This chapter is a reading of the first rock-water episode (Exodus 17). It navigates through three layers of literary stratigraphy – evident in shifting emotional responses, character roles, and settings – in order to uncover a version of the episode in which Moses plays the role of a king held to account by his people for ensuring their survivial in a crisis. This version does not stand on its own but is part of a version of the exodus narrative modeled on the Sargon birth legend. The character of Moses develops through a series of acts of striking, as he realizes his destiny as one who draws (water), expressed in his name. Like its Assyrian model, this narrative is a work of political allegory. It relates to Hezekiah’s abandonment of Egyptian ties as the Assyrians threaten siege of Jerusalem and may have played a role in negotiating Judah’s continued independence. The exodus story thus does not originate in the northern kingdom of Israel, as is usually thought, but is is implicated in a decidedly Judean situation.

This chapter tracks the hierocratic version through revisions of the manna and rock-water episodes (Exodus 16–17) and the scouts episode (Numbers 13–14), but its primary focus is a new version that begins at the sea (Exodus 14). This version is tracked through another revision of the scouts episode and readings of the episodes involving bitter water (Exodus 15), divine fire, quail, objection to Moses’s foreign wife (Numbers 11–12), and snakes (Numbers 21). The bitter water episode bypasses Aaron as mediator of torah and introduces the wilderness as a period of testing. The divine fire episode decentralizes the sanctuary and provides a way to mitigate threat of divine wrath as Moses intercedes with God. The quail episode initially protects Aaron’s control of meat consumption but is revised to reimagine the structure of Israel’s political leadership. Miriam’s complaint initially construes ritual impurity as a punishment for sin and transforms social isolation into banishment, but a revision sidelines Aaron and reestablishes Moses as a trustworthy mediator. Finally, God, the divine healer, prescribes the manufacture of a snake icon, which does not instill fear-driven obedience but prompts viewers to studiously reflect on uses and abuses of sovereignty.

This chapter is a reading of the Korah episode (Numbers 16–17). An initial, hierocratic version is linked to a revision of the census in Numbers 1–4 that disenfranchises the Levites by framing their role as service to Aaron, as though he were a king. The Korah episode is designed to discourage dissent, as Korah and 250 laypeople object to the use of holiness to centralize power with Aaron, and complaint is framed as rebellion. Moses does not teach here but manipulates, using rhetorical techniques characteristic of the sophists in order to underwrite Aaron’s power play. Fear of death and disgust are used rhetorically to dissuade readers from even associating with the likes of Korah. This version is still political allegory, as Aaron is Joshua ben Jehozadak, who takes over Zerubbabel’s role in Zechariah with support from Transjordanian Tobiads. Aaron’s addition to the second rock-water episode is also treated here. The section of Numbers 16 that deals with the Reubenites is read as a revision to the Korah episode that rejects the inclusion of Transjordan in the promised land because it has a competing sanctuary. Moses’s character is also rehabilitated here.

This chapter concludes by revisiting the importance of genre assessment. The wilderness narrative is not history, but this does not mean it has no historicity. As political allegory that became ever more generically complex, it is deeply implicated in Israel’s history. The literary history that emerged from readings of the complaint episodes is summarized here; it entails a pseudo-biographical version, an annalistic version, a tragic version, a hierocratic version, and a prophetic version. This preliminary literary history should be viewed as a map to guide readings of other texts, not a model to be imposed on them. The result is a history of political thought in action.

This chapter introduces the ten complaint episodes in the books of Exodus and Numbers as the primary focus of the book and sets the context and method for reading them. The history of modern biblical scholarship is a history of the pursuit of sources. This book focuses instead on genre as a set of historically grounded aesthetic norms. It proposes that we can best understand the literary history of the wilderness narrative by tracking how these norms change over time as Israel’s political and social circumstances change and its scribes navigate those changes by revising existing texts in order to create new possibilities for meaning. Pursuing the kind of genre history Hermann Gunkel advocated without tying it to existing approaches can yield new readings of these episodes and new insights into the literary history of the Pentateuch (Torah), whether documentary or supplementary. Historical criticism is presented as an exegetical, not an antiquarian, endeavor, one that requires the kind of literarily sensitive close reading typical of so-called synchronic studies of the final form. The genres used will help us situate this literature historically, as will the creative ways in which scribes used them.

This chapter is a reading of the scouts episode (Numbers 13–14). It begins life within the triumphant annalistic version of the wilderness narrative as a positive reconnaissance mission that preceded the conquest of Canaan in Numbers 21. It became a complaint episode when the wilderness narrative was reemplotted as a tragedy, with key features as defined by Aristotle, including error, reversal, recognition, and pathos, as well as a character (Caleb) who steps into the action in order to offer perspective that might help avoid a pathetic ending. The allegorical mode of the wilderness narrative remains active, as Caleb represents Zerubbabel, the Davidide in whom Haggai and Zechariah placed their hope for a restored temple. The return of an actual king was unlikely under Persian rule, but the tragic version of the wilderness narrative uses kingship discourse in order to frame this vision in terms of land, as the series of independent inheritances in Joshua 18–19 is transformed into a bounded territory dominated by Judah and inflected with Davidic resonances.

This chapter is a reading of the second rock-water episode (Numbers 20) and the manna episode (Exodus 16). It also addresses the question of why Moses dies in the wilderness. The two episodes are part of a new version of the wilderness narrative that is emplotted like an Assyrian annal as a vision for the Israelites’ triumphant return from exile, a story parallel to the one told in poetic form in Second Isaiah. The second rock-water episode blames exile on royal disobedience and writes human kingship out of the story. Moses dies in the wilderness because kingship is dead, and God is now depicted as Israel’s only king. The manna episode reinvents human leadership as Moses is reimagined as a priest who mediates divine blessing by teaching torah.

This chapter is a reading of the sea episode (Exodus 14) as a largely coherent narrative in which the Israelites move from self-determination, to dread, and finally to wonder and trust in both God and Moses because of what they witness at the sea. It was added as a new introduction relatively late in the literary history of the wilderness narrative. The case for this reading is grounded in the idea that productive tensions are an element of how literature works, while unproductive tensions can show us historical depth in the literary landscape. This chapter also addresses the relationship between literature and history, which is not mimetic but a matter of play with cultural repertoire from diverse historical and social contexts. Finally, the anonymous authorship of the Torah is usually attributed to the role of scribes as tradents, but this chapter draws on the idea that they transformed what they preserved and argues that those transformations could be as much political acts as literary ones. It proposes that the authors are implied in the literature, and that anonymity may be a function of genre (or mode).