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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yom Kippur
  • Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 17:34:43 -0500

Dear Jonathan,

> > >From biblical through Second Temple through talmudic until modern
times,
>both Jews and Christians have tended to ignore, or interpret according to
>their beliefs, the fact that both Amos (5:25) and Jeremiah (7:22-23)
>categorically reject sacrifice as a Canaanite influence and something not
>commanded by God. They both prefer observing his berit and observing the
>moral code.

> HH: Do you really think that is what Amos and Jeremiah are doing? I
> am flabbergasted. The law about sacrifices came from Sinai itself.
Your Tanakh turns into swiss cheese full of holes if you consider
sacrifice a foreign element that is false to true worship of Yahweh.

Yes. Jeremiah says flat outright:
¤For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning¤b¤ burnt offerings or
sacrifices: (AV)
For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with
them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice (NJPS)


HH: I think Jer 7:22-23 speaks of what had priority. What did God
stress when He first brought the people out of Egypt?

The text says "speak" (dibber) and "command" (tsiwwah) "concerning, about"
(al). Nothing to indicate stressing one thing and not another, but only
speking and commanding about one thing and not another.

HH: But it is easy to understand that comparative stress is the idea. See, for example, Jeffrey Niehaus, "Amos," in An Exegetical & Expository Commentary: The Minor Prophets, ed. Thomas Edward McComisky, 433. He notes that the sacrificial system was preplanned for a settled condition where agriculture and animal husbandry could be practiced. So it is quite possible that for much of the time in the wilderness Israel did not make such sacrifices. Clearly the animal sacrifices and vegetable offerings would not have been a priority in the wilderness where the diet was manna. And Jer 7:23 shows that God speaks of the initial agreement to the covenant:

Jer. 7:23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.

HH: That is similar to the wording in Exodus 19:5. This commitment to obedience was the issue that had to be settled for the covenant to exist, and that is what the people agreed to do (Ex 19:8). Then came the Ten Commandments. Later there were words about sacrifice, but that was secondary to the first and central issue of obedience. When God brought them out of Egypt, that is what He concentrated on.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard








I don't think
Amos 5:25 is denying that they brought sacrifices, but saying that
while they may have done that, they also carried their idols along
with them.

Amos is asking a rhetorical question:
¤Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty
years, O house of Israel?¤ (AV)
For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with
them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice (NJPS)

HH: The BHS text does not have the words duplicated in Jer 7:23, if this is what NJPS really has at Amos 5:25. They're not even mentioned in a footnote.


Meaning that the Israelites didn't offer sacrifices in the desert, and that
the sacrificial cult is due to Canaanite influence.
I don't deny the possibility that the Israelites, if they, or some of their
ancestors, did indeed flee from Egypt, may have carried idols along with
them. Even if one discounts the authenticity of the biblical evidence (which
I don't), Kuntillet Ajrud is sufficient evidence that at least some of the
Israelites had idols until well into the time of the monarchy. The evidence
of the Elephantine texts suggests that at least some of the Jews had idols
sown to the end of the 4th century BCE.
But you are reading things into the text which aren't there.
The rest of the passage deals with future time and not past time:
¤26¤¤d¤And you shall carry off your "king"- Sikkuth¤e¤ and Kiyyun,¤e¤The
images you have made for yourselves Of your astral deity- ¤27¤As I drive you
into exile beyond Damascus -Said the Lord, whose name is God of Hosts.¤f¤


HH: The NIV uses the perfect tense: "You have lifted up the shrine of your king." Niehaus also uses the perfect tense: "But you have carried around Sakkuth your king." So does the AV, with the perfect tense also in v. 25. However, the NRSV puts verse 26 into the future tense. Niehaus says that the "waw" opening verse 26 calls for an adversative sense. He says that the tense is perfect, but not converted as the NRSV has. This is something the Israelites have done.


Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren, Editor
Mo'ed - Annual for Jewish Studies
Center for Jewish Culture
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office
44905 Israel
Tel. 972-9-7476396
Fax 972-9-7475397
e-mail: moed AT beitberl.ac.il
Website: www.beitberl.ac.il/moed




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