JSOTSupp330 - Grabbe & Haak - 'Every City Shall Be Forsaken' - Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and The Near East

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
330
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
Andrew Mein
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay,
Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
Sheffield Academic Press

This page intentionally left blank
'Every City shall be Forsaken'
Urbanism and Prophecy in

Ancient Israel and the Near East
edited by
Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Supplement Series 330
Copyright © 2001 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd

Mansion House
19 Kingfield Road
Sheffield SI 19AS
England
www.SheffieldAcademicPress.com
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain

by Antony Rowe Ltd,
Chippenham, Wiltshire
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library
ISBN 1-84127-202-7
CONTENTS
Preface 7
List of Abbreviations 9
List of Contributors 13
LESTER L. GRABBE
Introduction and Overview 15
JOSEPH BLENKINSOPP
Cityscape to Landscape: The 'Back to Nature' Theme
in Isaiah 1-35 35
ROBERT P. CARROLL
City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh:
Urbanscapes in Prophetic Discourses 45
ROBERT B.COOTE
Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel and the Greater
and Lesser Prophets 62
JULIE GALAMBUSH
This Land Is my Land:
On Nature as Property in the Book of Ezekiel 71
LESTER L. GRABBE
Sup-Urbs or only Hyp-Urbs? Prophets and Populations
in Ancient Israel and Socio-historical Method 95
S. TAMAR KAMIONKOWSKI
The Savage Made Civilized: An Examination of Ezekiel 16.8 124
6 'Every City shall be Forsaken'
JOHN KESSLER
Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem: Demographic and
Sociological Considerations and the Search for
an Adequate Methodological Point of Departure 137
BEN D. NEFZGER
The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities 159
MARTTI NISSINEN
City as Lofty as Heaven: Arbela and other Cities
in Neo-Assyrian Prophecy 172
JOHN D.w. WATTS

Jerusalem: An Example of War in a Walled City (Isaiah 3-4) 210
Index of References 216

Index of Modern Authors 223
PREFACE
The present volume arises out of the work of the Prophetic Texts and
their Ancient Contexts Group, a Society of Biblical Literature Group
unit founded and chaired by Ehud Ben Zvi. (The two co-editors of the
volume are members of the international steering panel for the Group.)
The papers from the first session organized by PTAC (when it was still
a Consultation, at the 1998 SBL meeting in Orlando) have now been
published in a volume. Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd (eds.),
Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy
(Symposium Series; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) In
that volume Ben Zvi emphasizes that the purpose of the PTAC Group is
to foster dialogue and genuine communication by providing a forum for
the expression of and interaction between a wide variety of approaches.
This second volume (arising from the papers presented at the 1999 SBL
meeting in Boston) exemplifies Ben Zvi's stated purposes, contain-
ing an international set of contributions and a number of different
approaches to the question of urbanism and prophecy.
ABBREVIATIONS
AB Anchor Bible
ABD David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary
(New York: Doubleday, 1992)
ABL R.F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1892-1919)
AfO Archiv fiir Orientforschung
AHw W. von Salen, Akkadisches Handworterbuch, I
ANET James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating
to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1950)
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
ARM Archives Royales de Mari
AV Authorized Version
BARev Biblical Archaeology Review
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BN Biblische Notizen
BZAW BeiheftezurZAW
CAH Cambridge Ancient History
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Monograph Series
ConBOT Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament
CRRA1 Comptes rendus de Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale
CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the Bitish
Museum
El Eretz Israel
FOIL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen
Testaments
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
JANESCU Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia

University
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JBQ Jewish Biblical Quarterly
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JNSL Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Supplement
Series
KAR Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiosen Inhalt
KAV Keilschrifttexte aus Assur verschiedenen Inhalt
MDP Memoires de la delegation en Perse
NCB New Century Bible
NEB New English Bible
NEAEHL E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Achaeological
Excavation in the Holy Land(Jerusalem: The Israel
Exploration Society and Carta; New York: Simon & Schuster,
1993)
NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis
OBT Overtures in Biblical Theology
OLA Orientalia lovanensia analecta
OLP Orientalia lovaniensia periodica
Or Orientalia
OTG Old Testament Guides
OTL Old Testament Library
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
RB Revue biblique
RIMB Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamian (Babylonian Kings)
RLA Reallexicon fur Assyriologie
SAA State Archives of Assyria
SAAS State Archives of Assyria Studies
SBLDS SBL Dissertation Series
SEA Svensk exegetisk drsbok
SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
SOSup Symbolae Osloenses, Supplements
TCS Texts from Cuneiform Sources
TDOT G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological
Dictionary of the Old Testament
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Vetus Testamentum, Supplements
Abbreviations 11
WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen
Testament
YOS Yale Oriental Series
ZAW Zeitschrifi fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZDPV Zeitschrift des deutschen Paldstina-Vereins
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Joseph Blenkinsopp is John A. O'Brien Professor Emeritus at the

University of Notre Dame
The late Robert P. Carroll was Professor of Hebrew Bible and Semitic
Studies at the University of Glasgow
Robert B. Coote is Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco

Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological College
Julie Galambush is Associate Professor of Religion at the College of

William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
Lester L. Grabbe is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the

University of Hull
Robert D. Haak is Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana

College, Rock Island, Illinois
John Kessler is Professor of Old Testament at Tyndale Seminary in

Toronto
S. Tamar Kamionkowski is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at

the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote, Pennsylvania
Ben D. Nefzger is Professor of Sociology at Augustana College, Rock

Island, Illinois
Martti Nissinen is Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of

Finland at the University of Helsinki
John D.W. Watts is retired Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Lester L. Grabbe
1. The Concept of Urbanism/Urbanization

The study of cities and their development has been one important focus
of anthropology from an early period.1 Any library with even a basic
collection on sociology and anthropology is likely to include a sizable
section on urbanism, and a large number of journals relate in some way
to the subject, all the way from Town Planning to Urban Anthropology.
1. The term 'urbanism' is used mainly of city life as a specific social phe-
nomenon, i.e., the study of cities as such. A subtle distinction is sometimes made
between 'urbanism' and 'urbanization', the former being a top-down approach that
investigates city-centered societal processes, schemes of role differentiation, histor-
ical typologies of cities, and the like (i.e. city life as a specific social phenomenon),
while the latter is about movements to cities and modes of settlement (i.e. the pro-
cess of becoming urban). The term 'urban anthropology' tends to be used of studies
and field work carried out in cities. On these terms see, e.g., Alan Barnard and
Jonathan Spencer (eds.) Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
(London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 555-56; Thomas Barfield (ed.), The Dictionary of
Anthropology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997), pp. 479-82; Charlotte Seymour-
Smith, Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 37-
38, 283-84. See also views found in Oscar Lewis, 'Some Perspectives on Urban-
ization with Special Reference to Mexico City', in Aidan Southall (ed.), Urban
Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973), pp. 125-38, especially 125 (revision of 'Further Observation on the
Folk-Urban Continuum and Urbanization with Special Reference to Mexico City',
in Philip M. Hauser and Leo F. Schnore [eds.], The Study of Urbanization [New
York: John Wiley, 1965], pp. 491-517); W.D. McTaggert, 'The Reality of "Urban-
ism"', Pacific Viewpoint 6 (1965), pp. 220-24, especially p. 220 note *; M.G.
Smith, 'Complexity, Size and Urbanization', in Peter J. Ucko, Ruther Tringham,
and G.W. Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (London: Gerald Duck-
worth, 1972), pp. 566-74, especially pp. 568-69; Paul Wheatley, 'The Concept of
Urbanism', in Ucko, Tringham and Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urban-
ism, pp. 601-37, especially p. 623 n. 1.
Already in 1893 Emile Durkheim2 proposed that the city represented a

special environment, but in many ways the pioneer of urban studies was
Friedrich Engels with his studies on the working classes in Manchester
in the nineteenth century.3 Yet both had been anticipated by Adam
Smith, who had already addressed the issue of the city in his Wealth of
Nations.4 Considering Max Weber's voluminous studies, it is hardly
surprising that he investigated the subject in a monograph.5 Weber saw
essential differences between the ancient city, which he characterized as
still being organized along kinship (or pseudo-kinship) lines, and the
medieval city, which was theoretically a community of equals.6
The subject of urbanism covers many different aspects. In exploring
the subject, we need to keep in mind that some doubt exists as to
whether there is such a thing as urban sociology as a separate entity.7
The first question—and one of the most difficult—is the definition of
'urban': what is a city? There follow further questions, such as how
cities and urban areas originated, how they developed over the cen-
turies, the different configurations and structures found in different
regions and periods of history, the relationship to rural areas. It quickly
becomes clear that uniform answers to these questions have not been
given by anthropology; on the contrary, most aspects of urbanism have
been the subject of dispute or at least major differences in interpretation
through the twentieth century, nor is there a consensus now on many
aspects of the question. It is important that biblical scholars be aware
2. The Division of Labour in Society (transl. W.D. Halls, with introduction by

Lewis Coser; Contemporary Social Theory; London: Macmillan, 1984); ET of De la
division du travail social: etudes sur I 'organisation des societes superieures (1893).
3. The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Panther, 1969
[1892]).
4. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (ed. Edwin
Canaan; London: Methuen, 1925 [1776]), book 3, chapters 3-4.
5. The City (trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth; London, 1958) (ET of Die
Stadt [1921]) = Economy and Society (eds. G. Roth and C. Wittich; Berkeley:
University of California, 1978 [1968]), pp. 1212-72.
6. See Grabbe (pp. 98-99 below) for a further discussion.
7. See the discussion by Philip Adams, 'Towns and Economic Growth: Some
Theories and Problems', in Philip Adams and E.A. Wrigley (eds), Towns in Soci-
eties: Essays in Economic History and Historical Sociology (Past and Present
Publications; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 9-33; also, Peter
Saunders, Social Theory and the Urban Question (Hutchinson University Library;
London: Hutchinson; New York: Homes & Meier, 2nd edn, 1986), p. 15.
GRABBE Introduction and Overview 17
that few 'assured results' of anthropological scholarship exist in this

area. Many of the studies on urbanism relate to the modern industrial
city and are thus of limited value for biblical studies—though it should
be noted that biblical scholars have not always recognized this distinc-
tion but have been significantly influenced by studies of the modern
city, which often differs radically from the preindustrial city, especially
the city in the ancient world.
Perhaps one of the most cited studies is that of V.G. Childe.8 Its influ-
ence seems rather surprising, both because it was given in only a short
article and because in many ways it needs a good deal of refinement, as
subsequent studies have shown.9 Yet his criteria are frequently cited by
contemporary writers in discussing urbanism in the ancient world. The
'folk-urban continuum' was a thesis developed by Robert Redfield.10
For post-urban society this posited a dichotomy with the rural on one
side and the urban on the other, though in fact the urban was simply
seen as the opposite of the rural rather than being developed in its own
right. This model has been widely criticized as caricaturing the actual
social realities to be found in real cities and villages, though Redfield
was in fact creating a heuristic abstraction rather than giving the results
of empirical research. A model for the preindustrial city with wide
influence was developed by Gideon Sjoberg.11 He argued that the pre-
industrial city had many common characteristics, whether found in the
ancient, classical, or medieval worlds. Sjoberg has been criticized for
theorizing in the abstract rather than founding his model on primary his-
torical data. Critics have also pointed out that many of the character-
istics he assigns to the preindustrial city also apply equally to traditional
rural society.12
8. 'The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17. See
further pp. 163-64 below for the discussion by Ben Nefzger; cf. also my own
comments (pp. 99-100, 111 below).
9. E.g. see Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism', p. 612; S.W. Miles, 'An
Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns', Southwest Journal of Anthropology 14
(1958), pp. 339-51.
10. The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941);
The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1953); Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
11. The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press;
London: Collier-Macmillan, 1960). See also Ben Nefzger, 'The Sociology of Pre-
industrial Cities', pp. 159-71 (164-66) below.
12. For a critique, see Paul Wheatley, '"What the Greatness of a City Is Said to
Perhaps the most recent major study of the city in history is by Aidan
Southall.13 He uses the model of modes of production to characterize
four types of cities through the ages, each type belonging roughly to a
particular historical time period. These are
A. Asiatic Mode: unity of town and country
B. Ancient Mode: ruralization of the city
C. Feudal Mode: antagonism between town and country
D. Captalist Mode: urbanization of the country
They correspond roughly to the cities in the ancient Near East, the cities
of the classical world (Greece and Rome), medieval cities, and modern
cities. If this model is followed, it has some major implications for how
the city in ancient Israel is studied and characterized.14
2. Summary of Papers
Joseph Blenkinsopp ('Cityscape to Landscape: The "Back to Nature"
Theme in Isaiah 1-35') gives a reflection on a theme found at various
places in Isa. 1-35 (which is conceived of as a literary unit, whatever its
tradition history), that cities will return to a state of nature. The return
to nature is presented both positively and negatively. Recent study
suggests that most urban areas in ancient Israel and Judah were quite
small, though Samaria is likely to be an exception to this view. The
urban socioeconomic elite was only a small group but controlled trade
and luxury goods. The Samaritan ostraca testify that the flow of goods
from rural to urban was a one-way traffic, and the urban elite exploited
their position. The prophetic message contains a critique of the urban
way of life, represented by an anti-urban animus, including the return of
cities to a state of desolation and nature, the fall of Babylon, the un-
named city of Isa. 24-27, and Edom. The biblical story begins in a
garden and ends in a city (including Gen. 1-11 which ends with the
building and overthrow of Babel). The reversal to an original state of
nature is seen positively in Isa. 2 and Hos. 2. A rural Utopia is painted in
Isa. 32.15-20. The wilderness, scrub land, and fertile land are presented
Be": Reflections on Sjoberg's Preindustrial City', Pacific Viewpoint 4 (1963), pp.

163-88.
13. The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998).
14. On this question, see further Grabbe (pp. 106-107 below).
in contrast to the city. This is a scenario very different from the new
Jerusalem, showing that the prophets could envision the future in more
than one way.
Robert Carroll ('City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh: Urban-
scapes in Prophetic Discourses') observes that the city is one of the
main foci of the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Major Prophets. His
paper concentrates on Isa. 24-27 and Jeremiah 7. In Isaiah is a massive
mythicizing of Zion, with the city the focus of many different positive
and negative images. The city of Isa. 24-27 has been interpreted in
many different ways, though it could be any city that one wants to
criticize—a sort of shadow city. In Jer. 7 'this place' seems to vary
between temple, city, and land, perhaps a deliberate ambivalence. The
discourses on the city are meditations on the theme: new Jerusalem
equals old Babylon. This leads to two possible lines of argument for
reading the texts. The first is the 'two cities' route, in which Zion is
contrasted with the 'city of chaos' (this being Babylon or possibly
Nineveh). One can compare Augustine's 'city of God' versus the 'city
of men'. The second line of argument treats the city as part of the
symbolic geography of the Bible. This means that each city is an aspect
of the city of humans, which may be positive or negative at any par-
ticular time. This way of reading Jer. 25 and 27 carries the implication
that Jerusalem is equivalent to Babylon. It is not just a simple di-
chotomy, however, because Ezek. 16 has three cities. The 'city of
chaos' in Isaiah is as much Jerusalem as any other city, and Jerusalem
is the 'faithless city' of Isa. 1.21-26. Isaiah (and the whole Hebrew
Bible) balances this perspective by one of Jerusalem as a transcendental
reality—as a holy city. The same city is both holy and unholy, housing
holy and unholy people together. In conclusion, all cities of the Bible
represent one city, the 'city of men'. The only city of God is Jerusalem,
but it is a very human city. In the Hebrew Bible (unlike the New Testa-
ment) there is no city outside the human sphere.
Robert Coote ('Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel and the
Greater and Lesser Prophets') spends much of his time on the growth of
the Latter Prophets (into 15 'divans', equivalent to the 15 present pro-
phetic books). The divans of the Latter Prophets fall into two distinct
groups distinguished by length (i.e. the Hebrew division of Major and
Minor Prophets). Despite this diversity, both groups share most signi-
ficant features, especially the central message about the salvation of the
central Davidic citadel and the restoration of the Davidic monarchy over
Israel. The prophetic corpus has a dual focus: (a) the fall of Samaria,
with the corresponding deliverance of Jerusalem under Hezekiah; and
(b) the fall of Jerusalem and deportation of the Davidic house, with the
corresponding restoration of the Davidic house and citadel. All the
divans have one or both these foci. Both types of divan use the same
rhetorical argument, in which God's threat to the David citadel is turned
into deliverance, and employ the rhetorical devices of Israel's wrongs
being countered by greater wrongs on the part of the foreign nations,
and of the prophetic drama (in which the prophetic complaint is appro-
priated by the Davidic court because of how it has been punished). This
development in tandem can be illustated by examples, the first com-
paring Hosea and Isa. 2-12 and 28-32, and the second comparing Isa.
2-39 with Micah. Considering the similarities between the structure of
the different divans, what accounts for the difference in length? It may
well be the relationship of the reputed prophetic author to the center of
Davidic power: the authors of the longer divans (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezek-
iel) are all alleged to have a reasonably close relationship, whereas the
prophetic figures in the shorter divans do not. This analysis, in which
the Davidic 'urban' citadel is the only factor, differs from the frequent
suggestion of a distinction by an urban-rural background.
Julia Galambush (This Land Is my Land: On Nature as Property in
the Book of Ezekiel') writes on the nature of nature in Ezekiel, includ-
ing both the land and various 'natural' categories that serve as social
symbols. The concept of land is itself a social construct. With regard to
the first symbol, animals, Ezekiel is consistent in seeing wild animals as
a threat to the social order. There is some distinction between wild and
cultivated plants, but the main concern is whether the plant in question
is under control. Even a vine, if out of control, is a negative symbol.
The land is both a geographical and a political entity, but is especially
seen in human and social terms. The land bears the sins of its inhabi-
tants, sitting in a state of desolation, and the 'bloody city' has been
judged (22.1-12). When the land is restored, this includes both rural and
urban areas. The negative image of the city in the first part of the book
is balanced by a positive image in the second half. The city, like the
land, indicates divine control. The goal of creation is the social order.
Walled cities are favored over the open countryside. Ezekiel has simi-
larities with some of the other prophets in preferring the cultivated (as
does Jeremiah, though Jeremiah has a place for nature in the settled
order; Deutero-Isaiah thinks nature is good if used for human welfare).
Ezekiel is unusual in giving no view of nature other than a utilitarian

and anthropocentric one. The river of Ezek. 47 especially demonstrates
this in originating from the city. Ezekiel reflects the exilic situation and
the dispute over ownership of the land. Yhwh owns all land—but not
the land. The land is presently only a desire of the exiles and is in a
wild state, inhabited only by 'wild animials'. Only when the exiles pos-
sess it will it become the proper cultivated land.
Lester Grabbe ('Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs?') is primarily concerned
about method in applying social scientific insights. Biblical scholars are
too quick to embrace various theories from social and cultural anthro-
pology without exercizing the normal healthy skepticism they would
use for any theory in their own field. When it comes to urbanism, state-
ments are made and conclusions drawn uncritically and contrary to
basic common sense. Archaeology has given us a great deal of informa-
tion about ancient Israelite society. It shows that older estimates about
population size are most likely far too large. Samaria in the Northern
Kingdom and Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom, along with a few
other sites, were the main urban areas. There are many biblical state-
ments about cities and society. These do not indicate the sharp rural/
urban divide that so many scholars assume. The critiques found in the
biblical text often involve cities—Jerusalem, Samaria, Babylon—but
there are few if any that are critiques of cities qua cities. Jerusalem is
criticized along with Judah, Samaria with all Israel, Babylon as pagan
or the enemy of Israel or the enemy of God. When many of the sup-
posed sociological analyses are examined closely, they show rather a
theological critique—often based on modern prejudices and concerns—
rather than a true socio-historical study.
Tamar Kamionkowski ('The Savage Made Civilized: An Examina-
tion of Ezekiel 16.8') considers the imagery of the young woman Jeru-
salem in Ezek. 16 who was originally a foundling with many of the
characteristics of the 'wild child'. The precise meaning of 16.8 has been
much disputed, though many would argue that it contains an explicit
metaphor for sexual intercourse between Yhwh and Jerusalem. Inves-
tigating this question takes much of the article, but it is answered in the
affirmative. However, once the passage is read in this light there is an
interesting parallel with the wild man Enkidu who is tamed by a woman
in the Gilgamesh epic. This taming is done by introducing him to civi-
lized habits such as clothing, washing, anointing, and the pleasures of
sex. This is precisely what Yhwh does with the young woman who has
grown up wild in Ezek. 16. This may reflect Ezekiel's ambiguous

attitudes toward urban life: wealth and high status are bestowed by
Yhwh on Jerusalem, but it is ultimately these that corrupt her. The
period prior to the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital is viewed
as both a time of impurity and a time of alluring innocence. The meta-
phor is better understood against the backdrop of a tale of civilization
rather than one of adoption and marriage. Jerusalem's exposure to
urban life leads to her corruption.
John Kessler ('Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem') begins by survey-
ing various analyses of Judean society in the Persian period, using three
models as a way of grouping the different approaches. His categories
are 'the conflict model' (P.D. Hanson, Morton Smith, R.G. Hamerton-
Kelly, P.R. Bedford, and N.K. Gottwald in one version, seeing the con-
flict as theological or ideological; J.P. Weinberg and H. Kreissig, along
with O. Margalith and R.P. Carroll, present the conflict as economic and
concerned with land tenure; and T.L. Thompson and T.M. Bolin focus
on ethnic, political and theological conflict), the 'populous exilic Yehud
model' (H.M. Barstad, with similarities in E. Janssen, H. Kreissig, and
to some extent E.-M. Laperrousaz), and the 'demographic decline
model' (C.E. Carter and E. Ben Zvi, and M. Broshi to a lesser extent).
The lastmodel which, using a carefully elaborated demographic meth-
odology, sees a sparsely populated Jerusalem in 520 BCE is the most
convincing reconstruction. Furthermore, the situation presupposed in
the text of Haggai corresponds well with the image of an underpopu-
lated, economically deprived Jerusalem. Ben Zvi proposed little literary
activity in Persian I but situated the bulk of it in Persian II. However,
certain factors may attenuate Ben Zvi's caution and suggest that more
literary activity should be allowed for Persian I, not only Persian II.
This might help explain the diversity of biblical literature. In addition,
the text of Haggai itself manifests a wide variety of theological streams
of tradition. The rebuilding of the temple near the beginning of Darius
I's reign by a small, diverse and struggling Judean population facilitated
population growth, economic development and literary output in Jerusa-
lem. Thus, 520-516 BCE may be as critical a moment in the emergence
of Second Temple Judaism as the events of the mid fifth century BCE.
Ben Nefzger ('The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities') is mainly con-
cerned with looking at some recent sociological theories about cities
and urbanism. Noting that there is no classical definition of 'city', he
adopts the definition that defines urbanism as a way of life, that is, the
subculture of persons who reside in cities. Cities developed about 3500

BCE out of three requirements: a surplus of food and other necessities,
an increase in technology, and the rise of forms of social structure other
than family and kinship. The rest of the article is taken up with an
investigation of different theories of city. The first is Gordon Childe
who came up with a list of 10 ways in which cities differ from villages.
Gideon Sjoberg put forward a much more detailed characterization of
preindustrial cities, divided into ecological, economic, and social orga-
nization. Louis Wirth wrote an essay, based on twentieth-century Amer-
ican industrial cities that has been very influential. He argued that cities
led to increasing sophistication and rationality, but this is countered by
the negative effects of depersonalization, substitution of formal for
informal social control, and segmentation in one's personal life. Wirth's
analysis has been widely criticized, not least by Claude Fischer. Fischer
identified three major theories of urbanism. The 'determinist theory' is
based on Wirth and suggests social and personal disorders as a product
of urbanism ('urban anomie'). This theory is widely challenged. The
'compositionalist theory' sees little direct effect of urbanism; rather, the
differences between urban and rural behavior is due to the composition
of the different sub-populations. The 'subcultural theory' (Fischer's
own view) largely follows the compositionalist but argues that the
urbanism does have some disorganizing influence on city dwellers.
Rather than destroying social groups and subcultures (as the determin-
ists believe), the city promotes the emergence of new ones, especially
through the concentration of population. Fischer's theory is impressive
but is based on recent American industrial cities. Although an attempt
has been made by Rodney Stark to apply it to early Christianity, it is
suggested that Fischer's theory is worthy of application as an investiga-
tive and interpretive tool to study ancient Israelite cities.
Martti Nissinen ('City as Lofty as Heaven: Arbela and other Cities in
Neo-Assyrian Prophecy') aims to look at urbanism in a broad per-
spective by locating cities on the 'mental maps' of their inhabitants.
Although there have been many studies of cities as spatial, political,
and social entities, cities also constituted symbolic, theological, and
ideological contructs, which the Neo-Assyrian prophecies help to
document. Arbela was an important center for the goddess Ishtar who
had a major position in the pantheon during the reigns of Esarhaddon
and Ashurbanipal, the city being a focus of the special relationship
between the king and the goddess. Ishtar would sometimes remove
herself to the 'Palace of the Steppe' in Milqia outside Arbela, usually at

a time when the king was at war. Her return to Arbela with him in tri-
umph symbolized victory over the powers of chaos. A number of texts
mention Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela (the four 'doorjambs of
Assyria'); this is not just a list of four cities but actually a synechdoche
for the entire country of Assyria and Esarhaddon's 'eternal' rule over it.
Each of these cities has particular honors and functions, and the god-
dess is manifested in some form at each, but Arbela comes first. Special
attention in the texts is devoted to Babylonia, a subordinate nation at
this time. The gods of Esaggil, the temple of Marduk, appear in the
prophetic texts. Sargon and Sennacherib had treated Babylon badly, but
Esarhaddon embarked on a course of reconciliation which was com-
pleted under Ashurbanipal. Esarhaddon's setting of the substitute king
ritual in Akkad honored that city and was part of the effort to reconcile
the whole of Babylonia to Assyrian rulers. Harran was also especially
honored by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, though it was the source of
an oracle against the former. A Dara-ahuya is also mentioned once in
the prophetic oracles, but little is known about it. The basic view in
Mesopotamia is that cities were where civilized activity took place.
Cities were symbolic of royal power. The prophets are associated with
cities because cities were where temples usually were, but also because
they belonged to the symbolic world of prophecy.
John Watts ('Jerusalem: An Example of War in a Walled City [Isaiah
3-4]') begins by noting the importance of walled cities, of which Jeru-
salem is an example. Isaiah 3-4 gives an excellent picture of Jerusalem
at the time. It describes the internal structures of the city and also its
needs: supplies and personnel. It also describes its weaknesses: incom-
petent rulers, violence and oppression, exploitation of the weak, the
problems of affluence, the breakdown of society as a whole. The book
of Isaiah describes two sieges, of Ahaz in the Syro-Ephraimite war and
of Hezekiah in 701 BCE—both unsuccessful—but is silent about the
siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah. The Persian restoration is men-
tioned in Isa. 49-54, 60, 62. Isaiah 3-4 is a literary unit independent of
the larger book and foreshadows the treatment of Jerusalem in the book
of Isaiah as a whole.
3. Major Themes and Discussion

As will be clear to anyone who has read the papers or even just the
preceding summaries, the studies in this volume take a wide diversity of
approaches. Since it was the intent to allow different ways of tackling

the subject, this variety demonstrates that the subject of urbanism and
prophecy extends far beyond the brief contents of this volume. Never-
theless, a number of themes and topics arise from the papers for treat-
ment from a more holistic perspective. Some of these topics show a
common approach by different writers but, as will soon be clear, what
we sometimes find is sharp disagreement. Although the papers them-
selves do not carry on a debate with one another, this is an opportunity
to create one, or at least to explore the implications of the agreements
and disagreements. Moreover, a proper discussion of the topic requires
that the areas not covered by the papers be also considered: these gaps
ought to be acknowledged and comment made on how discussion of
them might change the picture arising from the papers actually
produced.
4. Theology/Ideology of the City

The most important theme running through these papers—or at least the
one most commented on by contributors—is that of the theology or
ideology of the city. In modern times we tend to think of cities as a
matter of geography, population, building, social and economic struc-
tures, and similar physical characteristics. Many of the scholarly studies
on ancient cities take the same approach and discuss matters of defini-
tion, especially asking whether a particular social or economic structure
is essential or whether a minimum population should be specified.
These concerns receive some attention among the papers of this volume
(cf. Nefzger, Grabbe, Blenkinsopp); for example, Kessler sets out to in-
vestigate the particular characteristics of Jerusalem in the early Persian
period. In examining several different models (proposed mainly by bib-
lical scholars rather than social anthropologists) the question of popula-
tion and literary activity are particularly important, though both these
have social and economic implications, and finally even religious impli-
cations for the development of Judaism. Thus, even Kessler does not
confine himself just to a physical or social description of the city. The
concentration of most other writers who discuss the question is on the
idea that a city can entail much more than the physical and literal
aspects. Cities are not just physical entities but constructs of the human
mind. Cities are part of a 'mental map' created by their inhabitants and
others (Nissinen), a part of the 'symbolic geography' of the ancient
writers (Carroll). This takes us quickly away from populations and

architecture into the deep waters of theology, ideology, anthropology,
cosmology, and mythology.
Space is one of the fundamental concepts of the mythical worlds
found widely in religion, beliefs, and worldviews. Sacred space is per-
haps the first and most obvious concept to come to mind, but the ques-
tion goes much wider than that, encompassing the cosmological word-
view underlying this idea of symbolic space and mythical geography.
Anthropologists have written a good deal on cosmology, the assumption
being that the cosmological views of preindustrial peoples (but not only
them) determines to a lesser or greater extent their societal structures
and their interpretation of the world.15 At the most basic level, religious
rites may be carried out in a space marked off by taboos about who may
enter it and under what conditions because this space in some way
symbolizes the divine realm.16 Temples, priests, ritual purity, sacrifice,
and cults are ubiquitous.
5. The Ideal of Jerusalem

Jerusalem has long ceased to be just an obscure settlement of people in
an out-of-the-way site in the Judean hill country, constituting the Pales-
tinian grid reference 172131 on the atlas. We are all aware that thou-
sands of lives may be sacrificed for a few yards of shell-pitted, mud-
churned wasteland on the battlefield, but few cities in history have
exercised such an enormous symbolic and ideological hold over such a
multitude of people as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not just a city but a
religious idea, and the same applies to some other cities mentioned in
the Hebrew Bible. God has his dwelling there. The temple mount forms
15. On cosmology, some relevant studies are Kees W. Bolle, 'Cosmology: An

Overview', in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Religion (New York:
Macmillan, 1987), IV, pp. 100-107; Claude Levi-Strauss, Mythologiques: Introduc-
tion to a Science of Mythology (4 vols.; New York: Harper and Row, 1969-81) (ET
of Mythologique [1964-71]); Fredrik Earth, Cosmologies in the Making: A Genera-
tive Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea (Cambridge Studies in
Social Anthropology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
16. See, e.g., Seth D. Kunin, God's Place in the World: Sacred Space and
Sacred Place in Judaism (Cassell Religious Studies; London: Cassell, 1998); see
also the discussion and bibliography in my Judaic Religion in the Second Temple
Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000),
pp. 129-35.
a nexus between earth and heaven. God has placed his name on that site
and no other. The Jerusalem below is only the mundane representation
of the Jerusalem above, a Jerusalem described in various early Jewish
texts (2 Bar. 4.2-4; 4 Ezra 7.26; 13.36; cf. Rev. 21.10-27; Tob. 13.16-
18; 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q554-55, 5Q15, 11Q1817), though not in the Hebrew
Bible (but cf. Ezek. 40^8).18
It is therefore surprising that the subject of Zion and Zion theology
did not receive extensive treatment from any of the contributors (though
Carroll alludes to it, and Grabbe takes it up at somewhat greater length),
but it is one that has been widely debated within scholarship on biblical
prophets. Many scholars once subscribed to the view that belief in the
inviolability of Zion was not only widely held during the last century or
so of the kingdom of Judah but was even proclaimed by no less a figure
than Isaiah himself. This view has been challenged but the issue is
hardly settled.19 Regardless of Isaiah's views on the subject, most
would accept that there were circles or at least individuals during the
eighth and seventh centuries BCE who held to the concept that Zion
as the seat of God's throne would be divinely protected against all
attackers, with God as the divine warrior fighting on their side against
their enemies. If there was a Zion tradition, however, it would affect
how people looked at Jerusalem. Holders of the belief in the inviola-
bility of Zion are not likely to be criticizing the city in a fundamental
way. This is not to suggest that such believers may not have also
thought that there were problems to be solved and wrongs to be righted.
Although not treating the Zion tradition as such, a number of the
17. On these texts from Qumran, see Michael Chyutin, The New Jerusalem
Scroll from Qumran: A Comprehensive Reconstruction (JSPSup, 25; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).
18. C.T.R. Hay ward, The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook (London:
Routledge, 1996).
19. The interpretation has been strongly opposed by, e.g., Ronald Clements in
such writings as Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem: A Study of the Inter-
pretation of Prophecy in the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press,
1980) and his commentary Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). He acknowledges dependence on the literary
analysis of Hermann Barth (Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit [WMANT, 48;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1977]) for deciding which words in the
book of Isaiah can be assigned to Isaiah of Jerusalem and what is likely to be later
addition. Clements has been criticized byJ.J.M. Roberts; see his review of Clements
in JBL 101 (1982), pp. 442-44.
contributors deal specifically with Jerusalem as a theological entity.

Kasmionkowski shows how Jerusalem, in the guise of a young woman
first rescued by and then espoused to Yhwh, is depicted from a theo-
logical perspective. The 'David citadel' (Coote) is not just a fortress but
a national institution which ultimately connects with the divine as the
location of a sacred omphalos and the place which God himself chose
by a divine sign (cf. 2 Sam. 24.16-25). Such examples show a strong
theological dimension that goes beyond Jerusalem as one city among
many in the ancient world. As will also be discussed below, the whole
of idea of the city as the environment of civilization is an ideological
concept that transforms the mundane settlement of a group of people in
a particular place.
6. The Development of Scripture

Two writers address the question of how the topic of the urban center
has implications for the growth of the prophetic corpus (Coote) or even
the development of Scripture in general (Kessler). Coote suggests that
the length of prophetic writings ('divans') is specifically determined by
how close the (alleged) authors/prophets were to the central Davidic cit-
adel. In other words, those prophets who supposedly had close relations
with the Jerusalem monarchy, with its Davidic king, were accorded
large books, whereas those who had no such ostensible connection
received only 'minor' status. The matter is not quite this simple, as he
makes clear, since the prophetic corpus had a complex development,
but in broad terms this characterization seems plausible.
Similarly, Kessler asks how the population of Jerusalem may have
affected literary activity. The number of 'literati' and the economic sup-
port they received would have been essential to the ability to produce
literature, especially with regard to recording and developing the
religious tradition. The number of literati would have been small in any
case,20 though Kessler is right to note that not all such individuals
20. Kessler cites Ehud Ben Zvi, 'The Urban Center of Jerusalem and the
Development of the Literature of the Hebrew Bible', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A.
Mirau, and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Aspects ofUrbanism in Antiquity from Meso-
potamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp.
194-209. Cf. also my discussion of those undertaking the composition of literature
in Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Spe-
cialists in Ancient Israel (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), pp.
198-200,217-21.
would have been in Jerusalem. In his opinion a small but important

corpus of texts arose in the early Persian period (Persian I), followed by
a larger number in the later period (Persian II). The vicissitudes experi-
enced by Jerusalem were a major factor in the writing and editing of
these literary texts, many of which eventually ended up as a part of the
Hebrew canon.
7. What Is a City?
In most of the papers here, there is very little discussion of definition:
what is a city? Most comment is given by Nefzger who surveys some of
the main theories about city origin and development among
preindustrial cities (cf. also Grabbe, though I admittedly discuss the
question only as it relates to my larger aim). Netzger demonstrates that
ideas about the cities have changed considerably since the writing of
classic definitions like those of Gordon Childe and Louis Wirth.21 What
becomes clear is that—despite not including a formal discussion of
definition—most of the contributors are working with some sort of
underlying assumption about what a city is, without stating it explicitly.
As will become obvious in the discussion below, these unstated but
very real presuppositions about cities do affect some of the conclusions
reached by several contributors. Did ancient Israel and Judah really
have cities? If so, how many? How big? How were they organized? The
model of the city presupposed—but often undeclared—by many schol-
ars is one of the main points of my own paper.
This lack of discussion is understandable because most contributors
want to get on with investigation of the topic at hand without wasting a
lot of time on issues that may be difficult to resolve, anyway. Yet the
very intractability of the question concerning what constitutes a city in
ancient Israel should give a clear signal that we cannot work as if the
matter is settled. We cannot assume a particular model without further
discussion. One can rightly object that since there is still a major
anthropological debate on the definition of city, biblical scholars can
hardly hope to resolve the question. This is perfectly true and immi-
nently reasonable, but this simply means that we cannot operate with an
agreed definition because none exists. What becomes evident is that
21. See also Grabbe (pp. 95-123 below) for a critique of some of these writers
and other bibliography not mentioned by Nefzger. However, Nefzger's article and
mine are complementary in that he covers some material not mentioned by me.
many scholars who write in this area are also unaware of the state of
debate among anthropologists. Biblical scholars cannot start from a
consensus because there isn't one.
8. A Rural Critique of the City?

The question of definition quickly leads us to another main issue: how
we are to understand the city in its context. Biblical scholars have not
infrequently operated with an explicit or implicit model of the 'con-
sumer city' (cf. Blenkinsopp). The concept of a city that extracts the
agricultural surplus and consumes it has a long history, going back at
least to Max Weber.22 According to Weber, there were three ideal types
of city: the consumer city, the producer city, and the merchant city
(though he also noted that most cities would represent mixed types).
This model was accepted and reinforced by the classical scholar Moses
Finley.23 The concept has now been investigated further by classical
scholars,24 including a symposium devoted to the question: Roman
Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City.25 As so often, a core truth can
easily be distorted unless some major qualifications are added to the
conceptualization. Cities did not just consume; they created the eco-
nomic stimulation and the markets which meant that the peasants also
benefited from the presence of the city. We should also not forget that
the country people took up produce (or money to buy consumables) to
Jerusalem for their families and themselves to consume during the
annual festivals.
A number of the contributors talked about a dichotomy between
22. The City (n. 5 above).

23. The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond',
Comparative Studies in Society and History19 (1977), pp. 305-27; reprinted in
Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (ed. with introduction by Brent D.
Shaw and Richard P. Sailer; London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), pp. 3-23; The
Ancient Economy (London: Hogarth Press, 2nd edn, 1985), pp. 123-41.
24. See the essays in John Rich and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and
Country in the Ancient World (Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society;
London: Routledge, 1991), especially by Robin Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill. Note
also the remarks of Keith Hopkins, 'Economic Growth and Towns in Classical
Antiquity', in Philip Abrams and E. A. Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies, pp. 35-
77, especially pp. 72-75.
25. Helen M. Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City
(London: Routledge, 1997). Note especially the sub-title of the volume.
urban and rural, or urban/rural mentality, or critique of the urban or

something similar (Galambush, Kamionkowski, Nissinen, cf. Coote);
however, the best illustration of the differences of approach can be seen
by comparing Blenkinsopp and Grabbe. Both of us looked at some of
the same passages but with a rather different interpretation in some
cases. Blenkinsopp's overall view is that (some of) the prophets critique
from a rural perspective and mentality which is suspicious of the urban.
I argue that most of these passages are either not such a critique or that
they are capable of another interpretation.
This disagreement is hardly surprising because such a dichotomy
between rural/urban has been assumed by some older sociological and
anthropological works. For example, Marx and Engels had seen town
and country as having separate and opposed interests.26 Nevertheless,
this idea has been considerably criticized in recent studies. The ambiva-
lent attitude to the urban environment is mirrored in some of our liter-
ary sources,27 Among classical writers, Varro can speak of a moral
distinction between 'rustics' and 'urbanites' (Rerum rusticarum 2.1.1),
while Cicero castigated the luxury of urban living in contrast to the
morally superior life in the country (Pro Roscio Aermino 75).28 We
must read these in context, however, for the very life pronounced deca-
dent was also the life lived by the writers themselves—at least, part of
the time—for life in the city was an important part of their lives. The
other side of the coin is treating urban life as civilized and cultivated,
with comparison of the crude and unrefined rustic life (hence, 'urbanity'
as a compliment, and 'rustic' as a term of opprobrium). The country
elite were usually willing to spend money to make their villas as refined
and luxurious as anything in the city.
Most recent study has emphasized that there was generally no sharp
urban/rural distinction in antiquity. Indeed, Adam Smith had already
26. The German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938), p. 8; ET of Die
deutsche Ideologic (1845-46). They state, 'The division of labour inside a nation
leads at first to the separation of industrial and commercial from agricultural labour,
and hence to the separation of town and country and to the conflict of their
interests.'
27. For a discussion of the subject in English literature, see Raymond Williams,
The Country and the City (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993).
28. For a brief survey of some of the different attitudes among Roman writers,
see Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and Wallace-
Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 244-49.
expressed the view that the relationship of town and country was
'mutual and reciprocal'.29 The general view is that the opposition arose
with regard to medieval cities.30 Already Weber had stated, 'the associ-
ational character of the city and the concept of a burgher (as contrasted
to the man from the countryside) never developed at all or existed only
in rudiments.'31 The wealth of the elite was not based on commerce and
capitalistic enterprises but came primarily from the land.32 The concept
of an urban elite—in opposition to a rural elite—comes from the model
of the medieval city, whereas the elite in antiquity was undifferentiated,
dividing its time between the estates from which it obtained its wealth
and the political activities that tended to be conducted in the city.33
Many of our data are derived from the Greek and Roman context but,
if anything, the ancient Near Eastern situation held together the urban
and rural even more tightly.34 In the context of ancient Israel and Judah,
with only a few genuine urban areas, the situation was unlikely to be
any different. Capital cities of necessity housed the main administrative
apparatus, with the bureaucrats living off the taxes collected by the
state. Similarly, the temple and cult were funded by tithes and offerings
from the people, with the priests forming one of the few specialized
divisions of labor. As the seat of both government and religious leader-
ship, Jerusalem would have been open to any criticisms concerning
either of these spheres. Nevertheless, the concept of significant rural/
urban alienation does not fit either what is known from other areas of
the ancient Near East nor the primary data.
My critique receives support from several of the papers in this col-
lection. Coote's study suggested that the differences between the vari-
ous books ('divans') of the prophetic corpus was to do with proximity
29. An Inquiry, book 3, chapters 3-4.

30. See Grabbe (pp. 103-107 below) for further discussion.
31. Economy and Society, p. 1227 (= The City, p. 81); see in general his
comments on pp. 1217-18 and 1226-34.
32. Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1217-18; Finley, The Ancient Economy,
pp. 52-60, 188-91. This is not to say that trade and commerce played no role in the
wealth of the elites; see the essays of Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill in Rich and
Wallace Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World; Helen M. Parkins,
'The "Consumer City" Domesticated? The Roman City in Elite Economic Strate-
gies', in Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism, pp. 83-111.
33. On this, see further the discussion in Grabbe (pp. 107-108 below).
34. See especially the model and discussion in Southall, The City in Time and
Space, pp. 15-17,23-53.
to the Davidic citadel, a different concept from a rural/urban critique.

Galambush makes the point that both the destruction and the restoration
of the land includes the rural as well as the urban areas. Kamionkowski
concludes that, according to Ezek. 16, urban life eventually leads to
corruption; however, as will be noted below, the corruption comes from
civilization—since what Jerusalem receives is not exclusively urban but
also to be found in the countryside. In other words, the division is not
between urban and rural but between rural/urban and wild; civiliation
encompasses rural as well as urban but is opposed to the uncultivated.
This important distinction between the civilized and the wild or
wilderness is noted by several contributors (Blenkinsopp, Galambush,
Kamionkowski, Grabbe). This is a basic mental concept that anthropol-
ogists have found in many different cultures around the world. It is
found in ancient Mesopotamia, as well as many modern preindustrial
societies.35 This is not, as just noted, a division between urban and
rural, as some writers have suggested; on the contrary, the rural and
agrarian are part of the same entity, the civilized. The difference is
between cultivated and uncultivated, but not between urban and rural.
Therefore, when Jer. 2 and Hosea speak of the wilderness tradition, this
is not a critique of the urban in opposition to the rural.
9. Conclusions: Anthropology or Theology?

However, to return to the more important issues, my main point has not
been whether some passages may show a rural/urban critique or con-
trast as Blenkinsopp and others argue. This was only an example on
which to focus methodological comments and criticisms. Undoubtedly,
there were considerable differences of approach and attitude among the
prophets (even if 'the prophet' is still too often seen to represent an un-
differentiated group36), and I am willing to accept that some prophets
might have attacked the city as entity in its own right. I have not yet
seen it demonstrated, but it is theoretically possible. (Readers will no
doubt make up their own minds after reading and comparing the two
articles.) My point was really different, though, focusing on the
fundamental question of methodology and involving the following
related challenges to current scholarship.
35. For documentation, see Grabbe (pp. 114-15 and nn. 68-69).
36. See my comments in Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, pp. 98-118.
(a) Scholars need to be clear about the presuppositions on which they

work. If one has a particular view about what a city is, that needs to be
stated, yet writers operate with an unstated presupposition that predeter-
mines their conclusions to a lesser or greater extent. One cannot assume
a rural/urban dichotomy in ancient Israel; it has to be demonstrated. The
problem is that many scholars assume such a scenario without actually
trying to address the issue; indeed, one wonders if they even recognize
it. The mere existence of cities (although there were probably very few,
by any definition, in ancient Israel) does not allow one to assume a
sharp rural/urban division nor a number of the other presuppositions
about Israelite society that so often seem to go with it.
(b) What many scholars label 'sociological analysis' is nothing more
than an exercise in theological judgment and even an exercise in mod-
ern concerns rising out of preoccupations of the 1960s liberal challenge
to the establishment. Thus, ancient Israelite society has imposed on it
such models as rich/poor = oppressor/oppressed or urban = bad/rural =
good. It is not my purpose to argue whether these concepts are defend-
able in modern theological discussion but whether they are justifiable
presuppositions on which to discuss Israelite society. I argue that they
are not and that they should be recogized for what they are. They are
certainly not a legitimate application of the social sciences to under-
standing the society of Palestine in the first millennium BCE.
Coming to grips with an ancient society by the correct application of
social scientific methodology is hard enough in its own right. The last
thing we need is for theological wolves in the guise of sociological
lambs trying to convince us that granny had big teeth and a long, hairy
snout all along. This is in no way to denigrate theological study of the
texts nor to dismiss those who devote themselves to the hermeneutical
task of trying to apply ancient texts to the contemporary situation. But
theological analysis is theology, and hermeneutics is hermeneutics:
neither is sociological analysis, and neither can provide historical con-
clusions. Several of the papers in this volume provide very helpful theo-
logical or ideological studies. These can be used in the socio-historical
task, but they are not a substitute for it.
CITYSCAPE TO LANDSCAPE:
THE 'BACK TO NATURE' THEME IN ISAIAH 1-35
Joseph Blenkinsopp
Von diesen Stadten wird bleiben was durch sie hindurchging, der Wind.
1
(Bertold Brecht: Vom armen b.b.)
The purpose of this paper is to invite reflection on a theme of frequent

occurrence in Isaiah, but one less frequently discussed. Several pas-
sages in Isa. 1-35 predict that particular cities, or an anonymous city, or
cities in general, will go back to nature, will be depopulated and
become a habitat for wild animals. This scenario is presented both nega-
tively and positively, that is, either as the outcome of divine judgment
or as a Utopian ideal. Correspondingly, nature can be seen as either unfit
for human habitation or as the ideal environment and the antithesis of
the city. The discussion does not require us to settle questions of author-
ship or authenticity. Some of the passages to be discussed may well
have been spoken or written by an eighth-century BCE polemicist called
Isaiah, but it will be enough for our purposes to assume that chs. 1-35
have enough inner consistency to be read as a text, and that it is
reasonable to take this text as the product of a cumulative and incre-
mental interpretative process within a particular tradition, however
broadly defined.
Before taking a look at this text, we must take note of the social and
political situation that generated the literature of social protest which
the biblical texts attribute to Amos, Micah and Isaiah and date to the
eighth century BCE. The view is now widely shared that, notwithstand-
ing the biblical description of a highly developed state system at the
time of David and Solomon, the two Israelite kingdoms only reached
a degree of political organization and developed an administrative
1. 'Of these cities there will remain only that which passed through them, the
wind.'
apparatus appropriate to a nation state about two centuries later.2 This is

arguably the case with Judah, but for Israel it ignores the achievements
of the Omri dynasty in the first half of the ninth century. These included
the foundation of a new capital city, the establishment of close com-
mercial ties with the Phoenician cities, territorial expansion east of the
Jordan, a peace settlement with Judah which may have been for a while
a vassal of Israel, and a significant contribution to halting the western
progress of the Assyrians at Qarqar in 853. Also, Omri has the distinc-
tion of being the first Israelite whose name unquestionably appears in
monumental texts from outside the two kingdoms (the Black Obelisk of
Shalmaneser III and the Mesha stele). In the context of that time and
place, Israel therefore qualifies as a state comparable to others in the
Syro-Palestinian corridor. Relevant to our discussion are the indications
in the texts and the archaeological record of considerable urban devel-
opment at that time. Samaria was built from scratch as a new capital by
Omri, and other urban centers were expanded, including Razor (stratum
VIII), Dan (strata III and II) and Megiddo (stratum IVa).3 In the follow-
ing century, apparently during the reign of Hezekiah, Jerusalem under-
went a comparable expansion, with the occupation of the western hill
which came to be known as the mishneh or Second City (2 Kgs 22.14;
Zeph. 1.10), and defensive measures including a new wall and the
Siloam tunnel to secure the city's water supply.4 That is as far as the
2. The minimalists who reject the biblical accounts of the United Monarchy
have been vigorously opposed by W.G. Dever. The most recent of his statements at
the time of writing is 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State,'
in W.E. Aufrecht et al. (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity from Mesopotamia to Crete
(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), pp. 172-93.
3. On the Omri dynasty generally see G.W. Ahlstrom, The History of Ancient
Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2nd edn, 1994), pp. 569-606 and J. Blenk-
insopp, 'Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah: The Syro-Palestinian Corridor in
the Ninth Century', in J.M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East II
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995), pp. 1309-19. On the individual sites
see the relevant articles in E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological
Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society & Carta;
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
4. It is widely assumed that the expansion was in part due to an influx of
refugees from the former Kingdom of Samaria, now divided up into four Assyrian
provinces, and perhaps also from those parts of Judah handed over to the city states
of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza after the collapse of Hezekiah's rebellion against Sen-
nacherib (ANET, p. 288). See M. Broshi, 'The Expansion of Jerusalem in the Reign
of Hezekiah and Manasseh', IEJ 24 (1974), pp. 21-26; A.D. Tushingham, The
BLENKINSOPP Cityscape to Landscape 37
archaeological data, always subject to revision as they are, can take us.
When we use the language of urban development with reference to
the ninth or eighth century BCE Israelite kingdoms we need to qualify it
with an informed sense of the social realities of that time and place.
Most of the 150 or so 'cities' of Judah (inclusive of Simeon and Ben-
jamin) in the Joshua lists (15.1-63; 18.11-28; 19.1-9) were no more than
farmsteads or hamlets measuring a few thousand square meters maxi-
mum and with no more than a hundred or so residents.5 At the other
end of the spectrum are administrative centers in which most of the
space would be occupied by palaces, temples, fortifications and storage
areas. Sargon II claimed to have deported 27,290 individuals from
Samaria after the conquest of that city (ANET, p. 284), but if Crowfoot
was even close in calculating the size of the city as no more than 75
dunams (i.e. 7.5 hectares) the numbers are either greatly exaggerated, or
have been incorrectly transcribed (perhaps originally 2729), or repre-
sent population drawn from the surrounding countryside. In any case,
excavation was limited to the royal enclosure on the summit of the hill.
Even on a major site like Hazor, not a royal city, most of the area was
covered with administrative buildings and storage facilities with rela-
tively little evidence of private residential quarters. Much of the walled
area in Samaria and Jerusalem, the principal targets of prophetic
diatribe, would have been occupied by palaces, temples, public build-
ings, and residences for court and temple personnel, merchants, crafts-
men, and others parasitic in one way or another on the court, in addition
of course to a great deal of space for storage, stabling and the like.
The urban socioeconomic elite, constituting only a minuscule per-
centage of the total population, controlled trade and monopolized
Western Hill under the Monarchy', ZDPV95 (1979), pp. 39-55; N. Avigad, Discov-
ering Jerusalem (Nashville, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1980), pp. 31-60.
5. The survey of the Judean hill country carried out by A. Ofer over an area of
about 900 sq.km. south of Jerusalem came up with 235 inhabited sites of 1000
sq.m. or more and an estimated total population of 23,000 in Iron IIC (eighth
century); see A, Ofer, 'Judean Hills Survey', in E. Stern et al. (eds.) NEAEHL, III,
pp. 815-16. Population estimates for Israelite Iron Age sites are notoriously specu-
lative due to the predilection of archeologists working in these regions for monu-
mental architecture and the relative absence of adequate floor plans. One exception
is Iron II Tell en-Nasbeh (Mizpah), a mid-size site, with an estimated population of
1,000 maximum; see J.R. Zorn, 'Estimating the Population Size of Ancient Settle-
ments: Methods, Problems, Solutions and a Case History', BASOR 295 (1994), pp.
31-48.
luxury items. We get some idea of the quantity and quality of such
goods during the Neo-Assyrian period from accounts of tribute paid to
the imperial power, luxury items inventoried in Assyrian records (gold
and silver, ivory products, boxwood, precious garments, purple-dyed
woolen goods, etc.), and denunciations in prophetic books. The archaeo-
logical contribution is meager, understandably so since anything of
value has been targeted by thieves ancient and modern. The Samaria
ivories, discovered in fragmentary condition in the excavation of 1908-
1910, provide a rare glimpse into the lifestyle at the Samarian court in
the ninth and eighth centuries, and recall Amos's denunciation of the
idle rich lying on beds inlaid with ivory (Amos 6.4) and Ahab's 'ivory
house' (1 Kgs 22.S9).6 The Samaria ostraca, apparently used to label
shipments of oil and wine from different villages and farms in the
Samarian countryside to the court, provide an equally rare illustration
of the symbiotic relationship between city and countryside.7 In a society
in which wealth circulated equitably through the population as a whole
(if that has ever happened), the city-countryside relationship would be
mutually beneficial, but the ostraca testify to a one-way flow of goods
from the countryside to the city. It seems that the urban monopoly of
disposable wealth, of education, and especially of literacy, proved to be
an irresistible temptation to exploit the relationship. Prophetic denunci-
ations give a fair idea of the various ways in which this was being done:
excessive taxation and payment of tribute in kind, confiscation of land
for insolvency, forced labor, indentured service to amortize debt, and
(perhaps worst of all) the manipulation of a centralized judicial system
which was gradually taking over functions hitherto entrusted to tribal
elders. As defenders of a traditional and basically illiterate peasant way
of life, the eighth-century prophets were also aware of writing as an
instrument of control and oppression; witness Isaiah's condemnation of
6. On the ivories see J.W. Crowfoot and Grace M. Crowfoot, Early Ivories
from Samaria (Samaria Sebaste 2) (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1938);
N. Avigad, 'Samaria', NEAEHL IV, pp. 1304-1306. On luxury items in general
A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-586 BCE (New York:
Doubleday, 1990), pp. 503-14 and D.W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in
Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archeological Approach (Sheffield: Almond Press,
1991). The demand for ivory goods explains why the Syrian elephant was hunted to
extinction by the seventh century BCE.
7. For the ostraca see the bibliography in Avigad, 'Samaria', p. 1310. The jux-
taposition of old, tribal place names with others of a different kind may indicate the
gradual replacement of traditional tribal structures with those of the state.
those who issue wicked decrees and draft oppressive regulations (Isa.
10.1) and Jeremiah's tirade against the false pen of legal scribes who
were turning the law into a lie (Jer. 8.8). I take the latter to include
manipulating the law for their own purposes.
The denunciations in Isa. 1-35, Amos and Micah are not, however,
limited to matters of social injustice or obviously immoral conduct.
They include such activities as lying on beds inlaid with ivory, listening
to recreational music and, with respect to women, walking with minc-
ing steps (Amos 6.1-7; Isa. 3.16-26). While these do not in themselves
constitute serious infractions of the social order, they exemplified for
the writers a characteristically corrupt urban way of life. This form of
prophetic 'culture hostility' (Max Weber) was rooted in the deliberate
primitivism of such groups as Nazirites and Rechabites who eschewed
alcoholic drinks, the grooming that they took to be characteristic of
urban living and, in the case of the Rechabites, even living in houses.8
Whatever designation is considered appropriate for Isaiah and the
others (prophet? poet? polemicist? dissident intellectual?), there are
fairly clear indications that they stand within the nebiistic tradition of
these 'primitives',9 and that this tradition has helped to form their atti-
tude to city living.
In Isa. 1-35 one of the forms in which anti-urban animus is expressed
is the prediction that the city will return to nature. Its inhabitants will be
slaughtered or, if lucky, deported, and it will be turned into pastureland
for sheep (5.17), cattle (27.11), and wild donkeys (32.14). In the vision
of the heavenly throne room, the seer hears that cities will lie deserted
without inhabitants, houses without occupants, and the land will be left
a desolation (6.11). The picture is filled in later:
On the soil of my people
thorns and briers spring up,10
in every happy home,
8. On Nazirites see Judg. 13-16; Num. 6.1-21; 1 Sam. 1.11 in the longer
version reconstructed from LXXB and 4QSama. Rechabites: 2 Kgs 10.15-16; Jer.
35.1-19.
9. Hos. 9.7-8; 12.10; Amos 2.11 in which nebi'im are linked with nezirim.
Perhaps the frequent denunciation of drunkenness in the four prophetic books under
consideration is a faint echo of the rejection of alcohol by both Nazirites and
Rechabites.
10. Thorns and briars' (qos veSdmtr) is a recurrent topos wherever ecologica
degradation is an issue in these chapters (5.6; 7.23-25; 9.17; 10.17; 27.4).
and in the bustling town;

for the palace is abandoned,
the city once crowded is deserted,
the citadel and watchtower have become open fields for ever,
the joy of wild asses,
pasture for flocks ... (32.13-14)11
The contemplation of the prehistoric ruins scattered around the land, an

object of ethnological curiosity for a Deuteronomic scholiast (Deut.
2.10-12, 20-23; 3.11), served to drive home the same lesson (17.9). In
Isaiah, however, the mood is not elegiac and the scene invoked is noth-
ing like a Poussin landscape or Goldsmith's deserted village. There is
nothing elegiac about Sodom and Gomorrah either. The tradition of the
destruction of the twin cities, one of the few native historical traditions
to appear in these chapters, also served to make the same point (1.9-10;
13.19).
The image is deployed at greater length and with more detail in the
massa' babel (13.1-22), the first of the nine massadt in chs. 13-23. The
relevant passage reads as follows:
Babylon, most glorious of kingdoms,
the proud splendor of the Chaldeans
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when overthrown by God.
Never will it be inhabited
nor settled for ages to come,
no Arab will bivouac there,
no shepherd tend his flock,
but wild cats will have their lairs there,
owls make their nests in the houses;
ostriches will dwell there,
there satyrs will dance;
hyenas will howl in its forts,
jackals in its pleasant palaces.
Its appointed time is at hand
with not many days to wait (13.19-22).12
11. All translations are taken from my Anchor Bible commentary, Isaiah 1-39:
A New Translation with Introduction with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 14;
New York: Doubleday, 2000).
12. There is some uncertainty about the animal taxonomy in this and similar
passages. With respect to the siyyim and 'ohim, translated 'wild cats' and 'owls'
above, NRSV plays it safe with 'wild animals' and 'howling creatures' respectively
while M. Gorg, ' "Damonen statt "Eulen" in Jes. 13, 21', BN 62 (1992), pp. 16-17,
BLENKINSOPP City scape to Landscape 41
Similar threats are aimed at an unnamed city in the next section of the
book (chs. 24-27). Exegetes have expended a great deal of energy in
attempting to identify this anonymous city and date its destruction, the
attempts ranging from the Neo-Assyrian to the Hasmonean period. The
issue will not be discussed here, but on the assumption of a connection
between chs. 13-23 and 24-27, the latter may be read as a kind of uni-
versalizing and eschatologizing commentary on the named cities in chs.
13-23 among which Babylon is pre-eminent. The anonymous city may
therefore be taken to be a paradigmatic, emblematic, and symbolic
Babylon.
As symbol of the evil empire par excellence, Babylon was in the
course of time replaced by Edom, which served as a cryptogram for
Rome in Jewish texts from late antiquity, for example, the Mekilta of R.
Ishmael and the Targum on Isa. 34.9 ('the streams of Rome will be
turned into pitch'). So when he comes to Edom, the Isaian author pulls
out all the stops.
Yahweh has a day of vengeance,
a year of reckoning for Zion's complaint.
The streams of Edom will be turned into pitch,
her soil into brimstone,
her land will be burning pitch,
night and day it will burn unquenched,
its smoke will go up for ever.
From age to age the land will lie waste,
never again will people pass through it.
The hawk and the hedgehog will claim it as their own,
owl and raven will make it their abode ...
Thorns will spring up in her palaces,
nettles and thistles in her forts;
it will become the haunt of jackals,
the abode of ostriches;
proposed 'demons' for 'ohim, though the context seems to require an animal
species, and demons don't usually make nests. George Buchanan Gray, A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah I-XXVII (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1912), p. 237, suggested more colourfully 'yelpers' and 'shriekers'. Some
commentators prefer to translate se'lrim more prosaically as 'goats' rather than
'goat demons/satyrs' but dancing, while in order for satyrs, would be an unusual
activity for goats. A scribal annotation to the poem (14.22-23) adds the qippod,
probably 'hedgehog' as Ibn Ezra and Modern Hebrew, rather than 'porcupine'
(Bishop Lowth), 'bustard' (NEB), 'screech owl' (NRSV), or 'bittern' (AV).
wild cats will gather with hyenas,

the satyr will call to his mate,
there too Lilith will alight,
there find a place for herself;
there the owl will nest,
lay her eggs, hatch them, and give them shelter;
there too the kites will gather,
not one without its mate (34.8-11, 13-15).
The situation, then, is that all elements—earth, water, and air—are thor-
oughly polluted, resulting in a total ecological disaster. The soil is
soaked in blood, animal fat, and burning pitch. The land is uninhabited
and rendered uninhabitable by human beings. The only land animals are
hedgehogs and jackals and, significantly, all winged creatures men-
tioned are ritually unclean.13 The satyrs that we left dancing on the site
of ruined Babylon are here accompanied by Lilith, well known in
Jewish folklore as Adam's first wife, the dark shadow of the Queen of
Sheba, a winged female incubus, and a mortal danger for women in
childbirth and men who sleep alone.14 She is here installed as queen of
this spooky realm of death in place of the king and princes who ruled in
the city and are no more to be found (v. 12).
Those with an eye trained to detect the more subtle intertextual clues
may pick up a hint to another level of meaning in 34.1 Ib omitted from
the translation given above. It reads: 'Yahweh has stretched over it
(Edom) the measuring line of chaos (qav-tohu) and the stones of tur-
moil ('abne-bdhtiy. The language is identical with the rhetorical
questions Job could only answer with silence—Who stretched the line
over it? Who laid the cornerstone of the world? Tell me if you are so
clever! (Job 38.5-6). This is creation language, and the implication is
that Yahweh is engaged in a work of uncreation. As life forms were
created for all three environments, so all three—dry land, water, air—
are here polluted; as human beings were commanded to increase and
multiply, so here their very existence is rendered impossible; as living
creatures were created according to their kind, here only the unclean
13. qd'dt - hawk, cf. Lev. 11.18 and Deut. 14.17; yanSup = a species of owl, cf.
Lev. 11.17 and Deut. 14.16; 'oreb = raven, cf. Lev. 11.15 and Deut. 14.14; dayyd =
kite, cf. Deut. 14.13; batya'dnd, = ostrich, cf. Lev. 11.16 and Deut. 14.15.
14. Both lQIsaa (rrr'r'?) and the Targum have the plural, presumably with the
meaning 'night hags' or even 'nightjars' (as NEB), birds whose secretive habit
might qualify them for inclusion, assuming that they were known in the Middle
East. But the verbs are in the singular in MT and there is no reason to emend.
among them can thrive. The same associations echo through the open-
ing poem of the misnamed Isaian Apocalypse. The doomed city is
Chaos Town (kiryat tohu, 24.10), and ecological disaster is inseparable
from the moral corruption of society:
The earth lies polluted beneath those who dwell on it,
for they have trangressed laws, disobeyed statutes,
violated the perpetual covenant. (24.5)
This is the berit 'olam of Gen. 9.8-17 which the author of the poem
associates with the laws of Noah forbidding the pollution of bloodshed
(cf. the Greek concept si miasma). Other allusions to the early history
of the human race and dispositions for the damaged postdiluvial world
will be picked up by a close reading of this introductory poem, includ-
ing the drastic reduction of the earth's human population (24.6), the
dispersion of the new humanity (24.1), and perhaps also the drunk-
enness of Noah (24.7-11). Taking the broad view, we can say that the
biblical story begins in a garden and ends in a city. Like Enkidu in Gil-
gamesh, the first human beings are expelled from the garden, a par-
adisal wilderness, into the city. The building of cities is attributed to the
tainted line of Cain (Gen. 4.17), and the forward movement of the nar-
rative of human origins stalls with the misguided attempt to build a city,
and the temple that legitimates it, in the land of Shinar (Gen. 11.1-9).
But the reversal of what we might call urban civilization to a condi-
tion of nature can also be viewed in a positive light, reflecting a strain
of Utopian thinking particularly in evidence in Hosea's idealization of
Israel's prehistory in the wilderness. One form it assumes is the escha-
tological horizon of the abolition of war, the retooling of weapons of
war into agricultural implements, or universal disarmament (Isa. 2.4),
and an end to the destructive violence which was no less a feature of
social and political relations then than it is now (11.9). When to this is
added the prospect or fantasy of peaceful co-existence between human
beings and animals (cf. Hos. 2.20), and in the animal world between
predator and prey—wolf with lamb, leopard with goat, lion with calf,
bear with cow (11.6-9)—we recognize again the dream of returning to
the lost paradise, the peaceful kingdom, the first creation when neither
animal nor human being killed for food (Gen. 1.29-30; 9.3-6).
One of these Isaian authors presents his version of a rural Utopia:
wilderness will be turned into fertile land which will be as common as
scrubland, and it will be a realm of justice and peace. Once the city
disappears, it will be the permanent home for the people of Israel
happily sowing their seed beside the waterways while ox and ass roam
free (32.15-20). This theme of the transformation of the physical and
moral environment, to be brought about by the spirit of God ('.. .until a
spirit from on high is poured out on us', v. 15a), is expressed with the
help of terms denoting distinct ecologies, all contrasting in different
ways with urban civilization. Wilderness (midbar) is terrain without
water, unsuited for cultivation of any kind, and inhabited only by
certain species of animals adapted to extremely harsh conditions.15 It
can therefore serve to describe the situation on the site of the destroyed
city (14.17; 27.10; 51.3; 64.9). At the other extreme is fertile land
(karmel),land naturally good for growing crops and grazing herds, and
therefore an apt description of the promised land ('eres hakkarmel, Jer.
2.7) and the antithesis of midbar. In between is scrubland (ya'ar),
including but not limited to forest, potentially serviceable for raising
crops and grazing but only after much labor (7.2; 9.17; 10.19, 34; 22.8).
These terms, all three contrasted with the city, denote conditions of
existence rather than just distinct ecologies. Once the city has disap-
peared there will be a transformation within the natural environment in
which midbar will be turned into karmel and the latter will be as abun-
dant as ya 'ar, normally much more in evidence than cultivable land (cf.
29.17). This environment will then be the setting for a just and equita-
ble social order, with an end to warfare and social conflict. Karmel,
therefore, remains as the ideal rural Utopia, an anxiety-generated dream
rather like the nineteenth-century quest for a New Harmony far from
the satanic mills of an oppressive and humanly destructive urban
society. We find a somewhat similar scenario at 30.23-25: the towers of
the city fall and give way to an idyllic scene of the farmer sowing his
grain, pampered oxen and donkeys, and abundant water; a scenario very
different, therefore, from the new Jerusalem as the goal of world pil-
grimage, and a reminder that prophets could think up more than one
way of envisioning the future.
15. midbar therefore often occurs with siyyd, 'parched land', and tarabd,
'desert' (35.1,6; 51.3); hence the frequent promise of transformation by providing
water (35.6; 41.18-19; 43.19-20) and cf. transformation in the reverse direction,
50.2.
CITY OF CHAOS, CITY OF STONE, CITY OF FLESH:
URBANSCAPES IN PROPHETIC DISCOURSES
Robert P. Carroll
I will take away your cities of stone

and I will give you cities of flesh,
wherein shall dwell justice and right-doing
and peace shall take up residence there forever
(fragment of Pseudo-Jeremiah the Acropolite)
The topos of the city in the Hebrew Bible is huge and only propor-
tionately less huge when we limit our scrutiny to the prophetic dis-
courses of the Bible. By way of introduction to what is a vast array of
references, allusions and meditations on the city I would like to start
with two appraisals of the city of Jerusalem, one from ancient times,
undatable but perhaps coming from fourth-third century BCE, and on
from the end of the twentieth century in the CE (1996). Between these
two citations from different millennia may be found sufficient material
to engage the imagination and also to set the scene and background to
my own thoughts on reading the prophetic discourses for what they
have to say about the city.
How the faithful city has become a whore,
she that was full of justice, right lodged in her,
but now murderers.
Your silver has become dross,
your wine mixed with water.
Your princes are rebels, companions of thieves,
every one loves a bribe and pursues gifts.
They do not defend the orphan nor allow the widow's case to reach
them.
Therefore the Lord, Yhwh of hosts,
Mighty One of Jacob, says:
'Hoy, I will exhale my anger on my foes,
avenge myself on rny enemies.'
I will return my hand over you,

Refine away your dross as with alkali,
removing all your alloy.
I will restore your rulers as at first,
your counsellors as in the beginning.
Afterward you shall be called the City of Right,
the faithful city (Isa. 1.21-26).
For the past thirty years, political decision makers have set as their
objective the wholesale alteration of the image of Jerusalem, and they
have succeeded in fashioning an environment consonant with the desires
of the Jewish collective. In so doing, they have altered Jerusalem's char-
acter to such a degree that it is no longer the city that has for generations
been etched on the imagination and consciousness of hundreds of
millions of people. The character of this once-distinctive urban entity has
been so blurred that those entering the city do not feel they have reached
their destination: the compact city, perched on a hilltop and bordered on
all sides by deep valleys, its houses and walls composing a single block,
standing out from the surrounding pastoral scene. That city is no more.
Suburbs now sprawl from the approaches to Jericho, in the east, to the
hills bordering the coastal plain, in the west, and along the watershed
from Ramallah, in the north, almost to Hebron, in the south.1
I could devote the whole paper to doing a literary, cultural and ideo-
logical-critical analysis of the strong stylistic and substantive differ-
ences between the differing views of Jerusalem represented by Isaiah
ben Amoz in ancient times and Meron Benvenisti in modern times. I
shall not, however, provide such an account because it would be too
easy to do and, besides, readers can all do it for themselves, if they so
choose. What I would want to say about these two very different
extracts which I have chosen for introducing this paper and for focused
attention is that they are both about Jerusalem the city and that both
concern themselves with what they perceive to be the changes which
have come over Jerusalemmaking the city so different from what it
used to be. One viewpoint sounds more like an architect's or town plan-
ner's analysis and the other viewpoint more like a moralist'snostalgia
for an imagined idyllic past and an equally imagined idyllic future, but
both accounts seem to regret the current state of the city. While they
have something in common and much that is very different, I do note
the consistency of the whine over so very many centuries that nowadays
1. Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1996), p. 142.
CARROLL City of Chaos 47
things in the city of Jerusalem have gone to hell in a handcart! Little

seems to change over the millennia in attitudes towards the state of the
city of Jerusalem and at the time of any specific moment of writing or
instantiation of the human gaze at that ancient and modern city the
judgment seems always to be critical.
Now for a moment of truth or realistic assessment: there is simply far
too much material on the city in the Hebrew Bible and especially in the
discourses which are constitutive of the prophetic scrolls for any one
piece of writing to encompass them all adequately. Having made that
obvious point, I would further want to say that in very general terms it
has to be said that one of the main foci of the Hebrew Bible is its focus
on 'cities' or, if you prefer, 'the city'. From city-builder Qain to
Qoheleth (Eccl. 9.13-16) or from Gen. 4.17 to 2 Chron. 36.23—that is
the aleph (alpha) and taw (omega) of the Hebrew Bible—the city is one
of the great focalizations of the Bible, along with foci on such related
topics as land and people—elements which are inevitably tied into and
associated with the word-field (Wortfeld) of cities. A city built on a hill
cannot be hid—nor for that matter can it be protected from destruction
either. It can, of course, with time be hidden from time or from the
human gaze of strangers by the destructive power of invasive forces, by
the erosion of the elements or by time itself. Such generalities apart, I
should also say that when it comes to the particularities of the prophetic
texts in the Hebrew Bible, it is also the case that most of the prophetic
texts seem to focus on cities, especially Jerusalem—aka Zion, Daughter
Zion, temple mount—not to mention Samaria, Bethel, Sodom, Nineveh,
Damascus, Babylon and many more cities besides. The multiple
discourses constituted by the scrolls of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are
especially focused on cities and the city, which seem to be one of the
most dominant foci of these scrolls. The two main groups of texts
which will form the central focus of this paper are Isa. 24-27, with a
nod in the direction of the whole scroll of Isaiah, and Jer. 7, with the
necessary acknowledgment of all the other parts of Jeremiah that focus
on the city. If I limit myself to these two scrolls it is because I need to
draw the line of practicality somewhere and I cannot possibly deal with
all the discourses on the city to be found in the prophetic books of the
Hebrew Bible. There are far too many such discourses for anything less
than a book-length treatment.
1. Isaiah 24-27
The so-called 'Isaiah Apocalypse', or whatever readers would wish it to
be called, raises so many interpretative questions that I shall only focus
on the role played in it by the topos of 'the city' and leave any dis-
cussion of the proper categorization of the genre of the collection of
poems in Isa. 24-27 for critics of my writings.2 I am, however, not so
naive that I would have readers believe I just chose Isa. 24-27 at
random. On the contrary, I have chosen to focus on it because it raises
some fundamental and interesting questions about how we should read
these prophetic texts and especially in relation to the topic of discourses
about the city. But where shall I start in reading Isa. 24-27? Should it
be with the trope of 'the city of chaos' (qiryat tohu) in Isa. 24.10-13 or
with 'cities of ruthless nations' in 25.3 or even with the triumphal song
of 26.1-6 'we have a strong city.. .the Lord YHWH has brought low the
lofty city...' or what about 'the city of joy' in 32.14 (jubilant town
['allizdh]cf. 22.2) or the 'populous city' uninhabited in 32.14? The
dialectic or double helix of city-discourses in the scroll of Isaiah seems
to move back and forward between motifs and tropes of the destruction
or dismantling of lofty, powerful cities, leaving them abandoned as
places where animals now roam (27.10-11; cf. 5.17) and figures of re-
established cities, rebuilt and reinhabited (cf. Cyrus in 44.26; 45.13; see
also 33.20). In other words, the scroll of Isaiah looks like a palimpsest
of multiple discourses about the history, life, times and opinions of the
city [of Jerusalem?] put together over many centuries. In the presence
of Ehud Ben Zvi 3 1 must emphasize that phrase 'looks like', insisting on
the textual or literary nature of this judgment and refusing to allow it to
be turned into an assessment of the text as historical statement,
reference or allusion. The scroll also reads like a switchback text in
which the fate of cities fluctuates and a city—which city may not be
important—is represented as being destroyed or rebuilt with a certain
monotony from 1.7 ('your cities are burned with fire') to the creation of
2. I am strongly inclined to dismiss the 'apocalypse' designation of Isa. 24-27,

but I am very conscious of the fact that so many scholars have written on these texts
using that term. As long as the text and texts about the text are recognized as being
discrete entities, following the fashion of scholarship need not be a great crime,
offence or sin.
3. He was chair of the oral session at which this paper first saw the light of
uttered speech.
new heavens and a new earth with a Jerusalem created for joy (65.17-
19). We may for simplicity and convenience's sake isolate negative
notions on one side and positive notions on the other side, attributing
one set of positive figures to representations of Jerusalem-Zion and the
other set of negative figures to an admixture of representations of Zion
and also to other cities. Perhaps readers should try to think in terms of a
massive mythicizing of Zion process going on in the course of the scroll/
text, so that the figure of Jerusalem is the focus of all these images, both
positive and negative? I think there is a huge paper to be written on the
topos of the city in the Isaiah scroll (see Frick)—of which this is not
that paper!—but here I would just like to make a small contribution to
the beginnings of such a major enterprise.
All readers and interpreters of the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse of chs.
24-27 are faced with tricky hermeneutical questions: is there one or
more cities referred to in these chapters? Are the positive images figures
of Zion and the negative figures images of other cities? Or does Zion-
Jerusalem as city somehow participate in both the positivity and the
negativity of the discourses? I could give you a roll-call of scholarly
opinions, but what would that demonstrate? My ability to read and my
capacity for wasting more time than is wise reading the opinions of
other writers on the prophets? Examples may be multiplied without
necessity to illustrate something or other about current scholarship, but
listing and counting scholarly opinions is a self-referring, narcissistic
bad habit of current biblical scholarship which I shall indulge in as little
as I possibly can because I do not think that it constitutes knowledge in
itself. The discursive contextualization of Isa. 24-27 is represented as
being a time when Yhwh will lay waste the earth ('eres, 'land'), so that
all classes of people will be rendered similar to each other (24.2; cf.
3.1-5). Within the larger context of depiction and further details of what
this laying waste to the earth will entail in 24.4-13, the loss of wine to
drink appears to be the most dominantly negative feature (vv. 7, 9, 11;
contrast 25.6). Such a motif is so common in the prophetic discourses
that one may read it here as a trace and echo of all the prophetic mate-
rial on invasion and destruction where invasive destruction is compa-
rable to the gathering of the vintage (cf. Jer. 48.32-33). The devastating
effects of the lack and loss of wine—or is the wine just plain awful and
therefore undrinkable (24.9)?—characterize 'the city of chaos'. But
what or which or who is this city of chaos? Is it the fortified city of
25.2, the palace of aliens which has become a city no longer? Or is it a
city other than Zion-Jerusalem and other than the strong fortified city
of 26.1? In other words, are we dealing with one (mythic) city here,
with two cities or with more than two cities? A tale of one city or a tale
of two cities—or of a number greater than two but less than what? In
my judgment, I would rather the questions remained on the table than
were answered because at least that way the debate can continue rather
than be concluded prematurely and without adequate evidence for such
an answer.
For readers who wish for the questions to be answered I shall offer
just a few opinions here in order to prove that I too can consult the
commentaries. When it comes to answering these questions everybody
may cite and support their favourite commentators and parrot their
opinions as an answer. Ronald Clements says it is a type of 'Vanity
Fair', 'any city at any time', a typical or representative function.4 Otto
Kaiser has it as 'the city, which is given here as an example of the fate
of all cities'.5 Alec Motyer goes all religious and abstract, in an
Augustinian fashion, on the text and writes:
The 'city of tohu" lives without the ordering, life-giving hand of God,
opting for life on its own, within itself, depending on itself... Human-
kind's great world city is 'the city without meaning'—a veritable Babel-
redivivus (Gen ll:lff.)... Thus Isaiah looked through the Babylon he
knew (13:Iff.) to the ongoing spirit of Babylon ever-present in world
history (21:1-10), and finally to the ultimate Babel where at length
humankind's self-sufficiency would bring their whole world about their
ears. 6
Marvin Sweeney has a very useful discussion of all the usual points of
view before settling for Babylon as the identity of the city: 'Two cities
best fit this role insofar as they represent the power of the nations to
rule the earth and to take Israel into exile: Nineveh and Babylon.'7 Hans
Wildberger calls it 'nothing city', differentiates between it and the
various other cities referred to in the text and comments: 'A qryt thw
4. R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; London: Oliphants), p. 202.

5. O. Kaiser, Isaiah 13-39: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1975),
pp. 184-85. His brief discussion of the identity of the city (pp. 173-79, esp. pp. 176-
77) is a useful guide to scholarly opinionation: e.g. Babylon (Marie-Louise Henry),
Carthage (Procksch), a Moabite city (Eissfeldt and other writers).
6. J.A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press), p. 201.
7. M.A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature
(FOTL, 16; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 311-30 (318).
(nothing city) would thus have to be a city that had just experienced the
reintroduction of the primordial chaos'.8 My own guess at the city's
identity—and as with the so called 'songs of the suffering servant' in
chs. 40-55 I do not think that the question of identity can be answered
from the text nor is it all that important in chs. 24-27—would be any
city you care to use these poems against because they look like all
purpose poems to me. Use them in good health, may be the author's
sentiment because they will suit any situation of oppression—whether
Babylon or Berlin, Cairo or Chicago, Jerusalem or Jakarta—and will do
for all occasions. Not identity but function should be the governing
exegetical and interpretative principles for reading these poems because
the writer has left their identities concealed by omission of name and
identity.
Yet at the same time I would want readers to feel the density of the
texture of the discourses about the city and to imagine the cultural
context of such discourses shaping how they should be read and felt.
Because there is a strong affective aspect to these discourses in the
Isaiah scroll, I cannot believe or imagine that whenever or wherever
they were produced they did not have built into them a strongly chau-
vinistic sense of emotional charge about Zion-Jerusalem, a charge
reciprocated in the reading/hearing of them by their audiences. The
representation of the long history of Jerusalem's mixed fortunes in the
Isaiah scroll, moving from the images of a deserted landscape and
urbanscape—the bigger questions about whether Jerusalem should be
thought of as a city, a town or an urban area I shall leave to the experts
on cities in the Bible and the ancient world of the Near East—wherein
lay burned-out cities, to the Utopian vision of a rebuilt city in a new
heavens and a new earth where all the nations would gather to learn of
Zion's torah and to which the wealth of nations would flow looks to me
like a bird's eye view or a tapestry of a city's ideal and all-too-real
history. Isaiah is the scroll of the city, whatever historical echoes and
traces may be detected in it, and the unrolling of the scroll is unfolding
the history of the city's fate and fortunes. The city of chaos in the so-
called Apocalypse looks then like a shadow city, though whether that
should be a shadow thrown by Jerusalem—the other side, the lefthand
side or the dark side of Jerusalem as it were—or an amalgam of the
8. H. Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27: A Continental Commentary (trans. Thomas

H. Trapp [ET of Jesaja, Kapitel 13-27, 1978]; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997),
p. 486.
cities of Jerusalem's enemies must remain an open question because the

text never produces a closure for the identity of that city. Of course, the
very strong images of Moab in 25.10-12, especially the appallingly
awful imafe oh moab as a swinner in the shiteof yhwhs displeasure
may suggest that it is a Moabite city which is constituted as the shadow-
image of Jerusalem. Over against Jerusalem stand all the other cities as
shadow-images of the holy city and as cities against which Yhwh's
wrath is permanently exercised. Yhwh's wrath is permanent against
every other city, but only temporarily exercised against Jerusalem. Per-
haps such an approach may be to read far too much into such texts or to
ignore the tendency of the text to focus on Jerusalem, so that even
shadow-cities should be treated as an allusion to or a conjuring up of
images of Jerusalem by default.
2. Jeremiah 7
I wanted also to consider Jer. 7 in this paper because I have long been
aware of the somewhat tentative nature of the discourse in the so-called
Temple Sermon about the topos 'this place' (hammaqqom hazzeh), in
itself a highly ambiguous phrase. A close reading of the 15 verses of
the so-called Temple Sermon would suggest at least three distinctive
references for the term: the temple territory, the city and the land itself.
I know that many years ago when I was working on a little-known
commentary on Jeremiah I found myself regularly confused by the
phrase 'this place', especially in relation to its possible referent.9 Tem-
ple, city, land, of course, it may be argued are interchangeable or even
interlocking in that each presupposes the others, like Chinese boxes or
babushka dolls. In the text itself 'place' refers to the temple arena in
v. 2, but by v. 7 it is equivalent to the land given to the ancestors (as
also in v. 14) and of course the analogy with Shiloh makes 'place' the
equivalent of 'town'. Perhaps, but if so then the term 'city' must be
granted a wider range of reference than just the collection of houses,
shrines and palaces surrounded by a wall. It is also arguable that the
ambiguity is built into the reference so that adherents of all three
possibilities may read as they wish. The looser the term of reference the
greater the range of hermeneutical possibility. That certainly was my
impresson and experience when reading Jeremiah and writing my
9. See R.P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press,

1986), pp. 206-12.
commentary all those years ago. There did seem to me to be in the text
of Jeremiah a deep ambiguity (ambivalence as well?) or, perhaps even,
a deliberate attempt at ambiguousness or vagueness which would facil-
itate looseness of referentiality. The vagueness I would link to the shad-
ow-side city of Isa. 24-27 in the sense of an all-purpose reference term.
Now we all know that if the Bible had been much more specific and
concrete in its language uses then it would have died out as a resource
many centuries ago, so vagueness of reference is not in any sense a new
idea or useless carrier of signification. It is the basis for constant
change, development and transformation in the interpretative processes.
The vaguer the signifier-signified the better because it facilitates much
greater gap-filling and increases the range of choices available to
interpreters and readers.
Elsewhere in the Jeremiah scroll the city of Jerusalem appears in
symbolic stories: for example, in 19.1-2, 10-13 the use of the phrase
'this place' seems to refer directly to the city of Jerusalem and yet the
text as we currently have it is a palimpsest of different narratives and
topoi, including a piece on the fire-cults associated with the topos
Topheth and an extract from the polemic against the cult of Baal and
quite a number of other intertextual linkings with the discourses of the
Jeremiah scroll (19.1-13). Here Jeremiah is both associated with the
city and represented as a figure active in the city and as the one deter-
mining its fate. The ceramic flask (baqbuq) emptied out and broken is
made to represent divine action against the city, a city emptied of its
inhabitants by deportation and broken by its invaders as one might
casually drain a flask and then smash it. In the editorial or narratorial
comment on the action of the story, the place becomes 'this city
and...all its towns' (19.15). Of course the invaders did not just come
against the city but against the land with all its towns and the buildings
in those towns, so that 'place' may easily indicate shrine, town and
country. Jeremiah may destroy Jerusalem as easily as a man empties
and breaks a flask or he may have Babylon destroyed as easily as a man
might tie a scroll to a stone and fling it into the sea/river (Jer. 51.59-64),
so may cities be effectively destroyed in prophetic discourses. But the
rhetorical devices used in the text ought to be noted because these
prophetic discourses are very porous and capable of considerable
extension of meaning and development.
3. Implicatures of the above Data

Now what do I want to do with these differing rhetorical devices which
manipulate the topos of 'the city' in the prophetic discourses? I suppose
I would like to start a discussion about rhetoric and discourse as they
appear in the prophetic scrolls. I am not much concerned with notions
of historical or extra-textual referentiality—though I am not against
such moves in theory, only in practice!—because I do not feel safe with
the instant or straight transfer of imagined meaning from the text to a
place imagined to be outside of the text. I feel neither safe nor happy
with such history-laden interpretative moves because I do not think that
the Bible is that kind of book or, perhaps it is only because I have lost
any faith I ever had in the Bible as a history book (if that is the kind of
faith I ever had in the Bible—it is now far too long ago that I started
studying the book, so I do not remember what and how I thought about
it those 40 years ago) that I must confess to a feeling of lack of safety in
such an approach to reading it. But within the texts themselves I can see
how the discourses of the city might be made to work as meditations on
a textured-textual theme within texts. Beyond that I would not care to
go, but I do think that there is fair mileage to be got out of that much. I
would like to argue much further for the Babylon-Jerusalem identi-
fication and to explore the ramifications of such a point of view. I am
very conscious of the fact that in reading the book of Isaiah on the topic
there is much to be said for it, especially if we venture beyond the 'city
limits' of chs. 24-27 and incorporate the rest of the book into our delib-
erations. For example, in the poem on the rebuilding of Jerusalem in
54.11-17 there are clear echoes and traces in the discourse which indi-
cate that the rebuilt 'New Jerusalem' (as it were) is represented in the
poem in terms drawn from the 'Old Babylon'.10 So for me as a reader of
Isaiah I would have to say: the New Jerusalem is but the Old Babylon
writ (built) large. The symbolism and metaphysics which flow from
this observation may well be unpalatable for the conventional ecclesio-
theological readers of the Bible and may not serve the ecclesiastical
hegemony of the Guild of Biblical Studies, but they are food and drink
to my way of thinking and an exciting item for current biblical
10. See C. Westermann, Isaiah 40-66: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM

Press, 1969), pp. 38, 278, with his reliance on the work of F. Stummer, 'Einige
keilschriftliche Parallelen zu Jes. 40-66', JBL 45 (1926), pp. 171-89.
hermeneutics. For example, all false dichotomies and falsifying duali-

ties between heathen and holy, homeland and diaspora, saved and lost,
pagan and city-dweller, elect and rejected, Jacob and Esau must be
scrapped in our thinking. The towers of Jerusalem, so loved and praised
by the psalmists in mythological terms (e.g. Pss. 46, 48), are but the
tower of Babel relocated and redescribed to fit the predilections and
prejudices of the elect (cf. Gen. 11.1-9). As Leonard Cohen's song has
it and, in my opinion, expresses a rather similar point well stated:
Jerusalem of blood
Jerusalem of amnesia
Jerusalem of idolatry
Jerusalem of Washington
Jerusalem of Moscow
Let the nations rejoice
Jerusalem has been destroyed.'!
Leaving that last point aside because neither time nor space will allow a
proper and full discussion or development of the notion of the twin-
souls-of-one-city which would have been Babylon-Jerusalem, I shall
attempt to finish this paper with a more general and lighter handling of
the data in the book of Isaiah. There are two rather different lines of
argument I would like to advance here and then attempt to go down
either or both of the roads which lead from them towards a more com-
plex reading of 'the city of chaos'/'this place' tropes in the prophets.
The biblical data will support either or both approaches, but it is for
readers to determine which they themselves prefer.
a. The Two Cities Route

Taking Zion-Jerusalem as the reference or interpretation of 'the strong
city' of 26.1 in contrast to the city of chaos of 24.10—whatever referent
or meaning may be assigned to it, perhaps Babylon or, failing which,
Nineveh. Then we have here the beginnings or echoes and traces of that
much later and much favoured trope of the two cities—the city of
humankind and the city of God—or as Augustine stated the matter in
his famous work The City of God: 'By two cities I mean two societies
of human beings, one of which is predestined to reign with God for all
eternity, the other doomed to undergo eternal punishment with the
11. Leonard Cohen, Book of Mercy (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984): #25; see
also #27 ('thieves of holiness') and much else beside in the book.
Devil.' 12 Our old friend the binary opposition of good city (our city)
and bad city (their city)—an ancient version of 'four legs good, two
legs bad'—or Jerusalem and its enemy's city, be that enemy Nineveh,
Babylon, Rome or wherever has reared its ugly head! The citation given
above from Alec Motyer's commentary says it all: 'a veritable Babel-
re divivus...the ongoing spirit of Babylon ever-present in world history
(21:1-10)...'13 It makes the point, though speaking personally I have
considerable difficulty with this reading of Babylon, as it hardly encom-
passes the notion explicit in Jer. 29.7 where praying for the Sdlom of
Babylon is enjoined on the Judean deportees to that land as the key to
their own salom. As a Book of Cities the Bible focuses on so many
cities that I think it would be a great shame to limit ourselves to this
bifurcated representation of Jerusalem-Babylon in permanent opposi-
tion as if the happy cooperative involvement of the heroes and heroines
of Daniel, Esther and all those other diaspora-novella personalities with
Babylon and Persian cities were at all compatible with this fundamen-
tally dualistic, Manichaean limitation. For Jews in exile I suspect that
every city was Jerusalem in some sense and that for the prophets in
Jerusalem itself it was every city but the one it ought to have been.
b. The City as Symbol Route

I would prefer those readings which pick up on the anonymity aspect of
the city in Isa. 24-27 and which would therefore allow for reading Jeru-
salem as the city of chaos as well as being the city of Salem (elsewhere
in the Bible). In the Bible there is only one city, but it has multitudinous
representations, manifestations and instantiations. Of course in topo-
graphical terms there are hundreds and thousands of cities in the Bible
(cf. Isa. 25.3 'cities of ruthless nations'), but in the symbolic geography
of the Book we may see each and every city as one aspect of the city of
humankind.14 Whether that be the city of dreadful night or the city of
peace and harmony or the city of chaos or the strong city or whatever,
12. City of God, 15.1.

13. The Prophecy of Isaiah, p. 201.
14. On the notion of symbolic geography in the Bible see D.F. Pocock, 'North
and South in the Book of Genesis', in J.H.M. Beattie and R.G. Lienhardt (eds.),
Studies in Social Anthropology: Essays in Memory of E.E. Evans-Pritchard by his
Former Oxford Colleagues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 273-84. Readers
might prefer to refer to Jerusalem in terms of the mythological geography instanced
by Pss. 46 and 48.
each city may be at any one time either faithful or whorelike, peaceful
or warlike (or perhaps all these different incarnations at the same time).
Taking such a symbolic reading of the city trope then leads on to
readers making the obvious equation that Jerusalem equals Babylon in
the symbolic geography of the Bible.15
Some time ago I wrote a piece on Jer. 25 where I argued for the
reading that the text represents the Babylonian emperor Nebuchad-
rezzar as Yhwh's servant and contrasted it with the stuff in Jer. 50-51
where the said Nebuchadrezzar is represented as the Beast, that is the
dragon (LXX), scourging Israel and acting as chief dishwasher of the
nation (51.34).16 There I argued that the equation Babylon equals Jeru-
salem (or vice versa) was certainly a distinct possibility in terms of the
text, but that I did not think the writers of the text had gone as far as to
make that point explicitly. The equation can be made by modern readers
of the Bible who having worked their way through the whole Bible—
whether the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible is not important—
should be able to see the obvious (cf. Rev. 11.8). Working with my dis-
cussion of these possible equations of symbolic-mythological geog-
raphy John Hill goes that little further and definitely equates the two in
his very fine study of Babylon in the book of Jeremiah:
...it still must be said that a metaphorical approach does produce the
kind of equation Carroll requires for a synchronic reading. The present
study's interpretation of 29:5-7 shows how an identity of Jerusalem with
Babylon emerges. In Carroll's terms, Jerusalem does equal Babylon. A
recognition of the role of metaphor opens up a different interpretive
possibility.17
Elsewhere in that study he makes a similar point:

The most significant feature of [29] vv. 4-7 for the present study is that
metaphorical identity established between the figures of Babylon and
Judah. Babylon is the place in which the Deuteronomic blessings are to
15. On this equation see especially J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of
Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (BIS, 40; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), esp. pp.
146-53.
16. R.P. Carroll, 'Synchronic Deconstructions of Jeremiah: Diachrony to the
Rescue? Reflections on Some Reading Strategies for Understanding Certain Prob-
lems in the Book of Jeremiah', in J.C. de Moor (ed.), Synchronic or Diachronic? A
Debate in Old Testament Exegesis (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 39-51, esp. pp.
46-50.
17. Hill, Friend or Foe?, p. 202 (emphasis in original); see also pp. 148-56.
be realised, and the place in which Yhwh is accessible to the community

in its worship.18
In my judgment and following my own preference for reading the text
the way I prefer to read it, I would want to say that each and every city
may be Jerusalem depending on context and situation addressed. If I
had the space I would attempt to produce a convoluted set of arguments
which would seek to show that Jerusalem is many, even all, cities and
that that one city in the biblical narratives may be addressed under the
conditions of repentance as Nineveh (Jonah) or under the conditions of
refusal to help the poor as Sodom (explicitly in Ezekiel; cf. Isaiah,
Jeremiah) or whatever city writers may choose to make it. This would
not be to deny whatever textual reality you might wish to grant to each
topographical cipher, but it would be to assert the claim that towns,
cities, places have their metaphysical or metaphorical values within the
system of symbolic or mythological geography to be found in the
Hebrew Bible.19 But there are very many different ways of doing this
symbolic-mythological geography: Ezek. 16 offers a tale of three cities
as three sisters (Jerusalem, Samaria, Sodom: a possibility which Alec
Motyer does not allow for in his either-or dichotomous discourse about
cities nor Augustine in his Manichaean reading of humankind's city)
where you can see the equivalent to Isa. 19.25, only in terms of cities.20
Speaking personally, I delight in Ezekiel's notion of the restoration of
Sodom and find that it is too broad and comprehensive an idea for most
theologians writing on the Bible to be able to handle or to incorporate
into their imagined biblical theologies (it is an idea bigger than their
own heads). But a trope such as the redemption of Sodom must speak
strongly against any postbiblical notion of Babylon as somehow stand-
ing for some imagined 'city of men' established against god (whatever
might be meant by that curious phrase in Motyer's theologically con-
trolled Augustinian exegesis).
18. Hill, Friend or Foe?, p. 153.

19. Pocock refers to 'the symbolic geography of the Hebrews' as 'the presenta-
tion by a people of moral values by geographic references, a kind of moral geodesy'
('North and South', p. 275).
20. Elsewhere I have written about Ezek. 16 and the three sister-cities; see R.P.
Carroll, 'Whorusalamin: A Tale of Three Cities as Three Sisters', in B. Becking
and M. Dijkstra (eds.), On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related
Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes(BIS, 18; Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1996), pp. 67-82.
So I would want to read the trope of 'the city of chaos' as referring to

Jerusalem as much as to any other city in the book of Isaiah and as a
fitting metaphorical description of the faithless city denounced in Isa.
1.21-26. Even though biblical theologians may refer to 'the thought of
Jerusalem as a transcendent reality' in the book of Isaiah,21 I would
want to balance such an abstract notion with its opposite trope, also
from the Isaiah scroll, of 'city of chaos'. For how is it possible for
human beings to live in one city if not in the other city too? We are
such a mixture of good and bad, that our cities partake of what we are
too. Dreams and fantasies of transcendence are invariably rooted in our
all too materialistic existence as flesh and blood, air-breathers: this too,
too solid human flesh is embedded and embodied in too, too solid cities,
hence the holy chaos of the biblical city where we all live and move and
have our being (even the biblical desert dwellers may relate on occa-
sion to the city; cf. Jer. 35).
If the Isaiah material on the city is then linked to what the Isaiah
scroll has to say about the 'holy city' (Isa. 48.2; 52.1), the equation of
'city of chaos' and 'holy city' makes the Jerusalem is Babylon equation
easier to see and understand.22 Reading my way through the Isaiah
scroll from beginning to end it is not clear when or how the fallen,
faithless, corrupt city of so much of the scroll has become the holy city
of chs. 48 and 52. Perhaps the holiness of the city has been effected by
the sheer persistence of survivors in it: 'and he who is left in Zion and
remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been
recorded for life in Jerusalem' (4.3). The holiness of the survivors of
the great fire and purgation which has purified the 'daughters of Zion'
will in itself purify the city and render it holy.23 Holy cities are where
holy people dwell and vice versa, unholy cities house unholy people.
And yet, the same city—holy and unholy—may house together and at
the same time holy and unholy people: for there is a sanctification of
21. For example, N.W. Porteous, 'Jerusalem-Zion: The Growth of a Symbol', in

Porteous, Living the Mystery: Collected Essays (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967),
pp. 93-111 (107).
22. I shall leave unstated any discussion of what meanings might be attached to
Isa. 48.1-2, but curious readers are referred to the standard commentaries on Isaiah
at this point.
23. In the context of Isaiah one would expect the trope 'daughters of Zion' to
refer to the women of 3.16-4.1, but it might in 4.2-6 conceivably refer to the outly-
ing villages surrounding the (mother) city of Jerusalem.
abomination also itemized in the scroll of Isaiah. Those who sanctify

and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the
midst, eating swine's flesh and the abomination and mice shall come to
an end together, says Yhwh.' (66.17). The city of the Holy One of
Israel—whatever may be meant by such a cryptic phrase24—is, I fear, a
most strange place indeed (as befits the strange work of Yhwh in Isa.
28.21).
In conclusion I would want to say that all the cities in the Bible
represent different phases of the one city—the city of humankind (or
the city of man/men to use biblical discourse uncontaminated by mod-
ern ideological political correctness discourses). There is no city of god
unless it be Jerusalem, an all too human city. From a biblical point of
view the city has its foundations and beginnings in that city built by
Cain, so if there is to be a city designated as 'the city of god' it will
partake of Cain's portion in the story. The city is where killers live or
hide out, where folk kill and are killed—but only a fool would imagine
that killing could not take place out in an open field—see Cain's
story—or even outside the city. Deuteronomy wisely legislates for kill-
ings in the open country outside the towns with a ritual regulation for
averting the danger which is said to arise from such occasions of the
shedding of blood (Deut. 21.1-9) and Cain's killing of Abel made nec-
essary and inevitable the building of cities for refugees doomed
otherwise to wander without respite or refuge. While the city is always
the city of men (and women), of humankind, it may at times be
considered also to be the city of god (as metaphor). In the Hebrew
Bible, unlike in the New Testament, there is no city outside the human
sphere which may descend in due course from heaven nor is there a
Jerusalem which is from above (Gal. 4.26) or at the end of history
(contrast Rev. 21.1-4), there is only the human-all-too-human city of
humankind where justice and peace may reside, along with murderers
and the lovers of bribes who also live there, oppressors and oppressed
together. There are only cities of stone and of chaos, of peace and of
flesh, where the sons and daughters of men and women have their all
too palpable human existence, where they live and die, love and are
24. The phrase is a cliche in the book of Isaiah. It also is most curious in that it
is associated with Jerusalem yet carries a trace and echo of Israel in it. Again the
standard commentaries may be referred to for enlightenment, but readers in search
of knowledge ought not to hold their breath when searching the commentaries for
illumination.
loved, kill and are killed, hope and despair. In other words, the very
places where we all live, move and have our being. Jerusalem-Babylon
is the mother and father of us all.
Further Reading
Aurelius Augustinus, Concerning The City of God against the Pagans (trans. Henry
Bettenson, with introduction by David Knowles; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1972).
A. Graeme Auld and Margreet Steiner, Jerusalem I: From the Bronze Age to the
Maccabees (Cities of the Biblical World; Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1996).
Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1996).
William P. Brown and John T. Carroll (eds.), 'The City', in Interpretation: A Journal of
Bible & Theology 54/1 (2000), pp. 1-68.
Robert L. Cohn, The Senses of a Center' in Cohn, The Shape of Sacred Space: Four
Biblical Studies (AAR Studies in Religion, 23; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981): 63-79.
Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel (SBLDS, 36; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,
1977).
Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation, and Urban Order (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998).
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House,
1961).
George Klein, The Atheist and the City: Encounters and Reflections (trans. Theodor and
Ingrid Friedmann; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
Paul Lampl, Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East (Planning & Cities; London:
Studio Vista, nd.).
Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities (selected, translated and introduced by Eleonore
Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996).
Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961).
Jerome Murphy O'Connor, The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times
to 1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
Francis E. Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims,
and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).
Norman W. Porteous, 'Jerusalem-Zion: the Growth of a Symbol', in Porteous, Living the
Mystery: Collected Essays (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 93-111.
Angel Rama, The Lettered City, Post-Contemporary Interventions (ed. John Charles
Chasteen; Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1996).
Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (London:
Faber & Faber, 1994).
Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
PROXIMITY TO THE CENTRAL DAVIDIC CITADEL
AND THE GREATER AND LESSER PROPHETS
Robert B.Coote
The corpus of the 'Latter Prophets' in its present, Persian-period form,

comprises 15 individual divans which fall into two types, the greater
and the lesser. These two types are surprisingly discrete, none of the 15
divans having what could be called an intermediate length. True, the
lesser divans vary in length among themselves by as much as a factor of
nine (Zechariah and Obadiah). However, the shortest of the greater
divans (Isaiah) is more than five times longer than the longest of the
lesser divans (Zechariah), and the average length of the greaters (which
vary from their mean by no more than one-eighth) is nearly 16 times
greater than the average length of the lessers. If a shorter text as
reflected by the Greek of Jeremiah is used for calculation, these num-
bers change little: the greaters would vary even less among themselves,
while on average their length would still exceed that of the lessers by a
factor of 15.
This picture of two discrete divan types is complicated and at the
same time confirmed by the joining, by whatever process, of the 12
lesser divans into a single longer divan, the Twelve, which, reaching
four-fifths the mean length of the greater divans, appears to belong to
the category of the greaters.
Other than length, what distinguishes the two types? The answer to
this question might help to explain why the two types exist as such.
Here, however, we meet a second surprise. Besides length, there are
few if any significant features that the two types do not share or, in the
case of some of the shorter divans in the Twelve, at least entail.
Both types of divan assert the salvation of the central Davidic citadel
and the restoration of the sovereignty of the house of David over
political Israel. This includes Ezekiel among the greaters and Micah
among the lessers, both of which present the restored Davidic citadel as
COOTE Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel 63
displaced from the Jerusalem center (Mic. 4.8, despite the continuing
existence of the shrine of Yahweh on Zion), and even though Ezekiel
envisions the temple as separate from 'the city'. Indeed, this ultimate
promotion of the house of David and its citadel virtually defines the
canonical corpus of the 'Prophets': the continuance of the house of
David is a pervasive theme, at the heart of the 'Former' as well as the
'Latter Prophets', and distinguishes the 'Prophets' from the Torah,
which makes no reference to David and leaves the explicit naming of
the monarchic beneficiary of Scripture to the 'Prophets'. The Torah
defined the cult and 'nation' without reference to David; the 'Prophets',
on the other hand, defined both as perpetually Davidic. The end of a
practical expectation of a Davidic monarchic restoration brought the
process of the formation of this corpus of 'Prophets' to an end during
the fifth or fourth century BCE.
Both types of divan are composite, that is pseudepigraphic, in some
cases as a result of a quite lengthy process of composition. Pseudepi-
graphic formation applies to all but the shortest of the divans—Obadiah,
Jonah (wholly pseudepigraphic, but evidently not composite), Nahum,
and Haggai. The corpus as a whole has two primary historical dual foci:
(a) the fall of Samaria—the 'Israelite' regime opposed to the house of
David's sovereignty over 'Israel'—and the answering deliverance of
Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time; and (b) the fall of Jerusalem and deporta-
tion of the house of David in Jehoiachin's time and the answering
restoration of the house of David and its citadel. Those individual
divans whose written development began at least as early as Hezekiah's
reign (Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah, which I call not the 'classical'
or 'eighth-century prophets', but the 'fall-of-Samaria prophets') span
both these dual foci. The rest focus on the Babylonian devastation of
the Davidic citadel and exile of the house of David and their restora-
tion. These can include an implicit Josianic prelude (Jeremiah, Nahum,
Zephaniah, and possibly Ezekiel, as well as probably Amos among the
earlier divans) which recapitulates the Davidic claim to sovereignty
articulated under Hezekiah. The earlier dual focus of the corpus, the fall
of Samaria contrasted with the rescue of Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time,
spotlights the issue of Davidic sovereignty exactly as did the Hezekiah
edition of what became the Former Prophets in the Deuteronomistic
History: for the first time since the revolt of political Israel against
the house of David's rule in the tenth century BCE, the house of
David could press a credible revanchist claim to recover its onetime
sovereignty over 'Israel' and to impose the rule of Jerusalem over

'Israel'.1
Both types of divan employ mainly the same basic argument or
rhetorical form: God's threat to or punishment of the Davidic citadel is
transformed into its deliverance, and that by two primary rhetorical
devices, both based on God's 'comparative' justice. While both these
devices are seen now in their Persian-period form, both are based on
long-employed arguments. Their importance for the 'prophetic' divans
can hardly be overstated. The first device depends on the rhetorical con-
vention, if not judicial principle, that in judgment the greater wrong
counterbalances, without necessarily legitimating, the lesser wrong. The
threat to the Davidic citadel is reversed with the discovery that the
wrongs of the opponents of the house of David, not least their persecu-
tion of the house of David, are greater than the wrongs of the house of
David itself. Thus the so-called oracles against foreign nations—more
properly 'oracles against alien warrior elites and/or their citadels'—
form one of the two main rhetorical pivots of this essential reversal.
The importance of this pivot is demonstrated by, among other things, its
use at several stages of composition, in the greater and lesser divans as
well as the Twelve, as in, for example, Isa. 13-21; 23-27; 33-34;
37.21-35; 47; and 63.1-6, as well as Joel 3^; Amos 1.3-2.3; Obadiah;
Mic. 1.2; 5.5-15; 6.1-2; Nahum; Hab. 2; Zeph. 2-3; and Zech: 9-14.
The other rhetorical device, related to the first but more profound, is
the characteristic drama of the 'prophets', the individuals in whose
names the particular divans are identified. By whatever descriptive term
either the text or we may use, these individuals—where they come
into view—are appointed ('called') by God, spurned and sometimes
oppressed by their addressees, including the Davidic court, and thus, as
the weaker persecuted by the stronger, compelled to complain on their
own behalf, only to have their complaint appropriated by the very court
they have addressed once that court becomes, by the carrying out of
God's judgment, the weaker in comparison with the stronger alien war
riors and citadels. This set of rhetorical moves may be warranted by
1. Baruch Halpern and David S. Vanderhooft, 'The Editions of Kings in the

7th-6th Centuries BCE', HUCA 62 (1991), pp. 179-244; Robert B. Coote, 'Th
Book of Joshua: Introduction', in Leander E. Keck and others (eds.), The New
Interpreter's Bible (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), II, pp. 558-77. As
stated, the distinction between greater and lesser divans applied to the final products
of the Persian period, not to earlier stages of development.
different means in different divans, in which usually the divinely autho-

rized spokesperson comes to personify in some way the Davidic court
in exile; but whatever the means, the device is fundamental to the cor-
pus and is evident in all three of the greater divans and at least three of
the lesser, namely Amos, Micah, and Habakkuk. It is this device that
most contributes to the house of David's neutralizing, appropriating,
and homogenizing of public oracular endorsements and critiques of
their policies or sovereignty from diverse sources.2 Moreover, because
both devices depend on reading and manipulating preserved texts
against the backdrop of historical developments, together they underlie
the composite, pseudepigraphic character of the divans.
The divan of Hosea stands apart from the corpus not least because in
Hosea neither of these primary devices of reversal plays a significant
role. Composite development can be readily identified in Hosea, even if
in only a few passages with any certainty, but this divan may come
closest to showing what a substantial 'prophetic' divan, consisting
almost entirely of poetic speeches of an excited speaker on political
conditions and circumstances, looked like before its development along
the lines found in the other divans. In contrast to the other divans, in
Hosea the spokesperson, or 'prophet', is identified so closely with the
dramatic role of God as apparently to preclude the spokesperson's char-
acteristic later identification with court addressees responsible for the
preservation of the divan.
In addition to these general characteristics, a comparison of greater
with lesser divans shows numerous resemblances that confirm the basic
likeness of these two types. Some of these are well known but can be
seen in a new light. Let us look very briefly at two examples, first one
comparing Isaiah with Hosea, and then one comparing Isaiah with
Micah. Hosea falls rhetorically into two parts, chs. 1-3 and chs. 4-14.
The integrity of each part can be shown based on two sets of deliberate
puns that develop the main theme of punishment and rescue twice, the
first series (chs. 1-3) based on the name 'Israel' and the second (chs. 4-
14) on 'Ephraim'. This two-part form should be compared with the two
2. The collections of seventh-century BCE Assyrian prophecies exemplified in

Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (State Archives of Assyria, IX; Helsinki: Hel-
sinki University Press, 1997) illustrate how a court could appropriate diverse
sources. These texts, however, are not limited to the words of individual 'prophets'
and thus are not divans proper, but the kind of source that might be drawn on for
developing divans.
main sets of poetic oracles attributable to early 'Isaiah', contained

within chs. 2-12 (incorporating, e.g., 2.6-21 minus assumed revisions
and accretions) and approximately chs. 28-32 (incorporating, e.g., 29.1-
8) respectively, as they might have appeared adjacent to each other in
an early 'divan of Isaiah' prior to subsequent development. In both
Hosea and Isaiah, development has occurred in such a way that the first
sets of oracles in both divans (Hos. 1-3; Isa. 2-12) show a remarkable
similarity: both are based from beginning to end on the birth and
naming of three offspring of the prophet (Immanuel in Isaiah assimi-
lated to the two sons of the prophet), and the unfolding of their signifi-
cance in a series of puns which in both cases represent three steps—a
negative meaning, an ambiguous meaning, and a positive meaning. This
is a basic literary and rhetorical feature of the first part of both divans,
the scope of whose development (three chapters in Hosea, 11 chapters
in Isaiah) matches rather well the ratio of the overall length of these two
divans in their final form.3
A second example involves an important similarity between the
greater Isaiah and lesser Micah. That both include the oracle regarding
the raising of Zion and the suppression of war in Isa. 2.2-4 and Mic.
4.1-4, with nearly the same wording, is well known. Less recognized is
that in both divans this oracle plays the same rhetorical role in marking
a transition from God's threat to Zion to God's deliverance of Zion, in
both cases involving a decision of Hezekiah. This is more obvious in
Micah, in which the most dramatic turn occurs with the denunciation of
Zion in 3.12 followed immediately by an apparent sudden and un-
motivated reversal in 4.1. The reason for the reversal is of course made
clear within the corpus of Latter Prophets as a whole: when Jeremiah is
threatened with execution for denouncing the Davidic citadel, certain
rural elders point out that Micah had done the same thing, and that
Hezekiah, rather than putting Micah to death, had 'feared' Yahweh and
that therefore Yahweh had changed his mind (Jer. 26.16-19). In other
words, the repentance of Hezekiah lies behind and secures the most
conspicuous—not to say remarkable—reversal in the divan of Micah.
The same device can be seen in Isaiah, with one difference, but a
difference which turns out not to count for much: in Isaiah, the 'turning
point' is placed not in the middle, but near both ends of Isa. 2-39. In its
3. I am assuming a stage in the composition of the divan of Isaiah consisting of

chs. 2-55, later supplemented by chs. 1 and 56-66, ch. 1 including some material
credibly attributable to Isaiah of Jerusalem.
present, final form this section is scarcely 'pre-exilic', since it refers to

the Babylonian exile in ch. 39. Whether the device of Hezekiah's
repentance in the divan of Isaiah originally predates the exile of the
house of David we can leave undecided. Regardless, the entire section
chs. 2-39 is organized around two poles, one at the structural center of
chs. 2-12 and the other at the end, in chs. 36-38. These poles contrast
Ahaz's disobedience at the command to ask a sign and his failure to
'trust' (7.10-14, etc.) with Hezekiah's obedience and 'trust' (36.4, etc.)
The comparison is invited by the placement of both these sons of David
'by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field'.
The story of Hezekiah climaxes with a manipulation of the source
shared with 2 Kgs 18-20 to place Hezekiah's question, which Ahaz
refused to ask, 'What is the sign (that I shall go up to the house of
Yahweh [the Davidic citadel]?', at the first end of the narrative, with
only the cause of the Babylonian exile as explained at this point in the
divan intervening. The response to Hezekiah's request for a sign is the
lengthy pronouncement of Isa. 40-55, concluding with '[this] shall be
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off'.4 Thus in Isaiah as in
Micah, the entire 'historical' sequence from Hezekiah to the restoration
from Exile hinges on the trust and, in Isaiah, the lack of trust, of Heze-
kiah, the son of David who was known as having revived the Davidic
claim of Israelite sovereignty following the fall of Samaria.
Here I have mentioned only two rather straightforward examples of
the numerous ways in which the greater and lesser 'prophetic' divans
develop in tandem and without any recognizably significant difference
based on the distinction of type. In sum, it cannot be a coincidence that
clearly two kinds of divans make up the corpus of the Latter Prophets,
but in all significant regards and with respect to numerous ancillary
literary features they show no comparable division into two types. The
two types differ mainly in length, that is in terms of the degree of
4. For the influence of 'Second Isaiah' on the composition of the divan of

Isaiah, see the excellent study by H.G.M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah:
Deutero-Isaiah's Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), and particularly the discussion pp. 189-209. Williamson focuses on the mat-
ter discussed here on pp. 203-206, where by drawing attention to the integral place
of Hezekiah's prayer in ch. 38 he confirms the importance of the house of David's
return to the citadel's temple. Because Williamson's main concern was the parallels
between Isaiah and 2 Kings in this section, he did not notice the probable connec-
tion with the sequel in Second Isaiah, which he concluded was doubtful (p. 209).
elaboration of certain themes within a rhetorical framework, which, as

regards its most significant features, is in each case the same, and this
despite the fact that the three greater divans were ostensibly composed
and elaborated in three quite different ways. What then does distinguish
the two types of divan, the greater and the lesser, and for what reason
do these two types exist?
I can see no way to give a straightforward and definitive answer to
these questions, but I think some observations may point in the right
direction. We start with the guess that the lesser divan, as apparently the
more prevalent and more flexibly defined type, may be taken as given,
and an explanation for the distinction should focus on the greater divan.
What is it, we might ask, that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have in
common that the lesser divans appear to lack? One answer that suggests
itself is that each of the greater divans originates with a portrayed indi-
vidual who stands extremely close to the center of power in the Davidic
citadel: Isaiah the court counselor with direct access to the royal person;
Jeremiah the close associate of the sons, both friendly and unfriendly,
of the principle leaders of Josiah's reform—the most extreme statement
of Davidic centralization in the 'Prophets'—and possibly the son of the
priest of the reform; and Ezekiel a priest of the citadel temple itself.
With all three individual figures, their divans elaborate on their
'biography' to highlight their place and role near the center of Davidic
power, epitomized by the Davidic citadel and its temple, not simply to
justify their 'prophetic' role. This elaboration depended on a credible
core tradition, prior to elaboration, placing each figure in a regular
capacity at the center of Davidic power. It was the reputed proximity of
such figures to the center of power, as conceived by the succession of
scribes that composed these divans, that recommended their divans for
elaboration into the class of greater divans, whose distention embodied
and represented both a greater and an intensified authority.5
Is it known that the traditional figures behind the lesser divans did not
have such positions at the center of Davidic power? Not always,
obviously. But conversely, in no case does a lesser divan develop such
a 'prophetic' portrait. In some cases the difference is quite clear. The
figures of Hosea and Micah, for example, have never been so identified.
Jonah is based fictionally on an Israelite rather than Davidic figure.
5. On the urban legitimization of elite rule, see, e.g., Gideon Sjoberg, The Pre-
industrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-
Macmillan, 1960), pp. 224-31.
There is no reason to believe that Amos was a Davidic courtier.6 In a

few lesser divans, it appears that the figure might have had such a
position. Zephaniah is identified as a royal offspring, but nothing
further is said about him, and about his political relation to the Davidic
citadel nothing can be certain. The clearest instances of figures close to
power would seem to be Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. With these,
however, it may be significant that their divans were added at the end of
the development of the Twelve, quite possibly when that collection was
already approaching the length of a greater divan, and so did not
themselves suggest or prompt development into greater divans on their
own account.7 The fact that the divans of the traditional figures of both
Jeremiah and Ezekiel are longer than that of the figure of Isaiah even
though they developed over a much shorter period of time might also
suggest that such documents could develop not only in tandem but in
competition, if the indications that Jeremiah and Ezekiel represented
respectively some form of subsequent 'Levite' and 'Zadokite' priestly
camps in opposition to each other have any validity.
The suggestion that the greater divan as a distinct type capitalizes on
the authority of figures known to have had a peculiar proximity to cen-
tral Davidic citadel power may recall Wilson's distinction between
central and peripheral prophets, with which it differs, however, by
addressing not the question of different social types of prophets in
general, but the position of particular traditional figures specifically in
relation to the Davidic citadel.8 Furthermore, it differs from the oft
voiced suggestion of a distinction between prophets with urban and
rural backgrounds in dealing with the Davidic 'urban' citadel only.9
6. Max E. Policy, Amos and the Davidic Empire: A Socio-Historical Approach

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), argues that he was; see my review in
the Journal of Religion 70 (1990), pp. 626-27.
7. Alternatively, Zechariah and Malachi together may have begun to develop
into a greater divan, but the development would have been short-circuited by their
incorporation in the Twelve and the demise of the royal house of David.
8. Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1980), especially pp. 32-86. Needless to say, the distinction between
greater and lesser divan does not correspond to Wilson's distinction between the
Ephraimite and Judean traditions. For an alternative analysis of some of the social
features of 'intermediaries' highlighted by Wilson, see Scott D. Hill, 'The Local
Hero in Palestine in Comparative Perspective', in Robert B. Coote (ed.), Elijah and
Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 37-73.
9. On this point as well as the shortcomings of Wilson's scheme, see especially
The suggestion made here clearly cannot be applied predictively.

That is, it does not tell us that the divan of such a figure will inevitably
develop into a greater divan. It does however provide a basis for under-
standing why some divans developed in this way and some did not. The
mystique of the representative power of such figures differed little from
the mystique of the corner office close to the corporate CEO or orga-
nizational director in our own time.
Robert P. Carroll, 'Prophecy and Society', in R.E. Clements (ed.), The World of
Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 203-25, particularly pp. 216-17.
THIS LAND is MY LAND:
ON NATURE AS PROPERTY IN THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL*
Julie Galambush
It is widely recognized that ancient Near Eastern cultures saw in

creation stories the struggle of the god or gods to assert order over
chaos, and that this 'order' included not only the natural order, but also
a divinely appointed social order, which latter tended to be defined as
the social order of the society in which the creation story was pro-
duced.1 Divine control was embodied within established political, reli-
gious, and social structures, including their rituals, personnel, and
monuments. A certain circularity obtains here: ancient cosmogonies
were written in part to re-enforce existing power structures, with the
storyteller's preferred power structure articulated through the story as
the embodiment of divine order.
The book of Ezekiel does not contain a cosmogony as such. Within
the text's narrative world the created realm exists already and the
divinely appointed social order, while embattled, has long been articu-
lated. Certainly the plot of Ezekiel includes a certain Chaoskampf;
Yhwh struggles to reassert his authority and impose the order of his
lordship over creation. Indeed, the vision of Yhwh's victory and his
enthronement in chs. 40-48 includes elements drawn from the creation
stories of Israel and its neighbors.2 Ezekiel, however, is not concerned
* This essay is a revision of a paper presented in the Theological Aspects of

the Book of Ezekiel Seminar at the November, 1999 Annual Meeting of the Society
of Biblical Literature and published in the 1999 Seminar Papers.
1. See discussions in B.W. Anderson, 'Introduction', in B.W. Anderson (ed.),
Creation in the Old Testament(IRT, 6; Philadelphia: Fortress Press; London:
SPCK, 1984), pp. 1-24; R.J. Clifford and J.J. Collins, 'Introduction', in R.J. Clif-
ford and J.J. Collins (eds.), Creation in the Biblical Traditions (CBQMS, 24; Wash-
ington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992), pp. 1-15.
2. See, e.g., J.D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel
40-48 (HSM, 10; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), p. 29; R.J. Clifford, The Cosmic
with how the world itself came into existence, but rather with re-
forming a world gone awry. What is created over the course of Ezekiel
is precisely not the world in any natural or original state. The desired
and created world of Ezekiel is the world mended and emended. In this
paper I shall focus, however, not on the divine work of re-creation as
the
the Chaoskampfof Ezekiel, but on the arena whereon this divine strug-
gle takes place: the already-created world. Specifically, I propose to
examine the status of what modern people would call the natural
world—that stuff upon and over which the divine struggle takes place.
This essay concerns the nature of nature in Ezekiel.
In The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies, Norman Habel
explores the ideological significance of the land as a social construct in
the Hebrew Bible.3 The current study will include not only the land, but
various 'natural' categories such as plants, animals, and even weather,
since all are to a certain extent ideological constructs, symbolic cate-
gories that fulfil specific functions within a social system.4 After sur-
veying representations of the natural world in Ezekiel, I shall address
the question of how such symbols function as social symbols, that is,
how they express the needs, desires, and assumptions of the people for
whom the writing attributed to Ezekiel (and perhaps the person of the
prophet himself) carried authority in its earliest settings. I shall assume
that some form or substantial precursor of the current book was written
in sixth century Babylon by a representative of the Jerusalem priest-
hood, though as Stephen Cook has demonstrated, the concerns reflected
by the book's narrator are consistent with those of both a sixth-century
prophet-priest and a later priestly hierarchy.5
Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (HSM, 4; Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1972), pp. 158-60.
3. N. Habel, The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies (OBT; Minne-
apolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
4. For discussion of nature as a system symbolizing social norms and tensions,
see M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pan-
theon, 1970), and F. Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1981), pp. 111-12.
5. S.L. Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 85-121. Two recent studies, I. Duguid,
Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel (VTSup, 56; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994) and
K.R. Stevenson, The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial Rhetoric of Ezekiel
40-48 (SBLDS, 154; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) demonstrate from different
GALAMBUSH This Land Is my Land 73
1. Animals
Animals function as surprisingly complex signifiers within the text of
Ezekiel. 'Wild' animals (either specific species such as jackals or nvn
understood as 'beasts') play a variety of roles, both positive and nega-
tive. Interestingly, the term iTTI is used both of wild animals and of the
'living beings' identified with cherubim in Ezek. 10. That is, the cate-
gory may represent either something from the supernatural realm and
understood as a divine agent or something from the natural world as
distinct from either the divine or the human realms. Both 'wild animals'
as a group and also specific examples of wild animals pose a threat to
settled human life. Thus, the war-ravaged land is given over to 'evil'
animals (nin rPTT) as a sign of its uninhabitable condition (14.15) and
human enemies are likewise metaphorically depicted as wild animals
(35.12). The category 'wild animal' thus signifies a presence inimical to
settled human habitation, that is, to the socially ordered world. The wild
animal, like the wilderness with which it is associated, is the polar
opposite of both the people and the livestock of the settled realm. As a
force of (hostile) nature, wild animals may be 'sent' by Yhwh as pun-
ishment (5.16-17) along with pestilence, famine, fire, and the sword.
Literally, famine and disease are frequent effects of war (as well as
being weapons of warfare), and ruined houses and towns may well
become home to scavenger animals. Symbolically, however, the stock
images of military destruction—fire, pestilence, wild animals, famine,
the sword (5.16-17; cf. Lev. 26.14-23; 2 Chron. 20.9)—evoke a picture,
not of a specific kind of military destruction, but of the destruction of
order and the takeover of chaos. If wild animals inhabit houses then the
'natural' order, in which people inhabit the houses and wild beasts the
wilderness, has been inverted.
The image of the wild animal serves an additional metaphorical
function as a figure for hostile humans. Predatory and unscrupulous
humans—both foreign and Israelite—are represented by the figure of
the wild animal. The soldier who invades the land is every bit as much
a wild animal as the jackal who comes afterward to scavenge the ruined
countryside. Pharaoh is a sea monster (32.1-16) and the Edomites make
plans to devour Israel (35.12), images that play on the connection
perspectives a plausible congruence between the narrator's social agenda and an

exilic setting.
between the suspect otherness of the foreigner and the perception of

wild beasts as outside of and hostile to the settled world. Not only for-
eigners, but even Israel's own leaders, when corrupt, may be depicted
as man-eating lions, as jackals (13.4), and as wolves (22.27). These
political and religious authorities prey on the people (cf. images of
sheep in ch. 34) and are accordingly identified through the metaphor as
hostile to the social order. While they are elements working from within
the social order, they nonetheless function as agents for the 'outside',
the world of forces inimical to settled life. Destructive Israelite officials
are 'wild beasts' because their actions mimic those of marauding out-
siders in their effect on the social order. Indeed, the damage done by the
wild beasts within renders the community vulnerable to attack, first by
hostile foreign armies and finally by roaming scavengers of the field.
This identification between 'wild beast' and 'hostile force' is so strong
that at times, as in 34.28 where 'animals of the land' are paralleled by
marauding nations, the distinction between human and animal invader
fails.
The topos of the wild animal functions as a wide-ranging symbol
applicable to any force perceived as a hostile and predatory other. Wild
animals, variously referred to as rPTT, jHKn DTI, iTl&n IT FT, and iTTI
nm ('mind', 'animal of the land', 'animal of the field' and 'evil ani-
mal'), are defined almost exclusively as predators and scavengers (only
in 31.6, 13, and 38.20 do they carry a neutral connotation). Perhaps the
most telling aspect of the signifier 'wild animal' is the opposition
created between the categories 'wild animal" (HTT) and i~IQi"D, which in
Ezekiel refers exclusively to livestock. The term, which can designate
wild or even all animals (cf. Prov. 30.30, in which the lion is the
mightiest nQ!"Q, is limited in Ezekiel to animals domesticated for
human use. Livestock are paired with humans as a unit (nQi~Ql DIN),
and as such are opposed by the wild beasts (14.17). Wild and domestic
animals represent chaos and order respectively, animals of the wilder-
ness versus animals of the arable land.
Like other embodiments of chaos in the Hebrew Bible, however, wild
animals are perceived as hostile to Yhwh's purposes only when they are
outside his control.6 Like foreign armies, wild animals are an embodi-
ment of chaos that may be coopted to perform Yhwh's (avenging) will.
Wild animals may be used by Yhwh to punish Israel; they are 'sent'
6. Cf. Leviathan in Job 41, who is depicted as virtually a pet to Yhwh.

against the inhabited land, which is then 'given' over to them as their
domain (e.g. 5.17; 14.21). The wild animals are even dignified to play a
ritual role as they feast upon the sacrificed bodies of Yhwh's enemies
(39.17). Still representing forces outside the ordered or settled domain,
here the wild animals are assigned a place within an inverted ritual
system in which they play a role analogous to Israel's priests. Like
priests, whose special sanctity allows them to consume food offerings
in the Jerusalem temple, so here wild animals appear as un-priests,
agents whose diametrical opposition to the realm of purity and order
qualifies them to partake of the unclean sacrifice. Like the foreign
nations, however, so also the wild beasts, as embodiments of chaos,
serve only temporarily as divine agents of destruction. Yhwh may com-
mand the forces of chaos but cannot become their permanent ally.
Ultimately, even as the invading foreigners are 'punished' for their zeal
in the role Yhwh has assigned them, so also the wild beasts must be
cleared away in favor of domestic animals and settled land. Thus, when
Yhwh establishes the covenant of peace with Israel in 34.25-29 he first
banishes wild beasts from the land, thereby both protecting the order of
the settled world and also extending it, allowing the Israelites to live 'in
the wild and sleep in the woods' (34.25). Israel for its part is Yhwh's
'flock', animals that are good by virtue of being owned and thus incor-
porated into the ordered world. Strikingly, under Yhwh's new covenant
no wild animals at all remain in the land. Rather than assigning wild
things to the wild places and orderly things to the ordered, the covenant
is made solely with and for Israel. Yhwh makes peace with the animals
only by eliminating them; the wild places will be appropriated by Israel
as God's metaphorical flock and by Israel's own, literal livestock.
Ezekiel's strong identification of wild beasts with hostile and chaotic
forces is not reflected in the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Only Lev. 26.6
shares the trope of 'evil beasts' as something to be either banished from
or sent into the land according to Israel's obedience or disobedience
respectively (cf. Gen. 37.20, 33; 2 Kgs 17.25). In Gen. 2 the term rrn
m&n covers all land animals, as members of creation and even as
potential 'partners' for the lonely human. Psalm 148 calls on the wild
animals (rrrt) together with the cattle to praise Yhwh and in Hosea 2.20
[18], a verse that probably underlies Ezekiel' s covenant of ch. 34,
Yhwh creates peace, not by cutting off wild animals, but by cutting a
covenant with them. Hosea's new covenant does not abolish the wild
animals, but assigns them their proper place within Yhwh's ordered
world. While images of wild beasts as agents of destruction or as signs

of devastation do occur outside Ezekiel (e.g. Jer. 12.9; Exod. 23.11),
only in Ezekiel does the wild beast persistently signify a hostile and
threatening other to be excluded from the realm of Israel, a land
reserved for domesticated animals and obedient citizens. Ezekiel is
unique in expanding the 'otherness' of non-domesticated animals into a
signifier of otherness itself. Wild animals may be human or beast,
Israelite or foreign, but they invariably threaten the integrity of the
social order and the settled land.
2. Plants
If wild beasts signify a threatening otherness in Ezekiel, what can be
said of plants as an aspect of wild nature? The representation of plants
follows a trajectory related but not identical to the representation of
animals in Ezekiel: domesticated plants represent order and moral
good; weeds represent forces hostile to Israel or to the prophet himself;
domesticated plants that have 'gone wild' represent rebellion against
Yhwh. At first glance this schema seems analogous to that underlying
the representation of animals: domesticated equals good, wild equals
bad. On closer examination, however, one can see that plants play a
different role from animals in the book's symbolic world. In the first
place, in contrast to representations of animals, relatively few refer-
ences are made to 'bad' or wild plants (weeds) in Ezekiel. Twice
Ezekiel refers to enemies as 'briars and thorns' (2.6; 28.24), an image
straightforwardly depicting hostile humans in terms of noisome plants.
Far more prominent in Ezekiel is the image of the unnatural plant,
desirable in itself, but whose luxurious growth symbolizes overarching
ambition or pride. Israel is a straying vine (ch. 17) or a towering one
(19.10-14), a plant properly domesticated that has run wild. Here wild-
ness represents, not the inherent and threatening otherness embodied by
the wild animals, but rebellion by something or someone properly set
under authority. Interestingly, while both Isa. 5.1-2 and Jer. 2.21 employ
the conceit of Israel as a vineyard (rather than as a vine) whose produce
is disappointing to Yhwh, Ezekiel focuses on the vine as fabulously
successful, but rebellious (cf. the thriving but rebellious woman of ch.
16). While the plant is not threatening in and of itself, its choice of self-
assertion is perceived as threatening, and the plant must therefore be
destroyed. Similar to Israel the unruly vine, powerful foreign nations
are depicted as mighty trees. As such they give shelter to many but are
subject to the vice of pride.7 Both Egypt and Assyria, which presume
in their power to rival Yhwh, are threatening not in themselves but in
their attitude—a refusal to know their place. Yhwh, of course, will not
tolerate such affronts to his sovereignty and will therefore destroy the
haughty trees.
The offending vines and trees differ from the wild animals consid-
ered above in that they are not properly wild but have merely 'run wild'.
This distinction yields interesting differences. First, the overly abundant
vines and trees do not, as did the wild animals, threaten the order of the
settled realm. Unlike the presence of man-eating lions, wolves, or scor-
pions, no devastation of land or people is implied in the unbridled
growth of the trees. The trees and vines do not choke out crops or
invade homes. On the contrary, the tree of Assyria is beneficial to wild
birds and animals, and 'beautiful in its greatness' (31.8). Yhwh himself
claims to have created Assyria's beauty, a beauty unrivaled even by
'the cedars in the garden of God' (31.8-9). Trees and vines thus have an
implicitly positive rather than a negative connotation. Yhwh created
Assyria's beauty but Assyria grew proud and Yhwh accordingly had the
unruly tree cut down. Israel has grown recklessly toward one monarch
after another, ignoring Yhwh's claims, and it must therefore be
destroyed. The trees and vines of these metaphors represent the rulers
of the nations and as such are depicted as the proper objects of divine
sponsorship. Foreign kings are not Yhwh's rivals in these passages, but
servants. The disobedience of favored servants represents a very differ-
ent kind of threat than that posed to the countryside by invading armies
or wild beasts. Yhwh's concern is still with order, but now disorder
takes the form of a challenge to divine honor. Yhwh will therefore
destroy the offending vines and trees, but he will also plant. After the
vine, Israel, has been uprooted it will be replanted as a great tree. 'I
myself, emphasizes Yhwh (twice in 17.2) 'will plant it on a high moun-
tain'. The resulting tree will be 'noble' and fruitful. Yhwh will not be
denied the traditional 'garden of God', but neither will he allow its trees
to compete with him in glory. When his own tree has been planted, says
Yhwh, 'All the trees of the field will know that I am Yhwh. I bring low
the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make
7. Ironically, Israel is ridiculed in ch. 15 as a vine that fancies itself a tree. Not
so, says Yhwh. If you were a tree, I could at the least get some use out of your
wood after cutting you down!
the dry tree flourish' (17.24). The vines and trees exist specifically as
markers valorizing Yhwh's potency. Trees, if they are to be high, must
by their very height point toward Yhwh as source and owner of their
glory. Other trees, 'all the trees of the field', supply a validating gaze,
admiring the trees that belong to a higher authority. Trees and vines are
thus status markers. They may be defective (or 'disobedient') in this
role and require correction or elimination, but they are properly positive
signifiers revealing the control of Yhwh.
The role of trees and vines as markers of Yhwh's potency and sover-
eignty, implicit in the chapters describing the punishment of the unruly
plants, becomes fully articulated in the image of the miraculous trees of
ch. 47. After Yhwh has established his temple and throne on the high
mountain of Ezekiel's vision, a stream begins to flow from beneath the
threshold of the temple. The background of the stream as a symbol of
renewed fertility under the rule of the divine monarch has been well
documented.8 The stream of Ezek. 47 recalls that of Gen. 2 as it sup-
ports the growth of fruitful trees. Together trees and stream form a
garden. The garden appears as the special holding of monarchs and
divine beings in various ancient Near Eastern cultures.9 The god is the
ensurer of earth's fertility and the king is the god's regent. The growth
of trees in Ezek. 47 forms a recognizable trope indicating Yhwh's
power to restore fertility to the land. The trees' supernatural abilities of
producing fruit in all seasons while also bearing medicinal leaves under-
scores the power of Yhwh, whose presence in the temple suffices to
produce such abundance. The status of trees and vines as elements of
wild nature would seem to be irrelevant to, if not actually excluded
from, Ezekiel's symbolic matrix.
Ezekiel's emphasis on trees as signifiers indicating rebellion against
or acceptance of divine authority stands in striking contrast with the
symbolism of trees elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. While it is outside
the scope of this paper to undertake a thorough discussion of the sym-
bolic function of trees in the Bible, it will be sufficient to observe that
nowhere else is the image of the tree invested with overtones suggesting
a tendency toward pride and rebellion against divine authority.10 On the
8. See, e.g., Clifford, Cosmic Mountain, pp. 100-102, 158-60; S.S. Tuell, The
Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40-48 (HSM, 49; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992),
pp. 69-71.
9. See H.N. Wallace, 'Garden of God', ABD II, pp. 906-907.
10. The closest equivalent would seem to be the boasting bush of 2 Kgs 14, and
contrary, trees frequently evoke images of human rootedness in divine

law: just as the well-nourished tree produces abundant fruit, so the dis-
ciplined and obedient person is both prosperous and productive (Ps. 1;
Jer. 17.7-8). Alternately, divine wisdom is depicted as a tree, as an
object that is strong and sustaining (Prov. 3.18). While the literal use of
trees for idolatrous worship (either as Asherah poles or as lumber for
image-making) might seem to open the way for personification of trees
as moral agents implicated in Israel's infidelity, no such negative per-
sonification takes place. Rather, as in Jer. 7.20, trees form part of the
land that may be either blessed or blighted, depending on the conduct of
its inhabitants.
Curiously, Ezekiel seems to share the perspective of other prophets
and of the Deuteronomistic editors in regard to the role of actual trees
in non-Yahwistic ritual: the worship of 'wood and stone' is a tempta-
tion to which Israel was ever vulnerable, but the trees themselves are
objects devoid of moral value or culpability (Ezek. 20.32; cf. Deut.
12.2; 16.21). It is in his personification of trees that Ezekiel seemingly
departs from literary tradition, creating a unique trope of the tree as a
properly domesticated plant that willfully grows out of control and that
must be subdued. Compare this perspective with, for example, images
from Ps. 96.12 and Isa. 44.23; 55.12, in which personified trees sing for
joy and clap their hands in celebration of Yhwh's sovereignty. In Ps.
148.9 the trees are called on to praise Yhwh. What is more, the trees are
grouped together with heavens, earth, sea, and field, or with mountains
and hills as examples of nature resounding with Yhwh's praise. When
the trees join with hills and fields to sing, clap, and give praise to
Yhwh, they do so specifically to exemplify the response of the natural
world to its divine sovereign. The trees that clap their hands function
metonymically for the realm of nature, all of which is understood, in a
sort of natural theology, to reflect the glory of Yhwh. Here, of course,
nature reflects the divine presence in an active rather than passive way;
personified hills and trees are depicted as sentient beings whose recog-
nition of Yhwh's power is manifested as joy. This personification of the
trees as unambiguously united with Yhwh's purposes and perspective
forms a stark contrast to Ezekiel's image of the rebellious tree.11
cf. Jotham's fable in Judg. 9.8-15 in which virtuous trees refuse to let pride sway
them from their appointed stations.
11. The prohibition against cutting down fruit trees during siege warfare (Deut.
20.19-20) provides an interesting mix of perspectives, first countermanding the
This personification of trees is clearly shaped to a different end than

is Ezekiel's. In Ezekiel the trees (and also vines) are personified speci-
fically as servants, indeed, as metaphoric representations of human
beings (e.g. Assyria or the king of Judah). The personification of trees
as representations of specific individuals or communities precludes their
consideration as 'natural' objects. Trees serve as object lessons exhibit-
ing qualities either of obedience or, more frequently, of disobedience.
Ezekiel's representation of trees and vines draws directly on human
agricultural experience: the cultivation of plants may yield either satis-
faction or frustration. Appearing only as metaphorical objects of
Yhwh's satisfaction or frustration with the human community, and not
as objects in their own right, trees and vines lose the potential to rep-
resent any aspect of wild nature, except to reinforce the preference for
domesticated nature over wild nature.12
3. The Land
Elements of weather, wind and storm, light and darkness, are seen in
Ezekiel as thoroughly under Yhwh's control and appear as tools of
punishment to be used against either Israel or its enemies, depending on
the direction of the divine wrath (e.g. 19.12; 38.22). The dichotomies
between wild and domesticated that obtained in the depiction of
animals or between obedient and rebellious that typified depictions of
plant life, do not appear here. The weather is not, like plants and
animals, personified, nor is it ever depicted as outside Yhwh's control.
This unambiguous view of the weather as a tool of Yhwh may reflect
ancient traditions of Yhwh as a storm god, but may equally well derive
from (and the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive) the ongoing
human experience that while both plants and animals have ambiguous
status in terms of their susceptibility to human control, the weather is
destruction of fruit trees on the grounds that trees are not humans, to be laid siege
to, but then giving permission to use as timber any trees that do not yield fruit.
What at first seems to assert the independent right of a tree to its life turns out to
reflect a concern that extends only to those trees needed to sustain human life.
12. The prophecy of 20.45-48 against the forest of the south forms an interest-
ing problem. Yhwh announces to the forest that he will light a fire to consume it,
both the green trees and the dry. No explanation is given for this action; no trespass
is charged to the forest, nor does the text provide any hint as to whom the forest
might represent.
entirely and unambiguously beyond any human coercion. Ironically,

such a deep cultural certainty about the 'otherness' of weather may
serve to anchor it firmly in the human imagination as belonging to the
divine realm, while the tantalizing partiality of human control over the
plant and animal realms renders these more susceptible to personifica-
tion and to depiction within moral categories. Wild animals are unlike
'our' animals, and their otherness is projected as hostility to the settled
realm. This projection of human fear onto the wild animal (which is
then fantasized as evil and threatening) is sympathized with, if not
shared outright, by the deity, who promises to 'banish wild beasts' from
the land. The human struggle to cultivate (good) crop plants while lim-
iting the growth of (bad) weeds is likewise projected onto Yhwh. Yhwh
the farmer tends his crops, which in turn either fulfil or frustrate his
intent. The human community's struggle to control plants and animals
is projected into the divine realm through metaphors in which Yhwh
too struggles for control. The elements themselves, however, as objects
outside of human control, are seen as uniquely under divine direction
and thus excluded from the realm of ongoing struggle. Thunder and
lightning, wind and rain function exclusively as tools by means of
which Yhwh may bless or curse the people as he sees fit.
The role played by the earth itself—the realm of nature as a whole—
receives little notice in Ezekiel. Instead, concern is focused on the land
of Israel. Ezekiel makes constant reference to the condition of the land
CfHN), a term with a semantic range in Ezekiel encompassing both the
political and the geographical territory of Israel. In addition to refer-
ences to the land, Ezekiel frequently employs the phrase nQ~IN t7N~l2T,
an elocution unique to Ezekiel that seems to designate Israel as 'home-
land'.13 The term HQ"IN, which elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible covers
everything from soil to dry land, in Ezekiel refers exclusively to the
land of Israel. This extraordinary usage focuses the text on land as 'the
land belonging to Israel', an emphasis that has political overtones,
given both Babylonian domination of the land and Ezekiel's tendency
to define 'the house of Israel' exclusively in terms of the exilic commu-
nity (see, e.g., 3.4-11; 36.8,16).
For the most part the land of Israel figures in Ezekiel as a site of
destruction and injury (e.g. 7.2; 21.7-8 [2-3]); as such, the land sym-
bolically represents its inhabitants as they undergo the devastation
13. See discussion in J.G. Ploger, 'HQ1K' , TDOT, I, pp. 88-98.

resulting from Israel's sin. As Elaine Scarry has argued, injury in

warfare is both a means of establishing military victory and a literal
display of power—visual evidence of harm inflicted by the victor.14
The condition of the human body during and after war represents the
condition—physical, political, and perhaps most importantly, ideolog-
ical—of the body politic.15 In Ezekiel's representation of the conflict
between Yhwh and the people, the site of injury is not so much the
individual body as the land itself. Destruction is visited upon the land
through the depletion of its inhabitants, the burning of its towns, and the
harm done to its ecology. Damage wrought through both military activ-
ity and ecological disaster serves in the text as a kind of war wound, a
visible injury testifying to the power of the victor—in this case,
Yhwh—and to the consequent extension of his power over the lives of
the conquered people. The desolation of the mountains depicted in ch. 6
and of the land in ch. 7 are calculated to serve notice to the sinful peo-
ple ('then they will know' [6.14; 7.9]) of Yhwh's authority over them.
Drought likewise becomes an anthropocentric phenomenon that exists
to display Yhwh's anger over human wrongs.
Images of the land as the site of destruction predominate in Ezek. 1-
24, that section of the book reflecting the build-up of tension prior to
the destruction of Jerusalem reported in ch. 33. The land is repeatedly
depicted as 'sinful' or 'bloody' and therefore deserving of divine pun-
ishment. The 'sinful' land metonymously represents its sinful inhabi-
tants, as is clearly shown in passages such as ch. 7, an oracle purport-
edly directed against the land of Israel (^"lET HQIN). After an opening
in which the personified land (f "IN) is informed that its doom is coming
as Yhwh judges its ways, the oracle continues urging upon the addres-
see that the punishment has arrived in force. By v. 7, however, the femi-
nine figure who has thus far functioned as the implied audience of the
oracle is identified as the 'inhabitant of the land' (JHN 32JT). The per-
sonified land gives way to the persona of the land's 'inhabitant',
possibly the frequently personified city of Jerusalem, which in turn
stands for the people as a whole. The personified land turns out to be an
evanescent vehicle representing the land's human inhabitants. The per-
sonification of the mountains in ch. 6 is similarly ephemeral. What
begins as an oracle announcing to the mountains the end of their
14. E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 116.
15. See Scarry, Body, p. 114.
idolatrous altars quickly transmutes into an oracle against the idolaters

themselves ('I will scatter your bones around your altars', v. 5). As in
ch. 6, here also the land is metonymous for its inhabitants. The oracle of
14.12-23 describing the fate of a land that 'acts faithlessly' is par-
ticularly telling in this regard. Here, as in 7.3, the land itself is said to
have sinned, and punishments are accordingly visited against it: famine
rages while humans and domestic animals are 'cut off (v. 13). More-
over, wild animals are sent to ravage the land 'so that it is made deso-
late, and no one may pass through because of the animals' (vv. 15, 21).
Here both sin and punishment are depicted in terms specific to the land;
it is the land that has sinned and the land that will undergo devastation.
This view, in which the land is culpable for the sins of its inhabitants
and then suffers the consequences of their actions, superficially shares a
perspective similar to that expressed in Lev. 18.25, 28, in which the
land, unable to bear the pollution caused by its inhabitants, reacts by
vomiting them out. A related dynamic is at work in Jeremiah, where the
land undergoes torment as it is ravaged by divinely sent drought and
depopulation. As Habel has demonstrated, the images of Leviticus and
Jeremiah reflect ideologies in which the land is understood to have
rights that are defended by Yhwh.16 The innocent land demands or
receives restitution because of injury inflicted by its inhabitants. In
Ezekiel the tables are turned. The land is not a victim, but party to its
inhabitants' actions; it is guilty and therefore suffers for its own actions
at Yhwh's hands. The personae of land and people are fused at every
level, and the land's welfare is defined exclusively in terms of human
needs and desires. The land is struck, not by 'drought', but by 'famine';
that is, the disaster is not environmental but social. Humans and domes-
tic animals are cut off from the land and, as punishment, wild animals
are allowed to roam there (14.12-15). Rather than the perspective seen
in Leviticus and Jeremiah, in which the land stands apart from or even
opposed to the human project, here the land is conceived as essentially
human space, space-for-me, which is violated to the degree that it is
rendered unfit for human habitation.
Ezekiel's depiction of the land's reversion to nature as horrific
obscures the alternative perspective, namely that a land where 'no one
may pass through because of the animals' (14.15, 21) need not be seen
as ruined. Nor is the consideration that the land might actually benefit
16. Habel, Land, pp. 75-114.

from such 'devastation' a retrojection of modern biophilia. In Leviti-

cus 26 the land is made 'desolate', with people removed and cities
destroyed, but the same land whose condition 'appalls' the neighbors as
unfit for human settlement is in fact enjoying (il^"l) a well-deserved rest
(cf. 2 Chron. 36.21). The 'destroyed' land is not ruined but rather
unencumbered, liberated from the burden of human habitation. The
land is devastated only from the most narrowly pragmatic human
perspective. Ezekiel's land is not granted the same subject status that it
has in both Leviticus and Jeremiah. Rather than existing as an inde-
pendent entity that reacts (as it turns out, in protest) to the actions of its
inhabitants, here the land as the sinful object of devastation is metony-
mous for its inhabitants; their actions are its actions and its punishment
is their punishment. It is this identification between the moral status of
land and people in Ezekiel that allows the land to serve as the 'site of
injury' in the conflict between Yhwh and his people. In Jeremiah the
land is a victim whose injury Yhwh will avenge. In Ezekiel the land,
representing the body politic, is the body whose injury displays Yhwh's
power.
In the second half of Ezekiel, chs. 25-48, the land appears primarily
as an object of restoration. As the object of divine restoration the land is
'rehabilitated' following its punishment, and so reintegrated into the
ordered cosmos as the settled realm. Like the domestic animals and
plants, the land is sutured back into the cultural landscape of human and
divine control. The once-devastated land blooms with new fertility,
waste places are planted, ruined towns rebuilt (see, e.g., 36.8-12, 22-
38). As indicated by the pairing of waste land and ruined town, both of
which will be 'restored' by Yhwh, 'land' is understood to be coter-
minous with sown and settled land. This privileging of the settled over
the wild is extended to the point that the land is 'promised' not only
fertility but urban development! The personified land finds itself
equally blessed by trees and by towns.
The growth of fruit trees and the growth of cities are all but indis-
tinguishable as indications of the land's welfare. Whereas earlier the
land was personified as the embodiment of its inhabitants and punished
for its sinfulness, now land, cities, flocks, and people serve equally as
objects of restoration and markers of divine possession and control.
Yhwh simultaneously restores the land's fertility, its security from
invasion, and its human population. In the 'covenant of peace' of 34.25
the wild animals are removed and domestic animals multiplied. The
fact that the metaphor blurs the distinction between Israel as flock and
Israel as flock-owner or between wild beasts as human or as animal
predators, is fully appropriate. Yhwh's 'showers of blessings' on the
land serve to benefit Israel as a settled territory and to eliminate all
threats of reversion to wilderness. Yhwh himself is depicted through the
traditional image of the shepherd of his people, but also as a returned
exile who both rebuilds the towns and replants the fields of Israel
(36.36).
The restored land's goodness is certified by its desirability. The nar-
rator posits the valorizing gaze of an anonymous onlooker. In 36.34-36
'those who pass by' are reported to say, 'This land that was desolate has
become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined
towns are now inhabited and fortified'. Desolate land is replaced by its
perceived opposite: tilled land as fertile as the very garden of God.
Desolate cities are similarly replaced by their opposite: populous,
walled cities. It is striking that this miraculous renewal is not imagined
as an unprecedented paradise, but rather as restoration per se; that is,
the re-establishment of life in Israel before the exile. The land, while
abundantly fertile, is still 'worked' land requiring human effort for the
yield of its produce. The towns are fortified towns, and though their
safety is established by the divine removal of enemies it is maintained
by the more conventional means of strong walls. The restoration of the
desolate land is thus equated with restoration of the entire matrix of a
mixed urban-agrarian economy. The land will be 'blessed' by a return
to the status quo ante.
Ezekiel's unusually strong preference for the settled realm over the
wild results in a somewhat paradoxical attitude toward the urban center.
A prophet whose anguish over and rage against the city of Jerusalem
dominate the first half of his prophecies, Ezekiel is called upon to judge
'the bloody city', where blood is shed, where sabbath is profaned,
where father and mother, widow and orphan are abused (22.1-12). The
evils of Jerusalem, personified as Yhwh's unfaithful wife (16.1-43; 23),
are depicted in lurid detail; ultimately, nothing short of her destruction
will satisfy Yhwh's rage against her (cf. Samaria in 16.46-52; 23.1-10).
Such extravagant tirades against Jerusalem and its inhabitants, however,
while seemingly indicating antipathy toward the urban center, must be
balanced against favorable images of cities in the second half of the
book. In Ezekiel's images of restoration, cities feature prominently as
metonymous for the nation's well being. Yhwh's blessing on the land
of Israel consists in the land being 'tilled and sown', the population
multiplied, and 'the towns...inhabited and the waste places rebuilt'
(36.9-10). The rebuilding of ruined cities is presented as a sign whereby
the nations 'will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places'
(36.36). Divine power is manifested through the building of cities. The
most dramatic manifestation of the city as a positive icon is, of course,
the vision of the city and temple in chs. 40-48. An integral part of Eze-
kiel's vision of a divinely ordered world, the city, like the temple, the
miraculous stream, or the boundary lists, gives concrete representation
to divine authority. Indeed, the book of Ezekiel concludes with the
name of the restored city: Yhwh is there.
Ezekiel's wholesale condemnation of the actual city of Jerusalem
coupled with his vision of the city as an emblem of divine presence,
while initially perplexing, may be understood as an extension of the
fusion in Ezekiel between land and inhabitants. Just as the land func-
tions as the 'site of injury' whereon the punishment of the people will
be displayed, so also the city itself, that is, the city as infrastructure,
will be 'punished' for the misdeeds of its inhabitants. The destruction of
the city is visible evidence of the punishment of the people. In this
context, an interesting parallel develops between the city, personified as
a woman, and the trees and vines which represent various unruly rulers.
Like the rulers, the city falls into the category of things properly under
divine control and sponsorship, but instead ranging wildly out of con-
trol. The city, then, like the land itself, serves as an indicator of divine
control. The city, personified as Yhwh's wife, was made 'perfect' by
Yhwh's splendor, and should have been a visible emblem of his glory
(16.14). So also, the rebuilt cities of the restoration and the temple city
of Ezekiel's vision serve primarily as signifiers of divine power and
authority.
4. Castles in the Air: Creation as Property in the Book of Ezekiel

The nature of nature in Ezekiel is a subject fraught with ambiguity,
from Ezekiel' s opening vision by the bn] Chebar—the river that is in
fact a canal—to his concluding vision in which the Dead Sea is changed
from a natural wasteland into a supernatural venue for the fishing
industry. The ideology outlined above, in which the established culture
forms the goal and apex of 'creation' is, of course, not original to
Ezekiel. Creation, in the ancient Near East, meant the creation of the
socially ordered world and so by definition entailed the privileging of

inhabited over barren land and of domestic over wild animals. In a
world where the founding of a great city could be represented as the
goal of creation, the relative value of walled cities over open country-
side would have been obvious.17 To the extent that Ezekiel's outlook is
merely consistent with a widespread cultural preference for the realm of
human activity over wild nature, the book, while providing an excellent
example of this ideological stance, has little of interest in its perspective
on the wild and sown realms. Ezekiel's lack of a mode by which to
apprehend wild nature in anything like its own right may be read as
simply an extension of a symbolic system according to which perceived
order is good and perceived disorder, bad. But Ezekiel's extension is
neither an inevitable nor an insignificant extension of a wider cultural
phenomenon; the role played (or rather, not played) by wild nature in
Ezekiel is distinctive, perhaps even diagnostic as an expression of the
author's social location. A brief sampling of depictions of nature in
Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, two rough contemporaries of the histor-
ical Ezekiel, will serve to set Ezekiel's perspective in relief.
The usage of nature imagery in Jeremiah shows considerable overlap
with that in Ezekiel. Faithless people are punished by attacking wolves
and lions (5.6) or are themselves depicted as such (12.8-9). Israel is
planted as Yhwh's vineyard but defies him by growing wild (literally
'foreign', "ID]; 2.21). Drought is sent as divine punishment against the
people (14.1-6). Jeremiah exhibits the same practical preference for
fruitful land over desert and for tame animals over wild as does Ezekiel,
but with important differences: While Jeremiah freely employs images
drawn from nature to embody forces that threaten human welfare, this
anthropocentrism is balanced by a sense of wild animals and of the land
itself as having value apart from their utility in the settled realm. The
snows of Lebanon and the mountain streams, for example, are cited as
models of constancy (18.4). The earth, languishing under conditions of
drought and warfare, is not, as in Ezekiel, bearing a well-deserved
punishment, but an innocent victim of human crimes. The land mourns
(4.28; cf. 14.2-6) and the prophet is instructed to mourn on its behalf
(9.10). The land is a precious possession of Yhwh, injured by human
abuse, rather than an object of divine wrath in its own right.
17. For a helpful discussion and bibliography regarding the valorization of wild
nature in the Hebrew Bible see G.M. Tucker, 'Rain on a Land Where No One
Lives', JBL 116 (1997), pp. 3-17.
Like Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah expresses a utilitarian sensibility

according to which nature is good when it is useful for human welfare.
Thus, Yhwh's gift of water flowing from the bare heights to the valleys
and on into the wilderness (41.18-20) is wonderful because it serves the
needs of the poor. But in Deutero-Isaiah the divine gift of water is a
blessing, not only to humans or their livestock, but to the wild animals
as well. 'Wild animals', says Yhwh, 'will honor me, the jackals and
ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness' (43.20). This acknowl-
edgment of an independent and positive relationship between Yhwh
and wild nature is not so fully developed as that reflected in Job with its
reminder that rain is sent on the land where no one lives (38.26), nor yet
as that of Ps. 104 with its catalogue of creatures who look to Yhwh for
their sustenance. Still, both Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, writing in the
context of the Babylonian exile, include positive images of wild nature
as such. Nor does either Jeremiah or Deutero-Isaiah project a sinful
land made to suffer for its wicked excesses. Ezekiel is not distinctive
among biblical texts in its utilitarian and anthropocentric strains;
Ezekiel is distinctive in admitting no other view.
The strongest potential exception to the rule of Ezekiel's exclusion of
wild nature would seem to be the miraculous stream of ch. 47. This
apparent exception, however, will serve to prove the rule. The stream,
as discussed above, derives from the restored temple. On its banks it
sustains equally miraculous trees, and the combination of abundant
water with abundant fertility marks the renewed landscape (as was pre-
dicted in 36.35) as Eden, the garden of God.18 The trees are remarkable
both for their growth and for their exceptional utility, deriving from
their ability to bear their fruit in all seasons while simultaneously
producing medicinal leaves. The stream, in addition to sustaining the
life of the trees, extends across the land to flow into the Dead Sea. Here
the supernaturally fresh water demonstrates its own medicinal proper-
ties; it 'heals' (NEH; cf. 2 Kgs 2.22) the Dead Sea waters, rendering
them fresh. The newly healed waters promptly join in exhibiting their
fertility: 'Wherever the river goes, every living thing that swarms will
live and there will be very many fish' (v. 9). Indeed, the Dead Sea
coastline will become a series of fishing ports, with variety like that of
the 'Great Sea', the Mediterranean. The enlivening water will transform
the barren landscape into one of superabundant fertility. The line
18. On Eden imagery in Ezek. 47, see Clifford, Mountain, pp. 100-102, and
Levenson, Theology, pp. 25-36.
between wonder and utility is indeed thin here, perhaps even non-
existent. Although no words denoting delight or wonder are expressed,
the image is so remarkable it is fair to assume that wonder and delight
are intended as the response of an implied reader.
This passage may come as close as one gets to a validation of wild
nature in Ezekiel; nonetheless, the implied wonder is tied quite
explicitly to the stream's extraordinary utility. The stream does the
impossible: not only does it make salt water fresh, it thereby creates a
thriving fishing industry on the Dead Sea. The supernatural trees like-
wise respond directly to human need, eliminating with their monthly
crops the ancient, natural cycles of plenty and want. Most telling in this
vision of Utopian fulfillment is the fate of the marshes bordering the
Dead Sea. Following description of the newly 'healed' waters and their
variety of freshwater fish the author adds an aside: 'But its swamps and
marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt' (v. 11). The
miracle is firmly bounded by social and economic considerations—or
perhaps it is extended by them. That is, the re-creation of fresh water
and fisheries stops miraculously short of interfering with already
established routines of human commerce. By divine providence the
renewal of nature preserves just those bits of the old and salty world
that suit human purposes. The transformation accomplished by Yhwh's
powerful indwelling in the world yields a land of roses without thorns.
Ultimately, the renewing stream of 47.1-12 performs the same
function as the boundary lists that immediately follow. Both serve to
map out a new and perfected Israel. The path cut across the land by the
healing river is neither more nor less 'natural', neither more nor less an
aspect of creation, than are the boundary lines laid out in the remainder
of the book. Streambed and property lines equally manifest the divine
will. Ordered nature and ordered society are equally inscribed onto a
landscape whose contours signify possession.
The land as the object of restoration in Ezekiel is pre-eminently an
object of possession. Together with its plants and animals the land must
either reflect divine control and possession or defy them. Within such a
scheme wild plants and wild animals are defined as hostile or rebelli-
ous. Existing outside the realm of possession—and here divine and
human possession are coterminous—means existing in opposition to the
divine will; finally, it means not existing at all. This plot whereby the
land is successively inscribed as an object of divine possession is of
course an ironic one. The invisible backdrop to the plot of Ezekiel is the
text's historical context, the intolerable fact that the land is not an
object of possession, but of desire. Ezekiel is written in Babylon, its
narrator, the exiled priest of a ruined temple, a leader of a disenfran-
chised elite and representative of a dispossessed god. The inability of
Ezekiel or his social group to assert control over the land of Israel may
be said to constitute the non-dit, the suppressed contradiction underly-
ing the plot of Ezekiel. The land placed so assiduously under divine
control is a cipher for its diametric opposite—the land as the unobtain-
able object of human desire. It is as an object of frustrated desire that
the land is labeled 'other', untamed and (from the exiles' perspective)
unowned. The creation that should, through its walled cities and set
boundaries, stand as a visible monument to the divine will has broken
loose. The battery of negative personifications—wild animals aggres-
sively threatening the settled realm, cultivated trees growing wildly out
of control, the land itself rebelling against divine authority—expresses
outrage and anxiety over loss of control. The conflict between the
narrative demarcation of the land as divine and human property and the
reality of the land as an embodiment of the exiles' lack creates an
unresolvable tension within the ideological structure of Ezekiel. The
continually expressed tension between domesticated and wild, obedient
and rebellious, owned and estranged mirrors the tension between the
exiles' self-perception and their reality, and the conflict between
themselves and the current residents of the land.
The community in exile, which Ezekiel identifies as 'the house of
Israel', consisted of the privileged classes of his society, those who
would ordinarily have secure claim to social and political control—in a
word, hegemony. Given this contradiction between assumed and actual
power, the book's distinctive concern with control over the land comes
into clearer focus. The exiles' own desire to repossess the land finds
expression through constant reference to the divine perspective, accord-
ing to which the exiles are the rightful human owners of the land.
At the same time that the desire for land tenure is projected as the
goal of divine order, a corresponding anxiety is projected onto those
still in Jerusalem as a predatory desire to gain title to the exiles' land.
The fantasized inhabitants say of the exiles, 'They have gone far from
the Lord; to us this land is given for a possession' (11.15). This pro-
jection of the exiles' anxiety as the homelanders' opportunism is quickly
answered by divine reassurance: 'I will gather you from the peoples,
and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered,
and I will give you the land of Israel' (11.17). The inhabitants of
Jerusalem, on the other hand, are designated 'those whose heart goes
after their detestable things', and who will suffer divine judgment
(11.21). Following Jerusalem's destruction the narrator again projects
the survivors' thoughts: 'Abraham was only one man, yet he got
possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to
possess' (33.24). This apparently reasonable argument (divine judg-
ment did, after all, leave the remnant holding the land) is again met
with a withering response from Yhwh: 'As I live, surely those who are
in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and those who are in the
open field I will give to the wild animals' (33.27). The projected voice
of Yhwh intervenes to provide a judgment consistent with the exiles'
interests. The exiles' anxiety over their dispossessed status is removed
even before it can be voiced. The land as the object of frustrated desire
exists below the surface of the text as a kind of phantom topic, con-
tinually driving the plot and continually denied.
The exiles' desire to possess 'their' land (36.17), negatively projected
onto the current inhabitants, finds narrative resolution through the char-
acter of Yhwh. Yhwh, defending his own inalienable right to the land,
simultaneously secures the land for the dispossessed community of the
exiles. The exiles' separation from the land is depicted as Yhwh's own,
and Yhwh's struggle to conform nature to his will and assert his uni-
versal overlordship validates and symbolically fulfils the community's
desires.
Ezekiel's exceptionally strong preference for the ordered world over
wild nature—extending even to the point of wild nature's exclusion—
seems, in context, to reflect sociopolitical tensions. In Ezekiel's socio-
historical context those with traditional claim to the land, including
those who like himself represent the deity and whom he identifies as
'the whole house of Israel' (11.15), are dispossessed, while the 'inhabi-
tants of the waste places' (33.27) have taken control. Divine outrage
over unruly vines and wild animals mirrors the exiles' sense of violated
ownership and authority. From the narrative perspective the land has
reverted to 'wildness'; that is, to the control of those defined as out-
siders. The hostile 'other' has turned the land to 'wildness': it is no
longer controlled by the traditionally authorized custodians of divine
order. From this ideological stance it is immaterial whether or not the
actual land could best be described as 'devastated'. Although wide-
spread destruction, particularly of urban centers, had clearly occurred,
the reduced and relatively impoverished population might well have

been enjoying the new opportunities for land ownership and social
reorganization. Ezekiel's 'myth of the devastated land' parallels what
Robert Carroll has called the 'myth of the empty land', a narrative
program that presents the land as 'empty' and therefore ripe for the
exiles' return.19 To posit a land that is 'devastated', 'empty', or both is
to posit both need and warrant for the return of the ruling classes and
the displacement of those whose control is defined as chaos.
Walter Benn Michaels's work on Hawthorne's The House of the
Seven Gables gives a provocative analysis of the role played by literary
texts in expressing and resolving anxiety over land tenure.20 According
to Michaels, disputed real estate often appears in romance literature21 as
an expression of social conflict. In particular, Michaels points to a
conflict between 'legitimation of property by labor' and the claim of the
aristocracy, a 'claim to land that is unimpaired by the inability to
enforce that claim'.22 This unresolvable conflict—the paradox of a
dispossessed aristocracy—is resolved through romance literature as 'the
text of clear and unobstructed title'.23 The book of Ezekiel seems to fall
easily into this category, as the disputed status of the land is resolved by
a visionary assertion of divine right, and by a subsequent reallocation of
land to its inalienable owners. Commenting on his use of the romance
genre for The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne quipped that
although the book concerns the accumulation of real estate, he con-
structed it 'by laying out a street that infringes upon nobody's rights,
and appropriating a lot of land which had no visible owner'. He built
the House of the Seven Gables, in short, 'of materials long in use for
constructing castles in the air'.24 In Ezekiel, of course, the disputed land
19. R.P. Carroll, The Myth of the Empty Land', Semeia 59 (1992), pp. 79-93.
20. W.B. Michaels, The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American
Literature at the Turn of the Century (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987).
21. 'Romance' is used here in the sense of wish-fulfillment literature, in which
good triumphs over evil. For definitions and discussion of the genre, see N. Frye,
The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 37,
186-205; Jameson, Unconscious, pp. 110-12.
22. Michaels, Gold Standard, pp. 92-93.
23. Michaels, Gold Standard, p. 89.
24. Preface to The House of the Seven Gables, quoted in Michaels, Gold
Standard, pp. 88-89.
is real, not fictive, and it is only the land's return to its divine-rightful
owner that is fictional.
Political and theological tensions have long been seen to underlie the
program of restoration in Ezek. 40-48.25 It is possible, however, to read
the book as a whole as articulating the historical 'plot' desired by a spe-
cific social group. Such a plotting would accord with Fredric Jameson's
description of the aesthetic act as 'an ideological act in its own right,
with the function of inventing imaginary or formal "solutions" to unre-
solvable social contradictions'.26 That the composition of the book of
Ezekiel was 'an ideological act in its own right' seems self-evident. In
Ezekiel's case the 'unresolvable social contradictions' are those engen-
dered by the circumstances of exile, contradictions centering on the
alienated status of the land. The land, in Ezekiel, is properly that realm
whose ownership should display the authority and control of Yhwh, an
authority most tangibly expressed through the hegemonic presence of
Yhwh's designated representatives. In reality, Ezekiel faces the awk-
ward situation of having authority without agency. Ezekiel possesses
detailed knowledge of which land is properly owned by which his-
torical group within Israel, but it turns out that the land is quite per-
versely occupied by.. .well, by others.
The exiles' frustrated claims to the land are projected onto Yhwh as a
frustration of his own power. So Yhwh also, despite a quite indis-
putable claim to the land, finds himself in a situation of embarrassing
land poverty. In light of this fundamental contradiction within Ezekiel's
social and theological worlds, the category of the natural world, the
world as it is related to its divine master, becomes problematic indeed.
The unspoken reality underlying any 'theology of creation' in Ezekiel
must be that the supreme creator God has no toehold in the land—
indeed in any land. Like Abraham bargaining with the Hittites, Yhwh
must maneuver from a position of weakness (however well disguised)
in order to possess the land. In Yhwh's case the problem is not so much
to establish legitimate claim (God's claim is nothing if not legitimate)
but a claim that is credible under the historical circumstances of exile.
As an ideological act, the book of Ezekiel enacts the hegemonic return
of Yhwh and, by extension, of a status quo ante in which the exiles
25. Duguid (Leaders} and Stevenson (Vision of Transformation) provide helpful

readings of the ideological agenda represented by Ezekiel's vision.
26. Jameson, Unconscious, p. 79.
exert social and political control.27 The exiles' need for return is, as
Carroll has argued, specifically a need for hegemonic return,28 a return
to control that becomes projected in Ezekiel as a need for the re-
enthronement of divine authority.
Within the narrator's sociopolitical horizon, the land of Israel has
become 'wild', outside control and given over to elements whose pre-
sence is perceived as threatening to the ordered world. Yhwh's dilem-
ma of possessing unlimited rights but uncertain power over creation
fuels a dynamic in which the natural world is constantly dichotomized
according to whether it is perceived as within or without the control of
Yhwh. The 'idolatrous' mountains are cursed; the faithful mountains
are blessed; animals are either 'evil beasts' or they are domestic flocks.
When Yhwh is in control the trees bear miraculous fruit and eminently
useful leaves; when the trees renounce Yhwh's authority they are fit to
be destroyed. The natural world is friend or foe, blessed or cursed,
supportive or hostile, depending on the perceived extent of Yhwh's
control over it, and this control is, in turn, seen to correspond with the
natural world's absorption into the settled realm. In the exiles' political
context, where power and place have been disrupted, the created world
emerges as above all contested property. The land anxiety of the narra-
tor and his fellow exiles is expressed through its opposite: an assertion
of unassailable divine right coupled with unshakable control.
27. This conclusion is not intended to contradict that drawn by Duguid, who
elucidates reforms anticipated in the new social order (p. 140). These reforms,
while real, represent a re-shuffling of power within the ruling classes that serves to
re-legitimate their control over temple and land.
28. Carroll, 'Myth', pp. 81, 89.
SUP-URBS OR ONLY HYP-URBS? PROPHETS AND POPULATIONS
IN ANCIENT ISRAEL AND SOCIO-HISTORICAL METHOD*
Lester L. Grabbe
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a biblical scholar in posses-

sion of a social scientific agenda will be in want of his senses. Sober
scholars with nous and ability—who make wise investments and dabble
knowingly in the stock market, or who enthrall students with their wit
and wisdom, or who support a wife and/or husband and kids on an aca-
demic salary, or who can at least walk down almost any street without
falling over or bumping into too many lampposts—suddenly become as
silly as school girls when the phrase 'social sciences' enters their
vocabulary.
Evidently there is some sort of cachet in reading a paper that is
ostensibly sociological in nature. In fact, it is not hard to write such a
paper. Just fish out a theory found in an elementary textbook or—
preferably—one that is starting to make the grounds as a respectable
topic (one can think of the current fad for finding honor and shame
under every olive tree in the Mediterranean). Take this theory, pick a
set of unsuspecting biblical data, read the theory into the data, throw in
some half-understood sociological vocabulary and—presto!—another
sociological article on your curriculum vitae.
Now, far be it from me to criticize the use of sociology in one's
study. I confess to shoving the word 'social' and 'sociological' into as
many of my writings as possible for quite a few years now. And I do
believe in the efficacy of leavening biblical studies with insight from
the social sciences as much as we can. But why is it that so many
biblical scholars become totally bereft of common sense when they start
to mess around in sociology or anthropology? Just to take one example:
* This paper was originally written for oral presentation, and the demotic style
has been retained here in the published version in the hopes that it will better make
the point intended.
But the late tenth century BCE [sic], Israelite society and economy were
stratified and highly specialized. The gradual shift from a simple village-
based, agrarian, 'acephalous' kinship structure to an urban 'industrial-
ized' and entrepreneurial society is complete.1
'Highly specialized'? 'Industrialized'? 'Entrepreneurial'? Hyperbole?

The subject for this colloquium includes the concept of 'urbanism'.
This is a perfectly respectable subject in anthropology and sociology
and a great deal has been written on it. So why has so much rubbish
been written by biblical scholars on the same topic? The terms 'urban',
'urbanism', and related terminology have been rather specifically de-
fined among sociologists. Because the terminology takes in such a
broad concept, there is an inevitable fuzziness, but the social studies I
have read do not usually make the odd assumptions so often made by
biblical scholars. The main problem is—dare one suggest—that biblical
scholars are too often influenced by modern urbanization and attempt to
apply this model to a society organized in a quite different way. (I have
a further, more invidious suggestion to make, but I shall delay it to the
end of this study.) There are three areas where I believe some past stud-
ies by biblical scholars have gone wrong:
1. Misconceptions about the use of, and the misapplication of,
sociological models.
2. Overestimation of the extent of urbanization in ancient Israel
and Judah, specifically the period of the monarchies.
3. Misconstruction of the consequences following from urbaniza-
tion in ancient Israel and Judah.
This paper has essentially three aims: the first is to deal with the
question of method in the use of the social sciences in general, as well
as the more specific question of applying the urbanization model to
ancient Israel and Judah; the second is to ask what the texts say about
prophets and the city; and the third is to look at the results of the textual
1. William G. Dever, 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite

State', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau, and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urban-
ism in Antiquity, from Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1997), p. 185. To be fair to Dever, he is engaging in polemics
here, which has probably led to his using exaggerated language in a way that he
might not otherwise do. He also puts 'industrialized' in quote marks, though he
does not indicate what the significance of this is. Nevertheless, such a description
can only be misleading.
GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs? 97 97
study in the light of the alleged urbanization model examined in the first
part of the paper.
1. Social Scientific Models and Urbanism

Perhaps you are thinking I am just indulging my own idiosyncracies in
this unprovoked and completely irresponsible attack on a respectable
discipline. Actually, although my unease with the concept of urbanism
arose from a common sense scrutiny, I find that professional anthro-
pologists have voiced similar concerns. For example, Paul Wheatley
commented:
'Urbanism' is one of the most protean of terms... In any case, it is not
particularly profitable for a social scientist to attempt to discuss the
nature, the essential quality, of urbanism. That is a metaphysical question
more amenable to philosophical enquiry than to the empirical methods of
the social sciences.2
The study of 'urbanism' has had a long development. Already in 1893

Emile Durkheim3 proposed that the city represented a special environ-
ment, but in many ways the pioneer of urban studies was Friedrich
Engels with his studies on the working classes in Manchester in the
nineteenth century.4 Yet Adam Smith had already addressed the issue
of the city in his Wealth of Nations.5 Considering Max Weber's volu-
minous writings, it is hardly surprising that he dealt with the subject in
a monograph (see below). The past half century has seen an explosion
of studies on the question, of which only a few of the more immediately
relevant ones can be mentioned here.6 Perhaps one of the most cited
studies is that of V.G. Childe.7 Its influence seems rather surprising,
2. 'The Concept of Urbanism', in Peter J. Ucko, Ruth Tringham and G.W.

Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (London: Gerald Duckworth,
1972), pp. 601-37, quote from p. 601.
3. The Division of Labour in Society (trans. W.D. Halls, with introduction by
Lewis Coser; Contemporary Social Theory; London: Macmillan, 1984); ETof De la
division du travail social: etudes sur I'organisation des societes superieures (1893).
4. The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Panther, 1969
[1892]).
5. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (ed. Edwin
Canaan; London: Methuen, 1925 [1776]), book 3, chapters 3-4.
6. See also the article of Ben Nefzger elsewhere in this volume (pp. 159-71
below).
7. The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17. His 10
both because it was given in only a short article and because in many
ways it needs a good deal of refinement, as subsequent studies have
shown. Yet his criteria are frequently cited by contemporary writers in
discussing urbanism in the ancient world without apparently recog-
nizing the problems.8
An influential model has been that of Max Weber. He proposed the
threefold division of the 'consumer city', 'the producer city', and the
'merchant city'.9 The 'consumer city' is one which extracts the agricul-
tural surplus of the countryside and lives on it. The concept of the
'consumer city' as the category into which ancient cities fall has been
picked up in various forms and seems to be the implicit model behind
the view of cities by some researchers on ancient Israel; the path from
this to the idea of a 'parasitic city' is a short one and often taken.10 The
problem is that Weber's use of ideal types has often been misunder-
stood. These ideal forms were not meant to correspond to specific
criteria are (1) the first cities were more extensive and more densely populated than
any previous settlement, (2) the urban population differed in composition and
function from that of any village, (3) producers paid a surplus in the form of a tithe
(to the temple) or tax (to the court), (4) presence of monumental public buildings,
(5) those not engaged in food production are supported from the surplus by being
dependent on the temple or court, (6) the invention of systems of recording and
calculation, (7) invention of writing and development of the sciences of arithmetic,
geometry, and astronomy, (8) other specialists gave new direction to artistic
expression, (9) surplus paid for important raw materials not available locally to be
imported, and (10) membership was based on residency rather than kinship.
8. For criticisms of Childe's thesis, see, for example, Wheatley, The Concept
of Urbanism', p. 612; S.W. Miles, 'An Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns',
Southwest Journal of Anthropology 14 (1958), pp. 339-51.
9. Found in The City (trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth; London, 1958),
pp. 68-70 (ET of Die Stadt [1921]) = Economy and Society (eds. G. Roth and
C. Wittich; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978 [1968]), pp. 1215-17.
10. See the criticisms of E.A. Wrigley, 'Parasite or Stimulus: The Town in a
Pre-industrial Economy', in Philip Abrams and E.A. Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Soci-
eties: Essays in Economic History and Historical Sociology (Past and Present Pub-
lications; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 295-309. Moses
Finley (The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond',
Comparative Studies in Society and History 19 [1977], pp. 305-27; reprinted in
Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece [ed. with introduction by Brent D.
Shaw and Richard P. Sailer; London: Chatto & Windus, 1981], pp. 3-23) explicitly
noted that the term 'consumer' in 'consumer city' needs to be divorced from mod-
ern concepts of consumerism (p. 21).
GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs? 99
cities; rather, Weber himself states that most cities have been a mixture
of these ideal types. Weber saw essential differences between the
ancient city, which he characterized as still being organized along kin-
ship (or pseudo-kinship) lines, and the medieval city which was theo-
retically a community of equals. Even a city such as ancient Rome was
structured by tribe, and anyone who became a Roman citizen was a
citizen of the city (not the empire) and had to become a member of one
of the Roman tribes.11
Weber's model was taken up and further developed by Moses Fin-
ley,12 and the Weber-Finley hypothesis has been highly influential
among scholars of the classical world. However, some recent studies
have now moved past that conceptualization, sometimes by critiquing it
and sometimes by building on it. 13 One such study is a deliberate
attempt to progress 'beyond the consumer city'.14 As so often, a core
truth can easily be distorted unless some major qualifications are added
to the conceptualization. Cities did not just consume; they created the
economic stimulation and the markets which meant that the peasants
also normally benefited from the presence of the city.
Also, we should not forget that the national religion focused on the
temple in Jerusalem (even when country shrines existed) so that Jeru-
salem provided an important cultic service to those outside the city, as
11. For Weber's discussion of the Roman city and its relationship to the
medieval city, see The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (trans. R.I.
Frank; London: NLB, 1976), pp. 336-66 (ET of 'Agrarverhaltnisse im Altertum',
Handworterbuch der Staatwissenschaften [1909]).
12. 'The Ancient City', Economy in the Ancient World (London: Hogarth Press,
2ndedn, 1985), pp. 123-49.
13. See the essays in John Rich and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and
Country in the Ancient World (Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society;
London: Routledge, 1991), especially those by Robin Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill;
TJ. Cornell and Kathryn Lomas (eds.), Urban Society in Roman Italy (London:
UCL Press, 1995). Note also the remarks of Keith Hopkins, 'Economic Growth and
Towns in Classical Antiquity', in Abrams and Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies,
pp. 35-77, especially pp. 72-75. A recent defense of the thesis was given by C.R.
Whittaker ('Do Theories of the Ancient City Matter?' in Cornell and Lomas [eds.],
Urban Society in Roman Italy, pp. 9-26), though David J. Mattingly ('Beyond
Belief? Drawing a Line Beneath the Consumer City', in Helen M. Parkins [ed.],
Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City [London: Routledge, 1997], pp. 210-
18, especially p. 211) notes that he was more struck by Whittaker's recognition that
the model was seriously flawed than by his defense of it.
14. Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism. Note especially the sub-title of the volume.
well as those within. This included the annual festivals when the coun-
try people took up produce (or money to buy comestibles) to Jerusalem
for their families and themselves to consume during the celebrations
(Deut. 14.22-26). One might expect that there would be a religious dif-
ference between the rural and city areas. This may be true in some
respects, but this 'common-sense' view is in fact not a necessary con-
clusion. For example, J.A. North has recently cast doubt on the frequent
assumption among Roman scholars that certain sorts of religion were
'rural' in character—that one can speak of a 'country religion' in repub-
lican Rome.15 This is not the place to investigate the question in detail,
but what might seem to be a supporting argument for a rural/urban
divide needs to be looked at carefully before accepting it.
A model about the preindustrial city with wide influence was devel-
oped by Gideon Sjoberg.16 He argued that there was a model of the pre-
industrial city that could be found in the ancient, classical, and medieval
worlds. His thesis has been summarized as follows:
the spatial arrangement of the city is dominated by the significance of the
city's centre as 'the hub of governmental and religious activity more than
of commercial ventures'. Around this centre the elite group residences
are concentrated and the lower class and outcaste groups are relegated to
the cities' periphery...the class structure was marked and there is little
opportunity of social mobility...economic activity is poorly developed
and the most common form of economic organisation is the guild, typi-
cally community-bound; little standardisation is found in prices or cur-
rency and the marketing procedure is consequently fluid; the political
structure is dominated by the upper class, who hold all the key govern-
mental posts; the sovereign leaders base their authority upon appeals to
tradition and to absolutes; similar rigid hierarchical patterns are found in
religion and education; religion is highly important and the day-to-day
behaviour of the people is largely governed by religious injunctions.17
This description may seem to strike a chord with many readers (e.g.
the idea of an urban elite), but this is partly because it coincides with
15. J.A. North, 'Religion and Rusticity', in Cornell and Lomas (eds.), Urban
Society in Roman Italy, pp. 135-50.
16. The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press; Lon-
don: Collier-Macmillan, 1960).
17. T.G. McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum Debate, the Preindustrial City
and Rural-Urban Migration', Pacific Viewpoint 5 (1964), pp. 159-81, quote from
pp. 170-71.
pre-conceived ideas rather than empirical data. Indeed, Sjoberg has

been criticized for theorizing in the abstract rather than founding his
model on primary historical data. Critics have also pointed out that
many of the characteristics he assigns to the preindustrial city also apply
equally to traditional rural society; that is, the picture he draws applies
to all of preindustrial society and is not a means of differentiating town
from country.18
Sjoberg's model has been picked up directly or indirectly by later
writers, and has apparently influenced certain views among biblical
scholars. It has also contributed to belief in a dichotomy between the
urban and rural in ancient Israel. A supposed dichotomy between rural/
urban is not a new or isolated idea but has been widely assumed, even
by some older sociological and anthropological works. (For example,
Marx and Engels had seen town and country as having separate and
opposed interests.19) Nevertheless, this idea has been considerably criti-
cized in recent studies. Even the Marxist historian G.E.M. de Ste.
Croix, who used the city/countryside divide as a part of his analysis,
nevertheless recognized that the original situation in ancient Greece
was generally one of
no fundamental difference between those who lived in or near the urban
centre of the polls and the peasants who lived in the countryside, even if
18. For a critique, see Paul Wheatley, '"What the Greatness of a City Is Said to
Be": Reflections on Sjoberg's Preindustrial City\ Pacific Viewpoint 4 (1963), pp.
163-88; Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Creativity of Cities: A Review Article', CSSH 4
(1961-62), pp. 53-64, especially pp. 60-63; Adrian Southall, 'The Density of Role-
Relationships as a Universal Index of Urbanization', in Adrian Southall (ed.), Urban
Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973), pp. 71-106, especially pp. 92-98; McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Con-
tinuum'; Philip Abrams, 'Towns and Economic Growth: Some Theories and
Problems', in Abrams and Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies, pp. 25-27. Wrigley
('Parasite or Stimulus', p. 296) has pointed out that Sjoberg's model is informed by
the idea of a parasitic city, on which concept see p. 98 above.
19. The German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938), p. 8; ET of Die
deutsche Ideologic (1845-46). They state, 'The division of labour inside a nation
leads at first to the separation of industrial and commercial from agricultural labour,
and hence to the separation of town and country and to the conflict of their inter-
ests.' As noted by Abrams (Towns and Economic Growth', p. 14) this principle is
then ignored by Marx and Engels and seems to play little or no part in their
analysis.
the latter tended to be noticeably less urbane (less cityfied) than the
former.20
The 'folk-urban continuum', along with the related 'rural-urban con-

tinuum', was a thesis associated with the name of Robert Redfield.21
For post-urban society this posited a dichotomy with the rural on one
side and the urban on the other, though in fact the urban was simply
seen as the opposite of the rural rather than being developed in its own
right. Redfield was in fact creating a heuristic abstraction rather than
giving the results of empirical research. Apart from this, which led to
some misunderstandings, he was criticized for giving moral values to
his model, with the urban entity characterized in negative moral terms.22
This and related models have been characterized as follows:
In fact, the so-called 'theories of contrast' are of so general a nature that
they can be of little analytical use in the study of processes of change,
while they are often too inaccurate to be reliable guides in the study of
societies in equilibrium.23
20. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the
Arab Conquests (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1981), p. 9. Ste Croix's main concern
is his analysis of the town-country relationship as one of exploitation of the
countryside by the propertied classes of the city. But the propertied classes gained
most of their income from property in the country, not trade or business as in many
modern cities, as he himself acknowledges (pp. 120-33).
21. The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941);
The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1953); Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
22. For a critique of Redfield, see Francisco Benet, 'Sociology Uncertain: The
Ideology of the Rural-Urban Continuum', Comparative Studies in Social History 6
(1963-64), pp. 1-23; Leonard Reissman, The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial
Societies (London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), pp. 122-38; Oscar Lewis and
Philip M. Hauser, 'The Folk-Urban Ideal Types', in Philip M. Mauser and Leo F.
Schnore (eds.), The Study of Urbanization (New York: John Wiley, 1965), pp. 491-
517 (part A by Oscar Lewis is also found in revised form as 'Some Perspectives on
Urbanization with Special Reference to Mexico City', in Southall [ed.], Urban
Anthropology, pp. 125-38); R.E. Pahl, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum', Sociologia
Ruralis 6 (1966), pp. 299-328; McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum'; Wheatley,
'The Concept of Urbanism' (n. 2 above), pp. 603-605. Cf. also Eugen Lupri, 'The
Rural-Urban Variable Reconsidered: The Cross-Cultural Perspective', Sociologia
Ruralis 7 (1967), pp. 1-20, and the reply by Pahl, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum: A
Reply to Eugen Lupri', pp. 21-29.
23. Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism', pp. 604-605.
It is not surprising that others have argued that this dichotomy is

problematic and that city-dwellers and peasants have much more in
common than Redfield suggests.
The ambivalent attitude to the urban environment is a familiar theme
found among classical writers themselves. Varro can speak of a moral
distinction between 'rustics' and 'urbanites' (Rerum rusticarum 2.1.1),
while Cicero castigated the luxury of urban living in contrast to the
morally superior life in the country (Pro Roscio Aermino 75).24 We
must read these in context, however, for the very life pronounced deca-
dent was also the life lived by the writers themselves—at least, part of
the time—for life in the city was an important part of their lives. The
other side of the coin is treating urban life as civilized and cultivated, in
comparison with the crude and unrefined rustic life (hence, 'urbanity'
as a complement, and 'rustic' as a term of opprobrium). The country
elite were usually willing to spend money to make their villas as refined
and luxurious as anything in the city.
Most recent study has emphasized that there was generally no sharp
urban/rural distinction in antiquity. Indeed, Adam Smith had already
expressed the view that the relationship of town and country was
'mutual and reciprocal'.25 The general view is that the opposition arose
with regard to medieval cities.26 In the ancient world there were few
settlements comparable to our modern cities. Perhaps one of the few of
these was Rome. Even the city-states of ancient Greece did not have the
social and economic organization that we associate with modern urban
centers in which agrarian matters play only a small role in the economy,
and people work and live in isolation from the countryside. Most
ancient cities were still intimately connected with the rural hinterland
and depended heavily on it for food and other support, and usually for
its economy.27 Only those cities with ports could be easily provisioned
24. For a brief survey of some of the different attitudes among Roman writers,
see A. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and
Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 244-49.
25. Wealth of Nations, book 3, chapter 1 (p. 355).
26. The classical statement of this is perhaps to be found in Henri Pirenne, Les
villes et les institutions urbaines (2 vols.; Paris: Felix Alcan, 1939), first presented
in an article in 1895. For a critique, see A.B. Hibbert, The Origins of the Medieval
Town Patriciate', in Abrams and Wrigley, Towns in Societies, pp. 91-104. See also
Southall, The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998), pp. 21-22, 89-124.
27. Ste Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, pp. 9-16.
from any distance; all others depended on land transport which severely
restricted the quantities that could be delivered and the distance from
which they could come.28
Many of our data on ancient cities are derived from the Greek and
Roman context but, if anything, the ancient Near Eastern situation held
together the urban and rural even more tightly.29 In the context of
ancient Israel and Judah, with only a few genuine urban areas, the
situation was unlikely to be any different. Capital cities of necessity
housed the main administrative apparatus, with the bureaucrats living
off the taxes collected by the state. The temple and cult were funded by
tithes and offerings from the people, with the priests forming one of the
few specialized divisions of labor. As the seat of both government and
religious leadership, Jerusalem would have been open to any criticisms
concerning either of these spheres. Nevertheless, the concept of
significant rural/urban alienation does not fit either what is known from
other areas of the ancient Near East or the primary data.30 On the ques-
tion of the relationship of the city and the country, Finley makes a
related point:
The true city in classical antiquity encompassed both the chora, the rural
hinterland, and an urban centre, where the best people resided, where the
community had its administration and its public cults. The two were
conceptually so complementary that even the absolute Hellenistic mon-
archs acknowledged the 'freedom' of the chora belonging to the newly
created Greek cities of the eastern regions; city-land was exempt from
the
.the royal domanial rights over all land in the kingdom.Interestingly, Strabo (4.1.5
prerequisite for urban life.
28. Finley, The Ancient Economy, pp. 126-29; Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in
the Ancient Greek World, pp. 11-14.
29. See especially the model and discussion in Southall, The City in Time and
Space, pp. 15-17,23-53.
30. This directly contradicts Norman Gottwald's assumption of 'the basic divi-
sion and tension, the crucial conflict of interests' between the city and the country-
side (The Tribes ofYahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-
1050 BCE [BibSem, 66; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2nd edn, 1999], pp.
461-62, 467-73). Gottwald quite rightly emphasizes that this is a stark contrast for
purposes of argument and must be carefully researched and nuanced; nevertheless,
one must ask on what basis it was put forward in the first place and why so little
attention was given to actually testing it against the data.
31. The Ancient Enconomy, p. 123.
Similarly, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill concludes a study, which attempts

to see greater commercial activity among the Roman elite than has
often been accepted previously, with a recognition of the essential unity
of town and country:
None of the evidence here discussed undermines the proposition that
agriculture was dominant in the economy or that agricultural interests
were dominant among a landowning political elite. Nor does it suggest
the emergence of an urban bourgeoisie that regarded itself as economi-
cally, socially and culturally distinct from the landowners. But it may
come some way towards explaining how towns and trade could flourish
in a world dominated by agricultural interests, and why a situation of
antagonism and conflict between bourgeoisie and landowners did not
arise.32
Volkmar Fritz seems to agree with this interpretation, at least in its

overall formulation. He distinguishes between two types of cities, the
'residential city' and the 'administrative/military city'. The latter were
settled by professionals, but such cities were a minority; most cities
were residential:
The inhabitants of the cities were mostly farmers; it was only in the cities
which had limited administrative or military function that members of
the standing army were accommodated in buildings especially con-
structed for the purpose... As farmers, the inhabitants cultivated fields
and gardens in the vicinity of the city. In order to carry out their
agricultural activities, the men left the city in the morning, and returned
in the evening within the protection of the walls... The wealth denounced
by Amos was limited however to the capital cities and the few centres of
administration. The ancient Israelite residential city is by contrast
extremely homogeneous in nature with minimal differences among the
population. In ancient Israel the city thus offered a form of security for
the farming population. It reflected the world of the farmers and thus by
no means constituted a contrast as in the case of 'town and country'.33
This model of Israelite towns can be illustrated by two examples. The

first is fifth-century Athens before the Peloponnesian Wars.34 The bulk
of Attic inhabitants, including the Athenian citizenry who were mainly
32. 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill (eds.),
City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 267-68.
33. The City in Ancient Israel (BibSem, 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1995), pp. 177, 189.
34. S.W. Miles, 'An Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns', Southwestern
Journal of Anthropology 14 (1958), pp. 339-51.
farmers, lived in the countryside. They would attend assemblies and

take part in political activities as they had time, and come to town for
the major festivals. But the city itself was sparsely populated, mainly by
political and religious personnel (who also had rural estates) and arti-
sans: The country was fully conversant with, indeed integral to, the
center, which served as political, religious, and commercial seat for the
inhabitants of Attica'.35 A second example concerns the Yoruba towns
of Nigeria in the mid-twentieth century.36 Despite the large size of
many of these towns, they were mainly agricultural entities. In the 1952
census more than 70 percent of Yoruba men were farmers while even in
Ibadan, the regional capital of a million inhabitants, over 50 percent of
the population were farmers. As Peter Lloyd states, 'It is thus almost
impossible to speak of Yoruba country in terms of a rural-urban
dichotomy.'37
A recent study by Aidan Southall draws on the Marxist models of
types of production to distinguish the various sorts of cities.38 He uses
the model of modes of production to characterize four types of cities
through the ages, each type belonging roughly to a particular historical
time period. These are
A Asiatic Mode: unity of town and country
B Ancient Mode: ruralization of the city
C Feudal Mode: antagonism between town and country
D Captalist Mode: urbanization of the country
As he argues it, these different city types have tended to be charac-
teristic of certain historical periods, corresponding roughly to the cities
in the ancient Near East, the cities of the classical world (Greece and
Rome), medieval cities, and modern cities. First are the 'pristine cities',
characterized by the Asiatic mode of production, in which there is an
essential unity between town and country. The Asiatic mode of produc-
tion has been much discussed and criticized, yet it seems to have a
certain validity for much of the ancient Near East until the coming of
35. Miles, 'An Urban Type', p. 346.

36. Peter C. Lloyd, 'The Yoruba: An Urban People?', in Southall (ed.), Urban
Anthropology(n. 18 above), pp. 107-23.
37. Lloyd, The Yoruba', p. 109.
38. The City in Time and Space; see especially pp. 15-19 for an outline of his
thesis which is then developed over the rest of the book.
the Greeks.39 This embraces the civilizations of ancient Sumer and

apparently ancient Mesopotomia in general. It is also here that ancient
Israel is likely to fit, though Southall does not discuss it specifically.
The next relevant mode is that of the classical world (based on the
'ancient mode of production') in which the city is ruralized. The next
sort, 'the feudal' city which is characterized by opposition between
town and country, does not come along until the Middle Ages. The last
model, 'the capitalist mode' is characterized by the urbanization of the
countryside, but this is a late development and not really relevant for
the discussion of ancient Israel—though it must be said that some Old
Testament scholars seem to be importing some such ideas when they
discuss the economy of ancient Israel.
The 'elite' have been alluded to several times. How often have you
heard the term 'urban elite' or 'highly urbanized' or the like applied to
ancient Israel?40 (Apparently something cannot be just 'urbanized'; it
must always be 'highly urbanized'.) The elite or upperclasses, far from
being 'highly urbanized', usually derived their power and economic
base from their ownership of agricultural land. They may have had resi-
dences in the city but, as noted above, it is common even for peasants to
live in villages and towns. Country residences have generally been the
case with the elite of Europe even up to recent times. Already Weber
had stated, 'the associational character of the city and the concept of a
burgher (as contrasted to the man from the countryside) never devel-
oped at all or existed only in rudiments.'41 The wealth of the elite was
not generally based on commerce and capitalistic enterprises but came
primarily from the land.42 The concept of an urban elite—in opposition
to a rural elite—comes from the model of the medieval city, whereas
the elite in antiquity was undifferentiated, dividing its time between the
39. For a discussion with bibliography, see Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to
Hadrian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992; London: SCM Press, 1994), pp. 20-23.
See also Southall, The City, pp. 133-34.
40. This may in part be a heritage from Sjoberg.
41. Economy and Society, p. 1227 (= The City, p. 81); see in general his
comments on pp. 1217-18 and 1226-34.
42 . Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1217-18; Finley, The Ancient Economy,
pp. 52-60, 188-91. This is not to say that trade and commerce played no role in the
wealth of the elites; see the essays of Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill in Rich and
Wallace Hadrill (eds.) City and Country in the Ancient World; Helen M. Parkins,
'The "Consumer City" Domesticated? The Roman City in Elite Economic Strate-
gies', in Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism, pp. 83-111.
estates from which it obtained its wealth and the political activities that
tended to be conducted in the city.43 In antiquity the few who gained
wealth through trade (in those cases where trade was not a state mono-
poly as it sometimes was) almost inevitably invested it in agricultural
land, the traditional wealth of the elite.44
We now come to the crucial question of what constitutes a city or
how to define 'urban' in antiquity. A whole paper could be devoted to
this topic alone without beginning to cover the debate among anthro-
pologists about it. There is no agreement about what constitutes a city
or an urban area, and different researchers have used different criteria.45
Some have used 'central place theory' as a way of addressing the ques-
tion.46 Most interesting—and bringing a bit of irony into the discus-
sion—are those who argue that the city is not an object for sociological
study; that is, the city has no special characteristics that set it off from
other aspects of society.47
Despite these difficulties, it would be useful to consider one factor
often used as at least one criterion of urbanization: namely, population
size, since this particular characteristic is often focused on when discus-
sing urbanization in the ancient Near East. Estimating the populations
43. See the previous note.

44. This has been argued at length by Finley, The Ancient Economy; see, e.g.,
pp. 144-45, 183-96. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town';
Parkins, The "Consumer City" Domesticated?', p. 90.
45. Wirth and Childe were among the first to come up with widely used criteria
(see n. 8 and Nefzger's article in this volume [pp. 159-71 below]). A useful discus-
sion is given by John Friedman, 'Cities in Social Transformation', CSSH 4 (1961-
62), pp. 86-103, especially pp. 88-92; Southall, 'The Density of Role-Relationships
as a Universal Index of Urbanization', in Southall (ed.), Urban Anthropology, pp.
71-106.
46. This theory was first developed by W. Christaller, Central Places in South-
ern Germany (trans. C.W. Baskin; Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966);
ET of Die zentralen Orte in Siiddeutschland: eine okonomisch-geographische
Untersuchung fiber die Gesetzmdssigkeit der Verbreitung und Entwicklung der
Siedlungen mil stddtischen Funktionen (1933). See the critique of Chistaller in
J. Beaujeu-Garnier and Annie Delobez, Geography of Marketing (trans. S.H. Bea-
ver; London: Longman Group, 1979), pp. 107-21 especially pp. 111-12 (ET of
Geographic du Commerce [1977]).
47. See the comments of Philip Abrams, 'Towns and Economic Growth', pp.
9-14.
of ancient towns and cities is, however, a difficult task.48 Van De

Mieroop expressed an appropriate skepticism when he wrote:
It is not easy to determine the area of settlement in a city at any moment
in time, because no city has been completely excavated... The number of
inhabitants per hectare of settlement is essentially impossible to
establish. Comparison with contemporary, or early twentieth-century AD
Middle Eastern cities provides a guideline, but the variation there is
enormous, and the applicability of the figures is doubtful. Most scholars
have adopted a figure of 100-400 persons per hectare, but this is
inappropriate as the range is too wide and as 'the use of later statistics
begins from an assumption we should be setting out to prove' ,49
Van De Mieroop discusses the estimates for some of the Mesopotamian

cities such as Nineveh, showing the great variation in estimation
between one scholar and another (e.g. Nineveh is given 120,000 inhab-
itants by the book of Jonah [4.11], whereas modern scholarly estimates
range from as high as 300,000 to as low as 75,000).50
Nevertheless, some discussion of the various factors and the figures
they yield if used to estimate the population is appropriate. Older esti-
mates often accepted the testimony of the biblical text and of Josephus
who quotes 'Hecateus' that Jerusalem about 300 BCE had 120,000
inhabitants—a figure precisely the same as that given for Nineveh by
Jonah.51 The book of 2 Maccabees says that the army of Antiochus IV
killed 40,000 inhabitants of Jerusalem and enslaved a similar number in
48. Best documented is probably Greco-Roman Egypt. For a useful survey, see
Richard and Robert D. Alston, 'Urbanism and the Urban Community in Roman
Egypt', JEA 83 (1997), pp. 199-216. A fundamental study is Roger S. Bagnall and
Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge Studies in Popula-
tion, Economy and Society in Past Time, 23; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994).
49. Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), pp. 94-97, quote from pp. 95-96. His quoted phrase is from
J.N. Postgate,Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy in the Dawn of History
(London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 79-80.
50. Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 97.
51. Apion 1.22 §197. It has often been debated as to whether this Hecateus was
the same as the Hecateus of Abdera quoted in Diodorus Siculus (40.3.1-7). The
recent study by Bezalel Bar-Kochva (Pseudo-Hecataeus, On the Jews: Legitimizing
the Jewish Diaspora [Hellenistic Culture and Society, 21; Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1996]) confirms that the 'Hecateus' quoted by Josephus is a Jew-
ish writer of about 100 BCE and not the genuine Hecateus of Abdera known via
Diodorus.
168 BCE, suggesting a population of at least 80,000 but possibly more

(2 Mace. 5.14). Strangely, the population was slain and enslaved all
over again only a few verses later (vv. 23-26). Josephus's statement that
the smallest village in Galilee had 15,000 inhabitants (War 3.3.2 §43),
and that about 1,100,000 were killed in the final siege of Jerusalem in
70 CE have also been taken at face value to estimate the population of
the country at that time (War 6.9.3 §420): hence, the view of Albright
and others that a million people or even more lived in Israel and Judah
in the eighth century BCE.52
In recent years, however, scholars have taken a more systematic
approach based on quantitative analysis of archaeological data. The
result has been a general trend to revise population estimates down-
ward, with more recent scholarly estimates tending to be lower—often
much lower—than older ones. For example, Magen Broshi in a study
about a quarter of a century ago worked on the principle that population
estimates should be about 40 persons per dunum.53 This led him to
produce estimates for the population of ancient Israel and Second
Temple Palestine much lower than those of some of his predecessors
who had relied on biblical data, Josephus's figures, and other more
subjective criteria.54 Nevertheless, the most recent calculations have
been even lower. Broshi himself, along with Finkelstein, in a joint
article has used the figure of 25 persons per dunum.55 William Dever
has summarized some of the estimates for the assumed united mon-
archy of Israel in the tenth and ninth centuries BCE.56 Like Broshi and
Finkelstein, he uses 100 persons per acre (about 25 per dunum) to esti-
mate the population of Jerusalem in the ninth century to be about 2500
people, the only larger city being Razor with 3300. Dever mentions that
52. See Magen Broshi and Israel Finkelstein, 'The Population of Palestine
in Iron Age II', BASOR 287 (1992), pp. 47-69, especially p. 54. William Dever
('Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', p. 182) mentions
estimates of Albright and others of 900,000 for the period of the divided monarchy.
53. 'La population de 1'ancienne Jerusalem', RB 82 (1975), pp. 5-14. A dunum
is 1000 square meters or one-tenth of a hectare; since approximately 2.5 acres make
a hectare, a dunum is one-fourth of an acre.
54. He cites A. Byatt, 'Josephus and Population Numbers in First Century
Palestine', PEQ 105 (1973), pp. 51-60, who tends to accept Josephus's estimates
uncritically. See also n. 52 above.
55. Broshi and Finkelstein, 'The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II'.
56. 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', pp. 172-93,
especially pp. 182-84.
GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs? Ill
some have used larger estimates for population density and one has the
impression that, even though sticking with the lower figure here, he
might himself favor a larger figure.57 However, the recent study by
Charles E. Carter confirms that 25 per dunum is a maximum, and a
lower figure is probably more appropriate, especially in capital cities
with unsettled public areas.58
Dever follows Shiloh in accepting a population of 150,000 for the
ninth-century states of Israel and Judah. He argues that approximately
20 settlements met the criteria to be labeled 'urban'. In working out
criteria to determine when a site was a city or urban, Dever follows
V.G. Childe. Childe's article,59 was a seminal one and is often cited,60
and it would be invidious of me simply to quote another specialist to
cast doubt on Dever's position. Nevertheless, Childe has been criti-
cized, and some of his criteria are thought to be more useful than
others, while some are considered very problematic.61 So far it has not
been possible to find universally agreed-on criteria to determine what is
a city or an urban area, but some would regard a population of 5000 to
be the absolute minimum to call a settled area a city in any period.62 By
this criterion, not a single one of Dever's 20 'cities' for the tenth-
century BCE would be a city.
My purpose in this section has been to point out the complicated
nature of the question about urbanism, urbanization, and so on, in the
ancient world. It has not been my intent to take up one or more of these
writers and propose a new model for understanding the ancient city.
The matter is too large and too disputed to do so here, in any case. On
the contrary, these studies illustrate several factors that must be taken
57. Dever, 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', p. 180.
See Y. Shiloh, 'The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample
Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas and Population Density', BASOR239 (1980), pp.
25-35, for the figure of 50 persons per dunum, though this is smaller than the 250
per acre (= 62.5 per dunum that Dever cites as 'more typical').
58. The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic
Study (JSOTSup, 294; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 198; for a full
discussion one should see his entire chapter 4.
59. Already discussed on pp. 97-98 above.
60. 'The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17.
61. See n. 8 above.
62. Cf. Charles L. Redman, The Rise of Civilization: From Early Farmers
to Urban Society in the Ancient Near East (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1978),
p. 215.
into account if any sensible parameters are to be set for references to

the city in ancient Israel. The following general points can be made
about cities in the ancient world, keeping in mind that cities in the
Greek and Roman world differed at certain points from those in the
ancient Near East, while those in Israel may not have conformed to the
situation in Mesopotamia:
(1) Ancient cities were quite different from our experience in the
modern world. With few exceptions, there were not huge urban com-
plexes, and except for a few cities such as Rome and Alexandria those
labeled cities were relatively small entities of a few thousand inhabi-
tants. This was especially true in Iron Age Palestine.
(2) There was not the dichotomy—much less the opposition—
between the city and the countryside that we experience in many cases
(though not all) today. The city usually depended heavily on local agri-
culture, since transport of food by land was very difficult and costly.63
Much of the economic base and wealth of the elite came through agri-
culture, specifically local land holdings. Although it was not unusual for
the upperclass to spend time in the city for political reasons, this does
not necessarily make them all 'absentee landlords'; on the contrary,
many devoted a lot of time to their estates. The concept of the 'con-
sumer city' is still widely accepted, though more and more researchers
are coming to find it simplistic. Even where the city did not have an
important economic function, its social, cultural, and religious services
are not to be overlooked. The concept of the 'parasitic' city is usually a
caricature.
(3) The term 'urban elite' is not really applicable in that the elite
were not confined to the city or different from the landed gentry. An
'urban elite' as a separate entity seems to have arisen first in the
medieval city. Whether the Jerusalem temple personnel might be termed
an 'urban elite' will be discussed in the next section.
2. A Study of Biblical Texts

This is not the end of the story, however, for there is more to the topic
than just the sociological aspects. Our discussion so far has ranged over
a wide area of space and time in the ancient world. We now need to
focus on ancient Israel itself. When speaking of what the prophets did
63. On this see nn. 27-28 above.

or thought, we are utterly dependent on the text. Archaeology gives

some information but hardly very much about prophecy. So it is to the
text that we must go to ask about attitudes. What do the writings handed
down to us under the rubric of 'prophets' have to say about cities?
The most obvious question to ask is, Did the prophets denounce city
dwellers as more evil than their country cousins? As already briefly
noted,64 the evils of city life are a favorite theme in literature: one might
well expect the prophets to excoriate Jerusalem (or Samaria or other
larger towns) as the center of all wickedness, but surprisingly little is
made of this. The prophetic writings certainly rail against the wicked-
ness done in Jerusalem, but this is in the context of making Jerusalem a
symbol for the nation and also in seeing wickedness as by no means
limited to the capital: 'Judah and Jerusualem' is a favorite expression,
but it seems to be used to indicate the totality of the population. What
we do not find is a particular focus on Jerusalem as an especially
wicked city, as an examination of occurrences of the expression indi-
cate (e.g. Isa. 1.1; 2.1; Jer. 19.7; 27.20; 29.2).
One might think that Samaria, the capital of the 'wicked Northern
kingdom', would be a particular object of denunciation. Indeed, Samaria
is attacked, but this is usually as a symbol of the whole Northern
Kingdom, as Ephraim and Samaria (Hos. 7.1); in other words, it is the
same sort of reference as found in 'Judah and Jerusalem' and shows no
particular focus on Samaria the city as opposed to the rest of Israel the
country. A similar pairing between Assyria and Nineveh is found in
Zeph. 2.13.
There are some attacks on cities, though the question of their signi-
ficance needs considering. The destruction of Babylon is declared in
Jer. 50-51, but this is because of her conquest of Jerusalem. A similar
explanation lies behind the 'virgin daughter of Babylon' (Isa. 47). The
'Isaiah Apocalypse' talks of a city (Isa. 25-26), if only we knew which
city it was,65 but the context hardly suggests a general critique of all
cities as such. Zeph. 3.1 speaks against the 'oppressing city', but this is
only one of several woes. Part of the punishment on Judah was to have
her cities laid waste, but this is parallel to the fruitful land being made a
desert. Hab. 2.12 says, 'Woe to him who founds a city in iniquity', but
it is part of a general denunciation of sins; anything 'done in iniquity' is
64. See p. 103 above; also Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Lon-
don: Chatto & Windus, 1993).
65. See the article by Robert Carroll on pp. 45-61 of this volume.
a sin, of course, but there does not seem to be any attempt to single out
the foundation of cities as a sin in and of itself.
The one passage that perhaps sees a city as particularly wicked is the
book of Jonah. The prophet is to pronounce judgment on 'Nineveh that
great city' (Jon. 1.2; 3.2; 4.11). When he finally gets to Nineveh to
deliver his prophecy, the city is further said to be a 'great city to God'
(3.3), probably a means of expressing the superlative: 'a terribly large
city'.66 The city was a three-days' journey across and contained 120,000
people 'who know not their right hand from their left, and very much
cattle' (4.11). Here indeed is a city that takes the full prophetic wrath.
There seems to be no doubt that the size of this city is important to the
author of Jonah, yet it is not clear that Nineveh is evil because it is large
or because it is a city. Its size could symbolize various things, including
God's power which treats such a large human creation as insignificant.
Also, Yhwh makes the point that such a large number of people are
important to him—Gentiles though they be—and not to be destroyed
lightly as Jonah expects. Nineveh is evil, but it is the capital of an 'evil
empire'; the Assyrians are evil and oppressed Israel and Judah. The
book of Jonah does not make any contrast between an evil city and a
pure or innocent countryside. The size of the city (three-days' march)
and the presence of livestock might suggest that Nineveh here is meant
to include not just the concentrated urban area but perhaps a much
larger suburban area including areas of cultivation.67
What about the 'wilderness tradition'? Does it show a rural critique at
the expense of urban areas? A few passages extol the purity and
innocence of Israel in the wilderness (Jer. 7.21-26; Hos. 9.10).68 These
might be interpreted as an attack on the concept of cities and a desire to
66. This is only one interpretation, of course; for others, see Jack M. Sasson
(Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretations
[AB 24B; New York: Doubleday, 1990], pp. 228-30).
67. I would not want to press this last point. The 'three-days' march' is
probably a literary convention to show that the distance is a large one (cf. Sasson,
Jonah, pp. 231-32).
68. Cf. the study of Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Desert Motif in the Bible and in
Qumran Literature', in idem, Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and
Content: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), pp.
216-54 (originally published in Alexander Altmann [ed.], Biblical Motifs: Origins
and Transformations [Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies, Bran-
deis University: Studies and Texts, 3; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1966], pp. 31-63).
uphold a more rural ideal. The people were like grapes in the wilder-
ness (Hos. 9.10), in contrast to their present condition. However, as any
anthropologist will quickly point out, the basic division is between the
wild and the cultivated—the place of human habitation and the place of
wild animals. This is found in many pre-modern societies studied by
anthropologists. The jungle, wilderness, bush, or space outside the culti-
vated realm is in a different category from normal human habitation
and has certain dangers or at least rules of its own.69 What the prophetic
perspective on the wilderness tradition has done is invert this normal
view of society: the time in the wilderness has been made the ideal
rather than a period to be ended as quickly as possible.
Rather than cities as such, what seems most often to have exercised
the prophets were shrines, with high places one of the most frequent
objects of prophetic criticism. It is the desire of many of the prophets
that they be destroyed (Hos. 10.8; Amos 7.9; Micah 1.5; Ezek. 6:6).
The high places are attacked as the particular sin of kings such as Jer-
oboam I (1 Kgs 12.28-32; 2 Kgs 17.32-41) and are a major object of
destruction in the alleged reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kgs 18.3-
4, 22; 23.4-20). The shrines or high places are especially associated
with the worship of other gods (1 Kgs 11.7; 2 Kgs 17.32-41; 23.5-6, 13;
Jer. 19.5).
Many shrines were associated with cities, as well as various towns
and villages (2 Kgs 17.9, 29; 23.5). The high place where Samuel
invited Saul to eat with him was apparently outside the city, though
near it (1 Sam. 9.18-25). Perhaps the best-known shrine is the one at
Bethel which was the object of criticism of a number of the prophets,
especially Hosea (8.5; 10.1, 5) and Amos (3.14; 5.5-6; 7.10-17). It is
described as being 'at' or 'in' Bethel (bevet-el: 1 Kgs 12.33; 13.32, 33).
The greatest or largest shrine was the one at Gibeon (1 Kgs 3.4). On the
other hand, some of these shrines or high places (bamot) seem not to
have been in cities but out in the country where they are often asso-
ciated with trees or groves (1 Kgs 11.7; 12.23; 2 Kgs 17.10).
What does not emerge from the various passages on shrines/high
places is whether it was at all important if a shrine was near a city or
not. No distinction seems to be made with regard to location. In the
description of Hezekiah's and Josiah's reforms, the high places, shrines,
69. See I.M. Lewis, Social Anthropology in Perspective: The Relevance of

Social Anthropology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 105-108; Mar
Douglas, The Lele ofKasai (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 204-207.
etc., are all lumped together, whether they are in the very temple pre-
cincts, elsewhere in Jerusalem, near Jerusalem, or elsewhere in the
country (2 Kgs 18.4; 23.4-20). It is the shrines themselves that are the
object of the writers' fury, not their location, from all indications in the
descriptions of their destruction.
What about the question of social status, which might—though not
necessarily—be associated with a supposed urban/rural divide? Do
prophets organize their oracles or prophesy according to social status,
with particular wrath directed at the elite? The question of the 'elite' is
a difficult one that deserves a full study, hardly possible here. Apart
from space, however, one of the reasons the subject is difficult is the
idealized view held by many academics that sees the elite only as
oppressors, parasites on the workers, and otherwise beyond the pale.
This is not sociological analysis but merely the exercise of modern
prejudice. The elite were not, of course, one undifferentiated group.
There were the political elite, the military elite, the temple establish-
ment, the scribal class, the literate, and so on. To describe these and
their inter-relationships adequately would take a thorough study.70
Furthermore, we do not find the elite particularly associated with the
urban areas (on the priests and Levites, see below). A rather interesting
group are the 'people of the land'.71 Despite a good deal of debate, there
70. Literacy has traditionally been associated with the elite (e.g. Sjoberg, The
Preindustrial City, p. 290), yet in the ancient Near East the literary elite were not
necessarily the political elite. This was especially true in Egypt and Mesopotamia
but also likely for Israel (cf. Wheatley, ' "What the Greatness of a City Is Said to
Be"', p. 166).
71. Quite a number of studies have addressed this question over the past
decades, including Joseph P. Healey, 'Am Ha'arez', ABD I, pp. 168-69; Baruch
Halperin, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel (HSM, 25; Chico, CA: Schol-
ars Press, 1981), pp. 190-98; Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Jewish prn DiJ in Histor-
ical Perspective', Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies,
Jerusalem 1-3 August 1969 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1972), pp.
71-76; reprinted in King, Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel: Collected Studies
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986); slightly updated in German translation in Gesell-
schaft und Literatur in der Hebraischen Bibel, Gesammelte Aufsdtze, Band 1 (Infor-
mation Judentum, 8; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), pp. 80-91;
Hayim Tadmor, '"The People" and the Kingship in Ancient Israel: The Role of
Political Institutions in the Biblical Period', Journal of World History 11 (1968),
pp. 46-68; Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, // Kings (AB 11; New York:
Doubleday, 1988), pp. 129-30; Giorgio Buccellati, Cities and Nations of Ancient
Syria: An Essay on Political Institutions with Special Reference to the Israelite
GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs? Ill
is some agreement that this represents a particular group of people in

Israel which had sufficient power and influence to depose and appoint
kings in certain circumstances (e.g. 2 Kgs 21.24; 23.30). In particular
contexts, this group seems to represent people with a reasonable amount
of wealth and standing in the community, if not a 'landed gentry' or
'aristocracy'.72 Significantly, from these passages, as well as the indi-
cation of their title 'people of the land', we would not expect them to be
exclusively, or even primarily, city dwellers.73 Yet they are criticized
for oppressing the poor and needy in Ezek. 22.29, which seems to be
further evidence to show that the prophetic critique was not necessarily
aimed at the urban populace. People whose primary domicile was rural
also came under the excoriations of the prophets.
It is often alleged that prophets are particularly negative toward the
rich or privileged. Some passages can be interpreted this way (e.g.
Amos 4.1-3), but these are only a small number of passages. Most
fulminations of the prophets are against all 'sinners', whether rich or
poor. For example, the famous chapter of Isa. 5 is often quoted against
those who 'add house to house' (v. 8), presumably the rich, but much of
the chapter is against drunkards. Some of this denunciation of drink
might possibly fit only the wealthy inebriates, but most of the chapter
applies to any lush, not to mention those who commit several other sins.
What about the social location of the prophets themselves? Are there
any tendencies about their background, either urban or rural? It has
been suggested that Micah of Moresheth was a small-town prophet who
came to Jerusalem and inveighed against its sins.74 This may well be
Kingdoms (Studi Semitic!, 26; Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vincino Oriente, 1967),
pp. 168-78, 224-28; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel. I. Social Institutions(New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), pp. 70-72 (ETof Les Institutions de I'Ancien Testament
[1958]).
72. Cf. Jer. 34.19; 37.2, and 44.21 where they seem to be separate from the
king, the king's officials and servants, and priests. On the other hand, they do not
seem to include the 'poor of the land', at least in these contexts. They might be
equated with the 'men of substance' (gibbore hdhayil) mentioned in 2 Kgs 15.20,
as 2 Kgs 23.35 also indicates.
73. Talmon ('Historical Perspectives', pp. 87-88) seems to be alone in sug-
gesting that they were a group in Jerusalem rather than in the country, based on
their presence in Jerusalem when Athaliah was deposed.
74. For a discussion of the ways in which Micah has been interpreted, see
Delbert Hillers, Micah (ed. L.R. Fisher; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
true, but most of the historical and social context of Micah is specula-
tion, and even if we accept the superscription as trustworthy (which not
everyone would be willing to do), its significance is debated. Does it
mean that he was born in Moresheth? Does it mean that he did his
prophesying there? Nothing in his prophecy suggests that he was
against Jerusalem because it was a city and not a village, while his
attack on certain institutions (e.g. the prophets) does not necessarily
show a condemnation of cities as such. Samuel's parents seem to have
had a certain amount of means, though it would probably not be wrong
to classify Elkanah as a farmer (1 Sam. 1). Whereas Elijah's back-
ground is not given, we are told that Elisha was a plowman (1 Kgs
19.19-21), though this was probably on the family farm.
On the other hand, as will be well known to readers, a number of the
prophets described in the biblical text were evidently from a more
privileged background. Several prophets were priests: Jeremiah, Eze-
kiel, perhaps Malachi.75 Huldah, the prophetess associated with Josiah's
reform, was the wife of a temple official (2 Kgs 22.14). Deborah was
said to be a prophetess, without any explanation of why (Judg. 4.4), but
she exercised a position of leadership and may have been from the
upper classes. Some prophets are associated with particular cities, espe-
cially Jerusalem, including all of Isaiah's ministry. According to a por-
tion of the Isaiah tradition, the prophet was also instrumental in the
deliverance of the city from the Assyrians. The classic exposition of the
'Zion tradition' proposes that Isaiah was one of the main proponents
of this point of view. Naturally, this interpretation has been strongly
opposed by some (e.g. R.E. Clements76), but there is far from a
1984). See also Rex Mason, Micah (OTG; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1991).
75. There is a question whether 'Malachi' is a personal name or only a title
('my messenger') for the book. In any case, there is the possibility that the author of
Malachi—whatever his name—was a priest (L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners,
Sages: A Socio-historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel [Harris-
burg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995], p. 49).
76. See especially his monograph, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem: A
Study of the Interpretation of Prophecy in the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 13;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980); also his Isaiah 1-39 (NCBC; London: Marshall,
Morgan & Scott; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). He acknowledges depen-
dence on the literary analysis of Hermann Barth (Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit
[WMANT, 48; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1977]) for deciding which
consensus on the matter.77 Although from the priestly city of Anathoth,

Jeremiah spends his time in and around Jerusalem. He himself was of a
priestly family according to the tradition (e.g. Jer. 1.1), and he certainly
seems to have spent a lot of time loitering near the temple (e.g. Jer. 7.1-
2). At no point do we find a critique of the concept of city (on Jer. 2.1-2
see above in the discussion of the wilderness tradition).
Other prophets are associated with cities or urban areas. Samuel
moved around between several different sites in his capacity of both
seer and cult figure, but much time was spent at Shiloh. Whether Shiloh
would be considered a city depends on one's definition; however, it was
an important urban entity, and Samuel seems to have been happy to
do his work there. Huldah lived in the Mishneh quarter of Jerusalem
(2 Kgs 22.14). In many cases, though, we do not know the origins or
background of the particular prophet in question. This applies, for
example, to that miscellaneous group of prophets making a brief appear-
ance in the time of the monarchy (1 Kgs 11.29; 14.1-18; 2 Kgs 20.35-
42). The social, geographical, or other origin of a prophet may well
affect his or her message, but the question of rural versus urban does
not seem to surface in most texts containing descriptions of prophets or
their alleged words.
One of the indications of urbanism is specialization, people becoming
full-time professionals with regard to a particular skill. The temple
personnel—priests and Levites—are specialists, of course. There are
also government officials and scribes, though priests and Levites might
have provided a considerable portion of scribes.78 But was there a
'butcher, baker, or candlestick maker'? Butchering could have been one
of the many tasks of men of the household, though a lot of it may have
been done by priests and Levites in the temple. How often was meat
eaten apart from sacrifices by the average Israelite, especially those
living in Jerusalem? Baking of bread was probably part of the duties of
women of the household (cf. Lev. 26.26). Jer. 37.21 mentions a 'bakers'
street' in Jerusalem from which Jeremiah was supplied with bread
while he was in prison. This indicates some specialization, though how
far to press this particular example is hard to say. Government officials
words in the book of Isaiah can be assigned to Isaiah of Jerusalem and what is
likely to be later addition.
77. See, for example, the review of Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of
Jerusalem, by J.J.M. Roberts, JBL 101 (1982), pp. 442-44.
78. Cf. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, pp. 160-61.
may well have had their bread supplied ready made rather than baking
it themselves; on the other hand, it is likely that in many households the
women baked the family bread even if they used a communal oven. We
also cannot rule out that some villages had a baker to supply a certain
amount of bread for those unable or unwilling to make it themselves.
The one specialty that we find mentioned in particular is pot throwing
(Jer. 18.1-11). This requires a good deal of skill and access to good-
quality clay. Households did make their own in times of great social
disruption when it was difficult to acquire pottery by trade or purchase.
However, this applied to those living in the countryside as much as in
the towns or cities: peasants did not usually make their own pottery.
There is also the question of whether potters lived entirely by this craft
or whether it was supplemented by agrarian activity. Does the name
'Potter's Field' indicate a property owned and worked by a certain
potter's household (Mt. 27.7, 10)?
There were no doubt a few other specialized trades or crafts: jewelry
making, mining and smelting, and the like, but they would have occu-
pied few people, and they would not have been confined to an urban
environment (e.g. smelting). One does not have the impression that
specialization had gone very far in Israel or Judah, outside the temple
and court. The main specialization was those who had govenmental
duties and the cult personnel. But were Levites and priests urban? Not
necessarily, for before Josiah's reform the biblical text explicitly indi-
cates various places of worship around the country with their cult per-
sonnel (1 Kgs 12.23; 13.2, 33; 2 Kgs 17.32; 23.9, 20; 2 Chron. 11.13-
15). According to the Hexateuch the Levites were to have towns around
the country which were also to be 'cities of refuge' (Num. 35; Josh.
20.2, 3). These cities were no doubt a literary fiction of a later age, but
they still suggest that people would think of the Levites as living in
various places away from Jerusalem. Nehemiah 13.10 mentions that
Levites had left Jerusalem to work in their fields. After the priesthood
had reached a certain size, all priests were not needed to serve at the
altar all the time; instead they served in weekly shifts and then returned
to their place of residence outside Jerusalem until the next time their
shift was on duty.79
A final consideration is the picture of society in the book of Ruth.
79. See my Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice
from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 144-45, on the priestly
shifts.
Here we find a man of property and at least some wealth in the person
of Boaz (Ruth 2.1: gibbor hayil). Although he has an evident status in
the region of Bethlehem and probably lived in the town (cf. 2.4), we see
no division between town and country here and certainly no absentee
landlord. He labors in the field alongside his workers and is clearly
concerned for their welfare. Of course, this is a text, and to determine
its relationship with social reality of a particular time and place would
require a lengthy discussion beyond our scope here. But the prophetic
passages alleged to show a rural critique of the urban are also texts. The
point is that the text giving perhaps the most detailed picture of Israelite
society shows no rural/urban dichotomy. Bethlehem is not Jerusalem,
but by the criteria used by many researchers, it would count as an urban
area.
Basically, then, we have found no major tendency among the proph-
ets to criticize or denounce cities in particular or to favor rural or coun-
try areas over urban entities. If there was an urban critique from a rural
perspective, it is muted or minor. On the contrary, the prophets seem to
inveigh against everyone. Whatever else you may say about the pre-
exilic prophets, they were generally equal-opportunity curmudgeons.
There is no favoritism: they hate everybody.
3. Conclusions
In concluding I come back again to some basic methodological prin-
ciples about the use of the social sciences. Social theories are simply
analogies based on one or more cultures. They are not 'facts' that can
then be taken as givens by biblical scholars. They are interpretations
and, like the usual suspects, to be rounded up and given the third
degree—to be subjected to a bit of the rubber hose just to test their
metal. They are, in short, simply ways of interrogating the textual or
other data. They are templates of interpretation, not tablets from Sinai.
They may be helpful, they may yield new insights, they may be a waste
of time. Yet when has a biblical scholar said that a currently popular
social theory was a waste of time?
One of the most problematic tendencies in scholarship is that of
reading modern ethical and theological concerns into the data. What
should be sociological description becomes in fact an ideological value
judgment. The city/urban is bad; the country/rural is good. The rich/
ruling class is bad; the poor are good. The Canaanite city states are bad;
the refugee slave/peasant/proto-Israelite highland settler is good. The

monarchy, social status, the economic situation, class divisions, urban-
ism, and the like are all presented from the point of view of what a
modern liberal, middle-class biblical scholar with a social conscience
would consider acceptable. It is the nineteenth-century 'life of Jesus'
mentality all over again. Just as the biography of Jesus had to conform
to the views and prejudices of a bourgois German professor of the
Victorian period, so the prophetic message must conform to what is
today theologically and socially respectable and politically correct.
Since modern scholars are ecologically minded for the most part and
have an ambivalent attitude toward their affluent middle-class lifestyle,
as well as toward the urban environment in which almost all of them
live, the message of the ancient prophets needs to be anti-city, anti-elite,
pro-poor, and pro-rural—or at least, pro-their-particular-image-of-the-
rural, which is not the necessarily the same thing as that experienced by
those who live on and work the land. Unfortunately, the message of the
prophets—as far as it can be gleaned from the texts—was not that
clearcut. They do not seem to have been so exercised over the rural/
urban divide as moderns. The reason may be, I suggest, because that
dichotomy did not really exist in ancient Israel. If so, all the theological
fulminations dressed up as sociological theory will not change this fact.
The points made in this article can be summed up as follows:
(1) Social scientific models should be the servants of biblical schol-
ars, not their masters. Theories derived from the social sciences are
simply models to be tested against the biblical and other data, not con-
clusions to be imposed on the sources.
(2) Too often sociological theory is simply a vehicle to import pre-
conceived views about the biblical text. Biblical scholars are in the
habit of making statements about the text based on theological or
ideological bias and calling it sociological analysis.
(3) The social aspect of urbanism is not clearly demonstrated as
heuristically useful for Israel and Judah of the monarchic period. The
concept of urbanism is problematic as applied to these societies because
of the lack of large urban centers and any clear demarcation of urban
and rural living. There may have been small differences between town
and country, but so far no major distinction in living has been demon-
strated. Above all, there does not seem to be much evidence that the
type, profession, and activities of prophets are to be determined by
questions of urbanism, at least in the Palestinian states of Israel and
Judah. Whether things might be different in Mesopotamia is a separate

question.80
My study so far has made me agree with those sociologists quoted
above who doubt the usefulness of urbanism as an analytical tool, but I
am happy to be shown examples where it may be quite helpful. In truly
urban areas, such as one might encounter in Mesopotamia for example,
urbanism may turn out to be more useful. But whatever conclusion one
comes to, it must be by proper analysis, not just the exercise of theo-
logical or ideological bias.
80. See Van Der Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, and the article by
Martti Nissinen elsewhere in this volume (pp. 172-209 below).
THE SAVAGE MADE CIVILIZED:
AN EXAMINATION OF EZEKIEL 16.8H
S. Tamar Kamionkowski
The prophet Ezekiel was a priest who had trained and possibly worked
in the Jerusalem Temple before he was taken into exile to Babylon. As
such, his theology, livelihood and life experience were all intimately
bound up in urban life. Yet, the complications of city life, as opposed to
more rural, agricultural settings, led to the downfall of Jerusalem and
the Judeans. Ezekiel was both dependent upon, and loathe to urban life.
Ezekiel's ambiguous relationship with city life is the object of this
study and the particular textual lens through which this investigation
takes place is Ezek. 16.
Ezekiel 16 tells a story about an abandoned baby girl, rescued by a
man who later marries her and provides her with clothing, food, and
riches. The bride repays her husband's generosity by seeking other
lovers to whom she passes on her riches and gifts. Enraged, the husband
punishes his wife through public shaming, physical abuse, and near
death. Seeing his wife humbled and put back in her place, he forgives
her adultery and takes her back in love. Of course, in this extended
metaphor, the husband is Yhwh and the young woman is Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 16.8-13 describes, in quick succession, a series of actions
with which Yhwh engages upon his second encounter with young Jeru-
salem. Verse 8 is particularly pregnant with meaning, for in one verse,
Yhwh moves from noticing the young woman to marrying her. The
steps which lead from the first sighting to marriage are as follows:
Yhwh passes by; he notices that the girl is sexually ripe, so he spreads
* This essay is a partial excerpt, with modifications, from my forthcoming

book, Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study in the Book of Esther (Shef-
field: Sheffield Academic Press). See the dissertation for a more detailed exposition
of my arguments.
KAMIONKOWSKI The Savage Made Civilized 125 125
out his robe (an issue to which we will return), covers her nakedness,
swears an oath to her, and enters into a covenant with her, so that she
becomes his.
There is a general consensus that by the end of v. 8 the metaphor
places the two characters, Yhwh and Jerusalem, in some kind of cove-
nantal or marital relationship. It is this relationship which provides the
backdrop for the rest of the chapter. The more interesting question, and
the one which is more hotly debated is whether or not this verse also
describes sexual activity between Yhwh and Jerusalem.1
To a great extent, the question of the nature of v.8 hinges upon a
proper understanding of the phrase ^^ =]]D 2TID, literally 'to spread a
wing/garment over'. The figurative application of the phrase is found in
identical form only in Ruth 3.9 and therefore limits the certainty by
which any particular interpretation can be confirmed. The phrase, which
more often than not appears with the plural of r]]D 'wings', is used to
describe the spread wings of a bird.2 However, in the poem of Deut.
32.11, Yhwh is the subject of this phrase in a metaphor:
irra« ^ inK&r innp" TSD tins" f\m" r^na ^s i]p TIT -ieto
1. Before considering the relative merits of the prominent positions in this

debate, we should clarify what is at stake in this discussion. Ezek. 16 is a metaphor
and as such, it does not tell us anything literal about the nature of God. Because the
writer of this text, as with his counterparts Hosea and Jeremiah, employs the mar-
riage metaphor, it does not mean that the writer believed Yhwh to be a literal hus-
band to Jerusalem. In the same vein, if we determine that the text of v. 8 does imply
sexual union, this does not necessarily suggest that Yhwh literally has a phallus and
engages in sexual intercourse anymore than the text claims that Yhwh literally rinses
off the blood from Jerusalem's naked body. The issue is not ultimately whether we
imagine Yhwh spreading a garment protectively over his bride or whether we pic-
ture a sexual scene; rather, the issue at stake is one of internal coherence and logic.
The willingness to acknowledge a metaphor of a divine husband who is jealous of
his wife's infidelity, but not of a divine husband who has sex reflects more the dis-
comforts of modern readers than any theological truth claims. J. Cheryl Exum's
caution is especially relevant: 'it is important to recognize that God is a character in
the biblical narrative (as much a male construct as the women in biblical literature)
and thus not to be confused with any one's notion of a "real" god.' ('Prophetic
Pornography', in J. Cheryl Exum (ed.), Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Repre-
sentations of Biblical Women [JSOTSup, 215; Gender, Culture, Theory, 3; Shef-
field: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996], pp. 121-28 [122]).
2. Exod. 25.20; 37.9; 1 Kgs 8.7; Job 39.26; 2 Chron. 5.8.
Like an eagle who awakens his nestlings, gliding down to his young, so
did he spread his wings and take him, bearing him on his wings.3
But here, =]]D 'wings' is plural, God is compared to a bird, and the pre-
position Û 'upon' is absent. Given the paucity of biblical attestations
of this phrase, the interpreter is required to look for extra-biblical paral-
lels; to consider the contexts of Ezek. 16.8 and the similar case in Ruth
3.9; and to use some measure of common sense.
Using these criteria, three possible interpretations emerge: the literal,
the symbolic, and the euphemistic. The literal reading suggests that 2HD
rpD 'spreading a garment' is a parallel to the next phrase, m"ll? HOD
'covering nakedness'.4 In this option, it is the physical covering of the
naked young woman which is at issue. However, a few factors stand
against this interpretation: first, the syntax of consecutive imperfects
suggests sequential, progressive action and not parallel phrases; more
troubling, however, is the description in vv. 9-14 in which the girl is
washed and clothed. That she is clothed, washed, and reclothed is
unlikely and leads us to consider other interpretations.5
'I spread my wing over you' is most commonly understood as a
symbolic action which expresses marital obligations on the part of a
husband. Viberg argues that this symbolic action is derived from the
image of a bird spreading its protective wing.6 Kruger has argued that
the background for this symbolic action lies in the Mesopotamian
practice of 'cutting the hem' in divorce proceedings. If some kind of
disrobing or tearing of clothing marks the cessation of a relationship,
the clothing or covering of a person should indicate the establishment
3. All translations of Hebrew and Akkadian texts are my own unless otherwise
indicated.
4. It is interesting to note that in our text 'spreading the garment' is followed
by the phrase 'I covered your nakedness'. The two actions are presented sequen-
tially, as two distinct acts. This phrase is found in only three other biblical passages:
Gen. 9.23; Exod. 28.42 and Hos. 2.11. By contrast, the opposite formulation:
'uncovering nakedness' is quite common.
5. This observation also necessitates a reconsideration of the meaning of HDD
rmu.
6. Ake Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts
in the Old Testament (ConBOT, 34; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992), pp.
143-44.
KAMIONKOWSKI The Savage Made Civilized 121
of a relationship.7 Whether the symbolic act signifies a promise of pro-

tection or simply ownership is not clear.8 Regarding Ezek. 16.8, Kruger
understands the following phrase, 'covered your naked body' as a
'qualification' which further explains 'spread my skirt'.9 In other words,
Kruger understands v. 8 as a marriage ceremony in which the groom
promises to support his future wife; this is expressed by the parallel
statements: 'spread my skirt', 'covered your nakedness', 'swore to you'
and 'entered into a covenant'. The details of the marriage obligations
are then spelled out in vv. 9, 10, 13a (anointing; clothing; and feeding).
In Mesopotamian literature, particularly legal material, we find refer-
ences to a practice associated with the dissolution of marriage, in which
a spouse cuts the other partner's garment. This practice, often referred
to as sissiktam bataqum 'cutting a garment', has been well documented
by a number of scholars.10 Additionally, C. Kuhl cites an Old Babylo-
nian (OB) text in which a woman declares to her husband: 'you are not
my husband' and then leaves naked.11 ^jD 2HS 'spreading a garment' as
a symbolic gesture of marriage is thus derived from its opposite sissik-
tam bataqum or the like.
Is this a sound methodological move? No evidence has been brought
forward to suggest that spreading out a garment was a symbolic act of
marriage or in any way symbolized the forging of any kind of new rela-
tionship. It is true that garments, as sissiktam or qannum, were used in
a surprisingly great number of symbolic rites and figurative expres-
sions. Garments are cut (bataqum), tied (rakasum, kasdrum) or seized
(sabdtum) in a variety of situations. In Malul's comprehensive study of
Mesopotamian legal symbolism, nearly half of the symbolic actions
which he documents include the manipulation of a garment, whether in
divorce claims, pledges, debt collection, or other legal claims. Although
tying a garment, ina sissiktim rakasum, appears in marriage contexts,
7. Cf. P.A. Kruger, 'The Hem of the Garment in Marriage: The Meaning of the
Symbolic Gesture in Ruth 3:9 and Ezek. 16:8', JNSL 12 (1984), pp. 79-86.
8. Cf. Kruger, The Hem of the Garment', pp. 84-85 for a further discussion of
this matter.
9. Kruger, 'The Hem of the Garment', p. 85.
10. Esp. Meir Malul, Studies in Mesopotamian Legal Symbolism (AOAT, 221;
Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon & Bercken; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag,
1988).
11. 'Neue Dokumente zum Verstandnis von Hos 2:4-15', ZAW 52 (1934), pp.
102-109.
the act refers to bundling money in the hem of a garment as a gift to a

bride. The common phrase sissiktam sabdtum expresses the formation
of relationships, but it is always used by a vassal as an expression of
loyalty to his overlord, as in: asbat qannakama ukil sissiktaka, 'I have
seized your garment, I have held on to your hem.'12 Similarly, a sabit
qanniki is the partner in the inferior position who grabs onto the
garment of the superior. There are no examples of the extension of a
garment by one person to another. Returning to Ezek. 16.8, one could
argue that as Yhwh extends his garment, Jerusalem, by implication, has
seized it; but this misses the point. If the point of the text is to demon-
strate the generosity of Yhwh, the writer would not employ an idiom
which typically stresses the loyalty of the inferior partner.
A third possible interpretation is that the phrase spD 2HS is a eu-
phemism for sexual intercourse.13 The strongest proponent of this
theory is Marvin H. Pope who writes: 'Just what this meant is not diffi-
cult to divine, unless one comes to the story with the presupposition
that the deity was wholly void of sexual urge or capability, which cer-
tainly was not the ancient idea of gods or goddesses.'14 Brownlee also
favors this interpretation, translating the phrase as: 'I spread my robe to
you...' 15
This position can be substantiated by a few observations. First of all,
Ezekiel does not use the more common phrase here for covering an
individual with a garment as he does in 18.7: IIQ—HCD"1 DTtfl 'he
covers the naked with a garment'. Secondly, the man's attention is
drawn to the young woman because she has reached her 'time of love',
12. Werner Mayer, Untersuchungen zur Formensprache der babylonischen

'Gebetsbeschworungen' (Studia Pohl, 5; Rome: Biblical Pontifical Institute, 1976),
p. 528.
13. An early assertion that God has no sexuality is made by Johannes Hempel in
'Die Grenzen des Anthropos Jahwes im alten Testament', ZAW51 (1939), pp. 82-
84. In M.C.A. Korpel's work on the metaphoric nature of God-talk, she argues that
God is nonsexual, with no consort, no sexual organs or behavior, never naked (A
Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine [Theologische
Akademie Uitgaande van de Johannes Calvijnstichting te Kampen, Ugaritisch-
biblische Literatur, 8; Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1990], pp. 125, 133-34, 217-25.
14. Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977),
p. 393.
15. William H. Brownlee, Ezekiel 1-19 (WBC; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1986),
p. 225.
DH1 n^,16 suggesting that sexual desire is the motivating factor for his
interest. The previous verse spares no detail in describing the woman's
developing physical, pubescent features:
17
D"-ii; --fin "sum -Vim ""aim -prim mton na:o mm
mm mu DKI nan "piJfcn ID: D-IB;
I made you grow like the plants of the field; and you continued to grow
up until you started menstruating, until your breasts became firm and
your hair sprouted. But you were still naked and bare.
The other text in which =pD (ZHS appears, Ruth 3.9, also intimates sex-
ual overtones. In that story, Naomi instructs Ruth to sneak into Boaz's
'bed' after he has eaten and has had his fill of drink. Ruth secretly joins
him and 'uncovers his feet,' that is, exposes his genitals.18 When he
awakes in a drunken stupor, she requests that he 'spread his garment'
over her.
Sexual activity may also be suggested by a later phrase in the verse:
IT "OH N1HN1 'I entered into a covenant'. The use of the sexually
nuanced verb 813 'to enter'19 in place of Ezekiel's usual phraseology for
16. DTTT nu refers to sexual lovemaking; see Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 7-20
(AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 277. Cf. Ezek. 23.17; Prov. 7.18;
Song 4.10; 7.13.
17. The meaning of D"T^ "HIO is disputed. W. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1: A Com-
mentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 1-24 [trans. R.E. Clements;
Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979], p. 324) cuts "HIO as dittography.
LXX reads eiofj?i6e<; eiq JioXeit; K6A,ewv reflecting the Hebrew DH.iJ T'iJIl which in
turn may reflect a misreading of D1""IU "HIO 'completely nude', with an orthographic
"1/1 mix-up. Some emend the phrase from D""HJ) HI?? to DHD np5 (W. Eichrodt,
Ezekiel: A Commentary [trans. C. Quinn; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1970], p. 99; G.A. Cooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of
Ezekiel [ICC; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
reprint, 1967], p. 163), understanding the meaning as 'menstruation;' cf. Isa. 64.5.
Greenberg (Ezekiel 1-20, pp. 276-77) does not emend to menses because it does not
'suit the erotic context' and is not listed as a sign of puberty among Jews; instead he
takes it as a reference to developing breasts and pubic hair.
18. The phrase: 3D2JP1 Tn^3~lD ^m may well indicate a sexual act if 'foot' is
understood as a euphemism for male genitalia; cf. C.M. Carmichael, '"Treading" in
the Book of Ruth', ZAW92 (1980), pp. 257-58; Kruger, 'The Hem of the Garment',
p. 84; R.L. Hubbard, Jr, The Book of Ruth (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1988), pp. 203-204; Ake Viberg, Symbols of Law, p. 142.
19. Cf. Gen. 38.9, 15.
covenant making (n~O) may be significant here.20 And, Yhwh presum-

ably fathers children with his bride Jerusalem.21 If the proper under-
standing of this phrase is sexual intercourse, then the blood which
Yhwh washes off the woman in v. 9 may be the blood of first coitus.22
This interpretation is more likely than menstrual23 or birth blood.24
In objection to this interpretation, Gordon P. Hugenberger argues that
'if the "covering" mentioned in Ezek. 16.8 refers to sexual union, the
resulting order of sexual union preceding betrothal would be anomalous
and, as such would be unexpected as a description of divine activity'.25
However, it is Hugenberger who makes a convincing argument for sex-
ual union as an oath-sign for marriage in the Bible. Deut. 21.13 deals
with the captive woman's right to mourn the loss of her family before
being taken by an Israelite soldier. After her month of mourning, the
text reads: 'you may go in to her, and therefore be her husband, and she
shall be your wife'. Hugenberger argues that this phrase should be
understood as a primary statement followed by two epexegetical
20. Cf. Ezek. 16.62; 17.13; 34.25; 37.26.

21. Cf. v. 21 (MT version) and 23.4.
22. So Carol J. Dempsey, 'The "Whore" of Ezekiel 16: The Impact and Rami-
fications of Gender-Specific Metaphors in Light of Biblical Law and Divine Judg-
ment', in Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson and Tikva Frymer-Kensky
(eds.), Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup,
262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 57-78 (67).
23. For a rejection of washing menstrual blood, see William Irwin, The Problem
of Ezekiel: An Inductive Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943), p. 161
who argues that menstrual blood was viewed with such disgust by men that it is
inconceivable that Yhwh would have made contact with it. In struggling with this
passage, Julie Galambush responds to Irwin by affirming the 'absurdity of the alter-
nate possibility; that the girl has been left from infancy until adolescence in her
birth blood'. 'In either case the image is disturbing, the more so because it cast
Yahweh simultaneously in the roles of father, husband and mother or female ser-
vant' (Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: City as Yahweh's Wife [SBLDS, 130;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992], p. 94 n. 16). Galambush also rejects the option that
Yhwh washes his bride to be because there is no evidence that a husband prepared
his future wife for a marriage ceremony in this way.
24. This position is maintained by Greenberg: 'The blood rinsed away is, in
the telescoped vision of the allegory, her birth blood that still clung to her' (Ezekiel
1-20, p. 278).
25. Marriage as a Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing
Marriage Developed from the Perspective of Malachi (VTSup, 52; Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1994), p. 304.
clauses. In this case, sexual union effects the marriage. Similarly,

Hugenberger points out that Jacob never contests his marriage to Leah
which was executed through sexual union.26
In addition to the arguments presented, more compelling evidence
may be adduced. The proper Akkadian parallel to r]]r> fens may be mussu
or (w)ussu + subatu, lubuStu or the like. This phrase designates the
spreading out of clothing: $a subdssu ina suqim uwassu, 'He spreads
out his garment on the street.' Or $a subdte kite ina muhhi tumassu,
'You spread out a garment of linen before me.'27 In the Standard Baby-
lonian (SB) recension of the Gilgamesh Epic, Shamhat seduces Enkidu,
the savage man, in the following way:
ur-tam-mi MLSam-hat di-da-M
ur-Sd ip-te-e-ma ku-zu-ub-M il-qi
ul iS-hu-ut il-ti-qi na-pis-su
lu-bu-Si-Sd u-ma-si-ma UGU-M is-lal
i-pu-us-su-ma lul-la-a Si-pir sin-niS-te
Shamhat unclutched her bosom,
exposed her sex, and he took in her voluptuousness.
She was not restrained, but took his energy.
She spread out her robe and he lay upon her,
she performed for the primitive the task of womankind.
In this case, Shamhat spreads out or opens her garment in invitation to

Enkidu to engage in sexual activity. This unambiguous text offers a
compelling parallel to our Ezekiel text. In fact, the entire encounter
between Shamhat and Enkidu29 has interesting parallels to Ezek. 16 in
other ways as well.
"]K~!N1 "pÛ "ntftfl Then Shamhat saw him—a primitive, a savage
fellow from the depths of the wilderness. (SB 1.4)
nm nr ~[ni> rum
*D!D EHDKI She spread out her robe and he lay upon her. (SB
1.4)
26. For further argumentation and examples, cf. Hugenberger, Marriage as a

Covenant, pp. 248-79.
27. Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch. III. S-Z(Wiesbaden:
Otto Harrassowitz, 1981), p. 1498.
28. Translation taken from Maureen Gallery Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2nd edn, 1989), p. 9.
29. Cf. Dietz O. Edzard, 'Kleine Beitrage zum Gilgames-Epos', Or NS 54
(1985), pp. 46-55.
"fm~lU nODNl Shamhat pulled off her clothing and clothed him
with one piece while she clothed herself with a
second. (OB 2.2)
~p 1OZ7K1 She took hold of him as the gods do. (OB 2.2)
JQ2D ... D^QH JTDKT He splashed his shaggy body with water, and
rubbed himself with oil and turned into a human.
(OB 3.2)
... 30-pn'?Nl He put on some clothing. (OB 2.3)
rD'te'? TI^Hn And he became like a warrior/man. (OB 2.3)
There are remarkable parallels between these two stories. In both cases,
one character civilizes and guides another primitive, savage, uncultured
individual.31 Enkidu, the savage man, is raised by and lives among the
animals, having had no contact with humanity. Young Jerusalem is also
uncultured, alien to the workings of human society. Yhwh and Shamhat
both play the role of transforming the primitive into a social being. In
both stories, the sequence of events is essentially the same. The savage
is seen, seduced and gradually introduced to the rudimentary symbol
of culture, first through sex, then through food and clothing.32
30. On the connection between Jerusalem's clothing and the material of the
tabernacle, see Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, p. 95.
31. William L. Moran draws upon the work of classicists A.O. Lovejoy and
B. Boas's Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935) who distin-
guish between primitivism and anti-primitivism. The former sees the early days of
humanity as an idyllic, ideal time; while anti-primitivism views early history as a
harsh and savage time. According to Moran, the portrayal of Enkidu in the Gilga-
mesh Epic belongs to the latter tradition of anti-primitivism ('Ovid's Blanda
Voluptas and the Humanization of Enkidu', JNES5Q [1991], pp. 121-27).
32. A number of studies have pointed in the direction of Ezekiel's familiarity
with Mesopotamian literature; see Stephen Garfinkel, 'On Thistles and Thorns: A
New Approach to Ezekiel II 6', VT 4 (1987), pp. 421-37; 'Another Model for
Ezekiel's Abnormalities', JANESCU 19 (1989), pp. 39-50; cf. also his 'Studies in
Akkadian Influences in the Book of Ezekiel' (unpublished PhD dissertation: Col-
umbia University, NY, 1983). See also M.C. Astour's observations regarding the
similarities between the Gog prophecy and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin
('Ezekiel's Prophecy of Gog and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin', JBL 95
[1976], pp. 567-79); Bernhard Lang's work on Mesopotamian motifs and iconog-
raphy which impact the book of Ezekiel (Ezechiel: der Prophet und das Buch
[Ertrage der Forschung, 153; Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1981);
Daniel Bodi's arguments for a literary dependence on the Mesopotamian classic,
Erra (The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra [OBO, 104; Freiburg and Got-
tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991]); and Moshe Greenberg has also con-
vincingly argued that Ezekiel had some knowledge of Babylonian literature and
Some commentators33 follow the suggestion of Hermann Gimkel, that

Ezek.16 is based on the popular motif of a foundling who rises to great-
ness.34 The most recent study on this folktale is that of Brian Lewis,35
who detects 72 occurrences of this motif from various cultures in anti-
quity; however, he does not include Ezek. 16 in his list. Lewis identifies
seven basic elements in this folktale: (1) explanation of abandonment;
(2) infant of noble birth; (3) preparation for exposure; (4) exposure;
(5) infant protected or nursed in an unusual manner; (6) discovery and
adoption; (7) accomplishments of hero.36 The first element is present in
all but one of his examples. The second and seventh elements appear in
62 out of 72 tales.
Ezekiel 16 does not fit into this model for several reasons. Jerusalem
is not abandoned by her parents out of shame or necessity; the story
does not care what led Jerusalem to her present circumstances. She does
not demonstrate her own greatness as she grows up; she survives and
thrives because of Yhwh's intervention. There is no prophecy regarding
the birth of Jerusalem which introduces the story and subsequently no
fulfillment of prophecy. Furthermore, Jerusalem is not saved by farmers
or an animal; rather, she is saved by the 'king' himself. Therefore,
tracing the folk or literary origins of this chapter to the foundling motif
tale is erroneous; nevertheless the prophet may have been familiar with
the practice of exposure of infants and this practice may have provided
the initial setting for the tale. The exposure of the infant is combined
with the tale of savage turned civilized.
culture (The Design and Themes of Ezekiel's Program of Restoration', Int 38

[1984], pp. 181-209 and 'Ezekiel's Vision: Literary and Iconographic Aspects', in
H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld [eds.], History, Historiography and Interpretation:
Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures [Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Leiden:
EJ. Brill, 1983], pp. 159-68).
33. Cf. Cooke, Ezekiel, p. 159.
34. Das Marchen im Alten Testament (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1921), pp. 113-
16. More recently, Donald B. Redford, 'Literary Motif of the Exposed Child: Ex
2:1-10', Numen 14 (1967), pp. 209-28. Examples of this story type can be found
throughout the ancient Near East and in Greco-Roman literature.
35. Brian Lewis, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale
of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth (ASOR Dissertation Series, 4; Cambridge,
MA: ASOR, 1980).
36. Lewis, The Sargon Legend, p. 211.
Sex civilizes,37 but also ultimately undoes civilization. Both Enkidu

and Jerusalem go too far and refuse to play their assigned roles; in both
cases, they overstep their boundaries. Rivkah Harris has suggested that
Shamhat's role vis-a-vis Enkidu marks an inversion: 'She is depicted,
through her actions and words, as a maternal, beneficent, wise woman
and not as a deceitful, lustful seductress.'38 Yet, as Harris herself notes
in quoting the famous Sherry Ortner article, 'Is Female to Male as
Nature is to Culture?'39 women are often 'one of culture's crucial agen-
cies for the conversion of nature into culture'.40 I would suggest that the
more interesting reversals are to be found in the Ezekiel version of the
story, for there, the male God plays the role of Shamhat. Instead of
Shamhat spreading open her robe (and presumably her legs), it is Yhwh
who spreads open his garment and seduces the young, savage woman.
Ezekiel's adaptation of the Gilgamesh Epic material may reflect the
prophet's ambiguous attitudes toward urban life. Ezek. 16 may be read
as the story of a savage turned civilized, wherein the savage represents
the community of Israel or Jerusalem before it became the capital city
of a nation and the civilized woman represents the fully developed
capital city. The prophet credits Yhwh with the gifts of urban life; it is
Yhwh who bestows the riches and confers a royal status on Jerusalem
(Ezek. 16.10-14). And yet, it is this wealth and high status which leads
to the corruption of personified Jerusalem.
37. Moran finds a parallel to Enkidu and Shamhat in Ovid's Ars amatoria
2.467-80, a tale of cosmic and human origins. The lines of particular interest to us
are: Then did the human race wander in lonely fields, it was but sheer strength and
body without grace. The woods had been their home, the grass their food, and
leaves their beds, and long was each to each unknown. Gentle love (they say)
softened savage hearts: A man and a woman, in one place, had paused. What to do
they learned by themselves. There was no teacher. Venus performed her sweet task.
There was no art.' Moran, 'Ovid's Blanda Voluptas\ p. 123, cited from EJ. Ken-
ney, P. Ovidi Nasonis Amores; Medicamina faciei feminaeua; Ars amatoria;
Remedia Amoris (Oxford Classical Texts; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).
38. Rivkah Harris, 'Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic', in Tzvi Abusch,
John Huehnergard and Piotr Steinkeller (eds.), Lingering Over Words: Studies in
Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1990), pp. 222-23.
39. In Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds.), Women, Culture, and
Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 67-87.
40. Ortner, 'Is Female to Male?', p. 84; quoted by Harris, 'Images of Women',
p. 223.
Ezekiel depicts Jerusalem as a foundling abandoned by her Amorite

and Hittite parents at birth. The Talmud understands Jerusalem's par-
entage as a source of shame:
At the time that the Holy One, Blessed is He, said to Ezekiel, 'Go tell the
Israelites: Your father is the Amorite and your mother a Hittite,' an angel
said before the Holy One, Blessed is He, 'Master of the Universe, if
Abraham and Sarah were to come and stand before You, would You
shame them by telling them [this]?41
Moshe Greenberg argues that Ezekiel describes 'the pagan antecedents

of Jerusalem' in order to provide 'a motive for the cruel abandonment
of the infant (necessary to highlight God's kindness) and a hereditary
ground for her future dissolute conduct'.42 Unlike Jeremiah, who envi-
sions Israel's youth as a time of purity of heart (Jer. 2.2), Ezekiel
describes the origins of Jerusalem as mired in tragedy.
The absence of a Jeremiah-like honeymoon in Ezek. 16, along with
other clues, leads Julie Galambush to remark that 'Ezekiel's deletion of
Yahweh and Jerusalem's happy past is consistent with his depiction of
Jerusalem as inherently other, unclean and unworthy, and of the mar-
riage as an exceptional kindness by Yahweh.'43 However, it is crucial to
note that the text itself views this period as an ideal time in some ways.
Yhwh condemns Jerusalem for having forgotten this time of her youth
(Ezek. 16.43) and Yhwh returns Jerusalem to this initial state before
seeking reconciliation with her. In other words, the period prior to the
establishment of the capital city is viewed as both a time of impurity
and a time of alluring innocence.
The extended metaphor of Ezek. 16 is thus better understood not
against the backdrop of adoption and marriage imagery, but against the
41. b. Sanh.44b.
42. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, p. 300. Cf. also Deut. 26.5, 'My father was a
fugitive Aramean.' Gerhard von Rad described this unit as an early creed summary
of salvation history (Deuteronomy [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966],
pp. 157-59). The attribution of Israel's origins from Arameans is not necessarily
derogatory; it may simply express claims of Israel's origins from the East. Cf.
Neville Krausz, 'Arami oved avi: Deuteronomy 26:5', JBQ 25 (1997), pp. 31-34;
Stig Norin, 'Bin Aramaer, dem unkommen nahe—ein Kerntext der Forschung und
Tradition', SJOT 8 (1994), pp. 87-104; Gerald Janzen, 'The "Wandering Aramean"
Reconsidered', VT44 (1994), pp. 359-75.
43. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, p. 82.
backdrop of a tale of civilization. God is responsible for having intro-

duced Jerusalem to culture and society. Jerusalem is acculturated and
given a position, but as a woman, she is expected to remain faithful to
the one who gave her all this. Enkidu, by contrast, is not expected to
remain with Shamhat. His independence is expected and Shamhat can
gracefully disappear from the story. Jerusalem's independence sets up
the tensions which undergird the rest of the story. The tension is set up
by the gender of the two players and their relative status as divine and
human. The tension, on the level of culture, is that Jerusalem's expo-
sure to urban life, an accummulation of wealth and internationalism
eventually lead to her corruption.
RECONSTRUCTING HAGGAI'S JERUSALEM:
DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
AND THE SEARCH FOR AN ADEQUATE METHODOLOGICAL
POINT OF DEPARTURE
John Kessler
It is quite frequently affirmed in scholarly literature that the production

of both the oracles and editorial framework of the book of Haggai can
be situated in Jerusalem between 520-516 BCE.1 In contrast to this
confluence of opinion, attempts to describe the matrix from which the
book arose, that is the specific demographic and sociological situation
in Jerusalem, display a great degree of diversity. More specifically, the
question of whether early Persian Yehud could have produced signifi-
cant theological literature has been hotly debated. Given the intensity
with which Persian Yehud has been studied over the past 20 years, it is
appropriate to ask whether our scholarly appraisal of its social and
demographic contours can move any closer to a consensus.
This study will therefore attempt three things. First, I will briefly
survey three general approaches to the social context of early Persian
Jerusalem and Yehud. Second, I will raise and discuss two critical ques-
tions. One addresses the role of demographic analysis in the reconstruc-
tion of ancient contexts. The second raises the question of the relation-
ship between population density and literary output in Yehud. Finally, I
will explore some conclusions and potential implications regarding our
understanding of Jerusalem and Yehud in the early Persian period.
1. For example, S. Amsler, Aggee (CAT, XI-C; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1988),
p. 10; C.L. Meyers and E.M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 (AB; Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1987), p. xliii; P.A. Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi
(NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 10, as well as Marti, Mitchell, Sellin,
Horst and Deissler.
1. Three Representative Approaches to Persian Yehud

a. The Conflict Model
As the designation implies, adherents of this model see intra-communal
conflict as the point of entry into the dynamics of the life of the com-
munity in Yehud. While differing on the precise nature of the conflict,
proponents of this approach generally share the following assumptions:
(1) Yehud is seen as characterized by profound social divisions, echoes
of which may be found in various biblical texts. (2) Yehud is viewed as
a rather densely populated province, boasting anywhere from 50,000 to
200,000 inhabitants.2 (3) The years between 587 BCE and 520 BCE,
comprising the fall of Jerusalem, the exile of a portion of its inhabitants,
and the subsequent return and reinstallation of a group distinguishable
from the population that remained in the land, are said to constitute a
significant turning point which radically altered the theological and
sociological landscape of the Yahwistic faith.
Adherents of the conflict model may, broadly speaking, be divided
into three major groups according to their understanding of the
fundamental nature of the conflict.3 The first group, comprising P.D.
Hanson, Morton Smith, R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, P.R. Bedford4 and
2. The following are some representative population estimates for Yehud:

Weinberg: 200,000 (J.P. Weinberg, Der Chronist in seiner Mitwelt [BZAW, 239;
Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1996], pp. 37-38); Hanson: 42,000 (P.D. Hanson, The Dawn
of Apocalyptic [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975], pp. 226-27); Gottwald: 'well in
excess of 50,000' (N.K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduc-
tion [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], pp. 430-31); Gottwald sees the 50,000
figure of Ezra 2 as too small for the total population of Yehud and suggests that this
number represented only the privileged classes. H. Kreissig: 100,000 (H. Kreissig,
Die sozialb'konomische Situation in Juda zur Achemenidzeit [Schriften zur
Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients, 7; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1973], p. 38
n.3).
3. This three-part categorization is meant to facilitate the understanding of
these various conflictual approaches. It should be noted, however, that there is a
certain degree of overlap at various points between the three groups.
4. R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, 'The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic',
VT20 (1970), pp. 1-15; Hanson, Dawn; M. Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics
that Shaped the Old Testament (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); P.R.
Bedford, 'Discerning the Time: Haggai, Zechariah and the "Delay" in the Rebuild-
ing of the Jerusalem Temple', in S.W. Holloway and L.K. Handy (eds.), The
KESSLER Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem 139
N.K. Gottwald,5 among others, envisages a Jerusalem and Yehud

divided primarily upon theological or ideological lines. According to
this model, in 520 BCE the populous province of Yehud stood at a
critical juncture. The theological diversity and concomitant social frag-
mentation which obtained before 587 BCE had continued into the exilic
period. The situation had been further complicated by the return of the
former deportees.6 With the advent of Persian rule, the community was
afforded the possibility of choosing its future direction. Various sects
and parties vied for political and theological control.7 Prophets sought
to sway the masses to one or another of the opposing camps.8 The lit-
erature of the period, which constitutes no insignificant corpus, reflects
this intra-communal theological debate. Despite agreement on the
theological nature of the conflict, the adherents of this position display
no unanimity regarding the specific issues under debate, the sectors of
the population at odds with one another and the literary works which
represent the theologies of the various groups.9
A second variation on the conflict theme is proposed by J.P. Wein-
berg and H. Kreissig who envisage a Yehud divided primarily over
economic and land tenure conflicts.10 Here the returnees are pitted
Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for G.W. Ahlstrom (JSOTSup, 190; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 71-94.
5. Gottwald views portions of the Samaritan population as having pushed into
Judah during the exile to occupy abandoned estates (Hebrew Bible, p. 424). He then
speaks of two streams of Yahwism: Samaritan and Judahite, in conflict with each
other (p. 420). He also alludes to the presence of socioeconomic and political
rivalries.
6. Smith, Parties, p. 107; Hanson, Dawn, p. 260.
7. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 211-79; Smith, Parties, pp. 107-10.
8. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 240-62, esp. pp. 244, 246, 253, 256.
9. A brief and random survey is as follows. Hamerton-Kelly: Priestly group
favouring immediate construction of the temple vs. disciples of Ezekiel who want
to await the eschatological era; Hanson: Priestly-Ezekielian coalition (largely retur-
nees) vs. disciples of Isaiah and disenfranchised Levites; Gottwald: Samaritan
Yahwists vs. Judean Yahwists; Bedford: the community vs. Haggai and Zechariah
(Bedford, 'Discerning', esp. pp. 74, 94). For a more detailed discussion see, L.L.
Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian I (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp.
103-12.
10. H. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 101-105; J.P. Weinberg, 'Der 'am ha ares des 6.-
4. Jahrhunderts v. u. Z.', Klio 56 (1974), pp. 325-35; idem, 'Die Agrarverhaltnisse
in der Biirger-Tempel-Gemeinde der Achamenidenzeit', Acta Antiqua 22 (1974),
pp. 473-85. esp. pp 479-81.
against the non-exiled population. According to this approach, Babylo-

nian policy following 587 BCE had benefited the non-exiled population
at the expense of the deportees. The latter, who were the former land-
owners (or Eigentumerri) were dispossessed of their holdings when they
were exiled. Their lands passed into the hands of the Babylonian crown.
In the early part of the Babylonian period, the former tenant farmers,
(or Besitzern) who had previously worked the land for the Judean
landed class were left in place by the Babylonians.11 As such they
continued to work the land and surrendered a portion of the produce to
the Babylonian crown or member of the nobility. These tenant farmers
may also have benefited from extensive debt release.12 As the Baby-
lonian period advanced, however, this group ultimately gained either de
facto or de jure ownership of the land, and were recognized as Eigen-
tumern in their own right.13 Under Persian rule, with its restorationist
impulse, the former landed class returned and sought to reclaim their
land holdings, thus precipitating social conflict on various levels.14
11. Kreissig, Situation, p. 26; M.A. Dandamaev, The Culture and Social Institu-
tions of Ancient Iran (trans. P.L. Kohl; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988), pp. 132-33. Weinberg's approach differs from that of Kreissig. According to
Weinberg, even during the Babylonian period there was a certain measure of
conflict between a pro-Babylonian sector of the population consisting of the 'poor
of the land' who had been given agricultural plots by the Babylonians and an anti-
Babylonian 'separatist' group consisting of non-deported freeholders or Eigen-
ttimern ('Agarveraltnis' p. 480); cf. also Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen zur
Geschichte der Nachexilischen Gemeinde in Juda', Klio 54 (1972), pp. 46-50, esp.
p. 50.
12. Kreissig, Situation, p. 27.
13. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 27, 32. On the sale and redemption of land, cf.
H.G. Kippenberg, Religion und Klassenbildung im antiken Judaa: Eine religions-
soziologische Studie zum Verhdltnis von Tradition und gesellschaftlicher Ent-
wickung (Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments, 14; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1978), pp. 33-41.
14. Margalith sees the conflict as being between the pro-Babylonian non-
deportees and the pro-Persian returnees: O. Margalith, The Political Background of
Zerubbabel's Mission and the Samaritan Schism', VT41 (1991), pp. 312-23, esp.
pp. 315-20. Kreissig (Situation, pp. 35-39, 101-105) sees these conflicts as rela-
tively minor. However given the fact that he sees the population of Yehud as 60,000
before the return and 100,000 by the end of the sixth century, by any calculation the
difficulties encountered in the course of the integration of upwards of 20,000 return-
ing landowners into a reduced province with a population of 60,000 would have
been of monumental proportions.
Similar views have been expressed by O. Margalith and R. Carroll, and

to a lesser extent D.J.A. dines.151 note in passing that unlike virtually
all other historians of the period with the possible exception of Gott-
wald,16 Weinberg views Yehud not as a geographically defined territory
but as pockets of returnees living in proximity to the non-exiled popu-
lation.17 Again the specific theological positions of these two conflicting
groups and the literature they produced are variously understood.
A third view sees the conflict as ethnic, political and theological.
Scholars such as Thompson and Bolin maintain that a group of
returnees, by and large ethnically unrelated to the local population,
were sent to Yehud to buttress Persian foreign policy initiatives.18 This
group achieved hegemony and imposed not only its political control,
but its theological agenda on the local population. Much of the biblical
literature is an attempt by members of this group to forge a unity
between themselves and the local population via a fictitious common
history.19
Three observations regarding the conflict model are appropriate at
this point. First, it would appear that the presence of a sizable popu-
lation in Jerusalem and Yehud is a critical element in this approach. I
will take up this issue in greater detail below. Second, the biblical liter-
ature is frequently seen as either the fruit of this intra-communal
15. R. Carroll, 'The Myth of the Empty Land', Semeia 59 (1992), pp. 79-93;
D.J.A. Clines, 'Haggai's Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed, and Reconstructed',
SJOT 1 (1993), pp. 51-77; Margalith, 'Background', passim. An excellent critique
of the hypothesis of extensive conflict around land tenure at our period may be
found in E. Ben Zvi, 'Inclusion in and Exclusion from Israel as Conveyed by the
Use of the Term "Israel" in Post-Monarchic Texts', in Holloway and Handy (eds.),
The Pitcher is Broken, pp. 95-149, esp. pp. 108-10.
16. Gottwald, Hebrew Bible, p. 429.
17. Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen', p. 58; 'Agrarverhaltnisse', p. 481.
18. T.M. Bolin, 'When the End is the Beginning: The Persian Period and the
Origins of the Biblical Tradition', SJOT 10 (1996), pp. 3-15; T.L. Thompson, Early
History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992); idem, 'The Exile in History and Myth: A Response to
Hans Barstad', in L.L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: 'The Exile' as His-
tory and Ideology (JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp.
101-18, esp. pp. 104-107.
19. For an insightful critique of this position see J. Pasto, 'When is the End the
Beginning? Or when the Biblical Past is the Political Present', SJOT 12 (1998), pp.
157-202 and F.E. Deist, 'The Yehud Bible: A Belated Divine Miracle', JNSL 23
(1997), pp. 117-42.
polemic (so Hanson, Smith, and Hamerton-Kelly) or unwittingly reveal-

ing it (so Clines and Bolin). Third, the flow of thought in this approach
is generally from sociological analogy or axiom, to text, to historical
reconstruction (so Smith, Clines, and Hanson).
b. The Populous Exilic Yehud Model

The principal proponent of this view is Hans Barstad,20 whose argu-
mentation frequently resembles that of E. Janssen and H. Kreissig,21
and to a lesser extent E.-M. Laperrousaz.22 While the notion of conflict
is not absent from this model, it plays a far less significant role than in
the preceding position. Rather, this approach emphasizes that the popu-
lation of Judah/Yehud was relatively stable and homogeneous before
and after 587 BCE.23 Furthermore, the departure and return of a small
number of elite citizens did not radically affect the religious and eco-
nomic life of the community.24 This conclusion is based upon several
related assumptions: (1) the conviction that the notions of quasi-total
deportation, and its concomitant, the 'Myth of the Empty Land', are not
primarily intended to be statements of historical detail, but rather essen-
tial components of ancient story-telling.25 For Barstad, such notions are
thus rhetorical and descriptive devices which stress the importance of
20. H. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and
Archaeology of Judah During the 'Exilic' Period (SOSup, 28; Oslo: Scandinavian
University Press, 1996). Several of the adherents of the 'conflict' model, as we have
seen, maintain high population statistics for exilic Judah (so Weinberg, 200,000).
However their emphasis on the great degree of conflict which existed in the post-
exilic period distinguishes them from this second position whose main emphasis is
the stability and continuity in Yehud throughout the sixth century.
21. E. Janssen, Juda in der Exilszeit: Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Entstehung des
Judentums (FRLANT, 69; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956); Kreissig,
Situation, pp. 20-34. As noted above, Kreissig implies a level of social conflict not
discernible in Barstad's work.
22. E.-M. Laperrousaz, 'Jerusalem a 1'epoque perse (etendue et statut)',
Transeuphratene 1 (1989), pp. 55-65 and his extensive writings on the size of
Jerusalem in Eretz Israel, Folia Orientalia and elsewhere.
23. Barstad, Myth, pp. 53-55. Kreissig (Situation, pp. 22-23) nuances this some-
what, and incorporates the effects of the population loss following Gedeliah's assas-
sination into his reconstruction.
24. Barstad, Myth, pp. 67-71; Kreissig, Situation, pp. 22-23, 26. Kreissig is
more hesitant that Barstad regarding the extent of economic activity during the
exile.
25. Barstad, Myth, pp. 31-32, 53; Kreissig, Situation, pp. 20-21, 30-31.
the Babylonian conquest (in Kings)26 or the importance of the returnees

(in Chronicles).27 (2) Babylonian destruction in Jerusalem was limited
to breaches in the wall, the removal of the city gates, and damage to the
central shrine. The residential sections of the city (which extended to
the Western Hill) were left largely untouched.28 (3) This densely popu-
lated exilic and postexilic Judah was the source of several major literary
works such as Lamentations; Isa. 21; DH; Obadiah; Pss. 44, 74, 79, 89,
102; Jeremiah; Ezekiel; and Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah.29 (4) The notion
of a 'shift of gravity'30 from Palestine to Babylon is pure mythology.
The community which remained in Judah was vital and creative.31
(5) The conflict that did exist arose at a later period and was not a
formative factor in the creation of the literary works mentioned above.
Let me note in conclusion that while Barstad does not explicitly
state his estimate of the population of Jerusalem or Yehud, he clearly
assumes it to be rather substantial.32 Furthermore the flow of his argu-
ment differs significantly from the 'Conflict' approach. He reasons from
historical and archaeological data, to demographic assumptions, to
potential for literary output. This line of argumentation corresponds to
his basic intent which is not to reconstruct a sociohistorical context per
se, but to argue for the potential Palestinian origin of certain literary
works.
26. Barstad, Myth, pp. 31-34.

28. Here Barstad substantially follows the arguments of Janssen (Exilszeit, pp.
42-45) which were also taken up by P.R. Ackroyd (Exile and Restoration: A Study
of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1968], pp. 20-21). Cf. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 22-24.
29. Barstad, Myth, pp. 19-23. See also his The Babylonian Captivity of the Book
of Isaiah: 'Exilic' Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40-55 (Oslo: Novus Insti-
tuttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, 1997), pp. 86-87 and 'On the History
and Archaeology of Judah during the Exilic Period. A Reminder', OLP 19 (1988),
pp. 25-36, esp. p. 36.
30. It would appear that this tournure which has found its way into the warp and
woof of scholarly discussion of the period originated with J. Bright (A History of
Israel [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2nd edn, 1972], p. 345). It has become a
somewhat customary way of describing the theological landscape (to mix meta-
phors) of the period.
c. The Demographic Decline Model

In contrast to the preceding, rather maximal, views of the exilic popu-
lation, proponents of this view, principally C.E. Carter and E. Ben Zvi,
and to a lesser extent, Magen Broshi,33 envisage a Yehud and Jerusalem
which are rather sparsely populated during the Babylonian and early
Persian periods.34 Aharoni similarly posited a 'population vacuum' dur-
ing this period.35 Carter maintains that while some increase in the popu-
lation did occur in the late sixth century and early fifth century,36 no
significant growth occurred until the mid-fifth century. This increase
may have been related to broader Persian political initiatives in the
Levant as a whole. Broshi originally estimated the population of mid-
fifth-century Jerusalem as approximately 4,800.37 This figure was later
revised downward by Carter, primarily due to his conclusions regarding
the size of the residential area of the city and its population density.38
33. I include Broshi here due to the relative comparison between his population
estimates and those of Laperrousaz, for example. Next to the latter's estimate of the
population of Jerusalem as 12,000 in the mid-fifth century, Broshi's 4,800 is quite
restrained (see below).
34. E. Ben Zvi, The Urban Center of Jerusalem and the Development of the
Literature of the Hebrew Bible', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven
W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup,
244; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), pp. 194-209; M. Broshi, 'Estimating the Popula-
tion of Ancient Jerusalem', BARev 4 (1978), pp. 10-15; idem, 'La population de
1'ancienne Jerusalem', RB 1 (1982), pp. 5-14; C.E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud
in the Persian Period (JSOTSup, 294; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999);
idem, 'The Province of Yehud in the Post-Exilic Period: Soundings in Site Distri-
bution and Demography', in T.C. Eskenazi and K.H. Richards (eds.), Second
Temple Studies 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period (JSOTSup, 175;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 106-45.
35. Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (London: Burns
and Gates, 1979), p. 409.
36. Carter, 'Yehud', pp. 134-35. The same may be said for Galilee, cf. J. Briend,
'L'occupation de la Galilee occidentale a 1'epoque perse', Transeuphratene 2
(1990), pp. 109-23, esp. p. 121. A similar phenomenon may be seen in Samaria, cf.
A. Zertal, The Pahwah of Samaria (Northern Israel) during the Persian Period:
Types of Settlement, Economy, History and New Discoveries', Transeuphratene 3
(1990), pp. 9-29, esp. p. 12. Cf. A. Lemaire, 'Populations et territoires de la Pales-
tine a 1'epoque perse', Transeuphratene 3 (1990), pp. 31-74, esp. p. 43.
37. Broshi, 'Population', p. 9. I arrive at this figure by multiplying Broshi's
estimates of size (120 dunams) and his population coefficient (40).
38. Carter, Emergence, pp. 147-48; 196-201 and esp. p. 201 n. 89.
He estimates the population of Yehud as follows: Persian I (539-450

BCE) 13,350; Persian II (450-333 BCE) 20,650.39 He views the popula-
tion of Jerusalem as approximately 1,500 in Persian II and estimates the
city's size to have been fifty percent smaller in Persian I.40 On the basis
of Carter's estimates Ben Zvi concludes that the bodies of literature
which Barstad would assign to the exilic period (with one or two minor
exceptions) could not have been written either during the exile or in
Persian I. The reason for this, according to Ben Zvi, is that until 450
BCE the demographic and economic conditions in Yehud would not
have been sufficiently developed to have sustained any significant liter-
ary activity. I will explore this issue further below.
This sparsely populated Yehud was not marked by profound social or
theological divisions. For both Carter and Ben Zvi, one major economic
challenge of the period appears to have been the need for sectors of the
urban population to construct persuasive reasons why the rural commu-
nity should part with a portion of its surplus to support groups such as
the literati, priests, and other administrative officials.41 Ben Zvi and
Carter differ with respect to the period within which the relevant bib-
lical materials were produced. Carter sees such works as DH, P, Third
Isaiah, Haggai, First and Second Zechariah, Joel, Jonah, Malachi,
Chronicles and the editing of the Writings as having taken place in
Yehud during the Persian period, although he ventures no specific sug-
gestions regarding dates.42 He does not appear to exclude Persian I from
consideration on the basis of its low population, as does Ben Zvi. I note
in conclusion that like Barstad, Ben Zvi moves from demographics to
potential for literary output.
2. Two Foundational Questions

What, then, did the Jerusalem of 520 BCE look like? Was it a hotbed of
intra-communal conflict, reinforced by polemical prophetic preaching
39. Carter, Emergence, pp. 201-202. For his earlier figures for Yehud (10,850
and 17,000) see Carter, 'Yehud', p. 135.
40. Carter, Emergence, pp. 200-201, and 'Yehud', p. 129.
41. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 197; Carter, 'Yehud', p. 138, esp. n. 87 and
Emergence, p. 287 n. 80.
42. Carter, 'Yehud', p. 137 and Emergence, pp. 286-88. N.P. Lemche, 'The Old
Testament: A Hellenistic Book', SJOT1 (1993), pp. 184-85 nn. 41-42, asserts that
such conditions did not exist until the Hellenistic period.
and sectarian literary output? Was it a bustling economic centre where,

geopolitical changes notwithstanding, literary and economic activity
continued apace? Or was it a shadow of its former self where a small
and beleaguered population now sought to stay alive, and somehow, in
the process, managed to rehabilitate a damaged cult site? Two founda-
tional questions would appear to be of critical importance in determin-
ing our approach to the reconstruction of the sociology of Yehud. The
first concerns demographics: which of the preceding demographic pro-
files is most accurate for Early Persian Yehud? The second question
concerns the potential for literary output: can Persian I Yehud be con-
sidered a candidate for the production of theological literature?
a. The Demographic Framework of Early Persian Yehud

Well-founded demographic estimates provide a highly useful point of
reference vis-a-vis competing sociological reconstructions. Methodolo-
gically, the utility of such estimates is maximized when they are intro-
duced before or at very least at the same time as the application of
sociological analogies, the reading of texts, or the reconstruction of
social, political and economic circumstances. Demographic assessment
thus provides the backdrop against which other factors may be
considered.
Of the models presented above, only the 'Demographic Decline'
position approaches the question of population levels from the perspec-
tive of a clearly formulated methodology, elaborated by a variety of
researchers over a significant period of time, and applied and tested in a
variety of contexts. Thus while Kreissig, Weinberg and Barstad all take
into serious consideration the archaeological data relevant to the period,
none attempts to translate that data into population estimates using any
clearly definable methodology. We are therefore more inclined to
accept the lower figures proposed by Carter and Ben Zvi, than the
higher estimates presupposed in other reconstructions.
Yet having opted for these low levels, it is perhaps prudent to see
them as delimiting the lower end of a broader range of potential popu-
lation figures. This is due to the fact that it is more likely that future
research will raise rather than diminish the figures proposed by Carter.
Put another way, it is more likely that Persian I occupation will be
posited in new sites than that it will be rejected for sites where it is
currently assumed. Carter clearly states that his figures are 'provisional
at best'.43 Thus a reasonable range for the population of Persian I

Yehud might be somewhere between Carter's estimate of 13,35044 and
the figure of about 20,000 proposed by Albright.45 Allowing for a
similar margin for Jerusalem, that city would have a population of
somewhere between 750 and 1,500 inhabitants. Such a margin also
leaves room for the potential inclusion of any extra-mural population,
should such have existed.46
These population estimates call into question the viability of certain
aspects of the 'Conflict' and 'Populous Judah' models. Thus, for exam-
ple, to remain persuasive, the 'Conflict' model must take due account of
the fact that social dynamics do indeed change as population density
changes. This is especially true when the community under study is
facing a significant challenge or engaged in a demanding undertaking,
as was the Jerusalem community. For this reason, the contours, propor-
tions, and intensity of the social conflict (which must of course have
existed to some degree), must be analyzed and reconstructed in light of
the number of people involved, and their broader economic and social
situation. The various conflict based models appear to have been formu-
lated presupposing a dense population. If the lower figures are accurate,
the models must be revisited. Clearly the intensity of conflict will
increase as greater population levels are pressed into limited space. One
wonders how Hanson, Weinberg or Morton Smith would have worked
out their conflict-based hypotheses had they begun with more modest
population figures. It is worth noting that in such reconstructions the
biblical numbers are at times incorporated at face value without much
analysis (as Hanson does), or interpreted in a rather unconventional
way (as Weinberg does).47
Similarly Barstad, while drawing on a wide variety of significant
data, does not, conclusively demonstrate that Babylonian Judah was a
densely populated province. So, for example, the evidence which he
provides of some population in exilic Judah and Jerusalem does not
necessarily imply that the population there remained substantially close
to its pre-587 BCE levels throughout the entire neo-Babylonian period.
43. Carter, Emergence, p. 202.

44. Carter, Emergence, p. 201.
45. W.F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York:
Harper & Row, 1963), p. 87.
46. Cf. Carter, Emergence, pp. 145-47.
47. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 226-27; Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen',passim.
Similarly his arguments regarding the economic importance of Syria-

Palestine as a whole to the Babylonian empire does not prove the
existence of a booming economy and dense population specifically in
Judah. Furthermore his argument that the 'Myth of the Empty Land' is
a literary construct used for rhetorical and ideological purposes does not
necessarily demonstrate that no significant diminution in the population
actually transpired. As we have seen, there is clear evidence which
points in the direction of population decline. Samaria and Galilee appear
to have experienced similar population declines in the late Babylonian
and early Persian periods, and to have had population levels similar to
those we are positing for Yehud.48 Barstad cites Shiloh's estimate of the
population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century of 25,000-
40,000. He then poses the question, 'What happened to Jerusalem and
to all these people'?49 He appears to intimate that such a question is a
difficult one for 'empty landers' to answer. However the question can-
not be resolved simply by affirming, as Barstad does, that the bulk of
the population either stayed put or fled to sites such as Tell el-Ful.50
Whatever we might have expected to happen based on other considera-
tions, suffice it to say that something appears to have happened to all
those people. Barstad goes on to cite E.-M. Laperrousaz as affirming a
population of 12,000 in Jerusalem during the exile.51 However, Laper-
rousaz appears to refer that figure to Nehemiah's Jerusalem rather than
to the Babylonian period.52 Furthermore Barkay's tomb excavations in
the Hinnom valley (to which Barstad makes reference) demonstrates
that Jerusalem was most likely occupied during the Babylonian period.
However this data cannot in itself provide an adequate estimate of the
population of Jerusalem at the time. Similarly S.S. Weinberg's sum-
mary of the 1967-68 Israel Department of Antiquities survey, which
Barstad then cites, cannot be said to conclusively demonstrate a densely
populated Yehud. It would therefore appear that the most probable
profile is that of a significant demographic decline.
At this point it may be instructive to canvass the text of Haggai itself
for any clues to the demographic situation the text may wittingly or
48. Briend, 'Inoccupation', p. 121; Zertal 'The Pahwah', pp. 11-12. Zertal
appears to posit a population of approximately 20,000 for Samaria in Persian I.
49. Barstad, Myth, p. 53.
50. Barstad, Myth, pp. 48-50; 53-55.
51. Barstad, Myth, p. 53 n. 19, italics his.
52. Laperrousaz, 'Jerusalem', p. 57.
unwittingly reveal. The use of Haggai may be justified on the grounds

that (1) the most likely date of the book's final redaction is in Persian
I53 and (2) we are not attempting to elicit any detailed historical data
from the text, but rather a general impression or background.
The descriptions of renovating the temple may reveal something of
the general demographic situation in 520 BCE in this regard. Before any
work begins, the temple is described as D~in ('to be waste, desolate'
vv. 4, 9). In v. 4 3~in stands opposite a description of the peoples houses
as DÎSO or 'covered'.54 If the contrast were simply one regarding the
relative material states of the two structures in question, one would
anticipate a more concrete term describing the temple's physical state
of disrepair. Indeed, several such terms were available. Four examples
are as follows: (1) JT1] ('to pull or break down') which is used passively
to describe broken down cities (Jer. 4.26) or houses (Jer. 33.4; Ezek.
16.39). It may also be used actively to describe the tearing down of
altars (Exod. 34.13; Deut. 7.25), towers (Judg. 8.9), houses (Isa. 22.10;
Ezek. 26.9) or, significantly, the temple of Baal (2 Kgs 10.27; 11.18; 2
Chron. 23.17); (2) D^n ('to smite, hammer, or strike down') which is
used with reference to the damaging of the wood in the temple during
the Babylonian invasion (Ps. 74.6); (3) J*"1D ('to break through, break
down, break up') used passively with reference to the tearing down of
the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 1.3; 2.13; 4.1; cf. Ps. 80.13; 89.41; Isa.
5.5; 2 Chron. 25.23; or (4) D~in ('to throw down, break down or tear
down') used passively of the breaking down of cities (Ezek. 36.35),
walls (Jer. 50.15), and foundations (Ezek. 30.4). Indeed, the descrip-
tions in Jer. 52.17-23; 2 Kgs 24.13-17 and Ps. 74.4-9 appear to indicate
53. In my opinion there is no convincing reason for dating the final redaction of
Haggai after 516 BCE but many persuasive arguments for placing it before that date.
These include (1) the presence, form, and variations in form of the date formulae
within the book (cf. R. Yaron, The Scheme of the Aramaic Legal Documents', JJS
2 [1957], pp. 33-61; J. Kessler, The Second Year of Darius and the Prophet Hag-
gai', Transeuphratene 5 [1992], pp. 63-84); (2) the lack of redactional attenuation
of the optimistic oracle to Zerubbabel in 2.20-23 (cf. R.A. Mason, The Purpose of
the "Editorial Framework" of the Book of Haggai', VT27 [1977], pp. 413-21 esp.
p. 417; T. Chary, Aggee—Zacharie Malachie [Sources Bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda,
1969], p. 12; Verhoef, Haggai, p. 10); (3) the lack of any mention of the completion
of the temple (cf. Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, pp. xliii-xlv ); (4) the lack of any
hesitation regarding diarchic communal leadership (cf. Mason, 'Purpose', p. 421).
54. For this understanding of the term see, for example, Meyers and Meyers,
Haggai, p. 23.
pillaging, dismantling, and desecration, rather than wholesale demoli-

tion.
The verbal root inn ('to be dry, waste, desolate', Isa. 34.10; Jer. 26.9;
Ezek. 26.19) the adjective H~in ('to be waste, desolate', Jer. 33,10.12;
Ezek. 36.35, 38), and the noun nmn ('waste, desolation, ruin', Ezra
9.9; Jer. 7.34; 27.17; 44.2, 6, 22; Ezek. 36.10), by contrast, frequently
refer not to the physical dismantling of structures but the results of such
destructive activity, that is a state of abandonment and depopulation
which comes to a region as a result of invasion and devastation by
enemies. As Carroll notes, the term implies the cessation of normal and
expected activities.55 Amsler is certainly correct in his observation,
'[harev] is not to be taken as a description of the ruined state of the
temple building, but, more specifically, designates a lonely and deserted
place, forgotten by all, and left to die'.56 Thus the term in 1.4 does not
refer primarily to the unrepaired state of the building, but more gen-
erally to the abandonment of the site as a whole. This description seems
to accord well with the notion of a depopulated or under-populated
Jerusalem.
This general impression is reinforced by other details in the text. In v.
14 the people are described as coming (N'O) to do the work. Dominique
Barthelemy has convincingly argued that in v. 2 the best resolution to
the text critical issues regarding Hi? ('the time') is to construe the people
as the subject of Kin (as in v. 14) and read the verse, 'It is not the time
[for us] to come'.57 He then suggests that the use of 'come' (N*n) here
implies a coming to Jerusalem from other surrounding villages, thus
indicating that the population of Jerusalem was not equal to the task at
hand. While N"D in v. 14 could merely refer to the coming to the temple
mount from the lower slopes of the eastern hill, the text nowhere
implies that the people whose thoughts are expressed in v. 2 and who
come to do the work in v. 14 are to be limited to the Jerusalem
55. R.P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster

Press, 1986), pp. 635-36.
56. '[harev] decrit non 1'etat de mine ou se trouve le bailment du temple, mais
plus precisement la solitude d'un lieu desertique, abandonne de tous et livre a la
mort' (Amsler, Aggee, p. 22).
57. D. Barthelemy (ed.), Critique textuelle de I'Ancien Testament. III. Ezechiel,
Daniel et les 12 prophetes (OBO, 50/3; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Gottin-
gen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht, 1992), p. 924. Cf. J. Kessler, "t (le temps) en Aggee
I 2-4: conflit theologique ou "sagesse mondaine"?', KT48 (1998), pp. 555-59.
population. Yet when the people do come (and I would not see the use
of rr~lK2J 'remnant' in 1.14 as indicating that only a portion of the
population was involved in the project),58 only the most meager of
structures is produced (2.1-4).
It would seem that such images correspond more readily to a sparsely
populated, economically deprived region than to a large and busy urban
setting. It is difficult to imagine the temple site as being described as
desolate or abandoned if it was located at the centre of a geographically
circumscribed yet densely populated urban environment. Similarly such
a description seems inappropriate if, as both the 'Conflict' and 'Popu-
lous Yehud' positions assume, the temple site was a place where ritual
activities on behalf of a sizable population were undertaken, and theo-
logical debates raged. Indeed given the significance of the temple, if
conditions had permitted, it is difficult to explain why the refurbishing
of the cult site had not taken place sooner. It is unlikely to have engen-
dered much imperial opposition in the waning years of Babylonian rule.
Certainly there would have been little objection to it in the years fol-
lowing 539 BCE. In conclusion then, while the text of Haggai cannot be
said to be determinative, one can affirm that it accords well with the
hypothesis of a sparsely inhabited Jerusalem.
b. Urbanization, Literary Output, and Population Density

Given a demographically limited Yehud, what are the implications for
literary output? This question has been posed by Carter, and revisited
and expanded by Ben Zvi. For the latter, Yehud's population and its
capacity for literary output are quite closely related. This conviction is
integrally related to other concomitant factors such as (1) the relative
percentage of highly literate members within ancient societies and the
applicability of such statistics cross culturally; 59 (2) the location of
these literati in urban centres;60 (3) the provision of the economic
support required by these literati via the surplus generated by the rural
population;61 and (4) the nature of the literary activity of these writers.62
Briefly summarized, Ben Zvi argues as follows. Biblical literature is
the work of a group of 'literati'. By 'literati' he means those whose
58. Apud Clines, 'Haggai's Temple', p. 72.

59. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 195-96.
60. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 196.
62. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', passim, esp. pp. 196-97.
literary capabilities would be sufficiently developed so as to be able to

(and here I use Ben Zvi's words) to 'create' or 'compose'63 significant
tracts of the Bible as we have it. These 'literati' were located in urban
centres.64 Furthermore, the training and maintenance of these literati
was financed by the surplus produced by the surrounding rural regions.65
Ben Zvi notes that the percentage of literati to the total population in
fourth century Egypt was between 0.25 and 0.33 per cent. He grants
that this percentage might be slightly higher in Yehud.66 He then con-
cludes that the period during which economic conditions would have
been most favourable for the production of biblical literature was Per-
sian II. He suggests that at that period the rural population, as well as
Persian imperial investment in Jerusalem would have produced condi-
tions adequate to finance a cadre of urban literati.67 However, he adds,
economic realities would still have necessitated that these literati be
'part time' and have some other source of income.68 Thus the bulk of
the biblical literature was produced by a small, homogeneous group of
contemporaries. Ben Zvi accounts for the theological and stylistic
diversity in the literature produced by this relatively small group on the
basis of rhetorical concerns. He maintains that these literati adopted
certain styles and linguistic conventions for certain documents in order
to give those texts the appearance of antiquity, and thus greater author-
ity.69 Therefore despite the clear differences between these texts, they
were still the product of a group of contemporaries. Thus Ben Zvi
concludes that while some biblical literature may have been produced
in Persian I or in the Ptolemaic period, the bulk of it was produced in
Persian II.70 As we have seen, his objections to extensive literary
production in Persian I relate to (a) the relatively small number of urban
63. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 198, 201.

66. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 196, 201, 204. As Lemaire notes, due to their
former status as an ethic minority in the Babylonian empire and their responsibili-
ties to the crown, the returnees may have been a highly literate group (Lemaire,
'Populations', p. 44).
literati present in Jerusalem and (b) the insufficient financial resources

to support them.71
Ben Zvi's arguments represent a helpful caution against the hasty
attribution of specific texts to Persian I or Babylonian Yehud with little
or no consideration given to the demographic situation of the period.
Three attenuating factors, however, should be considered alongside his
evaluation of the literary capacities of Persian I Yehud. First, this group
of literati may have had resources available to them other than the
surplus of rural Yehud. Jewish/Yahwistic populations existed both in
Babylon,72 and Egypt as well as in the provinces surrounding Yehud.
As Briend, Lemaire, Cohen, and Carter have noted, Yahwistic popula-
tions existed in such regions as Galilee and Samaria,73 as well as
Ammon, Moab, and the Edomite territory.74 The reconstruction of the
temple would hardly have been seen as an insignificant endeavour by
such populations. Furthermore, just as the pax Assyriaca opened the
borders between provinces and kingdoms,75 there is good reason to
assume that the Jerusalem community enjoyed contact with Yahwists of
other regions via the pax Persic a. Financial aid from such sectors,
which may have in turn created possibilities for literary output, is
entirely plausible.76 Furthermore, even in Persian I, the installation of
Zerubbabel and the general support of the Persian crown for the reha-
bilitation of Jerusalem as an urban centre may have reduced that city's
fiscal dependence upon the surplus of the rural environs.
Second, the literary activity involved in the production of some texts
71. Ben Zvi appears to deem (b) to be more critical than (a).
72. On which see, most recently, F. Joannes and A. Lemaire, 'Trois tablettes
cuneiformes a onomastique ouest-semitique', Transeuphratene 17 (1999), pp.
17-33.
73. Lemaire, 'Populations', p. 64.
74. A. Lemaire, 'Les transformations politiques et culturelles de la Trans-
jordanie au Vie Siecle av. J.C.', Transeuphratene 8 (1994), pp. 9-27, esp. p. 12;
idem, 'Les inscriptions palestiniennes d'epoque perse: un bilan provisoire', Trans-
euphratene 1 (1989), pp. 87-104, esp. p. 99, 104; idem, 'Populations', p. 66; Zertal,
'The Pahwah', pp. 15-17; R. Cohen, 'Solomon's Negev Defense Line Contained
Three Fewer Fortresses', BARev 12.4 (1986), pp. 40-45; I. Eph'al, 'Changes in
Palestine during the Persian Period in Light of Epigraphic Sources', IEJ 48 (1998),
pp. 114-16; Carter, Emergence, p. 290.
75. N. Na'aman, 'Population Changes in Palestine Following the Assyrian
Deportations', Tel Aviv 20 (1993), pp. 106-19, esp. p. 119.
76. Cf. Carter, Emergence, p. 292.
may have been less extensive than that envisaged by Ben Zvi. Some of
the work of the literati may have consisted of transcribing, updating, or
redacting 77 earlier traditions, both written and oral which may have
been circulating within Persian I Yehud.78 Third, literary activity should
not be entirely limited to the Jerusalem scribal context. As Aufrecht and
Lemaire have noted, it appears probable that literary activity in Israel
was not exclusively the prerogative of professional scribal schools but
was also cultivated in priestly and prophetic circles79 and to a lesser
extent the more general population.80 There is no reason to limit literary
production to Jerusalem. Some literary activity outside Jerusalem may
be envisaged.
This potential enlargement of the scope of more significant literary
activity to both Persian I and Persian II leaves room to explain the
literary diversity of the period in other ways than those which Ben Zvi
has proposed. Differences of style and theological emphasis may still
be accounted for by the more conventional categories of chronological
and geographical difference, diversity of circles of redaction, and
attachment to particular theological traditions.
At this point it may be once again useful to examine the text of
Haggai. In pursuit of an understanding of Yehud's potential for literary
output it is instructive to inquire as to what kind of theological tradi-
tions appear in the text.81 I propose, therefore, to ask what may be
implied when one examines the rhetorical use of theological traditions
77. As Ben Zvi acknowledges, 'Urban Center', p. 202.

78. Cf. O.K. Steck, Theological Streams of Tradition', in Douglas A. Knight
(ed.), Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1977), pp. 183-214.
79. A. Lemaire, Les ecoles et la formation de la Bible dans I'ancien Israel
(OBO, 39; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1981), pp. 47-54.
80. W.E. Aufrecht, 'Urbanization and Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of the
Late Bronze and Iron Ages', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W.
Gauley (eds.), Urbanization in Antiquity (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-
demic Press, 1997), pp. 116-29. Aufrecht states, 'The epigraphic evidence tells us
that many more people than scribes could read and write at the end of the Iron Age
in the Levant' (p. 122). Aufrecht, however, sees the biblical text as the product of
professional scribes.
81. Cf. Steck, Theological Streams of Tradition'; and G. von Rad, The City on
the Hill', in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E.W.T.
Dicken; London: SCM Press, 1984), pp. 232-42.
within Haggai. We thus may potentially know something of the theo-

logical world of Jerusalem in 520 BCE when we examine the traditions
which serve as rhetorical vehicles for the message of the book. Put
another way, by examining the rhetorical strategy of the prophet Haggai
as communicated by the book's narrator, one may be able to glimpse
the shared theological world of narrator and intended and/or implied
audience. In the text, Haggai (be he a real prophet or a literary char-
acter, or a combination of the two) makes his appeal to his hearers on
the basis of a wide diversity of traditions, frequently configured in
creative and innovative ways. The text of Haggai thus knows of the
following traditions and motifs: the Jerusalem temple as Yahweh's
dwelling place (1.2-14; 2.1-4); the priestly notions of pure and impure
(2.10-19); the deuteronomistic futility curse (1.3-11); the hope placed in
the Davidic line (2.20-23); the final assault on Zion and her subsequent
deliverance (2.6-9, 20-23); the pilgrimage of the nations (2.6-9); the
traditions of the exodus (2.5),82 the oracles against the nations (2.6-9,
20-23). While nothing need be posited regarding the existence of docu-
ments containing these traditions, we may be justified in seeing these
motifs as integral to the theological streams of tradition (to use Steck's
apt phrase) current within the community. True, the book's framer(s)
could have included these motifs to create the impression of a theolog-
ically literate audience. However, even if such a fiction is granted, we
must still conclude that one or a few members of the community were
sufficiently versed in a diversity of theological traditions so as to have
created the fiction of a theologically literate implied hearer. The literary
evidence of Haggai thus presents the image of a community sharing
some attachment to a variety of theological traditions evidenced else-
where in biblical literature. The presence of such a wide spectrum of
theological traditions and their innovative configuration does raise the
possibility that various traditions were circulating in Persian I Yehud
and that creative theological writing and redaction were possible.
In conclusion, I believe that a balanced appreciation of Yehud's liter-
ary capabilities in Persian I is critical. On one hand, it is important to
maintain that the low population of early Persian Yehud does not pre-
clude it from having been the origin of certain portions of biblical liter-
ature. Yet having argued for the possibility of literary output, the
general import of Ben Zvi's analysis does indeed stand. We are dealing
82. See the commentaries on the textual issue here. With Barthelemy, I retain
the disputed reference to the 'coming out of Egypt'.
with a small population, a limited number of whom would have been

fully literate. This ought to caution against an overly zealous attempt to
locate the origin of vast amounts of biblical literature to Persian I
Yehud. Yet even given the province's limited demographic base, it
would appear legitimate to attribute a modest but significant corpus of
texts to Persian I Yehud, if other significant factors would appear to
favour such an identification.83
c. Jerusalem in 520 BCE: Toward a Minimal Reconstruction

What then can be affirmed regarding the urban centre of Jerusalem in
520 BCE? Demographic analysis strongly suggests a relatively low
population. This conclusion mirrors the general archaeological impres-
sion of a sparsely populated region eking out a subsistence economy. It
is also clear that Yehud constituted an independent province in the
mosaic of tiny provinces that made up Syria-Palestine under Persian
rule.84 It most likely covered a region of about 20 to 25 km around
Jerusalem.85 In its initial phase local political leadership was exercised
by a series of governors related by birth or marriage to the Davidic
line.86 Furthermore, there seems to be no reason to doubt that the
community in Yehud was composed of both non-exiled Judeans and
returnees. Onomastic evidence from late sixth century Babylon would
suggest that a definable Yahwistic population may be located there at
the time.87 It is therefore not unlikely that the returnees were ethnically
83. For an example of this kind of approach, see R. Person's analysis of

the 'Deuteronomic School' against the backdrop of the early postexilic period:
R. Person, Second Zechariah and the Deuteronomistic School (JSOTSup, 167;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), esp. pp. 146-68.
84. A. Lemaire, 'Histoire et administration de la Palestine a 1'epoque perse', in
E.-M. Laperrousaz and A. Lemaire (eds.), La Palestine a 1'epoque perse (Paris:
Cerf, 1994), pp. 16-17.
85. Carter, 'Yehud', pp. 118-19; Lemaire, 'Histoire et administration', pp.
20-21.
86. A. Lemaire, 'Review of N. Avigad, Bullae and Seals from a Post-Exilic
Archive', Syria 54 (1977), pp. 129-131; E.M. Meyers, 'The Shelomith Seal and the
Judaean Restoration, Some Additional Considerations',El 18 (1985), pp. 31*-38*.
87. Johannes and Lemaire, Trois tablettes', passim. The evidence presented by
Johannes and Lemaire corroborates Grabbe's affirmation of the possibility of ethnic
groups remaining together in exile. L.L. Grabbe, '"The Exile" Under the Theodo-
lite: Historiography as Triangulation', in idem (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive
(JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 80-99.
related to the non-exiled population. The presence of a Davidide among

the community's leadership reinforces this impression. Non-biblical
literary evidence indicates that both Hebrew and Aramaic were utilized
in Yehud.88 There is no evidence which would clearly indicate that this
community or its leadership engaged in activities aimed at overthrow-
ing Persian rule in the province.89 It would appear that the community's
leadership was diarchic in form.90 This community undertook and com-
pleted the restoration of the damaged central shrine in Jerusalem.
Broader theological conceptions, identifiable elsewhere in biblical liter-
ature, as well as prophetic encouragement, played a role in the comple-
tion of this project.
In the light of this data, it would seem appropriate to re-visit the
question of why the rebuilding of the temple as described in Haggai
took place when it did and of its effects on the demographic situation
and the potential for literary output. We have situated the prophetic call
to rebuild the temple against the backdrop of a struggling and under-
populated Jerusalem. Such a project cannot be considered in isolation
from the broader forces and transitions within the Yahwism of the
period, as well as broader forces within the Persian empire. As has been
widely noted, early Persian Yahwism was geographically, sociologi-
cally, and theologically disparate.91 This diversity would have been
especially apparent before the reconstruction of its former central
shrine. As Blenkinsopp has noted, the question of the rehabilitation of
Jerusalem and its temple would have increased in poignancy as the
years following 587 BCE advanced.92 Persian imperial concerns would
have similarly favored the strengthening of the provincial capital,
especially following Cambyses' conquest of Egypt and the revolts
subsequent to Darius's accession. The installation of Zerubbabel may
be understood in the context of such initiatives. Thus prophetic and
88. E. Lipinski, 'Geographic linguistique de la Transeuphratene a 1'epoque

achemenide', Transeuphratene 3 (1990), pp. 95-107.
89. Kessler, 'Second Year', pp. 80-84.
90. Mason, 'Purpose', p. 421.
91. On which see, among others, S. Japhet, 'People and Land in the Restoration
Period', in G. Strecker (ed.), Das Land Israel in biblischer Zeit (Gottingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), pp. 103-25.
92. J. Blenkinsopp, 'The Judaean Priesthood during the Neo-Babylonian and
Achaemenid Periods: A Hypothetical Reconstruction', CBQ 60 (1998), p. 42.
Persian concerns may have coalesced to favor both the refurbishing of

the temple, and the rehabilitation of the city as a whole.
As has been widely noted, once this process had begun, changes in
the demographic and sociological landscape would have been inevit-
able. A renovated temple would require an increase in the local priestly
personnel. A reinforced provincial capital would generate a cadre of
civil servants of various sorts. The rehabilitation of the temple would
have represented a significant step in the Persian collection of tax in
Yehud.93 This new urban population would require the services of
artisans, merchants, scribes and a variety of other personnel. This in
turn may have prompted and facilitated the production of theological
literature both in Jerusalem and beyond. Thus 520-516 BCE may prove
to have been a more critical moment in the history of Jerusalem than is
often appreciated. Circumstances in the broader world appear to have
come together to favor the development of Jerusalem in 520 BCE as
they had not done since its fall. As a result, that city was transformed
into a more functional and important urban centre than it had been for
some time. Thus the revitalization of the temple site was intrinsically
linked in both cause and effect to the political, theological, and socio-
logical dimensions of early Persian Yehud as well as to factors beyond
the borders of that province.
It has become customary to view the population growth and political
developments in mid-fifth-century Yehud as a decisive moment in the
province's history. Perhaps it is now time to view the changes in the
urban centre of Jerusalem in 520-516 BCE as a equally critical moment
in the emergence of Persian Yehud and of Second Temple Judaism as a
whole.
93. Cf. J. Schaper, The Jerusalem Temple as an Instrument of Achaemenid

Fiscal Administration', VT45 (1995), pp. 528-39. Schaper's article does not address
the highly interesting question of the changes in process and levy which the reha-
bilitation of the temple would have produced.
THE SOCIOLOGY OFPREINDUSTRIAL CITIES
Ben D. Nefzger
Rohrbaugh has stressed that '[s]ince most modern readers who encoun-
ter the term "city" in the New Testament undoubtedly envision the
large and diverse industrial cities in which they themselves live, it is
worth thinking about the differences between cities then and cities now
if we are to read with understanding'.1 The same observation may be
made for Old Testament readers. The cities of the Old Testament are
quite different from those most of us have lived in and experienced.
Urban sociology has two major interests in cities. First, it is interested
in the origins and development of cities. That is, what are the factors
that bring them into being and sustain their growth? This matter is
addressed in the present article. However, a second and equally impor-
tant question of urban sociology is whether cities do anything to their
residents. At a superficial level, this seems to be an absurd question. Of
course they do—people conduct business in cities, form families, wor-
ship their gods, and get upset with heavy freeway traffic during rush
hours. However, this question may be treated at a deeper level. As a
colleague once asked me, 'If I hit my finger with a hammer in a
building project in the city, is that an urban problem?' In other words,
although it happened in the city, did the city have anything to do with it,
or is it simply the context in which causal factors operate? Thus this
question asks whether there is something fundamental about the city
that makes social structure and social processes different there than if
they occurred outside the city (or in a different kind of city).
Sociologists have taken quite different positions on this issue but
most, without addressing it directly, simply ignore the matter altogether,
treating each intellectual problem in terms of specific variables. That is,
1. R.L. Rohrbaugh, 'The Preindustrial City', in R.L. Rohrbaugh (ed.), The

Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1996), p. 107.
a social problem such as illicit drug use might be considered in terms of

population density in housing but, since housing density can be high
outside of cities, as well as within them, the research would not be con-
ceptualized as an urban matter. As such, the city would be considered
the context and not a potential cause of the problem. The present article
rejects this passive view of cities, arguing that they facilitate the
development of urban subcultures. As will be presented below, this
perspective has a sociological history, logical support, and empirical
validation. However, I will end with the question of its applicability to
cities of the type and historical period examined in this volume.
It is the nature of sociology to generalize from concrete, specific
instances, to search for commonalties in relationships and to do this
through comparisons with previous manifestations of the same entity or
by comparing multiple instances at the same time or place. The results
are sometimes presented as models or types that, although simpler than
the cases from which they are drawn, are viewed as the essence of
them. This puts sociology in distinct contrast to history, which often
emphasizes the detailed examination of particular cases, seeing each as
a unique entity. The present article draws upon the preindustrial/ indus-
trial typology, a long-standing distinction in sociological analysis.
Some Distinctions
There is no classical definition of the city. Many Old Testament com-
munities were simply labeled as cities on the basis of having surround-
ing walls, dependent villages, a market place, or significant public
buildings such as a temple. Some of these communities had a popu-
lation of only two or three hundred. Which would be classified as cities
by contemporary sociologists? Current urban sociologists themselves
have been unable to agree on an exact, single definition of the city and
this continues to be a much discussed and debated topic. However,
several working definitions will be useful at the outset.
The city may be defined as a collection of people and buildings, large
for its time and place, characterized by a division of labor, social diver-
sity, distinctive activities, and a way of life.2 The term urban is used in
2. This definition is based on the 'preliminary definition' in S.L. Queen and

L.F. Thomas, The City; A Study of Urbanism in the United States (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1939), p. 4, which the authors suggest will require some modifica-
tion. I have taken the liberty of making such a modification.
NEFZGER The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities 161
this article as a synonym for city. Urbanization refers to '...the propor-

tion of the total population concentrated in urban settlements, or else to
a rise in this proportion'.3 This is in distinction to the growth of cities,
which is defined as an increase in the number of people living in cities.4
That is, one or more cities in a society may grow in size while the frac-
tion of the total population living in cities (urbanization) stays the same,
or even declines. Urbanism has been defined in two ways in the socio-
logical literature: as a way of life and as a settlement pattern.5 In this
article I shall be using it as a way of life; that is, as the subculture of
persons who reside in cities. The term city, as defined above, captures
both meanings but suggests the dependent nature of the way of life.
The Origin of Cities

It was only with the domestication of plants and animals during the
Neolithic period that it became possible for humans to lead a relatively
settled existence. Neolithic farmers could, and did, live together in
permanent villages. The first settled villages, which included only a few
hundred inhabitants, occurred in the Fertile Crescent area in the period
of 6500-5000 BCE. However, they were not cities in terms of settle-
ment pattern or in way of life. They had simple social orders and they
were homogeneous in social characteristics such as occupation, prop-
erty, and wealth. Within age and sex groupings, everyone shared the
same experiences.6
Cities first appeared at approximately 3500 BCE and were well
developed by 3000-2500 BCE. There were three requirements for their
emergence.7 The first was the existence of a surplus of food and other
necessities. In other words, levels of productivity had to be high enough
so that peasants produced more than they and their immediate depen-
dents needed for survival. The surplus would allow some people to live
3. K. Davis, 'The Urbanization of the Human Population', Scientific American

213.3 (September 1965), pp. 41-63 (41).
4. Davis, 'Urbanization', pp. 41-42.
5. N.P. Gist and S.F. Fava, Urban Society (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell,
6th edn, 1974), p. 3.
6. Gist and Fava, Urban Society, pp. 8-10.
7. P.M. Hauser, 'Urbanization: An Overview', in P.M. Mauser and L.F.
Schnore (eds.), The Study of Urbanization (New York: John Wiley, 1965), pp. 1-47;
Gist and Fava, Urban Society, pp. 3-25 ; V.G. Childe, 'The Urban Revolution', The
Town Planning Review 221.1 (1950), pp. 3-17.
in settlements where they were not concerned with the actual physical
provision of their own supply of food and other material goods. There-
fore, these settlements could be relatively large, densely populated, and
permanent.
The second factor was an increase in technology. The further
development of agricultural technology to the point where a surplus
existed increased the potential size of the settled population. This
allowed for the development of crafts among persons who were able to
engage in activities other than agriculture. Invention and perfection of
innovations such as the wheel, the road, irrigation, cultivation stock
breeding, and improvements in fishing increased the size of the surplus
and, therefore in turn, the number of persons who could live in cites and
engage in nonagricultural activities. Also important was the develop-
ment of a system of writing and numerical notation which enabled
people to keep exact records, accumulate knowledge, and preserve
literature, poetry, philosophy, and other intellectual products.
The third requirement was the addition of other forms of social
organization to those based on family and kinship. The sheer existence
of a surplus is not sufficient to ensure that it will be concentrated and
distributed to people living apart from the original producers. It requires
a social system in which people owe loyalty and obligation to groups
other than the family and kin. An increased population required a more
complex internal social organization and it was also necessary to work
out new ways to link the city with its sources of food and raw materials.
The complex differentiated social structure of the earliest urban civi-
lized society is evident in several dimensions.8 Institutional diversity
was shown in the emergence of authority structures—especially the
state—with full-time personnel and distinct buildings separate from the
family and kinship group which formerly organized the individual's
life. The emergence of full-time specialists—persons whose regular
occupation was a craft, trading, administration, a profession, or a ser-
vice was very important. Occupational diversity added another dimen-
sion, for then people differed greatly in their training and life styles and
began to develop loyalty to their craft group, trade, interest, or profes-
sional standards. Social class differences added a vertical dimension to
diversity. Interpersonal relations also took on a new dimension, for now
8. Gist and Fava, Urban Society, p. 13.

some associations among people were indirect, impersonal, and special-

ized. Finally, social control and integration were achieved through the
interdependence of diverse groups. All of these new complex aspects of
social organization were in addition to, not replacements for, the pre-
vious simpler forms. The family and kinship group remained an
important organizing institution. Personal, unspecialized primary-group
contacts remained, as did social control through similarity of points of
view.
Gordon Childe: The Characteristics of Early Cities

In a review of archaeological findings, Gordon Childe has identified 10
abstract characteristics that differentiate the earliest cities from villages
of the time:9
(1) Larger and more densely populated permanent settlements
(2) Non-agricultural specialists supported by a surplus produced by
peasants living in the city and in dependent villages
(3) Taxation and capital accumulation
(4) Monumental public buildings, such as temples, pyramids, and
granaries
(5) A ruling class supported by the surplus accumulated in a temple or
royal granary
(6) Invention of recording and the practical systems of writing and
numerical notation
(7) Acquisition of predictive sciences—arithmetic, geometry, and
astronomy
(8) New emphases in artistic expression
(9) Dependence on trade for vital materials
(10) Replacement of kinship by residence as the basis for membership
in the community
In summarizing, Childe suggests an organic solidarity as the basis of

these newly emerging cities. However imperfectly, he says, even the
earliest urban communities must have been held together by a sort of
solidarity missing from any Neolithic village. Peasants, craftsmen,
priests and rulers formed a community, not only by reason of identity of
language and belief, but also because each performed mutually comple-
mentary functions, needed for the well being of the whole.
9. Childe, 'Urban Revolution', pp. 3-17.

Gideon Sjoberg: The Characteristics of Preindustrial Cities

Gideon Sjoberg has classified as preindustrial cities those that
developed without the influence of industrial production, distribution,
and consumption. As the result of an examination of such cities in com-
parison with those based on an industrial economic system, Sjoberg
identifies the following common ecological, economic, and social char-
acteristics of preindustrial cities:10
Ecological Organization
(1) Such cities depend for food and raw material from without. Thus,
they are marketing centers. They also serve as centers for handi-
craft manufacturing
(2) They fulfill important political, religious, and educational functions
and some preindustrial cities become specialized in one of these
functions
(3) Urbanization is low
(4) The amount of food available to support an urban population has
been limited by unmechanized agriculture, transportation facilities
utilizing primarily human or animal power, and inefficient methods
of food preservation and storage
(5) There is a rigid social segregation which typically leads to the
formation of 'quarters' or 'wards'
(6) The quarters reflect the sharp local social divisions. Thus ethnic
groups live in special sections. Occupational groupings, some
being at the same time ethnic in character, typically reside apart
from one another
(7) Lower class and especially 'outcaste' groups live on the city's peri-
phery, at a distance from the primary centers of activity
(8) Despite rigid segregation, the evidence suggests no real specializa-
tion of land use such as is functionally necessary in industrial-
urban communities
(9) The business district does not hold the position of dominance that
it enjoys in the industrial-urban community
Economic Organization
(1) The economy is characterized by the absence of a system of pro-
duction in which inanimate sources of power are used to multiply
human effort
10. G. Sjoberg, 'The Preindustrial City', American Journal of Sociology 60

(1955), pp. 438-45. [Copyright 1955 by The University of Chicago.]
NEFZGER The Sociology ofPreindustrial Cities 165
(2) There is little fragmentation or specialization of work. Handicrafts-

men participate in nearly every phase of manufacture, often
carrying out the work in their own homes or in small shops nearby
(3) The various occupations are organized into guilds. Guild member-
ship and apprenticeship are prerequisites to the practice of almost
any occupation
(4) The economic structure of the preindustrial city functions with little
rationality, judged by industrial-urban standards. This is shown in
general nonstandardization of manufacturing methods as well as in
the products and is even more evident in marketing. Fixed prices
are rare
Social Organization
(1) The economic system of the preindustrial city, based as it has been
upon animate sources of power, articulates with a characteristic
class structure and family, religious, educational, and governmen-
tal systems
(2) A literate elite controls and depends for its existence upon the mass
of the populace. The elite is composed of individuals holding posi-
tions in the governmental, religious, and/or educational institutions
of the larger society, although at times groups such as large absen-
tee landlords have belonged to it
(3) At the opposite pole of the stratification structure are the masses,
comprising such groups as handicraft workers whose goods and
services are produced primarily for the elite's benefit
(4) Between the elite and the lower class is a rather sharp schism. A
middle class, typical of industrial-urban communities, where it can
be considered the 'dominant class,' is not known in the preindus-
trial city but in both groups there are gradations in rank. However,
these are gradations within the elite and lower class
(5) Social mobility in the preindustrial city is minimal
(6) Outcaste groups exist which are not an integral part of the domi-
nant social system. They rank lower than the urban lower class,
performing tasks considered especially degrading, such as burying
the dead. Slaves, beggars, and the like are outcastes in most pre-
industrial cities
(7) Kinship and the ability to perpetuate one's lineage are accorded
marked prestige in preindustrial cities. However, the literate elite
are the ones most able to fulfill these expectations
(8) Kinship and familial organization display rigid patterns of sex and
age differentiation. The formalized system of age grading is an
effective mechanism of social control. Children and youth are sub-
ordinate to parents and other adults and among siblings the eldest
son is privileged. This age grading, along with early marriage, pre-
vents a youth culture
(9) Kinship is functionally integrated with social class and also rein-
forces and is reinforced by economic organization
(10) The kinship system in the preindustrial city articulates with a spe-
cial kind of religious system. The city is the seat of the key reli-
gious functionaries whose actions set standards for the rest of the
society
(11) Religious activity is not separate from other social action but
permeates family, economic, governmental, and other activities
(12) Formal education is typically restricted to the male elite, its
purpose being to train individuals for position in the governmental,
educational, or religious hierarchies
(13) The economy of the preindustrial cities does not require mass
literacy and the system of production does not provide the leisure
necessary for the acquisition of formal education
(14) Because preindustrial cities have no system of mass communi-
cation, they are relatively isolated from one another
(15) The masses in the city are isolated from the elite
(16) The formal government of the preindustrial city is the province of
the elite and is closely integrated with the educational religious
systems. It performs two principal functions: exacting tribute from
the city's masses to support the activities of the elite and main-
taining law and order through a 'police force' and a court system
(17) Little reliance is placed upon formal machinery for regulation of
social life. Informal controls exerted through kinship, guild and
religious system and personal standing are decisive
Thus, although cities that have developed without an industrial base are
each unique in its own way, Sjoberg has identified numerous, inter-
related characteristics which they share and which, in turn, sets them
off from industrially based cities.
The Social Effects of Cities

I now turn to the effects of cities. I do so initially by crossing the line
between preindustrial and industrial cities to examine a theory that was
developed in the twentieth century about American industrial cities.
a. Louis Wirth: Urbanism as a Way of Life

The definition of the city at the beginning of this essay suggests that
cities have a way of life associated with them; that is, ways of thinking,
valuing, behaving, that are distinctive. Louis Wirth, in a classic article
on this topic, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life',11 says that 'for sociological

purposes a city may be defined as a relatively large, dense, and perma-
nent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals'. He then suggests
that individuals in this setting develop a way of life that is distinctive
for urbanites. This way of life is characterized by increased rationality
and sophistication, depersonalization, an increase in secondary relation-
ships, substitution of formal for informal social control, and segmenta-
tion in personal life. These, he believes, are the result of the three urban
characteristics of population size, density, and heterogeneity. Thus, for
Wirth, cities do something to their residents. However, although Wirth
recognizes that the individual finds release from the limitations of rural
life, the net result is an increase in personal and social disorganization,
which the substitution of formal for informal controls is unable to fully
overcome.
b. Claude Fischer: Subcultural Theory

As an important statement on urban life, Wirth's analysis has been
widely examined and criticized. Claude Fischer has summarized these
criticisms and counter-theories in his widely read The Urban Experi-
ence12 and then proposed his own subcultural theory which makes use
of the ideas of both Wirth and his critics.
Fischer suggests that there are four types of definitions of the word
urban and three sociological theoretic approaches to the study of cities.
The four types of definitions are: (1) Demographic, which essentially
involves the size and density of population; (2) Institutional, which
reserve the term 'city' for communities with certain specific institutions
such as a commercial market; (3) Cultural, which require that a com-
munity possess particular cultural features, such as a group of literate
people; and (4) Behavioral, which require certain distinctive and typical
behavioral styles among the people of a community, such as an imper-
sonal style of social interaction.13
Fischer builds his own theory on a demographic definition, arguing
that it has at least three advantages: First, the numerical criterion is
common to virtually all definitions of 'urban' or 'city'. Second, the
11. L. Wirth, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life', American Journal of Sociology 44

(1938), pp. 46-63.
12. C.S. Fischer, The Urban Experience (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovano-
vich, 2ndedn, 1984).
13. Fischer, Urban Experience, pp. 24-25.
purely demographic definition does not beg the question as to whether

any other factor is necessarily associated with size. That remains an
open question. Third, the demographic definition implies that 'urban'
and 'city' refer to matters of degree; they are not all-or-nothing vari-
ables. For Fischer, then, the city is simply a place with a relatively large
population.
Fischer identifies three major theories of urbanism: determinist, com-
positionalist, and subcultural.14
Determinist theory, which Fischer also calls Wirthian theory or the
theory of urban anomie, argues that urbanism increases social and per-
sonality disorders. Fischer quotes Wirth's definition of the city as '...a
relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heteroge-
neous individuals', an essentially demographic definition. He says that
for Wirth these features have personal and social structural conse-
quences. Following the work of Georg Simmel,15 Wirth argues that the
city produces an overabundance of stimuli, resulting in a psychic over-
load. Urban residents respond to this in an increasingly individualistic,
rational, calculating manner thus becoming emotionally more distant
from each other and, as a result, their sense of community is also lost.
The increased rationality also makes for a greater division of labor,
calculation, competition, and self-interest, thereby also loosening social
bonds. With increased population size and, diversity, and the ability to
travel within the city where one is not recognized, constraints on indi-
viduals are loosened, giving greater freedom to choose for themselves
and to develop their own interests, but in Wirth's view, with heavy
personal and social costs.
Coupled with an increased size of population, informal social control
is weakened and formal, secondary means must be constructed to
replace the former primary ones. However, these secondary means are
never able to restore the social and psychological disorganization of the
former condition. Thus, cities are more characterized by these condi-
tions than noncities and the larger the city, the more of it. In short,
determinist theories do claim that cities have consequences but they are
primarily the cause of individual and social disorder.
Determinist theory has been challenged in several ways, most directly

15. G. Simmel, 'The Metropolis and Mental Life', in R. Gutman and D. Popenoe
(eds.), Neighborhood, City and Metropolis; An Integrated Reader in Urban Sociol-
ogy (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 777-87.
by what Fischer calls 'compositionalist theory'. Compositional (or non-

ecological) theory denies any strong, direct effects of urbanism; it attri-
butes differences between urban and rural behavior to the composition
of the different subpopulations. Herbert Gans has presented a strong
case for this theory, suggesting that cities are made up of differing
groups whose subcultures are distinctive, not because the city has cre-
ated them but because they are typical of all such ethnic, social class,
gender, neighborhood, life-style groupings, and so on.16 That is, each
such grouping has a distinctive subculture which results from its unique
make-up and which is the same wherever that grouping is located—
the grouping brings along its subculture to the city, the city doesn't
create it.
Although compositionalists acknowledge that demographic factors
may have some effects on urban residents, they claim that they are indi-
rect and weak, as compared, for instance, to the individual's economic
position, cultural characteristics, and marital and family status. These
factors are found in combination in ethnic and class enclaves within the
city and are essentially unaffected by the demographic variables. Thus,
what has the greatest effect on the individual is the 'world' in which he
or she lives and operates.
Subcultural theory adopts the basic orientation of the compositional
school but holds that urbanism does have certain effects on the people
of the city, with consequences much like the ones determinists see as
evidence of disorganization. This is Fischer's theory.
Fischer's subcultural theory makes use of both the determinist and
compositional theories. It is his contention that the size, density, and
heterogeneity of the city do have an effect on the residents but not by
destroying social groups, as determinist theory suggests. Rather, it is his
position that these factors promote their emergence and support their
continuation. Thus, he agrees with the compositionalists that subcul-
tures exist within the city but differs in seeing them as brought about
through urban demographic factors.
According to Fischer, there are two main ways that the city produces
subcultures. The first is that
16. H.J. Gans, 'Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Re-evaluation

of Definitions', in A.M. Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes: An
Interactionist Approach (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), pp. 625-48.
[l]arge communities attract migrants from wider areas than do small

towns, migrants who bring with them a great variety of cultural back-
grounds, and thus contribute to the formation of a diverse set of social
worlds.17
Second,
population concentration produces the structural differentiation stressed
by the determinists—occupational specialization, distinctive neighbor-
hoods, specialized institutions and special interest groups.18
Fischer further argues that urbanism intensifies subcultures. It does

this by creating a critical mass, a population size large enough to permit
what would otherwise be only a small group of individuals to become a
vital subculture. That is, with sufficient numbers, a lifestyle can be fully
implemented through the presence of newspapers, stores, clubs, etc. In
addition, intensification is increased from contacts between subcultures.
As he points out, the conflicts of such contacts often result in intensified
social solidarity within the subculture.
Thus, Fischer hypothesizes that the city does have an effect but not
by destroying social groups, as is predicted by determinist theory but,
rather, by assisting in their formulation and in the strengthening of
them. For Fischer, the city is the hothouse of new subcultures. As he
observes, among these subcultures are ones which are considered to be
downright deviant, or at least odd, by the larger society. Examples he
gives are the subcultures of delinquents, professional criminals, homo-
sexuals, artists, missionaries of new religious sects, intellectuals, life-
style experimenters, radicals, and scientists.
Implications
Claude Fischer has assembled an extensive and impressive set of data
to support his theory19 which shall not be contested here. However, a
much more fundamental question is at issue for this volume. Since
Fischer's subcultural theory is based on data from relatively recent
American industrial cities, the question is whether it has any application
to the preindustrial cities examined here. That is, we now need to cross
17. Fischer, Urban Experience, p. 37.

18. Fischer, Urban Experience, p. 37.
back over the preindustrial/industrial line to see if the trip has been
worth it.
One test of the applicability of subcultural theory to preindustrial
cities has been made. In an empirical examination of the rise of Chris-
tianity, Rodney Stark has applied Fischer's subcultural theory to the
question of what characteristics of cities were conducive to the spread
of Christianity. Stark applied Fischer's assertion that 'the more urban
the place, the higher the rates of unconventionally' to his data.20 Chris-
tianity, as a new religious system, he reasoned, is easily classified as a
deviant religious movement. Therefore, Stark predicted that the larger
the urban population was in absolute numbers, the easier it would be to
assemble a 'critical mass' needed to form a deviant subculture, in this
case a Christian one. Stark's data support that assertion for the emer-
gence of Christianity in 22 cities.21
The implication of the successful Stark application of Fischer's
theory is not that such a study should be done for ancient Israelite cities.
Stark had great difficulty in assembling the data for such a test of early
Christian era cities and it would be all the more difficult to do so for the
cities included in this volume. However, these results do suggest that
Fischer's theory that cities facilitate the development of subcultures
seems worthy of application as an investigative and interpretive tool in
the study of such cities.
20. C.S. Fischer, 'Toward A Subcultural Theory of Urbanism', American

Journal of Sociology 80 (1975), pp. 1319-41 (1328).
21. R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity; A Sociologist Reconsiders History
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 129-45 (139).
CITY AS LOFTY AS HEAVEN:
ARBELA AND OTHER CITIES IN NEO-ASSYRIAN PROPHECY
Martti Nissinen
1. Cities of God and King
There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God,

which the Most High has made his holy dwelling;
God is in that city; she will not be overthrown,
and he will help her at the break of the day (Ps. 46.4-5, NEB).
In the ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, cities are more than
just densely populated communities with a more or less hierarchical
spatial and social differentiation through the distribution of work,
economy, and power.' In the above quotation from a biblical psalm, the
city is called the place 'which the Most High has made his holy dwel-
ling'. As such, it appears as a theological or mythological, rather than a
political or economical entity. The function of the city as the city of
God transcends the limitations of everyday perception and justifies
metaphors that violate concrete experience: the psalmist can make
waters flow in Jerusalem2 with no more difficulty than, say, John the
visionary can envisage the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out
1. For a characterization of what may be called a city, see, e.g., Volkmar Fritz,
The City in Ancient Israel (BibSem, 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995),
p. 19; Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1997), pp. 36-37.
2. The 'river', of course, is just one of the elements of ancient Near Eastern
mythology reflected in Ps. 46 (chaos-motif, El's throne 'at the springs of the rivers'
[KTU 1.17 vi 47] etc.), for which see, e.g., Fritz Stolz, Strukturen und Figuren im
Kult von Jerusalem (BZAW, 118; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1970), pp. 163-67; Peter
C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50(WBC, 19; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), pp. 341-46;
Bernd Janowski, Rettungsgewissheit und Epiphanie des Heils: Das Motiv der Hilfe
Gottes "am Morgen " im Alien Orient und im Alien Testament, Band I: Alter Orient
(WMANT, 59; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), pp. 185-87.
NISSINEN City as Lofty as Heaven 173
of heaven adorned like a bride. In both cases, the city is presented as the
dwelling of God among humans, a space of the divine presence where
heaven touches earth and the divine blessing and protection, or even
wrath, is bestowed upon people (Ps. 46.5-8; Rev. 21.1-4). Taken from
the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, these examples serve as an
illustration of the symbolic, emblematic, and mythological function of
the city of Jerusalem.3 This function, however, is not restricted to bib-
lical presentations of Jerusalem but is universally known from ancient
Near Eastern sources and deserves attention alongside the geo-political
and economic aspects of urbanism.
The idea of the city as the city of God, the 'dwelling of the Most
High' among humankind, was embodied in 'Houses Most High', that
is, in temples, in their rituals and personnel, which formed an essential
part of the ancient Near Eastern urban society. Moreover, temples
maintained a close contact with another significant dwelling: the palace,
the residence of the king or his representative in the city. In Marc Van
De Mieroop's words, 'Temple and palace were basic urban institutions,
and they were institutions that defined a city'.4
The link between the temple and the palace is well motivated: the
king could only rule with the divine consent and was obliged to
establish the worship of the deities and take care of the property and
staff of the temples.5 Negligence in this respect was inexcusable, and
3. The symbolic role of Jerusalem, reflected, for instance, in the biblical Zion
theology, has hitherto been the object of an intensive study; see, e.g., Ben C. Ollen-
burger, Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem
Cult (JSOTSup, 41; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987). For the amalgam
of the political and symbolic aspects of the biblical presentation of Jerusalem, see,
e.g., Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Biblical Concept of Jerusalem', JES 8 (1971), pp.
300-316; Moshe Weinfeld, 'Jerusalem—a Political and Spiritual Capital', in Joan
Goodnick Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimen-
sions. Proceedings of the Symposium Held on May 27-29, 7996, Jerusalem, Israel
(Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Publications, 2; Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum,
1998), pp. 15-40.
4. Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 52.
5. For Assyria, see J.N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at
the Dawn of History (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 262-66; for Palestine, see
Gosta Ahlstrom, Royal Administration and National Religion in Ancient Palestine
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), pp. 1-8; for Moab, Bruce Routledge, 'Learning to Love
the King: Urbanism and the State in Iron Age Moab', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil
A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity: From
the subsequent absence of the god and his or her cult from the city was
a disaster.6 On the other hand, the temple was the venue of royal
festivities like enthronements and triumphs after victorious wars, which
made the rituals occasions of the royal manifestations of power; even
regular rituals could serve the purpose of demonstrating the king's
rule.7 Hence, the temple was an integral part of the organization of the
city and state, a symbol of simultaneity of theology and politics and,
due to its often considerable property, an important economical factor.
Without doubt the temple was regarded as a sacred space in terms of
purity and impurity, but it was not an isolated 'religious' realm within
the otherwise 'secular' urbanspace—rather, the whole city could be
seen as a 'sacred landscape', a mythologized entity as the dwelling of
God and king.8 The fundamental association of the city, the god, and
the king is observable already in the oldest records of urbanism from
ancient Sumer and Egypt9 and is probably a legacy of ancient, pre-
urban societies.10 The mythological and theological glorification of the
city becomes apparent, for instance, in hymns addressed to a city and its
temples,11 and in the celebration of city walls which symbolized the
Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997),

pp. 130-44(139-40).
6. See Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 48, and cf. the
discussion below on the 'Sin of Sargon' and the absence of Marduk from Babylon.
7. See Beate Pongratz-Leisten, 'The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic
Practice in Assyrian Polities', in Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting (eds.),
Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian
Texts Corpus Project, Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian
Texts Corpus Project, 1997), pp. 145-52.
8. See Hubert Cancik, 'Rome as Sacred Landscape: Varro and the End of
Republican Religion in Rome', Visible Religion 4-5 (1985-86), pp. 250-65.
9. For cities, temples, and rulers in Sumer, see Postgate, Early Mesopotamia,
pp. 22-32; for Egypt, see Carolyn Routledge, 'Temple as the Center in Ancient
Egyptian Urbanism', in Aufrecht, Mirau and Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in
Antiquity, pp. 221-35.
10. Ira M. Lapidus, 'Cities and Societies: A Comparative Study of the Emer-
gence of Urban Civilization in Mesopotamia and Greece', Journal of Urban History
21 (1986), pp. 257-92 (285); cf. Cancik, 'Rome as Sacred Landscape', p. 260:
'Sacred landscape carries a materialized memory of society and is a phenomenon of
"long duration".'
11. E.g., SAA 3 8 (Arbela), 9 (Uruk) and 10 (Assur); for older examples, see
Joan Goodnick Westenholz, 'The Theological Foundation of a City, the Capital
City and Babylon', in idem (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 43-54 (46-48).
frontier between the organized, divinely ruled city and the chaotic and
demonic desert.12
Not every urban settlement was glorified as a city of God. Cities that
were economical and political centers of states or districts usually also
housed central temples, enjoying higher religious status than the more
peripheral settlements. This was evident not only in Bronze Age city
states which were comprised of but one city and its surroundings, but
also in the Iron Age II territorial states of Syria-Palestine where the
regional spatial hierarchy and urbanization developed hand in hand
with state formation, and where there were only a limited number of
urban centers and major places of worship.13 In the empires of Meso-
potamia, again, there was a more differentiated hierarchy of cities14 and
a greater diversity of religious traditions; several big cities boasted
significant temples in which the worship of different deities had a long
history: Marduk in Babylon, Assur in Ashur, Nabu in Borsippa, Sin in
Harran, Ninurta in Calah, Inanna/Istar in Uruk, Akkad and Arbela, and
so on. The multiplicity of local traditions was brought under one gov-
ernmental and ideological umbrella by the centralized imperial admin-
istration, which could use the symbolic and theological significance of a
city as a powerful tool in propagating imperial ideology.15 On the sym-
12. For the visual and symbolic significance of the city wall, cf. Van De
Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 73-76; Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Ina
sulmi Irub: Die kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der akltu-
Prozession in Babylonien und Assyrien im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Baghdader For-
schungen, 16; Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994), pp. 25-31.
13. For the urbanization in Israel/Judah, see Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel; for
Moab, see Routledge, 'Learning to Love the King'.
14. For the settlement hierarchy, see Mario Liverani, Studies on the Annals of
Ashurnasirpal II. II. Topographical Analysis (Quaderni di Geografica Storica, 4;
Rome: Centre Stampad'Ateneo, 1992), pp. 125-26, 131-32.
15. Besides the royal rituals, the ideology was propagated by renaming cities
and towns by names that contained an ideological message, e.g., the following
names in Esarhaddon's list of toponyms included in his account of the campaign
against Subria (Rykle Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Konigs von Assyrien
[AfO Beiheft, 9; Graz: Selbstverlag, 1956], § 68, p. 107 iv 27-34): ASSur-massu-
utir, 'I have returned to Assur his land'; ASSur-mannu-isannan, 'Who is like Assur';
MuSakSid-nakiri, 'The (divine) one who makes (the king) vanquish the enemies';
ASSur-indr-garu'a, 'Assur destroys my enemies' etc.; see Beate Pongratz-Leisten,
Toponyme als Ausdruck assyrischen Herrschaftsanspruchs', in Beate Pongratz-
Leisten, Hartmut Kiihne and Paolo Xella (eds.), Ana sad! Labnani lu allik: Beitrdge
zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen: Festschrift fur Wolfgang Rollig
bolic and ideological level, the city manifested the presence of the God
and the king, represented by temples, monuments, and local administra-
tion. The divine foundation of the city made it a symbol of convergence
of the divine and human worlds and caused the name and the fame of
the city to be meaningful not only to its inhabitants but to the whole
empire.16
Hence, it is not enough to locate the ancient Near Eastern cities on
the geographical and political map; seeing urbanism in a broader per-
spective requires locating the cities on the 'mental maps' of their in-
habitants as well. While there are plenty of studies of cities and urban-
ism in the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the point
of view of spatial and social organization and regional hierarchy,17 the
symbolic, theological, and ideological aspects of the ancient Near
Eastern city still call for more attention.18 This article is but a modest
attempt at approaching these aspects within the thematic framework of
the present volume, using the Neo-Assyrian documentation for pro-
phecy as source material.
2. Arbela: Heaven without Equal

The idea of a divinely founded city at the intersection of the human and
divine worlds is most gracefully presented in the Hymn to the City of
Arbela:
(Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1997), pp.

325-43.
16. See Westenholz, 'The Theological Foundation of a City'.
17. E.g., Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel; Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, pp. 22-
50, 73-87; Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City; J.M. Wagstaff, 'The
Origin and Evolution of Towns: 4000 BC to AD 1900', in G.H. Blake and R.I.
Lawless (eds.), The Changing Middle Eastern City (London: Croon Helm, 1980),
pp. 11-33; Lapidus, 'Cities and Societies', pp. 257-92 and the articles in Aufrecht,
Mirau and Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity; and Westenholz (ed.),
Capital Cities.
18. These aspects have been studied recently by Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi
Irub, pp. 18-19, 25-36; idem, 'Toponyme als Ausdruck assyrischen Herrschafts-
anspruchs'; Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 42-61; Westen-
holz, 'The Theological Foundation of the City'; Ian Shaw, 'Building a Sacred
Capital: Akhenaten, El-Amarna and the "House of the King's Statue'", in Westen-
holz (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 55-64; J. David Hawkins, 'Hattusa: Home to the
Thousand Gods of Haiti', in Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 65-82; Lapidus,
'Cities and Societies', pp. 282-85.
SAA 3 8:1-18
ArbailArbail
Same Sa Id Sandni Arbail dl niguti Arbail
dl isinndti Arbail dl bet hiddti Arbail
aiak Arbail aStammu slru ekurru Sundulu parakku slhdti
bob Arbail Saqu mdhdzu
dl taSlldti Arbail muSab hiddti Arbail
Arbail bet temi u milki rikis mdtdti Arbail
mukln parsi ruquti Arbail
ki Same Saqi Arbail iSddSu kunnd ki Sa[mdmi]
Sa Arbail Saqd reSlSu iStanannan [...]
tamSllSu Bdbili Sinnassu ASSur
mdhdzu slru parak Simdti bob Same
ana libblSu errabii maddandt mdtdti
Issdr ina libbi uSbat Nanaia marat Sin [...]
Irnina Sarissi Hani issdrtu bukurtu [...]
Arbela, O Arbela!
Heaven without equal, Arbela! City of merry-making, Arbela!
City of festivals, Arbela! City of the temple of jubilation, Arbela!
Shrine of Arbela, lofty hostel, broad temple, sanctuary of delights!
Gate of Arbela, the pinnacle of holy to[wns]!
City of exultation, Arbela! Abode of jubilation, Arbela!
Arbela, temple of reason and counsel! Bond of the lands, Arbela!
Establisher of profound rites, Arbela!
Arbela is as lofty as heaven. Its foundations are as firm as the heavens.
The pinnacles of Arbela are lofty, it vies with [...]
Its likeness is Babylon, it compares with Assur.
O lofty sanctuary, shrine of fates, gate of heaven!
Tribute from the lands enters into it.
Istar dwells there, Nanaya, the [...] daughter of Sin,
Irnina, the foremost of the gods, the first-born goddess [...]
In this hymn, the city of Arbela is the dwelling of the goddess Istar in
her various manifestations, associated with high spirits as well as with
reason and counsel (temu u milku). Conspicuously enough, the city is
called 'heaven without equal'. The whole city of Arbela is presented as
a sanctuary, representing its tutelary goddess in a way that the very
name of the city becomes a divine connotation. Besides the hymn, this
can be seen in personal names with Arbela as the theophoric element:
Mannu-kl-Arbail, 'who is like Arbela'; Arbail-hammat, 'Arbela is total-
ity'; Arbail-ila'i, 'Arbela is my god'; Arbail-Sarrat, 'Arbela is queen';
Arbail-Sumu-iddina, 'Arbela has given a name'; Arbail-lamur, 'May I
see Arbela'; Arbailitu-beltuni, 'the one from Arbela is our lady'. These
names clearly refer to Is tar of Arbela; even names like Arbaildiul
Arbailltu 'the one (m./f.) from Arbela', do not refer to the place of
domicile in the first place but are further expressions of the devotion to
the goddess of this deified city, acknowledged all over Assyria.19
Such a plethora of theological and symbolic attributes cannot be
assigned to whatever urban settlement, but it can well be expected of
Arbela, which in the hymn parallels the capital cities of Babylonia and
Assyria. Inhabited from the Sumerian era to our times,20 Arbela owes
much of its significance and long history of settlement to its strategic
location. Situated at the western foothill of the Zagros mountains,
Arbela is at the crossroads of traffic routes in the lowlands east of the
Tigris and controls important passageways leading to the north and the
northeast from the Assyrian heartland. Due to this favorable location,
Arbela was a regional center21 as well as a military base22 and a seat of
learning, hosting scribes and diviners.23 More than anything, it was a
prominent cult center. It was the dwelling of Istar of Arbela—also
called 'the Lady of Arbela' (belet Arbail) or Tstar who dwells in
Arbela' (Issar aSibat Arbail}—who, especially in the time of Esarhad-
don and Ashurbanipal, had an established position among the Great
Gods. She is one of the most frequently mentioned deities with
19. Of the 35 known persons by the name Arbailaiu, and four by Arbailltu,
nobody is referred to as coming from Arbela; see the respective entries by Raija
Mattila and K. S. Schmidt in Karen Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the Neo-
Assyrian Empire, I/I (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998), pp.
124-27. Similar name patterns with other divine names are well known: Mannu-kl-
ASSur, A$$ur-ila'i,Adad-$umu-iddina,Adad-belani,A$$ur-lamur and so on; cf.
Mannu-kl-Libbdli, Mannu-kl-Nlnua and other names with a name of a city in the
place of the theophoric element.
20. A comprehensive history of Arbela has not been written hitherto, neither has
the site been excavated; the center of the modern city of Irbil is built above the huge
mound of 30 meters accumulation of settlement layers.
21. In the Neo-Assyrian era, Arbela was the center of the 'district of Arbela'
(halzu Arbail; SAA 12 50:7; 71:5; 72 r.ll etc.), and its governor (pahutu) is men-
tioned on a par with governors of Nineveh and Dur-Sarruken in SAA 10 369.
22. For military activities in the Neo-Assyrian Arbela, cf. SAA 1 149; 155;
SAA 5 141; 152.
23. The letters SAA 10 136-142, reporting astrological observations, are sent by
'the decurion of Arbela' (rob eSirti Sa tupSarn Sa Arbail). The extant extispicy
reports with indication that they are performed in Arbela are SAA 4 195; 300 and
324.
hundreds of attestations in greetings of letters, inscriptions and other

documents from their time, often together with her alter ego, Istar of
Nineveh/Mullissu. The temple of Istar of Arbela, Egasankalamma, was
one of the major temples in Assyria.24 As the 'shrine of the fates' and
the 'gate of heaven', it was the abode of traditional secret lore,25 awe-
some festivities26—and prophecy.
Among the sources of prophecy, Arbela has no peer in Assyria; a
brief look at the index of place names in the edition of the Neo-Assyr-
ian prophetic texts reveals that the name of Arbela is mentioned more
often than any other geographical name in this corpus.27 Seven out of
fifteen prophets known by personal names are Arbela-based:
Ahat-abisa, a woman from Arbela (mar'at Arbail SAA 9 1.8),
Baya, a (wo)man28 from Arbela (mar Arbail SAA 9 1.4; [2.2]),
Dunnasa-amur,29 a woman from Arbela ([mar'at Arba]il SAA 9 9; cf.
10),
Issar-la-tasiyat, a man from Arbela (mar ArbailSAA 9 1.1),
La-dagil-ili, a man from Arbela (mar Arbail SAA 9 1.10; Arbailaja 2.3
and 3),
Sinqisa-amur, a woman from Arbela (mar'at Arbail SAA 9 1.2; [2.5])
24. The temple, like the city, has not been excavated; for written sources,
Brigitte Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, Band. I. Untersuchungen m Kult, Administra-
tion und Personal (Studia Pohl, Series Maior 10.1; Rome: Biblical Institute Press,
1981), pp. 6-33; A.R. George, House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Meso-
potamia (Mesopotamian Civilizations, 5; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993),
p. 90, #351.
25. The text SAA 3 38, 'The Rites of Egasankalamma', is a further representa-
tive of the genre of mystical texts deriving from the Babylonian tradition (SAA 3
34-40), for which see Alasdair Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory
Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
26. In addition to the above-quoted hymn, cf., e.g., the reference to a qarltu
banquet of Istar in SAA 13 147. For the akltu festivals, see below.
27. Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (SAA, 9; Helsinki: Helsinki University
Press, 1997), p. 53.
28. For the uncertain gender of Baya, see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. il and
the respective entry in Karen Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian
Empire, 1/2 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), p. 253.
29. Possibly identical with Sinqisa-amur; cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies,
pp. il-1 and the respective entry in Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the Neo-
Assyrian Empire, 1/2, p. 388.
Tasmetu-eres 'prophesied in Arbela' (\ina lib}bi Arbail irt[ugum] SAA

96).
In addition, the letter of Nabu-resi-issi (SAA 13 144) reports a pro-
phecy delivered by a woman in a temple which to all appearances is
located in Arbela.30 On the other hand, Istar of Arbela is the one
speaking in at least fourteen oracles of the prophetic corpus31 and, in
addition, in two prophecies quoted in the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal.32
Moreover, Lady of Arbela speaks through at least two prophets who
come from outside of Arbela, namely, Urkittu-sarrat from Calah (SAA
9 2.4) and Remutti-Allati from Dara-ahuya (SAA 9 1.3). This, along
with the devotion to her in personal names, may be taken as a further
indication of the veneration of Istar of Arbela as a national, rather than
a local manifestation of the divine.
The strong concentration on Arbela in the prophetic sources from the
time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal corresponds with these kings'
particular attachment for the city. Egasankalamma was well taken care
of and decorated by both kings.33 Esarhaddon visualized his enduring
presence in this temple by letting his doubled image be placed on the
right and left sides of Istar.34 Ashurbanipal, too, presented the temple as
the object of his special devotion. In the dialogue between him and
30. This is discernible from the greeting formula typical of writers form Arbela
as well as from the letter SAA 13 145 by the same writer. This letter mentions
temple weavers which are known especially from Arbela (cf. SAA 13 186); see the
notes of Karen Radner in Steven W. Cole and Peter Machinist, Letters from Priests
to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (SAA, 13; Helsinki: Helsinki University
Press, 1999), pp. 116-17.
31. I.e., SAA 9 1.1; 1.2; 1.4; 1.6; 1.8; 1.9; 1.10; SAA 9 2.3; 2.4; SAA 9 3.4; 3.5;
SAA 9 5; SAA 9 6 and SAA 9 9. In addition, SAA 9 1.3 and 2.5 are to be under-
stood as the words of Istar of Arbela; furthermore, she appears together with Mul-
lissu in SAA 9 7.
32. I.e., in his accounts of the campaigns against Mannea (Prism A iii 4-7) and
Elam (Prism B v 46-49); see Rykle Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assur-
banipals: Die Prismenklassen A, B, C=K, D, E, F, G, H, J und T sowie andere
Inschriften(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1996), pp. 34-35, 100.
33. Esarhaddon: Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 21, p. 33:8-11; Ashurban-
ipal: Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, p. 140 (Prism T) ii 7-8.
34. This is reported in the letters of Assur-hamatu'a (SAA 13 140 and 141); cf.
Irene J. Winter, 'Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of
Assyrian Ideology', in Parpola and Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, pp. 359-81 (376).
Nabu, the god says the following to the king who is praying for his life
in Emasmas, the temple of Istar of Nineveh:
SAA3 13:16-18:
Slmtaka Sa abnuni tattanahharanni ma
tuqnu bila ina EgaSankalamma
napSatka ittanahharanni ma
baldssu urrik Sa ASSur-bdni-apli
Your fate, which I devised, incessantly prays to me thus:
'Bring safety into Egasankalamma!'
Your soul incessantly prays to me:
'Prolong the life of Assurbanipal!'
This prayer juxtaposes the 'safety' of Egasankalamma and the life of

Ashurbanipal by means of a poetic parallelism, tying the fate of the
king in with the stability of the temple. The idea of 'safety'(tuqnu)
implies both physical security and peace and reconciliation between
heaven and earth, as is discernible from prophetic oracles of Istar of
Arbela, which frequently use the verb taqqunu ('to put in order') and its
derivatives in a similar meaning.35 Language reminiscent of prophecy
can also be found in a document of a royal votive gift given for Egasan-
kalamma by one of the kings '[for the preservation of] my [life], the
lengthening of my days, the longevity of my kingship, and the destruc-
tion of my enemies, [...] and in Egasankalamma until distant days I
[...]' ,36 The damages of the text notwithstanding, the dependance of the
reign of the king on the endurance of the temple is unmistakable.
35. E.g., SAA 9 1.2 i 33-34: [ina] bet reduteka [utaqq\anka [urabb]akka, '[In]
the Palace of Succession [I ke]ep you safe and [rai]se you'; 1.10 vi 22-26: aklu
taqnu takkal me taqnuti taSatti ina libbi ekalllka tataqqun, 'You shall eat safe food,
you shall drink safe water, you shall live in safety in your palace'; 2.5 iii 19-20: mat
ASSur utaqqan Hani zenuti [is]si mat ASSiir u$al[l]am, 'I will keep Assyria safe, I
will reconcile the angry gods with Assyria'; 5:9: tuqqun ana A[$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar
mat ASSilr a]ddan, 'I will give security for [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria]'; cf. ABL
1217 s.3 [atta] tuqunu ina ekalllka Sibi, '[As for you], stay in safety in your palace!'.
See Martti Nissinen, References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources (State
Archives of Assyria Studies, 7; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project,
1998), p. 153.
36. SAA 12 89:7: [ana baldt nap$dti]ja ardk umlja Sulburu Sarrutija sakdp
nakrutlja[...] qereb Egasankalamma ana sat ume[...];reconstruction according to
the edition. The text is included among the inscriptions of Esarhaddon in Borger,
Furthermore, Ashurbanipal assures his regular attendance at Egasan-

kalamma in his prayer addressed to the Lady of Arbela on account of
the assault of Teumman, king of Elam, in the year 653.37 Ashurbanipal
heard about Teumman when he was attending a festival of Istar in
Arbela, 'her beloved city' (al nardm libblsa). Having received the
message he, according to the inscription, burst into tears and uttered a
long prayer to the goddess, whom he presents as his creator, as goddess
of warfare, and as his intercessor before Assur. Upon the prayer, he got
a twofold answer from Istar: first an encouraging oracle, probably a
prophetic one, and still in the same night, a dream report of a dreamer
($abru).3S In the next month, 'the month of the messages of the
goddesses' (Sipir istarati, i.e. prophecies), he mobilized his troops and
vanquished Teumman.39 This lengthy passage in the inscription of
Ashurbanipal is revealing in many respects. Besides being emphatic
about Arbela as the place of communication between the goddess and
the king, it serves as an illustration of a typical situation in which pro-
phecies were uttered and as a paragon of the ideology of holy war.
Moreover, it provides a kind of compendium of Istar theology, present-
ing the goddess as the creator and mother of the king in a language very
similar to that of the prophecies.
In the final analysis, the reason for the prominence of the city of
Arbela among the Assyrian cities and the appreciation of prophecy in
that city must be sought from the distinctive relationship between the
goddess and the king. Simo Parpola has recently emphasized that when
Ashurbanipal in his hymn to the Is tars of Arbela and Nineveh calls
himself the 'product of Emasmas and Egasankalamma' (SAA 3 3:10;
see below), he refers to his upbringing as the royal infant in the temples
of Istar in Nineveh and Arbela, and even the prophecies and related
Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 97, p. 119, but the identification of the king is uncertain.
For prophetic parallels, cf., e.g., SAA 9 1.2; 1.6; 2.3; 2.5.
37. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 99-100 (Prism B)
v 15-46, esp. lines 33-34: andku aSreki a$tene"i allika ana paldh ilutlki u Sullum
parseki, 'I visit regularly your dwellings, I come to worship you and take care of
your rituals'.
38. Borger, Beitrdge zum InschriftenwerkAssurbanipals, pp. 100-101 (Prism B)
v 46-76. The passage is discussed at length in Pamela Gerardi, 'Assurbanipal's
Elamite Campaigns: A Literary and Political Study' (Dissertation, University of
Pennsylvania, 1987), pp. 145-47; Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 53-56.
39. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 103-4 (Prism B) v
77-vi 16.
texts which present the goddess(es) as the wet nurse or the mother of
the king40 should be understood accordingly.41 This practice is a con-
crete reflection of the old idea of the king as the creation of the gods,
abundantly represented in inscriptions, hymns, and prophecies, but it
goes even further: it is a simulation of what were imagined to be the
heavenly circumstances: just like the Istars of Nineveh and Arbela are
the nurses of Marduk in the divine world (SAA 3 39:19-22), they are
tending the king, 'the Marduk of the people' (SAA 10 112 r. 31), in the
human sphere. As far as the sources give the right impression, this
practice was begun only with Esarhaddon whose mother Naqia obvi-
ously maintained a close contact with the prophets of Arbela.42 Hence,
Esarhaddon's and Ashurbanipal's particular devotion to Arbela was due
to the exceptionally intimate relationship they had with the Lady of
Arbela and her cult. This explains much of the outstanding position of
the city of Arbela in the sources from the period of Esarhaddon and
Ashurbanipal, and it also sheds light on the special appreciation of
prophecy during their rule as a by-product of the increased significance
of the institutions of the Istar worship in Arbela.
3. The Palace of the Steppe in Milqia

In the vicinity of Arbela there was a locality which, though not repre-
sented by its name, is otherwise identifiable in the prophetic oracles. In
the prophecy to the queen mother Naqia, Istar of Arbela says that she
will 'go out to the Palace of the Steppe':
SAA 9 5:8-9
ina ekal seri u[ssa ...] tuqqun ana A\SSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur
a\ddan
I will [go] to the Palace of the Steppe [...] I will give protection for
[Esarhaddon, king of Assyria].
In yet another oracle, the goddess sends an oracle to Esarhaddon from

the steppe:
40. SAA 9 1.6 iii 15-18; 2.5 iii 26-27; 7 r. 6-11; SAA 3 13 r. 6-8 etc.
41. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xxxix-xl.
42. She is addressed several times in the prophetic oracles: SAA 1.7 v 8; 1.8 v
12-20; 2.1 i 13; 2.6 iv 28 (?); 5:4; cf. Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 22-24;
Sarah C. Melville, The Role of Naqia/Zakutu in Sargonid Politics (SAAS, 9;
Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), pp. 27-29.
SAA 91.9v 27-30

Issdr Sa Arbail ana seri tattiisi Sulmu ana murlSa ana birit all tassapra
ana use[$a ...]
Istar of Arbela has left for the steppe. She has sent an oracle of peace to
her calf43 in the city. At [her] coming out [...]
Even though badly broken, the texts are revealing enough. The sojourn-
ing of the goddess in the steppe makes perfect sense, as Esarhaddon
allegedly renewed an 'akitu-house in the steppe, a house of festivals'
(bit aklt seri bit niguti).44 We know that in a locality called Milqia,
situated not far away from Arbela, there was an akltu-house of Istar of
Arbela.45 There are records of worship of Istar of Arbela in Milqia from
the time of Shalmaneser III,46 and the references to works done in this
locality in the correspondence of Sargon II may also deal with her
shrine.47 Ashurbanipal mentions the 'Palace of the Steppe, dwelling of
43. For the king as the 'calf of the goddess, see Martti Nissinen, Prophetic,
Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch: Studien zum Werdegang eines
Prophetenbuches im Lichte von Has 4 und 11 (AOAT, 231; Kevelaer: Butzon &
Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), pp. 290-94; Parpola,
Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xxxvi-xliv.
44. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 64, p. 95:20, 32.
45. For the sources, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I, p. 113; Simo Parpola,
Neo-Assyrian Toponyms(AOAT, 6; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970), p. 248; George, House Most High, p. 87, #313.
46. I.e., the prayer KAR 98, in which Milqia is mentioned in a broken context
and the Lady of Arbela is addressed among other deities (see Menzel, Assyrische
Tempel, Band II: Anmerkungen, Textbuch, Tabellen und Indices [Studia Pohl,
Series Maior 10.2; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981], p. I l l * , nn. 1519-21), and
the poetic account of his campaign to Urartu, which reaches its climax when the
king enters a palace, arranges the festival of the Lady of Arbela in Milqia and,
finally, performs a lion hunt in Assur (SAA 3 17 r. 27-30; provided that the read-
ings are correct); see Elnathan Weissert, 'Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism
Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2)', in Parpola and Whiting (eds.), Assyria
1995, pp. 339-58 (348-49).
47. I.e., SAA 1 146, a letter of Samas-upahhir concerning some city rulers (bel
dldni) whom the king had ordered to work in Milqia, and SAA 1 147, a letter from
these city rulers who complain that the work is a great burden on them. The nature
of the king's work (dullu Sarri) is not specified, but since virtually all other occur-
rences of Milqia are connected with this sanctuary or its festivals, it may be that the
works have to do with it; there is a reference from this time to 'washing' some
clothing in Milqia which was needed in offering rituals (ND 2789:8-9; see the pub-
lication of Barbara Parker, 'Administrative Tablets from the North-West Palace,
Istar' in Milqia and the accompanying afcz7w-house;48 in general, the

sources from the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal give the best
picture about what it was needed for. It appears that Istar of Arbela,
who in Milqia was called Satru,49 dwelt there during the absence of the
king, in anticipation of a triumph after his returning from a victorious
campaign. When the king arrived, the goddess left Milqia and, together
with the king, entered the city of Arbela in a solemn procession.50 The
two prophetic references to the '(Palace of the) Steppe' are to be inter-
preted as references to the triumphal celebration after Esarhaddon had
defeated his brothers. The first oracle (SAA 9 5) must have been pro-
claimed while Esarhaddon was still absent, since it is addressed to the
queen mother who during the civil war received prophecies on behalf of
her son.51 The second oracle (SAA 9 1.9) presupposes that the war is
over, since the king is already in the city (of Nineveh or Arbela), await-
ing the encounter with the goddess.
Milqia is not an independent case, but belongs together with the
Nimrud,' Iraq 23 [1961], pp. 15-67 [53] and the corrected reading of Menzel,
Assyrische Tempel, p. Ill*, nn. 1522-24). Moreover, Milqia is mentioned in the
letter of Kisir-Assur (SAA 1 125): 'Upon my coming from Milqia to Dur-Sarruken,
I was told that there had been an earthquake in Dur-Sarruken...'
48. Maximilian Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Konige bis
zum Untergange Niniveh's (VAB, 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1916),
p. 248: 6-7 (not included in Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals}:
Milqia ekal sen muSab Issdranhussu uddiS bit aklssu arsip alu ina gimirtlSu uSaklil,
'As for Milqia, I renovated the delapidated Palace of the Steppe, I reconstructed its
akltu-house, I rebuilt the whole town.'
49. With regard to the above-quoted passages of prophecy in connection with
other sources it is evident that the name Satru, pace Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /,
p. 113, should not be disconnected from Istar of Arbela.
50. This procession is described in SAA 13 149, probably following Esarhad-
don's conquest of Egypt, and in Ashurbanipal's report on his triumph after the
defeat of Teumman, king of Elam (Ernst F. Weidner, 'Assyrische Beschreibungen
der Kriegs-Reliefs Assurbanaplis,' AfO 8 [1932/33], pp. 175-203 [184:43-46];
Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals,pp. 304-305); see Simo
Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbani-
pal, Part II: Commentary and Appendices(AOAT, 5.2; Kevelaer: Butzon &
Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983), pp. 158-59, 192-93;
Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi Irub, pp. 79-83; idem, 'The Interplay of Military Strat-
egy and Cultic Practice', pp. 249-50; Weissert, 'Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph',
pp. 347-50.
51. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 22-24.
institutions of Arbela as a kind of ceremonial extension of the city.

Milqia was probably no major urban settlement, neither could it be
situated far away from Arbela. The designation of its main building as
the 'Palace of the Steppe' indicates that it was located outside the walls
of the city of Arbela, symbolizing the world of chaos in the middle of
which the goddess sojourned when the king was in the turmoils of
war. 52 The procession from the 'steppe' to the city after the victory,
hence, visualized the victory over the powers of 'evil, chaotic wilder-
ness' (SAA 9 2.3 ii 24). The ceremonies in Arbela and Milqia illustrate
how the concrete and symbolic aspects of urbanism fuse together, as
Beate Pongratz-Leisten has recently pointed out.53 The military signifi-
cance of Arbela not only increased the mobility of people and goods
enhancing financial investments and administration, it also made it
necessary to make the presence of the king emphatically manifest and
promote the cult of the patron goddess with whom the king had a
special relationship.
4. The Doorjambs of Assyria: Assur, Nineveh and Calah

Besides Arbela, a whole range of Mesopotamian cities are explicitly or
implicitly acknowledged in the Neo-Assyrian prophetic sources. The
oracle of an unknown prophet in the oracle collection SAA 9 1 provides
a good starting point for the survey, as it itemizes four major Assyrian
cities as belonging to the sphere of Esarhaddon's reign:
SAA 9 1.6iii8-14
andku Issar Sa [Arbail] A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar mat A\$$uf\
ina Libbi dli Nmu[a] Kalha Arbai[l] time arkut[e] handle ddrdt[e] ana
ASSur-ahu-iddina Sarrlja addanna
52. See Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi irub, pp. 74-78.

53. Pongratz-Leisten has generalized a similar conclusion from the evidence
from a group of strategically important Assyrian cities, including Arbela, Nineveh,
Kilizi, Kurbail, and Harran ('The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Prac-
tice', p. 251): The paramount military role of these [strategically important] cities
presupposed the support and the promotion of their respective patron-gods. (...)
(A)t the moment when the city was rebuilt into a military garrison, the cult of the
city god also experienced a special financial and theological promotion. (...) This
promotion is quite understandable, considering the fact that the Assyrian king
wanted to be helped and protected by the patron-god of a border garrison in close
proximity to his enemies.'
I am Istar of [Arbela]! Esarhaddon, king of A[ssyria]!

In Assur, Ninevfeh], Calah and Arbe[la] I will give endlefss] days and
everlasti[ng] years to Esarhaddon, my king.
This neither restricts the rule of Esarhaddon only to the cities in

question, nor is the list of cities a random choice of the prophet or the
scribe. The four cities, Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela, are the most
important urban centers in the Assyrian heartland,54 each of them hav-
ing a long history of settlement and religious tradition. In the royal
poetry, these cities embody the idealized functions of the Assyrian city
and state,55 and the worship of Istar, the main speaker of the Assyrian
prophetic word, played a central role in all of them.56 When Ashur,
Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela are mentioned together, they are not just a
list of four cities but represent the whole mat Assur; hence, the 'endless
days and everlasting years' in these four cities epitomize Esarhaddon's
eternal rule over all Assyria.57 A similar idea is represented by another
oracle which most probably refers to Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and
Arbela as the 'four doorjambs of Assyria':58
SAA93.5iii 16-22, iv 15-17
abat Issdr Sa Arbail ana ASSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur
aki Sa memmeni la epaStini la addinakkanni
ma 4 sippi $a mat Assur Id akpup, Id addinakka nakarka Id akStidu ...
[um]d r!$ ASsiir-ahu-iddina
[4 sipp]l sa mdtA$$ur [aktapp]a attanakka [nakar]ka aktaSad
54. Of the other cities in that region, only Dur-Sarruken, the capital of Sargon
II, could rival Assur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela in size and significance, but it had
lost its status as the capital to Nineveh and, being founded so late by Sargon II,
lacked the venerable tradition the four cities had. It is never mentioned in the extant
sources for prophecy.
55. In addition to the above quoted Hymn to the City of Arbela (SAA 3 8), cf.
SAA 3 7 (Ashurbanipal's Hymn to Istar of Nineveh) and SAA 3 10 (Blessing for
the City of Ashur); it may be coincidental that no such hymn to Calah has been
preserved. See Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (SAA,
3; Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1989), pp. xxv-xxvi.
56. For the the worship of Istar in these cities, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I,
pp. 63-65, 70-74 (Ashur); 114-18 (Nineveh); 102-3 (Calah).
57. Later in the same oracle, the mentioning of Assur and Arbela alone is
enough to render the same idea: ASSur-ahu-iddina ina Libbi dli time arkute Sandte
ddrdteaddanakk[a\A$$ur-ahu-iddina ina libbi Arbai[l] arltka deiqtu a[ndku], 'Esar-
haddon, in Ashur I will give yo[u] endless days and everlasting years! Esarhaddon,
in Arbe[la] I [will be] your good shield! (SAA 9 1.6 iv 14-19).
58. Cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. 26 ad loc.
Word of Istar of Arbela to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria.

As if I had not done or given to you anything! Did I not subdue and give
to you the four doorjambs of Assyria? Did I not vanquish your enemy?...
[Therefore, rejoice, Esarhaddon!
[The four doorjamb]s of Assyria [I have subdujed and given to you! I
have vanquished your [enemy]!
While the first of the passages quoted above is taken from a prophecy
proclaimed during Esarhaddon's war against his brothers,59 presenting
his rule as a prospective reality, the second belongs to the context of his
enthronement, referring to the victory he gained over his enemies. The
four cities represent here the 'people of Assyria' (nl$e mat ASsur) who,
according to the account of Esarhaddon's inscription, came before him
and kissed his feet after the goddess had disrupted the ranks of the
enemies.60 The doorjamb (sippu) metaphor presents the cities as the
doorways through which the newly enthroned king Esarhaddon enters
his sphere of power, as entrances which the goddess, by vanquishing
his enemies, has 'subdued' and opened for him to come in.61
Of the four 'doorjambs', Ashur clearly comes second in importance
after Arbela in the prophetic sources. As the ancient capital of Assyria
and as the center of the worship of Assur, the Assyrian supreme god,62
Ashur had a significance among Assyrian cities that exceeded its polit-
ical weight. It was the city where the Assyrian kings were enthroned
and buried, and its most outstanding temple, Esarra, was the principal
shrine of Assur.63 The earliest Neo-Assyrian evidence for prophecy in
Ashur is the mention of prophetesses (mahhate)in a list of expenditures
for the maintenance of various ceremonies of Esarra dated to the sixth
day of Adar (XII) of the eponym year of Adad-nerari III (809).64 Fur-
thermore, Ashur is given as the place of origin of two prophets from the

60. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 44: 74-81.
61. Cf. Ps 24.7 (NEB): 'Lift up your heads, you gates, lift yourselves up, your
everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in.'
62. For the role of Assur as the universal god in Assyrian religion, see Parpola,
Prophecies, p. xxi; Parpola, 'The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jew-
ish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy', JNES 52 (1993), pp. 161-208 (205-206).
63. See Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /, pp. 36-63; George, Houses Most High,
p. 145, #1035.
64. SAA 12 69. The prophets are mentioned in a section concerning the 'divine
council' (lines 27-31).
time of Esarhaddon, [Nabu]-hussanni65 (SAA 9 2.1) and Ilussa-amur66

(SAA 9 1.5). The institutional affiliation of these prophets is not indi-
cated; Esarra is not the only alternative, since there was a temple of Istar
in Ashur as well. Esarra, however, is the temple where the appearance
of the prophetess Mullissu-abu-usri is reported by Adad-ahu-iddina in
his letter to the king (SAA 13 37). According to the preserved text of
the fragmentary letter, this woman prophesied (tartugum) in the temple
that the throne housed in that temple should be sent to Akkad for a
substitute king ritual.67 What makes Esarra the most probable venue for
this prophetic appearance, besides the structure of the blessing formula
of the letter,68 is that not just any throne was good enough to be used in
that ritual, but it had to be the actual royal throne, the one on which
Esarhaddon was seated when he was enthroned in Esarra.
The enthronement of Esarhaddon at the end of the year 681 BCE is
referred to at the beginning of the account of the construction of Esarra
in the inscription Ass. A, written in 679 BCE.69 Even prophetic mes-
sages (Sipir mahhe) are mentioned among the signs of good portent
(ittati dunqi) coming from the different kinds of divination which en-
ouraged the newly enthroned king.70 This is not just a rhetorical note,
since the prophecies proclaimed on that occasion by the prophet La-
dagil-ili (from Arbela!) were collected and preserved for posterity in the
collection SAA 9 3. The role of Esarra and the city of Ashur as the sym-
bol of the Assyrian royal ideology becomes unmistakable in the intro-
ductory passage of this collection:
65. For the restoration of the name, which could also be [Assur]-hussanni, see
Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. li.
66. This name is otherwise attested only in a fragment of a list of provisions
from Ashur, KAV 121, in which together with other women she receives provisions.
67. For this letter and its historical background, see Benno Landsberger, Brief
des Bischofs von Esagila an Konig Asarhaddon (Mededelingen der Koninklijke
Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe reeks 28/6;
Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1965), p. 49;
Simo Parpola, Letters, p. 329; Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 78-81.
68. SAA 13 37:4-6: 'May Assur, Mullissu, Nabu and Marduk bless the king, my
lord'; cf. Parpola, Letters, p. 329.
69. For the inscription, cf. Barbara Nevling Porter, Images, Power, and Politics:
Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy (Philadelphia: American
Philosophical Society, 1993), pp. 97-99.
70. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 2, p. 2 i 12-26.
SAA 9 3.119-15
[Sulmu a\na Same kaqqiri [Sulm]u ana ESarra [Sulmu] ana ASSur-ahu-
iddina Sarmat ASSur [$ulni\u Sa ASSur-ahu-iddina [i$kuri\uni
ina muhhi Sepe lillik [isinnu ina] ESarra ASSur issakan [...] $a Libbi ali
[Peace] with heaven and earth! [Peacje with Esarra! [Peace] with Esar-
haddon, king of Assyria! May the [peac]e [establish]ed by Esarhaddon
become stable and prosper!71 Esarhaddon has arranged [a banquet72 in]
Esarra. [...] of Assur.
Esarra and the city of Ashur are here represented as the space where the
peace between heaven and earth is celebrated, where the sulmu estab-
lished by Esarhaddon, the well-being based on cosmic harmony and
personified by the king, becomes manifest. In the two prophetic oracles
following the introductory passage, the Sulmu is proclaimed in proph-
etic words and made material in the form of tablets which are placed
first before the courtyard god Bel-Tarbasi (SAA 9 3.2 ii 8) and then
before the Image (of Assur), probably in the throne room where the
king is seated (SAA 9 3.3 ii 26).
In the prophetic oracles, then, the city of Ashur, together with its
main temple, assumes a ceremonial role as the scene of events which
are not only of paramount political importance but also symbolize the
fundamentals of the Assyrian religion and royal ideology. It is hardly a
matter of chance that in the prophetic oracles, the city is never called
(At) A$$ur (URU-a$-$ur or BAL.TIL.KI) but consistently referred to as
Libbi ali (URU.sA—URU), the Inner City,73 which, rather than just
meaning the 'city center', is a honorific designation which implies the
message of the centrality of Ashur as the dwelling of the Assyrian
supreme god.
The role of the city of Ashur in the prophetic oracles clearly over-
shadows that of the capital city of the empire, Nineveh. Even though
there was an eminent temple of Istar in Nineveh called Emasmas,74 no
single prophet of the corpus comes from there, nor is the city of Nin-
eveh indicated as the provenance of any prophecy quoted outside the
71. Lit.: 'go on its feet', or 'get on to its feet'.

72. Thus according to the restoration of Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. 22 ad
loc. What follows is probably a description of a procession leading to Esarhaddon's
enthronement.
73. SAA 9 1.5 iii 5; 1.6 iii 9; iv 1; 2.1 i 14; 3.1 i 15.
74. See Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I, pp. 116-17; George, House Most High,
pp. 121-22, #742.
prophetic corpus. This virtual silence, however, does not mean that
there was no prophetic activity in Nineveh. In his retrospective account
of his rise to power, Esarhaddon claims to have been encouraged by
prophecies (Sipir mahhe) which were constantly sent to him on occa-
sion of his joyful entering into Nineveh and his ascending the throne of
his father.75 Whether originating from Nineveh or other places, such
prophecies were certainly delivered (cf. SAA 9 1 ! ) and read out in
Nineveh. When the astrologer Bel-usezib complains about the insuffi-
cient attention paid to him by the newly enthroned king, he refers to
prophets and prophetesses that have been summoned by the king instead
of him (SAA 10 109:7-16). Provided that the king actually granted an
audience to the prophets, and the 'summoning' does not simply stand
for employing, Nineveh provides itself as a natural site of this encoun-
ter. In these sources, however, Nineveh is merely the implied scene of
events without any emphatically symbolic connotation.
The suspicious nonappearance of Nineveh in the prophetic oracles,
save its inclusion in the group of the 'four doorjambs' (SAA 9 1.6 iii 9)
and its juxtaposition with Calah in a passage to be quoted below (SAA
9 2.4 iii 7-11) could be explained by the impression given by the texts
that of the twin manifestations of Istar, the dominance of Istar of Arbela
in prophecy is unquestionable, while Istar of Nineveh never appears as
the speaker in the prophetic oracles. However, this is not, in fact, the
case. When the goddess speaks in a double apparition, it is always Mul-
lissu who appears together with Istar of Arbela (SAA 9 2.4 ii 30; 7 r. 6;
9 r.l), and Mullissu, on the other hand, is the wife of Assur whose role
wholly converges with that of Istar of Nineveh. The pairing of Istar of
Arbela and Mullissu in the prophetic oracles corresponds to the juxta-
position of the Istars of Arbela and Nineveh elsewhere.76 This can be
75. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 45 i 87-ii 7: 'In the month of

Adar (XII), a favorable month, on the 8th day, the day of the festival of Nabu, I
triumphantly entered Nineveh, the residence of my lordship, and happily ascended
the throne of my father. The Southwind, the breeze of Ea, was blowing—the wind
whose blowing portends well for exercising the kingship. Favorable omens in the
sky and on earth came to me. Oracles of prophets, messages of the gods and the
Goddess, were constantly sent to me and they encouraged my heart.'
76. Cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xl, Ixxi and note that the dialogue
between Ashurbanipal and Nabu (SAA 3 13), which is both historically and
substantially very closely related to the prophecy SAA 9 9, takes place in Emasmas,
the Istar temple of Nineveh, which is also called the dwelling of Mullissu (Borger,
Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 64, p. 94 r. 6: EmaSmaS atman Mullissi beltlja).In this
exemplified by the letter of the exorcist Nabu-nadin-sumi to the king,

in which he recommends the banishment of a person by virtue of the
(prophetic) words of the Istars of Arbela and Nineveh:
SAA 10 284 r. 4-8
ki $a Issdr Sa N[lnua] Issdr $a Arbail iqban[ni\
ma $a is si Sarri belin[i] la kenuni ma issu mat ASSur ninassahSu
According to what Istar of N[ineveh] and Istar of Arbela have said:
'Those who are disloyal to the king our lord, we shall extinguish from
Assyria,' he should indeed be banished from Assyria!
The divine words referred to by Nabu-nadin-sumi turn out to be a para-

phrase of a prophetic oracle (SAA 9 2.4 ii 31-33),77 in which the divine
speakers are Istar of Arbela and Mullissu. This not only speaks for the
identification of Istar of Nineveh and Mullissu but underlines the con-
clusion that the two goddesses are actually one. The same impression
can be gathered from Ashurbanipal's Hymn to the Istars of Nineveh
and Arbela:
SAA33:6-12.r. 14-16
zikir SapteSina girru naphu atmuSina kunnu ana ddriS
andku ASMr-bdni-apli bibil libblSin zer ASSur rabu [ili]tti Nina, binut
EmaSmaS [u] EgaSankalamma $a ultu libbi bit re[duti uSar]bd Sarruti
[ina p]i$ina ell[i qab]u labdr kusslja...
Belit-Nlnd, ummu alittlya taSruka Sarriitu Sa Id Sandni Belit Arbail

bd[nl}tlya taqbd baldtl ddrdte
A word from their lips is blazing fire! Their utterances are valid for ever!
I am Ashurbanipal, their favorite, most valued seed of Ashur, [offsjpring
of Nineveh, product of Emasmas [and] Egasankalamma, whose kingship
they [made gr]eat even in the Palace of Succession]. [In] their pure
mouth is [spok]en the endurance of my throne...
The Lady of Nineveh, the mother who bore me, endowed me with unpar-
alleled kingship; the Lady of Arbela, my creator, ordered everlasting life
for me.
The language and imagery of this hymn is blatantly 'prophetic', being

in many ways parallel to the extant prophetic oracles.78 Even though
dialogue, the motherly roles of Mullissu (lines 21-22) and the Queen of Nineveh
(lines r. 2-8) fuse together.
78. E.g.: SAA 3 3:3 'who have no equal among the great gods', cf. SAA 9 9:3:
'they are strongest among the gods'; SAA 3 3:13: 'I knew no father or mother, I
this is not a warrant for us to take the hymn as a specimen of prophecy

from Nineveh (the language of prophecy common with this and many
other forms of poetry rather explains itself by the background of pro-
phecy in the worship of Istar), expressions like 'word from their lips'
and 'in their pure mouth' may be interpreted in terms of prophecy. No
specific attention is paid to the city of Nineveh in this hymn,79 except its
being the 'home' of the goddess and the location of her temple,
Emasmas.
Nineveh appears together with Calah as a potential hotbed of insur-
rection in an oracle belonging to the collection from the beginning of
Esarhaddon's reign:
SAA92.4iii7-14
ake ake Sa ana [...] ma'duti u-[[sal]]-na-'u-[x-ni]
ma immati mdtu nakkuru ibbaSSi ma ina Kalhi Ninua lu Id nuSab
atta lu qdldka ASSiir-ahu-iddina sirdni Elamdja Manndja ablar Urartdja
SitrlSu abarrim igib Sa Mugalli ubattaq
How, how to respond to those who...80 to many [people], saying: 'Will
the way of this country ever change? Let us not stay in Calah and
Nineveh!'
You, Esarhaddon, keep silent! I will select the emissaries of the Elamite
king and the Mannean king, I will seal the messages of the Urartean
king, I will cut off the heel81 of Mugallu.82
In this case, the two cities do not seem to assume any emphatically
symbolic or emblematic role. As the capital city, Nineveh is a natural
choice as an example of a city where problems of domestic policy may
grew up in the lap of the goddesses', cf. SAA 9 2.5 iii 26-27: 'I am your father and
mother, I raised you between my wings'; SAA 3 3:14-15: 'As a child the great gods
guided me, going with me on the right and the left', cf. SAA 9 1.4 ii 20-24: 'When
your mother gave birth to you, sixty great gods stood with me and protected you.
Sin was at your right side, Samas at your left', and so on.
79. Cf. Ashurbanipal's Hymn to Istar of Nineveh (SAA 3 7), where the city
does play a certain role.
80. The word is partly erased, partly broken and difficult to interpret. It could be
explained as ussana"u[ni], an otherwise not attested Dtn-form of Sa'u 'run', but this
verb does not occur in Neo-Assyrian.
81. The word is interpreted as eqbu, 'heel' (see AHw 231).
82. Mugallu was the king of Melid in Anatolia; cf. SAA 4 1-12 and see Sanna
Aro, 'Tabal: Zur Geschichte und materiellen Kultur des zentralanatolischen Hoch-
plateaus von 1200 bis 600 v. Chr' (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of
Helsinki, 1998), pp. 149-53.
surface, and Calah is given as the place of origin of the prophetess

Urkittu-sarrat who delivered the oracle. The cities seem to appear as
pars pro toto, as two examples of places where the previously men-
tioned 'disloyal ones' (la keniiti, SAA 9 2.4 ii 29, 32) may show up,
rather than being specifically pointed out as the main trouble spots. The
same applies to the sample of foreign nations listed in the oracle, Elam,
Mannea, Urartu, and Melid, which at the beginning of Esarhaddon's
reign would not (yet) necessarily harass Assyria any more than other
countries did.83
The fact that Urkittu-sarrat is designated as a Kalhitu (SAA 9 2.4 iii
18) makes it evident that prophets were active in the city of Calah,
where their natural base was the temple of the Lady of Kidmuri, the
local manifestation of Istar.84 This temple was restored by Ashur-
nasirpal II in the ninth century, and again by Ashurbanipal who in his
inscription gives an account of the re-establishment of the cult of the
Lady of Kidmuri, which, according to this account, had meanwhile
been in a state of dereliction.85 While this may not quite have been the
case (there are indications that Bet Kidmuri existed even in the time of
Esarhaddon), it is conclusive that Ashurbanipal indeed promoted the
cult of the Lady of Kidmuri.86 As the sources of inspiration, Ashurbani-
pal mentions dreams and prophecies (Sipir mahhe) that were constantly
83. This is not to say that each of these nations would not have caused any
trouble in the future. After less than half a decade, during the years 676-675 BCE,
Esarhaddon took a campaign against both Mannea and Melid, while Elam raided
northern Babylonia. Only the mention of Urartu is peculiar in this context, as Urartu
was already defeated at the end of the eighth century by S argon II and hardly
constituted any serious threat in the time of Esarhaddon. Urartu might not refer only
to the state with the same name but also to other powers that were active in the
north, above all the Cimmerians who were allied with Ursa, king of Urartu, against
Subria. For a historical overview, see A. Kirk Grayson, 'Assyria: Sennacherib and
Esarhaddon (704-669 B.C.)', CAH2, III, 2, pp. 103-41 (127-32).
84. For this temple, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel/, pp. 102-3; J.N. Postgate
and J. Reade, 'Kalhu', RLA 5, pp. 303-23 (308-9); George, House Most High,
p. 113, #645.
85. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 140-41 (Prism T)
ii 7-24.
86. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 35-37. It is not altogether clear,
though, in which city this happened, since both Calah and Nineveh housed a temple
of the Lady of Kidmuri in the Neo-Assyrian era; for the Bet Kidmuri in Nineveh,
see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /, pp. 121-22. In his long petition to Assurbanipal,
the exorcist Urad-Gula claims to have arranged a banquet in Bet Kidmuri (SAA 10
NlSSINEN City as Lofty as Heaven 195
sent to him by the goddess 'to make perfect her majestic divinity and
glorify her precious rites'.87 Formulaic as this language is, it certainly
reflects the concern of the prophets for the temple that employed them.
With regard to the 'mental map' of the prophecies, the geographical
scope of the prophecy of Urkittu-sarrat deserves attention. While the
oracle proclaims the word of Istar of Arbela and Nineveh (Mullissu),
the prophetess comes from Calah and is probably affiliated to the tem-
ple of the Lady of Kidmuri. On the other hand, her name means 'Urkittu
is queen', and even though the appellation Urkittu is indistinguishable
from Mullissu in the Neo-Assyrian sources,88 it carries the memory of
the city of Uruk and its goddess. Together, the four manifestations of
the goddess, associated with four cities, not only demonstrate the exten-
sion of Istar's dominion but also the fundamental unity of the different
manifestations of the goddess.
5. Babylon and the Gods ofEsaggil

Among the cities acknowledged in the Neo-Assyrian sources for
prophecy, a special attention is devoted to Babylon, the capital city of
the sister nation. This must be partly due to the prophetic tradition in
Babylonia, documented at long intervals from Ur III89 through Old
Babylonian90 and Neo-Babylonian91 periods to the Hellenistic times.92
294 r. 23)—whether in Calah or in Nineveh, can only be guessed. Moreover, it is

unclear whether his visit to this temple had anything to do with his turning to a
prophet, about which he tells later in the same letter (line r. 32).
87. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 140-41 (Prism T)
ii 14-17: ana Suklul ilutlsa slrti Surruhu meseSa Suquruti ina Sutti Sipir mahhe
iStanappara kajjdna,'To make perfect her majestic divinity and glorify her
precious rites, (the Lady of Kidmuri) constantly sent me orders through dreams and
prophetic messages.' Note the affinity to the respective account of Esarhaddon's
accession to throne in the Ass A inscription (above, n. 74).
88. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. lii; cf. especially SAA 3 13 r. 2: 'May he
who grasped the feet of the Queen of Nineveh not come to shame in the assembly
of the great gods; may he who sits next to Urkittu not come to shame in the
assembly of those who wish him ill!'
89. In TCS 1 369:5, a muhhum of Innin of Girsu appears as the recipient of a
barley ration; see Edmond Sollberger, The Business and Administrative Correspon-
dence under the Kings of Ur (TCS, 1; Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin, 1966),
p. 90.
90. The best document of prophecy in Old Babylonian Babylon is the letter of
Yarim-Addu to Zimri-Lim, king of Mari (ARM 26 371) which reports the
However, there are also timely reasons for the relevance of Babylonian
matters in the Neo-As Syrian oracles.
To be sure, the name of the city of Babylon occurs in the Neo-
Assyrian prophetic corpus only once in a broken context (SAA 9 2.6 iv
4). However, the gods of Esaggil, the temple of Marduk in Babylon and
the principal place of worship in all Babylonia,93 make an impressive
appearance in the collection of prophecies from the beginning of Esar-
haddon's reign (SAA 9 2). As the introductory oracle of the collection,
the compilers have chosen that of [Nabu]-hussanni from Assur, in which
Istar speaks in her various manifestations, including the goddesses of
Esaggil:
SAA 9 2.115-12
[... andku] Banitu [...] utaqqan [kussiu Sa A$$ur-ahu\-iddina ukdna [...]
aninu iStardti [ . . . i]na Esaggil [...] ASSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur
[nakariiteka] usappak [ina Sepeja} ukabbas
[... I am] Banitu,94 [...]! will put in order. I will establish [the throne of
Esarh]addon. [...]
We are the goddesses [... i]n Esaggil! [...] Esarhaddon, king of Assyria!
I will catch [your enemies] and trample them [under my foot].
The self-presentation of Istar as the goddesses of Esaggil at the very

outset of the collection speaks for itself, but the concern for Babylon
appearance of a prophet (apilum) of Marduk at the gate of the royal palace in

Babylon; see Dominique Charpin et al., Archives epistolaires de Mart 1/2 (ARM,
26.2; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988), pp. 177-79. In addition,
there are several occurences of muhhum in Old Babylonian sources, e.g., MDP 181
171:14 Ri-bi-i mu-hu-um, 'RibI the prophet'.
91. E.g., YOS 6 18 lists two persons designated as 'sons' of prophets: md+AG
NUMUN GIN A mLU.GUB.BA 'Nabu-zeru-ukm son of the prophet' (lines 1, 7); mre-
mutÊN A m LU.GUB.BA 'Remut-Bel son of the prophet' (lines 8, 10). In these
cases, the prophet is the ancestor of the family.
92. I.e., the Late Babylonian akltu ritual in which a high priest (SeSgallu) utters
an oracle of Bel closely akin to prophetic language (F. Thureau-Dangin, Rituels
accadiens [Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1921], p. 144-45). This seems to witness a literary
adaptation of prophecy in cultic literature; see Karel van der Toorn, 'L'oracle de
victoire comme expression prophetique au Proche-Orient ancien', RB 94 (1987),
pp. 63-97 (93).
93. See George, House Most High, pp. 139-40, #967.
94. Banitu is a designation of the creation goddess Belet-ili, here appearing as
an aspect of Istar; see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. xviii and cf. Karlheinz
Deller, 'STT 366: Deutungsversuch 1982', Assur 3 (1983), pp. 139-53 (142-43).
becomes even more emphatic in the course of the text of the collection.
The concluding sixth oracle obviously thematizes Babylon and Esaggil
again, being partly presented as the word of Urkittu (Istar of Uruk/
Mullissu; SAA 9 2.6 iv 1-15); however, this prophecy is too fragmen-
tary for a proper interpretation. In the third oracle from the mouth of
La-dagil-ili from Arbela, Istar of Arbela does not speak as the deities of
Esaggil, but for them:
SAA 9 2.3 ii 22-27
dibblja annuti issu libbi Arbail ma betanukka esip
Hani $a Esaggil ina seri lemni balli Sarbubu
arhiS 2 maqaludti ina pdnlSunu luSesiu lilliku Sulamka liqbiu
Take to heart these words of mine from Arbela:
The gods of Esaggil are languishing in an evil, chaotic wilderness.
Let two burnt offerings be sent before them at once, let your greeting of
peace be pronounced to them!95
This appealing speech is intelligible when interpreted against the fact

that Babylon still lay in ruins after its destruction by Sennacherib a
decade earlier (689 BCE), after a whole cycle of Babylonian uprisings
and the subsequent punitive campaigns. When Esarhaddon, after the
victorious civil war against his brothers ascended the throne of his
father, the situation in Babylonia was certainly the most urgent political
problem he had to face. It was one of the principal efforts of Esar-
haddon throughout his reign to establish a political control over the
potentially rebellious Babylonia, and not only that, but a modus vivendi
between Assyria and Babylonia, governed by an ideology of a single
nation under one king.96 This ideology was theologically motivated by
95. This translation takes the people who take the offerings to the gods as the
subject of the precatives lillikii and liqbiu', in this case 'your well-being' (Sulamkd
means the king's greeting to the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods of Esaggil are
to interpreted as the subject, then Sulamka would be the oracle of salvation of these
deities concerning Esarhaddon's well-being.
96. For the political history of Babylonia before and during the reign of Esar-
haddon, see J.A. Brinkman, Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics,
747-626 EC (Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund, 7; Philadelphia: The
University Museum, 1984), pp. 67-84; Grant Frame, Babylonia 689-627 BCE: A
Political History (Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut
te Istanbul, 69; Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istan-
bul, 1992), pp. 52-101; for the ideological dimensions of Esarhaddon's political
efforts, see J.A. Brinkman, 'Through a Glass Darkly: Esarhaddon's Retrospects on
the divine foundation of the city of Babylon97 and the respective ven-
eration of Marduk and other gods of Esaggil, whose harsh treatment by
Sennacherib caused a guilty conscience later on, as the famous 'Sin of
Sargon' text (SAA 3 33) demonstrates. In this text, designed as a kind
of testament of Sennacherib to his son, the death of Sargon on the bat-
tlefield is explained as a consequence of his insufficient veneration of
the gods of Babylonia.98 Esarhaddon is urged to make the statue of
Marduk and finish what his father left unfinished: 'Accept what I have
explained to you, and reconcile [the gods of Babylonia] with your
gods!' (SAA 3 33 r. 26-27.) This is perfectly in line with the above-
quoted prophecy, as well as with the whole collection, the central theme
of which is the consolidation of Esarhaddon's throne and the reconcili-
ation between him and the divine world:
SAA 9 2.3 ii 22-27
ASMr-ahu-iddina Id tapallah
mat ASSiir utaqqan Hani zenuti [isjsi mat ASSUr u$al[l]am
Esarhaddon, fear not! I will protect Assyria, I will reconcile the angry
gods with Assyria.
Among the 'angry gods' in question, the Babylonian ones certainly

were the angriest. It is noteworthy that reconciliation, not only with the
gods of Assyria but also with those of Babylonia, is presented as pre-
requisite of the safety and well-being of Assyria. This is beautifully
exemplified by the fact that the prophets from Ashur and Arbela seem
to have been among the first proponents of this ideology.
The prophets were not alone, though, since similar ideas were also
cherished by scholars who belonged to the closest board of the king's
advisors. Bel-usezib, the best known Babylonian scholar employed by
Esarhaddon, repeatedly embeds a similar message in his letters. Soon
after Esarhaddon's accession, he reminds the king of the sign of king-
ship, which he told to the queen mother Naqia and to an exorcist during
the Downfall of Babylon', JAOS 103 (1983), pp. 35-42 and, most profoundly,
Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, esp. pp. 77-153.
97. See Westenholz, The Theological Foundation of the City', pp. 49-51.
98. See Hayim Tadmor, Benno Landsberger and Simo Parpola, 'The Sin of
Sargon and Sennacherib's Last Will', SAAB 3 (1989), pp. 3-52. The ideological
context of this text fits the time of Esarhaddon rather than that of Sennacherib; for
this reason, Landsberger (p. 35) and Parpola (pp. 45-47) argue for a date of com-
position during Esarhaddon's reign.
NlSSINEN City as Lofty as Heaven 199
Esarhaddon's expatriation at the time of the civil war preceding his rise
to power. The meaning of the sign is the following: 'Esarhaddon will
rebuild Babylon and restore Esaggil' (SAA 10 109: 13-15)." In another
letter a few years later, the same astrologer quotes words that to all
appearances are of prophetic origin:
SAA 10 11 lr. 23-26
Bel iqtabi umma akl Marduk-Sapik-zeri A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar mat
A$$[ur] ina kussiSu lu aSib u mdt[dti] gabbi ana qdteSu amanni
Bel has said: 'May Esarhaddon, king of Ass[yria], be seated on his
throne like Marduk-sapik-zeri, and I will deliver all the countries] into
his hands.'
As well as presenting the divine speech as that of Marduk (Bel) of

Babylon, the point is that Marduk-sapik-zeri was a king of Babylon
four hundred years earlier (1081-1069 BCE), and his merits included
the rebuilding of the fortifications of Babylon and the conclusion of an
alliance with the contemporary Assyrian king, Assur-bel-kala.100 Pre-
senting him as the paragon of a divinely favored king implies that
nothing less is required of Esarhaddon.
Moreover, the theory and practice of the theology of reconciliation is
amply represented also by the inscriptions of Esarhaddon that concen-
trate on his building projects in Babylonia. According to the Babylon
inscription of Esarhaddon, the most programmatic text in favor of the
reconstruction of Babylon, it was Marduk himself who together with
the other gods abandoned Babylon in his anger at the negligent and
treacherous people and relented only when Babylon and its temples
were repaired and the gods brought back to where they belonged.101
99. This is an application of an omen taken from the omen collection Enuma
Ann Enlil (56) which he quotes in an abridged form later in the letter (SAA 10 109
r. 14-15); see Simo Parpola, The Murderer of Sennacherib', in Bendt Alster (ed.),
Death in Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia 8 = CRRAI, 26; Copenhagen: Akademisk
Forlag, 1980), pp. 171-82 (179-80).
100. See Grant Frame, Rulers of Babylonia from the Second Dynasty of Isin to
the End of Assyrian Domination (] 157-612 BC) (RIMB, 2; Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 45-49.
101. Borger, InschriftenAsarhaddons, §11, pp. 11-29. For the 'divine aliena-
tion—divine reconciliation' pattern, see Brinkman, Through a Glass Darkly', pp.
40-41; for the use of this pattern in prophecy, Nissinen, References to Prophecy,
pp. 38-41.
According to the inscriptions, which are partly corroborated by archae-

ological evidence, the repatriation of the gods of Babylonia and the
building of temples began at the very beginning of Esarhaddon's reign
and continued ever since.102 In spite of all his efforts, however,
Esarhaddon could not carry out the main objective of this project, the
restoration of Esaggil. He attempted to reinstate the statue of Marduk in
Esaggil in his last year (669), but an inauspicious event obstructed this
enterprise.103 The works on Esaggil were finally completed at the
beginning of the reign of Ashurbanipal who calls Esarhaddon 'builder
of Esaggil' and only claims to have completed what his father left
unfinished.104
In addition to the prophecies, letters, and inscriptions, there is one
document in which the fate of Babylon and her patron god Marduk is
the central theme: the so-called Marduk Ordeal text, a commentary on a
ritual in which Marduk is beaten and sent to prison (SAA 3 34/35). It
has been argued with good reason that this text, rather than being anti-
Babylonian propaganda, commiserates with the god and reflects the
politics of the circles who never gave up the veneration of Marduk and
promoted the rebuilding of Babylon and Esaggil.105 As the akitu fes-
tival, for obvious reasons, did not take place in Babylon during the
reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon,106 the ritual is most probably to
be associated with the return of the statue of Marduk in Babylon at the
102. See Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, pp. 41-75.

103. For the date, see Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars, II, p. 32 (ad
SAA 10 24). The fragment K 6048+8323 possibly refers to the same incident; see
W.G. Lambert, 'Esarhaddon's Attempt to Return Marduk to Babylon', in Gerlinde
Mauer and Ursula Magen (eds.), Ad bene et fideliter seminandum: Festgabe fiir
Karlheinz Deller (AOAT, 220; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), pp. 157-74. The return of the statue of Marduk and
other gods is overoptimistically anticipated in the AsBbE inscription (Borger,
Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 57, pp. 86-89).
104. Streck, Assurbanipal, pp. 228:5 and 226:8-9 (not included in Borger,
Beitrdge zum InschriftenwerkAssurbanipals).
105. So Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 'The Tribulations of Marduk: The So-called
"Marduk Ordeal Text'", JAOS 103 (1983), pp. 131-41 (139-40); cf. Livingstone,
Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works, pp. 236-53; Porter, Images, Power,
and Politics, pp. 139-40.
106. Thus the Esarhaddon and Akitu Chronicles; see A.K. Grayson, Assyrian
and Babylonian Chronicles (TCS, 5; Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin, 1975), pp.
127:31-36, 131:1-8.
beginning of Ashurbanipal's reign.107 In one passage of this text, even a

prophet (mahhu} opens his mouth:
SAA 3 34:28-29/SAA 3 35:31
mahhu Sa ina pan Belet-Bdbili illakuni mupassiru $u ana irtlSa ibakki
illak ma ana hursan ubbuluSu Si tatarrad ma ahua ahua [...]
The prophet who goes before the Lady of Babylon is a bringer of news;
weeping he goes toward her: 'They are taking him (scil. Marduk) to the
hursdnwsr She sends (the prophet) away, saying: 'My brother, my
brother!' [...]
With regard to the proclamation of the Assyrian prophets on behalf of

the gods of Esaggil, there is nothing surprising in the appearance of a
prophet in a ritual like this, especially if the suggested historical back-
ground is correct. Whatever role the prophets may have played in akitu
rituals in general, this particular case reflects their pro-Babylonian atti-
tude. Along with the exorcists who are designated as 'his people'
(niSlSu) in the previous line,109 the cultic commentary presents the
prophets as sympathizers of Marduk, the maltreated lord of Babylon.
The failure to return Marduk to Esaggil notwithstanding, Esarhaddon
took great pains with the rebuilding of Babylon, and the position
assigned to the main god of Esaggil and Babylonia was conspicuously
renowned in Assyria during his reign. Consistently with the reconcili-
ation ideology, the veneration of Marduk, having suffered a serious
decline in the time of Sennacherib, was again part of the public image
of the king.110 According to the written documents at our disposal, this
development was enhanced by the joint efforts of the supporters of the
reconciliation between Assyrian and Babylonia—prophets, diviners,
and scribes.
107. Frymer-Kensky, The Tribulations of Marduk', p. 140.

108. This word is interpreted as meaning the river ordeal, but Frymer-Kensky
(The Tribulations of Marduk', pp. 138-39) shows that it rather means the cosmic
location where Marduk is held captive.
109. SAA 3 34:27/3 35:22: The exorcists (LU.MAS.MAS.MES) who go in front
of him reciting an incantation, are his people (UN.MES-£w); they [go] wailing in
front of him.'
110. See Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, pp. 137-48 and cf. Barbara
Nevling Porter, 'What the Assyrians Thought the Babylonians Thought about the
Relative Status of Nabu and Marduk in the Late Assyrian Period', in Parpola and
Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, pp. 253-60.
6. Akkad as the Venue for the Substitute King Ritual

The Babylonian policy of Esarhaddon appears in a somewhat different
light in the letters sent by his agent in Babylonia, Mar-Issar. For all his
goodwill towards Babylonia, Esarhaddon had to keep his eyes open for
any trace of insurrection among the Babylonians whose attitudes
towards Assyria were often critical if not hostile after Sennacherib's
destructive maneuvers, and Mar-Issar was in Babylonia precisely for
that reason. In his famous report on the burial of the substitute king in
the city of Akkad in the year 671 BCE (SAA 10 352), Mar-Issar quotes
two prophecies uttered by a prophetess in the course of the substitute
king ritual, obviously in order to convince the king that the somewhat
exceptional choice of the substitute king was the will of the gods: the
person who died for the sake of the king was the son of the temple
administrator (Satammu) of Akkad. He also tells that the inhabitants of
Akkad as well as other Babylonians became nervous, obviously for the
reason that the execution of the son of a high official reminded the
Babylonians of their political situation.111
The role of the city of Akkad in the substitute king ritual is highly
ceremonial. Akkad (Agade) was the ancient Sargonid capital of Baby-
lonia in the second half of the third millennium, and its patroness, the
Lady (Istar) of Akkad, belonged to the prominent Babylonian manifes-
tations of the goddess. Even though Akkad never achieved political
importance after the Gutian invasion in the twenty-second century (it
recovered for a while only in the Kassite period), it retained its sym-
bolic value in mythological and religious literature as the center of the
cult of Istar.112 It was Esarhaddon who, as a part of his rebuilding
project in Babylonia, revived the city and returned Istar and other gods
of Akkad from Elam in the year 674 BCE.113 The reason for the rebuild-
ing of Akkad was doubtless its symbolic and religious significance as
the ancient capital rather than its strategic or economical importance.
The substitute king ritual was necessary because the lunar eclipse
111. For this letter and the role of prophecy in it, see Nissinen, References to
Prophecy, pp. 68-77.
112. The history of the city is summarized by G.J.P. McEwan, 'Agade after
the Gutian Destruction: The Afterlife of a Mesopotamian City', AfO Beiheft 19
(1982), pp. 8-15.
113. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, pp. 84:16-18; 126:21-22;
cf. SAA 10 359 and Frame, Babylonia, pp. 73-75.
afflicted Babylonia, and by arranging it in Akkad Esarhaddon gave the

city an exalted position. Very probably the substitute king ritual and the
archaic 'assembly of the country' 114 convoked on that occasion were
one of the few major events that had taken place in the newly rebuilt
city. By means of this event Esarhaddon not only paid homage to time-
honored Babylonian traditions but also demonstrated and enacted his
kingship over Babylonia.
7. Pseudoprophecy in Harran, the City of the Moon God

The city of Harran enjoyed a remarkable political and religious status in
the Neo-Assyrian era. The political and strategic significance of the city
was related to its role as a trading center along several commercial
routes between Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, and Asia Minor, whereas
its religious prestige was based on the age-old tradition of the worship
of Sin, the Moon God, in Harran.115 Since the ninth century, the city
was part of the Assyrian empire, achieving a distinguished religio-
political position especially in the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbani-
pal. Just as he did in Arbela, Esarhaddon demonstrated his special
appreciation of Harran, his incessant devotion to the Moon God and his
enduring presence in Harran by placing his doubled statue on the right
and left sides and the images of his sons behind and in front of the
image of Sin.116 Ashurbanipal, for his part, rebuilt Ehulhul, the temple
of Sin, including the cella of Nusku called Emelamanna.117
114. The puhrum is a well-known institution from the Early Dynastic and Old
Babylonian periods; see Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, pp. 80-81; Van De Mieroop,
The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 121-28.
115. See Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of
Harran (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 114; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992);
Edward Lipifiski, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics (OLA, 57; Leu-
ven: Peeters, 1994), pp. 171-92; Steven W. Holloway, 'Harran: Cultic Geography
in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its Implications for Sennacherib's "Letter to Heze-
kiah" in 2 Kings', in Steven W. Holloway and Lowell K. Handy (eds.), The Pitcher
is Broken: Memorial Essays for G.W. Ahlstrom (JSOTSup, 190; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1995), pp. 276-314. For the symbolic and figurative meanings of
the moon-god of Harran, see Christoph Uehlinger, 'Figurative Policy, Propaganda
und Prophetic', in J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 (VTSup,
66; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp. 297-349 (315-23).
116. SAA 10 13; cf. Winter, 'Art in Empire', p. 376.
117. Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, p. 143 (Prism C) i
Harran plays an important role in the letters of Nabu-rehtu-usur, who

warns the king about an alleged conspiracy that has an outpost in that
city (ABL 1217+; CT 53 17+; 938). He is informed about the scheming
of a certain Sasi and his accomplices for the overthrow of Esarhaddon
that culminated in a (pseudo)prophecy uttered by a 'slave girl' of Bel-
ahu-usur from Harran. This woman had allegedly spoken 'in the neigh-
borhood of Harran' words of the god Nusku, according to which the
dynasty of Sennacherib will be destroyed and Sasi will be the king
(ABL 1217 r. 2-5). Even though Nabu-rehtu-usur did not know that the
whole episode was probably due to an intentional misleading,118 the
way he connects the prophecy against the king with the city of Harran
deserves attention. First, while referring to the word of Mullissu in CT
53 17, he is consistent in quoting words of Nikkal against the words
claimed to be those of Nusku in ABL 1217.119 This is because Nikkal
and Nusku were the wife and the son of Sin, and the cult of this divine
family was centered in Harran;120 indeed, Sin, Nusku, and Nikkal turn
out to be the Harranean equivalent of the triad Bel, Nabu, and Istar/
Mullissu, to which Nabu-rehtu-usur shows himself to be devoted in the
greetings of his three letters (ABL 1217:2-3; CT53 17:2-3; 938:2-3) and
which appears as the triune divine speaker in the prophecy of Bay a
(SAA91.4).
The designation of Sin as 'the Lord of Harran' (bel Harran), very
common, for example, in personal names all over the empire,121 mani-
fests the fundamental affinity of the god and the city; even in Nineveh,
85-90; for the sources, see also George, House Most High, pp. 99, #470, and 123,
#764.
118. Sasi was probably Esarhaddon's agent among the conspirators and kept
the king up to date about what was happening; see Nissinen, References to Pro-
phecy, pp. 108-53.
119. ABL 1217:8: dababu Sa Nikkal u[da . . . ] 'I k[now] the words of Nikkal';
ibid., line 12-13: [ina li]bbi dabdbi Nik[kal annie] Id taSl[at...] 'Do not disregard
these] words of Ni[kkal!... ]'; cf. CT53 17:8-9: dababu anniu SaMullissu [$u Sarru
bell] ina libbi lu Id i[$lat] This is the word of Mullissu; [the king, my lord,] should
not be ne[glectful] about it.'
120. For the worship of these deities in Harran, see Green, The City of the
Moon God, pp. 19-43; idem, 'The Presence of the Goddess in Harran', in Eugene N.
Lane (ed.), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory ofM.J. Vermaseren
(Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 131; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp. 87-100;
Holloway, 'Harran: Cultic Geography in the Neo-Assyrian Empire', pp. 287-91.
121. Bel-Harrdn-belu-usur, 'O Lord of Harran, protect the lord'; Bel-Harrdn-
his temple is called 'the house of the Lord of Harran' (bit bel Harran).
This temple was the venue of the false extispicy which the kidnapped
scholar Kudurru was forced to perform with the series of the temple of
Nusku in hand and which certainly was part of the same conspiracy
Nabu-rehtu-usur was concerned about (SAA 10 179).122 Remarkably,
the god and the city belong together, with the political and symbolic
aspects of the city interwoven, no matter what kind of undertaking is in
process. Likewise, in the letter of Nabu-rehtu-usur, the city of Harran is
not only represented by its name but also by its gods; events that take
place in Harran are interpreted by him as affecting the gods who have
chosen the city as their dwelling, and vice versa.
An interesting aspect of the religio-political eminence of the city of
Harran reveals itself in the fact that the oracle of Nusku against the king
was proclaimed, not within the city, but 'on the outskirts' of Harran
(ina q[an\ni sa H[arran]). The same expression occurs in a letter in
which Marduk-sumu-usur reminds Ashurbanipal about the temple of
cedar, built 'on the outskirts' of Harran to be the scene of a royal cere-
mony when Esarhaddon was on his way to conquer Egypt in Nisan (I),
671 BCE. In this ceremony, Esarhaddon was crowned in the presence of
Sin and Nusku and a (prophetic?) oracle was spoken to him: 'You will
go and conquer the world with it!' (SAA 10 174: 10-16). This 'act of
propaganda staged as a symbolic act'123 was a formidable demonstra-
tion of the presence of the king and the gods of Harran—but why
outside Harran and not in the city itself? It seems that the temple of
cedar was built 'on the outskirts' of Harran just as the #&z7«-houses, like
the one in Milqia, were often situated outside the city walls. A sanc-
tuary outside the city not only symbolized the dwelling of the god
outside her/his proper place, but also enabled a triumphal procession
from the realm of chaos into the city. The function of the akitu-pro-
cessions was to celebrate the re-establishment of order, to visualize the
power and presence of the king and to inspire the people with confi-
dence. Even though such a triumphal procession is not mentioned with
dun'Lord of Harran is my protective wall;Bel-Harran-isse'a,'Lord of Harran is

with me'; Bel-Harrdn-Saddu'a, 'Lord of Harran is my mountain'; Bel-Harrdn-
Sarru-usur, 'O Lord of Harran, protect the king' etc.; see the respective entries by P.
Villard, Karen Radner and Heather D. Baker in Radner (ed.), Prosopography of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1/2, pp. 300-304.
123. Uehlinger, 'Figurative Policy, Propaganda und Prophetic', p. 317.
regard to the ceremony in the temple of cedar (which may or may not
be identical with the otherwise attested akitu-house of Harran124), the
function of this ceremony is largely the same as that of the akitu. More-
over, it is conceivable that the oracle of Nusku against the king was
proclaimed nowhere else than in this particular spot only less than a
year after the coronation ceremony took place. The symbolic effect of
the 'prophetic' message, diametrically opposed to the idea of the cere-
mony, even though it was most probably nothing but political bluff,
was certainly great enough to arouse general indignation among the
people in Harran and elsewhere who were loyal to the king—and turn
their attention away from what was really happening. Whoever engi-
neered this event, could not have used better the symbolic value of
Harran as the city of god and king for his purposes.
8. Dara-ahuya in the Middle of the Mountains

The remaining locality appearing in the Neo-Assyrian sources for pro-
phecy125 is Dara-ahuya, which is mentioned in the authorship note of
the shortest of the extant oracles of the prophetic corpus:
SAA 9 1.3 ill 1-15

nSak issi A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sarrlja
riSi Arbail
Sa pi Remutti-Allati $a Dara-ahuja $a birti Sadddni
I rejoice over Esarhaddon, my king!
Arbela rejoices!
By the mouth of the woman Remutti-Allati from Dara-ahuya in the
middle of the mountains.
There are several interesting features in this tiny piece of prophecy.

First, the formulation 'my king' implies that the speaker is a divine one.
Moreover, even without a self-identification, it is beyond doubt that the
speaker is Istar of Arbela; the unmistakable poetic parallelism alone
124. For the akitu-ceremony in Harran, for which there is evidence from about
the same time (SAA 10 338), see Pongratz-Leisten, 'The Interplay of Military
Strategy and Cultic Practice', p. 248.
125. I exclude Tyre, because it is mentioned only in the colophon of one
tablet: Nis[an] 18, eponymy of Bel-sadu'a, governor of Tyre (SAA 9 9 r. 6).
suggests what we have already learned, namely, that the goddess and
the city are virtually one: the goddess rejoices, ergo, Arbela rejoices!
The language of the prophecy sounds like a quotation from the Hymn to
the city of Arbela.126 Thirdly, in spite of the Arbela-centered message,
the place of origin of the prophetess Remutti-Allati and her oracle is
indicated to be elsewhere, in a town (URU) called Dara-ahuya which
should be looked for 'in the middle of the mountains'.
This prophecy includes the only attestation of the name Dara-ahuya
which not only means that the settlement in question can hardly be a
major one, but also makes its localization difficult. A village in the
vicinity of Arbela (which is not far away from the mountains) may sug-
gest itself; however, there is another possible explanation. Since all the
oracles of the collection SAA 9 1 belong to the context of Esarhaddon's
war against his brothers and seem to be arranged according to a loose
chronology,127 it is plausible to think that the prophecy of Remutti-
Allati is an oracle of encouragement, received during the war as a fore-
taste of the coming victory. The placement of the oracle in the collec-
tion may, of course, be purely redactional; however, it does not exclude
the possibility that the prophecy was actually spoken somewhere 'out
there' when Esarhaddon and his troops were on the move towards Nin-
eveh. The indefinite determining of the position of Dara-ahuya 'in the
middle of mountains' may intentionally hint at the period when Esar-
haddon was 'roaming the steppe', outside the safe urban space and
exposed to the powers of disorder. If this is true, the prophecy of
Remutti-Allati may be taken as another specimen of the encouraging
divine messages Esarhaddon later claimed to have received constantly
at that time in response to his prayers.128 Dara-ahuya, on the other hand,
may be nothing but an intermediary station without any special
relevance for the issue of prophecy and cities.
126. SAA 3 8 r. 18-22: Arbail rlSa [...] nlSl iriSSu [...] Beltu riSat [...] iriSa bet
[...] ekurru kuzbu za"un [...] Beltu Sa blti $a Arbail irlSa libb[a$a...], 'Arbela
rejoices! The people rejoice [...] The Lady rejoices [...] The house of [...] rejoices!
The temple is adorned with attractiveness [...] the Lady of the House of Arbela
rejoices, [her] heart [...].'
127. In SAA 9 1.2 Esarhaddon appears as a crown prince, and SAA 9 1.4 to
1.8 give the impression of having been received in the turmoils of war, whereas
SAA 1.9 and 10 presuppose that the war is over.
128. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 43 i 59-62.
9. Conclusion
Urbanism is not a major issue in Neo-Assyrian prophecy. The social
and economic aspects of urbanism are never thematized in the prophetic
sources which reveal little of the social setting of the prophets in the
cities, and even less of the place of the prophets outside them. Accord-
ing to the extant indications of the place of origin of a prophet or a
prophetic oracle, the Assyrian prophets appear as urban-dwellers, but
this is because the primary context of prophetic activity is the temple of
the god(dess), and the temple, on the other hand, is an urban institution.
To be sure, cities are mentioned as places where people live, where
certain events take place and where, for instance, insurrections may
arise. Only cities, and with the exception of Dara-ahuya, only the most
prominent ones, are mentioned as domiciles of prophets or as places of
prophetic performances. Likewise, the place names that appear in the
prophetic oracles or in connection with prophecy in other sources,
belong without exception to the major cities of the Assyrian empire, all
of them housing a temple of Istar or one of her manifestations. This is
well in line with the institutional affiliation of the prophets to the
temples of pre-eminent Assyrian cities, among which Arbela clearly
assumed an outstanding position as the cradle of prophecy.
However, the cities are not mentioned merely as geographical loca-
tions of prophetic performances, and this is what makes it relevant to
study the role of the cities in Assyrian prophecy. In the sources per-
tinent to prophecy, cities are, in fact, meaningful as ideological rather
than spatial entities. Cities represent something that concerns and
embraces the whole empire: they are embodiments of the divine pres-
ence129 and the king's reign, manifestations of the fundamental unity of
god, king, and people. Especially cities like Arbela, Ashur, Babylon,
and Harran are dwellings of the divine, being themselves representa-
tions of their tutelary deities—Istar, Assur, Marduk, and Sin—and
proclaiming their glory. By the same token, in the framework of the
imperial ideology, the cities are representations of the royal power,
places in which the omnipresence of the king, chosen by the gods, is
manifested by means of images, rituals, hymns, and divine words. In
the final analysis, hence, the aspect of urbanism in Assyrian prophecy is
129. Or, as in the case of Babylon, divine absence, which is only the other side
of the same coin.
best interpreted from the point of view of the prophets' symbolic uni-
verse, reflecting their theological and ideological, albeit socially condi-
tioned conception of the reality.130
130. For the hermeneutical applicability of the concept of 'symbolic universe'

introduced by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (The Social Construction of
Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge [Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1966]), see Kari Syreeni, 'Wonderlands: A Beginner's Guide to Three Worlds',
SEA 64 (1999), pp. 33-46.
JERUSALEM: AN EXAMPLE OF WAR
IN A WALLED CITY (ISAIAH 3-4)*
John D.W. Watts
Isaiah is a prophetic interpretation of the Assyrian and Babylonian

periods in terms of Yahweh's actions and decisions concerning Pales-
tine, Israel, and Jerusalem. The walled (fortified) cities of Palestine,
built over the centuries with Egyptian encouragement as defense estab-
lishments against attack from the north, presented Assyrian and Baby-
lonian commanders with obstacles that had to be overcome in their
campaigns. While some could be by-passed, no commander likes to
have such fortresses still intact on their flanks or to their rear.1
Walled Cities in Palestine2 and Isaiah 3-4

Jerusalem (and Beth Shean) was different from the much earlier cities
of the Mesopotamian basin and the Nile Valley. Those were cities to
live in, urban centers of commerce, created by burgeoning populations.
The cities of Palestine were very different, more like fortresses, not
large. When populations expanded, they did so outside the walls. For
the most part the larger population lived in villages and towns in the
surrounding countryside. The villages were there first and they main-
tained their independence until circumstances made them dependent on
the protection of the cities and their kings.
* For a more complete treatment, see R. Seavers, 'The Practice of Ancient

Warfare with Comparisons to the Biblical Accounts of Warfare from the Conquest
to the End of the United Monarchy' (PhD dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School, Deerfield, IL, 1998).
1. Cf. Sennacherib's campaign in 701 BCE and the position of Jerusalem (Isa.
36) and Nebuchadnezzar's 13-year siege of Tyre that ended in 571 BCE.
2. Gosta W. Ahlstrom, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1993), p. 361.
WATTS Jerusalem 211
The history of walled cities in Palestine begins very early. There

were plenty of rocks to build with and the geography of the land tended
to invite invading bands to move on the north-south routes (cf. Jericho/
Beth Shean/Jerusalem/Haran/Tyre/Byblos). The biblical story of the
Israelites movement toward Palestine pictures the wanderers being well
aware of the presence and might of the walled cities.3 The story con-
tinues at least to Crusader times when Europeans rebuilt many of the
old fortresses and brought back to Europe a healthy respect for the
advantages to be gained when fighting from behind walls.4 Fortified
places continued to play a role in Europe, but as cities grew in size the
fortified areas were concentrated in smaller areas within cities (like the
'kremlins' in Russian cities; or the castle in Prague) or in fortresses on
the approaches to the cities (like those near Strasbourg on the line
between France and Germany or the old Spanish fort in St Augustine in
Florida). Walls (like the Roman wall in the north of England or the Chi-
nese wall against the Mongolian armies, or around cities as in London
and Paris) continued to play roles.
The architectural features paralleled the political growth of kingdoms.
Tribes tended to move about. When they settled it was in villages and
towns. The walled city created the position of king (~[^Q) who extended
the power and influence gained from his fortified position to rule over
surrounding villages and towns and thereby incurred the responsibility
for protecting them. This system of small city-states built around walled
capital cities sometimes functioned under the benign oversight of far-
off empires.
But when the imperial powers began to install their own administra-
tions and when they assumed the responsibility for protection, the day
of the independent walled cities was over. Some of the walled cities
continued to play a role when they existed near imperial borders or in
districts where opposition thrived. They became fortresses for the
empire, now much reduced in importance, pomp, and grandeur.
This is very much the story of Jerusalem. It was built well before
Israelite tribes came into the land. It was occupied by David and played
a central role in his consolidation of the tribes and in his building a
mini-empirewhich included neighboring small states in Palestine. Under
3. Cf. Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 15th edn,

1985), XXIV, p. 582.
4. Encyclopedia Britannica, XXIV, pp. 582-83.
the benign blessing of Egypt, the United Monarchy thrived and Jeru-
salem became famous.
Even within the much smaller kingdom of Judah, Jerusalem con-
tinued its role. But then came the Assyrian invasions of the eighth and
seventh centuries. The small states with their walled cities were viewed
as threats to the empire and many were destroyed (Samaria, Damascus,
even Tyre and many others). Jerusalem was threatened repeatedly (834
BCE by Samaria and Damascus [Isa. 7]; 701 BCE by the Assyrian
armies of Sennacherib [Isa. 36-37=2 Kgs 18-19]). The toughness of the
walled city in such a strategic location proved itself, even against the
siege techniques of much superior armies. Jerusalem was allowed to
survive. Perhaps it played a different role in imperial plans for the pro-
tection of the border against Egypt. But when the situation was reversed
Babylon found that the walls provided too much protection for rebel-
lious units. Along with other repressive measures against Judah, the
walls came down in 586 BCE.
Persia apparently had a different view of Jerusalem's role. Ostensibly
because it was a temple city, but probably also because it occupied a
strategic military position near the border with Egypt, it was rebuilt
over the years between 515 and 465 BCE. Even its walls stood high.
The city was demolished at least twice more. Seleucid armies in 168
BCE destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and many houses (2 Mace. 5.24-
25; 1 Mace. 1.30-31). For three years Jewish worship in the temple was
forbidden and the altar desecrated through pagan sacrifices.5 The city
was rebuilt, completed by the Herodian dynasty with Roman approval.
But, again, the city was destroyed by Roman legions in 70 CE. Christian
Crusaders later rebuilt the city including its walls.
Isaiah 3-4 fits into the history.6 It provides an excellent picture of the
city, its internal structures and needs, its weaknesses, and finally the
way that it could thrive under the right patronage. While these two
chapters describe the way God deals with the city, they also picture the
political, social, and economic realities of city life in such a fortress city
in that period. The external fortifications may be strong, but, if the
infrastructures and morale do not hold, the city will collapse within the
5. R.H. Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times: With an Introduction to the

Apocrypha (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), pp. 12-13.
6. The role of the city in the book of Isaiah is large. From the denunciation and
threat to it in 1.21-28, to the word in 24.12, to the reports of its restoration in chs.
60 and 62, it plays a major part.
WATTS Jerusalem 213
walls. The pressures of siege were calculated to bring exactly that to

pass. When an invading force had the resources and resolve to hold out
for an extended siege as Nebuchadnezzar did for 13 years at Tyre, it
took an incredible amount of stamina to hold out.
'Supply and support' (3.1) touches on a key requisite for survival.
The city, strong as it was, depended on supplies of water and food from
the hinterlands. A second requisite is 'personnel' (3.2-4, 12). Cities
cannot re-supply themselves with enough persons to man their military
or their political positions. Here, too, they are dependent on outside
supply and support. Over years of war (the wars of the Assyrian and
Babylonian period lasted 154 years, from 740 BCE to 586 BCE) the
country and the city lost military and civil leadership and personnel:
'soldier and man of war, judge and prophet, diviner and elder, company
commander and honorable man, counselor and diviner and one skilled
in magic' (3.2-3).
The result was that 'boys became their leaders and incompetents their
rulers' (3.4). They could not control the population. Violence and
oppression became the order of the day. There was no longer respect
for the elderly or for the cultured. The people were desperate for leader-
ship and order. They were willing to accept a tyrant if that achieved
some semblance of order. But no one wanted the post, even on those
conditions. Their judicial system became a sham and a disgrace. The
final picture is: 'Boys are their taskmasters. Women rule over them.
Their directors err and pervert their way of life'( 3.12).7 The stronger of
the survivors used the occasion to enrich themselves at the expense of
the weakened, widowed, bereaved, and poor (vv. 14-15). The picture is
one of total breakdown of social order and decency in face of the devas-
tation of war. No matter how strong the walls, if over a period of time
one loses this many soldiers and leaders, the city will fall from within.
There are 'social issues' (3.5-7, 12, 13-15). The personnel who lived
in the cities and those who lived in surrounding villages which depended
upon the city and its wealth and power must be kept happy and pros-
perous. Otherwise there is the probability of troubles.8
There are 'problems of affluence' (3.17-24). The cities often sat
astride trade routes which made caravans pay for protection. Jerusalem
7. The youthfulness of leaders may refer to kings like Jehoiachin who sub-
mitted to Nebuchadnezzar in 598 BCE only to be taken into exile.
8. Note that the troops and bureaucracy are kin to those outside. Cf. Isa. 22
related to high officials in the court of Hezekiah.
and Samaria grew rich in this way, as did other cities. But with afflu-
ence came problems. The rich became symbols of social disparity (cf.
Amos 3.15 and 4.1-3 for people in Samaria). Corruption of officials is
pictured in Isa. 22 for Shebna, who conspired to have an elaborate
mausoleum built for himself, and for Hilkiah, his successor.
Without its supporting area and population a city is helpless: 'the
destitute, helpless city', This is how a sustained siege over a consider-
able period of time could bring a city down without ever breaching its
walls. The book of Isaiah's narrative pictures two sieges of the city. In
Isa. 7, Ahaz is under a loose siege by the kings of Aram and Israel
while their armies ravage Judah (cf. 2 Chron. 28.5-21). By neutralizing
the walled capital at the beginning of the young king's reign, they were
free to steal whatever they wanted from the rest of the country. The
second siege is a close siege by the Assyrians intended to neutralize
Hezekiah's forces while the Assyrian king attacked Egypt (Isa. 36-37 =
2 Kgs 18.17-19.36). Both of these sieges were unsuccessful in destroy-
ing the city. Ahaz escaped because of the approach of the Assyrian
armies. Hezekiah escaped because of the miraculous events of disease
among the Assyrian troops, or bad news from home for the commander.
Isaiah, in contrast to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, never actually describes
the fall of 586 BCE. However, Isaiah does speak of a number of cities
including Damascus (17.1-3) and Tyre (23) being subject to the devas-
tation of that time (cf. also 24.12). Jerusalem's siege in 734 BCE is
pictured in Isa. 7 and that of 721 BCE in Isa. 36-37. Its troubles during
this period are pictured in Isa. 22.
Beyond the siege there is the hope of a future reversal (4.2-3).
'Branch of Yahweh—beautiful and glorious' speaks of new leadership.
The fruit of the land'—speaks of the pride and glory of the survivors in
the hinterland providing new support for the city. The survivors in Jeru-
salem are called 'holy'. The Temple is restored. It is the primary reason
for the survival and continued activity of the city. Yahweh's means are
a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire which effect a cleansing (4.4).
These are the long and terrible times of the Assyrian and Babylonian
periods. Yahweh will create over Zion a protective canopy, a shelter
(4.5-6). Is this a reference to Persian imperial patronage?
This Persian restoration received Isaianic treatment in chs. 49-54, 60
and 62. In this treatment Yhwh claims credit for having brought Cyrus
with the specific mandate of rebuilding Jerusalem. Under the Persians
(and Nehemiah) the walls of the city serve to protect its inhabitants
WATTS Jerusalem 215
from local vandals. The city served as an armed outpost for the Persians
and as a temple site for Jews. A walled city of this type had not been
able to withstand the sustained assault of imperial power such as the
attacks of Babylon (586 BCE), Seleucid armies (165 BCE), or Rome (70
CE).
Conclusion
Isaiah 3-4 is a literary unity which stands independently in the larger
book. It is a miniature of the treatment of the city of Jerusalem in the
larger book. It could also be called a foreshadowing of the treatment of
Jerusalem through the rest of the book.
A metaphorical picture of God at work over Jerusalem uses a figure
from the wilderness journey (fire by night and a cloud of smoke by
day). But the role is different in Exodus. There it served to lead the
traveling people. In Isaiah it serves to protect the city. But it is also a
metaphor for the experiences of Jerusalem with the trials of a walled
city during the powerful changes (political, social, and economic) of the
eighth to the sixth centuries. Cities such as Jerusalem can only survive
and prosper under the protection and patronage of powerful empires.
INDEXES
INDEX OF REFERENCES
OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis Numbers 2.4 121

1-11 18 6.1-21 39 3.9 125, 126,
1.29-30 43 35 120 129
2 75,78
4.17 43 Deuteronomy 1 Samuel
9.3-6 43 2.10-12 40 1 118
9.8-17 43 2.20-23 40 1.11 39
9.23 126 3.11 40 9.18-25 115
11.1-9 43,55 7.25 149
24.1 43 12.2 79 2 Samuel
24.6 43 14.13 42 24.16-25 28
24.7-11 43 14.14 42
36.20 75 14.15 42 1 Kings
37.33 75 14.16 42 3.4 115
38.9 129 14.17 42 8.7 125
38.15 129 14.22-26 100 11.7 115
16.21 79 11.29 119
Exodus 17.9 40 12.23 115, 120
23.11 76 20.19-20 79 12.28-32 115
25.20 125 21.1-9 60 12.33 115
28.42 126 21.13 130 13.2 120
34.13 149 26.5 135 13.32 115
37.9 125 32.11 125 13.33 115, 120
14.1-18 119
Leviticus Joshua 19.19-21 118
11.15 42 20.2 120 22.39 38
11.16 42 20.3 120
11.17 42 2 Kings
11.18 42 Judges 2.22 88
18.25 83 4.4 118 10.15-16 39
18.28 83 8.9 149 10.27 149
26 84 9.8-15 79 11.18 149
26.6 75 13-16 39 14 78
26.14-23 73 15.20 117
26.26 119 Ruth 17.9 115
2.1 121 17.10 115
17.25 75 Psalms 3.4 213

17.29 115 1 79 3.5-7 213
17.32-41 115 44 143 3.12 213
17.32 120 46 55, 56, 3.13-15 213
18-20 67 172 3.14-15 213
18-19 212 46.4-5 172 3.16^.1 59
18.4 116 46.5-8 173 3.16-26 39
18.17-19.36 214 48 55,56 3.17-24 213
18.22 115 74 143 4.1-2 76
19.3-4 115 74.4-9 149 4.2-6 59
20.35-42 119 74.6 149 4.2-3 214
22.14 36, 118, 79 143 4.3 59
119 80.13 149 4.4 214
23.4-20 115, 116 89 143 4.5-6 214
23.5-6 115 89.41 149 5 117
23.5 115 96.12 79 5.5 149
23.9 120 102 143 5.6 39
23.13 115 148 75 5.8 117
23.20 120 5.17 39,48
23.30 117 Proverbs 6.11 39
23.35 117 3.18 79 7 212,214
24.13-17 149 30.30 74 7.2 44
24.14 117 7.10-14 67
Ecclesiastes 7.23-25 39
2 Chronicles 9.13-16 47 9.17 39,44
5.8 125 10.1 39
11.13-15 120 Isaiah 10.17 39
20.9 73 1-35 18,35,39 10.19 44
23.17 149 1 66 10.34 44
25.23 149 1 .1 113 11.6-9 43
28.5-21 214 1 .7 48 11.9 43
36.21 84 1 .9-10 40 13-23 40,41
1 .21-28 212 13-21 64
Ezra 141
.21-26 19, 46, 59 13.1-22 40
9.9 150 2-55 66 13.19-22 40
2-39 20, 66, 67 13.19 40
Nehemiah 2-12 20, 66, 67 14.17 44
1.3 149 2 18 14.22-23 41
2.13 149 2.1 113 15.1-63 37
4.1 149 2.2-4 66 17.1-3 214
13.10 120 2.4 43 18.11-28 37
2.6-21 66 19.1-9 37
Job 3-4 24, 212, 19.25 58
38.5-6 42 215 21 143
39.26 125 3.1-5 49 21.1-10 56
41 74 3.1 213 22 213,214
3.2-4 213 22.2 48
3.2-3 213 22.8 44
Isaiah (cont.) 36.4 67 7.21-26 114

22.10 149 37.21-35 64 7.34 150
23-27 64 37.47 64 8.8 39
23 214 38 67 17.7-8 79
24-27 18, 19, 38.26 88 18.1-11 120
41,47-49, 39 67 19.1-13 53
51,53, 40-55 51,67 19.1-2 53
54,56 41.18-20 88 19.5 115
24.2 49 41.18-19 44 19.7 113
24.4-13 49 43.19-20 44 19.10-13 53
24.5 43 43.20 88 19.15 53
24.7 49 44.23 79 25 19,57
24.9 49 44.26 48 26.9 150
24.10-13 48 45.13 48 26.16-19 66
24.10 43,55 47 113 27 19
24.11 49 48 59 27.17 150
24.12 212,214 48.1-2 59 27.20 113
25-26 113 48.2 59 29.2 113
25.2 49 49-54 24, 214 29.7 56
25.3 48,56 50.2 44 33.4 149
25.6 49 51.3 44 33.10 150
25.10-12 52 52 59 33.12 150
26.1-6 48 52.1 59 34.19 117
26.1 50,55 54.11-17 54 35 59
27.4 39 55.12 79 35.1-19 39
27.10-11 48 56-66 66 37.2 117
27.10 44 60 24,212, 37.21 119
27.11 39 214 44.2 150
28-32 20,66 62 24,212, 44.6 150
28.21 60 214 44.21 117
29.1-8 66 63.1-6 64 44.22 150
29.17 44 64.5 129 48.32-33 49
30.23-25 44 64.9 44 50-51 57, 113
32.14 39,48 65.17-19 49 50.15 149
32.15-20 18,44 51.34 57
32.15a 44 Jeremiah 51.59-64 53
33-34 64 1.1 119 52.17-23 149
33.20 48 2 33
34.8-11 42 2.1-2 119 Ezekiel
34.9 41 2.2 135 1-24 82
34.10 150 2.7 44 2.6 76
34.11b 42 2.21 76 2.21 87
34.12 42 4.26 149 3.4-11 81
34.13-15 42 7 19,52 4.28 87
35.1 44 7.1-2 119 5.6 87
35.6 44 7.2 52 5.16-17 73
36-38 67 7.7 52 5.17 75
36-37 212,214 7.14 52 6 82
6.6 83,115 17.24 78 38.22 80

6.14 82 18.4 87 39.17 75
7 82 18.7 128 40^18 27,71,
7.2 81 19.10-14 76 86,93
7.3 83 19.12 80 47 78,88
7.7 82 20.32 79 47.1-12 89
7.9 82 20.45-48 80 47.9 88
9.10 87 21.7-8[2-3] 81 47.11 89
10 73 22.1-12 20,85
11.15 90,91 22.27 74 Hosea
11.17 91 22.29 117 1-3 65,66
11.21 91 23 85 2 18
12.8-9 87 23.1-10 85 2.11 126
12.13 83 23.4 130 2.20 43,75
12.15 83 24.25 75 4-14 65
12.21 83 25^8 84 7.1 113
13.4 74 26.9 149 8.5 115
14.1-6 87 26.19 150 9.7-8 39
14.2-6 87 28.24 76 9.10 114, 115
14.12-23 83 30.4 149 10.1 115
14.12-15 83 31.6 74 10.5 115
14.15 73,83 31.8-9 77 10.8 115
14.17 74 31.8 77 12.10 39
14.21 75,83 31.13 74
15 77 32.1-16 73 Joel
16 19,21, 33 82 3-4 64
22, 58, 33.24 91
76, 124, 33.27 91 Amos
125, 131, 34 74,75 1.3-2.3 64
133-35 34.25-29 75 2.11 39
16.1-43 85 34.25 84, 130 3.14 115
16.8-13 124 34.28 74 3.15 214
16.8 21, 124- 35.12 73 4.1-3 117,214
27, 130 36.8-12 84 5.5-6 115
16.9-14 126 36.8 81 6.1-7 39
16.9 127, 130 36.9-1 86 7.9 115
16.10-14 134 36.10 150 7.10-17 115
16.10 127 36.16 81
16.13a 127 36.17 91 Jonah
16.14 86 36.22-38 84 1.2 114
16.21 MT 130 36.26 85 3.2 114
16.39 149 36.34-36 85 3.3 114
16.43 135 36.35 88, 149, 4.11 114
16.46-52 85 150
16.62 130 36.36 86 Micah
17 76 36.38 150 1.2 64
17.2 77 37.26 130 1.5 115
17.13 130 38.20 74 3.12 66
Micah (cont.) Zephaniah 1.9 149

4.1-4 66 1.10 36 1.14 150, 151
4.1 66 2-3 64 2.1-4 151, 155
4.8 63 2.13 113 2.5 155
5.5-15 64 3.1 113 2.6-9 155
6.1-2 64 2.10-19 155
Haggai 2.20-23 149, 155
Habakkuk 1.2-14 155
2 64 1.2 150 Zechariah
2.12 113 1.4 149, 150 9-14 64
APOCRYPHA, NEW TESTAMENT AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
APOCRYPHA NEW TESTAMENT 21.1-4 60

/ Maccabees Matthew 21.10-27 27
1.30-31 212 27.
27.7 120 21/1-4 173
27.10
27.10 120
2 Maccabees PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
5.14 110 Galatians 2 Baruch
5.23-26 110 4.26
4.26 60 4.2-
4.2-4 27
5.24-25 212 Jude
12.9 76 4 Ezra
Tobit 7.26 27
13.16-18 27 Revelation 13.36 27
11.8 57
OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES
ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN Prism C § 64, p. 95:20 184
ABL i 85-90 203 § 64, p. 95:32 184
1217 204 § 68, p. 107
1217 T. 2-5 204 Prism T iv 27-34 175
1217 s.3 181 ii 14-17 195 §97, p. 119 182
1217+ 204 ii7-8 180
1217:2-3 204 ii 7-24 194 CT
1217:8 204 53 17 204
Borger, 53 17+ 204
ARM Die Inschriften 53 17:2-3 204
26371 195 Asarhaddons 53 17:8-9 204
§2, p. 2: 12-26 189 53938 204
Ashurbanipal § 11, pp. 11-29 199 53 938:2-3 204
Prism A §21, p. 33:
iii 4-7 180 8-11 180 KAR
§ 27, p. 43 98 184
Prism B i 59-62 207
v 15-46 182 § 27, p. 44: KAV
v 33-34 182 74-81 188 121 189
v 46-76 182 § 27, p. 45
v 46-49 180 i 87-ii 7 191 MDP
v77-vi 16 182 § 64, p. 94 r. 6 191 181 171:14 196
ND 9 1.3 ii 11-15 206 95 180, 185

2789:8-9 184 9 1.4 179, 180, 95:8-9 183
204, 207 95:9 181
SAA 9 1.4 1120-24 193 96 180
1 125 185 9 1.5 189 97 180
1 146 184 9 1.5 iii 5 190 97r.6-ll 183
1 147 184 9 1.6 180, 182 97r.6 191
1 149 178 9 1.61118-14 186 99 179, 180,
1 155 178 9 1.61119 190, 191 191
33:3 192 9 1.6111 15-18 183 99r.l 191
33:6-12 192 9 1.6 iv 1 190 9 9 r.2-8 192
33:10 182 9 1.6iv 14-19 187 99r.6 206
33:13 192 9 1.8 179, 180, 99:3 192
33:14-15 193 207 99:21-22 192
33r.l4-16 192 9 1.9 180, 185 9 10 179
37 187, 193 9 1. 9 v 27-30 184 10 174
38 174, 187 9 1.10 179, 180 1013 203
38r.l-22 207 9 1. 10 vi 22-26 181 1024 200
38:1-18 177 92 196 10 109:7-16 191
3 10 187 92.1 189 10 109:13-15 199
3 13 191 92.1 i 14 190 10109r.l4-15 199
3 13 r.2 195 92.1 15-12 196 10 lllr.23-26 199
3 13r.6-8 183 92.3 179, 180, 10112r.31 183
3 13:16-18 181 182 10 136-142 178
333 198 9 2.3 ii 22-27 197, 198 10174:10-16 205
3 33 r.26-27 198 9 2.3 ii 24 186 10179 205
3 34-40 179 92.4 180 10284r.4-8 192
334 200 9 2.4 ii 29 194 10294r.23 194
3 34:27 201 9 2.4 ii 30 191 10 294 r.32 195
3 34:28-29 201 9 2.4 ii 3 1-33 192 10338 206
335 200 9 2.4 ii 32 194 10352 202
3 35:22 201 92.4iii7-14 193 10359 202
335:31 201 92.41117-11 191 10369 178
338 179 92.4iii 18 194 1250:7 178
339:19-22 183 92.5 180, 182 1269 188
4 1-12 193 9 2.5 iii 19-20 181 1269:27-31 188
4 195 178 9 2.5 iii 26-27 183, 193 1271:5 178
4300 178 92.6iv 1-15 197 1272r.ll 178
4324 178 9 2.6 iv 4 196 1289:7 181
5 141 178 93 179, 189 1337 189
5 152 178 93.119-15 190 13 37:4-6 189
9 174 93.1 i 15 190 13 140 180
91 186,207 93.2118 190 13 141 180
9 1.1 179, 180 9 3.3 ii 26 190 13 144 180
9 1.2 179, 180, 93.4 180 13 145 180
182, 207 93.5 180 13 147 179
9 1.2 i 33-34 181 9 3.5 iii 16-22 187 13 149 185
9 1.3 180 93.5iv 15-17 187 13 186 180
TCS JOSEPHUS Ovid

1 369:5 195 Apion Ars amatoria
1.22 §197 109 2.467-80 134
YOS War
618 196 3.3.2 §43 110 Strabo
618:1 196 6.9.3 §420 110 Geographia
618:7 196 4.1.5 104
618:8 196 CLASSICAL
618:10 196 Cicero Varro
Pro Roscio Aermino Rerum Rusticarum
Epic ofGilgamesh 75 31, 103 2.1.1 31,103
1.4 131
2.2 132 Diodorus Siculus
2.3 132 40.3.1-7 109
3.2 132
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Abrams,P. 101, 108 Borger,R. 175, 180-82, 184, 185, 188,

Ackroyd, P.R. 143 189, 191, 194, 195, 199,203,207
Adams, P. 16 Brecht, B. 35
Aharoni, Y. 144 Briend,J. 144, 148, 153
Ahlstrom, G.W. 36, 173, 210 Bright,!. 143
Albright, W.F. 147 Brinkmann, J.A. 197, 199
Alston, R. 109 Broshi, M. 22, 36, 110, 144
Alston, R.D. 109 Brownlee, W.H. 128
Amsler, S. 137, 150 Buccellati, G. 116
Anderson, B.W. 71 Byatt, A. 110
Aro, S. 193
Astour, M.C. 132 Cancik, H. 174
Aufrecht, W.E. 154 Carmichael, C.M. 129
Avigad, N. 37,38 Carroll, R.P. 19, 22, 26, 27, 52, 57, 58,
70,92,94, 113, 141, 150
Bagnall, R.S. 109 Carter, C.E. 22, 111, 144-147, 151, 153,
Baker, H.D. 205 156
Barfield, T. 15 Chary, T. 149
Barnard, A. 15 Childe, V.G. 17, 29, 97, 108, 111, 163
Barstad, H.M. 22, 142, 143, 146-48 Christaller, W. 108
Barth, F. 26 Chyutin, M. 27
Earth, H. 27, 118 Clements, R.E. 27,50, 119
Barthelemy, D. 150, 155 Clifford, RJ. 71,78,88
Beaujeu-Garnier, J. 108 Clines, D.J.A. 141, 142, 151
Becking, B. 58 Cogan, M. 116
Bedford, P.R. 22, 138, 139 Cohen, L. 55
Ben Zvi, E. 22, 28, 48, 141, 144-46, Cohen, R. 153
151-55 Collins, J.J. 71
Benet, F. 102 Cooke, GA. 129, 133
Benvenisti, M. 46 Coote, R.B. 19,28,31,32,64
Berger, P.L. 209 Cornell, TJ. 99
Blenkinsopp, J. 18, 25, 30, 31, 33, 36, Craigie, P.C. 172
157 Crowfoot, G.M. 38
Boas, B. 132 Crowfoot, J.W. 38
Bodi, D. 132
Bolin, T.M. 22, 141, 142 Dandamaev, M.A. 140
Bolle, K.W. 26 Davis, K. 161
Deist, F.E. 141 Hauser, P.M. 15, 102, 161

Deller, K. 196 Hawkins, J.D. 176
Delobez, A. 108 Hayward, C.T.R. 27
Dempsey, C.J. 130 Healey, J.P. 116
Dever.W.G. 36,96, 110, 111 Hempel, J. 128
Douglas, M. 72, 115 Hibbert, A.B. 103
Duguid,!. 72,93,94 Hill,J. 57,58
Durkheim, E. 16,97 Hill, S.D. 69
Killers, D. 117
Edzard,D.O. 131 Holloway, S.W. 203,204
Eichrodt,W. 129 Hopkins, K. 30,99
Engels,F. 16,31,97, 101 Hubbard, R.L., Jr 129
Eph'al.1. 153 Hugenberger, G.P. 130,131
Exum, J.C. 125
Irwin,W. 130
Fava, S. 161, 162
Finkelstein, I. 110 Jameson, F. 72,92,93
Finley, M. 30, 32, 98, 99, 104, 107, 108 Jamieson-Drake, D.W. 38
Fischer, C.S. 23,167-71 Janowski, B. 172
Frame, G. 197, 199, 202 Janssen, E. 22, 142
Friedman, J. 108 Janzen, G. 135
Frier, B.W. 109 Japhet, S. 157
Fritz, V. 105, 172, 175, 176 Johannes, F. 153, 156
Frye,N. 92
Frymer-Kensky, T. 200, 201 Kaiser, O. 50
Kamionkowski, T. 21, 28, 31, 33, 124
Galambush, J. 20, 31, 33, 130, 132, 135 Kenney,E.J. 134
Cans, HJ. 169 Kessler, J. 22, 25, 28, 149, 150, 157
Garfinkel, S. 132 Kippenberg, G. 140
George, A.R. 179, 184, 188, 190, 194, Korpel, M.C.A. 128
196, 204 Kovacs,M.G. 131
Gerardi, P. 182 Krausz, N. 135
Gist,N.P. 161, 162 Kreissig,H. 22, 138-40, 142, 143, 146
Gorg, M. 40 Kruger, P.A. 127, 129
Gottwald, N.K. 22, 138, 139, 104, 141 Kuhl,C. 127
Grabbe, L.L. 16, 18, 21, 25, 27-29, 31-33, Kunin, S.D. 26
107,118,119,139,156
Gray, G.B. 41 Lambert, W.G. 200
Grayson, A.K. 194,200,202 Landsberger, B. 189, 198
Green, T.M. 203,204 Lang, B. 132
Greenberg.M. 129,130,132,135 Laperrousaz, E.-M. 22, 142, 148
Gunkel, H. 133 Lapidus,I.M. 174, 176
Lemaire, A. 144,152-54,156
Habel, N. 72,83 Lemche, N.P. 145
Halpern,B. 64, 116 Levenson, J.D. 71,88
Hamerton-Kelly, R.G. 22, 138, 139, 142 Levi-Strauss, C. 26
Hanson, P.D. 22, 138, 139, 142, 147 Lewis, B. 133
Harris, R. 134 Lewis, I.M. 115
Index of Authors 225
Lewis, O. 15, 102 Parpola, S. 179, 182-85, 187-91, 195,

Lipinski,E. 157,203 196, 198-200
Liverani, M. 175 Pasto, J. 141
Livingstone, A. 187,200 Person, R. 156
Lloyd, P.C. 106 Pfeiffer, R.H. 212
Lomas, K. 99 Pirenne, H. 103
Lovejoy, A.O. 132 Ploger,J.G. 81
Luckmann, T. 209 Pocock, D.F. 56,58
Lupri, E. 102 Polley, M.E. 69
Pongratz-Leisten, B. 174-76, 185, 186,
Malul,M. 127 206
Margalith, O. 22, 140, 141 Pope, M.H. 128
Marx, K. 31, 101 Porteous, N.W. 59
Mason, R.A. 118, 149, 157 Porter, B.N. 189, 198, 200, 201
Mattila, R. 178 Postgate, J.N. 109, 173, 174, 194, 203
Mattingly, D.J. 99
Mayer, W. 128 Queen, S.L. 160
Mazar, A. 38
McEwan, G.J.P. 202 Rad, G. von 135, 154
McGee, T.G. 100-102 Radner, K. 180,205
McTaggert, W.D. 15 Reade, J. 194
Melville, S.C. 183 Redfield, R. 17, 102
Menzel, B. 179, 184, 185, 187, 188, 190, Redford, D.B. 133
194 Redman, C.L. I l l
Meyers, C.L. 137, 149 Reissman, L. 102
Meyers, E.M. 137, 149, 156 Rich, J. 30,99
Michaels, W.B. 92 Roberts, J.J.M. 27
Miles, S.W. 17, 98, 105, 106 Rohrbaugh, R.L. 159
Moran,W.L. 132, 134 Routledge, B. 173, 175
Motyer, J.A. 50, 56, 58 Routledge, C. 174
Na'aman, N. 153 Ste Croix, G.E.M. de 101-104

Nefzger, B. 17,22,25,29,97 Sasson, J.M. 114
Nissinen, M. 23,31, 123, 181, 183-85, Saunders, P. 16
188, 189, 192, 194, 199, 202, 204, Scarry, E. 82
205 Schaper, J. 158
Norin, S. 135 Schmidt, K.S. 178
North, J.A. 100 Schnore, L.F. 15
Seavers, R. 210
Ofer, A. 37 Seymour-Smith, J. 15
Ollenburger, B. 173 Shaw, I. 176
Ortner, S. 134 Shiloh, Y. I l l
Osborne, R. 30, 32, 99, 107 Simmel, G. 168
Sjoberg, G. 17, 23, 68, 100, 101, 107,
Pahl,R.E. 102 116, 164, 166
Parker, B. 184 Smith, A. 16, 31,97, 103
Parkins, H.M. 30, 107, 108 Smith, M. 22, 138
Smith, M.G. 15, 139, 142, 147
Soden, W. von 131 Viberg, A. 126, 129

Sollberger, E. 195 Villard,P. 205
Southall, A. 18, 32, 101, 104, 106-108
Spencer, J. 15 Wagstaff, J.M. 176
Stark, R. 23, 171 Wallace, H.N. 78
Steck, O.H. 154 Wallace-Hadrill, A. 30-32, 99, 103, 105,
Stern, E. 36 107, 108
Stevenson, K.R. 72,93 Watts, J. 24
Stolz, F. 172 Weber, M. 16, 30, 32, 39, 97-99, 107
Streck, M. 185,200 Weidner,E.F. 185
Stummer, F. 54 Weinberg, J.P 22, 138-41, 146, 147
Sweeney, M.A. 50 Weinberg, S.S. 148
Syreeni, K. 209 Weinfeld, M. 173
Weissert, E. 184, 185
Tadmor, H. 116, 198 Westenholz, J.G. 174, 176, 198
Talmon, S. 114, 116, 117, 173 Westermann, C. 54
Thomas, L.F. 160 Wheatley, P. 15, 17, 97, 98, 101, 102,
Thompson, T.L. 22, 141 116
Thrupp, S.L. 101 Whittaker, C.R. 99
Thureau-Dangin, F. 196 Wildberger, H. 51
Toorn, K. van der 196 Williams, R. 31, 113
Tucker, G.M. 87 Williamson, H.G.M. 67
Tuell, S.S. 78 Wilson, R.R. 69
Tushingham, A.D. 36 Winter, I.J. 180,203
Wirth, L. 23, 29, 108, 166-68
Uehlinger, C. 203,205 Wrigley, E.A. 98, 101
Van De Mieroop, M. 109, 123, 172-76, Yaron, R. 149

203
Vanderhooft, D.S. 64 Zertal, A. 144, 148, 153
Vaux, R. de 117 Zimmerli, W. 129
Verhoef, P.A. 137, 149 Zorn, J.R. 37
JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
174 Joe M. Sprinkle, 'The Book of the Covenant': A Literary Approach

175 Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards (eds.), Second Temple Studies 2:
Temple and Community in the Persian Period
176 Gershon Brin, Studies in Biblical Law: From the Hebrew Bible to the Dead
Sea Scrolls
177 David Allan Dawson, Text-Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
178 Martin Ravndal Hauge, Between Sheol and Temple: Motif Structure and
Function in the l-Psalms
179 J.G. McConville and J.G. Millar, Time and Place in Deuteronomy
180 Richard L. Schultz, The Search for Quotation: Verbal Parallels in the
Prophets
181 Bernard M. Levinson (ed.), Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform
Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development
182 Steven L. McKenzie and M. Patrick Graham (eds.), The History of Israel's
Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth
183 William Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (Second and
Third Series)
184 John C. Reeves and John Kampen (eds.), Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor
of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday
185 Seth Daniel Kunin, The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew
Mythology
186 Linda Day, Three Faces of a Queen: Characterization in the Books of Esther
187 Charles V. Dorothy, The Books of Esther: Structure, Genre and Textual
Integrity
188 Robert H. O'Connell, Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of
Isaiah
189 William Johnstone (ed.), William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment
190 Steven W. Holloway and Lowell K. Handy (eds.), The Pitcher is Broken:
Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom
191 Magne Saeb0, On the Way to Canon: Creative Tradition History in the Old
Testament
192 Henning Graf Reventlow and William Farmer (eds.), Biblical Studies and the
Shifting of Paradigms, 1850-1914
193 Brooks Schramm, The Opponents of Third Isaiah: Reconstructing the Cultic
History of the Restoration
194 Else Kragelund Holt, Prophesying the Past: The Use of Israel's History in the
Book ofHosea
195 Jon Davies, Graham Harvey and Wilfred G.E. Watson (eds.), Words Remem-
bered, Texts Renewed: Essays in Honour of John F.A. Sawyer
196 Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible
197 William M. Schniedewind, The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to
Exegete in the Second Temple Period
198 T.J. Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison
199 J.H. Eaton, Psalms of the Way and the Kingdom: A Conference with the
Commentators
200 M. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Bible
in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson
201 John W. Rogerson, The Bible and Criticism in Victorian Britain: Profiles of
F.D. Maurice and William Robertson Smith
202 Nanette Stahl, Law and Liminality in the Bible
203 Jill M. Munro, Spikenard and Saffron: The Imagery of the Song of Songs
204 Philip R. Davies, Whose Bible Is It Anyway ?
205 David J.A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of
the Hebrew Bible
206 M0gens Miiller, The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint
207 John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The
Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium
208 Beverly J. Stratton, Out of Eden: Reading, Rhetoric, and Ideology in Genesis
2-3
209 Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, Political Rhetoric: The Case ofAthaliah
and Joash
210 Jacques Berlinerblau, The Vow and the 'Popular Religious Groups' of Ancient
Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry
211 Brian E. Kelly, Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles
212 Yvonne Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea's Marriage in
Literary- Theoretical Perspective
213 Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection: The Book of Job in Context
214 Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah
215 J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Representations of
Biblical Women
216 Judith E. McKinlay, Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat
and Drink
217 Jerome F.D. Creach, Yahweh as Refuge and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter
218 Harry P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition, and the Post-
Critical Interpretation of the Psalms
219 Gerald Morris, Prophecy, Poetry and Hosea
220 Raymond F. Person, Jr, In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis,
Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah
221 Gillian Keys, The Wages of Sin: A Reappraisal of the 'Succession Narrative'
222 R.N. Whybray, Reading the Psalms as a Book
223 Scott B. Noegel, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job
224 Paul J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History: Profiles of
Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha
225 Richard D. Weis and David M. Carr (eds.), A Gift of God in Due Season:
Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A. Sanders
226 Lori L. Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist
Analysis
227 John F.A. Sawyer (ed.), Reading Leviticus: Responses to Mary Douglas
228 Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite
States
229 Stephen Breck Reid (ed.), Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene
M. Tucker
230 Kevin J. Cathcart and Michael Maher (eds.), Targumic and Cognate Studies:
Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara
231 Weston W. Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical
Narrative
232 Tilde Binger, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament
233 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms ofAsaph and the Pentateuch: Studies in the
Psalter, III
234 Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History
235 James W. Watts and Paul House (eds.), Forming Prophetic Literature:
Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts
236 Thomas M. Bolin, Freedom beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Re-
examined
237 Neil Asher Silberman and David B. Small (eds.), The Archaeology of Israel:
Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present
238 M. Patrick Graham, Kenneth G. Hoglund and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), The
Chronicler as Historian
239 Mark S. Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus
240 Eugene E. Carpenter (ed.), A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form
and Content. Essays in Honor of George W. Coats
241 Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
242 K.L. Noll, The Faces of David
243 Henning Graf Reventlow (ed.), Eschatology in the Bible and in Jewish and
Christian Tradition
244 Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in
Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete
245 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?
246 Gillian M. Bediako, Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith
and his Heritage
247 Nathan Klaus, Pivot Patterns in the Former Prophets
248 Etienne Nodet, A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the
Mishnah
249 William Paul Griffin, The God of the Prophets: An Analysis of Divine Action
250 Josette Elayi and Jean Sapin, Beyond the River: New Perspectives on Trans-
euphratene
251 Flemming A.J. Nielsen, The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deutero-
nomistic History
252 David C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme
in the Book of Psalms
253 William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Volume 1: 1 Chronicles 1-2
Chronicles 9: Israel's Place among the Nations
254 William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Volume 2: 2 Chronicles 10—36: Guilt
and Atonement
255 Larry L. Lyke, King David with the Wise Woman ofTekoa: The Resonance of
Tradition in Parabolic Narrative
256 Roland Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric
257 Philip R. Davies and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The World of Genesis: Persons,
Places, Perspectives
258 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms of the Return (Book V, Psalms 107-150):
Studies in the Psalter, IV
259 Allen Rosengren Petersen, The Royal God: Enthronement Festivals in Ancient
Israel and Ugarit?
260 A.R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O'Connor and Louis Stulman (eds.),
Troubling Jeremiah
261 Othmar Keel, Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near
Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
262 Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson and Tikva Frymer-Kensky (eds.),
Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
263 M. Patrick Graham and Steven L. McKenzie, The Chronicler as Author:
Studies in Text and Texture
264 Donald F. Murray, Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension: Pragmatics,
Poetics, and Polemics in a Narrative Sequence about David (2 Samuel
5.17-7.29)
265 John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan
266 J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/Cultural
Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium
267 Patrick D. Miller, Jr, Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected
Essays
268 Linda S. Schearing and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Those Elusive Deutero-
nomists: 'Pandeuteronomism' and Scholarship in the Nineties
269 David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume
of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies
270 John Day (ed.), King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Pro-
ceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar
271 Wonsuk Ma, Until the Spirit Comes: The Spirit of God in the Book of Isaiah
272 James Richard Linville, Israel in the Book of Kings: The Past as a Project of
Social Identity
273 Meir Lubetski, Claire Gottlieb and Sharon Keller (eds.), Boundaries of the
Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon
274 Martin J. Buss, Biblical Form Criticism in its Context
275 William Johnstone, Chronicles and Exodus: An Analogy and its Application
276 Raz Kletter, Economic Keystones: The Weight System of the Kingdom ofJudah
211 Augustine Pagolu, The Religion of the Patriarchs
278 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: 'The Exile' as History and
Ideology
279 Kari Latvus, God, Anger and Ideology: The Anger of God in Joshua and
Judges in Relation to Deuteronomy and the Priestly Writings
280 Eric S. Christiansen, A Time to Tell: Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes
281 Peter D. Miscall, Isaiah 34-35: A Nightmare/A Dream
282 Joan E. Cook, Hannah's Desire, God's Design: Early Interpretations in the
Story of Hannah
283 Kelvin Friebel, Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts: Rhetorical Nonverbal
Communication
284 M. Patrick Graham, Rick R. Marrs and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Worship
and the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of John T. Willis
285 Paolo Sacchi, History of the Second Temple
286 Wesley J. Bergen, Elisha and the End ofProphetism
287 Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, The Transformation ofTorahfrom Scribal Advice
to Law
288 Diana Lipton, Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal
Dreams of Genesis
289 JoZe KraSovec (ed.), The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Sym-
posium in Slovenia
290 Frederick H. Cryer and Thomas L. Thompson (eds.), Qumran between the Old
and New Testaments
291 Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period
292 David J.A. Clines, On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays,
1967-1998 Volume 1
293 David J.A. Clines, On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays,
1967-1998 Volume 2
294 Charles E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social
and Demographic Study
295 Jean-Marc Heimerdinger, Topic, Focus and Foreground in Ancient Hebrew
Narratives
296 Mark Cameron Love, The Evasive Text: Zechariah 1-8 and the Frustrated
Reader
297 Paul S. Ash, David, Solomon and Egypt: A Reassessment
298 John D. Baildam, Paradisal Love: Johann Gottfried Herder and the Song of
Songs
299 M. Daniel Carroll R., Rethinking Contexts, Rereading Texts: Contributions
from the Social Sciences to Biblical Interpretation
300 Edward Ball (ed.), In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament
Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements
301 Carolyn S. Leeb, Away from the Father's House: The Social Location ofna'ar
and na 'arah in Ancient Israel
302 Xuan Huong Thi Pham, Mourning in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew
Bible
303 Ingrid Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A Literary Analysis
304 Wolter H. Rose, Zemah and Zerubabbel: Messianic Expectations in the Early
Postexilic Period
305 Jo Bailey Wells, God's Holy People: A Theme in Biblical Theology
306 Albert de Pury, Thomas Romer and Jean-Daniel Macchi (eds.), Israel Con-
structs its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research
307 Robert L. Cole, The Shape and Message of Book HI (Psalms 73-89)
308 Yiu-Wing Fung, Victim and Victimizes Joseph's Interpretation of his Destiny
309 George Aichele (ed.), Culture, Entertainment and the Bible
310 Esther Fuchs, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew
Bible as a Woman
311 Gregory Glazov, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening of the Mouth in
Biblical Prophecy
312 Francis Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew
Bible
314 Bernard S. Jackson, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law
315 Paul R. Williamson, Abraham, Israel and the Nations: The Patriarchal
Promise and its Covenantal Development in Genesis
316 Dominic Rudman, Determinism in the Book of Ecclesiastes
317 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and
Scripture in the Hellenistic Period
318 David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX 56-
66
320 Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the
Making of the Bible
321 Varese Layzer, Signs of Weakness: Juxtaposing Irish Tales and the Bible
322 Mignon R. Jacobs, The Conceptual Coherence of the Book ofMicah
323 Martin Ravndal Hauge, The Descent from the Mountain: Narrative Patterns in
Exodus 19^0
324 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World
of the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 1
327 Gary D. Salyer, Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in
Ecclesiastes
330 Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak (eds.), 'Every City shall be Forsaken':
Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East
331 Amihai Mazar (ed.), with the assistance of Ginny Mathias, Studies in the
Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan
332 Robert J.V. Hiebert, Claude E. Cox and Peter J. Gentry (eds.), The Old Greek
Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma

JSOTSupp330 - Grabbe & Haak - 'Every City Shall Be Forsaken' - Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and The Near East

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

JSOTSupp330 - Grabbe & Haak - 'Every City Shall Be Forsaken' - Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and The Near East

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Sheffield Academic Press

Urbanism and Prophecy in

Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

JOHN D.w. WATTS

Index of References 216

JANESCU Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

Joseph Blenkinsopp is John A. O'Brien Professor Emeritus at the

Robert B. Coote is Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco

Julie Galambush is Associate Professor of Religion at the College of

Lester L. Grabbe is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the

Robert D. Haak is Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana

John Kessler is Professor of Old Testament at Tyndale Seminary in

S. Tamar Kamionkowski is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at

Ben D. Nefzger is Professor of Sociology at Augustana College, Rock

Martti Nissinen is Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of

John D.W. Watts is retired Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at

1. The Concept of Urbanism/Urbanization

Already in 1893 Emile Durkheim2 proposed that the city represented a

2. The Division of Labour in Society (transl. W.D. Halls, with introduction by

that few 'assured results' of anthropological scholarship exist in this

Be": Reflections on Sjoberg's Preindustrial City', Pacific Viewpoint 4 (1963), pp.

Ezekiel is unusual in giving no view of nature other than a utilitarian

grown up wild in Ezek. 16. This may reflect Ezekiel's ambiguous

subculture of persons who reside in cities. Cities developed about 3500

herself to the 'Palace of the Steppe' in Milqia outside Arbela, usually at

3. Major Themes and Discussion

approaches. Since it was the intent to allow different ways of tackling

4. Theology/Ideology of the City

writers (Carroll). This takes us quickly away from populations and

5. The Ideal of Jerusalem

15. On cosmology, some relevant studies are Kees W. Bolle, 'Cosmology: An

contributors deal specifically with Jerusalem as a theological entity.

6. The Development of Scripture

would have been in Jerusalem. In his opinion a small but important

8. A Rural Critique of the City?

22. The City (n. 5 above).

urban and rural, or urban/rural mentality, or critique of the urban or

29. An Inquiry, book 3, chapters 3-4.

to the Davidic citadel, a different concept from a rural/urban critique.

9. Conclusions: Anthropology or Theology?

(a) Scholars need to be clear about the presuppositions on which they

The purpose of this paper is to invite reflection on a theme of frequent

apparatus appropriate to a nation state about two centuries later.2 This is

and in the bustling town;

The contemplation of the prehistoric ruins scattered around the land, an

wild cats will gather with hyenas,

I will take away your cities of stone

I will return my hand over you,

1. Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley:

things in the city of Jerusalem have gone to hell in a handcart! Little

2. I am strongly inclined to dismiss the 'apocalypse' designation of Isa. 24-27,

4. R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; London: Oliphants), p. 202.

8. H. Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27: A Continental Commentary (trans. Thomas

cities of Jerusalem's enemies must remain an open question because the

9. See R.P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press,