Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Jack M. Sasson on Old Testament Texts where ארץ Denotes "Netherworld" (and textual issues concerning some of these passages)

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)