While commenting on Old Testament texts where ארץ is used for the “netherworld,” Jack M. Sasson also noted some important textual issues concerning some of these passages:
In poetic reconstructions, the
dead lead an eternal but dull existence, where the hurt is due to an
unbridgeable separation from the loved left on earth. It is now recognized that
Hebrew poets called upon these components when speaking of life away from God.
In Hebrew, one of the many meanings of the word ‘ereṣ is “netherworld,”
and I give a few illustrations for its occurrence . . .
1. Isa 26:19, “may your read revive,
may corpses rise. Awake ad cheer, dwells in the dust, for your dew is the dew
of tender herbs, and the Land shall cast out the shades.” [1]
2. Jer 17;12-13, “Throne of glory,
exalted from yore; our Holy Sanctuary; Israel’s hope; Lord! Those who forsake
you will come to shame—may they be reckoned among those who turn toward the Land
[Targum: bghynm!]—for they have forsaken the Lord, the source of
life-giving water. [2]
3. Ps 22:30, “Imposing men of the Land
shall eat and worship; those who go downward to the dust, each of whom is
not alive, shall bend the knee before him.” [3]
4. Ps 71:20 (reading the ketib
throughout), “You who make us experience many and terrible ordeals, once again
you will revive us, from the core of the Land, once again you will raise
us.”
5. Eccl 3:21 (ironic?), “Who knows
whether the human soul goes upward, while that of beats goes downward into the Land?”
6. Sir 51:19, “I raise my voice
from the Land, my plea from the gates of Sheol.”
7. Jer 15:7, “I will scatter them
as with a winnowing fork within the gates of the Land, I will bereave, I
will destroy my folk, for they do not turn back from their habits.” [4]
Notes for the Above
[1] For
the difficult nebēlātî, it may be necessary to read nebēlôt, by
transposing the last two letters and reading the yod as waw. In this
and the next verse, Isaiah is making a powerful contrast between God’s mercy
for the dead in one “Land” (that is, the “Netherworld”) and his anger against
those living in this “land.”
[2]
This too is a very difficult passage, about which much has been written, see [W.]
McKane [Jeremiah, I, I-XXV] 1986: 398-408. Regarding the mayim-ḥayyîm,
I am reminded of the “water of life” that, according to Sumero-Akkadian myths,
is needed to revive the dead Inanna-Ishtar.
[3] For
napšô lō’ ḥiyyâ, we may render, “he [God] did not revive him.” The full
verse itself is very difficult and has received a variety of interpretations .
. . Actually, this verse, which speaks of shades invited to partake a meal (after
which to worship God), reminds me of rituals recovered from Babylon . . . and
from Ugarit . . .in which the living invite the ghosts of kings and high
officials to partake a meal. The verse is also contrasting the poor on this
earth, who nevertheless can come into God’s presence, and the well fed of
the other earth (that is, the afterlife), who cannot do so, except by
the poet’s invitation; see vv 27-28, “May the lowly eat and be satisfied; may
those who seek [the Lord] praise him; may you always be vigorous. The confines
of the Earth shall recall the Lord and turn to him, while kinsmen of the
nations shall worship you; because kingship is the Lord’s and he rules the nations.”
[4]
Scholars do not usually regard this passage as referring to the underworld; see
most recently McKane 1986: 338-40. Because winnowing does not take place at the
city gate but at a relatively distant threshing floor, I connect this passage
to a mythological scene in which an avenging Anat treats Mot, the god of the
Netherworld, as grain, “She seizes the Godly Mot--/With sword she doth cleave
him. / With fan she does winnow him--/With fire she does burn him. / With fan she
does winnow him doth sow him” (Ginsberg in ANET3 140:31-36).
Another echo of this motif is found in Exod 32:20, paralleled by Deut 8:21.
Source: Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation With
Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation (The Anchor Yale Bible 24B;
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 188-89 (notes have been renumbered)