Sunday, September 10, 2023

Margaret Barker on the Word Play in Jeremiah 1:10-11 and Related Issues

 One of my favorite puns in the Hebrew Bible is that of Jer 1:10-11. The KJV reads:

 

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

 

The KJV translation is difficult to comprehend, and it offers no help as to why this would be meaningful to the prophet Jeremiah.

 

The 1985 JPS Tanakh of this text reads thusly:

 

The word of the Lord came to me: What do you see, Jeremiah? I replied: I see a branch of an almond tree (‎ שָׁקֵ֖ד ) The Lord said to me: You have seen right, For I am watchful (‎ שֹׁקֵ֥ד) to bring My word to pass.

 

“Almond tree” and “watchful” are the same root in Hebrew, but vocalised differently. The first is shaqad and the second is shoqed.

 

A modern example would be Pres. Nelson seeing a brown bear and God telling him “In a like-manner, I will no longer bare these bad ministering statistics!” It is a pun that only works in the original language.

 

While re-reading The Older Testament by Margaret Barker, I found the following discussion of Jer 1:10-11 and related texts that might shed some light on the passage:

 

The association of the lamp with the Servant Song in Isa. 42

 

The branches of the Menorah are described in Exod. 25.32 as qānīm, ‘reeds’. This may be a technical term, or it may refer to their being hollow. The Servant of the Lord in Isa. 42 is also described as a ‘reed’. Now reeds in the Old Testament frequently stand for unreliable allies, e.g. Isa. 36.6; Ezek. 29.6; but this is an unlikely meaning in Isa. 42. The Servant was a bruised reed. In the next line we find a wick, suggesting that in this passage the reed should be read as a part of a lamp, as it is in Exodus. A different pointing of 42.3 gives perfect parallelism with 42.4, and a very different meaning to the passage as a whole. In 42.3 yšbwr should be read as niph’al, yiššabēr; ykbnh should be read as qal, yikbeh, giving: ‘A bruised reed, he will not be broken, a spluttering wick, he will not be put out; he will being forth justice . . . ‘, to be read parallel to 42.4, ‘He will burn dimly, he will not be broken, until he has established justice.’ If an ancient lamp symbolism underlies this Servant Song, we have a strong link between the Servant and the royal figure, and between the royal figure and the lamp. The Servant, the struggling lamp of his people, would not fail, and would eventually bring forth the justice expected of a royal figure. If the passage is not menorah imagery, the readings are a remarkable coincidence.

 

The lamp was a tree-like object, decorated on its branches with ‘almond work’ (Ex9d. 25.33). We do not know what craftsmanship was involved in this type of work, but almonds do have a peculiar significance in the Old Testament. Apart from the tale of the blossoming priestly rod in Num. 17.8, there is Jeremiah’s call vision, Jer. 1.11-12. The prophet saw an almost rod and knew that Yahweh was watching. There is a word-play šāqēd/šōqēd, but there may have been more significance to the almond rod. It was the almond-like branches of the lamp which were the ’eyes of the Lord’ for Zechariah. Perhaps Jeremiah saw in the almond rod something which he already knew to symbolize the watching presence of the deity. The tree symbol, however, was associated with the king. Even without the considerable evidence from the surrounding nations, Jotham’s parable (Judg. 9), Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 11) and the messianic title ‘Branch’ (Isa. 4.2; Zech. 3.8) would indicate the importance of the royal tree. Having established the link between the king figure and the Menorah, it is very significant indeed that Philo links the Menorah not only to a tree, but to the tree of life, especially since the ancient king was believed to embody the life of his people. The tree of life stood in the garden of Eden; later tradition recalled the divine throne set up for judgement by the tree of life (Ap. Moses. 22ff). Both Eden (see below) and the divine throne must be memories of the ancient Temple. In Solomon’s Temple, an Eden place, the heavenly world was indistinguishable from the world below, and what fragments remain of its cult are embedded like pieces of a mosaic in later constructions.

 

The ancient cult was the original setting of the Menorah. It was a complex symbol of life, light and the presence of God, embodied in the person of the king whom it also represented. There was other agents of God on earth, just as there were other branches of the lamp; each had/was a star, each was a son of God, with access to the divine council and authority to speak in the name of Yahweh. Once our crippling distinction between heaven and earth is removed, expressions such as ‘sitting on the throne of Yahweh as king instead of David’ (1 Chron. 29.23) and the messianic titles in Isa. 9 can be read for what they really were. We might also have an explanation for the LXX of Daniel 7.13, ως υιος ανθρωπου ηρχετο, και ως παλαιος ημερων παρην.

 

These possibilities contribute greatly to our understanding of the New Testament, especially the Fourth Gospel. Bearing in mind that the early Church used several trees to carry the tree of life symbolism, the saying about the vine and the branches (John 15.1 ff) can be seen to entail all the sons of God theology which is made explicit in Paul, but neither of these was a Christian innovation. Similarly, images of sonship, life, light, kingship, ascent, descent, divine judgement in the presence of Jesus and the prominence of the temple setting can all find a common point of origin in a tradition which remembered the older ways. The collection of titles in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel was not the result of Christian conflation from several current expectations; the Christian position actualized an existing set of expectations. It is remarkable that so many of the themes and motifs of the Fourth Gospel can be related to the symbolism of the great lamp. Where these older ways of thought were perpetuated we do not know, but the remarks in Josephus and Philo show they were remembered, even if we now have no written deposit upon which to draw. (Margaret Barker, The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity [London: SPCK Press, 1987; repr., Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005], 229-30)