TY - JOUR
AU1 - Scheuer,, Blaženka
AB - Abstract This article explores the literary and ideological dimensions of zoomorphic names for Deborah (bee) and Huldah (weasel)—two of the Hebrew Bible female prophets. The two women stand out among the female protagonists of the Hebrew Bible in three ways: they are the only female prophets endowed with textual legacy, they are remarkably successful in roles usually reserved for men, and they are the only women named after unclean animals. In this article, I argue that biblical authors use animal names to enhance the characterisation of the two women and to foreshadow the outcome of their narratives. Perceived as a bee, Deborah emerges as a triumphant weapon of war launched against the enemies of her people. Perceived as a weasel, Huldah appears as masterful in finding ways to solve intricate situations. At the same time, the use of names of unclean animals works to undermine the achievements and capacity of the two women, thereby consolidating the divide between male and female roles. Zoomorphic names of unclean animals suggest that although imaginable, and sometimes indispensable, female leadership is essentially extraordinary and must be viewed with suspicion. I. INTRODUCTION Animals are the first living creatures to make an entrance in the Hebrew Bible. They are created in all diversity and in vast numbers: the fish and the birds on the fifth day of creation (Genesis 1:21) and the land animals on the sixth (Genesis 1:25). Only thereafter do humans enter the scene. As the Eden story of Genesis 2–3 presents an alternative order of creation in which a human was sculpted first, this story adds a particular dimension to the prominence of animals, presenting them as a cure for human loneliness but also a cause of their fall. In some narratives animals even act as characters in the plot, engaging in a dialogue with humans: a smart snake tempts the first woman into eating the forbidden fruit and a speaking donkey saves Balaam’s life, averting his curse of the Israelites encamped in the lowlands of Moab (Numbers 22). One of the main differences between the traditions presented in the Hebrew Bible and the religious practices of great ancient cultures, such as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, is an almost total absence of animal images representing the divine.1 However, and probably because of such a persistent aniconic tradition, animals abound in the metaphorical language of the Hebrew Bible, applied both to the deity and the people. Yahweh of the Israelites would typically be described as a strong lion or an eagle,2 while the people would be described as sheep, lambs, wild donkeys, calves.3 Animal imagery in the literature of the Hebrew Bible is also to be found in the names of places and people. Most names are formed with an element of kinship (father, brother, uncle, or even mother), dominion (lord-, king-, princess-), and deity (El, Yahweh, Baal).4 However, about fifty names of places and people are formed with a compound related to the animal world.5 In this article, I pay particular attention to the animal names for two of the Hebrew Bible female prophets, Deborah and Huldah, arguing that their animal names are utilised as literary devices that serve particular literary interests. Based on the linguistic derivation and animal-motif of each name, I argue that biblical authors make a deliberate connection between the names of the female prophets their characterisation, and the plot of each of the two narratives. At the same time, the animal imagery used for the two female prophets is expected to activate a culturally patterned perception aimed at endorsing a particular understanding of female leadership according to which women might be allowed important religious positions but not any lasting religious authority. The connection between women and animals has a long history: from the Greek seventh and sixth century BCE misogynistic poetry of Hesiod, Semonides, and Phocylides, via Aristotle, and down the centuries to our times.6 Feminist theorists have long engaged critically with such depictions of women with regard to their long-lasting influence on understandings of gender, arguing that an identification of women and animals not only mirrors but also further perpetuates ideologies that nourish attitudes of ‘otherness’, domination, and exploitation of women.7 Biblical feminist scholarship, in turn, has argued that in spite of the social inequality of men and women in biblical societies, women are not presented as essentially unequal in the ideology of the Hebrew Bible texts. Rather, misogynistic themes entered religious thoughts and texts of early Judaism and Christianity under the influence of Hellenistic ideas about the male–female distinction from the late fourth century BCE and on.8 As my article makes clear, however, such attitudes could be hidden in seemingly unbiased texts, texts that portray their heroines in a remarkably positive manner, as is the case with the stories of Deborah and Huldah. This is why it is crucial to take note of the way biblical female characters are linked to particular animals; in this article I undertake an exegetical approach that teases out significant interconnections between ‘animal’ and ‘woman’ in the two Hebrew Bible stories. Such interconnections help the authors to achieve desired literary effects, while further regulating female power and religious authority. II. PERSONAL NAMES IN THE HEBREW BIBLE Personal names in ancient texts and epics have attracted the interest of sages and scholars since the earliest times. Names and their meanings were generally understood to be part of a deliberate narrative strategy of the ancient authors as they offered a central piece of information about the character in the plot. Names disclosed the essence of a character, an aspect of physical appearance, or a person’s social standing. While names could disclose a person’s history, referring to the name-bearer’s ancestors, names could also disclose the present and even the immediate future of the person. Consider, for instance, the name of Emmanuel, ‘God is with us’, bestowed upon the new prince of Judah to be born amid calamities of the Syrio-Ephraimite crisis in late 700 BCE (Isaiah 7). It is a name that suggests a bright future not only for Emmanuel himself but also for the people of his kingdom. We shall see that the outcome of the stories of Judges 4–5 (concerning Deborah) and 2 Kings 22 (concerning Huldah) is suggested in a similar manner by the animal names of the two female prophets. In his study of puns on names in the Hebrew Bible, Moshe Garsiel analyses a vast number of names and the manner in which they interact with key words and ideas in their narrative contexts. The advantage of Garsiel’s study is his differentiation between name-explanations offered explicitly in the Hebrew Bible, which are often etiological in character, or which draw upon a general understanding of the etymology of the name, and derivations of a name which are stimulated by authorial imagination and literary skill. The latter are not always associated with any particular etymology or etiology of the name.9 Such derivations, Garsiel maintains, are based on word- and/or sound-play, but also on links between the key motifs offered by the name and the narrative in which the name occurs. The last aspect—that of a key-motif offered by the animal imagery—is of particular interest here.10 How does the animal imagery of the names of Deborah and Huldah contribute to the characterisation of their prophetic roles? How do the connotations offered by their animal names influence the plot and the expected outcome of the story? And, finally, what do these names suggest about the attitudes towards these women? III. ANIMAL NAMES FOR WOMEN IN THE HEBREW BIBLE Calculating the number of personal names in the Hebrew Bible is a challenging and complex process, and discerning their meanings even more so. According to one calculation, there are 1426 distinct personal names and Hebrew inscriptions: 1315 male and 111 female.11 Nine of the female names are animal names, here presented in their order of appearance in the Hebrew Bible (see Table 1). Table 1: Female Animal Names in the Hebrew Bible Name Animal Social Role Literary Context Rachel ewe, sheep daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–31 Leah wild/strong cow daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–34; 35; 46; 49 Zipporah bird daughter, sister, wife, mother Exodus 2; 4; 18 Hoglah partridge daughter Numbers 26; 27; 36 Joshua 17 Deborah bee prophet, judge Judges 4–5 (Genesis 24; 35) Jael mountain goat, ibex wife Judges 4–5 Eglah heifer wife, mother 2 Samuel 3 1 Chronicles 3 Huldah weasel, rat prophet, wife 2 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 34 Zibiah gazelle mother (widow) 2 Kings 12 2 Chronicles 24 Name Animal Social Role Literary Context Rachel ewe, sheep daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–31 Leah wild/strong cow daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–34; 35; 46; 49 Zipporah bird daughter, sister, wife, mother Exodus 2; 4; 18 Hoglah partridge daughter Numbers 26; 27; 36 Joshua 17 Deborah bee prophet, judge Judges 4–5 (Genesis 24; 35) Jael mountain goat, ibex wife Judges 4–5 Eglah heifer wife, mother 2 Samuel 3 1 Chronicles 3 Huldah weasel, rat prophet, wife 2 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 34 Zibiah gazelle mother (widow) 2 Kings 12 2 Chronicles 24 Table 1: Female Animal Names in the Hebrew Bible Name Animal Social Role Literary Context Rachel ewe, sheep daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–31 Leah wild/strong cow daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–34; 35; 46; 49 Zipporah bird daughter, sister, wife, mother Exodus 2; 4; 18 Hoglah partridge daughter Numbers 26; 27; 36 Joshua 17 Deborah bee prophet, judge Judges 4–5 (Genesis 24; 35) Jael mountain goat, ibex wife Judges 4–5 Eglah heifer wife, mother 2 Samuel 3 1 Chronicles 3 Huldah weasel, rat prophet, wife 2 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 34 Zibiah gazelle mother (widow) 2 Kings 12 2 Chronicles 24 Name Animal Social Role Literary Context Rachel ewe, sheep daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–31 Leah wild/strong cow daughter, sister, wife, mother Genesis 29–34; 35; 46; 49 Zipporah bird daughter, sister, wife, mother Exodus 2; 4; 18 Hoglah partridge daughter Numbers 26; 27; 36 Joshua 17 Deborah bee prophet, judge Judges 4–5 (Genesis 24; 35) Jael mountain goat, ibex wife Judges 4–5 Eglah heifer wife, mother 2 Samuel 3 1 Chronicles 3 Huldah weasel, rat prophet, wife 2 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 34 Zibiah gazelle mother (widow) 2 Kings 12 2 Chronicles 24 A few observations might be made about the names above.12 The characters’ social standing, actions, and roles in their literary contexts differ. Apart from Hoglah, and possibly Deborah, whose marital status is disputed, all the women are wives or widows. Motherhood is the main role of five of the women: Leah, Rachel, Zipporah, Eglah, and Zibiah.13 Four of the women hold roles primarily outside of their familial context: Jael is a wife but her chief role is that of a war hero; Hoglah is a daughter but her main role is that of law-changer;14 Deborah is a judge, a poet and a prophetess; and Huldah is a learned woman and a prophetess. A glance at the cultic status of the animals reveals that five are counted among the clean animals of the Hebrew Bible because they are quadrupeds that chew the cud and whose hooves are divided (Leviticus 11:3; Deuteronomy 14:6): ewe, cow, mountain goat, heifer, and gazelle. Birds are generally clean except for birds of prey and most of the waterfowl. The partridge is therefore counted among the clean animals, and Zipporah, if understood as ‘a bird’, would also fall into this category. The bee, the rat, and the weasel are unclean animals. A few points make Deborah and Huldah stand out from this group of literary characters. Both women play central roles in their literary contexts as their characteristics and actions fall outside the scope of their family relations. They are skilled individuals, active in areas generally assumed to be reserved for men. The two women are the only Israelite women who have names of unclean animals and both are prophetesses. On a structural level, the stories of the two prophets are a part of the same greater literary complex, the Deuteronomistic History, comprising Deuteronomy through to 2 Kings, in which their narrative contexts form a kind of inclusio. The Deuteronomistic History in general gives great prominence to the prophets and prophetic word, with Moses as the exemplary founder. Among the prophets mentioned in the narratives of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, the first to be named is Deborah, the last is Huldah. Although the biblical narratives do not offer any explanation as to the meaning of their names, Deborah and Huldah are understood as animal names in both tradition and scholarship. The first explicit reading of the animal names of Deborah and Huldah is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 14b. Here, the rabbis declare the names to be particularly ugly, yet fitting for haughty women such as Deborah and Huldah. Such a negative assessment stands at odds with the idealising description of the two women in the biblical narratives. The rabbis are using their literary freedom to offer new interpretations of the two women’s deeds and characters, interpretations nurtured by the animal meaning of their names and facilitated by the cultural beliefs and practices in rabbinic times.15 IV. DEBORAH: JUDGES 4–5 The story of Deborah is in the book of Judges, a book which recounts events preceding the rise of monarchy among the ancient Israelites. The only woman as well as the only prophet among the judges in the Hebrew Bible, Deborah has attracted, and continues to attract, the attention of biblical scholars.16 It is generally argued that the story of Deborah as recorded in Judges 4 builds upon the older poetic section about Deborah in Judges 5.17 Judges 4 was inserted in subsequent redactions from the last years of 700 BCE and onwards.18 For this reason, and for the purpose of the present study, the focus will be on the characterisation of the woman prophets in the narrative in Judges 4. Judges 4 tells the story of Yahweh answering the people’s cry for help after years of suffering by sending Deborah to end the oppression imposed by the king of Hazor and effectively implemented by the hand of Sisera, the king’s army general. Judges 4:4–10 reads: 4At that time Deborah, a prophetess, a fiery woman, was judging Israel. 5She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment. 6She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “YHWH, the God of Israel, commands you, ‘Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. 7I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.”’ 8Barak said to her, ‘If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.’ 9And she said, ‘I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for yhwh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’ Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. 10Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and ten thousand warriors went up behind him; and Deborah went up with him. Judges 4 continues to account for the details of the defeat of the enemies and the total success for Deborah and her general, Barak. The characterisation and importance attached to Deborah in this story makes her name a particularly worthy object of exploration. The characterisation of Deborah in this text centres on her titles as well as on the description of her actions. The text states that she is a woman prophet and a judge. As a ‘prophetess’, she is one of four named women in the Hebrew Bible bestowed that title.19 As a judge, she is the only known female judge in the Hebrew Bible but also the only judge in the book of Judges to be titled a prophet as well. Besides those two titles, she is, in Judges 4 also described as a ‘fiery woman/woman of flames/touches’.20 This designation is further enhanced by the imposing image of Deborah sitting on the hills of Ephraim and speaking to the sons of Israel who went up to her for legal decision and guidance.21 Her authority seems even greater when speaking to Barak, the army general whom she summons, appoints, and rebukes. Her valour culminates in the image of Deborah marching side a side with Barak, ahead of ten thousand warriors. Ancient etymologies of Jewish tradition read Deborah’s name as that of ‘a bee’, and this is the most commonly proposed etymology of Deborah’s name in scholarship as well. Etymologically speaking, Deborah is identical with the Hebrew dvorah, ‘a bee’, as both come from the root דבר, dbr, which in turn occurs as a verb, ‘to speak’, and as a masculine noun, ‘a word’ or ‘a produce/thing’. In the Hebrew Bible, the word can be a word of judgment spoken in legal situations (Deuteronomy 17:9), but also the word of God spoken through prophets (Jeremiah 1:4, 11, 13). Such a linguistic derivation of Deborah’s name and its connection to the plot would have been noticed by the audience and would further reinforce the theme: Deborah’s name suggests that this is a person who truly speaks the words of Yahweh, both as a prophet and as a judge. Just like the honey of the bees, so would the words of Deborah, the bee prophetess and judge, be perceived of as words of strength and reinforcement (Psalms 19:10; 119:103; Ezekiel 3:3), needed in dire times. Apart from these etymological links, the above characterisation of Deborah is further strengthened by the key motif in her name. Deborah’s name invokes the image of a queen bee who commands her forces and guarantees survival of her colony, a fact reinforced by the words of her general Barak: ‘If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.’22 The choice of the name, then, seems to be a part of what Robert Kawashima calls ‘a type of oral-traditional military bestiary’.23 Insects such as bees, wasps, and scorpions were known as an effective biological weapon from early on. Nests of wasps or beehives sealed in jars would be thrown at the enemy, inflicting serious physical and psychological damage, thus winning the battle.24 When Barak demands that Deborah, a ‘fiery woman’ accompanies him on his war against Sisera, the reader would know that a deadly weapon has been launched, against which the enemy had little chance. Deborah’s name also suggests strong links to the cultural milieu in which the narrative was produced and passed on. The bee reference would have recalled images from surrounding mythological traditions,25 in particular those of the Greeks. In Greek poetic traditions, bees (Melissa, μέλισσα) were associated with prophecy, philosophy, and poetry, as well as cultic contexts.26 Bees were associated with the Muses in ancient times and later; Roman writer and scholar Varro (116–27 BCE) would refer to this ancient tradition in his treatise on agriculture by naming the bees as ‘the winged attendants of the Muses’.27 Thus, bees are associated with the birth of Zeus, as well as the births of great poets and philosophers such as Homer, Virgil, and Plato,28 stressing the association of bees with the deliverance of eloquent speech and true prophecy. Likewise, Greek poetic traditions from 700–500 BCE, represented by Hesiod, Semonides, and Phocylides, who all display generally negative attitudes towards women, are all united in their appraisal of the bees. In her study of the poems of Semonides and Phocylides, who both compare women to different animals, Sarah Pomeroy concludes that this poetic comparison displays highly diminishing attitudes towards women where ‘[o]nly one—the woman who is compared to a bee—is praiseworthy’.29 Applied to the book of Judges, such an attitude can be seen in the fact that Deborah is idealised as a heroic figure, a unique individual in the biblical tradition who is unlike any other judge in the book of Judges, and no other woman in the Hebrew Bible is described as heroic and irreproachable. Etymological connections in Deborah’s name, as well as cultural connotations of bees and their produce, contribute to a highly positive characterisation of Deborah as a woman sent by the deity to be a prophets and judge, a hero beyond all comparison. It is a name that speaks not only about its bearer but also about the outcome of the situation: with Deborah as a leader, victory against the enemy is guaranteed. V. HULDAH: 2 KINGS 22:14–20 The woman prophet Huldah plays a key role in a story about the last major cult-reform in the kingdom of Judah prior to its destruction by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. The narrative is recorded in 2 Kings 22–23. One of the greatest kings of the Hebrew Bible, King Josiah, happens to find a scroll of law as he is restoring the temple in Jerusalem. As the scroll is read to him and its message appears loud and clear, Josiah realises that the wrath of Yahweh, his God, is upon him and upon his people, and if the scroll really contains the divine word, both king and kingdom are doomed. In desperate need for certainty, the king calls upon his most trusted men: the high priest Hilkiah; the king’s secretary, Shaphan; the king’s personal servant, Asaiah; and two men of the court, Ahikam and Achbor. Their mission is to seek out a prophet and then ask about the words of the scroll and the destiny of the kingdom. They go to Huldah, a prophet of high social standing and good societal connections. She is married to a man called Shallum who is employed by the court as a keeper of the wardrobe and the couple is described as residing in fine quarters of the capital. The king’s men did not have to walk far. Here is Huldah’s answer (2 Kings 22:15–20): Thus says the lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16Thus says the lord, I will indeed bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. 17Because they have abandoned me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched. 18But as to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the lord, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, 19because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place, and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, says the lord. 20Therefore, I will gather you to your ancestors, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace; your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring on this place. Although some versions of a prophetic encounter might have been recorded earlier, scholars generally agree that the narrative of 2 Kings 22:14–20 is a result of a final redaction of the Josiah-narrative composed in the sixth century BCE or later.30 By this time, the fate of the Davidic kingdom in Judah was well-known and the loyalty of Josiah, the last righteous king of the Davidic line, was acknowledged. In this context the function of the Huldah story above is best seen as that of a bridge between two eras in history: the time when the word of Yahweh was spoken by a prophet, and the time when the word of Yahweh was written in the Torah. Huldah was the first prophet to declare a written scroll to be a true word of Yahweh.31 Huldah is the only person in the Hebrew Bible to carry her name. A male form of the name occurs once in 1 Chronicles 11:30 as Heled, a son of one of the mighty men of King David.32 The narrative of 2 Kings does not explain Huldah’s name, and readers are left to explore the etymological considerations at play. The name Huldah comes from a homonym root ḥld (חלד). The first root, ḥld I, occurs a few times in the Hebrew Bible as a masculine noun ḥeled, which can be translated as ‘duration of life / lifetime’ (Job 11:17 or Psalms 17:14; 39:6; 89:48). The second root ḥld II, is used in Leviticus 11:29 in the substantivised form of a mole-rat, a tiny animal that occurs in great numbers and is therefore understood to be swarming. Although the etymological explanation of Huldah’s name leaves us with these two possibilities, Lifetime or Mole/Rat, the animal form of the name has been the one used in both tradition and scholarship. Thus, from the earliest times, the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 14b, settled for the animal interpretation of Huldah’s name: ‘a mole/a rat’, or, most probably, ‘a weasel’.33 Two main characteristics of weasels are foregrounded in ancient literature—foremost Greek but also rabbinic—and carry particular significance for the reading of the Huldah story in 2 Kings 22: cunning and the oddity of its sexual reproduction. Unlike other animals, weasels were believed to reproduce through their mouths, a misunderstanding that actually gained some metaphorical dignity as a symbol of divine inspiration and prophetic speech. The slyness of weasels, on the other hand, was believed to be so strong that weasels were allegedly able to trick gods. Like two sides of the same coin, weasels were perceived as the speakers of the divine word but also the ones to survive divine wrath. Applied to the Huldah story in 2 Kings 22:14–20, the implication is obvious: as a weasel Huldah is truly an inspired prophet but also a person who evades the wrath of Yahweh which she confirmed was to come. These characteristics can also be seen as a link between Huldah’s name and the plot of the narrative. Rabbinic tradition argues that the aims of Josiah when he sent his delegation to Huldah should be understood as hope for intervention. The king was hoping that Huldah would intercede for him before God and thus avert his wrath. This is why, according to the rabbis, he chose a woman prophet in the first place. The king was petrified of what was to come and his last hope was that Huldah, a woman prophet, might give him a compassionate answer and change the future he was dreading. If so, the situation for Huldah was extremely dangerous. Prophets and advisers of kings knew they were risking their lives every time the king was inquiring about the words of gods. When Huldah did not give the king an optimistic answer, the king could have accused her of being a false prophet and have her killed, a situation her contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah, came to be well acquainted with (Jeremiah 26). How can a prophet crush a king’s optimism and survive his wrath? Only a prophet who possesses an extraordinary ability to survive tricky situations could succeed. Jeremiah was nothing of the sort. Huldah on the other hand was—just as her name indicated. But there is more to the animal link of Huldah’s name. The narrative is heavy with the sense of disaster, not just for Huldah or the king, but for the whole kingdom. The signs of bad tidings are not merely explicit in Huldah’s message but also implicit in the names of the protagonists of 2 Kings 22:14–20. The narrative explains that King Josiah sent five distinguished men to Huldah. Three of them are identified according to their standing: high priest Hilkiah as a representative of the temple and cultic matters; the king’s secretary, Shaphan, as the head administrator of the state; and Asaiah as the one responsible for the king’s seal and thus authorised to act on the king’s behalf.34 In addition there were two prominent men of the court who both had long-lasting careers even after Josiah’s death, Ahikam and Achbor. A glance at their names is revealing. Two of the names are constructed from the Yah-compound: Hilkiah and Asaiah. Ahikam is the only one whose name is constructed with a keen-relationship-compound, which suggests a meaning connected with ‘brother’ and ‘rise/arise’. The remaining two, Shaphan and Achbor, are animal names. Shaphan is the name of an unclean animal mentioned in Leviticus 11:5 and Deuteronomy 14:7 and is translated as ‘a rock-badger’. Achbor is used elsewhere in Leviticus 11:29 and Isaiah 66:17 of ‘a mouse’, another unclean animal.35 The authors seem to be suggesting an irony at play in the narrative: in the greatest distress of his life, King Josiah sends a rock-badger-secretary and a mouse-official to a weasel-prophetess. Even those with the least knowledge of the eco-system would know that weasels are predators who feed on mice and rock-badgers.36 The attentive reader already knows that compassion and optimism were not on this prophet's mind. The intimidating appearance of influential men before one single woman receives an ironic twist when considering their animal names: the men are the ones facing real danger. The meeting between a predator and its prey is a foreshadowing of the destiny of Josiah’s kingdom. The characterisation of the woman prophet and the enrichment of the plot in the Huldah story were not achieved through etymological derivations primarily, but through the use of a key motif in Huldah’s name. As a weasel, Huldah is ambiguously characterised as a true prophet but also a dangerous one. Mediation between an angry god and a righteous king required a skill of great wisdom and cunning. As soon as Huldah’s animal name was mentioned, the audience would know that she was the only prophet who could, amidst a dying kingdom, announce its greatest king: Josiah of Judah. VI. ANIMAL NAMES FOR HEBREW BIBLE FEMALE PROPHETS There are only four named women in the Hebrew Bible who are called neviah, ‘a prophetess’: Miriam of the Exodus story (Exodus 2 and 15), Deborah, Huldah, and Noadiah of the time of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 6). Women prophets were common in ancient times and cultures, a fact which biblical authors seem to be well aware of, as demonstrated in the gender-impartial condemnation Ezekiel launched against the prophets among his people (Ezekiel 13) in the years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. The scarce occurrence of women prophets in the Hebrew Bible, then, invites the question of why animal names were given to half of them, while only one of twenty-two named male prophets is bestowed the same honour.37 ‘Animal metaphors … offer glimpses of social practices’, writes Irene López Rodríguez in her study of animal metaphors for women in modern languages.38 The animal names of the women in the Hebrew Bible mirror particular views of women. López Rodríguez continues, ‘whether in the form of pets, livestock of wild animals, women are seen as in dire need of subjugation, domestication and tight control’.39 In the gender-divided world of the Hebrew Bible, in which women were expected to dwell and perform their tasks in the private spaces of the home, engaging authoritatively in public affairs was an oddity that would have disturbed the ancient sense of propriety.40 The animal names of Deborah and Huldah reflect the oddity of their roles, as demonstrated in two notable features. First, bees and weasels are small and fragile animals, a detail that corresponds with the physical qualities of the two women as feeble and fragile when compared to men. In the literary context of the Deborah and Huldah narratives, this detail is woven into the plot: Deborah is a woman hero acting among mighty men of war, and Huldah is a woman intellectual facing great men of power. The delicacy of their feminine stature underscores the sturdiness of their professional achievement. Second, bees and weasels are generally perceived as wild animals, although they could be domesticated in antiquity. The audience is left in doubt. On the one hand, conceptualised as wild animals, Deborah and Huldah are intimidating and dangerous, they are independent and able to survive and thrive on their own. On the other hand, if tamed, these animals can be used to provide food and render service to their masters. Yet even then, bees are dangerous if provoked and weasels are cunning and hard to control. In their narrative contexts, Deborah and Huldah prove to be not only uncontrollable but are actually the ones in control of the men around them. The animal names for Deborah and Huldah are thereby transgressive, as they challenge the ideas of conventional behaviour and roles for women. However, these names are also oppressive, advocating a disparagement of such women, as reflected in the choice of unclean animals for the names of the prophetesses of Yahweh. In later times the oppressive attitude towards the two woman prophets becomes corroborated in the above-mentioned rabbinic attempts to describe the names of Deborah and Huldah as ugly names apt for women characterised by arrogance: a quality proper in men, not women (Megillah 14b).41 Thus, through etymological and cultural connotations, the animal names for Deborah and Huldah speak of delicate individuals who achieve mighty deeds. Through their animal names, the audience is reassured that Deborah and Huldah are the right people for the task. Yet, in the Hebrew Bible, contexts of war and political crisis belong to the domain of men, not women, and when women are prominent in such contexts they usually play the role of victims, not heroes. The mandate that Deborah and Huldah were authorised with, however divine, was a mandate to act in contexts normally associated with men and power. It is precisely in this dichotomy between female and male, between extreme and ordinary, between catastrophe and survival, that the animal names of the two women play their most important part. The set of beliefs associated with bees and weasels supplies the audiences with ‘ways to think’ about these two unexpected heroines as well as about the stories they star in.42 In the same manner, zoomorphic names instruct the audiences to think about their own cultural context. Zoomorphic names of unclean animals hold a warning, a call for suspicion, suggesting that although imaginable, and sometimes indispensable, female leadership is essentially extraordinary and must be veiled in suspicion. 43 In the biblical texts, the two most remarkable ‘animal’ prophets—Deborah and Huldah—are never mentioned again. Footnotes 1 One should be aware, though, of the fact that programmatic (verbally stated) aniconism is a late development in the Hebrew Bible, even though practical aniconic cult was a mark of many of the West Semitic religions. We know that at least one of the two extensive religious reforms of Judahite kings Hezekiah (end of 700 BCE) and Josiah (c.722 BCE) were directed against practices of animal worship or animal representations of the divine. One such example is the role of the bronze serpent made by Moses and posed as a standard for every person bitten by a poisonous snake to look upon the bronze serpent and recover (Numbers 21). According to 2 Kings 18:4, the bronze serpent was smashed to pieces by Hezekiah because the Israelites had been worshiping it as a god for centuries. We could also mention the short-lived worship of a golden bull in Exodus 32, and the long-lived bull cult of King Jeroboam of Israel mentioned in 1 Kings 12:25–32. On the history of, and the theological motifs behind, the image prohibition in the Hebrew Bible see Tryggve Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (Stockholm: Almquist & Wixell International, 1995), or a shorter version Tryggve Mettinger, ‘The Veto on Images and the Aniconic God in Ancient Israel’, in Andrew Knapp (ed.), Reports from a Scholar’s Life: Select Papers on the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), pp. 135–77. 2 See, for example, Jeremiah 25:30; 49:19; 50:44, Amos 1:2, Joel 3:16, and Exodus 19:4. 3 Animal metaphors for the Israelites are particularly frequent in the book of Jeremiah which uses thirteen different animal names to describe the people. See Benjamin A. Foreman, Animal Metaphors and the People of Israel in the Book of Jeremiah (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). 4 See the studies of George B. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896). 5 Calculating the number of names in the Bible is not a straightforward process as many names are shared by several individuals and/or occur in slight derivations. Thus, depending on calculation, about 50 names in the Hebrew Bible are used from the animal world. See Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, p. 86. See also K.G. Bohmbach, ‘Names and Naming in the Biblical World’, in Carol Meyers, Toni Craven and Ross S. Kraemer (eds), Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament (Boston, MA and New York: Houghton Mufflin Company, 2000), pp. 33–9, 33–4. 6 See, for instance, Marilyn B. Arthur, ‘Early Greece: The Origins of the Western Attitude Toward Women’, in J. Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan (eds), Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1984), pp. 7–58, Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken Books, 1995 [1975]), and Maurizio Bettini, Women and Weasels: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013). 7 See, for instance ,the work of Carol J. Adams, especially The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010 [1990]), and recently Carol J. Adams and Lori Gruen (eds), Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014). See also Josephine Donovan’s ‘Animal Rights and Feminist Theory’, Signs 15.2 (1990) 350–75, and more recently the special issue ‘Animal Others’, Lori Gruen and Kari Weil (eds), Hypatia 27.3 (2012), as well as Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams (eds), Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader (New York: University of Columbia Press, 2007). 8 Such influence can be traced in late texts such as Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. See Carol L. Meyers, Rediscovering Eve. Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses. Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992). 9 Garsiel uses the expression ‘midrashic name derivations’, explaining the phenomenon as a ‘technique of extracting derivations from names’. It is homiletic in nature and it emerged from the midrashic traditions of early Judaism. See Moshe Garsiel, Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991), p. 19. For a survey of the study of the Hebrew Bible names see Richard S. Hess, ‘Issues in the Study of Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible’, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 6 (1998) 169–92. 10 Such a deliberate literary device has been an important feature in great ancient narratives such as the Homeric and Ugaritic epics, as well as in the works of authors of great Greek plays, and in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. See the recent studies of Nikoletta Kanavou, Aristophanes’ Comedy of Names: A Study of Speaking Names in Aristophanes (Berlin and New York: DeGruyter, 2011), and The Names of Homeric Heroes: Problems and Interpretations (Berlin and Boston, MA: DeGruyter, 2015). See also Garsiel, Biblical Names, pp. 22–6. 11 Bohmbach, ‘Names and Naming in the Biblical World’, pp. 33–4. The dictionary contains 162 entries for distinct women’s names. 12 Again, depending on the interpretation, there are a few other names that could be added to the list. Nehustah, the mother of King Jehoiakin of Jerusalem at the beginning of 500 BCE (2 Kings 24:8), might be explained as ‘a serpent’. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, p. 92. In addition, the name of one of the new daughters of the restored Job (Job 42:14) is named Jemimah, which probably means ‘a bright day’ but could also mean ‘a dove’. 13 Zipporah is a daughter of a Midianite priest, a wife of Moses, and a mother of Moses’ son/sons. Eglah and Zibiah are both mothers to sons of kings. Eglah is a wife of David and a mother of his seventh son born to him in Hebron. Zibiah is a mother of the young king Joash who survived the bloodbath that the queen-mother Ataliah commenced upon the assassination of her son and heir, King Ahaziah. 14 Jael is a woman who killed the general of the enemies of the Israelites at the time of Judges. This deed marked the final victory of the Israelites in their battle against the king of the Canaanite city Hazor. Hoglah is one of the daughters of a man who did not have any sons and who was thus entitled to inherit her father’s land. Thus, the action of these women brought about a change in the laws of the Hebrew Bible. 15 Moshe Garsiel sees here a kind of ‘authorial observation in praise of the ancient name giver who unconsciously gave a name surprisingly fitted to later events’, Garsiel, Biblical Names, p. 15. For the interpretation of Deborah’s name as an animal name in patristic literature see Irmtraud Fischer, Gotteskunderinnen: Zu einer geschlechterfairen Deutung des Phänomens der Prophetie und der Prophetinnen in der hebräischen Bibel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2002), pp. 203–7. Apparently, Huldah’s name has not received such attention by the church fathers. Ibid., pp. 245–53. For a comprehensive study of Deborah and Huldah in light of their animal names see Blaženka Scheuer, Bees, Wasps, and Weasels: Zoomorphic Slurs and Delegitimation of Prophetesses in the Babylonian Talmud and the Hebrew Bible, forthcoming in 2019. 16 A vast amount of literature has been published on a number of different issues raised by Judges 4–5. For a review of scholarly discussion between 1990 and 2009 see Tyler Mayfield, ‘The Accounts of Deborah (Judges 4–5)’, Currents in Biblical Research 7.3 (2009) 306–35. For the roles of Deborah in the biblical narrative see Daniel I. Block, ‘Deborah among the Judges: The Perspective of the Hebrew Historian’, in Alan Millard. James K. Hoffmeier, and David W. Baker (eds), Faith, Tradition & History. Old Testament Historiography in its Near Eastern Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 229–53. 17 See, for instance, Robert S. Kawashima, ‘From Song to Story: The Genesis of Narrative in Judges 4 and 5’, Prooftexts 21 (2001) 151–78, and Philippe Guillaume, Waiting for Josiah: The Judges (London: T&T Clark, 2004), and many others. 18 Guillaume, Waiting for Josiah; Uwe Becker, Richterzeit und Königtum. Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Richterbuch (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1990); Marvin A. Sweeney, ‘Davidic Polemic in the Book of Judges’, Vetus Testamentum 47 (1997) 517–29; Nadav Na’aman, ‘The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History’, in Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na’aman (eds), From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1994), pp. 218–81; and Yairah Amit, The Book of Judges: The Art of Editing (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 19 The other women are Miriam, Noadiah, and Huldah, see Susan Ackerman, ‘Why is Miriam also among the Prophets? (And is Zipporah among the Priests?)’, JBL 121.1 (2002) 47–80, 49. The men that are given the same title in the HB are Aaron, Abraham, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Gad, Habakkuk, Haggai, Hananiah, Iddo, Isaiah, Jehu, Jeremiah, Jonah, Michaiah, Moses, Nathan, Oded, Samuel, Shemiah, Zechariah as well as the prophets mentioned in Judges 6:8; 1 Kings 13:11, 18; 20:13, 38; 2 Kings 9:4, 2 Chronicles 25:15, all in all twenty-nine men. Ibid., p. 49. The expression ‘a woman a prophetess’ is somewhat unusual but could be seen as a deliberate introduction to the Deborah story in order to balance the introduction to the story of a later judge—Gideon and a corresponding phrase in Judges 6:8. See the brief survey by H.G.M. Williamson, ‘Prophetesses in the Hebrew Bible’, pp. 65–80 in John Day (ed.), Prophecy and Prophets in Ancient Israel. Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (New York and London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 68–9. 20 I read the Hebrew expression as a feminine plural construct of masculine noun ‘flame, torch’ (Genesis 15:17; Judges 7:7, 20; 15:4–5), and thus ‘a woman of flame/fiery woman’ and not ‘a wife of Lappidoth’. See Jack M. Sasson, Judges 1–12. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 255 and 273; Susan Niditch, Judges: A Commentary (Louisville, KT and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 62; and Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New Haven and London: Yale AYBRL, 1998), pp. 38–9. This on account of the fact that it is a grammatically possible reading and contextually preferable: Lappidoth is not further described, as should be expected if Deborah’s social status was being stated. 21 The verb ‘to go up’, indicates eminence, cf. Deuteronomy 17:8. 22 Thus Bernard Asen who reads the story in Judges 4–5 through the imagery of the lifespan of a honeybee. Bernhard A. Asen, ‘Deborah, Barak and Bees: Apis mellifera, Apiculture and Judges 4 and 5’, ZAW 109 (1997) 514–33. See also Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible, p. 51. 23 Kawashima, ‘From Song to Story: The Genesis of Narrative in Judges 4 and 5’, p. 162. 24 For a short overview see Adrienne Mayor, ‘Animals in Warfare’, in Gordon L. Campbell (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thoughts and Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 282–93, 283–4. For a comprehensive study of entomological warfare in history see Jeffrey A. Lockwood, Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), on bees and wasps in particular see pp. 9–25. 25 Similarities with Canaanite mythological traditions, in particular the Baal-Anat cycle, have been discussed by scholars. See Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, pp. 56–9. 26 Daniel Vainstub, ‘Some Points of Contact between the Biblical Deborah War Traditions and some Greek Mythologies’, Vetus testamentum 61 (2011) 324–34. See also Kupitz, Yaakov S. and Berthelot Katell, ‘Deborah and the Delphic Pythia: A New Interpretation of Judges 4:4–5’, in Martti Nissinen and Charles E. Carter (eds), Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), pp. 95–124. 27 Virgil on Agriculture, Book III, 16.7. Retrieved from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Varro/de_Re_Rustica/3*.html#ref100 Accessed: 26 Nov 2015. See also Hilda M. Ransome, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore (New York: Dover Publications, 2004[originally published 1937]), p. 103. 28 See Ransome, The Sacred Bee, pp. 91–2; Alice Swift Riginos, Platonica: The Anecdotes Concerning the Life and Writings of Plato (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 17–21. 29 Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, p. 49. 30 Marvin A. Sweeney, The Regnal Evaluation of Josiah in 2 Kings 22:1–23:30, DOI:10.1093/0195133242.003.0003 Accessed 17 Aug 2016. For a different view, see Nadav Na’aman, ‘The “Discovered Book” and the Legitimation of Josiah’s Reform’, Journal of Biblical Literature 130 (2011) 57, who dates the text to late pre-exilic times. 31 C.V. Camp, ‘1 and 2 Kings’, in Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (eds), Women’s Bible Commentary: Expanded Edition with Apocrypha (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p. 115. 32 Among the thirty of David’s mighty men in 2 Samuel 23:29 Heleb and not Heled is mentioned. 33 I have explored the weasel imagery connected to Huldah elsewhere in more detail. See Blaženka Scheuer, ‘Huldah: A Cunning Career Woman?’, in Bob Becking and Hans M. Barstad (eds), Prophecy and Prophets in Stories: Papers Read at the Fifth Meeting of the Edinburgh Prophecy Network, Utrecht, October 2013 (London and Boston: Brill, 2015), pp. 104–23. 34 See further Nili Sacher Fox, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College, 2000), pp. 53–63; Marvin A. Sweeney, I & II Kings: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), pp. 443–4. 35 Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, pp. 92–4. Shaphan is a name that occurs only once elsewhere: a father’s name of a person in Ezekiel 8:11, and Akbor in Genesis 36:38. 36 In fact, weasels were kept as pets in Greco-Roman households for the purpose of keeping pests like mice away. See the Maurizio Bettini, Women & Weasels: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome. 37 A prophet named Jonah (Hebrew ‘dove’) mentioned once in 2 Kings 14:25. It is this prophet that gave name to the Book of Jonah whose main protagonist, although acting as a prophet, is never actually called a prophet. Metaphorical use of animal names is well attested in the Hebrew Bible, referring to the strong men of war or leading men in society. See Patrick D. Miller, Jr, ‘Animal Names as Designations in Ugaritic and Hebrew’, Ugarit-Forschungen 2 (1970) 177–86. 38 Irene López Rodríguez, ‘Of Women, Bitches, Chickens and Vixens: Animal Metaphors for Women in English and Spanish’, Cultura, lenguaje y representación / Culture, Language and Representation 7 (2009) 77–100, 94. 39 Rodríguez, ‘Of Women, Bitches, Chickens and Vixens’, p. 95. 40 See, for instance, Jerome H. Neyrey, ‘What’s Wrong with this Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 24.2 (1994). Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com at Lund University Libraries on 15 September 2016. 41 The question of why animal names are used raises the question of the origin of these names: were the names of Deborah and Huldah invented to fit the story, or was the story invented or at least composed in such a manner to fit the names? The answer to this question is complicated by the fact that biblical stories have had a long history of editing, and the stories of Deborah and Huldah were written down centuries after the events they describe. Plots were adapted, characters added or transformed, all in order to transmit the story without seriously affecting the basic data. See the discussion in Garsiel Biblical Names, pp. 258–66. The name of Deborah is known as the nurse of Rebecca, the second matriarch of the book of Genesis, and later in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit in reference to his learned grandmother (Tobit 1:8). Whether or not there was a historical Deborah is hard to prove. It is easy to see that the authors of Judges 4–5 skillfully used her name as a device to further enhance the story. Huldah, however, is the only woman called by that name in the Hebrew Bible and in the deuterocanonical/apocryphal literature as well as in the New Testament. It is quite conceivable that the authors of the Josianic narrative invented the name as a pun on the names of two of the high officials and on the tricky and highly dangerous situation for the female prophet as well as for the kingdom. Scholars who argued that the names of, for example, Huldah and Shaphan were historical names see here a sign of a survival of totemic traditions and animal worship among the population of Judah in the seventh century BCE, in particular under the reign of King Manasseh (Ezekiel 8:11). 42 For the idea of animals as forms of thought and knowledge, see Bettini, Women and Weasels, pp. 137–53. 43 The situation changed with the first translations and rewritings of the biblical stories in which Hebrew Bible names would generally be transliterated, not translated. As an example, when Josephus retells the story of Barak and Deborah for his Greco-Roman audience, he adds an etymology to Deborah’s name stating that Deborah is Hebrew for Melissa, a Greek word for ‘a bee’. Highly aware of the respectable status of bees in Greco-Roman culture, Josephus thus attempted to depict Jewish traditions to be as respectable as those of the Greeks: even Jews have their Melissae. See Cheryl A. Brown, No Longer Be Silent: First Century Jewish Portraits of Biblical Women (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), pp. 73–4. See also Jože Krašovec, The Transformation of Biblical Proper Names (New York and London: T&T Clark, 2010). © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press 2017; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
TI - Animal Names for Hebrew Bible Female Prophets
JF - Literature and Theology
DO - 10.1093/litthe/frx032
DA - 2017-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/animal-names-for-hebrew-bible-female-prophets-7L6Kdm4Jlw
SP - 455
VL - 31
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -