EPITHETS
Some of the
briefest and most basic recurring phrases of the Hebrew Bible are noun-epithets
comparable to those John Foley explores in Serbo-Croatian, Anglo-Saxon, and classical
Greek sources. An archaic epithet for Yahweh, god of the Israelites, provides
an interesting case study: ‘ăbîr ya’ăqōb.
The translation for this phrase in the RSV, the NRSV, and others is “the Mighty
One of Jacob.” This translation is itself countermetonymic, a theologically motivated
attempt to invoke only one aspect of the phrase’s meaning. More basically and
literally, the ăbîr
in Northwest Semitic languages means “bull,” as P. D. Miller has shown in a classic
study and as poetic texts such as Isa. 10;13; Ps. 22:13 (v. 12 in English); and
Ps. 50:13 strongly confirm. In the latter two passages in particular, “bull” is
in synchronic parallelism with “steer” (Ps. 22:13) and “he-goat” (Ps. 50:13).
The horned
bull includes implications of strength (hence the translation “Mighty One”),
youth warrior skills and fertility with a particular sort of machismo.
Americans of a particular generation might speak similarly of a “young buck” or
a “stud.” Ancient Canaanite religion is rich in tales of the god-power
throughout the ancient Near East. As metonymic symbols of various deities, such
crowns were set upon thrones in temples representing and ensuring divine
indwelling presence.
In part because
of the association of the bull with Canaanite and other ancient Near Eastern deities,
not all Israelites were comfortable with bull iconography or the related
mythology—hence the condemnations in Exodus 32 and 1 Kings 13—and yet for many,
perhaps most Yahweh worshipers the bull symbol invoked a range of positive
aspects of the deity as powerful, youthful bringer of plenty, rescuer from
enemies. When in Ex. 32:4 the Israelites shout toward bull icons, “These are
your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” it is the
power symbolically and metonymically represented by the bull that captures
their imagination. The bill is not Baal or El or Marduk, but the God of Jacob
Israel, bound to this people in a shared history of experience in a narrative tradition
that creates, preserves, and maintains the relationship. The Israelite tradition
no doubt contained many additional references to the Bull of Jacob beyond the few
found in the Hebrew Bible—stories, proverbs, longer formulas in which the Bull
of Jacob appeared—but even the limited biblical references are instructive. Each
time the epithet is used, a larger tradition of associations is brought to bear
on the context at hand, which may deal in an immediate way with only certain
aspects of the Bull of Jacob.
Thus in
Gen. 49:25, the literary setting is Jacob’s testament, his old-age blessing to
each son, considered in the tradition to be ancestor hero of a particular tribe
or tribes. Joseph, father of Ephraim and Manasseh, the northern Israelites, is described
in a warrior context. Archers strive against him bitterly but his bow stays
firm, his arm agile. The translation at verses 23-24 is difficult, but the
phrase employing the bull epithet follows these indications of fortitude in
battle with a phrase meaning literally “from the hands of the Bull of Jacob.”
In other wors, Yahweh, Bull of Jacob, supports his charges in battle like an
Athena or a Zeus supports their favorite warriors. The image of the bull brings
this agnostic power to bear. So too at Isa. 1:24 and 49:26. The latter
describes the victory over oppressors in the ghoulish language of a
cannibalistic postvictory banquet:
I will
cause those who oppress you to eat their own flesh
As with sweet wine they will become drunk on their blood.
All flesh will know that I Yahweh am your savior
Your redeemer is the Bull of Jacob.
As we have
discussed for Ezekiel 38-39, the victory of Israel over the enemies takes the
cosmogonic form of the victory-enthronement pattern, the victorious banquet
motif intertwining with the blood-soaked imagery of the battlefield—in this
case of the enemies’ self-consumption of defeat. The “savior” and “redeemer”
who makes that possible is the Bull of Jacob. Warrior is also world-maker,
establisher of cosmos after chaos, destroyer and builder, wager of battles and
peacemaker, the guarantor of fertility. All of these nuances are contained in
the bull.
Isaiah 60:16
in context emphasizes the paradise aspect of the bull, the plenty and fertility
he brings in the victory over enemies as Israel sucks the milk of nations, the
breasts of kings. Instead of a cannibalistic self-consumption, there is an
image of absorbing the enemies’ strength as a baby would drink nurturing milk
at its mother’s breast—an image of ultimate security and freedom from
oppression. This too is within the power of the Bull of Jacob. And yet within this
epithet emphasizing fecundity, complete security, and peace is also
metonymically reference to the warrior, the aggressive male power.
As Foley has
pointed out, the epithet brings to a passage a full range of a character’s
personality in the tradition, qualities beyond those emphasized in the context
at hand. Psalm 132 is a pro-Davidic, pro-Jerusalem, pro-Temple hymn, in which
the worldview is similar to that of 1 and 2 Chronicles. David is imagined as an
ideal ruler who establishes Yahweh’s holy city and prepares for God’s dwelling
place on earth (132:3-7). The covenant with the Davidic dynasty is emphasized
(132:11, 12) as is the role of the priests (132:9, 16) and the eternal bond between
God and an inviolable Zion (132:13-15). This passage deals directly neither
with war (v. 8 contains only hints of the warrior enthroned, returned from
battle) nor employs extensive fertility imagery (see v. 15), but Yahweh is
addressed as Bull of Jacob (v. 2). David seeks a dwelling place for the Bull of
Jacob (v. 5). This epithet introduces into the passage the full mythology of
the bull, the special sort of male power, the fecundity, all of which
contribute to the message of security under the eternal rule of David in Zion
blessed by Yahweh, but the contribution is of the immanently referential or
metonymic variety.
A similar
sort of metonymy applies to other biblical epithets. When Yahweh is called “the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the context does not always overtly and
directly deal with covenant or genealogy, but this epithet metonymically brings
these themes to bear on a context for those who share the tradition; the
epithet is a template of the larger tradition. (Susan Niditch, Oral World
and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature [Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996], 15-17)
