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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] "Salt" Statue: Lot's Wife
  • Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:45:40 EDT


Yigal Levin:
1. You wrote: "[Y]our suggestion does not work. Although the sounds
of Het (X in the trasliteration used on this list) and Khaph seem similar to
most western ears, and are in fact pronounced the same by many Israelis as
well, historically they are not, and the two letters are NEVER
interchangable. So there is no way in which anyone would use Melax (salt)
and Melekh (king)."
I agree that a Het and a Khaph did not have the same sound in Biblical
Hebrew and were not interchangeable. My question, though, is whether they
are
similar enough in sound to support a pun in Biblical Hebrew. Can M-L-Kh
(salt)
be a pun on M-L-K (king)?
(a) Consider Ezra 4: 14. Isn't there clever Hebrew wordplay there, based
on this pun? M-L-Kh/M-L-Kh/M-L-K/M-L-K; salt/salt/king/king. The clever
Hebrew wordplay vanishes in the English translation, but isn't it there in
the
Biblical Hebrew? If Ezra 4: 14 can be playing off "salt"/M-L-Kh and
"king"/M-L-K, why can't Genesis 19: 26 be similarly engaged in clever Hebrew
wordplay
on those two words? Lot's wife is stated to be turned into a "salt"/M-L-Kh
statue, but cannot the possible implication be that she was turned into a
"king's"/M-L-K statue of his famous, but ill-fated, "queen"/M-L-K-H?
(b) In the Patriarchal narratives, isn't punning routinely done on the basis
of similar sounds, rather than identical sounds? Consider the comments of
Gerhard von Rad at p. 294 of "Genesis" (1972) as to the controversial and
non-obvious pun in the text on the name of Jacob's very first son: Reuben.

"The interpretation of the name of her [Leah's] first-born is particularly
hair-raising…. The narrator strangely bypasses the obvious explanation
(re'-u-ben, 'Behold a son!') and speaks of looking upon affliction {'oni),
in which
one can find a distant suggestion of the consonants in the name Reuben."
Isn't that proof that punning in the Patriarchal narratives does not proceed
on the basis of identical sounds? Isn't M-L-Kh close enough to M-L-K to
support a pun in the Patriarchal narratives, even though the final
consonantal
sounds are not identical?
(c) Finally, consider the rare case of where in the English translation, an
apparent pun cannot be avoided. In English, the name of Abraham's oldest
brother, "Haran", is often spelled the same as the city where Abraham's
father
ends up dying, "Harran". (I myself spell the latter with two Rs to try to
avoid confusion in English.) In Hebrew, the first letter for brother Haran
is
Heh, whereas the first letter in the city Harran is Het (Cheth). In
Biblical
Hebrew, the sounds were not the same, but were they similar? Is this a pun
in Biblical Hebrew? Or in your view, is it the English translation that is
falsely suggesting a pun here?
If the name of brother "Haran" is a deliberate Hebrew pun on "Harran", that
might suggest that Haran was born "on the road", since "Harran" can mean
"road". Moreover, it seems unlikely that a boy born in Ur would be named
"Haran",
if "Haran" is an obvious pun on far-away "Harran". Without trying to
resolve the substantive issues here, I am rather asking a linguistic
question. In
Biblical Hebrew, are "Haran" with a Heh and "Harran" with a Het (Cheth)
similar enough in sound to be a pun, even though the sounds are not
identical?
Isn't that a similar issue to whether M-L-Kh and M-L-K are similar enough in
sound to be a pun?
2. You wrote: "There is no indication in the text that Lot's wife was
"guilty" of refusing her husband anything…."
Really? Every woman with whom we become acquainted personally in the
Patriarchal narratives, except one, bears a son. The one and only exception
is
Lot's wife. No woman with whom we become acquainted personally in the
Patriarchal narratives, except one, is truly punished. Although Hagar is
treated
harshly by Sarah and is exiled by Abraham, Hagar nevertheless comes out well,
as
her son Ishmael sires 12 sons, each of whom becomes the leader of a tribe.
The one and only woman who is truly punished in the text is Lot's wife. Do
you really think that those two issues are unrelated? Isn't the importance
of
a woman bearing her man a son stressed over and over and over again
throughout the Patriarchal narratives? Can it be a mere "coincidence" that
the only
woman who is truly punished in the text is the only woman who never bears
her
man a son? And that immediately after she is turned into a type of "statue",
then just as happened in secular history after the famous Queen was turned
into a type of statue, the still son-less husband promptly began
impregnating
their young teenage daughters?
The Queen and Lot's wife each bore four daughters who grew up to be
teenagers, and no son. Each is strangely turned into a type of "statue".
The
husband of each woman then impregnates their very young teenage daughters.
Isn't
that enough to make one ask whether chapter 19 of Genesis is deliberately
modeled on that secular historical situation? The sin of Lot's wife in not
heeding the angel's admonition not to look back at Sodom was a technical
violation, and not as bad as Lot's earlier failure to heed the angels'
admonition to
hurry up. The real sin of Lot's wife was not so much that she failed to
heed
the angels' admonition not to look back at Sodom, as it was that she failed
to honor YHWH's insistence that a woman must not stop trying to bear
children
for her husband until she has born him a healthy son.
Lot's wife is the only woman in the Patriarchal narratives who does not bear
a son, and she is the only woman who is punished, as she stopped trying to
bear children after bearing four daughters who grew up to be teenagers.
Just
like that famous Queen in the same historical epoch. Same story. Same
moral. Same historical time period.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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