Judges, Jeremiah, and 1 Samuel: More Dancing

Dances called mecholot (מְחֺלוֹת) seem like an innocent way to celebrate. In this type of dancing, people form a line behind a leader, with each dancer using one hand to touch the next. The line moves in a circle, a spiral, or some other curving pattern as the dancers copy the steps of the leader. In the Hebrew Bible, the dancers chant and shake tambourines as they dance.

Song of Songs 7:1 celebrates a dancer’s beauty in a double row of mecholot. Chain dancing is cited as the opposite of mourning in Psalms 30:12, 149:3, and 150:4, and in Lamentations 5:15. And when Miriam leads the Israelite women in mecholot on the shore of the Reed Sea in Exodus 15:20-21, they are relieved and grateful to God for saving their lives.

But elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, mecholot are not as innocent as they appear.

In last week’s post, Beshalach & Ki Tisa: Dancing, we saw that when the Israelites start dancing mecholot in front of the golden calf at Mount Sinai, they think they are celebrating the return of God, but they are actually worshiping an idol.

Thanking God for the grape harvest and celebrating the return of victorious generals by dancing mecholot also turn out to be dubious activities.

Thanking God for grapes in Judges

A traveling Levite and his concubine spend the night in the Benjaminite town of Giveah. The men of the town rape and murder the concubine, and the Levite rallies men from all the other tribes to destroy Giveah. These men assemble at a watchtower in Benjaminite territory, and besides planning the battle, they vow in the name of God that none of them will marry their daughters to a Benjaminite.

The war escalates. Men from throughout the territory of Benjamin join the war on Giveah’s side, but the other tribes defeat them so thoroughly that the only Benjaminite survivors are 600 men who escaped into the wilderness. All the women and children die when the attackers burned down their towns.

Then the victors regret their vow, since it means that one of the twelve tribes of Israel will die out. How can they give the 600 men of Benjamin wives, so they can rebuild their tribe?

The elders point out that it is time for the annual festival in Shiloh in which adolescent girls perform dances to thank God for the grape harvest.

And they directed the Benjaminites, saying: “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards. And you will see them, and hey!—if the daughters of Shiloh go out lachul in the mecholot, then you go out from the vineyards and seize them, each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go back to the land of Benjamin.” (Judges 21:20-21)

lachul (לָחוּל) = to go around in succession; to dance in a circle. (A form of the verb chal, the root of mecholot.)

And the Benjaminites did so, and they made wives for their number from the dancers who they took away by force… (Judges 21:23)

Who knew that chain dancing could be so dangerous for women?

The book of Judges does not say whether the girls were warned ahead of time about what was going to happen to them. But even if they were told, they had little recourse; the male head of household arranged the marriages of all the females under his control.¹

Thanking God for grapes in Jeremiah

Much later in the history of the Israelites, Jeremiah delivers a divine prophecy that someday God will bring the defeated and exiled people of Israel and Judah back to their lands, and Israelite women will once again dance in the vineyards.

“I will definitely build you up again, maidens of Israel! Your tambourines will be in your hands again, and you will go out in a mechol, playing. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria … (Jeremiah 31:4-5)

Jeremiah expands the good news to include men in the dancing.

That is when the maidens will rejoice in a mechol, and young men and old ones together as one. (Jeremiah 31:13)

We do not know whether he means that men will dance with women, or that women will form their own chains, and young and old men will join together in other chains. Either way, everyone will get to dance. And the dancing God promises in the future definitely celebrates a harvest from God, not rape.

Celebrating victory in Judges

A story in the book of Judges about General Yiftach (Jepthah in English translations) shows him swearing a vow to God before he crosses the border to attack the Ammonites:

“If you definitively give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever happens to go out from the door of my house to meet me upon my safe return from the Ammonites will become God’s, and will be offered up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31)

The Torah warns against making rash vows.² But starting with Jacob after his ladder dream³ and continuing to the present day, believers in an anthropomorphic God often try to bargain with their deity, promising to do what they think God wants if God gives them what they want.

When Yiftach makes his rash vow, he forgets that women customarily celebrate the return of victorious soldiers with drumming, singing, and mecholot. He returns home victorious.

And hey! His daughter went out to meet him, with tambourines and with mecholot! (Judges 11:34)

Yiftach’s daughter must be accompanied by some female friends, since the word for tambourine is in the plural. But as the general’s daughter, and his only child, she would lead the chain dance. That means she would come out the door of his house first.

Yiftach tears his clothes (an act of mourning), and tells her he cannot retract his vow.

Celebrating victory in 1 Samuel

In the first book of Samuel, the dancing women have the last word. When King Saul and his general, the future king David, return triumphant from a battle against the Philistines,

… the women went out from all the towns of Israel for song and mecholot, to greet King Saul with tambourines and rejoicing … and they chanted: “Saul struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands!” And made Saul very angry, and this matter was bad in his eyes. And he said: “To David they gave tens of thousands, and to me they gave thousands. The only thing he lacks is the kingship!” (1 Samuel 18:6-8)

King Saul takes out his anger on David, not on the women. After Saul makes a number of attempts on his life, David flees into Philistine territory.

… and he came to Akhish, king of Gat. And the servants of Akhish said to him: “Isn’t this David, king of the land? Isn’t he the one they chanted about in the mecholot, saying: Saul struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands!” (1 Samuel 21:11-12)

David pretends to be insane, scratching on the door and drooling, so the King of Gat turns him away, and he escapes.

I bet the Israelite women who sang the chant while dancing mecholot gave it a catchy tune, so no one could forget it.

Why is chain dancing—the opposite of mourning—often associated with disaster in the bible?

From my own experience, I know that the form requires attentive cooperation; you have to concentrate to make sure you keep the right space between the dancer in front of you and the dancer behind you, and also do the steps in time to the music. Collaboration, physical energy, concentration, and singing all make the experience of dancing mecholot exhilarating.

Building a tragic tale around a well-known emotional high is good storytelling. And these stories caution us not to take anything for granted. Maybe the golden calf is not such a good idea. Maybe men and women are working at cross purposes; while women are dancing, men are making rash vows or getting jealous.

Today, when men are more thoughtful, we can safely enjoy a dance of celebration.

One tradition based on the betrothal of Rebecca in Genesis 24:58 gives a girl veto power over a particular match, at least if the marriage means leaving her home town. But this tradition does not seem to be in play in the book of Judges.
E.g. Deuteronomy 23:21-23, Proverbs 20:25.
Genesis 28:20-22.

Matot: Protection from Commitment

Seal to sign contracts, Jerusalem, ca. 7th c. BCE

Most human beings want to make some commitments—although what we are willing to commit to depends on both our cultures and our individual psychologies. Modern Western societies tend to focus on marriages, legal contracts, and oaths of office. The Israelite culture portrayed in the Hebrew Bible also focuses on religious commitments.

According to the Torah, every family was required to tithe to support the clergy, and to make the necessary sacrificial offerings. But some Israelites committed themselves to making extra donations to both the sanctuary staff and God.¹ And some abstained from certain behaviors in order to achieve greater sanctity. The most common abstentions were fasting, and living as a nazirite.

Nazirites dedicated themselves to God by adopting a more ascetic way of life for a specific period of time. They could not serve in the sanctuary, since clergy were restricted to hereditary priests and Levites. So instead, nazirites let their hair go wild and abstained from alcohol, grapes, and contact with the dead. (For more details, see my posts Naso: Distanced by Hair and Haftarat Naso: Restraining the Abstainer.)

What a person vows to abstain from for the sake of God depends on the religion. During the past millennium, monks and nuns have taken vows of abstinence from sexual intercourse and lived in separate communities as a spiritual dedication.

All men, but not all women, were free to determine their own voluntary religious commitments.

This week’s Torah portion, Matot, opens:

A man who vows a vow to God, or swears a sworn-oath le-esor isar upon his soul, he must not break² his word; he must act according to everything that goes out from his mouth. (Numbers/Bemidbar 30:3)

le-esor (לֶאְסֺר) = to bind. (From the same root as isar.)

isar (אִסָּר) = a vow or oath binding oneself to abstain from a certain actions.

He Finds her Dead, by Gustave Dore, ca. 1880

An example of an oath that binds a man to abstain from a particular action occurs in the book of Judges. The men of Giveah, a village in the territory of Benjamin, rape a Levite’s woman to death.

Leaders and soldiers from all the other Israelite tribes meet at Mitzpah, then march against the Benjaminites. The Israelites kill them all—men, women, and children—except for 600 men of Benjamin who escape.

And the men of Israel, nishbei at Mitzpah, saying: “No man among us will give his daughter to a Benjaminite as a wife!” (Judges 21:1)

nishbei (נִשְׁבֵּע) = they had sworn an oath.

When the war is over, the victors realize that thanks to their oath, the tribe of Benjamin will disappear; the 600 survivors will die without issue. None of the men had thought that far ahead—nor asked for a wife’s opinion. Now they regret that they effectively eliminated one of the tribes of Israel. But breaking their oath is out of the question.

So they kill almost all the residents of the one village that did not send anyone to Mitzpah—everyone except the virgin maidens, who they give to the men of Benjamin. Then they tell the remaining Benjaminites to kidnap some of the unmarried women who dance in the vineyards at the festival in Shiloh. These young women are the daughters of the Israelites conquerors, but if they are kidnapped their fathers will not be forsworn.

Anything is better than breaking an oath.

Women Who Vow

Slaves could not make vows or oaths upon their souls, according to the Talmud,³ because their souls were not their own; they were not allowed to disobey their owners. The vows of minor children did not count either. But free women could bind themselves with vows—within limits.

An Israelite woman could not make a commitment about something she did not have authority over in the first place, such as her daughter’s marriage. But she could vow to donate any of her personal property to God, and she could bind herself to certain abstentions—including fasting⁴ and living as a nazirite.

A woman’s vow or oath to God is just as impossible to break as a man’s—unless her father or husband steps in promptly to cancel it.

And a woman, if she vows a vow to God and asrah isar in the household of her father, when she is young and single⁵, and her father hears her vow or her isar that asrah upon her soul, and her father is silent, then every vow and isar that asrah upon her soul will stand. (Numbers 30:4-5)

asrah (אָסְרָה) = she bound herself to. (From the same root as isar.)

An unmarried woman’s vow stands as long as her father does not contradict it.

But if her father restrains her on the day he hears of any of her vows or esareyha that asrah upon her soul, it will not stand, and God will pardon her, since he father restrained her. (Numbers 30:6)

esareyha (אֱסָרֶיהָ) = her vows or oaths binding herself to abstain from a certain behavior. (Also from the same root as isar.)

The father of an unmarried woman has only one day to annul his unmarried daughter’s vow—the day he finds out about it. If he does not do it that day, the vows stands.

After a woman marries, her husband has the right to annul any vow she made before the wedding, and any vow she makes during their marriage. But he can only do it on the day he finds out about the vow.⁶

The only female whose vows cannot be canceled is a free woman who was once married and now lives independently.

But a vow of a widow or a divorced woman, anything that asrah upon her soul, it will stand. (Numbers 30:10)

Protection from Foolish Vows

Given the seriousness of a vow or oath, it would be reasonable to let a close family member invalidate anyone’s impulsive commitment. Yet a mother cannot nullify a vow or oath that her unmarried son makes, however foolish it might be. And a wife cannot nullify anything that her husband vows.

The ancient Israelites assigned strict roles to men versus women, with men wielding far more independence and authority. In the 19^th century C.E., European society was similarly sexist, and its assumptions underlie the commentary of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch:

… For a man creates his position in life independently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element … and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life.

Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman’s calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman—even more than the man—must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling.⁷

If all women are fated to a life of repeated pregnancies and decades of child care, without the options of celibacy, birth control, or abortion, then it makes sense to nullify any vows they make that would interfere with these inescapable duties. For example, extended periods of fasting would be detrimental during pregnancy and nursing.

On the other hand, if all men are fated to a life of providing for large families, then they should be prevented from making vows that would interfere with their duties. For example, living as a nazirite would interfere with their ability to conduct business.

Fortunately, in much of the world today both men and women are free to decide whether to constrain themselves with the duties of raising a family, and how large the family will be (although in the United States a recent supreme court decision makes this more difficult).

Both genders now have the flexibility to determine their own commitments—to spouses (if any), to children (if any), and to religion (if any)—at least in the modern world. Nevertheless, each new vow limits our ability to take on another commitment.

May we all enjoy independence. And may we also give any new vows careful consideration, and talk them over with someone close to us before we commit!

—

See Leviticus 27:1-8.
The Hebrew word yacheil (יַחֵל) = he will desecrate, profane. I translate it as “break” to conform with standard English usage, at the risk of losing the Israelite idea that vows and oaths are literally, nut just metaphorically, sacred.
Talmud Bavli, Nazir 61a.
Numbers 30:14 specifically mentions mortifying the soul, which meant fasting.
The Hebrew word I translate as “young and single” is ne-ureiyha (נְעֻרֶיהָ) = the time when a young woman or adolescent girl is not engaged or married.
Numbers 30:7-9, 30:11-16.
Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bemidbar, trans. by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, p. 620-621.

Haftarat Beshalach—Judges: A Humble Commander

Red Sea in Golden Haggadah, c. 1320, Spain

Pharaoh lets the Israelites leave without conditions in last week’s Torah portion, Bo. But God hardens Pharaoh’s heart one last time in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, in order to have an excuse to create another miracle.¹ When the Israelites are trapped between Pharaoh’s charioteers and the Reed Sea, they complain that Moses rescued them from servitude in Egypt only to so they would die in the wilderness.² Moses raises his staff, God splits the Reed Sea, the Israelites cross over, and the water surges back and drowns the Egyptian army.

Moses, as usual, is the mediator between God and the Israelites. For the rest of his life he doggedly continues speaking to both sides and doing whatever it takes to keep the people moving toward Canaan.

He never wanted this role. Four times at the burning bush Moses tried to persuade God to send someone else.³ Finally God talked him into it—or perhaps the deciding factor was Moses’ compassion for the oppressed, which had already moved him to kill an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man, and defend seven shepherdesses from a gang of men who drove them away from a well.⁴

I admire Moses’ humility, as well as his courage and cleverness when he talks God out of killing all the Israelites after the golden calf fiasco.⁵Most of all, I admire his unselfish dedication to others. He makes a few ethical mistakes, but overall he consistently labors for the welfare of the Israelites in his charge, ignoring his own interests.

This week’s haftarah reading from the book of Judges includes three admirable characters. Devorah and Ya-eil both act with courage and intelligence, like the women at the beginning of the book of Exodus: the two chief midwives, Shifrah and Puah,⁶ Moses’ mother, Yocheved,⁷ and Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopts the infant Moses and hires Yocheved to nurse him.⁸

But the character I admire most in this week’s haftarah is a man.

Just before the haftarah, the book of Judges says that the Israelites are once again oppressed, this time by a Canaanite king who has a large chariot regiment. God let it happen because the Israelites were straying after other gods again.

Then God handed them over into the power of Yavin, a king of Canaan who reigned in Chatzor. And the commander of his army was Sisera, who headquartered at Charoshet Hagoyim. And the Israelites cried out to God, because he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he had oppressed the Israelites violently for twenty years. (Judges/Shoftim 4:2-3)

The Israelite tribes have only foot soldiers, and no king to unite them. But they do have a prophetess named Devorah.

Devorah was a prophet-woman, wife of Lapidot. She was the judge of Israel at that time … and the Israelites went to her for legal decisions. (Judges 4:4-5)

This woman has the same role as Samuel in the first book of Samuel: she both interprets the word of God and makes rulings in disputes, including disputes between tribes. Devorah has the most authority among the Israelites, as Samuel did later, before the first Israelite king.

And she sent and summoned Barak, son of Avinoam, from Kedesh of Naftali, and she said to him: “Is it not [that] God, the God of Israel, commanded: Go umashakhta on Mount Tabor! And you shall take with you ten thousand men from Naftali and from Zevulun. Umashakhti toward you the stream of Kishon; Sisera, the commander of the army of Yavin; and his chariots and his force. And I will put them in your power.” (Judges 4:6-7)

umashakhta (וּמָשַׁכְתָּ) = and you shall pull together, draw to yourself, rally.

umashakhti (וּמָשַׁכְתִּי) = and I will pull, draw.

When Barak hears this command from God, he is hesitant. He does not doubt God’s power, but he doubts his own. Maybe he wonders if he could muster enough fighting men, or maybe he wonders if the men would obey his orders. He knows Devorah has the real authority.

And Barak said to her: “If you go with me then I will go, but if you do not go with me I will not go.” And she said: “I will certainly go with you. Only honor will not be yours on the road that you are following, because through the power of a woman God will hand over Sisera.” And Devorah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. And Barak mustered Zevulun and Naftali at Kedesh, and ten thousand men went up on his heels, and Devorah went up with him. (Judges 4:8-10)

I admire Barak for his humility. He is more interested in freeing the Israelites from the oppressive rule of King Yavin than he is in his own honor. He accepts his loss of status if the men see him taking orders from a woman.

Barak and Devorah lead the Israelite troops to the top of Mount Tavor. Sisera orders all his chariots and troops to move to the almost dry Kishon River. Then Devorah tells Barak:

“Get up! Because this is the day when God will give Sisera into your power. Is it not God who goes before you?” (Judges 4:14)

Barak leads his foot soldiers in a charge down the slope of Mount Tavor.

And God threw into confusion Sisera and every chariot and every warrior [so they fell] to the edge of the sword before Barak. And Sisera descended from his chariot and fled on foot. And Barak pursued the chariots and the warriors as far as Charoshet Hagoyim, and every warrior of Sisera fell to the edge of the sword; not one remained. (Judges 4:15-16)

The poem following the narrative of Sisera’s defeat explains that God turns the Kishon into a raging torrent that sweeps away Sisera’s army⁹.

Barak rallies the troops, but in Devorah’s name. He leads the charge, but only when Devorah says it was time. Then God drowns Sisera’s army at the Kidron, just as God drowned Pharaoh’s army at the Reed Sea.¹⁰

Sisera, the commander of King Yavin’s army, flees on foot to the nearby campsite of Chever the Kenite. He assumes he can find shelter there, because that Chever’s family is one of King Yavin’s allies. Chever’s wife, Ya-eil (Jael), is alone inside her tent when Sisera arrives. Maybe Sisera chooses her tent because everyone else is gone, or maybe it is the first tent he reaches.

Study of Jael, by Carlo Maratta ca. 1700

When he asks Ya-eil for water she gives him milk. When he falls asleep she hammers a tent pin through his head.¹¹

Ya-eil, like Devorah, is both courageous and clever. But is she ethical? The book of Judges does not say why Ya-eil kills Sisera. Does she empathize with the Israelite tribes? Is she feuding with her husband or her husband’s family, Sisera’s allies? Or does she have some private reason that did not make it into the book? Without knowing her motive for killing Sisera, we cannot judge Ya-eil’s moral character.

And hey! Barak was pursuing Sisera, and Ya-eil went out to greet him. And she said to him: “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” (Judges 4:22)

Barak is prepared to kill Sisera, but he finds out that a woman beat him to it. Devorah’s prophecy that “through the power of a woman God will hand over Sisera” is fulfilled twice: Sisera’s army is defeated with the help of Devorah, and Sisera himself is killed by Ya-eil.

Yes, the two women are admirable for their courage, their quick thinking, and their refusal to play the role of submissive wife. But I think Barak is even more admirable. He does not lack courage; after all, he leads the charge down to the enemy forces with their dangerous iron chariots, and then he pursues Sisera single-handedly. But like Moses, Barak is also humble. Her publicly admits that Devorah, a woman, is more powerful and respected than he.

And Barak follows Devorah’s directions for an ethical reason: to rescue the Israelites from oppression.

—

Exodus 14:4, 14:8-9.
And they said to Moses: “Was it because there are no graves in Egypt that you took us out to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:11)
Exodus 3:10-12, 4:1, 4:10-13.
Exodus 2:11-17.
Exodus 32:7-14.
Exodus 1:15-22. See my post Shemot: Disobedient Midwives.
Exodus 2:1-4. See my post Shemot & Psalm 137: Cry Like a Baby.
Exodus 2:5-10.
Judges 5:20-21. The poem also adds troops from three other Israelite tribes (Efrayim, Benyamin, and Issachar) to Barak’s army. (Judges 5:14-15).
Exodus 14:10-30.
Judges 4:17-21.

Eikev & Judges: Love or Kill the Stranger?

Are foreigners neighbors or enemies? Should you befriend them or kill them?

This week’s Torah portion, Eikev (“on the heels of”), appears to promote both points of view.

Love the stranger

And you must love the geir, for you were geirim in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 10:19)

geir (גֵּר), plural geirim (גֵּרִים) = immigrant, resident alien. (Not any “stranger”; only a foreigner who has settled down in another country.)

The command to be good to the immigrant appears many times in the Torah.¹ In this week’s iteration, Moses warns his people not to act like the Egyptians, who mistreated the multiplying family of Jacob (a.k.a. Israel) when they were resident aliens in Pharaoh’s kingdom.² He anticipates that after the Israelites have conquered Canaan and settled down, there will be individual immigrants who should be treated with the same fairness and compassion as anyone else in the land.

Kill the stranger

But this ethical rule does not apply to the Canaanites already living in the land the Israelites are about to conquer. In last week’s Torah portion, Va-etchanan, Moses says:

You must dedicate them to destruction. You must not cut a treaty with them, and you must not show them mercy. You must not give them your daughters, nor give their daughters to your sons … because they would turn your children away from [God], and they would serve other gods … Instead … you must tear down their altars and smash their standing stones and cut down their goddess posts and burn their images in fire. (Deuteronomy 7:2-5)

In the portion Eikev, Moses repeats the call for genocide of the Canaanites.

And you must eat up all the peoples that God, your God, is giving to you. You must not look at them with compassion. And you must not serve their gods, because it would be a trap for you. (Deuteronomy 7:16)

Why?

Why does the God-character tell the Israelites to be kind to new immigrants, but to exterminate the existing population of Canaan?

If the Israelites had succeeded in conquering all of Canaan and killing its whole population, the injunction in Eikev could be viewed as a post-genocide justification: “We had to wipe them out because God told us to”. But the book of Judges, which opens with an account of territories that the Israelite tribes partially conquered, reports that the original Canaanites continued to live in their midst.³

Therefore the exhortation to exterminate all the Canaanites serves a different purpose: to emphasize that nothing is more important for the Israelites than sticking to their own religion. This agenda appears in the passages above from both Va-etchanan and Eikev.

The God-character portrayed in the books of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and 1 Samuel explicitly approves of genocide when the perpetrators are Israelites, and the victims worship a different god and occupy land that God has designated for the Israelites.⁴ No exceptions are made for infants or atheists.

In the book of Numbers, the land designated for Israelites includes not only Canaan, but also the region on the east bank of the Jordan River. God helps the Israelites conquer the kingdoms of Cheshbon and Bashan, where two and a half of the twelve tribes will live.

War Against the Midianites, detail, by Balthasar Bernards, ca. 1720-1728

While they are camping at Peor, preparing to cross the Jordan, the Israelites accept invitations from the Midianites there to worship the god of Peor (Baal-Peor). The God-character is enraged with jealousy, and (after wiping out 24,000 Israelites with a plague), orders the surviving men of Israel to kill all the Midianites around Peor: men, women, and male children.⁵

In next week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, Moses says that when the Israelites go to war to conquer a town outside the lands God has given them, they must first invite the town to surrender peacefully. If the town accepts this offer, all its residents can continue to live there, as long as they provide labor for Israelites projects.⁶However,

In the towns of those peoples that God, your God, is giving to you as a permanent possession, you must not let a soul live. … so that they will not teach you to do all the taboo things that they do for their gods … (Deuteronomy 20:16, 20:18)

Thus the real issue is whether foreigners will help or hamper the Israelites in serving their God.

The Torah promotes friendly assimilation of new immigrants because they can be required to observe some basic Israelite religious practices. The Torah rules that geirim must refrain from eating leavened bread during the week of Passover,⁷ refrain from working on the sabbath or Yom Kippur,⁸ refrain from eating an animal’s blood,⁹ obey the Israelite sexual prohibitions,¹⁰ refrain from giving children to the god Molekh,¹¹ refrain using God’s name in an insult or curse,¹² follow the laws of purity after exposure to a human corpse,¹³ and listen to a reading of the Torah every seven years.¹⁴

Immigrants who obey all these rules are not likely to worship other gods openly, or entice Israelites to join them in worship.

But what will the Israelites do when they are the immigrants, a large population settling Canaan by force? Since they do not wipe out the indigenous peoples, will they start worshiping the local gods the way they did in Peor?

The answer in the book of Judges is a resounding yes.

The Israelites did what was bad in the eyes of God, and they served the be-alim. And they abandoned God, the God of their forefathers, the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and they bowed down to them, and [thus] they offended God. (Judges 2:11-12)

be-alim (בְּעָלִים) = plural of baal (בַּעַל) = owner; a male Canaanite god.

Canaanite religions seemed to be so enticing that they were hard to resist.¹⁵

Another solution

From an ethical point of view, sharing the land of Canaan with its indigenous inhabitants is far better than committing genocide. Why don’t Moses and the God-character in the Torah find a more ethical way to keep the Israelites from worshiping other gods?

Persuading the Israelites that no other gods exist is not the answer. Moses tried this earlier in the book of Deuteronomy, saying:

You yourselves have seen for the knowledge that God is the God; there is no other than he alone. (Deuteronomy 4:35)

But the people are not psychologically ready for monotheism. Threats do not work either. The portion Eikev includes two of many statements in the Torah that God will kill the Israelites if they worship other gods:

And it will be if you actually forget God, your God, and you go after other gods and serve them and bow down to them, I call witness against you this day that you will truly perish. (Deuteronomy 8:19)

Guard yourselves lest your heart deceives you and you desert and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then God’s anger will heat up against you and shut the heavens, and there will be no rain and the earth will not give its produce, and you will quickly perish from upon the good land that God is giving to you. (Deuteronomy 11:16-17)

Perhaps at this stage, the Israelites need dazzling visual displays to reinforce their commitment to their religion. The Canaanites have glittering gold and silver idols. The Israelites have a single invisible god who only occasionally manifests as a miraculous fire.

The book of Judges points out that the sight of miracles made all the difference.

And the people served God all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who came after Joshua, who had seen all the great deeds of God that [God] did for Israel. (Judges 2:7)

Elijah and King Ahab see divine fire, Zurich Bible, 1531

If the Israelites cannot yet stick to their own God without miracles, an occasional miracle might help to keep the religion going until the people become able to adopt a more sophisticated idea of God. An example is when Elijah when Elijah sets up two altars, one for God and one for Baal, and asks the people of the northern kingdom of Israel to make their choice. God sends down fire to consume the offerings, and the Israelites respond by attacking the priests of Baal.¹⁶

A miracle in every generation might have kept the Israelites away from Canaanite religion. At least it would be a better solution than genocide.

Even today many people cannot relate to an invisible, abstract god. Some people still use icons and other shiny objects to support their religious resolve. Others still need miracles, and gladly interpret apparent coincidences as the hand of God. If these religious practices strengthen their commitment to ethical behavior, then they are well worth it.

But a god that sanctions murder is not worth worshiping. Killing the infidel is a practice that has continued somewhere in the world to this day. May it cease in our own time.

—

See my blog post Mishpatim: The Immigrant, including the footnotes.
Moses also makes this point in Exodus 23:9.
Judges 1:21-33.
Divine commands for genocide of seven Canaanite peoples include Exodus 23:28-33, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, 7:16, 7:24, 20:16-18; and Joshua 8:2, 10:40. The God-character commands genocide of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15:2-3.
See my posts on “How to Stop a Plague”, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Deuteronomy 20:10-11.
Exodus 12:19.
Exodus 20:10, 23:12; Leviticus 16:29; Deuteronomy 5:14.
Leviticus 17:10-13.
Leviticus 18:26.
Leviticus 20:3.
Leviticus 24:16.
Numbers 19:10.
Deuteronomy 31:12.
Even in the 6th century B.C.E. people were worshiping “the Queen of Heaven” (Jeremiah 7:18)
1 Kings 18:20-40.

Haftarat Naso—Judges: Spot the Angel

Abraham bows
to a malakh, detail by J..J. Tissot

Would you recognize an angel if you saw one?

The Hebrew Bible usually calls an angel a malakh (מַלְאַךְ = messenger) of God. A messenger of God appears to a human being and delivers its message, then disappears again. Frequently the angel looks like a man at first, though occasionally it looks unnatural from the beginning, like the burning bush Moses sees,¹ or it is only a disembodied voice.²

(Angels with wings appear to Isaiah, but they are called serafim, and each has six wings.)

A malakh of God drives the action in the beginning of the story of Samson in the book of Judges, which is the haftarah reading accompanying this week’s Torah portion, Naso.³ The story introduces a man from the tribe of Dan named Manoach. He and his wife are childless.

A malakh of God appeared to the woman, and he said to her: “Hey, please! You are childless and you have not given birth, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. So now guard yourself, please, and don’t you drink wine or alcohol, and don’t you eat anything ritually impure. Because here you are, pregnant, and you will give birth to a son. And a razor must not go over his head, because the boy will be a nazir of God from the womb. And he will begin to rescue Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:3-5)

Samson and Delilah,
by Gustave Dore, detail

nazir (נָזִיר) = someone consecrated to God through abstaining from wine, haircuts, and mourning. (From the root verb nazar, נזר = dedicate to a god; exercise abstention.)

Becoming a nazir is a choice, according to this week’s Torah portion. Only an adult man or woman may make the vow to live as a nazir for a period of time.⁴ Yet in the haftarah, neither Samson nor his mother gets to choose whether or not to make a vow.

After the annunciation, the woman whose status has suddenly changed from childless to pregnant goes into the house.⁵

The woman came in, and she said to her husband, saying: “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of a malakh of the God, very awesome. And I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name.” (Judges 13:6)

Why is the woman outside, where men traditionally worked, while Manoach is inside the house, where women worked?

The woman tells Manoach that the angel looked like a man, but more awesome. She knows an angel when she sees one, and she knows enough not to ask the kind of personal questions you would ask a human traveler, such as where he came from or what his name is.

She continues:

“And he said to me: “Here you are, pregnant! And you will give birth to a son. And you, don’t you drink wine or strong drink, and don’t you eat anything ritually impure, because the boy will be a nazir of God from the womb until the day he dies.” (Judges 13:7)

It does not occur to Manoach that anyone else might have impregnated his wife, or that she might have actually seen an angel. Furthermore, although she says what the angel told her to do while she is pregnant, Manoach does not take her word for it.

Then Manoach pleaded with God, and he said: “If you please, my lord, the man of the God whom you sent, please may he come again to us, and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.” And the God heard the voice of Manoach. And the malakh of the God again came to the woman—” (Judges 13:8-9)

The malakh of God does not appear to Manoach. So his wife runs home and tells her husband what she saw.

And Manoach got up and followed his wife, and he came to the man and he said to him: “Are you the man who spoke to the woman?” And he said: “I am.” (Judges 13:11)

Manoach does not refer to his wife by her name, or even as “my wife”, but merely calls her “the woman”.

I remember the sexism in the United States in the early 1960’s, when it was common for men to refer to their spouses as “the wife” or “the little woman”. I was surprised, as a child, to hear my father refer to my mother that way when he was chatting with a fellow man. The traditional male role in the 1960’s also included working outside the home, as it did in Canaan in the 11^th century BCE.

Manoach asks the malakh of God what they should do about the boy. The angel replies:

“From everything I said to the woman she must guard herself: she must not eat from anything that goes out from a grapevine, and she must not drink wine or strong drink, and she must not eat anything ritually impure. Everything that I commanded her, she must observe.” (Judges 13:13-14)

Manoach did not believe his wife, but now that he has confirmation from a strange man, he is satisfied. However, he still does not believe his wife’s assessment that the man is really an angel.

And Manoach said to the malakh of God: “Let us detain [you], please, and we will prepare a goat-kid for you.” But the malakh of God said to Manoach: “If you detain me, I cannot eat your food, and if you prepare a rising-offering, offer it up to God.” Because Manoach did not know that he was a malakh of God. (Judges 13:15)

Manoach still does not grasp the situation. But he is eager to find some way to be polite to the man who has promised his wife a son.

Sacrifice of Manoah, by Eustache Le Sueur, 1640-1650

And Manoach said to the malakh of God: “Who— Your name? Because when your word comes [true], then we can honor you.” And the messenger of God said to him: “Why do you ask for my name? It is a mystery!” (Judges 13:17-18)

Manoach prepares a goat-kid and a grain-offering for God, and lights a fire to roast them.

And the flame was climbing from upon the altar toward the heavens, and the malakh of God went up in a flame from the altar. And Manoach and his wife saw, and they fell on their faces to the ground. And the malakh of God did not appear again to Manoach or to his wife. That was when Manoach knew that he was a malakh of God. (Judges 13:20-21)

Why does it take so long for Manoach to realize the visitor was an angel, when his wife notices something numinous about the “man” right away?

Part of the reason must be for comic effect. But I think Manoach’s inability to recognize what is in front of him is also related to his sexism.

The bible portrays society in ancient Israel realistically, so its laws assume that men own all the land, and women are dependent on their men: their fathers before marriage, their husbands during marriage, and their sons after they are widowed. But the bible does not portray women as interchangeable or stupid or unworthy of being listened to. (In Genesis 21:12, God even tells Abraham: “Everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice.” And he obeys his wife.)

Maybe if a man cannot listen to his wife, he has trouble listening to a malakh of God. Maybe if he cannot see his wife as a human being who might do something surprising, he cannot see someone who looks superficially like a man as someone who might really be an angel. This applies not just to men, but to women and all humans who classify people into categories instead of being curious about them as individuals.

Would you recognize an angel if you saw one?

—

Exodus 3:2-3, which is also an example of how an angel’s voice becomes God’s voice.
e. the angel who speaks to Abraham in Genesis 22:11-16.
Every week of the year is assigned its own Torah portion (from the first five books of the bible, the Torah) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the Prophets). The haftarah for Naso is Judges 13:2-13:25.
See my post Naso: Distanced by Hair.
For arguments in favor of the angel doing the impregnating, see Marc Zvi Brettler, “Who Was Samson’s Real Father?”, thetorah.com.

Mattot, Judges, & Joshua: How to Stop a Plague, Part 2

Pinchas first appears in the Torah grabbing a spear and skewering two worshipers of a local Midianite god, Baal Peor. God (that is, the God-character in the book of Numbers/Bemidbar) is relieved, because “He” could not stop “His” own anger at the apostasy and the resulting plague. (See my post Balak & Pinchas: How to Stop a Plague, Part 1.) Pinchas’s zealous impulse does the trick.

God tells Moses:

Therefore say: Here I am, giving to him My covenant of shalom. And it shall be for him, and for his descendants after him, a covenant of priesthood for all time, founded because he was zealous for his God, so he atoned for the children of Israel.” (Numbers 25:12-13)

shalom (שָׁלוֹם) = peace, wholeness, well-being.

The covenant of shalom makes Pinchas a priest, binding him to commit no further violence against humans (though like all priests, he must slaughter animal offerings at the altar).

However, there is no covenant of peace binding God. In this week’s Torah portion, Mattot (“Tribes”), God orders Moses:

Avenge the vengeance of the Israelites on the Midianites! Afterward you shall be gathered to your people. (Numbers 31:1)

After Moses dies, the rest of the Israelites live with the knowledge of both their unfaithfuless to God and their vengeance on the Midianites. Next week’s post, Mattot, Va-etchannan, & Isaiah: How to Stop a Plague, Part 3, will consider the lasting effects of the Baal Peor incident on the Israelites. This week’s post explores what happens to Pinchas after his well-timed murder.

Pinchas in Mattot

Moses sent a thousand from each tribe for the army, and Pinchas, son of Elazar the Priest, for the army; and holy utensils and trumpets for blasting were in his hands. And they made war against Midian, as God had commanded Moses … (Numbers 31:6-7)

A priest accompanies an army in the Torah not to engage in battle, but to address the troops before battle¹ and take charge of holy objects². Sometimes a general consults a priest before battle, and the priest uses an oracular device to relay simple questions to God and report God’s brief replies.³

The Torah portion Mattot does not identify the holy utensils Pinchas brought to the battle against the Midianites in the valley of Baal Peor. Trumpets were used to sound an alarm, to signal troops to advance, and to signal troops to retreat.⁴

Pinchas in the Book of Judges

Pinchas does use an oracular device to answer the questions of generals many years later, when he is the high priest of the Israelites. After the tribes have conquered and settled various parts of Canaan, some men in the territory of Benjamin rape and kill a Levite’s concubine. The Levite rallies all the other tribes to go to war against the Benjaminites.⁵

Pinchas stays in the town of Beit-El, where the ark is in residence, about 8 miles (13 km) north of Gibeah, the main town of Benjamin. Before each day of battle, men from the Israelite army go to Beit-El with a question for God.

First they ask which tribe should advance first against the Benjaminites, and God’s answer is “Judah”. The Israelites lose the battle. They return to Beit-El and ask if they should attack again, and God answers yes. But they lose the second battle as well.

Then they went up … and they came to Beit-El and they wept, and they sat there before God, and they fasted that day until the evening, and they sent up rising-offerings and shelamim before God. (Judges 20:26)

shelamim (שְׁלָמִים) = animal-offerings either to express gratitude to God for well-being, or to attempt a state of peace and unity with God. (From the same root as shalom.)

And the Israelites inquired of God—and the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Pinchas son of Elazar son of Aaron was standing in attendance before [God] in those days—saying: “Should we gather again to go out to war with the Benjaminites, our brothers, or should we give up?” And God said: “Go up, because tomorrow I will give them into your hand.” (Judges 20:27-28)

The Israelites defeat the Benjaminites the next day, wiping out most of the men of that tribe and all of the women. But the only role Pinchas plays is to report God’s answers; he takes no action on his own.

Pinchas in the Book of Joshua

Pinchas takes a more active role in the book of Joshua when nine and a half tribes are considering making war on the other two and a half.

At the end of Mattot, this week’s portion, the tribes of Reuben and Gad ask Moses for permission to settle east of the Jordan in Gilead and Bashan, the lands that the Israelites have already conquered. Moses grants them and the half-tribe of Menasheh these lands, but only after they have promised that their fighting men will cross the Jordan with the rest of the Israelites and help conquer Canaan.⁶

After the death of Moses, Joshua leads these men and all the other Israelites across the Jordan River. His army conquers a large part of Canaan, the men of Reuben, Gad, and Menasheh return to their new homes, and the land west of the Jordan is allotted among the other nine and a half tribes. Joshua erects the portable Tent of Meeting containing God’s ark at Gilgal first, then at Shiloh, both on the west side of the Jordan.

And the Israelites heard [a report] saying: Hey! The Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Menasheh built an altar opposite the land of Canaan, in the district across from the Israelites. (Joshua 22:11)

This is the same region where the Israelites were camping when they joined the Midianites in their worship of Baal Peor.

And the Israelites heard, and they assembled, the whole community of the sons of Israel, at Shiloh to go up to make war upon them. And the Israelites sent Pinchas, son of Elazar the [high] priest … to the land of Gilead, along with ten chieftains … (Joshua 22:12-14)

If anything could trigger Pinchas’s jealousy and zealotry for the God of Israel again, it would be news that some Israelites had built an altar for a foreign god. When his delegation arrives, Pinchas protests:

Is it a small matter for us, the crime of Peor from which we have not purified ourselves to this day? It is a scourge in the community of God! And you, you would turn away from God? If you rebel today against God, tomorrow the whole community of Israel will become angry! (Joshua 22:17-18)

The east-bank tribesmen quickly explain that they have no intention of worshiping another god. They claim they were afraid of being excluded from the community of the God of Israel, and they only built a symbolic replica of God’s altar in Shiloh.

“… because it is a witness between our eyes and your eyes. Far be it from us to rebel against God!” (Joshua 22:28-29).

And Pinchas the priest heard, and the chieftains of the community and the heads of the companies of Israel who were with him, the words that they spoke … and it was good in their eyes. (Joshua 22:30)

Pinchas and his delegation return to Shiloh with their new understanding, and war is averted. Pinchas has indeed become a man of shalom, of peace, wholeness, and well-being.

Did God’s covenant of shalom transform Pinchas because it gave him the responsibilities of a priest?⁷ Or did it transform him because God’s response shocked him into recognizing his own excessive zeal?

Imitating God’s forgiveness might be a fine strategy, but imitating the murderous zeal of the God-character in the Torah is bad for a human being. Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, the 19^th-century author of Ha’amek Davar, wrote: “Since it was only natural that such a deed as Pinhas’ should leave in his heart an intense emotional unrest afterward, the Divine blessing was designed to cope with this situation and promised peace and tranquility of soul.”⁸

May all human beings who are overwhelmed by jealousy or anger be transformed like Pinchas —whether by a new responsibility, a new realization, or an inner blessing—into people of shalom.

—

¹ See Deuteronomy 20:2.

² See 1 Samuel 4:4-5.

³ This oracular device is called urim and/or tummim in Numbers 27:21, 1 Samuel 14:41, and 1 Samuel 28:6; and an eifod in 1 Samuel 23:9-12 and 1 Samuel 30:7-8. An eifod in the Bible is usually a tabard worn by priests and other attendants on God’s sanctuary: a garment made of two rectangular panels of cloth fastened together at the shoulders and belted around the waist. Exodus 28:6-30 describes the elaborate eifod of the high priest and the choshen tied to its front panel. The choshen is a square pouch with twelve precious stones on the front side. Inside the pouch are the urim and tummim, items that scholars have not yet identified.

⁴ 2 Samuel 17:6, 20:22; Jeremiah 4:19, 6:1, 51:27; Ezekiel 33:6; Amos 3:6.

⁵ Judges 20:1-48.

⁶ Numbers 32:1-33.

⁷ The priesthood was hereditary, so Pinchas, son of the high priest Elazar, son of the high priest Aaron, could expect to be consecrated as a priest eventually. But the Zohar notes that someone who has killed a person is normally disqualified from the priesthood. (Arthur Green in Sefat Emet, The Language of Truth, by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, translation and commentary by Arthur Green, The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1998, p. 264)

⁸ Translation from Ha’amek Davar in Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Bamidbar (Numbers), translated from Hebrew by Aryeh Newman, The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem, 1980.

Haftarat Balak—Micah: Bribing the Divine

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9) and the haftarah is Micah 5:6-6:8. Last week the haftarah was Judges 11:1-33.

What does God want from us?

With what shall I come before God?

(With what) shall I soothe God on High?

Shall I come before Him with olot?

With calves a year old?

Would God be pleased with thousands of rams?

With ten thousand streams of oil?

Should I give my firstborn for my rebellion,

The fruit of my loins for the guilt of my soul? (Micah 6:6-7)

olot (עוֹלוֹת) = plural of olah (עוֹלָה) = rising-offering. In an olah an entire slaughtered animal offering is burned up into smoke. (From the root alah (עלה) = go up.)

In this week’s haftarah, the prophet Micah mocks Israelites who try to buy God’s favor by making impressive offerings on the altar. Everyone has a price, these people think, even God. I can get God to forgive my moral shortcomings if I pay the right price.

In last week’s haftarah, Yiftach (“Jephthah” in English), the new chieftain of Gilad, tries to win God’s favor for his upcoming battle with the Ammonites. (See last week’s post, Haftarah for Chukkat: Judges—A Peculiar Vow.) He has no idea what kind of gift God would like; God does not speak to him. But he knows what kind of gifts other people donate to their gods. His fellow Israelites serve God by slaughtering livestock and burning them on God’s altar. An even bigger offering, for the people in that region, is to sacrifice one’s own child—preferably one’s firstborn son—to a god.

Babylonian cylinder seal illustrating child sacrifice

(Abraham almost does this in Genesis chapter 22; the king of Moab does it in 2 kings 3:27, the Israelites sacrifice their children to Molech in Jeremiah 7:31, and Psalm 106:38 claims that the Israelites “shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they slaughtered for the idols of Canaan”.)

Yet elsewhere, the Bible makes it clear that human sacrifice is completely unacceptable to the god of Israel. Yiftach’s messages to the king of Ammon show that he is well versed in the history of the Israelite conquests east of the Jordan River, as related in the book of Numbers—and perhaps added to Yiftach’s story by the editor of the book of Judges.

But in the original story of Yiftach and his daughter, does Yiftach know about the ban against human sacrifice?

He has only one child, his young adolescent daughter. And he has just been given his father’s position as chieftain of Gilad. The best thing a man can hope for, in his culture, is to pass on his position and his property to descendants. Yet everything depends on winning the war with Ammon.

So Yiftach does not choose between sacrificing an animal or a human; he lets God (or fate) decide.

And Yiftach vowed a vow to God, and he said: “If You definitely give the Ammonites into my hand, then it will be the one that goes out from my door of my house to meet me at my safe return from the Ammonites—[that one] will be for God, and I will make him go up as an olah.” (Judges 11:30-31)

Maybe Yiftach hopes a bull or a ram will trot out of his house when he comes home. Or maybe he expects a male slave to open the door.

Yiftach wins the war, and his troops capture twenty towns from the Ammonites.

And Yiftach came … to his house, and hey!—his daughter was going out to meet him, with tambourines and with dancing. And she was an only child; he had no other son or daughter. As he saw her, he tore his clothes [in grief] and he said: Ah! My daughter, I have certainly been knocked down to my knees! (Judges 11:34-35)

Women in the Bible often sing and dance with tambourines when their military heroes come home in triumph. They do it for Saul and David in the first book of Samuel. Yiftach’s wife is absent from the story, so his adolescent daughter takes on the job.

Yiftach might conclude that God arranged for his daughter to come out because God wants his daughter to go up in smoke.

Some commentators, from the Talmud and the Midrash Rabbah on Leviticus (5^th-7^th century C.E.) to Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 11^th century C.E.) to Robert Alter (2013), conclude that Yiftach actually does sacrifice and burn his daughter on the altar.

Another line of commentary, from Resh Lakish in the Midrash Rabbah on Ecclesiastes (6^th-8^th century C.E.) to Abraham Ibn Ezra (12^th century C.E.) to Jonathan Magonet (2015), argues that Yiftach does expect a human being to come out the door, but he does not intend to make a human sacrifice. Instead, he plans to dedicate the person to God by paying the priests of Gilad in silver, which they can then use to buy sacrificial animals for a big olah. This is an approved procedure in the book of Leviticus/Vayikra (probably written in the 6^th century B.C.E., about the same time that the stories in the book of Judges were collected and edited).

Anyone who shall make a wonderful vow of the value of humans to God, the assessment shall be: for a male 20 to 60 years old, 50 shekels of silver…if five to 20 years old, the assessment shall be …ten shekels for a female… (Leviticus/Vayikra 27:2-3)

Yiftach does not vow to give God “the value of a human”, but he does vow that the human concerned “will be for God”—and also that he will (according to this theory) turn that person into a symbolic olah by paying the priests the correct amount of silver.

Yet if Yiftach expects to give God the assessed value of the first person who comes out of his house, then why is he upset when his daughter dances out? The assessed value of an adolescent girl is lower than the value of an adult male slave; he can save some money!

But Yiftach tears his clothes in grief. That means that either Yiftach does intend to slaughter a human being—his own daughter—on the altar; or a piece of the story is missing.

I suspect that the redactor who assembled the book of Judges omitted something—because the rest of the story of Yiftach’s daughter is about celibacy, not death.

She calmly tells her father that he must carry out his vow, and asks him to delay it for two months.

“Let this thing be done for me: I shall go down on the hills and I shall weep over my betulim, I and my (female) companions.” And he said: “Go.” And he sent her off for two months, her and her companions, and she wept for her betulim on the hills. And at the end of two months she returned to her father and he carried out his vow that he had vowed. And she, she had never known a man. And it became a custom in Israel: for all of her days, the daughters of Israel went to sing for the daughter of Yiftach the Giladite, four days in the year. (Judges 11:37-40)

betulim (בְּתוּלִים) = virginity; celibacy; evidence (of blood on a sheet) of being either virginal or not pregnant.

A period of two months has no special significance elsewhere in the Bible, but it is the right length of time for a woman to wait to make sure she has a menstrual period and is not pregnant.

I think Yiftach’s daughter is reminding him of another alternative to human sacrifice.

According to the Torah, an Israelite woman can achieve a higher level of holiness only by becoming a nazir for a period of time and abstaining from alcohol and grape products, hair care, and being near a dead body. This would not count as a substitute for an olah. But in neighboring Mesopotamia a woman could serve a goddess in several other ways: as a temple sex worker, as a high priestess who had sex only with a god, or as a nun who lived communally in a special part of the temple complex.

Neither a priestess nor a nun was allowed to have children.

Israelites in the Bible frequently worship other gods in addition to the God of Israel, and at times they confuse their god with another local god. Perhaps Yiftach’s daughter and her companions weep ritually at one or more hilltop shrines (bamot) dedicated to other gods. Then, once she has proof that she is not pregnant, her father gives her to God—to some god, anyway, a god that will accept her as a priestess or a nun.

That would explain why, after Yiftach has carried out his vow, women of Israel are able to go and “sing for the daughter of Yiftach the Giladite, four days in the year”—for the rest of her life.

Yiftach still grieves, because now he will have no grandchildren. And his daughter laments for at least two months because now she will never “know” a man or have a child. But by borrowing from another religion, she finds a way to make herself a gift to God by living, not dying.

Later in the Bible, prophets from Isaiah to Malachi point out that although animal offerings in the temple are fine if performed in the right spirit—and to the right god—what God really wants is for people to behave ethically toward one another. The prophet Micah says it best in this week’s haftarah, after he has mocked Israelites who try to buy God’s favor with sacrifices.

He told you, humankind, what is good

And what God is seeking from you:

Only to do justice,

And love kindness,

And walk modestly with your God. (Micah 6:-8)

If only Yiftach knew that was what God wanted! Then he could have vowed: “If You definitely give the Ammonites into my hand, then, as chief of Gilad, I will do justice and pursue kindness and be humble.”

If only we all dedicate ourselves to being just, kind, and humble, it will be a gift to the whole world.

Haftarat Chukkat—Judges: A Peculiar Vow

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Chukkat (Numbers 19:1-22:1) and the haftarah is Judges 11:1-33.

Yiftach by Guillaume Rouille — Yiftach
by Guillaume Rouille

Why would a man who is clear-headed, cool, and careful with words suddenly make a vow that threatens his only child?

The haftarah from Judges introduces Yiftach as a man who is an outcast through no fault of his own.

Yiftach of Gilad was a capable warrior, and he was the son of a prostitute, and he was begotten by Gilad. Then the wife of Gilad bore him sons, and the sons of his wife grew up and they drove out Yiftach. They said to him: “You shall not inherit in our father’s household, because you are the son of another woman.” So Yiftach fled from his brothers, and he settled in the land of Tov, and men without means gathered around Yiftach and went out with him. (Judges 11:1-3)

Yiftach (יִפְתָּח) = he opened. “Jephthah” in English translations.

Grassland in Gilad (now in west Jordan) — Grassland in west Gilad
(now in Jordan)

Gilad (גִּלְעָד) = “Gilead”, the region east of the Jordan River, settled by the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and Menashe in the book of Numbers/Bemidbar because it was good for cattle. Yiftach’s father is probably called “Gilad” because he is the chief or de facto king of the region; the Bible often refers to a king by the name of his country.

The oldest son of a chief does not automatically become the next chief, but all of a man’s sons are entitled to a share of his property. As a capable warrior, Yiftach could attack his half-brothers when they refuse to share with him. But he is too sensible to take this risk. Instead he accepts that he has been deprived of both his home and any of his father’s herds, and he flees to a remote part of east Gilad.

There he leads a band of landless men who “go out”—probably to raid villages for spoils, a common occupation in the ancient Near East.

Later, the Ammonites to the south attack the Giladites and capture some of their towns. Since Gilad has no war leader, a delegation of elders travels to Tov and asks Yiftach to take the job. He refuses on the grounds that he was disinherited and driven away. So the elders make him a better offer.

“You shall go with us and you shall battle against the Ammonites and you shall become our chief, for all the inhabitants of Gilad.” (Judges 11:8)

Yiftach, clever and careful, rephrases their offer to mean that he will be the permanent chief of Gilad, even after the Ammonites are defeated:

“If you are bringing me back to battle against the Ammonites, and God gives them up to me, it is I who will be your chief.” (Judges 11:9)

The elders agree, but as an extra precaution Yiftach repeats his words in front of God at the nearest high place, the mitzpah or lookout post of Gilad.

We can assume he brings his raiders with him and recruits and trains more soldiers. But his next recorded move is to send a message to the king of the Ammonites:

Gilad at the end of the book of Numbers — Gilad (Menasheh, Gad, and Reuben) at the end of the book of Numbers

“What is between me and you, that you come to me to make war on my land?” (Judges 11:12)

Yiftach addresses the Ammonite ruler as one king to another, as if it were a personal quarrel. The king of the Ammonites replies that the Israelites took his ancestral land, between the Arnon and Yabok rivers east of the Jordan, when they came up from Egypt centuries ago. Yiftach replies by explaining that Amorites captured that land before the Israelites arrived, so the Ammonites have no legitimate grudge against the Israelites of Gilad. This time, the Ammonite king sends no return message.

Up to this point Yiftach has acted cautiously and reasonably. Then something happens to him.

And a ruach of God came over Yiftach. And he passed through the Gilad and Menasheh, and he passed the lookout of Gilad, and from the lookout of Gilad he passed ahead to the Ammonites. (Judges 11:29)

ruach (רוּחַ) when immediately followed by a name of God = prophetic inspiration or ecstasy; charisma; mood, motivating force, prevailing attitude.

The book of Judges tells of two war leaders before Yiftach who were overcome by a ruach of God: Othniel and Gideon, both of whom were motivated to go to war. After Yiftach, whenever Samson is overcome by the ruach of God he has a burst of superhuman strength and commits an impulsive act of violence. In the first book of Samuel, King Saul is overcome both by a ruach of prophetic ecstasy and by a ruach that plunges him into foul and suspicious moods—and both kinds of ruach come from God.

What kind of ruach of God comes over Yiftach? The first effect of the divine ruach is that he gathers his troops and goes to fight the Ammonites. But the ruach may have a second effect; immediately after the sentence quoted above, the haftarah continues:

And Yiftach vowed a vow to God, and he said: “If You definitely give the Ammonites into my hand, then it will be the one that goes out from my door of my house to meet me at my safe return from the Ammonites—[that one] will belong to God, veha-alitehu [as] an olah.” (Judges 11:30-31)

veha-alitehu (וְהאעֲלִיתְהוּ) = and I will make him/it go up. (From the root verb alah (עלה) = go up. The –hu ending can mean either a male human or an animal.)

olah (עֹלָה) = rising-offering. (Also from the root alah (עלה) = go up.) In an olah an entire slaughtered animal offering is burned up into smoke.

This is not the vow of someone who is thinking clearly. After all, he does not know who or what will come out the door of his house. The Midrash Rabbah for Leviticus/Vayikra imagines God wondering if Yiftach would offer up a non-kosher animal unsuitable for altar sacrifice, such as a camel, donkey, or dog, if it happened to come out the door first.

Yiftach, who is so well-versed in Israelite history, would know that human beings are also unacceptable as offerings on God’s altar. Yet his vow implies that not only will he give God ownership of the person or animal that comes out of his house, but that he will do so by burning up the man or animal in an olah offering.

Perhaps Yiftach is still under the influence of the ruach of God, and not thinking clearly.

I found three other if-then vows in the Bible, and all three are more practical about the object of the vow. Jacob vows that if God keeps him safe until he returns to his father’s house, then he will give a tithe of all his property to God (Genesis 29:20-22).

Hannah vows that if God gives her a son, she will give him to God as a lifelong servant—as a nazir, priest, and/or prophet. (1 Samuel 1:11)

In this week’s Torah portion, the Israelites …vowed a vow to God and said: If You definitely give this people into my hand, then I will devote their towns to utter destruction for God. (Numbers/Bemidbar 21:2)

In each case, God fulfills the request, and the person who makes the vow gives what he or she promised to God. God also fulfills the request in this week’s haftarah:

And Yiftach passed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and God gave them into his hand. …twenty towns … a very great blow. And the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites. (Judges 11:32-33)

So when Yiftach gets home, he must fulfill his unconsidered vow.

This is where the haftarah ends, but the story continues in the book of Judges:

And Yiftach came to the lookout post, to his house, and hey!—his daughter was going out to meet him, with tambourines and with dancing. And she was an only child; he had no other son or daughter. (Judges 11:34)

Yiftach’s response shows that he has recovered from the ruach of God that gave him battle fever and led to his muddled vow.

As he saw her, he tore his clothes [in mourning] and he said: Ah! My daughter, I have certainly been knocked down to my knees! And you, you have become okherai. And I, I opened up my mouth to God, and I am not able to turn back. (Judges 11:35)

okherai (עֹכְרָי) = one who cuts me off from social life, one who makes trouble for me.

When Yiftach’s father died, his brothers cut off from his old life and subjected him to troubles. Now he blames his daughter for doing it again. He also blames himself for making the vow in the first place.

I know some people today who seek ecstatic experiences, who want to be overcome by the ruach of God. And I know people who are driven by a mission they consider sacred, one that has taken over their lives and muddled their thinking, as if they had been overcome by a ruach of God.

As for myself, I would rather keep my head clear and think before I speak. I would rather be like Yiftach before the ruach hit him.

What about you?

(Look for next week’s post (Haftarah for Balak) for an exploration of how Yiftach fulfills his vow, what actually happens to Yiftach’s daughter, and how this story informs next week’s haftarah from the book of Micah.)

Haftarat Naso—Judges: Restraining the Abstainer

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89) and the haftarah is Judges13:2-13:25.

Every religion has members who go beyond what is required of the whole community. In ancient Israel, there were priests, prophets, and nezirim.

And I raised up some of your sons for prophets

And some of your young men for nezirim.

Is there nothing in this, Children of Israel?

—declares God.

But you made the nezirim drink wine

And you ordered the prophets not to prophesy! (Amos 2:11-12)

nezirim (נְזִרִים) = “nazirites”: men and women who are dedicated and separated from the rest of the community as holy because they abstain from grooming their hair and drinking alcohol. Nezirim is the plural of nazir (נָזִיר), from the root verb נזר = separate, dedicate, restrain, abstain.

Samson, whose story begins in this week’s haftarah, is a nazir from the womb to the grave, but he fails to make his life holy. Perhaps that is why this week’s Torah portion lays out strict rules and term limits for living as a nazir.

Although the book of Numbers/Bemidbar is set at an earlier time in history than Samson’s story in the book of Judges, modern scholars agree that Judges was written long before the Torah portion Naso in Numbers. Judges is a collection of old stories of heroes from the 11^th century B.C.E. and earlier, stories which were probably compiled and rewritten in the 8^th century B.C.E. Large parts of the book of Numbers, however, including the instructions for the nazir, were written after the Babylonian exile of the 6^th century B.C.E., when priests were writing religious instructions for the time of the second temple.

Samson’s story begins in this week’s haftarah when an angel appears to the wife of a Danite named Manoach and announces that she will give birth to a nazir.

A messenger of God appeared to the woman, and he said to her: Hey, please! You are childless and you have not given birth, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. So now guard yourself, please, and don’t you drink wine or alcohol, and don’t you eat anything ritually impure. Because you are about to conceive, and you will give birth to a son, and a razor will not go upon his head, because the boy will be a nazir of God from the womb. And he will begin to rescue Israel from the hand of the Philistines. (Judges 13:3-5)

Samson's Fight with the Lion, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1525 — Samson’s Fight with the Lion, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1525

Samson’s first act (after the haftarah’s opening scene) is to ask his parents to marry him to a Philistine woman he finds attractive. They protest feebly that he should marry one of his own people, but they follow him to the Philistine village of Timnah to arrange the marriage. Samson discovers his superhuman strength on the way, when “a strong spirit of God came over him” and he rips apart a lion with his bare hands. (Judges 14:6) For the wedding a year later, Samson hosts a seven-day drinking-party where he makes a wager and ends up killing 30 strangers in order to pay his gambling debt with their clothing.

As Samson’s adventures continue, the only thing he abstains from is cutting his hair. His main interests are sex, and inventing spectacular ways of killing people. He only prays to God at the end of his life, when Delilah has shaved his head and her co-conspirators have blinded and imprisoned him. Then Samson asks God to return his super-human strength so he can bring down the temple of Dagon and all the Philistines in it—not for the sake of Israel or God, but for his own personal vengeance.

Samson does succeed in killing thousands of Philistines, but he is hardly the holy man that Manoach and his wife expected when the angel said their son would be a nazir.

The book of Numbers makes it clear that a nazir along the lines of Samson is unacceptable. For one thing, this week’s Torah portion says nobody is allowed to be a nazir from birth; only an adult man or woman can vow to live as a nazir, and the person making the vow sets a finite period of time for his or her dedication. The instructions begin:

If a man or a woman vows the extraordinary vow of a nazir, lehazir for God… (Numbers/Bemidbar 6:2)

lehazir (לְהַזִּיר) = to restrain oneself, to abstain. (From the root נזר.)

After describing what a nazir must abstain from, the Torah portion continues:

And this is the teaching of the nazir: On the day completing the days of nizro, he shall be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (Numbers/Bemidbar 6:13)

nizro (נִזְרוֹ) = his life as a nazir, the term of his vow dedicating him to separateness; his crown. (Also from the root נזר.).

At the Tent of Meeting the nazir makes offerings, shaves his or her head, and returns to ordinary life. Thus all nezirim consciously dedicate themselves to restraint for a fixed period of time for the sake of God.

Their restraint consists of three kinds of abstention. The first category is alcohol and all grape products.

From wine and other alcohol yazir; nor shall he drink wine vinegar or vinegar from other alcohol, nor any grape juice; nor shall he eat grapes, wet or dried. All the days of nizro he must not eat anything that is made from grapevines, from seeds to skin. (Numbers/Bemidbar 6:3-4)

yazir (יַזִּיר) = he will abstain. (Also from the root נזר.)

Abstaining from alcohol would not only improve the nazir’s ability to focus on being holy to God, but would also emphasis the nazir’s separation from the rest of society.

The second thing nezirim must abstain from is cutting, binding, or even combing their hair.

All the days of the vow of nizro, no razor will pass over his head; until the fulfillment of the days that yazir, his big, unbound, bristling hair will be holy to God. (Numbers 6:5)

In the Bible, the only other people who let their hair grow untrimmed and unbound are mourners. Mourners are expected to disregard the social norms while grief commands all of their attention. Nezirim must let their hair grow wild while God commands all of their attention. (See my post Naso: Distanced by Hair.)

Old Man on his Deathbed, by Gustav Klimt

The third thing a nazir must avoid is contact with the dead. (See my post Emor: The God of Life.)

All the days of hazayro to God, he must not come upon a dead body. For his father or his mother, for his brother or his sister, he will not make himself ritually impure for them in their death, because the neizer of his god is on his head. All the days of nizro he is holy to God. (Numbers 6:6-8)

haziro (הַזִּירוֹ) = his time as a nazir. (Also from the root נזר.)

neizer (נֵזֶר) = consecration; crown. (Also from the root נזר.)

In the book of Numbers ordinary people who touch or come near a dead body are ritually impure for seven days; then a ritual sprinkling restores them to purity and they rejoin the religious community. But for a nazir, the rules are as strict as for the high priest, who must avoid all corpses, even those of his own parents. If a nazir touches or comes close to any corpse, the term of his or her vow ends prematurely. Then after seven days, the would-be nazir must shave his or her head, make offerings, and start all over again. Once again, nezerim must pay attention—and, perhaps, emulate the high priest.

According to these rules, parents cannot say an angel told them their child would be a lifelong nazir, or treat him as especially privileged. No nezirim can expect God to give them superpowers from time to time. Staying sober, they have no excuse for wild behavior like Samson’s at the end of his drinking-party.

And since nezirim must avoid being near dead bodies, they cannot kill people. Although all of the people Samson killed were Philistines, none of them were actual soldiers engaged in war against Israelites. Impulsive murder was no longer acceptable by the time of the second temple.

I have known individuals who were overwhelmed by spiritual impulses that cannot be integrated into normal life in modern western society. We have roles for spiritual leaders and teachers, but few outlets for people who would have been prophets or nezirim in ancient Israel.

When prophets in the Bible are overcome by the spirit of God they can at least speak, turning the divine message into human language. But nezirim have no words. When Samson feels the divine spirit, he is filled with physical strength that he uses for killing.

In the book of Numbers, nezirim can still be identified by big, unbound, bristling hair, but they are also required to follow extra rules. Perhaps these rules and abstentions satisfy the spiritual impulse of the nezirim enough so that when the spirit of God comes over them, they can rejoice in their self-discipline—as well as in their neizer, their visible crown of consecration.

I wonder if an equivalent discipline would work today to provide an outlet for those with the spirit of a nazir?

Haftarat Beshalach—Judges: Overlooking the Underdog

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Beshallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), and the haftarah is Judges 4:4-5:31.

The underdog triumphs in many biblical stories. Jacob, the beardless weakling, outsmarts his strong, hairy brother Esau. Joseph rules over the older brothers who once enslaved him. The boy David kills the giant Goliath.

In this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (“when he sent out”), the Israelite slaves leave Egypt as free people while Pharaoh’s army drowns behind them. In the haftarah from the book of Judges, two Israelite women triumph over the Canaanite general Sisera and his army.

How do you defeat an enemy stronger than you? In the Hebrew Bible, two effective ways are by receiving and using inside information from God, like Moses; and by taking action on your own initiative with intelligence, courage, and guile, like Jacob and Joseph.

The haftarah from Judges tells the story of two women, the ultimate underdogs in the patriarchal society of the ancient Israelites, triumphing over Israel’s enemies through both methods. Devorah the prophet gets her people to act on God’s promise to help them defeat the army of their Canaanite overlord, and Jael/Yael the Kenite acts on her own initiative and kills the enemy’s general.

When this week’s haftarah begins, the Israelites are scattered tribes who have been ruled by the chief king of Canaan, Yavin, for twenty years. They are oppressed by King Yavin’s general, Sisera, who commands a force that includes 900 chariots, the most fearsome war technology of the time.

Still, instead of relying on the Canaanite king’s dubious justice, the Israelites go to their own judges, including one outstanding judge.

Devorah was a woman, a prophet, a woman of lapidot; she was a shoftah of Israel at that time. (Judges/Shoftim 4:4)

Devorah (דְבוֹרָה) = “Deborah” in English; honey bee. (From the same root as doveir = speaker, and divrah = legal case.)

lapidot (לַפִּידוֹת) = a feminine plural form of the masculine noun lapid = torchlight, torch, flash of light. (Some translations consider lapidot a place-name or the name of Devorah’s husband.)

shoftah (שֹׁפְטָה) = the feminine form of shofet = judge; a man who decides legal cases and resolves disputes.

The bible emphasizes that Devorah is a woman; all the other judges in the bible were men. Moreover, she is a prophet, a woman of flashes of light. Even her name is significant: she is a speaker, both for justice and for God.

And she was the one who sat under the Date-Palm of Devorah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hills of Efrayim. And the children of Israel went up to her for the law. (Judges 4:5)

Unlike the judges of villages, Devorah serves as the authority for a wider area, and holds her own law court in a sacred place. In ancient Israel, many holy places were indicated by trees or groves with names, such as the Oak of Weeping (Genesis 35:8), the Grove of Teaching (Genesis 12:6), or the Grove of Mamre (Genesis 13:18). Devorah’s own presence is what makes this particular palm tree the marker of a holy site.

And she sent and summoned Barak, son of Avinoam, from Kedesh in Naftali. And she said to him: Did not God, the god of Israel, command: “Go!—and draw up your position on Mount Tabor, and you shall take with you ten thousand men from Naftali and Zevulun. Then I will draw up to you, to the wadi of Kishon, the commander of the army of Yavin, Sisera, and his charioteers, and his infantry; and I will give them into your hand.” (Judges 4:6-7)

If Barak musters troops from the two Israelite tribes of Naftali and Zevulun and marches them up Mount Tabor, God will arrange for the defeat of the enemy’s army. But Barak is afraid.

And Barak said to her: If you go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go. (Judges 4:8)

Devorah agrees to go with him, but prophesies that Barak will get no glory from the battle, because

… into the hand of a woman God will deliver Sisera. (Judges 4:9)

Devorah walks with Barak both to Kedesh to inspire the men to volunteer for the ad hoc army, and to the top of Mount Tabor to announce when the men should charge down. God panics Sisera’s army (through a flash flood in the wadi, according to the accompanying poem) and the Israelite foot soldiers kill every enemy soldier except General Sisera.

Devorah is supremely successful as the instigator of the battle because she is God’s prophet. Receiving divine communication and cooperating with God both inspires people to trust her and results in a successful campaign—even though she is a woman, who would normally be powerless.

Sisera gets down from his chariot in the middle of the battle and flees on foot. Where can he find refuge? He heads for the nearby camp of Chever the Kenite, a vassal of King Yavin.

Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Yael, wife of Chever the Kenite … (Judges 4:17)

Yael (יָעֵל) = a variant of ya-al (יָעַל) = he will ascend, he will climb, he will mount for mating.

Normally, a fugitive would go to the tent of the man who heads the household or encampment, the only person who can take the role of host and decide to shelter the unexpected guest. In that culture, a woman’s tent was her private domain that no man outside her immediate family would dare to enter. Why does Sisera enter Yael’s tent instead of heading straight for her husband’s tent?

One line of commentary claims that Sisera’s motivation was to rape Yael, and then claim Chever’s household as his own. By taking ownership of a chieftain’s women, a man signaled that he was the new chieftain. Later in the Bible, King David’s son Absalom shows Israel that he is the new king by having sexual intercourse with the concubines King David leaves behind in Jerusalem. Sisera might plausibly decide he would rather be the head of a camp of Kenites than a disgraced ex-general.

But I think Sisera is on his way to Chever’s tent when Yael appears and suggests a different plan.

And Yael went out to meet Sisera, and she said to him: Surah, my lord, surah eilai, do not fear. Vayasar to her, to her tent, and she concealed him with the curtain. (Judges 4:18)

surah (סוּרָה) = turn aside, go away, desert, avoid.

eilai (אֵלַי) = to me.

vayasar (וַיָּסַר) = and he turned aside, went away, deserted, avoided.

Normally a woman would warn an intruder who slipped past the sentries around her husband’s camp to get away from her. But since Yael says surah eilai, she must be saying either “turn aside to me” or “desert to me” (knowing that Sisera has already deserted his own army).

Yael is a quick thinker with a cool head. She may view Sisera as an enemy; the Kenites are usually allies with the Israelites in the Bible, and Chever might have sworn vassalage to King Yavin because he had no alternative. But now Yavin’s army no longer exists, and the time is ripe for change. Sizing up the situation, Yael steps out of her tent and tempts Sisera with an ambiguous sentence.

And he falls for it. Suddenly he imagines he can take Chever’s wife, and then take over his whole household. He steps inside her tent, and she lets the curtain fall behind him. He asks for water, and she brings him a yogurt drink and puts covers over him. He orders her to stand at the entrance of the tent and tell anyone who comes that there is no one inside. Then, secure in his belief that she is his and they will eventually seal the deal with sex, Sisera falls asleep.

Then Yael, wife of Chever, took a tent peg and took the hammer in her hand, and she came to him quietly, and she drove the peg into his temple, and she hammered it into the ground. And he was fast asleep, exhausted, and he died. (Judges 4:21)

Deborah’s prophesy is fulfilled; Sisera dies by the hand of a woman.

Yael acts on her own initiative, taking advantage of the situation and employing her sharp wits and her ability to deceive without actually lying. The text does not say whether Sisera carries a weapon on his body, but he is a career soldier, and under ordinary circumstances could overpower (and rape) any woman in his path. Yael courageously uses guile, the weapon of the underdog, to overpower and “rape” him with her tent peg.

Never assume you can take advantage of an underdog who has always held a rank beneath your own. People who have been slaves for hundreds of years might turn out to have God on their side, and defeat you, as in this week’s Torah portion from Exodus. And women who have been ordered around by men for hundreds of years might turn out to be prophets and judges, like Devorah, or extraordinary executioners, like Yael.

Never overlook the underdog.