Judges 13
The fertility tale is not simply commonplace in the Tanach (Bible); it appears that the Tanach is predominantly a collection of god-myths and liturgical fragments from the fertility cults, formed into the Tanach for the precise purpose of transforming them into Yisra-Eli theology and thereby obliterating them from history in their previous form - the Arthurian legends and the fairy stories of Europe operate in exactly the same manner.
The original purpose of the fertility cults, which were the predominant religions of the entire world until the 6th century BCE, rather like the Nativity plays of today, was to use story-telling to honour the Great Earth Mother, the fertility goddess, with her consort the sky and sun god, and their ever-dying, ever-reborn offspring the Risen Lord, figurative representation of Planet Earth and its vegetal produce; later it became absorbed into monotheism and only the story-telling remained.
Each version of the tale is of course slightly different, but the central ingredients remain the same. For it to work the woman must be infertile, and of course, until they have had their first child, all women are technically infertile, all women require the intervention of the Great Earth Mother, to enable them to conceive. The story states her infertility, and then becomes a ceremony of propitiation, in which the Great Earth Mother is called upon to make the woman fruitful, the Great Earth Mother does so, and in thanks the child is dedicated to the shrine. Sarah conceives Yitschak (Isaac) in this manner. Both Le'ah and Rachel suffer in this manner. Later on Chanah (Hannah) will conceive Shemu-El (Samuel) in this manner. And of course, the most famous version of all, that of Mor-Yah (Mary) and Yishai (Jesus).
In every case we may also be reading the story of an actual woman, but more likely we are witnessing a ritual, for ultimately the child is the Risen Lord, and it is his conception that is the absolute centre of the tale. We have already witnessed several regional variations of this myth in the Book of Judges. Now for one more.
But before we do so, and continuing the discussion of: what actually was a Judge... is it possible that all these tales were simply a way of assimilating the "heroes" of the conquered cults and peoples, the ones so deeply embedded that they couldn't simply be abolished or suppressed? In the same way that Christianity absorbed the rites of Ishtar and made Easter out of them, and the Brumalia as Michelmas, and later as Christmas; in the same way that the Celtic "wicker man" or Guy Faux was invented as a political rebel. The way that Catholicism did this is the best exemplar: the Irish sun-hero Phadraig transformed into Saint Patrick, the White Moon-Goddess Guinevere transformed into St Margaret of Antioch. We have seen a hint of this with Yiphtach (Judges 11), and will see it very clearly in the tale of Shimshon (Samson) that we are about to read; we cannot see it in some of the other characters, because they are simply mentioned in a single verse, or became so well assimilated that no evidence of their pre-history has yet been uncovered.
13:1 VA YOSIPHU BENEY YISRA-EL LA'ASOT HA RA BE EYNEY YHVH VA YITNEM YHVH BE YAD PELISHTIM ARBA'IM SHANAH
The fertility tale is not simply commonplace in the Tanach (Bible); it appears that the Tanach is predominantly a collection of god-myths and liturgical fragments from the fertility cults, formed into the Tanach for the precise purpose of transforming them into Yisra-Eli theology and thereby obliterating them from history in their previous form - the Arthurian legends and the fairy stories of Europe operate in exactly the same manner.
The original purpose of the fertility cults, which were the predominant religions of the entire world until the 6th century BCE, rather like the Nativity plays of today, was to use story-telling to honour the Great Earth Mother, the fertility goddess, with her consort the sky and sun god, and their ever-dying, ever-reborn offspring the Risen Lord, figurative representation of Planet Earth and its vegetal produce; later it became absorbed into monotheism and only the story-telling remained.
Each version of the tale is of course slightly different, but the central ingredients remain the same. For it to work the woman must be infertile, and of course, until they have had their first child, all women are technically infertile, all women require the intervention of the Great Earth Mother, to enable them to conceive. The story states her infertility, and then becomes a ceremony of propitiation, in which the Great Earth Mother is called upon to make the woman fruitful, the Great Earth Mother does so, and in thanks the child is dedicated to the shrine. Sarah conceives Yitschak (Isaac) in this manner. Both Le'ah and Rachel suffer in this manner. Later on Chanah (Hannah) will conceive Shemu-El (Samuel) in this manner. And of course, the most famous version of all, that of Mor-Yah (Mary) and Yishai (Jesus).
In every case we may also be reading the story of an actual woman, but more likely we are witnessing a ritual, for ultimately the child is the Risen Lord, and it is his conception that is the absolute centre of the tale. We have already witnessed several regional variations of this myth in the Book of Judges. Now for one more.
But before we do so, and continuing the discussion of: what actually was a Judge... is it possible that all these tales were simply a way of assimilating the "heroes" of the conquered cults and peoples, the ones so deeply embedded that they couldn't simply be abolished or suppressed? In the same way that Christianity absorbed the rites of Ishtar and made Easter out of them, and the Brumalia as Michelmas, and later as Christmas; in the same way that the Celtic "wicker man" or Guy Faux was invented as a political rebel. The way that Catholicism did this is the best exemplar: the Irish sun-hero Phadraig transformed into Saint Patrick, the White Moon-Goddess Guinevere transformed into St Margaret of Antioch. We have seen a hint of this with Yiphtach (Judges 11), and will see it very clearly in the tale of Shimshon (Samson) that we are about to read; we cannot see it in some of the other characters, because they are simply mentioned in a single verse, or became so well assimilated that no evidence of their pre-history has yet been uncovered.
13:1 VA YOSIPHU BENEY YISRA-EL LA'ASOT HA RA BE EYNEY YHVH VA YITNEM YHVH BE YAD PELISHTIM ARBA'IM SHANAH
וַיֹּסִפוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לַעֲשֹׂות הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה וַיִּתְּנֵם יְהוָה בְּיַד פְּלִשְׁתִּים אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה
BN (BibleNet translation): And the children of Yisra-El once again did what was evil in the eyes of YHVH; and YHVH delivered them into the hand of the Pelishtim for forty years.
And this, of course, is how it happens: a land is conquered, however briefly, by a people with a different religion, or a different version of the same religion, and it is theirs that now predominates. For the generation(s) who grow up under their dominance, theirs is the religion thatwill be the Zeitgeist, the "what they believe", the "history as they know it", which will form family and clan and even national traditions, some of which will reamin forever, absorbed into language even more than into culture - and residual long, long after the conquering people have themselves been defeated, the old ways restored, or yet another new way superimposed.
And this, of course, is how it happens: a land is conquered, however briefly, by a people with a different religion, or a different version of the same religion, and it is theirs that now predominates. For the generation(s) who grow up under their dominance, theirs is the religion thatwill be the Zeitgeist, the "what they believe", the "history as they know it", which will form family and clan and even national traditions, some of which will reamin forever, absorbed into language even more than into culture - and residual long, long after the conquering people have themselves been defeated, the old ways restored, or yet another new way superimposed.
So, for example, we explore the English language, and recognise at least an iota of Greek words, an entire lexicon of Latin words, a mere tad of Scots but countless slogans in Eirish, and people with savoir faire, especially the bourgeoisie, use Norman French, though they still put Singaporean Kao-choup on their French fries, because the British Empire brought in both cha from China and tay from India...oh, and my local Abbot, whose son is a clerk in the Star Camber, has a fair few Yehudit words too, drawn from his translations of the Tanach.
HA RA: Sometimes the texts say RA, and sometimes HA RA. It is not obvious why this distinction is made. The point is that, whatever bad happens, it is the consequence of sin, for which the deity intervenes to punish; and whatever good happens, the deity intervenes to reward.
This business of the Pelishtim remains problematic; historians are in dispute as to when exactly the people who acquired this name first settled on the Sharon coast and established themselves in the five cities of Azah (Gaza). They are mentioned as early as Av-Raham, which is historically unlikely. At some point they took over the land which Dan had inherited, and forced the Danites to move. Or perhaps they were the Danites - see "The Leprachauns of Palestine". Either way, Danite stories and Philistine stories overlap continuously. This one belongs to both.
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KJ: And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not.
This business of the Pelishtim remains problematic; historians are in dispute as to when exactly the people who acquired this name first settled on the Sharon coast and established themselves in the five cities of Azah (Gaza). They are mentioned as early as Av-Raham, which is historically unlikely. At some point they took over the land which Dan had inherited, and forced the Danites to move. Or perhaps they were the Danites - see "The Leprachauns of Palestine". Either way, Danite stories and Philistine stories overlap continuously. This one belongs to both.
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13:2 VA YEHI ISH ECHAD MI TSAR'AH MI MISHPACHAT HA DANI U SHEMO MANO'ACH VE ISHTO AKARAH VE LO YALDAH
וַיְהִי אִישׁ אֶחָד מִצָּרְעָה מִמִּשְׁפַּחַת הַדָּנִי וּשְׁמֹו מָנֹוחַ וְאִשְׁתֹּו עֲקָרָה וְלֹא יָלָדָה
BN: And there was a certain man of Tsar'ah, from the tribe of the Dani, whose name was Mano'ach; and his wife was barren, and could not bear a child.
TSAR'AH (צרעה) yet again adds to our menagerie, but this time we do not need to look too far to find him. Tsar'ah is used in Exodus 4:6, Leviticus 13:44 and 22:4, Numbers 12:10, 2 Kings 5:1 and 27 to mean "leprosy", which was probably not leprosy as we think of it today, but a whitening of the skin that may have been psoriasis, or merely eczema, but in Mir-Yam's case was more likely the volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Sinai; more importantly the whitening was associated with the whiteness of the moon goddess. The word was used to mean "hornets" (Exodus 23:28, Deuteronomy 7:20 and Joshua 24:12, where I have a more lengthy explanation of the word), a distinction clearly made by the ancients from bees; the latter identified with Devorah and the beehive tombs, though unfortunately it is very difficult to provide links to further this point, as virtually all modern encyclopaedia and scholarly works in English insist that a bee is a hornet and a hornet is a bee, refusing, or simply unable, to make the same distinction: however, see my Greek reference below.
So is Tsar'ah a hornet or an epidemic of leprosy? Or even both? We could of course simply read Tsar'ah here metaphorically, as a "hornet's nest", taking it as yet another derogation by the Redactor; and to some extent that is the intention. Exodus 23:20, 27 and 28 inform us that: "Behold, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, to guide you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. I will send my terror (EYMATI - אֵימָתִי) before you, and will discomfit all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you... And I will send the hornet (HA TSIR'AH - הַצִּרְעָה) before you, which shall drive out the Chivi, the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, from before you."
TSAR'AH (צרעה) yet again adds to our menagerie, but this time we do not need to look too far to find him. Tsar'ah is used in Exodus 4:6, Leviticus 13:44 and 22:4, Numbers 12:10, 2 Kings 5:1 and 27 to mean "leprosy", which was probably not leprosy as we think of it today, but a whitening of the skin that may have been psoriasis, or merely eczema, but in Mir-Yam's case was more likely the volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Sinai; more importantly the whitening was associated with the whiteness of the moon goddess. The word was used to mean "hornets" (Exodus 23:28, Deuteronomy 7:20 and Joshua 24:12, where I have a more lengthy explanation of the word), a distinction clearly made by the ancients from bees; the latter identified with Devorah and the beehive tombs, though unfortunately it is very difficult to provide links to further this point, as virtually all modern encyclopaedia and scholarly works in English insist that a bee is a hornet and a hornet is a bee, refusing, or simply unable, to make the same distinction: however, see my Greek reference below.
So is Tsar'ah a hornet or an epidemic of leprosy? Or even both? We could of course simply read Tsar'ah here metaphorically, as a "hornet's nest", taking it as yet another derogation by the Redactor; and to some extent that is the intention. Exodus 23:20, 27 and 28 inform us that: "Behold, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, to guide you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. I will send my terror (EYMATI - אֵימָתִי) before you, and will discomfit all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you... And I will send the hornet (HA TSIR'AH - הַצִּרְעָה) before you, which shall drive out the Chivi, the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, from before you."
Isaiah 7:18 has the fly and the bee symbolize the military forces of Mitsrayim (Egypt) and Ashur (Assyria): "And it shall come to pass in that day, that YHVH will hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Mitsrayim, and for the bee that is in the land of Ashur." But again the bee and the hornet are clearly distinguished - Isaiah's bees are HA DEVORAH. Because this is a Danite myth we need to look to the Greeks for an explanation...
And indeed we can find some furtherance of this amongst the scholars of the Greek world; the full essay at this link is worth reading, but the key for us lies in this statement, made as part of the study of the relationship between the moon-goddess Io (the Greek version of Yah) and the bull-god Dionysus: "there is compelling evidence that the wasp, and in particular the wasp species represented by the hornet (Vespa Crabro, according to Linnaeus, βέμβιξ for the Greeks, crabro for the Latins)..." You can do the rest of the looking-up for yourself.
MANO'ACH (מנוח): comes from the same root that gives us No'ach (Noah) = "to rest". But it is also used in Ruth 3:1 for a woman seeking a husband, which, given that the Rut-Bo'az story is also a fertility rite, allows us to understand that Shimshon's (Samson's) father is again the hierophant (the man selected to play the role of the May King, to perform the fertility rite with the hierodule, the May Queen, in the earliest European equivalents of this; the same is taking place at the start of the Book of Esther, when the king holds his annual "beauty pageant" to choose his queen for the year, and the Jewess Hadassah is chosen to take the role, acquiring the official name Ester, which of course is Ishtar, in the process).
Is it conceivable that No'ach was an abbreviated form of Mano'ach?
Once again we are in the realm of the fertility goddess (in the ancient world fertility was always primarily female, not male, probably because the egg was understood rather better than the seed, probably because the physical act of carrying and giving birth and nurturing occupied so central a place in a woman's life, where a man's contribution was a brief epidermal spasm and then wage-earning; later it became absorbed into YHVH and was masculinised, as, sadly, all things now are).
13:3 VA YER'A MAL'ACH YHVH EL HA ISHAH VA YOMER ELEYHA HINEH NA ET AKARAH VE LO YALADET VE HARIT VE YALADET BEN
וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה אֶל הָאִשָּׁה וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ הִנֵּה נָא אַתְּ עֲקָרָה וְלֹא יָלַדְתְּ וְהָרִית וְיָלַדְתְּ בֵּן
BN: And a messenger of YHVH appeared to the woman, and said to her: "Behold, until now you have been barren, and could not bear children: but you shall conceive, and bear a son...
The traditional annunciation. As happened to Sarah at Mamre (or Moreh, in the second version). This is how the fertility cult works - all women are barren until the fertility goddess bestows fecundity on them.
The messenger comes from YHVH, but the text will revert to ELOHIM very shortly.
KJ: Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing
The traditional annunciation. As happened to Sarah at Mamre (or Moreh, in the second version). This is how the fertility cult works - all women are barren until the fertility goddess bestows fecundity on them.
The messenger comes from YHVH, but the text will revert to ELOHIM very shortly.
13:4 VE ATAH HISHAMRI NA VE AL TISHTI YAYIN VE SHECHER VE AL TO'CHLI KOL TAM'E
וְעַתָּה הִשָּׁמְרִי נָא וְאַל תִּשְׁתִּי יַיִן וְשֵׁכָר וְאַל תֹּאכְלִי כָּל טָמֵא
BN: "Now, therefore, I implore you to take care - refrain from drinking wine or strong drink, and do not eat any unclean thing...
Which sounds like good medical advice for an expectant mother, but is also spiritual in this context; it makes her a female Nazirite, which is to say: putting her through the ritual preparations necessary to be chosen as the May Queen, the hierodule on the day of the sacred marriage. In all likelihood, the same instruction was given to Yiphtach's daughter when she and her "companions" arrived at the mountain shrine to prepare her for sacrifice (Judges 11:37).
13:5 KI HINACH HARA VE YOLADET BEN U MORAH LO YA'ALEH AL RO'SHO KI NEZIR ELOHIM YIHEYEH HA NA'AR MIN HA BATEN VE HU YACHEL LEHOSHI'A ET YISRA-EL MI YAD PELISHTIM
KJ: For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Which sounds like good medical advice for an expectant mother, but is also spiritual in this context; it makes her a female Nazirite, which is to say: putting her through the ritual preparations necessary to be chosen as the May Queen, the hierodule on the day of the sacred marriage. In all likelihood, the same instruction was given to Yiphtach's daughter when she and her "companions" arrived at the mountain shrine to prepare her for sacrifice (Judges 11:37).
13:5 KI HINACH HARA VE YOLADET BEN U MORAH LO YA'ALEH AL RO'SHO KI NEZIR ELOHIM YIHEYEH HA NA'AR MIN HA BATEN VE HU YACHEL LEHOSHI'A ET YISRA-EL MI YAD PELISHTIM
כִּי הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן וּמֹורָה לֹא יַעֲלֶה עַל רֹאשֹׁו כִּי נְזִיר אֱלֹהִים יִהְיֶה הַנַּעַר מִן הַבָּטֶן וְהוּא יָחֵל לְהֹושִׁיעַ אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל מִיַּד פְּלִשְׁתִּים
BN: For you shall indeed conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nezir to Elohim from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Yisra-El out of the hand of the Pelishtim.
NEZIR: KJ renders this as "Nazarite", and this is how it has come to be both mis-spelled and mis-pronounced in English ever since. "Nazirite" is how most Anglo-Jews pronounce and spell it, which is a good compromise, given that it really should be "Nezirite". (And yes, this is the reason why Christians got confused about Jesus' birthplace, and decided that he came from Nazareth. His forty days in the wilderness were his period of Nazirut. However, the earliest Christians called themselves Notsrim, which stems from the Yehudit word for "branch", and relates to Yesha-Yah's prophecy (Isaiah 11:1) that the Messiah will come from a "branch of the family tree of Yishai", who was the father of that other manifestation of the moon-goddess' beloved son, Yedid-Yah, King David; from NETSER to the correct pronunciation of NATSARET for Nazereth provides a secondary tier of confusion. And then a third, with GENASERET, which was the name for the Sea of Galilee a in Jesus' time, and also for a village on its north-west coast, a half-mile from Migdal, where Mary Magdalene lived, the same in the other direction from Kfar Nachum, or Capernaum, and its next-door-neighbour Tabgha).
NEZIR: KJ renders this as "Nazarite", and this is how it has come to be both mis-spelled and mis-pronounced in English ever since. "Nazirite" is how most Anglo-Jews pronounce and spell it, which is a good compromise, given that it really should be "Nezirite". (And yes, this is the reason why Christians got confused about Jesus' birthplace, and decided that he came from Nazareth. His forty days in the wilderness were his period of Nazirut. However, the earliest Christians called themselves Notsrim, which stems from the Yehudit word for "branch", and relates to Yesha-Yah's prophecy (Isaiah 11:1) that the Messiah will come from a "branch of the family tree of Yishai", who was the father of that other manifestation of the moon-goddess' beloved son, Yedid-Yah, King David; from NETSER to the correct pronunciation of NATSARET for Nazereth provides a secondary tier of confusion. And then a third, with GENASERET, which was the name for the Sea of Galilee a in Jesus' time, and also for a village on its north-west coast, a half-mile from Migdal, where Mary Magdalene lived, the same in the other direction from Kfar Nachum, or Capernaum, and its next-door-neighbour Tabgha).
Any child born of the sacred marriage would be dedicated to the shrine or temple in this manner, a Nezir from birth, so these are instructions that could have been annunciated by her local priest or more likely priestess, and only need an "angel" liturgically, to give them a more sacred status when the story is repeated in worship.
BETEN: Note that the word used is "stomach", and not RECHEM, which is the womb; we know they knew the difference, but the RECHEM has very specific connotations in liturgy and doxology, and this is specifically about his physical birth. Probably we should translate BETEN here as "uterus". For RECHEM, see my notes at Judges 5:28.
The question of his being a Moshi'a for Yisra-El is dubious. We shall follow his actions and see why this is so.
Compare this to the Shemu-El tale in 1 Samuel 1.
13:6 VA TAV'O HA ISHAH VA TOMER LE ISHAH LEMOR ISH HA ELOHIM BA ELAY, U MARE'HU KE MAR'EH MAL'ACH HA ELOHIM NOR'A ME'OD VE LO SHE'ILTIYHU EY MI ZEH HU VE ET SHEMO LO HIGID LI
וַתָּבֹא הָאִשָּׁה וַתֹּאמֶר לְאִישָׁהּ לֵאמֹר אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים בָּא אֵלַי וּמַרְאֵהוּ כְּמַרְאֵה מַלְאַךְ הָאֱלֹהִים נֹורָא מְאֹד וְלֹא שְׁאִלְתִּיהוּ אֵי מִזֶּה הוּא וְאֶת שְׁמֹו לֹא הִגִּיד לִי
BN: Then the woman came and told her husband, saying: "A man of Elohim came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of a messenger of Elohim, truly awesome: but I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name....
As usual in Beney Yisra-Eli tales of "angels", before the exile in Babylon, the messenger angel is a holy man, and not the delusion of a winged fairy (compare the man of Penu-El in the Ya'akov story). Nonetheless her description includes her doubts that this was an angel, and pre-empts what she assumes will be her husband's inevitable skepticism.
13:7 VA YOMER LI HINACH HARAH VE YOLADET BEN VE ATAH AL TISHTI YAYIN VE SHECHER VE AL TO'CHLI KOL TUM'AH KI NEZIR ELOHIM YIHEYEH HA NA'AR MIN HA BETEN AD YOM MOTO
KJ: But he said unto me, Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
As usual in Beney Yisra-Eli tales of "angels", before the exile in Babylon, the messenger angel is a holy man, and not the delusion of a winged fairy (compare the man of Penu-El in the Ya'akov story). Nonetheless her description includes her doubts that this was an angel, and pre-empts what she assumes will be her husband's inevitable skepticism.
13:7 VA YOMER LI HINACH HARAH VE YOLADET BEN VE ATAH AL TISHTI YAYIN VE SHECHER VE AL TO'CHLI KOL TUM'AH KI NEZIR ELOHIM YIHEYEH HA NA'AR MIN HA BETEN AD YOM MOTO
וַיֹּאמֶר לִי הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן וְעַתָּה אַל תִּשְׁתִּי יַיִן וְשֵׁכָר וְאַל תֹּאכְלִי כָּל טֻמְאָה כִּי נְזִיר אֱלֹהִים יִהְיֶה הַנַּעַר מִן הַבֶּטֶן עַד יֹום מֹותֹו
BN: "But he said to me: 'Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son. You must refrain from drinking wine or strong drink, and do not eat any unclean thing, for the child shall be a Nazirite to Elohim from the womb until the day of his death.'"
This is not precisely what he said in verse 3, but it is psychologically accurate - no one ever quotes what they have been told with precise accuracy!
Does the requirement for her to practise Nezirut inform us that they understood the biologies of this, that alcohol consumed by her during pregnancy would enter the foetus? After all, his becoming a Nazir should be a matter of his life and choices, not his mother's. And if the announcement is that she is already pregnant, then this can only be biological, because there is no similar requirement of the father.
This is not precisely what he said in verse 3, but it is psychologically accurate - no one ever quotes what they have been told with precise accuracy!
Does the requirement for her to practise Nezirut inform us that they understood the biologies of this, that alcohol consumed by her during pregnancy would enter the foetus? After all, his becoming a Nazir should be a matter of his life and choices, not his mother's. And if the announcement is that she is already pregnant, then this can only be biological, because there is no similar requirement of the father.
One last equivocation: the practice of Nazirut is strictly time-limited - see the link, but also the original Torah instrucrions, which can be found at Numbers 6:1-21.
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KJ: Then Manoah intreated the LORD, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.
pey break
13:8 VA YE'ETAR MANO'ACH EL YHVH VA YOMER BI ADONAY ISH HA ELOHIM ASHER SHALACHTA YAVO NA OD ELEYNU VE YORENU MAH NA'ASEH LA NA'AR HA YULAD
וַיֶּעְתַּר מָנֹוחַ אֶל יְהוָה וַיֹּאמַר בִּי אֲדֹונָי אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר שָׁלַחְתָּ יָבֹוא נָא עֹוד אֵלֵינוּ וְיֹורֵנוּ מַה נַּעֲשֶׂה לַנַּעַר הַיּוּלָּד
BN: Then Mano'ach prayed to YHVH, saying: "O my lord, let the man of Elohim whom you sent come again to us, and teach us what we shall do to this child that shall be born."
No skepticism in fact from the father.* But in this world, he will not have been surprised that his wife has been chosen (though possibly jealous of he who will be surrogating the sun-god while she is surrogating the moon-goddess, unless he is a fully committed believer, in which case he will not even be jealous that someone else gets to sleep with his wife, because it is not another man, but the god himself. This is the position of Joseph after the archangel visited Mary).
* Or is there? Why does he address YHVH as Elohim? Is some sort of conflict being described here? She gets the annunciation from Elohim, but he goes to YHVH to get it confirmed? But what he says counters this: including using both names as though they were synonymous. So we have to assume this is simply sloppy work again by the Redactor.
Can we assume that the "messenger of Elohim" was simply a member of the Standing Committee for the Election of the May Queen, who popped by with the good news on the way home from the decision-meeting? Or the priestess at the shrine, functioning like mediaeval Hospitaller nuns as the nearest thing in a pre-medical world to a nurse, carrying out the primitive pregnancy test - and whatever primitive investigational tool she may have used becomes the Mal'ach in the mind of an illiterate and uneducated woman; and such devices can indeed appear quite Nor'a (the mediaeval word for a complex skill or craft that required an apprenticeship to understand it and perform it was... Misterie!)?
KJ: And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her.
No skepticism in fact from the father.* But in this world, he will not have been surprised that his wife has been chosen (though possibly jealous of he who will be surrogating the sun-god while she is surrogating the moon-goddess, unless he is a fully committed believer, in which case he will not even be jealous that someone else gets to sleep with his wife, because it is not another man, but the god himself. This is the position of Joseph after the archangel visited Mary).
* Or is there? Why does he address YHVH as Elohim? Is some sort of conflict being described here? She gets the annunciation from Elohim, but he goes to YHVH to get it confirmed? But what he says counters this: including using both names as though they were synonymous. So we have to assume this is simply sloppy work again by the Redactor.
Can we assume that the "messenger of Elohim" was simply a member of the Standing Committee for the Election of the May Queen, who popped by with the good news on the way home from the decision-meeting? Or the priestess at the shrine, functioning like mediaeval Hospitaller nuns as the nearest thing in a pre-medical world to a nurse, carrying out the primitive pregnancy test - and whatever primitive investigational tool she may have used becomes the Mal'ach in the mind of an illiterate and uneducated woman; and such devices can indeed appear quite Nor'a (the mediaeval word for a complex skill or craft that required an apprenticeship to understand it and perform it was... Misterie!)?
13:9 VA YISHM'A HA ELOHIM BE KOL MANO'ACH VA YAV'O MAL'ACH HA ELOHIM OD EL HA ISHAH VE HI YOSHEVET BA SADEH U MANO'ACH ISHAH EYN IMAH
וַיִּשְׁמַע הָאֱלֹהִים בְּקֹול מָנֹוחַ וַיָּבֹא מַלְאַךְ הָאֱלֹהִים עֹוד אֶל הָאִשָּׁה וְהִיא יֹושֶׁבֶת בַּשָּׂדֶה וּמָנֹוחַ אִישָׁהּ אֵין עִמָּהּ
BN: And YHVH heared Mano'ach's voice; and the messenger of Elohim came again to the woman as she sat in the field: but Mano'ach her husband was not with her.
Disappointing though this will be to lovers of Disney fantasy, and would-be players of Quidditch-through-the-looking-glass, the "man of God" who came to bring this instruction was most likely a bo'ab at the local shrine, the trainee imam or the just-appointed vicar or the associate rabbi, someone relatively junior in the clerical hierarchy, and if he comes with someone senior as well, that is only because he is being evaluated during this as part of his training. But an angel, a beautiful angel, an ear-whispering angel, nonetheless, because he (or in some cults it could be a she) is bringing those most important words of the deity: the day of the festival is approaching, and you are going to be queen for the day. Not even a mere princess. The full queen. Happy May Day!
Disappointing though this will be to lovers of Disney fantasy, and would-be players of Quidditch-through-the-looking-glass, the "man of God" who came to bring this instruction was most likely a bo'ab at the local shrine, the trainee imam or the just-appointed vicar or the associate rabbi, someone relatively junior in the clerical hierarchy, and if he comes with someone senior as well, that is only because he is being evaluated during this as part of his training. But an angel, a beautiful angel, an ear-whispering angel, nonetheless, because he (or in some cults it could be a she) is bringing those most important words of the deity: the day of the festival is approaching, and you are going to be queen for the day. Not even a mere princess. The full queen. Happy May Day!
YHVH...Elohim: Can we, as I have suggested previously, regard YHVH as the Zeus or Wotan of the pantheon, and therefore accept that the seeming confusion between addressing the One and addressing the All was not in fact a confusion at that time? (This only applies when "at that time" means the Ezraic writing down, not the original tale, whenever and wherever that may have been).
13:10 VA TEMAHER HA ISHAH VA TARATS VE TAGED LE ISHAH VA TOMER ELAV HINEH NIR'AH ELAY HA ISH ASHER BA VA YOM ELAY
KJ: And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day.
וַתְּמַהֵר הָאִשָּׁה וַתָּרָץ וַתַּגֵּד לְאִישָׁהּ וַתֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה נִרְאָה אֵלַי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר בָּא בַיֹּום אֵלָי
BN: And the woman rushed off, and ran to tell her husband, and said to him: "Guess what? The man came to me, the one who came to me the other day."
TAGED: KJ translates this as "shewed" (the 17th century spelling of "showed"), but the verb means "to tell", not "to show". What did he "show" her? Nothing in the text. I presume the translators went for "shewed" because of "HINEH", which follows, which literally means "Here", and is used when pointing at a visible object. But it is also used in other ways in other contexts.
HA ISH: Given that it is Mano'ach who asked for a second visit, why does the man not come directly to Mano'ach? I am assuming that this is all just a way of endowing a very banal set of procedures with a spiritual intensity: first the vote, then the informing of the winner, now the need to have the husband come in and learn what his role will be in all this (and especially, having chosen a married woman this year, to make sure the husband understands that she isn't about to commit adultery, but will simply be surrogating for the goddess in a public ritual of coition from which the entire community will gain the fertility benefit; and don't worry, the shrine will look after the child - hopefully there will be one - you won't have to eat into your savings for him; but he'll be there, whenever you want to see him - assuming, and let's hope, that it's a boy).
13:11 VA YAKAM VA YELECH MANO'ACH ACHAREY ISHTO VA YAV'O EL HA ISH VA YOMER LO HA ATAH HA ISH ASHER DIBARTA EL HA ISHAH VA YOMER ANI
KJ: And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Artthou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am.
TAGED: KJ translates this as "shewed" (the 17th century spelling of "showed"), but the verb means "to tell", not "to show". What did he "show" her? Nothing in the text. I presume the translators went for "shewed" because of "HINEH", which follows, which literally means "Here", and is used when pointing at a visible object. But it is also used in other ways in other contexts.
HA ISH: Given that it is Mano'ach who asked for a second visit, why does the man not come directly to Mano'ach? I am assuming that this is all just a way of endowing a very banal set of procedures with a spiritual intensity: first the vote, then the informing of the winner, now the need to have the husband come in and learn what his role will be in all this (and especially, having chosen a married woman this year, to make sure the husband understands that she isn't about to commit adultery, but will simply be surrogating for the goddess in a public ritual of coition from which the entire community will gain the fertility benefit; and don't worry, the shrine will look after the child - hopefully there will be one - you won't have to eat into your savings for him; but he'll be there, whenever you want to see him - assuming, and let's hope, that it's a boy).
13:11 VA YAKAM VA YELECH MANO'ACH ACHAREY ISHTO VA YAV'O EL HA ISH VA YOMER LO HA ATAH HA ISH ASHER DIBARTA EL HA ISHAH VA YOMER ANI
וַיָּקָם וַיֵּלֶךְ מָנֹוחַ אַחֲרֵי אִשְׁתֹּו וַיָּבֹא אֶל הָאִישׁ וַיֹּאמֶר לֹו הַאַתָּה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ אֶל הָאִשָּׁה וַיֹּאמֶר אָנִי
BN: Then Mano'ach got up and followed his wife, and came to the man, and said to him: "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" And he said: "I am".
HA ISHAH: As with the French "femme" and the German "frau", the Yehudit word for "woman" is also the word for "wife". We are never told her name.
"I am" is a good answer for a messenger of YHVH. "Yehiyeh asher yiheyeh" (Exodus 3:14). Unfortunately this is not YHVH. Note the wonderful Yehudit grammar that does not require the verb "to be".
And yes, I know, you resented bitterly, you were angry with me, for suggesting yet again that these "angels" of the gods are not what you want them to be, but merely horoscope readers, Tarot-card readers, séance-providers and strokers of the life-line in your palm, or else the delusional fantasies of the schizophrenic - or perhaps, in those days, metaphors in priestly gowns. Mal'ach means "messenger", and when angels did eventually come into being, in Persia around the 6th century BCE, they were the light transmitted by the stars, sending us messages precisely in the manner of today's horoscopes.
But this is a man, flesh-and-blood.
HA ISHAH: As with the French "femme" and the German "frau", the Yehudit word for "woman" is also the word for "wife". We are never told her name.
"I am" is a good answer for a messenger of YHVH. "Yehiyeh asher yiheyeh" (Exodus 3:14). Unfortunately this is not YHVH. Note the wonderful Yehudit grammar that does not require the verb "to be".
And yes, I know, you resented bitterly, you were angry with me, for suggesting yet again that these "angels" of the gods are not what you want them to be, but merely horoscope readers, Tarot-card readers, séance-providers and strokers of the life-line in your palm, or else the delusional fantasies of the schizophrenic - or perhaps, in those days, metaphors in priestly gowns. Mal'ach means "messenger", and when angels did eventually come into being, in Persia around the 6th century BCE, they were the light transmitted by the stars, sending us messages precisely in the manner of today's horoscopes.
But this is a man, flesh-and-blood.
13:12 VA YOMER MANO'ACH ATAH YAV'O DEVAREYCHA MAH YIHEYEH MISHPAT HA NA'AR U MA'ASEHU
וַיֹּאמֶר מָנֹוחַ עַתָּה יָבֹא דְבָרֶיךָ מַה יִּהְיֶה מִשְׁפַּט הַנַּעַר וּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ
BN: And Mano'ach said: Now let your words come to pass. What sentence have been passed on the child, and what labours will he be required to perform?
ATAH YAV'O DEVAREYCHAK Which I think is a formal, legalistic way of saying "you have my agreement"; the woman cannot take part in the rite without the permission of her husband. Had she been an unmarried virgin, it would have been her father who gave the permission.
ATAH YAV'O DEVAREYCHAK Which I think is a formal, legalistic way of saying "you have my agreement"; the woman cannot take part in the rite without the permission of her husband. Had she been an unmarried virgin, it would have been her father who gave the permission.
MAH YIHEYEH MISHPAT: I guess I have to give my translation a detailed etymological explanation! Or perhaps the mythological is more important, though anyone who has followed me to to this point will not need an explanation. My translation is, nonetheless, word by word accurate and correct; the KJ is not. The explanation will follow, verse by verse. For the moment, enough to say that "what sentence has been passed" infers that he is agreeing reluctantly: what he is asking is "what obligations have been determined for him", but his phrasing makes a negative burden, not a positive duty, out of them.
13:13 VA YOMER MAL'ACH YHVH EL MANO'ACH MI KOL ASHER AMARTI EL HA ISHAH TISHAMER
BN: And the messenger of YHVH said to Mano'ach, "Make sure that she does everything I have told her to do...
Mano'ach asks about the child, but the messenger answers about the mother. Why? Because the man has no authority over the child, who will be dedicated to the shrine and therefore under its authority. But he does have authority over his wife, and therefore a share of responsibility.
I wonder if this liturgical story is not also intended as a teaching story, because the ritual of the sacred marriage happened every year, and inculcating acceptance of the sexual part as a matter of religious doctrine is best achieved from childhood (look how effective Santa Claus is as a way of indoctrinating belief in God when the child grows up), as also the knowledge of the rites and rituals connected. So you can sit and listen to the reading, or watch the play if it is done dramatically, and know exactly how you will be expected to behave if your turn comes, to any of the roles - husband, wife or child. The Mystery and Miracle and Nativity plays of mediaval Europe functioned in precisely the same manner - Piagetian propaganda.
For those who could not read or write (which was 90% of humanity until the last 50 years), hearing these stories was the key methodology of education; the secondary was visual, which is why churches are so lavish with their stained-glass windows, and their walls (including every British Catholic church until Henry VIII and Elizabeth I destroyed them with thick coats of whitewash) replete with still more Piagetian propaganda, this time in the form of frescos.
13:14 MI KOL ASHER YETS'E MI GEPHEN HA YAYIN LO TO'CHAL VE YAYIN VE SHECHER AL TESHT VE CHOL TUM'AH AL TO'CHAL KOL ASHER TSIVIYTIYHA TISHMOR
KJ: She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe.
U MA'ASEHU: Yes, definitely "labours", one in each month, just like his Greek namesake Herakles.
13:13 VA YOMER MAL'ACH YHVH EL MANO'ACH MI KOL ASHER AMARTI EL HA ISHAH TISHAMER
וַיֹּאמֶר מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה אֶל מָנֹוחַ מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֶל הָאִשָּׁה תִּשָּׁמֵר
KJ: And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.
Mano'ach asks about the child, but the messenger answers about the mother. Why? Because the man has no authority over the child, who will be dedicated to the shrine and therefore under its authority. But he does have authority over his wife, and therefore a share of responsibility.
I wonder if this liturgical story is not also intended as a teaching story, because the ritual of the sacred marriage happened every year, and inculcating acceptance of the sexual part as a matter of religious doctrine is best achieved from childhood (look how effective Santa Claus is as a way of indoctrinating belief in God when the child grows up), as also the knowledge of the rites and rituals connected. So you can sit and listen to the reading, or watch the play if it is done dramatically, and know exactly how you will be expected to behave if your turn comes, to any of the roles - husband, wife or child. The Mystery and Miracle and Nativity plays of mediaval Europe functioned in precisely the same manner - Piagetian propaganda.
For those who could not read or write (which was 90% of humanity until the last 50 years), hearing these stories was the key methodology of education; the secondary was visual, which is why churches are so lavish with their stained-glass windows, and their walls (including every British Catholic church until Henry VIII and Elizabeth I destroyed them with thick coats of whitewash) replete with still more Piagetian propaganda, this time in the form of frescos.
13:14 MI KOL ASHER YETS'E MI GEPHEN HA YAYIN LO TO'CHAL VE YAYIN VE SHECHER AL TESHT VE CHOL TUM'AH AL TO'CHAL KOL ASHER TSIVIYTIYHA TISHMOR
מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר יֵצֵא מִגֶּפֶן הַיַּיִן לֹא תֹאכַל וְיַיִן וְשֵׁכָר אַל תֵּשְׁתְּ וְכָל טֻמְאָה אַל תֹּאכַל כֹּל אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיהָ תִּשְׁמֹר
BN: "She may not consume anything that comes from the vine, nor should you allow her to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything that is unclean. Let her follow all these instructions."
And if it is not didactic, then this repetition is unnecessary: one cannot imagine a god sending a messenger a second time for the banal purpose of reminding her to stay sober and keep kosher.
And if it is not didactic, then this repetition is unnecessary: one cannot imagine a god sending a messenger a second time for the banal purpose of reminding her to stay sober and keep kosher.
13:15 VA YOMER MANO'ACH EL MAL'ACH YHVH NA'TSERAH NA OTACH VE NA'ASEH LEPHANEYCHA GEDI IZIM
וַיֹּאמֶר מָנֹוחַ אֶל מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה נַעְצְרָה נָּא אֹותָךְ וְנַעֲשֶׂה לְפָנֶיךָ גְּדִי עִזִּים
BN: And Mano'ach said to the messenger of YHVH: Please, let us detain you, until we have made ready a kid for you.
Exactly what Av-Raham did when Sarah received her annunciation (Genesis 18, though that meal wasn't kosher, according to verse 8!). The ritual sacrifice, part too of the preparation. How much of this was told as a story, and how much actually performed as part of the shrine ceremony on the day itself?
Exactly what Av-Raham did when Sarah received her annunciation (Genesis 18, though that meal wasn't kosher, according to verse 8!). The ritual sacrifice, part too of the preparation. How much of this was told as a story, and how much actually performed as part of the shrine ceremony on the day itself?
13:16 VA YOMER MAL'ACH YHVH EL MANO'ACH IM TA'TSRENI LO OCHAL BE LACHMECHA VE IM TA'ASEH OLAH LA YHVH TA'ALENAH KI LO YAD'A MANO'ACH KI MAL'ACH YHVH HU
וַיֹּאמֶר מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה אֶל מָנֹוחַ אִם תַּעְצְרֵנִי לֹא אֹכַל בְּלַחְמֶךָ וְאִם תַּעֲשֶׂה עֹלָה לַיהוָה תַּעֲלֶנָּה כִּי לֹא יָדַע מָנֹוחַ כִּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה הוּא
BN: And the messenger of YHVH said to Mano'ach, "It is kind of you to invite me, but I cannot eat of your bread: and if you wish to offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to YHVH". For Mano'ach did not know that he was a messenger of YHVH.
This simply does not work. He asked YHVH to send back the messenger to give the full instructions; his wife comes and tells him the messenger is back; the man gives exactly the instructions that he gave the woman and that she told her husband - but it doesn't occur to him this is YHVH's messenger. Either he is incredibly stupid, or something else must be going on in the text (and possibly got redacted out; or more likely this additional line got redacted in).
IM TA'TSRENI: Is an idiom, rooted not in ATSAR, which means "to shut", or "to stop", but in ETSER, which has the sense of committees and other authorities with powers; cf Judges 18:7, where it means "rulers", or Jeremiah 9:1, where it is used in the feminine for a "gang". Joel 1:14 and 2 Kings 10:20 bring us closer to the usage most Jews would recognise, the ATSERET which is a "religious gathering", best known from the festival of Shemini Atseret. So what the "messenger" is saying is both "this is outside my authority", and "the gathering for the sacrificial meal belongs to the day of the festival, not the day of the anunciation", but there is no equivalent idiom in English, so I have simply gone for a polite decline.
This simply does not work. He asked YHVH to send back the messenger to give the full instructions; his wife comes and tells him the messenger is back; the man gives exactly the instructions that he gave the woman and that she told her husband - but it doesn't occur to him this is YHVH's messenger. Either he is incredibly stupid, or something else must be going on in the text (and possibly got redacted out; or more likely this additional line got redacted in).
IM TA'TSRENI: Is an idiom, rooted not in ATSAR, which means "to shut", or "to stop", but in ETSER, which has the sense of committees and other authorities with powers; cf Judges 18:7, where it means "rulers", or Jeremiah 9:1, where it is used in the feminine for a "gang". Joel 1:14 and 2 Kings 10:20 bring us closer to the usage most Jews would recognise, the ATSERET which is a "religious gathering", best known from the festival of Shemini Atseret. So what the "messenger" is saying is both "this is outside my authority", and "the gathering for the sacrificial meal belongs to the day of the festival, not the day of the anunciation", but there is no equivalent idiom in English, so I have simply gone for a polite decline.
OLAH: Translations vary between "offering" and "burnt offering" (or "burned offering"; that one rests with the English grammarians). But this is an "olah" (offering), not a "kurban" (burnt offering). As with Av-Raham, he wants to cook it to feed the visitor; and what the visitor is saying is: rather than cooking the meat for supper, sacrifice the goat on the altar at the time of the festival (after which, of course, it will be eaten - but it will now meet the conditions of Nezirut by being rendered kosher).
KJ: And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour?
13:17 VA YOMER MANO'ACH EL MAL'ACH YHVH MI SHEMECHA KI YAVO DEVARECHA VE CHIBADNUCHA
וַיֹּאמֶר מָנֹוחַ אֶל מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה מִי שְׁמֶךָ כִּי יָבֹא [דִבְרֵיךָ כ] (דְבָרְךָ ק) וְכִבַּדְנוּךָ
BN: And Mano'ach said to the messenger of YHVH: "What is your name, so that, when your sayings come to pass, we may do you honour?"
Ya'akov tried that trick (Genesis 32:30), and he had the advantage over his "angel" that the sun was about to rise like Dracula, the Lilim, the night-demons cannot be out-of-doors when the sun comes up); and still the "angel" did not reveal it. Angels do not answer that question, and asking a god his name is, as we have seen previously, one of the great prohibitions, the original sense of blasphemy indeed. Mano'ach surely knew that.
And why would he have asked it anyway, if he didn't know that the "man" was a "messenger of YHVH"? In fact, asking the name, and being told you are not allowed to ask, is an intrinsic aspect of the ceremony.
MI SHEMECHA: Literally "Who is your name?"; is that another scribal error or just different idioms at different times? We would expect it to be MAH SHIMCHA or at least MAH SHEMECHA.
KJ: And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?
Ya'akov tried that trick (Genesis 32:30), and he had the advantage over his "angel" that the sun was about to rise like Dracula, the Lilim, the night-demons cannot be out-of-doors when the sun comes up); and still the "angel" did not reveal it. Angels do not answer that question, and asking a god his name is, as we have seen previously, one of the great prohibitions, the original sense of blasphemy indeed. Mano'ach surely knew that.
And why would he have asked it anyway, if he didn't know that the "man" was a "messenger of YHVH"? In fact, asking the name, and being told you are not allowed to ask, is an intrinsic aspect of the ceremony.
MI SHEMECHA: Literally "Who is your name?"; is that another scribal error or just different idioms at different times? We would expect it to be MAH SHIMCHA or at least MAH SHEMECHA.
13:18 VA YOMER LO MAL'ACH YHVH LAMAH ZEH TISH'AL LISHMI VE HU PHEL'I
וַיֹּאמֶר לֹו מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה לָמָּה זֶּה תִּשְׁאַל לִשְׁמִי וְהוּא פֶלִאי
BN: And the messenger of YHVH said to him, "Why do you ask thus after my name, seeing that it belongs to the gods?"
LAMAH: the very answer that Ya'akov received in Genesis 32:30.
PHEL'I: There are many words for "secret" - and this turns out not to be one of them! No indeed, we have guessed that it means "secret" from the context, but actually it doesn't. The root is PAL'A, which means "to be separate" or "to be distinguished", and as such needs to be distinguished from "KODESH", which has precisely the same meaning - broadly "holy" - and which we might well expect to be preferred here, except that using KODESH would allow an inference of KEDESHA, which would turn the May Queen into a mere prostitute, and undermine the spiritual purpose. So a different word was needed, and PHEL'I works perfectly. Why? Look at Psalms 118:23 and 139:14. Look at Psalms 9:2 and 26:7 and 40:6. Look at Exodus 34:10 and Joshua 3:5. Look at Leviticus 22:21 and Numbers 15:3 and 8. Each of these has a variation on the meaning, which is why I have grouped them separately, but all concur on the general sense of something divine, something deity-focused, something really very special. And in Nehemiah 8:7 and 10:11, which belong to the period when this tale was being written down, the root even forms a person's name, Pela-Yah (פְּלָאיָה֙), a most "distinguished" name for a most distinguished person.
The inference, then, is that Mano'ach does know that he is a messenger of YHVH, and that he also knows the rules governing said creatures, including not asking for a name. If not, the "messenger" would phrase his answer differently. The dialogue is liturgy, not fable.
And then, in the very next verse, the same root is used again, and no translation that I have yet found renders it as "secret".
samech break
KJ: So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.
LAMAH: the very answer that Ya'akov received in Genesis 32:30.
PHEL'I: There are many words for "secret" - and this turns out not to be one of them! No indeed, we have guessed that it means "secret" from the context, but actually it doesn't. The root is PAL'A, which means "to be separate" or "to be distinguished", and as such needs to be distinguished from "KODESH", which has precisely the same meaning - broadly "holy" - and which we might well expect to be preferred here, except that using KODESH would allow an inference of KEDESHA, which would turn the May Queen into a mere prostitute, and undermine the spiritual purpose. So a different word was needed, and PHEL'I works perfectly. Why? Look at Psalms 118:23 and 139:14. Look at Psalms 9:2 and 26:7 and 40:6. Look at Exodus 34:10 and Joshua 3:5. Look at Leviticus 22:21 and Numbers 15:3 and 8. Each of these has a variation on the meaning, which is why I have grouped them separately, but all concur on the general sense of something divine, something deity-focused, something really very special. And in Nehemiah 8:7 and 10:11, which belong to the period when this tale was being written down, the root even forms a person's name, Pela-Yah (פְּלָאיָה֙), a most "distinguished" name for a most distinguished person.
The inference, then, is that Mano'ach does know that he is a messenger of YHVH, and that he also knows the rules governing said creatures, including not asking for a name. If not, the "messenger" would phrase his answer differently. The dialogue is liturgy, not fable.
And then, in the very next verse, the same root is used again, and no translation that I have yet found renders it as "secret".
samech break
13:19 VA YIKACH MANOA'CH ET GEDI HA IZIM VE ET HA MINCHAH VA YA'AL AL HA TSUR LA YHVH U MAPHL'I LA'ASOT U MANO'ACH VE ISHTO RO'IM
וַיִּקַּח מָנֹוחַ אֶת גְּדִי הָעִזִּים וְאֶת הַמִּנְחָה וַיַּעַל עַל הַצּוּר לַיהוָה וּמַפְלִא לַעֲשֹׂות וּמָנֹוחַ וְאִשְׁתֹּו רֹאִים
BN: So Mano'ach took a kid from the flock, and also grain for a sacrifice, and offered it on a rock to YHVH: and the angel did wondrously; and Mano'ach and his wife looked on.
The OLAH has now been enhanced with a MINCHAH, which is another kind of offering altogether (see my notes to Judges 6:19, whose entire context is also worth comparing). KJ reckons it is a "meat offering", but the kid goat is already the meat offering. A minchah could be meat, grain or vegetable (see here); I have gone for the grain, because I prefer sandwiches, but it could just as well be two sweet potatoes and a broccoli that he is cooking on this rocky barbecue: my point being that, now that it has been properly sacrificed - the didactic purpose of this part of the tale, teaching what is, and how to, make kosher - dinner will after all be served.
And now: look again at the Yehudit. Minchah = מִנְחָה. And the person who is making the sacrifice here is named?.. Mano'ach = מָנֹוחַ. Same letters, same root! Same didactic purpose.
I wonder, given that we are never told his wife's name, whether there wasn't a version in which her name was given - and can we guess what it might have been. Olah, perhaps - or at least something connected to that root?
U MAPHL'I LA'ASOT: First, note the use of MAPHL'I, from the same root as PHEL'I in the previous verse - and see my notes to that. As to this phrase, it too requires an essay. We are in the realms of Loge again, of the burning bush, of fire in general. All we can say for certain is that "the angel did wondrously" is a poetic metaphor, and it is precisely the same poetic metaphor that we all feel, when we stand in front of the bonfire and watch those phantoms of light dance and jump and revel, just like their brothers and sisters in the heavenly constellations (see the next verse for confirmation).
If Mano'ach is now "authorised" to make his own sacrificial offering, and if his rock is holy, as it needs to be for the offering to be accepted, then he must have some kind of priestly status; though, if his meeting with the "messenger" has been his initiation into his role, either as May King himself or as the father of the May Queen...
13:20 VA YEHI VA ALOT HA LAHAV ME AL HA MIZBE'ACH HA SHAMAYEMAH VA YA'AL MAL'ACH YHVH BE LAHAV HA MIZBE'ACH U MANO'ACH VE ISHTO RO'IM VA YIPLU AL PENEYHEM ARTSAH
KJ: For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground.
The OLAH has now been enhanced with a MINCHAH, which is another kind of offering altogether (see my notes to Judges 6:19, whose entire context is also worth comparing). KJ reckons it is a "meat offering", but the kid goat is already the meat offering. A minchah could be meat, grain or vegetable (see here); I have gone for the grain, because I prefer sandwiches, but it could just as well be two sweet potatoes and a broccoli that he is cooking on this rocky barbecue: my point being that, now that it has been properly sacrificed - the didactic purpose of this part of the tale, teaching what is, and how to, make kosher - dinner will after all be served.
And now: look again at the Yehudit. Minchah = מִנְחָה. And the person who is making the sacrifice here is named?.. Mano'ach = מָנֹוחַ. Same letters, same root! Same didactic purpose.
I wonder, given that we are never told his wife's name, whether there wasn't a version in which her name was given - and can we guess what it might have been. Olah, perhaps - or at least something connected to that root?
U MAPHL'I LA'ASOT: First, note the use of MAPHL'I, from the same root as PHEL'I in the previous verse - and see my notes to that. As to this phrase, it too requires an essay. We are in the realms of Loge again, of the burning bush, of fire in general. All we can say for certain is that "the angel did wondrously" is a poetic metaphor, and it is precisely the same poetic metaphor that we all feel, when we stand in front of the bonfire and watch those phantoms of light dance and jump and revel, just like their brothers and sisters in the heavenly constellations (see the next verse for confirmation).
If Mano'ach is now "authorised" to make his own sacrificial offering, and if his rock is holy, as it needs to be for the offering to be accepted, then he must have some kind of priestly status; though, if his meeting with the "messenger" has been his initiation into his role, either as May King himself or as the father of the May Queen...
13:20 VA YEHI VA ALOT HA LAHAV ME AL HA MIZBE'ACH HA SHAMAYEMAH VA YA'AL MAL'ACH YHVH BE LAHAV HA MIZBE'ACH U MANO'ACH VE ISHTO RO'IM VA YIPLU AL PENEYHEM ARTSAH
וַיְהִי בַעֲלֹות הַלַּהַב מֵעַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וַיַּעַל מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּלַהַב הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וּמָנֹוחַ וְאִשְׁתֹּו רֹאִים וַיִּפְּלוּ עַל פְּנֵיהֶם אָרְצָה
BN: For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward the heavens from off the altar, that the messenger of YHVH ascended in the flame of the altar. And Mano'ach and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground.
Conventional belief: the god is in the flame, the "angel" is simply a metaphor, an anthropomorphisation of the flame into allegory. And now, suddenly, it turns out that the "rock" was a genuine MIZBE'ACH all along; so this is happening at a shrine, not in the fields as previously described; or at the very least at a place in the fields which has been dedicated as a shrine.
The Redactor makes it seem wondrous, but it is really only fire itself that is wondrous, and in this ancient world, lighting the fire on the sacrificial altar sets the god glowing in the wood, so it is the logical thing to do to prostrate yourself, the traditional manner of worship ("logical" - some work on that etymology would be interesting too, for Loge the spirit of fire in the Norse world, but also for the Logos, the Word which is God).
KJ: But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD.
Conventional belief: the god is in the flame, the "angel" is simply a metaphor, an anthropomorphisation of the flame into allegory. And now, suddenly, it turns out that the "rock" was a genuine MIZBE'ACH all along; so this is happening at a shrine, not in the fields as previously described; or at the very least at a place in the fields which has been dedicated as a shrine.
The Redactor makes it seem wondrous, but it is really only fire itself that is wondrous, and in this ancient world, lighting the fire on the sacrificial altar sets the god glowing in the wood, so it is the logical thing to do to prostrate yourself, the traditional manner of worship ("logical" - some work on that etymology would be interesting too, for Loge the spirit of fire in the Norse world, but also for the Logos, the Word which is God).
13:21 VE LO YASAPH OD MAL'ACH YHVH LEHERA'OH EL MANOA'CH VE EL ISHTO AZ YAD'A MANO'ACH KI MAL'ACH YHVH HU
וְלֹא יָסַף עֹוד מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה לְהֵרָאֹה אֶל מָנֹוחַ וְאֶל אִשְׁתֹּו אָז יָדַע מָנֹוחַ כִּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה הוּא
What we know is that the sacred child is connected to the fire - that he will be the sun-hero, and his hair, the uncut hair of a Nazir, will symbolise the sun's rays in the way that every child draws them, the locks that Lilit, in the form of Delilah, which is to say the night-demon or night-mare, will cut off to take away his sun-power.
13:22 VA YOMER MANO'ACH EL ISHTO MOT NAMUT KI ELOHIM RA'INU
וַיֹּאמֶר מָנֹוחַ אֶל אִשְׁתֹּו מֹות נָמוּת כִּי אֱלֹהִים רָאִינוּ
KJ: And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
BN: Then Mano'ach said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen Elohim.
Once again the alternation of YHVH and Elohim. Once again the superstition that to see the face of a deity leads automatically to death. But the messenger has just announced that she has been chosen to give birth to a Nazir - why would the gods do that, and then kill her before the child is born? The next verse will confirm this.
As we explore the chronology, not of but behind the Tanach, to try to deduce the epochs at which these mythological tales first came into being, can we get any earlier than this fire-tale of Mano'ach and his wife? I see them as cave-dwellers, the woman discovering fire for the very first time, as Prometheus did in the Greek version, possibly a bush that sparked by spontaneous combustion in the heat of the summer desert (sand contains silica, which is the base material of glass, and glass permeated by intense sunlight starts fires), and her bewilderment, her excitement as she rushed to bring her man to see it, and then - perhaps the first time ever in human history - seeing what would happen if you put raw meat into the fire, or grain, or vegetable... and what else can it be but the gods, who are simply the dynamic and kinetic forces of the Universe, choosing us, telling us something... When might this have taken place? Perhaps 100,000 years ago. Perhaps earlier even than that.
But what if, as Mano'ach now wonders, what if the message of the fire is negative, not positive. You, woman, are desperate for a child, and want it to be this... but what if... see the next verse.
13:23 VA TOMER LO ISHTO LU CHAPHETS YHVH LAHAMIYTENU LO LAKACH MI YADENU OLAH U MINCHAH VE LO HER'ANU ET KOL ELEH VE CHA ET LO HISHMIY'ANU KA ZOT
וַתֹּאמֶר לֹו אִשְׁתֹּו לוּ חָפֵץ יְהוָה לַהֲמִיתֵנוּ לֹא לָקַח מִיָּדֵנוּ עֹלָה וּמִנְחָה וְלֹא הֶרְאָנוּ אֶת כָּל אֵלֶּה וְכָעֵת לֹא הִשְׁמִיעָנוּ כָּזֹאת
BN: But his wife said to him: "If YHVH wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, nor would he have shown us all these things, nor would he at this time have told us such things as these."
So does the birth of religion also take place, in the form of a seemingly successful act of propitiation. Nothing bad happened, so it must be good, so that proves the existence, and our faith... and if what we want to happen now comes to pass, it will provide further proof... and then the proof comes...
13:24 VA TELED HA ISHAH BEN VA TIKR'A ET SHEMO SHIMSHON VA YIGDAL HA NA'AR VA YEVARCHEHU YHVH
וַתֵּלֶד הָאִשָּׁה בֵּן וַתִּקְרָא אֶת שְׁמֹו שִׁמְשֹׁון וַיִּגְדַּל הַנַּעַר וַיְבָרְכֵהוּ יְהוָה
BN: And the woman gave birth to a son, and named him Shimshon: and the child grew, and YHVH blessed him.
SHIMSHON: the son of the sun, the son of the fire, from the Yehudit SHEMESH = "SUN": mythologically the birth of Loge. Which is why I mentioned Prometheus, though linguistically this is a variant of his Mesopotamian equivalent, Tammuz; the Sheen (ש) and Tav (ת), as we have seen before, interchange between western and eastern dialects, so that Tammuz and Shemesh are both "the sun". But we are in Danite territory, which is to say Phoenician, where the sun-hero was named Hera-Kles, "the glory of Hera", which is precisely the meaning of David - "the beloved of Yah". The same figure will come to Brython as King Arthur, or King Gradlon in the Breton version.
The tale that follows is really the eternal battle between Day/Sun and Night/Moon to rule the universe. Day is the stronger, but always ephemerally; Night is the wilier, and Night is allied with Death/the Underworld, and so has greater ultimate strength. The battle is fought in (more or less, depending on the time of year and the geograpical latitude) 12 hour blocks, 30 day blocks, and 12 month blocks, and power shifts in each, and across each, moving from birth to death, creation to destruction, victory to defeat, and back again, as time inexorably hands power back and forth from one to the other... and so the Universe ebbs and flows on.
The equivalent in the Hindu world adds that final statement as a third character, making the Trimurti rather than this Dualism: Brahma as Creator, Siva as Destroyer, and Vishnu as the Sustainer, bridging between the two (an interesting discussion to be had there in your study group: would Judaism and Christianity and Islam serve themselves and the world better if they had this third figure, an arbitrator and maker of compromises, rather than the adversarialism of Good versus Evil, yetser ha tov versus yetser ha ra? Might we, for example, change the way we do our politics to match the cosmological structure, engaging in compromise coalitions and cooperative government, rather than power-grabbing and pork-barrelling...)
Why is there neither a pey nor a samech break at this point?
13:25 VA TACHEL RU'ACH YHVH LEPHA'AMO BE MACHANEH DAN BEYN TSAR'AH U VEYN ESHTA'OL
KJ: And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.
SHIMSHON: the son of the sun, the son of the fire, from the Yehudit SHEMESH = "SUN": mythologically the birth of Loge. Which is why I mentioned Prometheus, though linguistically this is a variant of his Mesopotamian equivalent, Tammuz; the Sheen (ש) and Tav (ת), as we have seen before, interchange between western and eastern dialects, so that Tammuz and Shemesh are both "the sun". But we are in Danite territory, which is to say Phoenician, where the sun-hero was named Hera-Kles, "the glory of Hera", which is precisely the meaning of David - "the beloved of Yah". The same figure will come to Brython as King Arthur, or King Gradlon in the Breton version.
The tale that follows is really the eternal battle between Day/Sun and Night/Moon to rule the universe. Day is the stronger, but always ephemerally; Night is the wilier, and Night is allied with Death/the Underworld, and so has greater ultimate strength. The battle is fought in (more or less, depending on the time of year and the geograpical latitude) 12 hour blocks, 30 day blocks, and 12 month blocks, and power shifts in each, and across each, moving from birth to death, creation to destruction, victory to defeat, and back again, as time inexorably hands power back and forth from one to the other... and so the Universe ebbs and flows on.
The equivalent in the Hindu world adds that final statement as a third character, making the Trimurti rather than this Dualism: Brahma as Creator, Siva as Destroyer, and Vishnu as the Sustainer, bridging between the two (an interesting discussion to be had there in your study group: would Judaism and Christianity and Islam serve themselves and the world better if they had this third figure, an arbitrator and maker of compromises, rather than the adversarialism of Good versus Evil, yetser ha tov versus yetser ha ra? Might we, for example, change the way we do our politics to match the cosmological structure, engaging in compromise coalitions and cooperative government, rather than power-grabbing and pork-barrelling...)
Why is there neither a pey nor a samech break at this point?
13:25 VA TACHEL RU'ACH YHVH LEPHA'AMO BE MACHANEH DAN BEYN TSAR'AH U VEYN ESHTA'OL
וַתָּחֶל רוּחַ יְהוָה לְפַעֲמֹו בְּמַחֲנֵה דָן בֵּין צָרְעָה וּבֵין אֶשְׁתָּאֹל
BN: And the spirit of YHVH began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Tsar'ah and Eshta'ol.
TSAR'AH: see my notes at verse 2, which link this name to the whiteness of the moon-goddess.
ESHTA'OL (אשתאל) is the reflective (Hitpa'el) form of the word SHA'AL (שאל) which literally means "to ask" or "to petition", but is most frequently found in the Bible in two other uses, as Sha'ul (King Saul), and as She'ol, the Beny Yisra-Eli Underworld. So the spirit of the god is moving, in the form of a hornet, between the shrine of the white goddess (who, if you have not already deduced it, will be named Delilah = the night) and the Underworld, ruled in the Hera-Kles myths by Eurystheus of Tiryns.
There is an argument to be made that the name is ESHET-EL, "the wife of El", which of course would also be a very good alternative option for his mother's not-given name! And if it were correct, then we see him moving back and forth between the two incarnations of the moon-goddess, Mother Mary (full moon) and Mary Magdalene (waxing moon) in the Christian version - though if it were that, would we not also expect the waning moon to be included in some form?
BE MACHANEH DAN: It is worth noting again that this is a presented as a Danite tale, though it actually locates Shimshon in the territory of the Pelishtim, and along the Mediterranean coast north towards Asher. If it is Danite, then it has to belong to the period when Dan inhabited that region, before it was "driven out" by the Pelishtim and established its territory further north-east, at La'ish - but that does not happen until the very last chapters of this Book of Judges. See "The Leprachauns of Palestine" for a fuller account of this, but it throws open once again the question: was Dan originally a clan of the Pelishtim, or was there simply a need to assimilate these Phoenician/Palestinian myths into the mainstream culture, and attributing them to Dan provided a workable route?
pey break
TSAR'AH: see my notes at verse 2, which link this name to the whiteness of the moon-goddess.
ESHTA'OL (אשתאל) is the reflective (Hitpa'el) form of the word SHA'AL (שאל) which literally means "to ask" or "to petition", but is most frequently found in the Bible in two other uses, as Sha'ul (King Saul), and as She'ol, the Beny Yisra-Eli Underworld. So the spirit of the god is moving, in the form of a hornet, between the shrine of the white goddess (who, if you have not already deduced it, will be named Delilah = the night) and the Underworld, ruled in the Hera-Kles myths by Eurystheus of Tiryns.
There is an argument to be made that the name is ESHET-EL, "the wife of El", which of course would also be a very good alternative option for his mother's not-given name! And if it were correct, then we see him moving back and forth between the two incarnations of the moon-goddess, Mother Mary (full moon) and Mary Magdalene (waxing moon) in the Christian version - though if it were that, would we not also expect the waning moon to be included in some form?
BE MACHANEH DAN: It is worth noting again that this is a presented as a Danite tale, though it actually locates Shimshon in the territory of the Pelishtim, and along the Mediterranean coast north towards Asher. If it is Danite, then it has to belong to the period when Dan inhabited that region, before it was "driven out" by the Pelishtim and established its territory further north-east, at La'ish - but that does not happen until the very last chapters of this Book of Judges. See "The Leprachauns of Palestine" for a fuller account of this, but it throws open once again the question: was Dan originally a clan of the Pelishtim, or was there simply a need to assimilate these Phoenician/Palestinian myths into the mainstream culture, and attributing them to Dan provided a workable route?
pey break
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