eulogium of the ideal king:
For he [the king] delivers the needy when they call,
the poor and those who have no helper.
He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and saves the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence he redeems their life;
and precious is their blood in his sight.
As we have seen, the prophets form part of the ruling class. We should not be surprised if they
remind their sovereigns of their duties. Isaiah, to take but one example, censures the princes of
Jerusalem for not being concerned to render justice to the widow and orphan (Isa 1:23). Jeremiah says
the same, but addresses himself directly to the kings of the house of David (Jer 22:1–5; cf. 21:11–12):
Thus says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
and say: Hear the word of the LORD, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and
your servants, and your people who enter these gates. Thus says the LORD: Act with justice
and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed.
And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood
in this place. For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall
enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their
servants, and their people. But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the L
ORD, that this house shall become a desolation.
It could be argued that the prophets made use of this theme for propaganda purposes. Usually,
whoever criticizes power reproaches it for neglecting the weakest members of society. That is hardly
new. Is it really the case here? It is difficult to say. However, there are good reasons to think that,
beyond the use of the customary language, the prophets had serious reasons for defending the
oppressed.
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To make progress, we must investigate further the juridical background of the prophetical
preaching. As we have said, the prophets come from comfortable backgrounds. They (the preexilic
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prophets) are aware of the threat that hangs over the people, and they are seeking to find a way to save
them from danger. One necessary condition, obviously, is the solidarity of all. Division in the face of
the enemy would be fatal. This is the motif invoked by some of the prophets.
Instead of piling up texts from everywhere, I prefer to begin with some more concrete examples to
illustrate the theme. My thesis is that the prophets are seeking to defend the old clan law, based on
solidarity, against some innovations introduced by the rulers for motives that are political and, above
all, economic. In other words, the prophets are rather conservative, at least in questions of law and
justice.
The first example concerns property. The most explicit relevant passage is Isaiah 5:8–10:7
Ah, you who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is room for no one but you,
and you are left to live alone
in the midst of the land!
The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing:
Surely many houses shall be desolate,
large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,
and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.8
Isaiah’s criticism is very well illustrated by the story of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kgs 21). It is difficult to
date the composition of 1 Kings 21, just as it is hard to distinguish the various stages of its
composition. There are probably some subsequent additions at the end of the chapter, for example, in
1 Kings 21:23–26. At any rate, the problem raised by 1 Kings 21 is that tackled in Isaiah 5. To
summarize: King Ahab (874–853 BCE) desires Naboth’s vineyard, which is adjacent to his palace in
Jezreel. He meets the proprietor and proposes a deal: he wishes to give Naboth another, better,
vineyard in exchange or pay him the price in cash. The proposal is certainly sincere, and there is
nothing more to be said, at least at first sight. However, Naboth refuses. Why? The reason could be a
kind of emotional link with the land of his ancestors. That is not the case, however. We are in the
presence of a conflict between two ideas of property law. For Ahab, all real estate can be sold and
bought. It is enough to find an agreement for the exchange, in kind or in money. In other words,
everything has its market value. There are no limits to the power of acquisition, except the possession,
or the nonpossession of enough means of payment.
For Naboth, however, there are different limits: some goods are inalienable and so cannot be sold
or bought. For this reason, Naboth introduces his response with an oath formula: “The L ORD forbid
that I should give you my ancestral inheritance” (1 Kgs 21:3). We are touching on something
fundamental here and impossible to trade, says Naboth. He adds something else that is essential: the
land does not belong to him because it is his “ancestral inheritance.” It is the property of the family, of
the clan, from generation to generation, and not of the individual who has the stewardship of it during
his lifetime. Naboth received that land as an inheritance from his ancestors and must transmit it intact
to his descendants. This is a concept of property law where the ownership is collective,
“transgenerational,” and not individual. The vineyard forms part of the portion of the promised land
entrusted to Naboth’s clan by God himself as the means of subsistence. In the account of the origins
of Israel, the land was distributed by Joshua, after the conquest, and at God’s command. In the period
before the monarchy, every tribe and every clan received a share of the land. Naboth does not want to
receive a vineyard from the king because that would depend on the latter’s generosity. He prefers to
answer to no one but God.
The principle enunciated by Naboth is also found in further texts such as Numbers 36:7: “No
inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain
the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.”9 The prophets, Elijah, Isaiah, and Micah, for example,
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clearly defend the ancient property law according to which the land inherited from one’s ancestors is
inalienable.
A second principle of law maintained by the prophets is that of solidarity among all the citizens of
the people. In the prophetic language, the word justice is often equivalent to solidarity. Amos is
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undoubtedly the prophet who found the strongest images for the defense of the weakest against their
oppressors, in this famous passage, for instance (Amos 8:4–8):
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

saying, “When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
In this passage, Amos condemns the mercantile mentality that was very widespread within Israel’s
wealthy class at this period. In the same way as Ahab, the rich and powerful of the time think they can
acquire and sell everything, or almost everything. Furthermore, they claim to be able to dictate the
conditions of trade to the poorest. Amos criticizes and condemns not only fraud in commerce, for
example, the falsification of weights and the arbitrary raising of prices. He disapproves, above all, of
trade in people, of the sale of the poor as slaves. The practice is known. A poor man who cannot pay
his debts has to give up his children and finally himself as a slave to pay the sum owed to the creditor.
The widow who addresses the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 4:1 finds herself in exactly this situation: the
creditor is coming to take the widow’s two sons as slaves.10
A later account, Nehemiah 5:1–13, allows the obtaining of the juridical principle maintained by
various prophets from a concrete case:
Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish kin. For
there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many; we must get grain,
so that we may eat and stay alive.” There were also those who said, “We are having to pledge
our fields, our vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the famine.” And there
were those who said, “We are having to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay the
king’s tax. Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our children are the same as their
children; and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our
daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to
others.”
I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. After thinking it over, I
brought charges against the nobles and the officials; I said to them, “You are all taking interest
from your own people.” And I called a great assembly to deal with them, and said to them, “As
far as we were able, we have bought back our Jewish kindred who had been sold to other
nations; but now you are selling your own kin, who must then be bought back by us!” They
were silent, and could not find a word to say. So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not
good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God, to prevent the taunts of the nations our
enemies? Moreover I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let
us stop this taking of interest. Restore to them, this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their
olive orchards, and their houses, and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that you have
been exacting from them.” Then they said, “We will restore everything and demand nothing
more from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests, and made them take an oath
to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God
shake out everyone from house and from property who does not perform this promise. Thus
may they be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said, “Amen,” and praised the L
ORD. And the people did as they had promised.
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There are some problems of translation and interpretation in this passage. One thing is substantially
sure, however: Nehemiah must intervene to defend the poorest classes of the population who, to pay
their debts, have had to mortgage and then surrender, first their goods, and then their own liberty. In
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the postexilic community, the abuses denounced by Amos, Isaiah, and Micah reappear very rapidly.
The text is probably speaking of a conflict between those who have returned from exile—the “Jewish
people”—and those who remained in the land—the people (Neh 5:1). The former are richer, more
powerful, and more educated than the others.

From the juridical point of view, one word appears to me to be very important: brother (Neh 5:1, 5,
7, 8, 10). The term underlines the close bond that unites all the members of the community. If they are
“brothers,” they are equal. No one can dominate a brother or deprive him of his liberty. This principle
finds its formulation in the requirement of Leviticus 25:46: “As for your fellow Israelites, no one shall
rule over the other with harshness.” In Nehemiah 5:5, the people express the idea with a strong image:
“Our flesh is the same as that of our kindred.” The term flesh (in Hebrew, br) appears in a similar
context in the story of Joseph. When Judah tries to convince his brothers not to kill Joseph, he says to
them, “He is our brother, our own flesh” (Gen 37:27). In the story of Joseph, Judah appeals to this
principle to save the life of Joseph, who will, nonetheless, be sold as a slave. In the case of Genesis
37:27, the word flesh signifies “family,” in the strict sense of the word.11 In Nehemiah 5, the concept
is invoked to defend the dignity and liberty of the person, and it applied to all those who belong to the
same people who are considered as a “family” in the broad sense of the term. Like Nehemiah, the
prophets are defending a juridical principle of solidarity among all the members of the same people
and draw all the consequences from it.
In conclusion, we can confirm that the great prophets are like our most important pundits, often
critical in dealing with power and defenders of the fundamental values that have been overthrown by
the powerful. To some, they could appear as conservatives and nationalists. However, they have also
handed on to us the taste for freedom of speech and an unfailing commitment to the protection of the
most authentic treasures of their people.
The Formation of the Prophetic Section in Israel’s National Library

When and how were all the Latter Prophets collected together on one shelf? This is a very difficult
question and specialists continue to investigate it. There are, however, some elements provided by the
Bible itself that allow sketching a preliminary answer.
We find a first indication in the three Greater Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Each in his
own way, all three speak of the annotation of their oracles. Twice, in chapter 8, the prophet Isaiah
receives the order to put his oracles into writing. The first passage is well known (Isa 8:1–4):
Then the LORD said to me, Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters,
“Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” and have it attested for me by reliable witnesses, the
priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah. And I went to the prophetess, and she
conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz; for
before the child knows how to call “My father” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus and
the spoil of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.
The second text (Isa 8:16) is more important for our purposes:
Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples.
The message to be sealed is not particularly important (Isa 8:11–15). It is a kind of summary of the
preaching of Isaiah, who seeks for trust in God alone. In more modern terms, Isaiah exhorts his
hearers to be critical toward all human authorities. However, the important point is this: Isaiah
entrusts his message to his disciples. We can speculate, with a good margin of probability, that
Isaiah’s disciples preserved not only this oracle but also many other oracles typical of the prophet’s
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preaching. We must not necessarily imagine Isaiah’s disciples as like the disciples of Jesus or those of
the rabbinic schools. The prophets’ disciples were at the same time pupils and supporters of an
important and well-off figure who was himself simultaneously head of a school and head of a party, at
least in the broad sense of the term. To take up again the image employed at the beginning of this
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chapter, the disciples were the close collaborators of the pundits who were the prophets—in this case,
of Isaiah. They worked for the same current of opinion.
Jeremiah, who lived a little less than a century after Isaiah, does not speak of disciples but rather of
a secretary, Baruch (Jer 36:4, 32). Jeremiah must have been affluent to be able to employ the services
of a secretary. In fact, Jeremiah 36 is a significant chapter because its element of greatest importance
is no longer the person of the prophet but rather a “scroll.” Jeremiah dictates a scroll to his secretary,
Baruch (Jer 36:1–4), who reads it in the temple before all the people and some of the nobles
(36:5–10). He reads it a second time before the “princes,” that is—probably—the officials of the royal
court (36:11–20). These “princes” then go and read the scroll before King Jehoiakim. However, he
orders it to be burned in a brazier and seeks—in vain—to arrest the prophet (36:21–26). At God’s
orders, Jeremiah dictates again to Baruch the oracles burned by the king and adds to them another
series of oracles (36:27–32).
The message of this account is twofold. First, the prophetic word cannot be destroyed, only its
material support, the scroll. Second, the prophetic word is now entrusted to the scroll, which is read
three times: before the people (36:10), the princes (36:15–16), and the king (36:23). According to this
account, the hearers will be judged for their reaction to the reading (see 36:23–25). Now the scroll
takes the place of the prophet himself. The message for the readers of the Book of Jeremiah is clear:
they too will be judged based on their reaction to the reading of the book they have in their hands.
Finally, the Book of Ezekiel lets us see that we have really and truly passed from the world of
orality to that of writing. In the account of the call of Jeremiah, we read this (Jer 1:9): “Then the L ORD
put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your
mouth.’” It is very instructive to compare Jeremiah 1:9 with a very similar moment in the call of
Ezekiel (Ezek 2:9—3:2):
I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it. He spread it before
me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation
and mourning and woe.
He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the
house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
God puts “words” into Jeremiah’s mouth but asks Ezekiel to swallow a scroll. The Book of Ezekiel
assumes from the start what we have encountered in Jeremiah 36: the word of God is now entrusted to
a “scroll.” In this case, too, the turning point coincides with the experience of the exile.
Among the Minor Prophets, only Habakkuk is given a similar order to that received by Isaiah or
Jeremiah (Hab 2:2):
Then the LORD answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
In these passages, we have some important evidence about the writing down of the oracles in the
prophetic books. Why were they handed down to the following generations and not lost? In fact, we
can suppose that not all the prophetic oracles were preserved. Those we possess are only a selection.
The answer to this question is, again, not an easy one. There are probably various reasons. The first,
and most important, is that the prophetic books we find in the biblical canon helped Israel to
understand its own destiny, to live through the terrible trials of history, and to keep its faith and its
own identity while other nations simply disappeared from the international stage. The prophets who
announced the final catastrophe were evidently right. However, they interpreted the events as divine
punishment. The defeat and exile of Israel and Judah were not due chiefly to internal causes. In the
theological language of the prophets, the God of Israel had punished his people because of their
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infidelity. This interpretation is certainly not very favorable to Israel, but it has two advantages. First,
the God of Israel maintains his sovereignty because the disaster was not due to the superiority of the
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Assyrians or the Babylonians over the God of the defeated nation. It was he himself who called the
Assyrians or the Babylonians to punish his people. Moreover, the God who punished can also
reestablish relations with his people, offering them a future and, after punishment, pardon.
A second reason, perhaps passed over by exegetes, is the literary quality of certain prophetic books.
Some are really the work of great writers. I am thinking, above all, of First and Second Isaiah, and of
some very moving chapters of Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah. The others are, perhaps, less well
known, but some of them also have undeniable qualities.
Finally, a third reason is to be found in the success and reputation of some of the personalities
involved. Ezekiel, for example, has a rather contorted style, and his visions are often complex.
However, he has more than one good quality. He manages to demonstrate that the God of the
Jerusalem temple is not actually bound to that temple like so many other divinities of the ancient Near
East. He is a God who can move because he is carried on a throne moved by beings who combine
human intelligence, the strength of the bull, the majesty of the lion, and the eagle’s ability to fly.
Ezekiel’s God can move, and so he comes to find those who have been exiled to Babylon (Ezek
1—3). One day, he will return to his temple in Jerusalem, after it has been rebuilt (Ezek 43). The
Book of Ezekiel was essential to let the people keep their faith in their God and in their own future
during the years of the exile.
Subsequently, the prophetic books were handed on from generation to generation. In the first place,
the prophets’ disciples—their followers and supporters—and then the scribes of the following
generations were not content just to hand on the work of their masters unaltered. In the ancient world,
handing on always meant updating and actualizing. Literal faithfulness to texts is a modern innovation
that became effective only after the invention of printing. Thus, the prophetic books known to us are
works containing the original words of the prophets, interpreted and commented on by their disciples
and by the scribes who copied the texts. It is not always easy to distinguish the authentic words
attributable to the prophets from later accretions. Often an amalgam has been formed that no longer
allows us to make out the voice of the prophet from the subsequent comments.
Some examples will illustrate this better than long explanations. The prophet Hosea preached in the
Northern Kingdom just before the fall of Samaria. His oracles are naturally addressed to the Northern
Kingdom. However, we find a series of references to the kingdom of Judah (cf. Hos 1:7; 2:2; 6:11;
12:1). Mostly, these are actualizations of the text due to scribes of the kingdom of Judah who, after
the fall of Samaria, collected Hosea’s texts and adapted them to a new situation. We could say the
same for an oracle against Judah found in Amos 2:4–5. The series of oracles was completed when the
Book of Amos passed into the kingdom of Judah.
Another example is found in Isaiah 40:7:
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
This last clause interrupts the rhythm of the famous poem, which begins with the words, “Comfort, O
comfort my people,” and, besides, is very prosaic. In poetry, images are not explained. The note is
due to a scribe who wished at all costs to make clear the image employed by the poet so that nothing
escaped his readers.
The Book of Jeremiah is, in its entirety, an illustration of this phenomenon. A quick comparison of
the Hebrew text, the so-called Masoretic Text, and the Greek translation of the Septuagint shows that
the Greek is shorter than the Hebrew by almost 20 percent, that is, by almost a fifth, and the order of
the chapters is not the same. The conclusion of the majority of those who specialize in this is simple:
the Book of Jeremiah translated into Greek was not the Jeremiah of the Hebrew Masoretic Text. The
latter is more recent and was revised, corrected, modified, and completed even after the translation
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into Greek in the second century BCE. In the book of Jeremiah, we have a privileged witness to the
vitality of the tradition.
There are many examples of this phenomenon, examples of various types. In some cases, it is a
question of a word, in others, of longer texts, in certain ones, even of whole chapters. However, the
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essential thing is to grasp that the prophetic texts were integrated into the national library of Israel
because of these successive additions that gave a new value, an up-to-date value, to the ancient texts.
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6
THE WISDOM BOOKS, THE “GURUS” OF

ISRAEL
Israel possessed a considerable wisdom tradition just like its more important neighbors, Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Greece.1 Although its wisdom literature is less abundant than that of Egypt and
less systematic than the philosophical wisdom of Greece, it has its merits, as we shall see. How are we
to characterize the wise men or sages of Israel? Without entering into long debates on the subject, I
propose to compare Israel’s sages to the “gurus” of our modern world. I understand the word guru in
its broadest sense. They are the masters of thought, the philosophers, the thinkers, the eminent
intellectuals of biblical times. They reflected on the great problems of human existence, the meaning
of life and death, the absurdity of suffering, and on very many other themes of daily life: friendship,
the family, marriage, the education of children, banquets, good manners, and still more.
The aim of this introduction is very limited, and so I shall deal only with some basic aspects of the
Wisdom literature. I shall give some more characteristic examples of the sapiential books of greater
importance: Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Sirach, and Wisdom. Finally, I shall say a word about the other
books that belong to the third part of the Hebrew Bible.
The Book of Proverbs: The Wisdom “Canapés”

The Book of Proverbs is certainly not popular. There is no point in looking for it in the hit parade
of most-read biblical books, and it is not a bestseller in our bookshops. Besides, proverbs exist in all
our world’s cultures, so it is normal that there are some in the biblical world. We are looking at a very
common form of popular and traditional wisdom.
Proverbs are employed in very specific circumstances. Each has its meaning. Thus, I think that they
can be tasted like canapés during predinner drinks: one at a time, without any rush, during a pleasant
conversation with friends and acquaintances. Better not to try too many of them, for then the meal
arrives with all its courses. The proverbs serve to sharpen the appetite and provide an occasion for the
guests to get to know one another. When they have carried out their function, it is time to go on to
something else.
A brief example will be enough for understanding the literary genre of Proverbs:
Three things are too wonderful for me;
four I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas
and the way of a man with a girl. (Prov 30:18–19)
There are many proverbs of many different kinds. This proverb is rather like the koan of Zen
spirituality, that is, enigmatic sayings that aim to kindle reflection.2 The above proverb speaks of
some mysterious invisible “things” that leave no trace: the way of an eagle in the sky, the path of a
snake on the rock, the course of a ship in the sea. The fourth and final element of the numerical
proverb like this is usually of another kind. It too speaks of a “path” (in Hebrew: derek), but this time
we enter another world, that of the relations between man and woman. The meaning is not clear. Is it
speaking of the attraction between man and woman? Of seduction and love? Of intercourse or
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procreation? It is difficult to say. Be that as it may, poets, philosophers, and psychologists have
devoted themselves to the subject for centuries. In a few words, the Book of Proverbs tells us that it is
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as difficult to explain what happens between a man and a woman as it is to follow a track in the air,
on a rock, or in the sea. It attains a maximum of effect with a minimum of means. There is much
wisdom in the expression, but also a great deal of poetry.
Job: Model of Patience or Prometheus?

The Book of Job is too well known to need a long introduction. I would like, however, to remove
some misunderstandings. Job is often presented as a model of patience in suffering. One phrase is
often quoted: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job
1:21b). These words are found in the narrative prologue to the story and express Job’s first response
in his trial. He has just lost all his goods and his children. After his body is struck by a grave illness,
he reacts once again in what we could call an exemplary way: “Shall we receive the good at the hand
of God, and not receive the bad?” (2:10b).
In the poetic part of the book, however, Job behaves differently. He curses the day of his
conception and of his birth (Job 3). He cries out that his suffering is unbearable and, above all, seeks
to understand the reason for it. Thus, he would be closer to Prometheus, the Greek hero who stole fire
and was condemned to suffer a fearful punishment: he was chained to a rock while an eagle devoured
his liver. As soon as the liver regrew, the eagle reappeared to devour it again. This lasted until he was
freed by Hercules. Does Job, then, suffer because of his presumption? The speeches of his friends
tend in this direction. They attribute Job’s suffering to some hidden sin. However, Job rejects this
simplistic solution. There is no proportion between his faults and the punishment. Why do the wicked
and dishonest not suffer more? There is no justice in this world, says Job. He would like to obtain an
explanation from God, but how does he achieve this? One passage is a good expression of his
dilemma:
Then Job answered:
“Today also my complaint is bitter;

his hand is heavy despite my groaning.
Oh, that I knew where I might find him,
that I might come even to his dwelling!
I would lay my case before him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn what he would answer me,
and understand what he would say to me.
Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
No; but he would give heed to me.
There an upright person could reason with him,
and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.
“If I go forward, he is not there;
or backward, I cannot perceive him;
on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;
I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold.
My foot has held fast to his steps;
I have kept his way and have not turned aside.
I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;
I have treasured in my bosom the words of his mouth.
But he stands alone and who can dissuade him?
What he desires, that he does.
For he will complete what he appoints for me;
and many such things are in his mind.
Therefore I am terrified at his presence;
when I consider, I am in dread of him.
God has made my heart faint;
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the Almighty has terrified me;

If only I could vanish in darkness,
and thick darkness would cover my face!” (Job 23:1–17)
Job seeks at all costs to encounter God and seeks, we would say today, an audience. He wishes to
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debate with God and receive an explanation. He does not know where to go, however, and the only
response is silence. Job feels himself the defenseless prey of an absolute will. He does not give up,
however, and continues the battle, a battle against an enemy who is infinitely stronger.
In fact, in the book, Job receives a reply from God (Job 38—41). God begins with a long account
of the creation with reference to ten animals (38:39—39:30). This description only demonstrates the
abyss that separates the Creator from his creature, Job. In his second discourse (40:6—41:26), God
describes two mythological monsters, a hippopotamus (Behemoth) and a crocodile (Leviathan), two
traditional representations of the forces of chaos.
It would be difficult to give a response that is more enigmatic and inscrutable. God seems simply to
reaffirm his indisputable omnipotence and leaves Job crushed by his adversary. Two aspects,
however, should be emphasized. The first is that God answers Job, whereas he does not address
himself in any way to his “comforters” who have continually sought to justify God’s attitude and to
explain Job’s suffering as caused by his faults. Thus, Job obtains what he wants, that is, a dialogue,
with God.
The second aspect is more difficult, though essential. The description of the universe and the two
mythological monsters has a very precise meaning in the symbolic language of the ancient Near East.
God reveals himself as Sovereign and Lord of the earth, the sea, the storm, the seasons, and all the
animals. There is a king in the universe, so it is not governed by blind and arbitrary forces. In
addition, God is opposed to the forces of chaos—Behemoth and Leviathan—and subjects them.
Thus—and this is the essential message of these pages—there is a parallel between the divine action
and Job’s untiring search. God battles against chaos, meaninglessness, absurdity, and injustice, and he
is victorious. Job is fighting against the same enemies. In other words, we could say that when Job
fights, God is fighting in him. Thus, Job’s drama is resolved when he discovers that the rebellion is
not his alone but is deeper than him and has its roots in the unfathomable and immeasurable mystery
of a God who struggles at his side for the same reasons.
Qoheleth, the Biblical Diogenes

Passing from the Book of Job to that of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) means changing register
completely. We are no longer in the world of tragedy but in that of skepticism. The interpretation of
Qoheleth raises as many questions as does that of Job, and perhaps even more. In these few lines, I
propose only to open a little door that will allow us to enter the world of Qoheleth, a bittersweet
world, one could say, where every smile is tinged with melancholy. If we had to characterize the
difference between the Books of Job and Qoheleth, I would say that everything that appears tragic in
Job is treated with more detachment in Qoheleth. A single example, on the brevity of human
existence. For both writers, there is something unbearable about life. Job expresses it thus:
Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a laborer?
Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like laborers who look for their wages,
so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn. (Job 7:1–4)
The same thought is found in Qoh 2:22–23:
What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all
their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest.
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This also is vanity.
Two essential differences distinguish the text of Job from that of Qoheleth. First, Job employs
powerful images, for example, that of the slave and of the laborer who wait a long time to enjoy the
shadow or their wages. Both have no freedom. Qoheleth, on the other hand, is more abstract and uses
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substantives like toil and strain, pain and vexation. Second, Job paints a picture of the sleepless nights
of the slave, who is every human being, whereas Qoheleth contents himself with saying that people’s
hearts do not rest, even at night. Job introduces a description of an endless night because the person
who has just gone to bed is assailed by anxiety and waits until dawn that finally frees him, but only to
begin another day of toil.
In my view, the ancient figure most like Qoheleth is the Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic. He
was a man who was profoundly free, in his thought as in his behavior. He lived in a barrel so as not to
depend on anyone, and because the possession of material goods could condition his way of thought.
Various stories illustrate his mentality well. One day, Alexander the Great presented himself in person
before his barrel because he wished to see the famous philosopher of whom so much was said. Instead
of getting out of his barrel and greeting his illustrious visitor, Diogenes said to him, “Couldn’t you
shift a little? You’re blocking the sun.” Another time, Diogenes was walking at the height of day with
a lighted lantern. To whomever asked why he was carrying a lighted lantern with him, he replied, “I
am looking for a man.” Finally, it is also told that one day he saw a little boy who was drinking at the
fountain with his hand. He took his bowl and broke it in pieces, saying, “I can drink like this lad. My
bowl is completely useless.”
Qoheleth, I think, belongs to the same family. Like Diogenes, he recognizes the “vanity” or the
“emptiness” of things, of life, of ambitions and the splendors of our world, and of every human
undertaking. His reflection is often disenchanted if not bitter, but not despairing. He never allows
himself to exaggerate, not even in his skepticism.
I choose a passage to illustrate Qoheleth’s inimitable style, a passage that deals with the human
condition with unforgettable images: “Whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog
is better than a dead lion” (9:4). The contrast is powerful. On the one hand, the dog is an animal
despised throughout the Bible, and not only there. On the other hand, we have the animal that is most
feared, the king of beasts, symbol of power and sovereignty. However, Qoheleth completely upsets
the hierarchy between dog and lion. The lion is not superior to the dog when the former is dead and
the latter alive. Life and death are values that overturn every set of rules. It is enough to introduce two
oppositions, the one between “dog” and “lion,” the other between the adjectives “living” and “dead,”
to establish a new, unexpected hierarchy and launch a new reflection on life that is deep—and bitter.
The Conformist Philosophy of Sirach

If Job is a wounded and rebellious spirit, and Qoheleth is a nonconformist, Sirach, on the contrary,
is highly conformist. Furthermore, he is intelligent, very cultured, and well educated. In his book, we
find a good summary of the faith, knowledge, and customs common among the refined people of the
time. He offers the equivalent of the Greek paideia, the Greek education of the youth. From this book,
for example, one could discern an “etiquette manual” for the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie of
Jerusalem at the beginning of the second century BCE. One can also find there an early reflection on
the history of Israel in the so-called Hymn in Honor of Our Ancestors (Sir 44—50). It also deals with
all the subjects of conversation during the evenings and receptions—the cocktail parties of the
time—organized in Jerusalem high society: friendship, almsgiving, education, marriage, women,
medicine, sickness, wealth and poverty, envy and avarice, slavery, scribes, banquets, speeches,
worship and sacrifices, reading of the law, creation, God, freedom, death, nature. Among the themes
ignored, I have noticed that he speaks very little about animals. Sirach lived in the city of Jerusalem.
He had little knowledge or appreciation of the countryside, agriculture, and sheep breeding.3 It is a
record of an urban Judaism.
His position is often conservative. He emphasizes the value of tradition in the face of innovations,
whether internal or external. This is the spirit of Proverbs rather than Job and Qoheleth. He
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emphasizes the cult and, even more, the law. We are not far from the circles that wanted to make of
Joshua and the kings of Israel students of the law (cf. chapter 4 in this volume). Sirach is also close to
the spirit of Psalm 1, which makes meditation and study of the Torah the ideal of every “righteous
man” in Israel.
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One text, among many others, will allow us to get to the core of his conformist teaching. The
passage is drawn from a chapter devoted to the correct behavior to be adopted during banquets (Sir
32:1–13). I quote the first verses:
If they make you master of the feast, do not exalt yourself;

be among them as one of their number.
Take care of them first and then sit down;
when you have fulfilled all your duties, take your place,
so that you may be merry along with them
and receive a wreath for your excellent leadership.
Speak, you who are older, for it is your right,
but with accurate knowledge, and do not interrupt the music.
Where there is entertainment, do not pour out talk;
do not display your cleverness at the wrong time.
A ruby seal in a setting of gold
is a concert of music at a banquet of wine.
A seal of emerald in a rich setting of gold
is the melody of music with good wine. (Sir 32:1–6)
Anyone reading this text will perceive that Sirach is offering a kind of self-portrait, and is advising
people to behave in society just as he does when he is invited to a banquet. More than once, probably,
he has been invited to be master of the feast. Therefore, he tells us what to do in such a case—for
example, not letting anyone notice the pride one could experience in such circumstances. In
everything it is necessary to act with “good manners.” It is necessary to speak, and one knows that in
good society one must be able to converse pleasantly and intelligently. It is also essential to know
when it is appropriate to be silent. Then—and there is a touch of irony in Sirach’s discourse here—he
cannot hide his taste for the entertainment, the wine, and the music. I confess that this renders him
more human after so many, sometimes dreary, pieces of advice ladled out lavishly. “Do not interrupt
the music” with boring and tiresome speeches. It is very important to conduct oneself well, according
to all the rules of the etiquette of the bourgeois world. It is equally important to know how to
appreciate the good things of life: wine, music, and entertainment. Behind this somewhat sycophantic
and ponderous rabbi and professor, there lies a bon vivant who apparently does not reject all the
novelties introduced by the Greek culture!
The Book of Wisdom: The Biblical Message Preached by an Alexandrian

Rhetorician
The most recent of the Wisdom books, written probably in Egyptian Alexandria at the end of the
first century BCE, is also the most Hellenistic of them all. A Jew of the Egyptian diaspora,
impregnated with the Hellenistic culture, reformulates the faith of his ancestors in new language to
bring it up to date. He also deals with popular Jewish subjects such as the problem of immortality. In
brief, the Book of Wisdom wishes to prove that the Jewish community can compete with the great
Hellenistic rhetoricians. The Jews are not inferior.
Moreover, it has deep roots in the biblical wisdom tradition. The style is closer to the poetic tone of
Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, and Sirach than to the long periodic manner of Greek rhetoric, ancient or
more recent. There is a certain development, and one observes the greater presence, toward the end of
the book, of a sort of “poetic prose,” in particular from 11:4 onward. Also, the treatment of the themes
is like that of biblical wisdom with some undeniable personal touches. For example, we find a
midrashic reading of the Book of Genesis (Wis 10:1–15) and, above all, of the account of the exodus
(10:16—19:22; the midrashic reading is more developed from 11:4 onward). The author develops his
themes by using association and contrast, circling back to the same idea several times. We are rather
far from the ways of arguing of Greek rhetoric that is more logical and organic. The author of the
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Book of Wisdom is not a biblical Demosthenes. Finally, the language is refined and, every so often,
conceited. The author wishes to show off his knowledge of Greek and likes to flaunt his erudition,
making use, when possible, of a vocabulary that is polished and affected.
As for all the other Wisdom books, an example will allow us to gather better the special character
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of the Book of Wisdom. It is a brief meditation on the figure of Jacob:
Wisdom rescued from troubles those who served her.
When a righteous man [Jacob] fled from his brother’s wrath,
she guided him on straight paths;

she showed him the kingdom of God,
and gave him knowledge of holy things;
she prospered him in his labors,
and increased the fruit of his toil.
When his oppressors were covetous,
she stood by him and made him rich.
She protected him from his enemies,
and kept him safe from those who lay in wait for him;
in his arduous contest she gave him the victory,
so that he might learn that godliness is more powerful than anything else. (Wis 10:9–12)
We could say that the Jacob described here is a “revised and corrected version” of the one in Genesis
27—35. The introduction immediately points the reading in a clearly defined way: it speaks of “those
who served her” or “faithful ones” who were protected by wisdom, and Jacob’s trials are seen as
“labors.” There is never a hint of his fault or responsibility throughout the passage. To be sure,
Jacob—the Book of Wisdom avoids the use of proper names—is called “righteous” in Wisdom 10:10.
In the conflict between Jacob and Esau, Jacob is right and Esau wrong. It is not said why Esau is
angry. Jacob’s journey is a pilgrimage on “straight paths,” under the guidance of wisdom. The vision
at Bethel (Gen 28:10–22) is a vision of the kingdom of God. Of Jacob’s sojourn with his
father-in-law, Laban, the passage only records that Jacob managed to prosper despite the
machinations of his relation. Jacob’s success is attributed to wisdom, which replaces his biblical
craftiness (cf. Gen 31:38–42). The author uses characteristic words to stigmatize the behavior of
Laban and his sons: they are “oppressors” and “enemies” led by “covetous[ness]”, and they set traps.
It is never said that Jacob was welcomed by his uncle, who put him up for twenty years and gave him
two daughters as wives. There are not many nuances in this judgement: positive on the one hand and
negative on the other. Finally, the episode of Genesis 32:23–32 is also interpreted in a spiritual key
that sees the triumph of godliness or piety. Philo of Alexandria will make use of the same interpretive
thread not much later and in the same environment.
With the Book of Wisdom, the most recent of all the books of the Old Testament, we have almost
arrived at the end of our journey. It remains to present, only very briefly, some books that do not fall
neatly into the categories we have listed: the Pentateuch, historical books (Former Prophets), Latter
Prophets, and Wisdom books. In the order in which we shall deal with them, we are talking about
Psalms, Lamentations, Baruch, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Maccabees, Ruth, Esther, Tobit,
Judith, Jonah, Daniel, and the Song of Solomon.
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7
THE LAST SHELVES OF THE NATIONAL

LIBRARY OF ISRAEL
The Psalms, the Book of the Songs of Israel
We begin with the most important book of this section of the library, the Psalms. Much has been
written about them and it is not necessary to dwell at length on the subject.1 The Psalms represent the
“songbook” of ancient Israel. There we find very elaborate compositions side by side with popular
songs composed for every occasion and for various liturgical functions. However, we do not have, as
in our modern books, precise indications as to the date and place of composition, the author of the
melody and the words, not even the liturgical use of the composition. The order of the individual
psalms within the Psalter is one of the many unresolved enigmas of the work. The only indication
provided by the book itself is a division into five books (Pss 1—41; 42—72; 73—89; 90—106;
107—50), an arrangement perhaps inspired by the subdivision of the Pentateuch into five books. Each
“book” concludes with a doxology (Pss 41:14; 72:18–19; 89:53; 106:48), and Psalm 150 can be read
as the final doxology of the whole Psalter, at least in the Masoretic Text. Be that as it may, this
arrangement of the Psalter is rather artificial and does not correspond to any classification based, for
example, on the content or the literary genre of the psalms. We must also mention two traditional
collections of psalms, the so-called Hallel or hymns of praise. In Hebrew, Hallel means “praise.”
From it comes the word alleluia, which means “praise the Lord (Yah[weh]).” There are two series of
Hallel: the little Hallel (Pss 113—18) and the great Hallel (Pss 119—36). More recently, during the
Feast of the Passover it is customary to sing Psalms 113—14 before dinner and Psalms 115—18 after
dinner. Mark 14:26 alludes to this custom when it says that Jesus and his disciples set off for the
Mount of Olives after they had sung the hymn of praise. The Psalter concludes with a series of hymns
of praise (Pss 146—50) that belong to the same category. Within the great Hallel, we find a class of
psalms, the so-called Gradual Psalms, or psalms sung by the pilgrims during their “ascent” to
Jerusalem (Pss 120—34). “Psalms of Ascent” is their title in the Hebrew Bible.
In my opinion, it is most important to view the Psalter as a collection of prayers for every
circumstance and situation in human life. All human sentiments are present in the Psalter, from joy
and thanksgiving to rebellion and despair.
However, everything can be transformed into prayer, even the darkest parts of the human soul. That
is what I would like to analyze more closely in the following section.
The Psalms, Expression of the Sentiments and Moments in the Life of the Faithful
Studies of the biblical narrative often repeat that the characters in the Bible speak and act but do not
think. The biblical narrative has no means for describing mental processes such as thoughts and
feelings. Furthermore, the biblical figures have no memory. There are very few exceptions. Joseph,
for example, remembers his dreams when his brothers prostrate themselves before him (Gen 42:9),
and King Ahasuerus remembers the refusal of his wife Vashti when he takes measures later (Esth
2:1). With Joseph and Esther, however, we are already in a different world, where human psychology
takes up more room, partly because God is practically absent from these stories and leaves more room
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for human ways of thinking.

However, when the Bible wants to allow a human figure to express his or her own feelings, it
utilizes particular tools; in fact, it almost always makes use of poetry. We find poetic passages when
characters have to express very strong feelings, for example, the joy following the crossing of the sea
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and the defeat of the Egyptian army in Exodus 15:1–21, a song of victory or triumph; the Song of the
Well in Numbers 21:17–18, an enigmatic passage but one bound to the search for water in the desert;
the Song of Deborah, another triumph song after an unexpected victory (Judg 5); Hannah’s song of
joy for the birth of Samuel (1 Sam 2:1–10); the funeral lament of David after the death of Saul and
Jonathan (2 Sam 1:17–27), or after the death of Abner (2 Sam 3:33–34); the desperate song of Jonah
in the belly of the fish (Jonah 2); and so on. In later texts, we come across various lyrical passages, for
example, in Tobit (3:1–6, 11–15; 8:5–7; 13), in Judith (15:9–10; 16:1–17), and in Maccabees (1 Macc
3:3–9; 14:4–15).
From this point of view, the Book of Psalms occupies a privileged place in the biblical library. It is
the largest collection of lyrical poems in the Bible, and, as a result, there we find the expression of the
widest range of human feelings. However, not all the psalms are expressions of individual feelings.
Quite a few of them were composed to celebrate public events: the enthronement of a king (Ps 110), a
liturgical feast (Ps 81), the marriage of a sovereign (Ps 45), and so forth. Be that as it may, the Psalms
express the depth of the Israelite soul in both private and public life. Some examples will be sufficient
to show this.
Among individual feelings, we could mention joy after a serious crisis (Ps 30), trust in God (Ps 27),
thanksgiving for escaping the danger of death (Ps 116), distress in danger (Ps 25), protestation of the
innocent (Ps 26), the discovery of the shortness of life (Pss 39 and 90), sickness (Ps 41), the guilt of
the sinner (Ps 32), despair in the face of the absurdity of life (Ps 88), the desire for revenge (Ps 109),
and so on.
Other psalms mirror communal experiences and feelings. Here, too, examples abound: some
celebrate the universal kingship of the God of Israel (Pss 47; 93; 96—98); others are hymns of praise,
always addressed to the God of Israel, who dwells in Jerusalem (Pss 8; 19; 29; 145—50); yet others
celebrate the Holy City in a special way (Pss 46; 48; 76; 87) or are public laments after a national
catastrophe (Pss 74; 79; 106; 123). The so-called Gradual Psalms, sung during the pilgrimages to
Jerusalem (Pss 120—34), belong to this communal category.
The Psalms also mirror the concerns of the different social classes. Psalm 101, for example, is the
prayer of a king. Others are prayers for the ruler before a military campaign (Ps 20) or at the
beginning of a reign (Ps 72). Another series of psalms is made up of songs that were probably linked
to the feast of the king’s enthronement (Pss 2; 110) or his marriage (Ps 45).
Obviously, other social classes are represented, although it is not always possible to identify the
class or origin of the Psalmist with precision. Psalm 127 and, above all, Psalm 128 could very well be
prayers of the father of a family. However, we do not have any prayers of a mother. There are prayers
of the elderly (Ps 71), but not of the young. In this respect, the psalms mirror who counts most in the
Jewish world: a world that, for the most part, is that of men and adults. We must acknowledge that
women were certainly not absent, but they occupy a secondary place (Pss 45; 51:7; 86:16; 113:9;
116:16; 123:2; 128:3; 131:2; 144:12). The same goes for subordinate individuals: slaves, servants,
and children. There are a few exceptions, such as Psalm 123, where the Psalmist compares himself to
a slave and a handmaid. Many psalms employ a language that is open and universal. It remains true,
however, that the situations described, particularly the juridical problems and the hostility of one’s
“enemies,” are more characteristic of men than of women.
In some psalms, we find prayers for different times of the day or year. Psalms 3, 5, 57, 60, and 108
are morning prayers, while Psalm 4 is a prayer for the evening, and Psalm 132 a prayer for a
nocturnal celebration. Psalm 65 celebrates the return of rain in the autumn, and Psalm 67 blesses God
for the harvest.
There are three long psalms (Pss 78; 105; 106) that are presented as meditations on the history of
Israel: above all, on the exodus and the sojourn in the desert. Psalm 89 belongs to the same group,
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although it speaks of the dynasty of David. Today, we would speak of lectio divina. A similar
category is made up of meditations on the life and death of the just and the ungodly (Pss 34; 37; 112).
These are sometimes called wisdom or didactic psalms.
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Psalm 1, the Preface to the Psalter
Psalm 1, which belongs to this last group, has a special role because it acts as a preface to the
whole Psalter. It is presented as a meditation on the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly.
The criterion that allows one to be distinguished from the other is meditation on the Torah of the Lord
(Ps 1:2). In other words, the righteous are scholars and faithful observers of the Torah, while the
ungodly are those who enjoy life. The Torah defines the righteous. The vocabulary of Psalm 1 is very
similar to that of Joshua 1:7–8, which we have already come across at the beginning of the “Former
Prophets”:
Psalm
Joshua 1:7–8
1:2–3
But
Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the their
law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or delight
to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall is in the
not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may law of
be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make the L
your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. ORD,
and on
his law
they
meditate
day and
night.
They
are like
trees
planted
by
streams
of
water,
which
yield
their
fruit in
its
season,
and
their
leaves
do not
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wither.
In all
that
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they do,
they
prosper.
In these two texts—the one placed at the beginning of the prophetic books (Former and Latter), the
other at the opening of the third section of the Hebrew Bible (the Writings, ketûbîm)—one reads
clearly of the wish to subordinate all the inspired books to the Torah. When they are read in this
perspective, the Psalms become meditations of the righteous on the law instruction of the Lord. This
is certainly a reinterpretation that corresponds only rarely to the ideal, save for exceptional cases such
as that of Psalm 119, one of the last to be written.
The Psalms and the Forms of the Religion of Israel

The great majority of the biblical books looked at so far come from well-off and educated circles.
There are a few exceptions, such as the stories of the patriarchs and some stories in the Book of
Judges, particularly those about Gideon (Judg 6—8) and Samson (Judg 13—16). By contrast, the
Book of Psalms reflects different forms of popular piety alongside other passages that come from the
official piety of Israel. Some psalms were composed at court and so belong to the official, national
religion, as we have seen. Others are simpler and concern the problems of the ordinary folk such as
sickness, the hostility of enemies, old age, death, the injustice of this world, and working in the fields.
This is a very concrete piety, centered on everyday problems and without reference to the history of
salvation. The God who is invoked is the God of the sanctuary, perhaps the local sanctuary or of the
Jerusalem temple (Pss 3:5; 5:8; 27:4; 42:3; 84:2–3, 5, 11; 138:2). It does not matter much. The
Psalmist addresses a God who is close when he needs help.
In this connection, it is interesting to observe that the history of salvation as presented in the
Pentateuch is almost absent from the Psalter. There are three long historical psalms (78; 105; 106; cf.
above), but that is not many, and they are reckoned to be of recent composition. An event that seems
central to the Pentateuch, the Sinai theophany, is scarcely mentioned, though there are possible
allusions to it in Psalm 50:5: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by
sacrifice!”; and in Psalm 99:6–7:
Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel also was among those who called on his name.
They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.
He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;
they kept his decrees,
and the statutes that he gave them.
Sinai is mentioned only twice, in Psalm 68 (vv. 9 and 18), with possible allusion to the exodus in vv.
7–8:
O God, when you went out before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness,
the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain
at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,
at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Even Moses, who towers over the whole of the Pentateuch, is mentioned only a few times in the
Psalter (Pss 77:21; 90:1 in the title; 99:6; 103:7; 105:26; 106:16, 23, 32). There are eight mentions in
all, four of them—half—in two historical psalms (Pss 105 and 106). The patriarchs too are almost
absent from the Psalter. We come across Abraham in Psalms 47:10 and 105:6, 9, 42. Isaac appears
only in Psalm 105:9, and the patriarch Jacob in Psalms 77:16 and 105:10, 23. Joseph is mentioned by
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name in Psalms 77:16 and 105:17. Little is said even of the exodus (Pss 77:21; 105:37–39; 106:9–12;
136:10–15).
After this brief inquiry, one conclusion is unavoidable: the religion of Israel described in the
Psalms is not exactly the one we discover in the Pentateuch. The centers of gravity of Israel’s
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religious life are the temple (or local sanctuary), the cult, and the monarchy.
We may add that there is no polemic from any angle against the local sanctuaries. The
centralization of the cult is not a problem in the Psalter, which seems unaware of the continual
debates about it in 1—2 Kings. It is easier to understand, therefore, why someone felt it necessary to
add Psalm 1 at the beginning of the book. It was necessary if one wanted to integrate Israel’s book of
prayers into Israel’s national library.
At any rate, the Psalter confirms a very common idea among biblical scholars: the evolution of
Israel’s religion, due to, first and foremost, the crisis of the exile. With the destruction of the temple
and the disappearance of the monarchy, its two pillars, it had to look for other foundations with which
to reconstruct the people’s identity. From this time on, the patriarchs, the exodus, the law, Sinai, and
the figure of Moses took on a new importance quite unlike what they had enjoyed previously. Israel
was rebuilt on this base. In our national library, therefore, we have all the documentation for this
rebuilding. For its part, the Psalter has preserved—in great measure—the memory of the religion
prior to the crisis brought about, first, by the Assyrian, and, then, by the neo-Babylonian invasions.
The Book of Lamentations

The Book of Lamentations is part of the lyrical section of Israel’s library, though it is much more
homogeneous than the Psalter. It contains songs of mourning for the city of Jerusalem after its sacking
by the Babylonian army in 588–587 BCE. The book makes use of a familiar literary genre, the funeral
lament for a dear one. In Greek, the best-known example of this genre is the final song of the chorus
in Aeschylus’s tragedy The Persians (472 BCE). This funeral song weeps over the defeat of the king
of Persia, Xerxes, by Athens and her allies in the naval battle of Salamis (480 BCE).
The book was attributed to Jeremiah for a simple reason. The prophet Jeremiah was an eyewitness
of the burning and sacking of the Holy City by the Babylonian army and was, therefore, the one to
whom these funeral laments could most easily be attributed. The tone of Lamentations is also close to
some mournful pages of the prophet. Take, for example, Jeremiah 4:19–21, a good representation of
the atmosphere that reigned when the Babylonian army was standing at the gates of Jerusalem:
My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
Oh, the walls of my heart!
My heart is beating wildly;
I cannot keep silent;
for I hear the sound of the trumpet,
the alarm of war.
Disaster overtakes disaster,
the whole land is laid waste.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed,
my curtains in a moment.
How long must I see the standard,
and hear the sound of the trumpet?
Another text that is very close is Jeremiah 8:21—9:1, where the prophet uses very powerful images to
express his grief when he discovers that the evil of his city is incurable:
For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
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so that I might weep day and night

for the slain of my poor people!
With this one can compare Lamentations 2:18 (cf. 1:16; 3:48–51):
Cry aloud to the Lord!
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O wall of daughter Zion!
Let tears stream down like a torrent
day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
your eyes no respite!
However, this attribution does not stand up to critical examination. There are too many differences
between Jeremiah’s opinions and those expressed in Lamentations. For example, Lamentations 4:20
speaks of Zedekiah, the last king in Jerusalem, very positively (“The LORD’s anointed, the breath of
our life”), whereas Jeremiah was very severe about him. In Jeremiah 24:8, Zedekiah and all his people
are compared to rotten figs. Lamentations 5:7 is clearly in favor of the idea of collective retribution.
The children pay for the sins of their fathers: “Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear
their iniquities”; whereas Jeremiah 31:29–30 challenges this conception to introduce the idea of
individual responsibility:
In those days they shall no longer say:
“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set
on edge.
Finally, Lamentations 4:17 hopes fervently for an Egyptian intervention:

Our eyes failed, ever watching
vainly for help;
we were watching eagerly
for a nation that could not save.
Jeremiah 37:5–7, on the other hand, has no trust in Egyptian intervention. Lamentations clearly
originates from a circle different from that of the prophet Jeremiah. We should add that the five
chapters of the Book of Lamentations contain passages from different sources and in different styles
that could be attributed to a single author only with difficulty.
As for style, the first four poems are acrostics, that is, each strophe begins with one of the
twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Some psalms are also like this (Pss 9—10; 25; 34; 37;
111; 112; 119; 145) as well as the Book of the prophet Nahum.
A brief quotation will allow us to grasp one of the main aspects of Lamentations. Here is
Lamentations 2:5:
The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has destroyed Israel.
He has destroyed all its palaces,
laid in ruins its strongholds,
and multiplied in daughter Judah
mourning and lamentation.
This verse highlights the claim that God is behaving like an enemy; and not as the defender of his
city. Lamentations 3:1–18 develops the same experience with very expressive images. Lamentations
3:10–13 is emblematic in this regard:
He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;
he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;
he bent his bow and set me
as a mark for his arrow.
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He shot into my vitals

the arrows of his quiver.
God behaves like a wild beast or like an archer who takes aim at his victim. This is certainly not the
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only image of God in Lamentations. However, it is the one that, perhaps, best expresses the bitter
experience and the painful surprise of a population that, right up to the last moment, hoped to escape
disaster. The image is found again in the Book of Job (cf. Job 16:6–17).
In the Bible, there are some allusions to celebrations connected with the fall of Jerusalem. The
Book of Jeremiah speaks of eighty or so men who come from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria—three
great centers of the former Northern Kingdom—bringing offerings and incense to the temple of the
Lord. Their beards are shaved and “clothes torn and bodies gashed” as a sign of mourning. They had
probably come to celebrate a liturgy of mourning on the spot where the temple used to stand. The
Book of Zechariah also mentions a rite on the occasion of the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 7:3). The Book
of Lamentations could have preserved the text of some laments composed precisely for this kind of
situation. At any rate, the Jews read the Book of Lamentations on the anniversary day of the fall of
Jerusalem, the ninth of the month of Ab, the fifth month, which is the day Jerusalem was taken by the
Babylonian army in 587 BCE, but also—by a curious coincidence—the day when it was destroyed by
the Roman army in 70 CE.
In the Christian liturgy, the Book of Lamentations has long been used during Holy Week. One of
the most beautiful passages of Gregorian chant is, in fact, the chant of the Lamentations in Latin.
The Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah

Close to Lamentations on the same shelf, we can place the Book of Baruch and the Letter of
Jeremiah. The short Book of Baruch, one of the Deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Bible, is
placed immediately after Jeremiah in the Greek version of the Septuagint. The reason is simple:
Baruch was Jeremiah’s secretary.2 The book is made up of four heterogeneous parts that should
perhaps be attributed to different authors:
1. A historical introduction on the circumstances of the composition of the book, immediately

after the fall of Jerusalem (Bar 1:1–14)
2. A long penitential prayer (Bar 1:15—3:8)
3. A meditation on wisdom (Bar 3:9—4:4)
4. The exhortation and consolation of Jerusalem (Bar 4:5—5:9)
The book probably goes back to the time of the Maccabees and contains a penitential liturgy that,
many think, found a new significance after the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Titus in 70
CE. The central place occupied by the Holy City in the postexilic Jewish world is certainly one of the
most important features of the Book of Baruch.
The Epistle of Jeremiah, another Deuterocanonical writing, is, perhaps, one of the least well-known
works in our Bible. The attribution to Jeremiah has no solid basis, and the letter is, therefore,
pseudepigraphic. The prophet Jeremiah addresses the exiles departing for Babylon and exhorts them
not to yield to the temptation of idolatry. This is a popular theme, beginning with Jeremiah 10:1–16;
Isaiah 40:19–20; 41:6–7; 44:9–20; 46:1–9; in the Book of Wisdom; and in Philo of Alexandria. We
are, therefore, at the height of the Hellenistic period. The tone is that of rather worried parents, writing
to their children who live in the diaspora, urging them to avoid the great dangers of life abroad and,
above all, not to lose their identity.
Some Supplements to the History of Israel

On these last shelves of the national library of Israel, there are three further works to be numbered
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among the category of the so-called historical books (Josh—2 Kgs): 1—2 Chronicles,
Ezra—Nehemiah, and 1—2 Maccabees.
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The Book of Chronicles and the Liturgical Community of Jerusalem
The first is a work in two volumes, the Book of Chronicles, which takes up again the whole story
from Adam until the Edict of Cyrus (538 BCE) and urges the Jews of the diaspora to return to
Jerusalem. However, the main part of the work is devoted to the reigns of David and Solomon (1 Chr
10—29 and 2 Chr 1—9), then to the story of the kingdom of Judah (2 Chr 10—36). The liturgical
tone of 1—2 Chronicles cannot escape the reader. It seems that David and Solomon dedicated almost
all their time to the organization of the temple cult in Jerusalem. The work—of the late Persian
period, though some speak even of the Hellenistic period—has the aim of providing very ancient
“letters of recommendation” for the postexilic cult of the Holy City, the foundation of which,
according to 1—2 Chronicles, goes back to the period of the united monarchy of David and Solomon.
It seems that the author, who is sometimes called the Chronicler, wanted to transform the postexilic
community into a monastery where the liturgy was the focus of the whole of life.
The Book of Chronicles is also famous for some distinctive features that allow us to have a better
understanding of how the ancient history of Israel was written—or, better, rewritten. Comparison with
its sources, the Books of Samuel and of Kings, is very instructive. For example, the book eliminates
from the story of David everything that makes it lively and interesting to turn it into an account that is
hagiographical and edifying, and sometimes, let us admit it, somewhat tedious. We find here almost
nothing of David’s childhood, his youth, his conflict with Saul, the years of his reign in Hebron while
Ish-Baal, Saul’s son, reigned in Israel. Chronicles, obviously, says nothing, about David’s affair with
Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah or the rebellion of Absalom. Solomon, too, is idealized. Nothing
is said of the coup d’état that allowed him to take possession of the throne or of the brutality with
which he eliminated his rivals. Solomon’s end is without a shadow: in vain we search for hints of the
extravagance and idolatry of the final years of his reign mentioned in 1 Kings 11. After Solomon,
1—2 Chronicles are interested only in the fate of the Southern Kingdom (2 Chr 10—36). In brief, the
Book of Chronicles often transforms the biblical account, colorful and teeming with passions, into a
monotonous didactic lecture.
The Book of Chronicles is also known for introducing a series of speeches, uttered, usually, by
kings or prophets. The most important examples are the speeches of David (1 Chr 28:1–10), of King
Abijah (2 Chr 13:4–12), of the prophet Azariah (2 Chr 15:1–7), of the seer Hanani (2 Chr 16:7–9), of
the seer Jehu (2 Chr 19:2–3), of the Levite Jahaziel (2 Chr 20:14–17), of an anonymous prophet (2
Chr 25:15–16), and of the prophet Oded (2 Chr 28:9–11). Discourses already present in the Books of
Samuel or Kings are not mentioned. The procedure is common: in the wake of the great Greek and
Latin historians, the biblical authors make use of the figures of “history” as spokesmen for the ideas
dearest to them. The most celebrated example in Greek historiography are the speeches of Pericles in
the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. The second of these, known as Advice to the
Athenians (II, 60–64), is a criticism of the unpragmatic and presumptuous policy of his predecessors.
The first, better known, is a funeral eulogy for the Athenian soldiers who had died on the field of
battle (II, 35–46). Here, we find a fine panegyric of the democratic ideals of Athens, of its heroes and
of its institutions, that provides a model for the whole of Greece, nay, for the whole of humanity.
Obviously, this speech mirrors ideas dear to Thucydides.
A brief comparison between a speech of Pericles and that of Abijah in the Book of Chronicles will
help us to measure the distance that separates the Greek world from the biblical one. When Pericles
wants to demonstrate the superiority of Athens over the other Greek and foreign cities, he emphasizes
one point. Here is the most important passage (II, 37):
Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others
than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is
called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private
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differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity,
class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit.3
For Pericles, the superiority of Athens springs from its democratic regime, which is characterized by
three interrelated elements: first, power is in the hands of all; second, all are equal before the law;
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third, the choice of public offices is based on merit and competence, not on the power of a political
party or on economic status. Immediately afterward, in fact, Pericles continues, “Nor again does
poverty bar the way, if a man can serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.”
4
The speech of King Abijah, grandson of Solomon, is addressed, not to his fellow citizens, but
rather to King Jeroboam of Israel and his army before a battle between the armies of the two
kingdoms. The passage explains his position before those who are about to fight (2 Chr 13:4b–8):
Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel! Do you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the
kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam son of
Nebat, a servant of Solomon son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord; and certain
worthless scoundrels gathered around him and defied Rehoboam son of Solomon, when
Rehoboam was young and irresolute and could not withstand them.
And now you think that you can withstand the kingdom of the LORD in the hand of the
sons of David, because you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves that
Jeroboam made as gods for you.
The essential difference between Pericles’s speech and that of Abijah leaps to the eyes: where
Pericles bases himself on the values of democracy, Abijah invokes what we could call, following
Josephus, theocracy, the kingship of God (cf. 2 Chr 13:8; Josephus, Against Apion, II, 16, 165). The
superiority of the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem is due to the choice of God, and not that of a
people. Jeroboam’s rebellion is discredited, not because it is based on the wrong political, social, or
economic motives. The reason for the condemnation is theological: Jeroboam refuses to fall in with
the divine plan for his people. In other words, we are talking about a “sin.” It is also important to
observe what follows: when it wishes to explain the error of Rehoboam, son of Solomon and king of
Judah, the discourse chooses another option. The king was advised by “worthless scoundrels” and
was too timid to oppose them. In this case, human reasons, not theological ones, are being invoked. It
is neither the first nor the last time that different standards are being applied in recounting history.
To return to the subject, clearly the speeches just quoted contain the ideas of Thucydides and those
of the author of Chronicles. For the latter, the history of Israel is limited to the history of the temple,
its worship and its personnel, especially the Levites and the singers. David and Solomon have as their
only kingly tasks, it seems, the construction of the temple and the organization of its worship. It is
crystal clear that, for the authors of Chronicles, the temple worship is the keystone of the life of the
people of Israel. One also understands, therefore, the polemic against other sanctuaries, particularly
those of the Northern Kingdom, which, in the context of the addressees of the book, becomes very
probably a polemic against the Samaritans. For the same reason, one understands better why 2
Chronicles concludes with the Edict of Cyrus, that is, with an appeal addressed to all the Jews of the
diaspora to go up to Jerusalem (2 Chr 36:23). Chronicles orchestrates the triumph of the biblical
tradition that is bound up with the Holy City and its temple.
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Temple and the Synagogue
THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH AND THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES

The Books of Ezra—Nehemiah are the continuation of Chronicles, for they begin precisely with the
edict of Cyrus that concludes the second Book of Chronicles (2 Chr 36:23; cf. Ezra 1:1–4). They
describe the return of the exiles, the difficulties of rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple, and the
various problems that faced the postexilic community. The atmosphere is often tense, and some of the
measures taken by Ezra and Nehemiah, especially in the case of mixed marriages (Ezra 10; Neh
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13:23–29) and dealings with foreigners (Ezra 9; Nehemiah 13), are based on the desire to defend the
existence and integrity of the Jewish community.
The difference from other cultures appears clearly if we compare some texts of Ezra and Nehemiah
with a passage of the previously mentioned speech of Pericles to the Athenians in the History of
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Thucydides (II, 39): “If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We
throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of
learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality.”5
In Athens, not even the members of an enemy people were expelled in time of war. Athens, in fact,
was a city so secure that it did not fear espionage. There is certainly a pinch of boasting here on the
part of Pericles—and Thucydides. By contrast, the policy of Ezra and Nehemiah was very different,
precisely because Jerusalem and the Jewish people felt their very existence to be threatened. The
danger of being absorbed by other peoples and of disappearing in the immense Persian Empire was
real. That explains the feeling of insecurity that reigns in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah and the
countermeasures adopted toward the risks just mentioned. Modern readers might regret that the
solutions employed were dictated largely by fear and were marked by the danger of retreating into
isolation. However, this was how the Jewish people responded to the challenge of history, and they
survived.
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are very close to the Books of Chronicles to the extent that some
specialists attribute all four books to the same author or the same circle. The problem is too complex
to be treated here. There are some interesting elements, however, even at first sight. In
Ezra—Nehemiah and in the Chronicles, we find the same interest in Jerusalem, the temple, and the
cult. This is already an old interest we have found, for example, in First Isaiah, that is, Isaiah 1—39.
There is an important difference, however. In 1—2 Chronicles, the authors were polemicizing against
the Northern Kingdom and the kings of Judah who were not faithful to the purity of the cult
inaugurated by David and Solomon. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the polemic—and there certainly is
one—is not only against foreigners, particularly the Samaritans, but also against elements of the
Judaean population, often called “people of the land” (Ezra 3:3; 9:1, 2, 11; 10:2, 11; Neh 10:29; cf.
Neh 9:30), who, according to the most convincing interpretation, are the part of the population that
remained in the land during the exile. The division has also become internal. In other words, it is
necessary to separate the “holy seed” (Ezra 9:2) from all the elements that could contaminate it.
EZRA—NEHEMIAH AND THE BOOK OF THE TORAH (LAW AND INSTRUCTION)

One passage of Ezra—Nehemiah is particularly important for understanding the Old Testament,
that is, Nehemiah 8, the public reading of the Torah by the scribe Ezra and by Nehemiah during the
Feast of Tabernacles. For many, this is the moment of birth for postexilic Judaism and synagogue
worship. The focus of the people’s life is not so much the cult as the Torah. The rabbinic saying is
pertinent: “If the Torah had not been revealed to Moses, it would have been revealed to Ezra” (
Babylonian Talmud, treatise Sanhedrin, 21b).
The account of Nehemiah 8 is to be read in continuity with 2 Kings 22—23, which tells of the
discovery of the book of the Torah in the temple in the reign of Josiah. This book, in fact, is the
protagonist of 2 Kings 22—23. It is discovered in the temple before the exile and will not undergo the
fate that awaits all the other figures and elements present, or almost: the king and the monarchy, the
priest and the priesthood, the temple and the city of Jerusalem. All will be eclipsed during the exile,
but not the book. Another essential text to cite in this connection is Exodus 24:3–8, where we are told
about the origin of the book of the Torah: it was written by Moses himself after a long stay on Mount
Sinai in the presence of the Lord, YHWH, and after a public reading made to all the people. It is in
accordance with the words written in the book and proclaimed before the entire people that YHWH,
the God of Israel, concludes a solemn covenant with them (Exod 24:8).
Thus, there is continuity for the reader between the book written by Moses, the one discovered in
the temple under King Josiah, and the one read by Ezra before the people gathered in Jerusalem after
the rebuilding of the city. The book creates the connection between the foundational period in the
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desert, the preexilic monarchy, and the postexilic community of Jerusalem. It is the same book we
found in the hands of Joshua in Joshua 1:7–8 and in those of the righteous man of Psalm 1. In all
these texts, we notice the same desire to affirm that Israel’s identity is bound up in a privileged way
with the book of the Torah.
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Furthermore, we can see a certain relationship between the “men of the book”: Moses, who is the
first to write the words of the Lord YHWH in the book (Exod 24:4); the scribe Shaphan, who reads
the book before King Josiah (2 Kgs 22:10); and the scribe-priest Ezra, who reads the law before all
the people in Nehemiah 8:3. There will be other followers of Moses, the first “scribe” and the first
“doctor of the law-Torah.”
The text of Nehemiah 8 is very important for another reason. In fact, we notice a certain duality
within the Books of Ezra—Nehemiah. On the one hand, everything is centered on the community that
returns from exile and establishes itself in Jerusalem around the rebuilt temple. On the other hand, the
book of the Torah, brought by the scribe Ezra, moves on to the scene (cf. Ezra 7:6, 10, 14, 21; Neh
8:1). Subsequently, this duality will result in the opposition between the Sadducees and the Pharisees,
groups well known at the time of the New Testament. At the time in which Ezra and Nehemiah were
written, there was a duality, perhaps a tension, but no conflict.
At this stage in our inquiry, the question arises spontaneously: Is the book more important than
Jerusalem and its temple? For the moment, we have no clear answer. It will come later, much later.
Perhaps we must wait until the seventies CE to know more when the temple disappears and only the
synagogue remains.
EZRA—NEHEMIAH AND HISTORY

From the stylistic point of view, the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah introduce a novelty: the
protagonists express themselves in the first person (Ezra 7:27—9:15; Neh 1—7; 10; 12:31; 13:6–31).
The biblical prophets can speak in the first person, as Ezekiel always does, for example. But this is
unusual in the so-called historical books. In no part of Joshua—2 Kings or 1—2 Chronicles is the first
person used by the narrator or the “historian” (one must not give this word the significance we give it
in the modern world). It is the first time that it happens in biblical literature. Some have thought of the
influence of Greece. However, Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BCE) and Thucydides (c. 470/460–400/395
BCE) speak of themselves in the third person; we must wait for Polybius (c. 202–c. 120 BCE) and
Plutarch (c. 46/49–125 CE) to find historians expressing themselves in the first person. In my view,
there is another reason. Ezra and Nehemiah are figures invested with an official mission by the king
of Persia (Ezra 7:11; Neh 2:7–8). They are not simple chroniclers or court scribes. They are important
figures endowed with authority who use the first person like the sovereigns and great officials of the
ancient Near East. For this reason, first-person usage is more Asian than Greek.
Let us add a note on the (very complicated) chronology of the books in question. There are two
series of problems. First, it is difficult to make the dates of Ezra—Nehemiah coincide with those of
the reigns of the kings of Persia. Ezra 4:4–24 says that King Artaxerxes I (465–423 BCE) interrupted
the building of the temple. It is not possible to reconcile this statement with the chronology of the
Persian reigns that we can reconstruct from the nonbiblical data. Ezra 4:4–24 contradicts Ezra 6:15,
which dates the completion of the rebuilding of the temple to the sixth year of the reign of Darius I,
that is, 545 BCE. According to Ezra 4:24 and Haggai 1:15, the rebuilding was begun in the second
year of the reign of Darius. The reign of Artaxerxes comes fifty or sixty years later. Various solutions
have been proposed. Perhaps the text is confusing two problems, that of the reconstruction of the
temple and that of the other works subsequently undertaken in Jerusalem.
Second, it is difficult to establish a reasonable chronology of the missions of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The former arrived in Jerusalem in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:7), while the
second began his mission in the twentieth year of the same king (Neh 2:1). Ezra and Nehemiah are
present together during the solemn reading of the Torah in Nehemiah 8—9. A second mission of
Nehemiah took place during the thirty-second year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Neh 13:6). The two
figures were, therefore, in Jerusalem at the same time, although they seem to have never met. They
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are mentioned together only in Nehemiah 8:9. They speak together to the people, but they never speak
to each other. The specialists have suggested various solutions, but, until now, no one has proposed
anything wholly satisfactory.
Finally, it is necessary to say that the history of the composition of the Books of Ezra and
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Nehemiah is rather complex. The Greek translation of the Septuagint knows a book of Ezra called
Greek Ezra or 1 Esdras. In the same version, 2 Esdras corresponds to the Greek translation of Ezra
and Nehemiah combined in a single volume. The Latin tradition knows four books of Ezra: the first is
the biblical Book of Ezra; the second is the biblical Book of Nehemiah; the third is the Latin
translation of the book of Greek Ezra; and the fourth an apocalyptic book, much later and of a rather
different stamp. Finally, the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are written partly in Hebrew, but some
sections of Ezra are in Aramaic (Ezra 4:9—6:18; 7:12–26: these are mostly official documents).
In conclusion, the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are, perhaps, problematic in some ways but they
are essential for anyone who wants to understand how the people of Israel succeeded in resolving all
the difficulties that arose during the period of the return and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and why
they were not swallowed up by history, which is often cruel and always anonymous.
The Books of the Maccabees and the Heroes of the “Resistance” in Israel
THE JEWISH WORLD FACED WITH THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

The two Books of the Maccabees are devoted to a very troubled period in the history of Israel, that
of the rebellion against the Hellenistic royal family of the Seleucids (200–142 BCE). They are an epic
of the “resistance” against the military power of the latter, but, above all, of the struggle to defend
Israel’s own faith and culture against Hellenistic influence. In some ways, though with important
differences, the Maccabees are the “partisans” of two thousand years ago. They were supported by the
power of Rome, just as the partisans of yesterday were supported by the Allies.
The Books of the Maccabees form part of the Apocrypha for Protestants and the Deuterocanonical
writings for Catholics. They are not part of the Hebrew canon because they were transmitted only in
Greek in the Septuagint. This means that neither the Jews nor Protestant Christians number the Books
of the Maccabees among the inspired writings of the canon. For Catholics, it was only the Council of
Trent that made the definitive decision about this. We should add that Martin Luther had many
reservations about the Second Book of the Maccabees, but he regretted the fact that the first book was
not part of the canon.
These two books tell stories that are like those of so many who resist the occupation of their
country by a foreign power. The heroes of this type are countless.
I am thinking, for example, of Alexander Nevski (1220–63 CE), who led the Russian resistance
against the Swedish invaders (1240, battle of the Neva: hence the name Nevski) and against the
Teutonic Knights (1242, battle of the Icy Lake or battle of the Ice on Lake Peipus: the battle was
immortalized by a film of Sergei M. Eisenstein for which Sergei Prokofiev wrote the sonorous
musical score). Braveheart, namely William Wallace (1272–1305), was the hero of Scottish resistance
against England during the Scottish struggle to retain independence. Exploits and Death of William
Wallace, the “Hero of Scotland” by Walter Scott and Mel Gibson’s film are devoted to him. In
France, Joan of Arc (1412–31) fought against the English during the Hundred Years War. Hungary
knows of various heroes of this type. The resistance against the Ottoman Empire was led in 1552 by
István Dobó, and in 1556 by Miklós Zrínyi; more famous is the Hungarian hero Ferenc Rákóczi
(1676–1735), who led the resistance against the Hapsburgs. Ferenc (Franz) Liszt dedicated to him his
Hungarian Rhapsody n. 15 in A minor for piano solo, the so-called Rákóczi-March. Closer to us,
Andreas Hofer (1767–1810) fought against Napoleon and his allies on the mountains of his native
Tyrol. A particular type of hero is the Slovak Ludevít Velislav Stúr (1815–56), who roused the
national sentiment of his country with a codification of the Slovak language. José Rizal (1861–96),
writer and national hero of the Philippines, had an influence chiefly on the culture and on the political
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awareness of his nation, which was a Spanish colony. He was in favor of nonviolent action like that of
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), who adopted the same strategy in India. Gandhi’s career was made
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famous by a film directed by Richard Attenborough (1982). The list of heroes of this type is very
long. Suffice it to say that the Maccabees too are the Alfieri of their own culture, their own religion,
and their own language—in sum, of the fundamental values of their own nation.
There are different elements common to these heroes. Many are military leaders—various ones
died on the battlefield or were betrayed, captured, condemned, and executed. From the military point
of view, they were often weaker, but they compensated for their weakness with courage, sometimes
with bravado or strategic genius. They often avoided pitched battles in favor of guerrilla tactics. All
became popular heroes and often it is difficult to separate the legendary elements in their deeds from
history proper. They embody the spirit of people who do not wish to surrender.
The Books of the Maccabees describe a further phase in the struggle of the Jewish people for
survival. This time the danger comes not so much from the invasions of foreign armies or mixed
marriages as from the policy of the Hellenistic kings who used culture as the means of uniting the
different parts of their empires, empires that knew the value of culture and education. It is sufficient to
recall the importance in the ancient world of the Library of Alexandria of the Ptolemaic kings,
established in about 305 BCE. More important still was the introduction of the Greek system of
education (paideia) in the form of “gymnasia” in different parts of the empire (cf. 1 Macc 1:14).
The impact of the Greek culture was strong, and the Jewish people immediately felt themselves
threatened. In the ancient world, religion, culture, and politics were often inextricable. For the First
Book of the Maccabees, the starting point of the rebellion was the attempt of Antiochus IV Epiphanes
(175–164 BCE) to introduce the worship of the Greek gods in Jerusalem (1 Macc 1:41–64). Second
Maccabees, instead, emphasizes the cultural problem, attributing great importance to the introduction
of Hellenistic culture under the high priest Jason (2 Macc 4:7–20). He had a gymnasium built (4:12),
and the priests used to prefer athletic activities to offering the prescribed sacrifices (4:14). However,
there is also mention of problems of worship, of the sacking of the temple (2 Macc 5:15–23; cf. 1
Macc 1:21–24), and of the installation of pagan cults in the temple of Jerusalem (2 Macc 6:1–11; cf. 1
Macc 1:41–64).
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY PROBLEMS

From the historical point of view, the Books of the Maccabees pose some problems, especially
when compared with the account Josephus gives of the same period in his Jewish Antiquities (books
XII–XIII): Josephus paraphrases 1 Maccabees but does not know 2 Maccabees. There are many
problems of chronology and synchronism between the two Books of the Maccabees, and between the
biblical text and the other sources at our disposal.
The Greek text of 1 Maccabees is found in Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Alexandrinus contains both
books. The Vetus latina (predecessor to Jerome’s translation) is often a useful source for establishing
a satisfactory text.
First Maccabees is basically a trilogy that tells of the heroic deeds of the three Maccabee brothers:
Judas, Jonathan, and Simon. The rebellion against the Hellenization policy of Antiochus IV
Epiphanes began with the priest Mattathias and his sons (1 Macc 1—2). Initially, the struggle was led
by Judas, the third son (1 Macc 3:1—9:22; from 166 to 160 BCE). After his death, his brother
Jonathan took over the leadership of operations (9:23—12:45; from 160 to 143 BCE). Subsequently,
he was betrayed and executed. This left the stage to the third brother, Simon (13:1—16:24; from 143
to 134 BCE), who became ethnarch and high priest. He was also the founder of the Hasmonean
dynasty. Simon died, assassinated by his son-in-law Ptolemy, but John Hyrcanus, Simon’s son,
managed to seize power and take over the function of high priest.
The author of 1 Maccabees was a Jew who lived in the land and probably wrote in Hebrew, a
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learned language that was no longer spoken. The original has been lost, and we possess only the
Greek translation, which imitates the style of the earlier historical books. First Maccabees puts more
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emphasis on the importance of the law (Torah) than on the temple, unlike the author of 2 Maccabees.
In the first book, the Jewish people take up arms to defend their right to live according to their own
law and their own customs, that is, according to the Torah.
The second book is certainly not a continuation of the first. It deals with the same period but begins
its account well before the advent of Antiochus Epiphanes and ends before the death of Jonathan
Maccabeus. Its account of events of the same period is much longer than that of 1 Maccabees.
Moreover, it presents itself as the summary of a work in five volumes by an unknown author, Jason of
Cyrene, which was composed about the year 160 BCE. Second Maccabees was composed in Greek,
shortly after 124 BCE, the date of the letter quoted in 2 Maccabees 1:1–9 (cf. 1:9). The focus of
interest is the Jerusalem temple—rather than the Torah—and the climax of its narrative is the
purification of the temple (2 Macc 10:1–8).
Second Maccabees stands out in the biblical literature for a reason: it is the only work of
“history”—we must use the word history with caution even in the case of the Books of the
Maccabees—that includes a prologue and a conclusion written by the author (2 Macc 2:19–32;
15:37–39). It clearly follows the model of the great Greek historians, such as Herodotus and
Thucydides. In these passages, it uses the first-person plural in 2:23–32, and the first-person singular
in 15:37–39. We must wait for the New Testament to find anything similar, notably in the prologues
to Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:1–4) and to Luke’s Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:1–5). Like his Greek
models, the author of 2 Maccabees is seeking to discern a leading thread in the events he records and
to draw the lesson of them for his readers (2 Macc 6:12–17). He speaks explicitly of the educational
value of history, especially of the trials undergone by his people.
A delicate problem is that of the interpretation of the books. For example, the two books provide a
faithful account of events, even if from a point of view that is clearly favorable to the Jewish people.
Moreover, chronology does not seem to be a priority for our authors. First and Second Maccabees
contain, largely, what is called an histoire événementielle, a chronicle of events made from a very
precise perspective. Therefore, it is not easy to grasp exactly the true political motives of the
Seleucids and of the Maccabees. There are not many elements to help us understand the economic and
social background of the rebellion. One can speculate that, among the aims of the Maccabees, there
was also the desire to seize power. As we know, once they had attained this objective, the
Maccabees—who had meanwhile become Hasmoneans—adopted the Hellenistic customs they had
previously resisted.
THE THEOLOGY OF 2 MACCABEES

The Second Book of the Maccabees witnesses to a theology very close, in certain aspects, to that of
the New Testament. In 2 Maccabees 7:28, in the mother’s speech to her youngest son, creation from
nothing (creatio ex nihilo) is mentioned for the first time. There is also reference to the resurrection of
the just in the afterlife (2 Macc 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29). There is also the idea that prayers and sacrifices
for the dead are efficacious and can expiate their past sins (2 Macc 12:41–45), a subject on which
Protestants and Catholics differ. In this book, we also find a very positive description of martyrdom (2
Macc 7).
A further detail before concluding this section. The two Books of the Maccabees inform us about
the make-up of different parties in the Jewish community in the Hellenistic period: an “aristocratic”
party of priests, which would become the party of the Sadducees, and a more popular party, which
accorded greater importance to the observance of the Torah and would become the party of the
Pharisees (cf. previously, the section “Ezra—Nehemiah and the Book of the Torah”).
In conclusion, we can say that the historical books of the postexilic period (1—2 Chronicles,
Ezra—Nehemiah, 1—2 Maccabees) are certainly not among the stylistic masterpieces of biblical
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literature. They are “inspired, but not too much,” as L. Alonso Schökel used to say. However, they are
precious witnesses to a particularly difficult period in the history of Israel. Particularly in
Ezra—Nehemiah and in 1—2 Maccabees, we find a strong tendency to resist assimilation to foreign
cultures, first and foremost in matters of religion. That was already the reaction of the prophet Elijah
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in 1 Kings 17—18. It was also that of Hosea, and of Deuteronomy, in particular in the prohibition of
alliances and marriages with foreigners (Deuteronomy 7). As we have seen, this tendency is
accentuated in the postexilic period. Thus, and only thus, the Jewish people succeeded in not
disappearing from the world scene and have transmitted to us some basic values that form part of our
Western culture—for example, the fact that the identity of a people is to be sought in its own tradition
and not in indiscriminate adaptation to the cultures of the dominant powers. “Drink water from your
own cistern, flowing water from your own well” (Prov 5:15): with this advice, we could summarize
the lesson of the history of Israel as it is presented in these books.
The “Short Stories” in Israel’s Library

Beside the books just cited, we find a whole shelf taken up by “short stories”: Ruth, Esther, Tobit,
and Judith. The Book of the prophet Jonah is also to be located on this shelf. Ruth and Esther are two
variations on the universal theme of Cinderella. Ruth, the Moabite, is a poor, foreign widow who
finds a rich and generous husband in Boaz. His generosity permits her to overcome all the obstacles.
In fact, she marries to give a son to her mother-in-law, also a widow without children. The whole
story has a juridical background that is not always easy to clarify.
Esther is perhaps still closer to the story of Cinderella because, from simple Jewish girl, she
becomes Queen of Persia. We are also close to the world of the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights.
Once at court, Esther and Mordecai manage to foil a conspiracy against the Jews of the Persian
Empire. The story is typical of the mentality of the diaspora, where all means must be employed to
escape the grave perils that can threaten a small, defenseless community.
The text of the Book of Esther has known an eventful history. A Hebrew text exists that never
mentions the name of God. The Greek translation is much longer than the Hebrew text: 93 verses
more than the 167 of the (Hebrew) Masoretic Text. The Greek version has come down to us in two
forms, one going back to Lucian of Antioch and the other to Origen.
The Greek translation adds some elements that give the book a religious tone absent in the Hebrew.
The main additions are Mordecai’s dream at the very beginning of the story, and, above all, the
prayers of Mordechai and Esther. The story finishes with the religious interpretation of the initial
dream.
Tobit is another story typical of the diaspora. The problems are old age, inheritance, marriage, long
journeys, and the difficulty of living one’s own faith in a sometimes-hostile environment. Tobias must
travel to far-off Persia to his father’s cousin because of a problem concerning inheritance. He also
finds a traveling companion who helps him on occasion. On arrival at his cousin’s, he marries the
daughter, Sarah, in very special circumstances. He returns home and can cure his father, who has
gone blind, with a remedy, namely the liver of a fish that was found by chance at the beginning of the
journey. At the end of the story, Tobias’s companion reveals his identity to the astonished company,
but not to the reader who has known it all along: he is the angel Raphael.
The influence of Hellenistic stories of the same genre—beginning with Homer’s Odyssey—makes
itself felt in some details, such as the dog at Tobias’s side (Tob 6:1; 11:4).6 Another typical element
of the story is the presence of the angel Raphael, who helps the young Tobias throughout his journey,
similar to the way the goddess Athena assists Ulysses during all his wanderings. Raphael is probably
the ancestor of our “guardian angels.”
The Book of Judith, a name that simply means “Judaean,” is the epic story of a pasionaria who
succeeds in liberating her city, Bethulia, by seducing the commander of the enemy army, Holofernes,
and exploiting the situation to cut off his head. Historical improbabilities abound in the story, which
represents the condition of a Jewish community that must use cunning and intelligence to survive
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because it no longer has a military force with which to defend itself. Thus, as in the Book of Esther,
this is a story dominated by the fear of being destroyed by the powerful.
The Book of Jonah is well known. A prophet, Jonah, son of Amittai (cf. 2 Kgs 14:25), is sent to
Nineveh to announce to the city its immediate punishment. However, the prophet flees far away on a
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ship heading for Tarshish, that is, to the west. God sends a storm. The sailors discover that the cause
of the storm is, indeed, Jonah, who then asks to be thrown into the sea. To his misfortune, a huge fish
swallows him and vomits him on to the seashore. Jonah, then, travels to Nineveh and there announces
the end of the city. However, Nineveh is converted, and God does not destroy it. This unexpected
outcome surprises the reader, and, above all, it surprises Jonah, who is furious and wishes to die. To
make him understand his plan, God uses a castor oil plant that grows one night and dies the next
(Jonah 4:6–10), to Jonah’s consternation. God then asks Jonah, “You are concerned about the
bush…it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about
Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons?”
(4:10–11). The question remains unanswered. It is the reader’s task to take up the pen and write the
conclusion to the story. There are similarities between the Book of Ruth and that of Jonah because
both challenge the attitude of distrust toward foreigners that was widespread in the postexilic
community. Who is to change his mind and be “converted” if not, perhaps, the prophet—or the
reader?
It must not be thought that these writings have any historical value. Only the narrative framework
could contain some realistic elements, such as names of sovereigns or cities. The rest is fiction.
Already in 1690, the great French historian and Benedictine monk Bernard de Montfaucon
(1655–1741) tried in vain to demonstrate the historicity of the story of Judith. There are many
incongruities in the account. Here are only two: Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon and not of
Nineveh; the general, Holofernes, and the eunuch, Bagoas, are names of Persian, not Babylonian,
figures.
Besides, the introductions explain well enough that the Book of Jonah does not intend to be
realistic when it leaves the prophet in the belly of a huge fish for three days. It is useless to search in
documents of the period traces of the names of Esther and Mordecai, or of the attempt by Haman to
massacre all the Jews of the Persian Empire, or of the hanging of Haman and his supporters. Finally,
the story of Tobit gives the illusion of being a historical account because of the plethora of details
about the period, the people, and the places. However, there are some inaccuracies. For example, it
was not King Shalmaneser V (726–722 BCE) who deported the tribes of Naphtali (Tob 1:2) but
Tiglath-Pileser III (747–727 BCE); Shalmaneser V’s successor was Sargon II (722–705 BCE), not
Sennacherib (705–681 BCE), as stated in Tobit 1:15. The presence of the archangel Gabriel and of
miraculous elements transport us into a world where “the story itself is the meaning” (Hans Frei), and
not into a series of possible events hidden behind the story.
Finally, we note that the atmosphere in the Books of Ruth and Jonah is very different from the one
that dominates in Esther and Judith. The first two are very open to foreigners and throw a positive
light on the non-Jewish world. The second two speak chiefly of foreigners who are enemies and
menacing. The national library of Israel has preserved works that reflect both these opinions and
classified them alongside each other.
The Surrealist Book of Daniel

Alone, and a little wistful on its shelf, we find the Book of Daniel. It is the only truly apocalyptic
text in the multicolored national library of Israel. Daniel takes us into a surrealist world that could
have been painted by Salvador Dalí. It was written at a time of persecutions, in the reign of the
Seleucids of Syria (200–142 BCE), toward 160 BCE. Daniel’s stories and visions offer a solution to
the distress that reigned in the Jewish world oppressed by the Seleucids. There did not seem to be any
short-term means of escape in this world, and, therefore, hope and solutions were sought in the
supernatural world through divine revelations: the term apocalypse signifies just that—“revelation.”
The Book of Daniel is the only member of the apocalyptic family to have found a place in the
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national library, as has been said, probably because it witnesses to how Jewish faith and piety were
being lived in a hostile environment. Other books would be excluded from the canon after the
rebellions of the Jews in 66–70 and 135 CE. The rabbis decided to remove those subversive works
that could incite armed rebellion. For the same reason, in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is relegated
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among the “Writings,” whereas the Christian Bibles make him a Major Prophet alongside Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Moreover, in the manuscripts of the Septuagint, all of which are of Christian
provenance, the twelve Minor Prophets precede the four major ones, so that the Book of Daniel is the
final book of the Old Testament, an open window, as it were, on to the New. We shall see why.
Apocalyptic is a literary genre that arises in almost desperate situations. It is no longer possible to
take refuge in an idealized past, as in the Books of Chronicles, or in a present devoted to the study of
the Torah, an ideal marked out, for example, in Psalm 1. Grounds for hope are sought in the future,
and in intervention that comes from the other world, from almighty God. Attempts are made to
decipher signs coming from heaven that enable the understanding of a cruel and inhuman history. The
hope is that, in the future, the course of events will change, the oppressors will receive the reward of
their deeds, and the oppressed will know better times.
One of Daniel’s visions stands out among all the others and will have an unprecedented trajectory.
This is the vision of the “Son of man,” which is cited several times in the New Testament (Dan 7:13).
It is certainly one of the main reasons why the Book of Daniel comes immediately before the New
Testament in the manuscripts of the Septuagint. In its original significance, however, the text does not
speak of the awaited Messiah but of the “community of the saints” (cf. Dan 7:18), the Israel that has
remained faithful to its God and will receive an eternal kingdom as its reward.
The Book of Daniel has more than one peculiarity. The Hebrew text consists of twelve chapters
written partly in Hebrew (Dan 1:1—2:4a; 8:1—12:13), partly in Aramaic (Dan 2:4b—7:28). The
Aramaic section is probably older and was completed by the text in Hebrew. In the struggle against
Hellenism, the Jews tried to safeguard their culture to the maximum degree, particularly the language
of their ancestors.
In the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Book of Daniel is divided into two parts. In the first part (Dan
1—6), the hero is Daniel alone (Dan 2, 4, 6), or his three companions (Dan 3), or Daniel with his
three companions (Dan 1). In the second part (Dan 7—12), we have visions of Daniel alone.
The text we have received from Greek-speaking Judaism exists under two forms, that of the
Septuagint and that attributed to Theodotion. Both add some passages to the Hebrew text: the prayer
of Azariah and the song of the three young men in chapter 3; the story of Susanna and the elders, and
the episodes of Bel and the dragon at the end of the book. The differences between the Hebrew and
the Greek text of Daniel were already noticed in antiquity by a certain Julius Africanus, who wrote a
letter to Origen of Alexandria (185–254 CE) about the absence of the story of Susanna from the
Hebrew. The latter answered and his Letter to Africanus is one of the first short treatises on biblical
criticism.
The Canticle of Canticles and the Love Poetry of Israel

The Canticle of Canticles or Song of Solomon is found on the shelf of Israel’s national library
reserved for love poetry, another universal literary genre. To interpret the Canticle, it would be useful
to reread the Canzoniere of Petrarch, especially the verses written to celebrate the beauty of Laura, or
the Rhymes, the Vita nova, and the Divina commedia, where Dante expresses his love for Beatrice in
so many ways. In medieval love poetry, the human aspect and mystical elevation are often combined.
The interpretations of these biblical poems differ greatly from one author to another and go from
the more spiritual ones of the love of God for his people to readings that see the poems primarily as
examples of erotic poetry. At least four different threads can be distinguished.
The first talks of allegorical interpretation, which can be historical or mystical. In the former, the
love of the bridegroom for the bride is a symbol of the will to reconcile the tribes of the North with
those of the South under Hezekiah, at the end of the eighth century BCE; in the latter, the love is that
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of God for his people at various moments in their history. In the Christian interpretation, the theme is
often the love of God (or Christ) for the Church (cf. Eph 5:25) or the love of God for the individual
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soul. This latter reading was introduced into the West by Bernard of Clairvaux and marks an
important step in the history of European culture—the birth of a more personal and individual
consciousness.
A second group of scholars prefers the cultic or mythological interpretation, which is none other
than a form of allegory. It sees in the Canticle one of the poetic and allusive forms of a fertility myth
well known in the ancient Near East. The god of vegetation dies with the arrival of the dry season and
the goddess of love and war goes to search for him in the underworld. Their reunion, celebrated by
the union (sacred marriage) of the king and the high priestess during the New Year Festival, is the
origin of the fertility found again in the fields and the fecundity of the flocks. The myth is known
particularly at Ugarit (the myth of Baal and Mot, Death), in Mesopotamia (the myth of
Tammuz-Adonis and Ishtar), and in Greece (Hades and Persephone). The prophets fought against
fertility rituals (Isa 17:10; Jer 7:18; 44:17–19; Ezek 8:14; Zech 10:1–2; perhaps Hos 2:4). However,
this prophetic polemic testifies to the popularity of the myth.
Third, some propose a dramatic interpretation. The poem would be dealing with true love where the
central question is fidelity. The characters are, perhaps, three: King Solomon would be wanting to
steal the beloved for his pleasure—but without success. We are, therefore, in the world of ancient
theatrical representations.
The fourth interpretation is the most common today among many exegetes of different confessions.
These prefer the naturalist and literal interpretation of the poems, seeing them as a series of love
songs like ancient Egyptian songs or Arab songs of the same genre. The Canticle is a profane, not
religious, poem. It celebrates love as such. It is remarkable, in fact, that the poem does indeed speak
of love but never mentions marriage or descendants, themes present elsewhere in the Bible. The erotic
tone of some passages has always created problems. In the first century CE, Rabbi Aqiba expressed
himself with severity against the practice of singing the Canticle during banquets. With Proverbs,
Qoheleth, and Esther, it is one of the books that had its inspiration and canonicity discussed at length
by the rabbis.
It is difficult to resolve this question of interpretation. I think, however, that it is complicated to
separate the different aspects of the poems. Love is one: it is true or false. The distinctions and
subtleties disappear once a certain level of profundity has been reached. To sing of the love between
bridegroom and bride, the beloved man and woman, means singing of a power that has its roots in the
very mystery of God. The distinctions between divine love and human love no longer make sense at
this level, and this is the reason for the authentic beauty of the Canticle of Canticles.
Alongside the problem of interpretation, we should add that the composition of the text is not very
clear. Many see in the Canticle a dialogue between bridegroom and bride, with interventions by a
chorus or other anonymous figures (the mother, the shepherds, some young girls, etc.). However, the
division is not obvious, and there are many proposals for it. It is the main characteristic of poetry and
its true charm to escape all attempts to frame it in abstract schemes that are too narrow. Poetry was
born free and remains free.
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8
CONCLUSION
We have now gone through our library. We have dusted off, leafed through, and classified a good
number of books, books very different in dimension, literary genre, and content. We have examined
the various sections of the library and discovered its numerous shelves. We have familiarized
ourselves with its arrangement and organization. We have grasped which sections found most favor
with Israel’s librarians and, above all, we have identified a series of labels and markers that have been
added here and there to the more ancient writings to integrate them better into the overall scheme.
Three aspects are to be registered in particular: first, the library forges the identity of the people of
Israel, arouses interest in its destiny, and nourishes a great hope for its future; second, it entrusts a
central role to the city of Jerusalem and its temple; third—and here we probably have the last series of
additions—it makes the Torah the cornerstone of the whole library. The readers are invited to enter a
sort of yeshiva, a rabbinic school, to study the Torah diligently, far from the noise of an often-hostile,
even cruel, world, and, when things are going well, a world that is simply indifferent.
Only one thing remains: choose a volume, open it, and become familiar with its fragrance, with its
appearance, and with its shape to become its friend. Every book is a world and an invitation to
adventure. That goes for the biblical books too.
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NOTES
Chapter 2
1. Chronicles of the Kings of Judah: 1 Kgs 14:29; 15:7, 23; 22:46; 2 Kgs 8:23; 12:20; 14:18; 15:6, 36; 16:19; 20:20; 21:17, 25; 23:28; 24:5. Cf. the Book of the
Acts of Solomon in 1 Kgs 11:41. Chronicles of the Kings of Israel: 1 Kgs 14:19; 15:31; 16:5, 14, 20, 27; 22:39; 2 Kgs 1:18; 10:34; 13:8, 12; 14:15, 28;
15:11, 15, 21, 26, 31.
2. On the sources of the Book of Esther, see p. 124.
3. Ezra 6:18; Neh 8:15; 10:35; Dan 9:13. Cf. Ezra 3:2, 4; 5:10; 6:2; Neh 6:6; 8:14; 10:36; 13:1.
4. Note also that the “law of the king,” Deut 17:14–20, obliges Israel’s sovereign to obtain a copy of the law of Moses and read it every day (Deut 17:18). The
fact of finding a law about the king is itself surprising because no collection of laws from the ancient Near East contains anything similar. Moreover, the
king is clearly subject to the law.
5. In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Daniel does not form part of the prophetic books but rather of the “Writings,” the third section of the Bible.
6. In the Septuagint, the Minor Prophets come before the Major Prophets, precisely so that the Book of Daniel is placed at the end of the Old Testament canon.
Chapter 3
1. Ishmael is the son of Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian slave taken as spouse according to Genesis 16. However, the son of the promise is Isaac, not Ishmael.
Edom (Esau) is Jacob’s twin. However, he loses the right of the firstborn and the blessing (Gen 25:27–34; 27:1–45). Ammon and Moab are the
descendants of the two daughters of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Gen 19:30–38).
2. See Exod 15:24; 16:2, 7; 17:3; Num 11:1; 14:2, 36; 16:11; 17:6; 20:3; 21:5.
3. See Exod 14:11–12; 16:3; 17:3; Num 11:4–6; 14:2–4; 16:12–14; 20:4–5; 21:5.
4. Matt 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; Luke 2:22, 24, 27, 39; 16:16; 23:56; John 1:17; 7:19, 23, 49; 19:7; Acts 6:13; 7:53; 13:38; 15:1, 5; 21:28; 23:3; 25:8; Rom
2:12–14, 25, 27; 3:19, 27, 31; 4:15; 5:20; 6:15; 7:1, 7–9, 12, 14, 23; 8:2–3; 9:4; 13:8; 1 Cor 9:8; 14:34; 15:56; Gal 2:14, 19; 3:5, 12, 17, 19, 21, 24; 4:21;
5:3–4, 14, 18, 24; 6:2, 13; 1 Tim 1:8–9; Heb 7:5, 16, 19, 28; 8:4; 9:19, 22; 10:1, 8, 28; Jas 1:25; 2:8, 10; 4:11.
5. Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31.
6. Initial chaos: Isa 45:18–19; Jer 4:23. Cf. Isa 34:11, it too is a recent text. Creation of the universe: Isa 40:26, 28; 42:5; 43:1; 44:24; 45:18.
7. Eden: Isa 51:3; Ezek 28:13; 31:9; 36:35. Garden of Eden: Ezek 31:9; 36:35; Joel 2:3. Garden of the Lord: Isa 51:3. Garden of God: Ezek 28:13; 31:8–9.
8. Cf. Ehud Ben Zvi, “The Closing Words of the Pentateuchal Books: A Clue for the Historical Status of the Book of Genesis within the Pentateuch,” Biblische
Notizen 62 (1992): 7–10; Hans-Peter Mathys, “Bücheranfänge und -schlüsse,” in Vom Anfang und vom Ende. Fünf alttestamentliche Studien (Frankfurt:
Peter Lang, 2000), 1–29.
9. See the title of the book of Georges Auzou, De la servitude au service (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, 1961).
10. The translation of the verb employed in Deut 1:5 is debated. However, there are good reasons for saying that it means “explain, comment on, interpret.”
11. The expression appears in a letter of the poet addressed to Betty Heine in 1853. Cf. Frank Crüsemann, “Das ‘portative Vaterland’: Struktur und Genese des
alttestamentlichen Kanons,” in Kanon und Zensur. Beiträge zur Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation, ed. Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann, 2
(Munich: Fink, 1987), 63–79; Crüsemann, Kanon und Sozialgeschichte. Beiträge zum Alten Testament (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser Gütersloher Verlagshaus,
2003), 227–49.
12. Let us mention some recent works: Bradford A. Anderson and Paula Gooder, An Introduction to the Study of the Pentateuch, T&T Clark Approaches to
Biblical Studies (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017); Thomas B. Dozeman, The Pentateuch: Introducing the Torah (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2017); Diana V. Edelman, Philip R. Davies, Christophe Nihan, and Thomas Römer, Opening the Books of Moses (Bristol, CT: Equinox, 2012); Alexander
Rofé, Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch, The Biblical Seminar 58 (Sheffield, UK: Academic Press, 1999); Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction to
Reading the Pentateuch (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006); Marvin A. Sweeney, The Pentateuch, Core Biblical Series (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2017).
Chapter 4
1. We note some of the more important works: Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Present
Text (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000); Albert de Pury, Thomas Römer, and Jean-Daniel Macchi, Israel Constructs Its History: Deuteronomistic
History in Recent Research (Sheffield, UK: Academic Press, 2001); Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel,
Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001); Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2010); Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History. A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark,
2007).
2. Histoire événementielle (chronicle of events) and histoire de la longue durée (long-term history) are terms introduced by French historians of the so-called
École des Annales (School of Annals): Marc Bloch, Lucien Fèbvre, and Fernand Braudel. Cf. Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1953); Lucien Febvre, A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Lucien Febvre (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1972); Fernand Braudel, On
History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980).
3. For other uses, cf. 1 Chr 22:13; 28:10. In these late texts, the use is similar to that of Josh 1:7.
4. This ideal will be described in the late Book of Sirach from the Hellenistic period (Sir 38:24–34).
5. Gerhard von Rad, “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 32 (1944): 1–42; von Rad, Gesammelte Studien zum
Alten Testament (Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1958), 148–88.
6. The etymology of Samuel’s name remains problematic. Perhaps it means “His name is El,” that is, “God’s name is El.” In Hebrew, El means God.
7. In Hebrew, š’ûl, from the verb š’l, “seek, ask.”
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8. See Kings of Israel: 1 Kgs 13:34 (Jeroboam); 15:25–26 (Nadab); 15:33–34 (Baasha); 16:25–26 (Omri); 16:29–33 (Ahab); 22:52–54 (Ahaziah); 2 Kgs 10:31
(Jehu); 13:1–2 (Jehoahaz); 13:10–11 (Jehoash); 14:23–24 (Jeroboam II); 15:8–9 (Zechariah); 15:17–18 (Menahem); 15:23–24 (Pekahiah); 15:27–28
(Pekah); 17:1–2 (Hoshea). Kings of Judah: 1 Kgs 14:21–24 (Rehoboam); 15:1–5 (Abijam); 15:9–11 (Asa); 22:41–44 (Jehoshaphat); 2 Kgs 12:1–4
(Jehoash); 14:1–3 (Amaziah); 15:1–4 (Azariah); 15:32–35 (Jotham); 16:1–4 (Ahaz); 18:1–3 (Hezekiah); 21:1–2 (Manasseh); 22:1–2 (Josiah); 23:31–32
(Jehoahaz); 23:36–37 (Jehoiakim); 24:8–9 (Jehoiakin); 24:17–20 (Zedekiah).
9. As just seen, the successful kings are David, Asa (1 Kgs 15:11), Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22:43), Jehoash (2 Kgs 12:3), Amaziah (partly: 2 Kgs 14:3), Azariah (2
Kgs 15:3), Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:3), and, above all, Josiah (2 Kgs 22:2).
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10. First Kgs 11:7 (Solomon); 14:23 (Rehoboam and the kingdom of Judah); 2 Kgs 21:3 (Manasseh).
11. First Kgs 15:14 (Asa); 22:44 (Jehoshaphat); 2 Kgs 12:4 (Jehoash); 14:4 (Amaziah); 15:4 (Azariah); 15:35 (Jotham); cf. the parallel texts of 2 Chr 11:15;
14:2, 4; 15:17; 17:6; 20:33; 31:1; 33:3, 19; see also Ps 18(17):34; Isa 36:7; 37:24; 58:14; Jer 3:2; 7:31; 12:12; 19:5; 32:35; 48:35; Amos 7:9; Hab 3:19.
12. First Kgs 15:26, 30 (Nadab); 15:34 and 16:2 (Baasha); 16:19 (Zimri); 16:26 (Omri); 16:31 and 21:22 (Ahab); 22:53 (Ahaziah); 2 Kgs 3:3 (Jehoram); 10:29,
31 (Jehu; cf. a small nuance in 10:30); 13:2, 6 (Jehoahaz); 13:11 (Jehoash); 14:24 (Jeroboam II); 15:9 (Zechariah); 15:18 (Menahem); 15:24 (Pekakiah);
15:28 (Pekah); 17:21–22 (all Israel). The only one who sinned “less than the others” is Hoshea, the last king of Samaria (2 Kgs 17:2). Cf. also the general
judgement of 2 Kgs 17:11 and the anticipatory condemnation of a prophet in 1 Kgs 13:2.
13. As is known, the law that Josiah applies is found largely in Deuteronomy 12 and 13. The links between Josiah’s reform and Deuteronomy 12—13, like the
history of the reform itself, are problems much debated today.
14. From the Greek nomos, “law.” One could also speak of a “legalistic” way of reading, but the term has pejorative connotations.
15. See 1 Kgs 13:26; 14:18; 15:29; 16:12, 34; 17:16; 22:38; 2 Kgs 1:17; 10:17; 24:2, 13.
16. Specialists will find here a list very similar to that of the speeches Martin Noth attributed to his “Deuteronomist.” Cf. Martin Noth,
Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die Sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtwerke im Alten Testament (Halle: Niemeyer, 1943), 43–266 (trans.:
The Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield, UK: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Press, 1991–2). For Noth, the speeches are the following: Josh
1:1–9; 12:1–6; 23; Judg 2:11—3:6; 1 Sam 12:1–15; 1 Kgs 8:14–53; 2 Kgs 17:1–23.
Chapter 5
1. See, e.g., John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986); Joseph
Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996); Mark J. Boda and Lissa M. Wray Beal, eds.,
Prophets, Prophecy, and Ancient Israelite Historiography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013); Mark J. Boda, J. Gordon McConville, eds., Dictionary
of the Old Testament: Prophets (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012); Vincent P. Branick, Understanding the Prophets and Their Books (New
York: Paulist Press, 2012); Charles E. Carter and Martti Nissinen, eds., Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009); Ronald E. Clements, Old Testament Prophecy: From Oracles to Canon (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
1996); Alan J. Hauser and Schuyler Kaufman, eds., Recent Research on the Major Prophets (Sheffield, UK: Phoenix Press, 2008); Reinhard G. Kratz, The
Prophets of Israel, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible 2 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015); Thomas L. Leclerc, Introduction to the Prophets: Their
Stories, Sayings, and Scrolls (New York: Paulist Press, 2017); Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets
(Leicester, UK: InterVarsity Press, 2012); Mark McEntire, A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel
(Louisville, KY: Westminstre John Knox, 2015); Martti Nissinen, Prophecy in Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible, BZAW 494 (Boston: Walter de
Gruyter, 2017); James D. Nogalski, Interpreting Prophetic Literature: Historical and Exegetical Tools for Reading the Prophets (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox, 2015); David L. Petersen, The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002); Paul
L. Redditt, Introduction to the Prophets (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Prophetic Literature (Sheffield, UK:
Continuum, 1997); John F. A. Sawyer, Prophecy and the Prophets of the Old Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Christopher R. Seitz,
Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); Louis Stulman and Hyun Chul Paul
Kim, You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010); Marvin A. Sweeney, The Prophetic Literature (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2005); Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading Prophetic Books: Form, Intertextuality, and Reception in Prophetic and Post-biblical Literature,
FAT 2.89 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).
2. Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005).
3. As is well known, the Book of Jonah is a story, not exactly a prophetic book.
4. Isaiah’s text is the source used by the Protoevangelium of James to introduce an ass and an ox into the scene of Jesus Christ’s nativity. The two animals
recognize the Messiah, whereas members of his own people will reject him.
5. The text is actually urging faithfulness to one’s own wife. This is something to be maintained also in treaties when one remembers that the nuptial image is
often applied to understandings between states.
6. We hear of it again in John 9.
7. Another similar text is Mic 2:2.
8. An acre is the surface of ground a pair of oxen can plow in one day (cf. 1 Kgs 19:19). Bath, homer, and ephah are three measures of capacity. The bath
corresponds more or less to forty-five liters of liquid, the ephah corresponds to the same quantity of solid material (e.g., grain), and the homer contains ten
ephahs, that is to say, 450 liters.
9. See also Lev 25:23: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”
10. See also the laws of Exod 21:1–6; Lev 25:39–55; Deut 15:12–18; and the texts of Neh 5:1–13; Isa 50:1; Jer 34:14; Amos 2:6.
11. The expression “I am/we are your bones and your flesh” and other similar utterances express the same idea of relationship. See Gen 2:23; 29:14; 2 Sam 5:1;
19:13–14.
Chapter 6
1. For a more detailed and systematic introduction, I refer to some of the classic works on the subject: Richard J. Clifford, The Wisdom Literature (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1998); Clifford, ed., Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007); James L. Crenshaw,
Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Atlanta: Westminster John Knox, 1981); John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson, eds., Wisdom in
Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Katharine J. Dell, Get Wisdom, Get Insight: An
Introduction to Israel’s Wisdom Literature (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000); Daniel J. Estes, Handbook on Wisdom Books and Psalms (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); David Flusser, Judaism of the Second Temple Period, vol. 2, Sages and Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); John
G. Gammie and Leo G. Perdue, eds., The Sage in Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990); F. García Martínez, ed.,
Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition (Leuven: Peeters, 2003); Alastair G. Hunter, The Wisdom Literature
(London: SCM Press, 2006); Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns, eds., Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008); Christl M. Maier and Nuria Calduch-Benages, eds., The Writings and Later Wisdom Books, The Bible and Women 1,
Hebrew Bible 3 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014); Roland E. Murphy, The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature (New
York: Doubleday, 1990); Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007); Perdue, ed.,
Scribes, Sages, and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008); Perdue, The Sword and the Stylus:
An Introduction to Wisdom in the Age of Empires (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Julius Steinberg and Timothy J. Stone, eds., The Shape of the Writings,
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Siphrut: Literature and Theology in the Hebrew Scriptures 16 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015); Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (London: SCM,
1972); Stuart Weeks, An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature, T&T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies (New York: T&T Clark International,
2010).
2. One of the best-known koans is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
3. Sirach’s lack of interest in farmers—but also in the other manual occupations—appears clearly in his praise of the scribe in Sir 38:24–34.
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Chapter 7
1. Cf. some specialized introductions, e.g., José Enrique Aguilar Chiu, The Psalms (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014); William P. Brown, Psalms, Interpreting
Biblical Texts (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010); James L. Crenshaw, The Psalms: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); John Day, Psalms
(Sheffield, UK: Academic Press, 1990); Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms and Lamentations I–II, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature 14–15 (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988-2001); Hermann Gunkel, An Introduction to the Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, trans. M. Biddle (Macon,
GA: Mercer University Press, 1998; the German original was published in 1933); William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years:
Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); Alastair G. Hunter, An Introduction to the Psalms (London: T&T Clark, 2007); Philip
S. Johnston and David G. Firth, eds., Interpreting the Psalms: Issues and Approaches (Leicester: Apollos, 2005); Nahum M. Sarna, Songs of the Heart: An
Introduction to the Book of Psalms (New York: Schocken Books, 1993); Klaus Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, trans. R. G. Dunphy (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1990).
2. Cf. Jer 32:12, 16; 36:4, 8, 32; 43:3, 6; 45:1.
3. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1910), see http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+2.37&fromdoc=Perseus
%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200.
4. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.
5. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.
6. We recall, for example, the dog Argo, who, in book XVII of the Odyssey, is the first to recognize Ulysses when he returns home to Ithaca.
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1. Why Don’t People Read the Bible?

3. The Pentateuch, or the Constitution of Israel

5. The Prophets: Writers, Journalists, Columnists, and Pundits of the Period

6. The Wisdom Books, the “Gurus” of Israel

7. The Last Shelves of the National Library of Israel

WHY DON’T PEOPLE READ THE BIBLE?

WHAT IS THE OLD TESTAMENT?

The Origin of the National Library of Israel

previously in the Books of Kings.

The Book of the Law of Moses, Linchpin of Israel’s Identity

The Great Shelves of the National Library of Israel

THE PENTATEUCH, OR THE CONSTITUTION

How Israel Is Constituted

Constitution and Documentation

The Anonymity of the Authors of the Pentateuch

Telling in Order to Unite

Why Is Abraham the Ancestor of Israel?

Abraham, Foundation of Israel’s Faith

Abraham, Paradigm of Israel’s Existence

Isaac and the Right to the Land

Jacob and the Promise of Return

destiny of the people of whom he is the eponymous ancestor.

Joseph, the “American” of Genesis

The Exodus and Israel’s “Declaration of Independence”

The Sojourn in the Desert, or the Trials of a Long Wait

We Have “Our” Laws!

Civil Law or Sacred Law?

Why a Law Promulgated in the Desert?

Moses, the Prophet

mentality and concerns of families of Palestinian peasants.

How Do We Explain the Division into Five Books?

The Sources of the Pentateuch

THE HISTORICAL BOOKS (THE “FORMER

Joshua: Rabbi or Conqueror?

The Book of Judges: The Wrong Religion or the Wrong Politics?

Joshua 24:29–31 Judges 2:8–10

and had known all the work that

The Books of Samuel: Monarchy or Prophetism?

by which gods and mortals are honored,

The Books of Kings: Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold

The “Former Prophets” in the National Library of Israel

The Prophetic Writers and the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Invasions

until you are left

The Prophets and the Defense of National Solidarity

and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

powerful, and more educated than the others.

The Formation of the Prophetic Section in Israel’s National Library

Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples.

THE WISDOM BOOKS, THE “GURUS” OF

The Book of Proverbs: The Wisdom “Canapés”

Job: Model of Patience or Prometheus?

Then Job answered:

“Today also my complaint is bitter;

the Almighty has terrified me;

Qoheleth, the Biblical Diogenes

The same thought is found in Qoh 2:22–23:

This also is vanity.

The Conformist Philosophy of Sirach

If they make you master of the feast, do not exalt yourself;

The Book of Wisdom: The Biblical Message Preached by an Alexandrian

she guided him on straight paths;