Tanach Thoughts

Last Shabbat I was skimming Yirmiyahu because I was looking for a particular verse and in that moment wasn't near a concordance (what would we Tanach-loving, Shabbat-observers ever do without a concordance???), and I came across something that frankly shocked me. I had studied Yirmiyahu before and I've written on that in the blog. But I was struck by the following verses ( 48:45-46 ): " בְּצֵל חֶשְׁבּוֹן עָמְדוּ מִכֹּחַ נָסִים כִּי אֵשׁ יָצָא מֵחֶשְׁבּוֹן וְלֶהָבָה מִבֵּין סִיחוֹן וַתֹּאכַל פְּאַת מוֹאָב וְקָדְקֹד בְּנֵי שָׁאוֹן.   אוֹי לְךָ מוֹאָב אָבַד עַם כְּמוֹשׁ כִּי לֻקְּחוּ בָנֶיךָ בַּשֶּׁבִי וּבְנֹתֶיךָ בַּשִּׁבְיָה." "In the shelter of Heshbon fugitives halt exhausted; for fire went forth from Heshbon, flame from the midst of Sihon, consuming the brow of Moab, the pate of the people of Shaon. Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh are undone, for your sons are carried off into captivity, your daughters into exile." What's surprising about thi...

I was perusing Nachum on Shabbat when I came across the following verse ( Nachum 2:8 ): " וְהֻצַּב גֻּלְּתָה הֹעֲלָתָה וְאַמְהֹתֶיהָ מְנַהֲגוֹת כְּקוֹל יוֹנִים מְתֹפְפֹת עַל לִבְבֵהֶן", which roughly translates as " And Huzzab is exiled and carried away, while her handmaidens as with the voices of doves, beating their breasts." The reason that I say "roughly" is because the meaning of the word "הצב" - "Huzzab" is unclear. Traditional commentary typically states that it may have been the name of the Assyrian queen. Malbim has a different suggestion which is that Huzzab means that she was led away in a "turtle-wagon" (עגלת צב), and that her name was גלתה - Guletah (Malbim connects this to the root גלת - GLT in Tiglat-Pileser's name. I'm not sure that particular point holds water in the Assyrian language, though). Even before seeing Malbim, it occurred to me that Guletah may indeed be a name and may derive from the Assyr...

A couple of days ago I read a great essay by Yairah Amit . Amit argued that the story of Shmuel's becoming a prophet as described in Shmuel 1:3:1-21  reflects matters of interest and comes to answer subjects that were debated in the circles of the prophets of Yisrael. In short: Prophets were rare in the time of the judges. People generally turned to the kohanim (priests) for guidance. The story is designed in a way that shows the divine providence leaving the kohanim and passing over to the prophets. Prophecy was individualistic, i.e., only the prophet could hear Hashem talking to him. In another essay I saw today by Chaim Gevaryahu, he argued (based on similar prior suggestions) that most prophets of the early days made a living off of donations from people who came to them, or they wandered from town to town and city to city collecting donations. This can be seen in several instances in Tanach, including by Eliyahu, Elisha, Shmuel, Achiyah Hashiloni and more. Now, about a year ag...

Tonight, the 27th of Tammuz, is my birthday. As it happens, my second name is Yechezkel. A short time before my bar-mitzvah, I discovered that the only place in Tanach in which "Harel" appears is the Book of Yechezkel. My parents were not aware of this when they named me. My second name comes from my great-grandfather, but - I suppose we could say it's the hashgacha/providence that is given to parents when they name their children.  Again, as it happens, I have, at long-last, finished learning the Book of Yechezkel. As such, I thought I would write down my thoughts about the book. I will first say that for a little over two years now I've been planning to learn Yechezkel, but haven't gotten around to it. The reason I was particularly interested in Yechezkel was because of a dream I had around the time. I've only had a handful of truly significant dreams in my life. This one, I felt, was one of those. In the dream, I heard one of the most serious people in my y...

(image by Gustave  Doré, taken from here ) It is well known that biblical critics are immensely bothered by the Book of Yesha'ayahu. The reason that they are bothered by it is not  because it's, as they claim, made up of two to fifty (roughly) different books of different prophets, of whom only one is named (Yesha'ayhu I), but really because they deny the very possibility of prophecy. To them, prophets were the ancient world's equivalent of thinkers and political advisors. No spiritual capabilities whatsoever. As long as the prophets gave generalized apocalyptic "prophecies" that could mean anything and may not even come true, the prophets were in the clear. No, what really bothers critics is when prophets got something right . Then the prophet is a goner: He or she will be pushed from their classically-accepted era to the future, a time in which everyone  knew what had transpired, thus removing any real prophetic abilities from them. But what really bothers c...