THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA: AN INTERTEXTUAL APPROACH FOR THE LAST ORACLE IN THE BOOK

Transcription

1 THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA: AN INTERTEXTUAL APPROACH FOR THE LAST ORACLE IN THE BOOK INTRODUCTION 1 The theme of the covenant 2 in the Bible has been significantly debated in modern scholarship since George E. Mendenhall s studies comparing biblical covenants with Hitite suzerainty treaties. 3 According to Reinaldo W. Siqueira, after Mendenhall s research the phenomenal increase in literature on the topic shows how much the covenant became one of the top issues on the theological agenda. 4 One can easily perceive that this theme touches upon many aspects of biblical studies, as it does with prophetic literature. Therefore, the covenant motif in this section of the Hebrew Bible (HB) has consequently been subject to many different opinions. 5 One of the main questions is whether there is the idea of covenant in prophetic literature or not, and whether these references to the covenant are in any degree related to each other. TWO OPINIONS On the one hand, there are those that are basically influenced by Julius Wellhausen s historical-critical views. Wellhausen believed the biblical material can be divided into different hypothetical sources which developed in different times. He argued that the idea of a covenant between the Lord and Israel was a late creation innovated in the seventh century BCE, and influenced by the prophets before that time 6. Reflecting such ideas, Steven L. McKenzie asserted that the eighth-century prophets - Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah - [...] do not refer to a covenant between God and Israel. 7 He argued that the full expression of the covenant between God and Israel came later in the so-called Deuteronomistic and Priestly literature. 8 In the same direction, Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann describe the Eduardo Folster Eli holds a BA in Theology from UNASP (Brazil), and a MA in Theology with concentration in Hebrew Bible Studies from the Norwegian School of Theology (Oslo, Norway). He lives in Oslo, Norway, where he is working on a research project for a Ph D.

2 THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA covenant as a theology born in crisis. For them, this same theology belongs to deuteronomism s exilic/post-exilic shaping of Deuteronomy. 9 John H. Hayes develops this idea, asserting that the presence of the covenant between the Lord and Israel cannot be seen in the eighth-century prophets. Hayes believes that those prophets just reflected covenant/treaty perspectives that were based on conceptions associated with international political treaties only. According to him, therefore, there is not a real covenant between the LORD and his people in the message of those prophets. Hayes argues that it is only with the prophets in the seventh-century (Jeremiah and Ezekiel) that the idea of covenant came to exist. He reasoned that it happened because the seventh-century s prophets were influenced by the final shape of the book of Deuteronomy, directly influenced by the vassal treaties of Esarhaddon 10. On the other hand, there are those scholars that accept the existence and background of the covenant theology in the eighth-century prophets. According to this group of scholars, even though the Hebrew word for covenant (brit) in this section of the Hebrew Bible is generally absent, the prophets mention the covenant made between the Lord and Israel. The main reason for their conclusion, and for the rejection of the first group, is due to the fact that they take the Hebrew Bible as a literary unity as it stands in a synchronic approach, the books being written in the order they claim to have been composed. They don t share the same assumptions of the hypothetical sources propagated by Wellhausen. Dumbrell reaches this conclusion because the very terminology and elements in the eighth-century prophet s message are related to the covenant framework. 11 Douglas K. Stuart states that the message of the prophets can only make sense when their references to the Mosaic covenant, with all its curses and blessings, are taken into consideration. According to him, those prophets simply make reference, either literally or allusively, to what is already incorporated in the Sinai covenant. 12 Similarly, Siqueira systematically presented through an exegetical study the covenantal elements in the so-called Oracles Against the Nations in Amos 1:2-2:16 and how the fundamental role of the covenant motif is expressed in the message of this prophet. 13 Furthermore, the Egyptologist Kenneth A. Kitchen argues for a late second millennium BCE date for the period where the covenant between the Lord and Israel already Vol. 45, No. 1,

3 36 existed 14, in its structure as it stands in the Hebrew Bible. From that observation, Kitchen asserts that the dynamic of curses/blessings used in the prophets proceeds from the Sinai covenant, which is the basis for their message. Kitchen denies the existence of a deuteronomistic stream in the seventh-century and opposes the Wellhausian school. 15 THE CASE OF HOSEA As noted above, the eighth-century prophets play a crucial role in this debate. The first group mentioned above, believe that prophets in the eighthcentury were not aware of the covenant between the Lord and Israel. These scholars argue that those prophets represent a late creation and adaptation of the deuteronomic school when it comes to the covenant theology. I will discuss here the eighth-century prophet Hosea and his last message in 14:2-8. I chose the last prophecy of the book of Hosea because it summarizes the entire message of the whole book. Using an intertextual approach, I will analyze, whether there is any direct or indirect covenant element in that oracle to Israel. Hosea s message begins with, Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen because of your sin (14:2). The verb return (shuva) is a central word in Hosea s hortatory vocabulary throughout his message. 16 What makes it significant from an intertextual analysis is its connection to Israel as the subject to return to the Lord your God, based on the idea that the people have fallen (khashalta) 17 in their own sin (avonekha). 18 The message of returning to the Lord is not new nor did it originate in Hosea s message or terminology. It is notable that the first part of this verse echoes the message of returning to the Lord and hearing his voice by recommitting to the terms of the covenant after having fallen into apostasy, as in Deuteronomy 4:30-31: when you are in distress because all these things have befallen you and in the end, return (shavta) to the Lord your God and obey him He will not forget the covenant which He made on oath with your fathers. And also in Deuteronomy 30:1-2: When all these things befall you and you take them to heart and you return (shavta) to the Lord your God, and 30:8-10, You, however will again (tashuv) heed the Lord and obey all His commandment once you return (tashuv) to the Lord. Therefore, the term for returning, shuv, is a verb related to the covenant between God and Israel. Seven times it appears in Deuteronomy 30:1-10, and JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY

4 THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA clearly twice there and once in Deut. 4:30 it reflects what Hosea echoes when he insists that Israel should Return...to the Lord your God in 14:2. 19 The same idea and elements of returning to the Lord after having broken the covenantal terms are also seen in the Davidic covenant when Solomon dedicated the Temple. David s son speaks of these elements in a way that also helps elucidate Hosea s phraseology in a covenantal context. Just as Hosea echoes the covenant terminology of returning to the Lord, so does Solomon in I Kings 8:33-35, Should your people Israel be routed by an enemy because they have sinned against You, and then turn back (shavu) to You...and repent (yeshuvun) of their sins... and I Kings 8:47-48, and then they take it to heart (heshivu) in the land to which they have been carried off, and they repent (veshavu)...and they turn (shavu) to You...The idea of returning is clearly stated as the object being the Lord. The terminology and elements in Hosea and Kings show the same direction, the covenant between God and his people is the background of the statements made by both Hosea and Solomon, and it is being referred to in both cases. The reason why Israel needs this message of returning is for you have fallen (khashalta) because of your sin (avonekha) (14:2). This is directly connected with the covenant elements found in Leviticus 26:37-40, where this idea is expressed using the same words in the same order they shall stumble over (khashlu) one another and they shall confess their iniquity (avonam) and the iniquity (avon) of their fathers. This first verse and introduction to Hosea s final section is deeply rooted in covenantal elements. Through the terminology used in this section one can understand that the prophet wanted Israel to understand that they should return to the covenant between them and God. Douglas Stuart correctly named shuv (to return) as a covenant verb. Stuart also felt that to stumble and iniquity are part of the vocabulary of the covenant curses 20. Together with the expression to the Lord your God, these are the first covenant elements that begin this section (Hosea 14:2-9). They are introduced in this manner so that the hearer may know in which context the message is given and what is expected to be understood, and what the response should be. Furthermore, one cannot overlook that the Lord is the term presented in all the biblical covenants (Eden, Noahic/Universal, Abrahamic, Sinaitic and Davidic) and therefore here it may be invoked in the same context, in Vol. 45, No. 1,

5 38 conjunction with the other covenental elements already introduced above. Although the name the Lord (YHWH) itself appears in different contexts in the Bible, I want to emphasize here that when the covenant elements are taken together, the Lord stands as the one who should be the center of the recurring message in the covenant. It is in this context that this name appears here and in the other passages already presented. In Hosea 14:3 we have a description of the actions that Israel is expected to perform during this return to the covenantal relationship. The people of Israel should return (shuvu) to the Lord and ask God to forgive all guilt (avon). This expression appears already in the Bible in the context of the covenant between the Lord and Israel (see Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Isaiah 33:24 and Micah 7:18). In 14:3 Hosea also tells the people to tell the Lord to accept what is good (tov). Good and goodness related to God are already used in Hosea (8:3 and 3:5 respectively). The word tov is also connected to the blessings mentioned to Israel as one of the covenant elements directly linked to the Lord s act of being faithful as he opens his good (tov) store (Deut. 28:12) to spread his blessings to them. The same word, tov, appears when Israel would return to the Lord after having broken the relationship. Then the Lord will again delight in your well being (tov), as He did in that of your fathers (Deut. 30:9-10). Tov also appears when the Lord set before Israel the choice of being faithful to the covenant or not. He made clear the results of each choice - and the good was one of the two choices (Deut. 30:15; also see I Kings 8:36; 56 and 66). Therefore, tov is well attested in the covenant context, in the context of the blessings that result from keeping the covenant with the Lord as the subject of this act of goodness. It is not a term used randomly or in a vacuum, most likely the word tov functions here in order to be connected to the Lord s fidelity to the covenant. Hosea continues, Instead of bulls we will pay the offering of our lips (14:3). The term here for lips (sefateinu) appears in the context of vows in Deuteronomy 23:24. Hosea uses a phraseology that emphasizes the necessity of Israel being faithful to what they promise and vow before their God and their covenantal relationship. What follows then are not merely words, but a sincere vow that Israel should perform by deeds which conform to the covenant s demands. 21 JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY

6 THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA In the vow to be faithful again to the covenant in Hosea 14:4, Assyria, horses, and idols are synecdoches for political entanglements, military might and heterodox worship, respectively. 22 Stuart is correct when he indicates that by disavowing these previous objects of trust, Israel implicitly renews its original covenant trust in Yahweh. 23 The reason for that is because in the covenant context there were already stipulations against those ways of breaking it: Israel should not trust in an international power (Deut. 17:16a; Isa. 30:16; 31:3; 36:8), rely on a large number of horses (Deut. 17:16), nor in the work of their hands (a term for idolatry, as in Is. 2:8; Mic. 5:12, etc) in order to deliver them. When the text emphasizes the faithfulness of the Lord towards Israel (14:4) it uses the language of the Lord being compassionate to the orphan. When it comes to this concept, it is also important to remember that the special care towards the orphans is not a new or creative idea here. It is based on the covenant terms between God and Israel (Ex. 22:22-23; Deut. 10:18; 14:29; 16:11, 14; 24:17, 19-21; 26:12-13; 27:19). After this first section of the last message of Hosea s book, the Lord s speech is introduced following the covenant logic: the promise of restoration. In Hosea 14:5, He assures Israel that He will one day heal the breach of the covenant that has brought their punishment, that He will then love them freely and generously, and that they will need no longer fear his anger, for the time is coming when it will be gone 24. The term heal (erpah) appears also in the context of the covenant curses (Deut. 28:27 and 35) and in the covenant context in general (Deut. 32:39). It also appears when someone is asking for forgiveness because he knows that only the Lord can heal sin and apostasy (Psalms 41:4; 103:3 and 107:20), a concept found in the covenant as well. The promise to Generously... take them back in love (ohavem) (Hosea 14:5) is rooted in the primary covenant term of ahava, love (Deut. 4:37; 5:10; 7:7-9 and 13; 23:5; Hosea 11:1). Stuart correctly pointed out that the anger (af) of God, also a technical covenant term, is the precursor to his covenant punishments 25 (Deut. 29:19, 22-23, 26-27; 31:17; 32:22). Therefore, My anger (api) has turned away from them (Hosea 14:5) means that the punishments will cease for good 26. What follows in the last verses, Hosea 14:6-9, is the result of returning to the covenant with the Lord. These promises of blessings are rooted in the components of the covenant. In verses Vol. 45, No. 1,

7 there are promises of agricultural blessings and restoration to prosperity, evoking ideas and key words from Leviticus 26:42; Deuteronomy 30:3, 5, 9; 32:39. CONCLUSION This intertextual analysis of the present text shows that in Hosea 14:2-8 the Lord calls upon Israel to reestablish the covenantal relationship. Hosea s last message is oriented towards and centered in the biblical covenant components between the Lord and Israel. The terminology of the text analyzed is taken directly from those elements. As demonstrated, the text as we have it today does not support the first group of scholars. The most secure basis and least hypothetical method to construct a covenant theology and understanding of the Bible may be the text itself that we have in its current order. Many scholars have paid attention to this fact 27. Dumbrell, for example, recognizes that the text we have today was transmitted and gathered together from earlier sources, and says that it is undeniable that sources in some form preceded the canonical material we now have 28. However, he also notes that the identification of these sources and of the dates of the completed works is a subjective process and always subject to dispute 29. For example, the scholars that presume the lateness of the covenant concept, use that presumption to construct a literary-historical stratification of the biblical texts, and then claim the resultant stratification as proof of the presumption. 30 Therefore, the idea of a Deuteronomic school creating the concept of the covenant in the sixth or seventh century does not sustain itself when the Hebrew Bible is seen as a literary unity, as has been argued by the second group of scholars presented in the introduction. The only question that remains at the end of the book of Hosea is: will the recipient of the message agree to reestablish such a relationship? NOTES 1. This paper is based on a paper submitted to Dr. Karl William Weyde in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course Covenant Theology in the Prophets (GT692), in the Master of Philosophy in Theology program at the Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo, Norway, Spring For studies on the different biblical covenants or on the definition/concept of the word brit, see, e. g., Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament, AnBib, no. 21 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963); JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY

8 THE PRESENCE OF THE COVENANT MOTIF IN HOSEA Walther Eichrodt. Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, ); Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea, SHI (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969); Moshe Weinfeld, Covenant, Encyclopaedia Judaica (1st printing, 1971); O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980); William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants (Carliste: Paternoster Press, 1984); Steven L. McKenzie, Covenant. Understanding Biblical Themes, 3 (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000); Hans K. Larondelle, Our Creator Redeemer: An Introduction to Biblical Covenant Theology (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 2005), etc. 3. George Mendenhall, Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition, Biblical Archaeologist 17 (1954): For a short introduction about the flowering of research on covenant in the modern scholarship see Scott Hahn, Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research ( ), Currents in Biblical Research 3, 2 (2005) pp Reinaldo W. Siqueira, The Presence of the Covenant Motif in Amos 1:2-2:16 (Michigan: Andrews University, 1996) p. 20. A relevant review about the current research on covenant was published by Hahn, Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research ( ), Currents in Biblical Research 3, 2 (2005) pp , and it should be considered as a guide for more recent studies on the topic as well. 5. Reinaldo W. Siqueira has done a deep review of this debate since its very beginning in the 1870s in his PhD research, and it is recommended in order to grasp the whole picture of the discussion: Siqueira, The Presence of the Covenant Motif in Amos 1:2-2:16 (Michigan: Andrews University, 1996). Here in this essay it will just be presented a very short outline of the most recent opinions. 6. See Julius Wellhausen. Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885) pp See Steven L. McKenzie, Covenant. Understanding Biblical Themes, 3 (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000) p Ibid., pp Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann. God of the Living: a Biblical Theology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011), pp See John H. Hayes and Brad E. Kelle (ed.). Interpreting Ancient Israelite History, Prophecy, and Law (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), pp , William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants (Carliste: Paternoster Press, 1984), pp Douglas Stuart. Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary 31 (Waco: Thomas Nelson, 1987), pp. xxxi-xlii. 13. See Reinaldo W. Siqueira, The Presence of the Covenant Motif in Amos 1:2-2:16 (Michigan: Andrews University, 1996) pp Therefore, referring to the changing focus from the Documentary Hypothesis (DH) to the text and the evidences shown by his research, Kitchen states that the future course of the discussion of covenant, law and treaty in the Old Testament would be altered for the better by moving the focus back, not to the nineteenth century AD but to the second millennium BC where a much more secure base exists for the evaluation of these biblical texts (1989, 135). I recommend his 41 Vol. 45, No. 1, 2017

9 42 studies in order to grasp the whole of his evidences, see Kenneth A. Kitchen The Fall and Rise of Covenant, Law and Treaty. Tyndale Bulletin 40 (1989), pp See Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), pp , , , 485, See Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary 31 (Waco: Thomas Nelson, 1987), p See the following passages: Hosea 2:9, 11; 3:5; 6:1; 7:10, 16 and 12: See Hosea 4:5; 5:5 and 14: See Hosea 4:8; 5:5; 7:1; 8:13; 9:7, 9; 13:12; 14:2a; Deut. 4:30; 30:2 and See Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary 31 (Waco: Thomas Nelson, 1987), p Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid. 27. See e.g. Paul R. House, The Unity of the Twelve( Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1990); Duane Garrett, Rethinking Genesis: The Source and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch (Mentor: 2001); William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002); Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); Hans K. Larondelle, Our Creator Redeemer: An Introduction to Biblical Covenant Theology (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 2005). 28. William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), p Ibid. 30. Scott Hahn, Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research ( ). Currents in Biblical Research 3265., 2 (2005), p. JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY