Amos Frisch Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel

Transcription

1 RBL 07/2010 Zalewski, Saul Now Rise Up, O Lord, and Go to Your Resting- Place : A Literary Study of the Ark Narative [sic] in the Book of Chronicals [sic] [Hebrew] Beer-sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, Pp Hardcover. $ ISBN Amos Frisch Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel The volume in question is a deep and comprehensive study of a single topic in the book of Chronicles. Its publication is to be greeted with a mixture of grief and gladness, since our joy at its appearance is tempered by the fact that the author did not live to see it in print. In his foreword Meir Zalewski, the author s son, writes that the book was almost complete in 1996 but was held back because his father wanted to polish it further. Professor Saul Zalewski was on sabbatical in Boston that year and worked on the book, but he never quite managed to complete it after that. The author, born in Lodz, Poland, and a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, was a major Israeli Bible scholar renowned for his vast expertise in classical exegesis and modern scholarship, as well as for his thoroughness and unassuming nature. Brief eulogies (in Hebrew) by his pupils Eli Assis and Michael Avioz appeared in Shnaton 17 (2007): Avioz also labored diligently to prepare this book for the press. The book s subtitle precisely defines its topic and method. This is a serious literary study of the chapters in the book of Chronicles that deal with the ark of the covenant. The introduction and first three chapters (17 241) address the account of the transfer of the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr 13 16). Chapter 4 compares this story with that of the dedication of the temple by Solomon, also in the version in Chronicles (242 45). Chapter 5, The

2 House of the Lord and His Kingdom ( ), focuses on the link between the preparations for construction and dedication of the temple and the concept of the kingdom of the Lord. A single page (316), headed Summary, lists the five messages the author believes the Chronicler sought to convey to his readers the Jewish community in the Land of Israel in the early Second Temple period, living under foreign rule by means of the modifications he made to his sources. Although readers are liable to think that this summary was written by the author, we learn from the foreword (12) that it was added by Dr. Avioz. The comprehensive bibliography (317 37) lists more than three hundred works, most of them in English and Hebrew and a few in German. Alongside his tendency to keep up with new research, the author did not neglect older studies; he refers not only to the early commentaries on Chronicles in series such as HKAT (1902), ICC (1906), and KAT (1922) but also to A. Büchler s article in ZAW (1899), M. Wiener s 1929 book, and the Hebrew article by S. Klein (1935), for example. The author s approach to Scripture is encapsulated in a few characteristic elements, even though not all of them are included in his treatment of every text: the division of the literary unit or pericope into sections; the unity of the pericope; a comparison of the version presented in Chronicles with its parallel in the book of Samuel and enumeration of the changes or differences; an explanation of these differences (generally, the Chronicler s parti pris), on the basis of a close reading of the unit; and the embedding of the unit in its context. The author s deep familiarity with exegesis and scholarship is always evident, along with his respectful attitude toward the work of his predecessors and presentation and discussion of diverse views, followed almost always by his own conclusions. We can exemplify something of the author s approach through five examples. (1) Zalewski divides the prologue to the story of the first attempt to bring the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr 13:1 5) into four sections, on the basis of linguistic and structural data: the three occurrences of the root qhl near the start of verses 2, 4, and 5. He identifies a six-part model of royal consultation with the people in the book of Chronicles and asserts that the prologue draws on it, despite a slight variation in the placement of the first element (which he explains on literary grounds). He holds that the prologue s contribution to the story lies in its emphasis on the dimension of popular consent and refers several times to the democratization of the account. According to Zalewski, the author of Chronicles inserted the prologue, which includes the people s consent, rather than simply citing a royal decree, because he wanted to highlight the people s active and voluntary participation in the transfer of the ark to Jerusalem and the consecration of the city as the political and religious center of the nation. Consequently, Zalewski rejects (28 n. 24) Toll s explanation of the verb hcrpn (1 Chr 13:2) in the sense of a resolute decision by the king (22 39).

3 (2) In opposition to McKenzie, who holds that the text of 1 Chr 13:7 shorter than the MT of 2 Sam 6:3 4 and the version in 4QSam a is the original and the other two are expansions, Zalewski argues that the text in Chronicles is the result of intentional omissions by the Chronicler. Here there is no mention of a family connection between Uzza and Ahio, who are guiding the cart, and Abinadab, in whose house the ark has been kept; the indication that the house is located on the hill and the verb wh)#yw they carried it are also omitted. Zalewski views the deletions as meant to express the illegitimacy of the first attempt to use a cart to transfer the ark and to explain why the task was then transferred to the Levites (15:2) (43 45). (3) With regard to the relationship between they abandoned their gods there (1 Chr 14:12) and the parallel in Samuel, they abandoned their idols there (2 Sam 5:21), Zalewski diverges from the scholarly consensus that here Chronicles preserves the original text. He holds instead that Mhybc( their idols, as found in Samuel, is the original; the verse in Chronicles is an editorial modification intended to emphasize the contrast between the God of Israel and the insubstantial gods of the Philistines by use of the same word for both, as in Hezekiah s prayer (2 Kgs 19:15 19). He sees the same notion in the alteration of the second half of the verse, David and his men carried them off (Samuel) as opposed to David ordered that they be burned (Chronicles), and in this case his explanation is much closer to the general view (105 9). (4) At the top of page 170 Zalewski asks, What is the Chronicler s attitude toward David s conduct during the ceremony of bringing the ark to the city of David? His interesting reply is that the Chronicler is not comfortable with it. Zalewski reaches this conclusion from a comparison of 1 Chr 15 with the original version in 2 Sam 6, which reveals two notable changes. First, the expression before the Lord occurs five times in Samuel but is retained only once in Chronicles ( before God, 16:1). Second, instead of David whirled [rkrkm] with all his might before the LORD (2 Sam 6:14) the Chronicler writes David was clothed [lbrkm] with a robe of fine linen (1 Chr 15:27), and Zalewski sees this as an intentional refusal to praise David s dancing (168 73). (5) With regard to the dialogue between Solomon and Hiram about the preparations for the construction of the temple, Zalewski aligns himself with those scholars who see the Chronicles version as placing Solomon on a higher level than Hiram. Whereas in 1 Kgs 9:13 Hiram refers to Solomon as my brother as one equal to another in 2 Chr 2:13 14 it is my Lord. Zalewski conjectures that the change is the result of the Chronicler s attention to the account of David s wars in the book of Samuel, where David is depicted as having achieved the leading political status in the region from which he drew his inference about the nature of the relations between David and Solomon, on the one

4 hand, and Hiram, on the other. Zalewski also enlists 1 Chr 14:1 (= 2 Sam 5:11) and 22:4 to support this conclusion (293 95). The book contains many examples of objective inquiry that takes a careful look at various conjectures and weighs their plausibility. To take one representative example, in his discussion of the account of the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem, in 2 Sam 6, Zalewski considers the opinion expressed by Gelander (lecture at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies and his book in English, David and His God, 44 46) that after Uzza s death David is not perplexed and helpless but that, on the contrary, he is the one who reproaches and, as it were, restrains the divine wrath. After reviewing Gelander s idea in detail, Zalewski notes: we can understand Gelander s approach, which seeks to reject the commentators explanation of David s sin. A reading of 2 Sam 6 reveals no indication of a personal transgression on his part (49). Immediately afterward, however, Zalewski rejects this idea, first by raising several fundamental questions: How could the author of Samuel include in his text an account that is disrespectful of God, who ostensibly must bow to David s will? If David was not afraid (as this reading holds), why did he not bring the ark to Jerusalem at once? Next Zalewski analyzes Gelander s prooftexts, which contain the expressions David was distressed (rxyw; 2 Sam 6:8), David was afraid ()ryw) (v. 9), and David was not willing (hb) )lw) (v. 10). He juxtaposes them to other verses in Samuel and convincingly demonstrates his own explanation, just the opposite of Gelander s, that David was tense and uncertain in the wake of Uzza s death; it was the fear the tragedy inspired in him that led to his decision to leave the ark where it was (48 51). One might wonder how the fifth chapter ( The House of the Lord and His Kingdom ) fits in with the main topic of the book, which is, as noted, the chapters in Chronicles that deal with the ark of the covenant. Although there is no explanation of this in the introduction or at the start of the chapter (286), readers may reconstruct the following link from the discussion itself. Inasmuch as, ultimately, the ark was housed in the temple, the construction of the temple (both the preparations and the actual construction) are part of the story of the ark. David s victories over his enemies can be included because they were a necessary prelude to the construction of the temple. These chapters are considered in the light of the description of the kingdom of the Lord, since the construction of the temple exemplifies the magnificence of that kingdom. I would have preferred, though, to see this connection made explicit at the start of the chapter and at the beginning of the book. The chapter makes it plain to readers that Zalewski s study bears not just on 1 Chr but in fact on the entire book. (Although readers may have already inferred this, chapter 5 drives the point home.) Chapter 4, as noted, compares the Chronicler s accounts of the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem in Chronicles and of the dedication of the temple by Solomon. Readers might

5 expect to find an explicit demarcation of the bounds of the latter at the start of this discussion (242), but it is in fact deferred to somewhere in the middle (255). The book includes interesting treatments of texts in biblical books other than Chronicles: for example, a discussion of the doxology of Ps 106:48 (204 n. 174, which extends for more than 20 lines); of 1 Sam 10:26 11:15 (238 39); and of 1 Kgs 18:37 39 (266 68). Had the book been provided with an index of verses, readers would be able to appreciate the wealth of such references directly. It is no simple matter to publish an author s work posthumously, and all of those who took part in this project deserve our thanks. Still, the typographical errors appearing in the book are regrettable. Today it is customary for scholarly books in Hebrew to include an English table of contents and abstract, but neither is found here. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, however, inasmuch as the interest of Hebraically challenged readers who are interested in the book might lead to an English translation, so that it can make its due contribution to international Bible scholarship. Such an edition would of course include an index of verses, whose omission was noted above. This deep and detailed study, the fruit of long labors by an original, meticulous, and modest scholar, certainly deserves to be available to the international community of Bible scholars.