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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
In 592 bce, at the midpoint between the two Babylonian invasions of 597 bce and 587 bce, Ezekiel, who was exiled to Babylon after the first invasion, finds himself transported back to Jerusalem in a divine vision (Ezekiel 8–11). In the first part of this vision, Ezekiel 8, Ezekiel sees Jerusalem in a state of religious collapse, as God shows the prophet four strange cultic abominations: the image of jealousy (8:3–6), elders burning incense in a room of reliefs (8:7–13), women wailing over Tammuz (8:14–15), and men worshiping the sun (8:16–18). Of these four cultic abominations, the character of the last two, the mourning over Tammuz and the worship of the sun, is clear. Less certain is the nature of the first cultic abomination, the image of jealousy. Still, there has recently emerged in the literature a consensus that the image (semel) in question is an ʾăšērâ, the wooden cult object associated with the goddess Asherah. However, there has been no agreement among scholars concerning the cult act referred to in Ezek 8:7–13, where elders burn incense in a room of reliefs.
1 The date 592 bce is indicated in Ezek 8:1. And although there has been some debate on the reliability of Ezekiel's date, it is possible and even probable that the apostasies Ezekiel claims to have seen in Ezekiel 8 were going on in Jerusalem in 592 bce. See, e.g., Jer 7:16–8:3; 13:27; 17:1–4, 19–27; 19:1–13; 32:34–35; Ezek 6:1–7; 20:29, 31, all of which are descriptions of religious apostasy in sixth-century Jerusalem; see also 2 Kgs 23:32, 37; 24:9, 19, where Kings Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiakin, and Zedekiah are accused of “doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh,” a phrase which implies religious apostasy (Fohrer, Georg, Die Hauptprobleme des Buches Ezechiel [BZAW 72; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1952] 169–70).Google Scholar
2 Note 2 Chr 33:7, 15, where semel, “image, idol,” is used to refer to an ʾăšērâ (2 Kgs 21:7). For moderns who interpret Ezekiel's image of jealousy as an ʾăšērâ, see Carley, K. W., The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974) 53Google Scholar; Craigie, Peter C., Ezekiel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983) 57Google Scholar; Eichrodt, Walther, Ezekiel (trans. Cosslett Quin; OTL; London: SCM, 1970) 122–23Google Scholar; Greenberg, Moshe, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB 22; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983) 168Google Scholar; Kaufmann, Yehezkel, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (trans, and abridged by Moshe Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) 144.Google Scholar
3 In vss 7b-8 Ezekiel is led to some chamber situated in the vicinity of the courtyard entrance. But how Ezekiel gains access to that chamber is not at all obvious. The MT suggests that Ezekiel's attention is first drawn to a hole in the wall. He is commanded to dig in the wall around the hole (enlarging the hole to squeeze through it? so Driver, G. R., “Ezekiel: Linguistic and Textual Problems,” Bib 35 [1954] 149–50)Google Scholar. Eventually he succeeds in revealing? creating? a door or entrance in the wall through which he can enter the secret room. The room, presumably, is built either into or abutting onto the wall of the courtyard. The Greek, on the other hand, omits wʾrʾh whnh ḥr ʾḥd bqyr in vs 7b and bqyr twice in vs 8. This might suggest that the chamber is subterranean, perhaps underneath the paving of the courtyard entrance. Some modern scholars (e.g., Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 108 n. 1; Fohrer, Georg, Ezechiel [HAT 13; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1955] 49)Google Scholar emend ḥtr in vs 8 to ḥpr, which means both “to dig” and “to look carefully.” Ezekiel was brought, in vs 7, to the entrance of the courtyard and commanded, in vs 8, to look carefully (ḥpr), at which point he saw the concealed entrance to the secret chamber. Both the Hebrew and Greek traditions failed to interpret ḥpr correctly and instead took the verb to mean “dig.” Subsequently, in the Hebrew tradition, htr, a synonym of hpr, made its way into the text; likewise, the Greek translates ōrysso, “to dig.” Once the verb was misunderstood, various glosses (wʾrʾh whnh ḥr ʾḥd bqyr [vs 7]; bqyr [vs 8]) worked their way into the text. This is an ingenious, perhaps overly ingenious, solution. It yields a smooth and easily comprehensible text, but without textual support, it ultimately, I think, must be rejected in favor of the lectio difficilior of the MT. I also think that until we understand better what was originally intended in vss 7b-8, we cannot decide whether the pluses in the MT are secondary (on bqyr, see below, n. 12).
4 MT htwʾbwt hrʾwt. The adjective hrʾwt is deleted with the Greek as an explicating plus; in Ezek 6:11 Greek also omits rʾwt for MT twʾbwt rʾwt. See also 8:17.
5 Note, however, Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 169, who interprets the location in vs 7 as “perhaps the south opening of the north gate, that gave onto the inner court.”
6 The Greek reading also improves the grammar of vs 3. In the MT as it stands there is a lack of agreement between the feminine hpnymyt and the masculine pnh.
7 It was previously thought that casemate walls were used only in the period of the United Monarchy, replaced after that time with the stronger solid walls. It is now known, however, that casemate construction continued throughout Iron II. See, most recently and completely, Lapp, N. L., “Casemate Walls in Palestine and the Late Iron II Casemate at Tell el-Ful (Gibeah),” BASOR 223 (1976) 25–42Google Scholar; also Aharoni, Yohanan, “The Date of Casemate Walls in Judah and Israel and Their Purpose,” BASOR 154 (1959) 35–39.Google Scholar
8 For both biblical (Josh 2:15–18; 2 Kgs 4:10) and archaeological (Tell Beit Mirsim, Beersheba, Tell en-Nasbeh) references to rooms within casemate walls, see Stager, Lawrence E., “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985) 16.Google Scholar Also on the archaeological data, see Aharoni, “Casemate Walls,” 38; Lapp, “Casemate Walls,” 27–36; Shiloh, Y., “The Casemate Wall, the Four Room House, and Early Planning in the Israelite City,” BASOR 268 (1987) 3–15.Google Scholar
9 Casemate walls were constructed by building a double plaster and rubble wall between stone pillars. The area between the plaster and rubble walls was either filled in with debris or left empty. Surely Ezekiel did not envision himself breaking through the stone with which the casemate's pillars were constructed. It also seems unlikely that he saw himself tunneling through four to five meters of debris. But Ezekiel could have envisioned breaking through an outside wall of plaster and rubble and entering into a room inside the wall. Ezekiel's task, in fact, may have been made easier by the fact that there was already a hole (ḥōr) in the wall (vs 7b).
10 So, e.g., Zimmerli, Walther, Ezekiel (2 vols.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 1. 240.Google Scholar
11 MT měḥuqqeh, singular, requires a singular subject, instead of MT kl glwly byt yśrʾl. Balla, E. (“Ezechiel 8, 1–9, 11; 11, 24–25,” Festschrift Rudolf Bultmann [Stuttgart/Köln: Kohlhammer, 1949] 8 n. 13)Google Scholar, Eichrodt (Ezekiel, 108 n. n), Fohrer, Georg (“Die Glossen im Buche Ezechiel,” ZAW 63 [1951] 43; Ezechiel, 49)Google Scholar, and Hölscher, Gustav (Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch [BZAW 39; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1924] 69)Google Scholar thus, with no textual basis, delete kl glwly byt yśrʾl as a gloss. But if vs 10 is to be read as singular, the plural lipnêhem in vs 11, which refers back to vs 10, must also be emended; on this Balla, Hölscher, Eichrodt, and Fohrer do not comment. Zimmerli (Ezekiel, 1. 219 n. b on vs. 10) prefers to retain MT and, following Ehrlich, Arnold B. (Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1912] 5. 26), to read měḥuqqeh as a noun (as in 1 Kgs 6:35 and Ezek 23:14), regarding měḥuqqeh as a nominal predicate.Google Scholar
12 Greek reads ep’ autou for MT ʾl hqyr. This is the fourth time the word qyr occurs in the Hebrew of Ezekiel 8; in none of these instances is the word reflected in the Greek. It is difficult to explain all of the occurrences of Hebrew qyr as glosses; one suspects, rather, that the Greek translator did not understand the word.
13 For the resulting *whnh kl šqṣ, the Greek reads idou mataia bdelygmata. Mataia is strange; Cornill, Carl Heinrich (Das Buch des Propheten Ezechiel [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1886] 224)Google Scholar in 1886 suggested that it results from an inner-Greek corruption of panta ta (= Hebrew kl). Although such a corruption is not immediately apparent, we must agree with Cornill that mataia as it stands is unlikely (see also Cooke, G. A., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel [ICC 21; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951] 102, and Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1. 219 n. a on vs. 10). However, against Cornill, I see no reason to emend šeqeṣ to šiqqūṣîm. See further below.Google Scholar
14 E.g., Cooke, Ezekiel, 102; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 169; Wevers, John William, Ezekiel (New Century Bible; London: Nelson, 1969) 81; and Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1. 219 n. a on vs. 10.Google Scholar
15 Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1. 240–41.
16 A similar explanation is also advanced by Carley, Ezekiel, 55; Craigie, Ezekiel, 61; and Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 123–25.
17 Albright, W. F., Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942) 166–67.Google Scholar
18 So, e.g., Cooke, Ezekiel, 94; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 169–70.
19 Some have been tempted to delete MT wyʾznyhw bn špn ʾmd btwkm as an addition. The phrase breaks the flow of the Hebrew in vs. 11. Jaazaniah is not one of the known sons of the Shaphan who held high office during the reign of Josiah (Jer 26:24; 29:3; 36:10–12). That there is another Jaazaniah, the son of Azzur, in Ezek 11:1, suggests some inner-Hebrew corruption. In the Greek the initial w, “and,” and the verb ʾmd are lacking, also indicating there is some difficulty in the Hebrew original. But, as we shall see, the presence of Jaazaniah in vs 11 fits well with the interpretation of vss 7–13 which I propose below. Moreover, there is no textual basis for deleting wyʾznyhw bn špn ʾmd btwkm. I thus prefer to leave it in the text.
20 ʾāmad lipnê is a technical term meaning “to stand in cultic service,” “to worship.” See Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1. 220 n. b on vs 11.
21 MT reads ʾtr ʾnn hqṭrt; delete ʾnn with the Greek.
22 MT bḥšk, “in the dark,” is not reflected in the Greek and should be deleted as a gloss; Eichrodt (Ezekiel, 108 n. q) and Fohrer (Ezechiel, 49) in addition would delete zqny byt yśrʾl.
23 Reading the singular ḥdr with the versions for the MT plural.
24 MT mśkyt is variously understood by the versions. Greek translates kryptos, “secret,” which is also reflected by Syriac ksyʾ and by Latin in abscondito cubiculi sui. The Tg reads mškb. Surely, however, the versions all misunderstand the Hebrew maśkît, which certainly means “relief,” as it does in Lev 26:1 and Num 33:52 (ʾbn mśkyt). Note also KAI 215.18 (Panamu II), where mśky means “image” or “statue.” There is thus no need to emend on the basis of the versions, nor is there any basis for restoring, as does Eichrodt (Ezekiel, 108 n. r), following Bertholet, A. (Das Buch Hesekiel [Freiburg/Tübingen/Leipzig: Mohr-Siebeck, 1897] 48), bōḥēr běmaskito, “while each chooses an idol for himself.”Google Scholar
25 MT ʾtnw is lacking in the Greek here and lacking in the Hebrew in the parallel version of this formulation in Ezek 9:9.
26 Ugaritica 5. 1 (RS 24.258) lines 15–21.
27 See PRU 4. 230 (RS 18.01), where the ownership of a vineyard is split between the marzēaḥ associations of the cities of Ari and Siyannu, and KTU 4.642 (RS. 19.103), which seems to associate a field and vineyard with the mrzḥ ʾn[], probably the marzēaḥ of Anat (see below, n. 32).
28 It is Greenfield, Jonas C. (“The Marzēaḥ as a Social Institution,” Acta Antiqua 22 [1974] 453, esp. n. 15) who particularly points out that the activities listed in Amos 6:4–6 are typical of the marzēaḥ mentioned in Amos 6:7.Google Scholar
29 Avigad, N. and Greenfield, Jonas C., “A Bronze Phiale with a Phoenician Dedicatory Inscription,” IEJ 32 (1982) 118–28.Google Scholar
30 See Ingholt, H., Seyrig, Henri, and Starcky, Jean, Receuil des tessères de Palmyra (Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 58; Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1955) nos. 27, 30, 33, 35, and many other examples.Google Scholar
31 As described in first mythological text in Ugaritica 5.1 (RS 24.258).
32 mrzḥ ʾn[t] has been convincingly restored by Eissfeldt, Otto (“Etymologische und archäologische Erklärung alttestamentlicher Wörter,” Kleine Schriften [ed. Sellheim, Rudolf and Maass, Fritz; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968] 4. 294) in KTU 4.642 (RS 19.103).Google Scholar
33 PRU 3. 130 (RS 15.70).
34 Ingholt, Seyrig, and Starcky, Receuil des tessères, no. 17b; cf. nos. 697b and 820a.
35 Greenfield, “Social Institution,” 451–55.
36 See Cowley, A. E., Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923)Google Scholar #30.12, and Num 7:13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73, 79, 84, and 85 (the references are from Greenfield, “Social Institution,” 453).
37 Greenfield, “Social Institution,” 453.
38 RS 14.16, published by Virolleaud, Charles, “Six textes de Ras Shamra provenant de la XIVe campagne (1950),” Syria 28 (1951) 163–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In Virolleaud's translation the amount of money in question is ten thousand shekels; for the corrected reading, see Lewis, Theodore J., “Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986) 152 n. 6.Google Scholar
39 PRU 3. 88 (RS 15.88).
40 PRU 3 130 (RS 15.70).
41 Greenfield, “Social Institution,” 453.
42 PRU 4. 230 (RS 18.01).
43 This is especially pointed out by Patrick D. Miller, “The Mrzḥ Text,” in Fisher, L. R., ed., The Claremont Ras Shamra Tablets (AnOr 48; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1971) 45.Google Scholar
44 Teixidor, Javier (The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977] 44–45) makes this point particularly well in discussing the marzēaḥ at Piraeus.Google Scholar
45 See, e.g., the recent comments of William G. Dever, “Material Remains and the Cult in Ancient Israel: An Essay in Archaeological Systematics,” in Meyers, Carol L. and O'Conner, M., eds., The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 574, 582–83 n. 12.Google Scholar
46 As is indicated by the inscriptions found at Kuntillet ʿAjrûd and Khirbet el-Qôm, which refer to Yahweh's ʾăšērâ. The meaning of ʾăšērâ in these inscriptions is debated; “shrine” (Phoenician ʾaširat; Akkadian aširtu; Aramaic ʾtrtʾ), “asherah,” the wooden cult object associated with the goddess Asherah (Hebrew ʾăšērâ, over thirty times in the Hebrew Bible), and “Asherah,” the goddess (Hebrew ʾăšērâ, Judg 3:7; 1 Kgs 15:13; 18:19; 2 Kgs 23:4) have all been suggested. Of these three possibilities, the meaning “shrine,” unattested elsewhere in Hebrew, is unlikely. Concerning the remaining two options, asherah, the wooden cult object, and Asherah, the goddess, it is unnecessary for our purposes to choose between them. In the ancient Near East the idol was the god. To associate Yahweh with the goddess herself or with the goddess's cult object is to associate Yahweh with Asherah. In some circles of Yahwism, then, Yahweh and Asherah were paired.
