Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Chris,

> Not too long ago, we had a conversation here 
> about ˜ËÔ &+N in 1  Chronicles 21. The most 
> common reading of this word in that verse is  as 
> a proper noun, a point on the way toward the 
> later, full-blown  concept of Satan/the Devil. 
> Most (professional) interpreters  apparently 
> think that the Chronicler could not abide the 
> idea of YHWH  inciting David to do something 
> that David later characterizes as sin  and that 
> YHWH later punishes David for having done as per 
> 2 Samuel  24. During that conversation, I 
> suggested an alternate possibility:  that the 
> Chronicler uses ˜ËÔ &+N in 1 Chron 21 as a 
> typical common  anarthrous noun, and does not 
> mean to tell a fundamentally different  story 
> from 2 Sam 24, but is using (anarthrous) ˜ËÔ &+N 
> "an  adversary" as a kind of circumlocation 
> referring to 2 Sam 24's "the  anger of YHWH," 
> much as the "angel of YHWH" stands as 
> (anarthrous)  ˜ËÔ &+N "an adversary."
> At the CBA meeting recently I had a conversation 
> about this with a  couple of folks over lunch, 
> one of whom suggested that ˜ËÔ &+N  could also 
> be read in 1 Chron 21 as a common noun with a 
> purely non- supernatural referent. That is, this 
> individual agreed with the usual  consensus that 
> the Chronicler was uncomfortable with what he 
> read in  the Deuteronomistic version, but 
> instead of substituting a different 
> supernatural force, substituted a completely 
> generic, human  "adversary," a vague military 
> threat, which incited David to take the  census. 
> I have not yet thought very much about whether 
> Ò™ SWT  could be used in quite this way, but I 
> found the thought intriguing  enough to share 
> with all of you who followed that earlier thread.


HH: Thanks. One immediate thought is that a 
military adversary would be a legitimate reason 
for a census. The original census in Numbers was 
a sort of military muster. So if David was facing 
a military foe, I don't see why mustering his 
troops would have been a sin.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard