Cutting Covenants and Cutting Animals: Biblical Rituals and Idioms Bruce William Jones THIS IS AN UNPUBLISHED PAPER, IN ROUGH DRAFT. IT DOES NOT INCLUDE ALL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES OR DIACRITICAL MARKS. (If you want a paper copy, with references, send $5 for postage and handling to Bruce W. Jones Religious Studies Dept. California State University Bakersfield, California 93311 U.S.A. Click on the BACK button at any time to return to a previous level. Beginning students of Hebrew learn, early on, that the usual verb for "making" a covenant is KRT, to cut. Why is this the case? Language teachers tell us not to translate an idiom literally, but to memorize it and use it, even if it violates the common patterns. However, most idioms have a logic of their own. Within their own framework, they make sense, and there is usually a reason behind the idiom, even if the reasons have been forgotten. What was the reason for the idiom for cutting a covenant? The best-known symbol of the Jewish covenant is, of course, circumcision, an act of cutting, but another kind of cutting is much older and more widespread than Israel's belief that it has a covenant relationship with God. The choice of verb has a pre- Israelite background that Hebrew shares with other languages. Understanding that background helps us to understand several puzzling passages in the Hebrew Bible. There are, in fact, several ancient languages in which some verb for cutting is used for making agreements, treaties or promises, often from unrelated cultural contexts, including Greek, Latin, Hittite, Assyrian and Phoenician. The oldest examples come from 18th century B.C.E. Anatolia and Mari. The cutting ritual apparently survived at least as late as the 5th century B.C.E. In Greek, the idiom "to cut an oath" is used from the time of Homer to the 2nd century B.C.E. (Homer, Iliad, 2:124; 3:73, 93, 105, 245-301; 4:155; 19:191, Odyssey, 24:483; Polybius, The Histories, 21:24:3, 21:32:15). Upon inspection, we discover that there is a logical reason for the association between cutting and making agreements. Historically, cutting rituals were used in connection with making various kinds of agreement. Often, an animal was killed or cut up, and the person obligated by the agreement invoked a curse upon himself, in effect, "May I be cut up this way if I violate this agreement." (See George E. Mendenhall and Gary A. Herion, THE ANCHOR BIBLE DICTIONARY, vol. I, p. 1182.) The intent was similar to what children do today when they say "Cross my heart and hope to die." Elsewhere, I have argued that this ritual practice and the Biblical idiom, in particular, underlie the contemporary American slang expression, "to cut a deal." (Bruce William Jones, "Cutting Deals and Striking Bargains," ENGLISH TODAY, 46, vol. 12, no. 2 (April 1996), 35-40.) Some have suggested that the slang expression comes from cutting a deck of cards before dealing them. However, this suggestion seems very unlikely when analyzed, because dealing cards is very different from making deals. It was probably coined by someone who knew enough Hebrew to be familiar with the Biblical idiom, and the phrase quickly spread. Our English language has been influenced by loan translations from both Old and New Testaments, at least since the time of the King James Version. Thus, we get "by the skin of my teeth" from Job 19:20 and "fear and trembling" from the New Testament. "Fear and trembling" had already become a stereotyped combination in the Greek Old Testament, which used it for a variety of Hebrew expressions, and it had lost its literal meaning by the time of the New Testament. When Paul thanks the Corinthians for receiving Titus in "fear and trembling" (II Corinthians 7:15), he does not mean that they were shaking or that they were afraid of Titus, but only that they respected him. Several forms of the cutting idiom were used in ancient languages. A seventh century B.C.E. Phoenician amulet from Arslan Tash speaks of cutting an eternal "bond" (ANET, p. 658). The word can also mean "curse," because of the implication that someone will be cursed who breaks the agreement. Here, it refers to an agreement "cut" by Ashshur and other deities and is equivalent to the Biblical "making a covenant." In fact, as Zevit and Lewis point out, the notion of a god making a covenant with a community of people is not unique to Israel. Already in the ancient world the expression had become an idiom, disconnected from its literal meaning in many instances, although the ritual action that gave rise to the idiom survived at least as late as the time of Jeremiah and Xerxes (486-465) of Persia. When Xerxes was preparing to invade Greece, Pythius of Lydia asks that his eldest son be excused from the king's army in order to care for Pythius in his old age, and Xerxes becomes enraged. Herodotus explains carefully how the king orders the son's body to be cut in half, with the two pieces placed on opposite sides of the road. Then, the king orders his whole army to march between the halves on its way to Greece (Herodotus, The Persian Wars, VII:38-40). Interestingly, Herodotus does not understand why Xerxes would act in such a foolish way. However, with our understanding of the cutting ritual, we can understand the story better than Herodotus did. Pythius has been granted the status of a royal "friend." Even though we have no information concerning any ritual that formalized their relationship, Xerxes clearly understands that Pythius and his family have obligations to the king, and Pythius has violated his commitment by asking for his son to be excused. The rest of the king's army also has obligations, and marching between the halves of the elder son would ritually reaffirm their loyalty and also serve as a warning of what they could expect if they failed to perform their duties. *** *** Scholars have known for many years that "curses and blessings" have been a common part of Hittite treaties and treaties that follow the Hittite pattern, and we have understood the influence of those treaties on the choice of words in the Hebrew Bible. The blessings and curses are related to the stipulations of the treaty: You will be blessed if you observe your treaty obligations, and you will be cursed if you break them. Both the conditions and the curses can be quite specific. Thus, when the Assyrian king, Esarhaddon, requires his vassals to be loyal to his son and crown prince, Ashurbanipal, he lists over 350 lines of conditional "if"-clauses, followed by some 250 lines of curses against any vassal who would rebel against the king or his son. For example, he says May Adad, the canal inspector of heaven and earth, put an end [to vegetation] in your land, may he avoid your meadows and hit your land with a severe destructive downpour, may locusts, which diminish the (produce) of the land, [devour] your crops, let there be no sound of the grinding stone or the oven in your houses, let barley rations to be ground disappear for you, so that they grind your bones, (the bones of) your sons and daughters instead of barley rations. . . . May you eat in your hunger the flesh of your children, . . . and may your spirit have no one to take care of and pour libations to him. . . . May all the gods who are named in this treaty tablet reduce your soil in size to be as narrow as a brick, turn your soil into iron, so that no one may cut a furrow in it (ANET, pp. 538, 539). Sometimes the curse involves a kind of sympathetic magic. Thus, Esarhaddon's treaty provides the following: Just as this ewe is cut open and the flesh of its young placed in its mouth, so may he (Shamash?) make you eat in your hunger the flesh of your brothers, your sons, and your daughters. Just as (these) yearlings and spring lambs, male and female are cut open and their entrails are rolled around their feet, so may the entrails of your sons and daughters be rolled around your feet (ANET, p. 539). The wording of the treaty invites us to visualize a ritual scene in which animals are disemboweled before the vassals, as both a warning and a symbol of what could happen to them. Such warnings can still be frightening, even in the modern world. In THE GODFATHER, a movie producer wakes up to find the head of his prize racehorse at the foot of his bed (pp. 67-69). The head is a message from the Mafia, to show how easily they could enter the movie producer's home and kill him if they chose. It is a powerful symbol, but not nearly as powerful as that of the cut up animal in the ancient world, where the performance of the ritual was thought to convey power and even to bring about events. In Esarhaddon's case, the vassal is symbolically identified with the animal, and by performing the ritual the vassal is calling upon the gods to curse him if he violates the treaty. The self-curse is sealed with several ritual actions, including splashing blood on a chariot and slitting a waterskin. Just as this chariot is spattered with blood up to its running board, so may they spatter your chariots in the midst of your enemy with your own blood. . . . Just as (this) gall is bitter, so may you, your women, your sons and daughters be bitter to each other. . . . Just as this waterskin is slit and its water runs out, so may your waterskins be slit in a region of thirst and famine, and you die of lack of water (ANET, pp. 540, 541). In ancient Israel, as elsewhere, a person could curse himself conditionally without performing any specific action. Thus David and others say, "God do so to me, and more also. . . ." (II Samuel 3:35). A similar formula of self-curse is used by Saul (I Samuel 14:44), Jonathan (I Samuel 20:13), Abner (II Samuel 3:9), Solomon (I Kings 2:23). Non-Israelites are also quoted using the same self-curse: Jezebel (I Kings 19:2) and Ben Hadad (I Kings 20:10). However, an agreement or a self-curse was strengthened by the performance of a ritual, as when Moses throws blood on the altar and upon the people who obligate themselves to obey the covenant (Exodus 24:3-8). The most common ritual seems to have been the cutting of an animal, which stands for the fate of the one who violates his obligation. *** *** I have shown that cutting rituals were widespread in the ancient Near East in connection with making various kinds of agreements. Now, I want to argue that an awareness of these practices throws light on several passages in the Hebrew Bible that are otherwise puzzling, Judges 19, I Samuel 11 and Genesis 15. (Note that Petersen and Viberg disagree.) Jeremiah 34:8-22 helps us to understand the other texts. This paradigmatic passage demonstrates the ritual association between making an agreement and cutting an animal. The connection between the conditions of the covenant and the cutting of the animals is spelled out explicitly in Jeremiah 34:18. Just before the destruction of the Temple, when the people feared that Nebuchadrezzar would destroy them, King Zedekiah attempted to win God's approval. He entered into a covenant with his people to free all their Hebrew slaves. Then, when they thought they were out of danger, they reneged on their agreement and reclaimed their slaves. Jeremiah says that the transgressors will be made "like the calf which they cut in two and passed between its parts." Apparently, when the agreement was made, it included a ceremony in which the officials, priests and "all the people of the land" passed between the halves of the calf (34:18-19). That ceremony created a ritual identification between the covenantors and the cut-up animal, and accordingly Jeremiah promised that their dead bodies would be fed to the birds and beasts as punishment for violating the covenant. The punishment fit the crime: Those who cut a covenant will be cut up themselves if they violate it (cf. Miller, p. 612). Judges 19 makes little sense to a modern reader unless we understand this ritual background associated with covenants. This chapter tells the troubling story of the Levite who protects himself from homosexual rape by offering instead his concubine to the men of Gibeah, one of the cities of the tribe of Benjamin. After she is raped all night, he cuts her up into twelve pieces, without explanation, and sends the pieces to all the borders of Israel (19:29). If she was not already dead from the abuse, she certainly is now. Trible is right to call this one of the "texts of terror" (chap. 3). Susan Niditch has also written about this story, and has concluded, rightly, in my opinion, that it is older and better crafted than the parallel Sodom story in Genesis 19. She sees it as a story about the breakdown of community; family values and social values have deteriorated in an uncivilized way. The Levite does not take care of his concubine, and the men of Gibeah do not offer them hospitality or protection. Hospitality was important in the ancient Mediterranean world, and it continued to be important to nomads down to the twentieth century. When there is no Motel-6, a traveller must "depend on the kindness of strangers." Hospitality ought to be given to any guest, but certainly to fellow Israelites. The Levite had refused to spend the night in Jebus, because its inhabitants were foreigners to him, but even the members of his own covenant community fail to treat him and his concubine the way guests should be treated. Niditch, more than most commentators, has recognized the significance of cutting up the concubine (p. 371). It recalls the old ritual of covenant-making in which the participants invoke a self-curse over the cut-up parts of an animal, "May the same be done to me if I violate this agreement." It is no accident that he cuts her into twelve parts. He wants to call all twelve tribes to fulfill their obligations and punish this gross breach of covenant, lest they become like the concubine. The remaining chapters of Judges serve to connect this episode to the later events in I Samuel 11, to be discussed below. Distributing the body parts is a call to arms for the twelve tribes, and, in Judges 20, "all Israel" assembles at Mizpah, an ancient sacred spot (I Samuel 7; 10:17; I Maccabees 3:46), to hear the Levite's complaint. The assembly agrees that Gibeah must be punished, and when Benjamin refuses to hand Gibeah over, a bloody civil war breaks out. The war is clearly a covenantal act, performed by the covenant community and guided by the ark of the covenant (20:27). That is exactly the context in which ancient readers would have understood, without explanation, what the Levite intended to say by his act of cutting. Then, after the war, a new problem emerges. When the tribe of Benjamin had been punished for protecting Gibeah, the tribe was very nearly obliterated (Judges 20:35-48). Meanwhile, the Israelites had taken an oath not to give their daughters to marry Benjaminites (21:1). In retrospect, they were sorry at the prospect that the loss of a whole tribe would weaken their alliance (21:3, 6), but they had committed themselves against intermarriage with Benjamin. What to do to preserve Benjamin? They solved the problem when they remembered that Jabesh- Gilead did not answer the call to arms, and they had promised to kill any group that failed to respond to the muster (21:5-9). The whole city is under the ban, because God's covenant has been violated, so all the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead were killed, as prescribed, except that the unmarried women were given to the survivors of Benjamin so that they could reproduce (21:8-14). The editor of Judges is not too happy about any of these events. "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (21:25). Let me now turn to I Samuel 11, which reports a later situation in which the Ammonites threaten Jabesh-Gilead. Saul has recently been anointed as prince (nagid, 10:1), so it is only natural for the people of Jabesh-Gilead to send a request for help to him in Gibeah (11:4). Saul, who may well be a descendant of one of the women of Jabesh-Gilead, responds to the crisis. In an apparent appeal to the covenant obligation of the tribal league, Saul cuts up a yoke of oxen and sends them throughout the countryside, with the message "Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen" (11:7, JPS). Three hundred and thirty thousand soldiers respond to the call to assist their brethren. Many commentators have suggested that Israel's covenant functioned as a mutual self-defense treaty among the tribes. The cut-up oxen would serve as a call to arms and a reminder of their treaty obligation and their covenant ritual. The pieces would imply that they, too, might be cut up along with their oxen if they did not observe their covenant obligation to one another. The threat is considerably softened in the text we have, but the story carries overtones of earlier practices (Polzin, p. 240). The threat would be particularly powerful to those who knew of the stories now contained in Judges 19-21. And it seems likely to me that if the stories were remembered anywhere, they would have been remembered at the two places that figure so prominently in the narratives, Jabesh-Gilead and Saul's hometown of Gibeah. In any case, Israel responded to Saul's threat; the Ammonites were routed, and Jabesh-Gilead was delivered. Saul was made king at Gilgal (11:15), and they all lived happily ever after. Not quite. Saul was involved in another cutting at the end of his life, this one not a covenant ritual, but an insult against an enemy. The Philistines killed Saul's sons, and Saul committed suicide. Then the Philistines cut off his head and exposed his body and the bodies of his sons. It may be significant that it was the men of Jabesh-Gilead who risked their lives to recover the bodies from the Philistines for cremation, burial and mourning (I Samuel 31:8-13). Surely, they must have thought that they were repaying a debt to Saul for delivering them from the Ammonites years earlier. Perhaps the most remarkable example of a cutting ritual is in Genesis 15, which tells the haunting story of Abram's vision in which he is told to take three animals, each three years old, plus two birds. He cuts the three animals in half and lays the pieces opposite each other. Then a smoking oven and a flaming torch pass between the pieces, and we are told explicitly (15:18) what this action has accomplished: The LORD "cut" a covenant with Abram "on that day." The smoking oven and flaming torch, of course, represent the presence of God here, just as the angel of the LORD appears to Moses in a burning bush (Exodus 3:2) and the LORD leads the Israelites through the wilderness as a pillar of cloud and fire (Exodus 13:21-22). This understanding of the chapter is not new. Over seventy- five years ago, Sir James Frazer understood the ritual significance of passing between the pieces of the slaughtered animals (I, 392). Indeed, already in the 11th century, Rashi knew that this action was associated with making a covenant, and he cited the parallel in Jeremiah 34. There are several significant differences between Genesis 15 and Jeremiah 34. In the latter, the covenant is made between king and people, in the presence of God (34:18), so that he is a witness and enforcer of the agreement. He is the one who will ensure that the Judahites who broke their promises will become like the cut-up calf. However, in Genesis 15, God, represented by the smoking oven and flaming torch, is a party to the covenant. Also, in the non-Israelite parallels I have noted above, it is the subordinate parties to the agreement who walk between the pieces of the killed animal and who accept the conditional self- curse, but in Genesis 15, the divine symbols pass between the pieces. Unlike Jeremiah 34, Genesis 15 reports a different kind of covenant, modelled on the royal grant in which the overlord makes the promises and undertakes the obligations, usually unconditionally (Weinfeld, 1970). In the covenant of grant, the sovereign obligates himself to provide a benefit to his subordinate. This kind of covenant is different from a treaty which obligates the vassal. It is God who makes the promise here, and it is God who symbolically passes between the pieces to take the implied self-curse upon himself (contra Viberg, pp. 63- 65). Nothing is said about Abram's obligations. He is given blessings, but there is no corresponding threat of curses for him. This kind of agreement was known in many parts of the ancient world, but I know of no instance, in Israel or elsewhere, in which the superior party, much less a divine party, moves between the dismembered parts of an animal and thus assumes the implied self-curse. Here, amazingly, it is God, not Abram, who passes symbolically between the pieces, as if he is humbling himself, cursing himself, asking that he be cut into pieces, even, if he should violate his promises to Abram (cf. Clements, p. 34). It may be significant that the symbolic action comes in response to Abram's question, "How will I know?" (15:8), as if to say "Why should I believe you?" God resorts to extreme measures to answer; he takes upon himself the conditional curse: If I break my word, may I be cut up like these three animals. The extreme nature of this passage was troubling enough to later commentators that many of them turned it into an allegory or transformed it from an account of a covenant ritual to a report of sacrifice. However, Genesis 15 is not about sacrifice. "Nothing is burned; there is no altar, nor is blood poured out" (Jacob, p. 101; cf. Sarna, p. 126). The animals are acceptable for sacrifice, but the narrator seems indifferent to that fact. Rather, they are there for the making of a covenant. However, by the time the story is retold in the book of Jubilees, we are told that Abram "built an altar, . . . poured out their blood, and . . . offered up the pieces and the birds and their (fruit) offering and their libation. And the fire consumed them" (14:11-19). One may explain away the miraculous element in this story by noting that the event is a vision (15:1) seen only by Abram. However, whatever else was intended by the narrative, it surely must have meant that it was a miracle for God to humble himself in such a dramatic way. Is there any other religious tradition in which the deity curses himself, conditionally or otherwise? The closest parallel would be the Christian belief that Jesus voluntarily took the "curse" of hanging upon a tree (Galatians 3:13; compare Deuteronomy 21:23), but there is no hint there that he is being punished for breaking a promise. God counts Abram's trust in him as merit (15:6), and he says he will reward Abram (15:1). Notice the paradox. Abram is praised for being trusting right before and after he has expressed his doubt in God's promises to him (15:2, 8). Abram's distrust of God's promises to provide descendants is emphasized by his presumed adoption of Eliezer as heir (15:2, 3) and by his willingness to beget a son by Hagar, his concubine (16:1-4). In spite of all that, God rewards him for his faith. Archaic, long-forgotten rituals influenced the writing of the Bible, and we can better understand the meaning its authors intended when we become familiar with the background from which it came. *** *** In addition, the story in Genesis 15 provides an occasion to notice the importance of Abraham, as Genesis calls him later, to Jews, Christians and Muslims. For centuries, Christian theologians have drawn a false contrast between the Old and New Testaments as, respectively, law and gospel, drawing anti-Semitic implications about a Jewish God of demands and punishments and a Christian God of love and forgiveness. St. Paul does not make that mistake. He quotes Genesis 15:6 to make the point that Abraham was justified before he fulfilled any of the law, which had not been revealed yet (Galatians 3). God loves Abraham even before Abraham has done anything to earn that love. Contrary to the common assumption, gospel is prior to law in both testaments. God is presented as a God of grace who loves his creation because he is a loving God and not because they deserve it (for example, Deuteronomy 9:4-8). When Genesis 15 is read in the synagogue, a portion of Isaiah is read along with it. In that portion, or haftorah, God refers to Abraham as "my beloved" or "my friend" (Isaiah 41:8). The Quran continues in the same tradition when it calls Ibrahim a "friend" (khalil) of God (4:125), the only prophet to be given that particular title. Abraham is an important figure in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and in each tradition he demonstrates how far God is willing to go to befriend humanity. (I want to thank Sayed Rashed Abdel Aal, Vada Fallgatter, Christopher Meyers, Paul Newberry and William Propp for their useful suggestions. They should not be held responsible for any of my conclusions.) Click on the BACK button at any time to return to a previous level. ***************************** ***************************** Abbreviation ANET James B. Pritchard, ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969). ***************************** ***************************** References and Additional Readings Christopher T. Begg, "Rereadings of the Animal Rite of Genesis 15 in Early Jewish Narratives," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 50 (1988), 36-46. Ronald Clements, Abraham and David: Genesis 15 and its Meaning for Israelite Tradition ("Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series," 5; London: SCM, 1967). Christopher A. Faraone, "Molten Wax, Spilt Wine and Mutilated Animals: Sympathetic Magic in Near Eastern and Early Greek Oath Ceremonies," Journal of Hellenic Studies, 113 (1993), 60-80. Frazer, James George. Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (London: Macmillan, 1919), vol. I. Moshe Held, "Philological Notes on the Mari Covenant Rituals," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 200 (December 1970), 32-40. Benno Jacob, The First Book of the Bible: Genesis, ed. and trans. Ernest I. Jacob and Walter Jacob (New York: Ktav, 1974). Bruce William Jones, "Cutting Deals and Striking Bargains," English Today, 46, vol. 12, no. 2 (April 1996), 35-40. Theodore J. Lewis, "The Identity and Function of El/Baal Berith," Journal of Biblical Literature, 115 (1996), 401-423. Samuel E. Loewenstamm, "Zur Traditionsgeschichte des Bundes zwischen den St–ucken," Vetus Testamentum, 18 (1968), 500-506, translated and updated in Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures ("Alter Orient und Altes Testament," vol. 204 (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1980), pp. 273-280. George E. Mendenhall and Gary A. Herion, "Covenant," The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf and John David Pleins (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. I, pp. 1179-1202. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., "Sin and Judgment in Jeremiah 34:17-19," Journal of Biblical Literature, 103 (1984), 611-613. Susan Niditch, "The 'Sodomite' Theme in Judges 19-20: Family, Community and Social Disintegration," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 44 (1982), 365-378. Martin Noth, "Old Testament Covenant-making in the Light of a Text from Mari," The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies, trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), pp. 108- 117. David L. Petersen, "Covenant Ritual: A Traditio-Historical Persepective," Biblical Research 22 (1977), 7-18. ILL 8/26/96 Robert Polzin, "HWQY` and Covenantal Institutions in Early Israel," Harvard Theological Review, 62 (1969), 227-240. Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966). Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Ake Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament ("Coniectanea Biblica: Old Testament Series," 34; Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell), 1992. Moshe Weinfeld, "The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 90 (1970), 184-203. Moshe Weinfeld, "Covenant Terminology in the Ancient Near East and Its Influence on the West," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 93 (1973), 190-199. Moshe Weinfeld, "berith," The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, trans. John T. Willis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 253- 279. Donald J. Wiseman, "Abban and Alala.h," Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 12 (1958), 124-129. Zevit, Ziony, "A Phoenician Inscription and Biblical Covenant Theology." Israel Exploration Journal 27 (1977), 110-118. Click on the BACK button to return to the previous level.