Judges: Chapter 3

 

We are porous

sucking and seepingץ

Seize the passage and threshold

learn to lock the door

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As in the previous chapter,  the focus here is on "generations", on the changes that happen when a whole population changes and forgets what it "knows" (one of the leitwords of this chapter). A process of change that happens by a changeover of populations (much like Khun's idea of paradigm shift in  his Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

The chapter opens with an ominous list of all the "nations that God left to test Israel" (1:3) in a crucible of war. These nations press from within and without, the external enemies matched by the nations among whom Israel "dwell" and intermarry, in an echo of that original dangerous encounter with the land's inhabitans, back when Shechem stole Jacob's daughter, so many generations ago. If in the original encounter, Shechem's plan to "let us take their daughter's to wife and let us give them our daughters" (Genesi 34: 21) is undone by the brother's violent assertion  that Dina is not for the taking, here it indeed comes to pass, as Israel melds into the surrounding populations and "forgets" the lord.

The first to rescue them from the consequences of God's wrath is Otniel,  who has been waiting like Chekhiv's gun since he was introduced by name in the first chapter. His fairytale like marriage to  Ahsa stands in contrast to the melding into local populations via marriage. 

The story of the second judge, Ehud ben Gera, makes the dangers of ingestion grotesquely corporeal, as he faces off against the fattened-calf (egel) King Eglon. The fleshy Eglon seems to have swallowed Israel into his gargantuan body, and his body swallows  Ehud's two-sided dagger up to the hilt,  and "the fat closed around it." While Eglon ingests the dagger, so it cannot be extracted, the "filth" does seep out. Ehud wins by controlling the entrances (p't'kh is another leitword), shutting the porous door,  and in the end  capturing the passages over the Jordon. Only in asserting boundaries does Israel find itself again]. 

Judges: Chapter 2

 

Cry for the forgotten

Those who forget history

Are destined to repeat

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We move back, both in time and in space: once again,we are back in the encampment of Gilgal. the touchstone of the period of Joshua; once again, Joshua is alive, "sending the people away" (2:6). In an echo of Joshua's two closing farewell speeches (Joshua 23 and 24), the Book of Judges presents us with two transitons from the Joshua era to the epoch of the judges. As in the case of Joshua's farewell speeches, the first is more personal, while the second takes a broad historical perspective.

The story of the Exodus reverberates in the background.As in Egypt, where the passing of a generation leads to a loss of history as Joseph is forgotten, here a generation passes, and another rises that does not "remember God" and His faithfulness.

With the loss of Joshua's God of history, Israel enters a cycle of infinite return. We are no longer on a vector from "the other side of the river" towards the promised land, but rather in a repetitive futile cycle: repentance is fleeting; redemption temporary; and every boundary made to be broken. The language becomes habitual, yet laden with allusions, whether to the plagues in Egypt [the hand of God was heavy against them], or the Golden Calf [they have strayed quickly] .

The weeping that opens the chapter becomes a weeping for generations, a reverberation of the initial weeping in the aftermath of the spies' report in the days of Moses, which resulted in the loss of the Land.

A leitwort is "oath" (shvua) and "covenant". Israel has replaced the exclusive covenant with God with oaths and covenants with the local peoples. As intimated in the previous chapter, the cost will be steep.

Judges: Chapter 1

 

Start the after

we go up, we go down

jostled together.

Give me your blessing!

All we don't have

pressing against us 

unwanted intimacy

lodged in our throat

as we spin, again and again.

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The chapter begins "after the death of Joshua."It is both a continuation and a reprise, revisiting events that took place in the era of Joshua to create a bridge into this new reality. It is indeed a new reality of leadership, and the transformation is made apparent almost immediately. "Who shall go up for us initially, to fight the Cannanites?" (Judges 1: 1) the nation asks, searching for a new leader. ""Judah shall go up" (1:2) God answers, shifting the focus from individual to tribe. Relationships have now become fraternal rather than hierarchal ("Judah said to his brother"), as leadership disseminates within the tribal structure. Key events of the story of Joshua are retold within this new framework: the story of the conquest of Hebron the story of the conquest of Hebron is retold, yet this time with the focus on Judah, rather than the heroic Caleb. Here, it is the tribe that grants Caleb his inheritance, rather than the man who leads the tribe. as the leader is subsumed within his tribe. Only one individual still is given a central place: Otniel ben Knaz, conquerer of Debir, who fairytale-like, is granted Ahsa as his wife, in a passage is lifted almost verbatim from the account in Joshua. As in Joshua, Ahsa demands a "blessing" of her father, in the only piece of individual dialogue, and is granted the "upper and lower waters". 
The reprise of the list of conquered and unconquered areas builds a precarious bridge to a new, dangerous era. The list of conquests is matched by a negative list of "not conquest", as the Canaanites "are resolved to dwell in that land" (1: 27). Even when the sons of Joseph manage to conquer Luz, they are haunted by a negative shadow of Luz, created by the Cannanites that left: "and the man named the city Luz, which is its name to this very day" (1:26).  Rather than a triumphant settlement of the "land resting from war" that is the refrain of Joshua, we are presented with a tension-filled subjugation and uneasy coexistence.  At the closing of the chapter, the negative refrain of "did not inherit" (lo horish) turns into active dispossession, as the tribe of Dan is driven off its land and into the mountains. Is this what will happen to all?

A Belated Goodbye to Joshua

 It feels strange to say “Goodbye to Joshua” when I have just said a new “hello.”

After several years (!), I can't even begin to understand or explain what made me stop the Joshua section one chapter before completion.

I do remember after the end of Deuteronomy, I felt like I had reached closure, a natural stop point. Joshua always felt like a tag-along, an added experiment. I experienced the Book of Joshua as a comedown after the high poetry and complex narratology of Deuteronomy—the language mundane, the violence off-putting. And as a first-time new mother, I also had other concerns that felt more urgent. Yet why I stopped right before the end, I can’t say. No doubt there were some deep, unacknowledged currents there. I do know that the longer I waited, the more distant I felt from the project, and the harder it became to go back. Finally I blocked it out. A niggling untied end that I refused to consider.

Then came this year’s terrible Simchat Torah and its aftermath. As October turned to November, November to December, month after month, the war raging on with no exit point, I found myself completely blocked. Words disappeared.  When I tried to draw, I had to push against the intractable weight of futility. It was as bad—worse—as the block that started me on the Bibliodraw project so many years ago. This time I didn’t have whiplash or amnesia. My arm was working. It was my heart that wasn’t. I found myself desperate for a daily project. And the only project that seemed real enough and urgent enough to matter was Bibliodraw—a project in which I had already invested so much, a project embodying so many layers and history.  It is also a project that gives me a framework of feeling my way through this desperate time. Feeling my way, as I always have, with the “tikvat hut ha-shani”,  Rahab’s guiding bright thread of central archetypal narratives. Returning to Bibliodraw is returning to the questions: what are we doing here? How do we earn this home? How do we lose it? A project that could engage my heart and intellect and hand as one.

Finding a quiet moment does not happen often with four little kids in war time. But I suddenly had a day when I woke up, and all my children were in childcare, and I had no urgent projects that I needed to complete. For the first time in what seemed like months, I drew a deep breath. And I said: I'm going to finish this. I will at least complete Joshua, and close this one circle. Tie up this one dangling thread.

Because, despite all my denials, it was still bothering me. The notebook there, sitting in my closet, incomplete. And so I spent my quiet day reading through Joshua again. This is a much more condensed process that my other “goodbyes”, which were the slow accumulation of weeks' worth of ruminations and thoughts. This rather is the result of months of studying, years of silence, then a quick one-day review

So, the those thoughts after this review.

The Book of Joshua opens with a promise and a charge: I will be with you like I was with Moses, but you must take courage and be strong. The book indeed continues directly from the story of Moses, providing a bridge from Deuteronomy, . Yet it also actively redoes Moses’ legacy in a complex balancing act.   Jooshua’sleadership begins with crossing the Jordan, in a conscious recreation  of the parting of the Red Sea. This places him in the position of Moses, even as it rebirths Israel yet again as a nation. This is a new generation, with a new destiny.

Israel then camps in Gilgal, where they recreate the Exodus, celebrating Passover. It is a place of renewed literal brit, reactivating circumcision after the years of wandering: “Make thee knives of flint, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. … them [the children born in the desert] did Joshua circumcise; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised by the way.” The desert era is seen as a hiatus, a kind of suspended animation between the beginning of the journey and its end. It is only now, when the children of Israel camp in Gilgal that they start national life anew

The ideas originally presented by Moses in the desert, which existed until this point only in words and concept, are now put into action, finding embodiment in the concrete space of the Land: cities of refuge, covenants in specific places, words literally etched in stone. Yet embodiment is a dynamic  and gradual process. Ideas become real, but not at once. Repetition and variation are key elements as this book. We keep going back to revisit history, even as we move forward. There is aonstant tension between potential and actual, becoming and being. The virtual desert journey does not truly end.

Again and again the verses declare that the conquest is complete, that the land is “subdued”, that Israel is settled and secure. Again and again, we find that it is not so. The same cities are conquered and unconquered, again and again: Hebron, Debir. This tension is perfectly encapsulated at the end of the era, when Joshua sends out representatives of eeach of the tribes to scout out and demarcatethe boundaries of their estate (18: 4). The land is then “distributed…each to his inheritance” (19:49), and they make “and end of dividing the land’ (19: 51), even though, as we find out, the land is as yet mostly unconquered, and not yet theirs to divide. The inheritance “ends” in abstracted visualization, even as in concrete terms it remains undone.   

Throughout this intense period of process, Gilgal is the home base, from which Israel sets out in short sorties, returning back to this space of covenant, as they try to work out the relationship between themselves and God.

The conquest begins with thedivine battle at with Jericho, which is essentially a version of the Jubilee (yovel): seven cycles on the seventh day, which ends with the blowing of the shofar (yovel), in a recreation of the Jubilee opening which undoes human ownership. With the blowing of the Jubilee horn, all the land returns to the owners originally allotted by God, all debts are cancelled, human possession and transactions are undone.  We return to origin. Just so, Israel’s inheritance of the land begins with God announcing a Jubilee, undoing the ownership of the Canaanites. The yovel is blown, the land returns to God. The victory is not the people’s ,but completely herem—forbidden, within the realm of the divine.

The second battle with Ai opens the door for human involvement in battle, as God steps back, acting mostly as tactician. And throughout the book, Joshua pushing for greater and greater human involvement. “You are a great people, who have great power…you shall drive out the Canaanites” (17:17), he tells the children of Joseph, urging them to take charge of their inheritance.

Yet at the very closing, the book returns to its opening point of yovel: the land is not truly theirs. It remains always God’s, a gift that precludes true possession, always given, never had. It is the process itself that is true belonging, the various points where God showed his faithfulness. What remains is to make a choice, and witness your own commitment.

Joshua: Chapter 24

God of history
God of faithfulness and choice
He is your belonging
in a land not your own
and the cycles close

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After what seemed like a farewell speech in the previous chapter, Joshua "gathers" (y's'f ) the people together one last time, this time in the fateful location of Shechem--the city Abraham first encountered upon entering the land; the place where Jacob settled when he returned from exile; the place where the eponymous gatherer, Joseph / yosef is finally brought to rest, in the portion (shechem ) promised him by Jacob so many years before: "And behold, I am giving you one portion over your brethren, which I took out the Amorites with my sword and with my bow" (Genesis 48: 22). 

And indeed it is not only the people who are gathered here but history itself, as Joshua draws the full story of the children of Israel, stretching back to a primordial river that predates and prefigures the formative Jordan that opened this book: "on the other side the Rivers sat your forefathers, Terach, the father of Abraham and Nahor" (Josha 24: 3).  Joshua follows Abraham on his fateful journey to Cannan and  to God, touching on key events: the choice of Isaac,  the split between Jacob and Esau, the descent to Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea (which plays so dominant a role in the opening of this book, prefiguring the splitting of the Jordan). Surprisingly, Balaam's forced blessing is also included in the key overview, seen as an opening volley in the conquest of the Promised Land. From there, the crossing of the Jordan, the conquest of Jericho, all leading to single, primal choice: Who will you worship?  

Joshua demands a clear-cut choice, as split as the two banks of a river, or the covenant upon entering the land before the two mountains of Grisim and Eival. Indeed, the covenant here is modeled on that earlier covenant, also including an etched stone. There can be no more walking on both sides.

 

Throughout, Joshua lets Israel know that God is their only true source of belonging.  The land that has become so central is not truly theirs, it is the land of the Amorites (24: 15): they dwell in "cities which you did not build... you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant" (24:13). In contrast to Jacob, who conquered Shechem with "sword and bow", his descendants won with God's intervention, not with "sword and bow" (24: 12).  It is God who has been with them throughout their journey, a faithful God of relationship and history, who demands faithfulness back,

Echoing the altar erected as "witness" between the interlinkage of the Eastern and Western tribes, the tribes all accept and witness their interlinkage with God.

Joshua: Chapter 23

To walk a path and not deviate. 

Watch the sides 

watch where your feet fall

And be on guard

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After  "many days", Joshua "old, coming into days," calls the people together in a farewell speech that echoes, in many ways, Moses' final address to the people. As in the desert, the "elders" the "judges"  and heads come together. Here, the Shema prayer command to "love God with all your heard and all your soul" is recreated for people that experienced not the Exodus, but the coming into the Land. Now the people will know "with all their hearts and all their souls" that God has fulfilled his promise.  Everything is embodied in space. "I am going the way of all flesh," Joshua says, and proceeds to speak of following a path, from which Israel must not deviate. Th relationship to God can be "seen" (r'e')--one of the leitwords of the chapter.

The other keyword is "to guard." Again and again, thhe duty is defined by the negative, what must not be done. "do not deviate" "do not enter" "do not worship and bow to them." The path outwards is the channel left between the warnings: "for to your own God you will stick". Hovering in the background is the threat of disembodiment, of becoming "lost from upon the earth" that has come to define everything]

  

Joshua: Chapter 20

Trace the line to the gateway, and back

into the city, into the door of your own home

give place to the exile

the man out of place

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The growing focus on cities climaxes here, with the command to re-appoint the Cities of Refuge dedicated by Moses, adding now three additional cities on the western side of the Jordan. If the inheritance of the Land is "given" by God, these cities of refuge are "given" (20: 2) by the people, who "give" a place to the refugee involuntary murderer. These are human places within the expansive space of the Land--and they are specifically "cities" (the leitword of this chapter, defined by human boundaries, with a "gate" manned by elders and overseen by a court.

If the previous accounts of the cities of refuge (Numbers 35, focused on the question of the man-slaughterers relative guilt, this account focuses on the passage into and out of the city--continuing the Book of Joshua's focus on transitional spaces of entrance. The manslaughterer must approach the liminal gate, until he is "gathered into the city" and "given a place to sit (y'sh'v). His return (sh'v) from exile is also defined through the city, the wordplay of sh'v / sh'v highlighting the parallel: he is to return to "his own city, the city he left."

 The setting aside of the cities is a watershed. Back in Deuteronomy, Moses defined taking responsibility for cities of refuge as the moment when the land truly becomes "yours." It is the sign of a completed conquest. In dedicating these cities, Joshua is indicating that "God has expanded the boundaries" of Israel's territory. 

Joshua 19: In Writing

Walk, measure, name.
What do I see when I see you
turn, twist, hit, rise, drop,
leave and then return?
 Sarid, I call you, remnant of a dream.
Sheva, satiation. Water welling. Where I swear, trust me,
what is born, what will be born, what God will bear
Molada, be my moledet,  birthplace I fled, birthplace
that calls.
Be  body, be belly, a place I can sleep,
the navel I came from, to which I am linked.
House of bread, house of sun,
springs of red and white,
water sharp as steel, sweet as fruit.
Mishal, what I ask for. Amiad.
Broad of shoulder, full of breath,
An ever receding sky, afek, afek.
Yavne’el, God will build. El’Tolad.
Marala, Timnah, Idalah.Adama. I say, land, earth. Adam.
Over there, at the hight, Ramah.

Joshua: Chapter 19

Count the cities

and  what sourounds

to weave an inheritance 

your plot of land

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This chapter continues allotment, the "lot / destiny" (goral) "falling" in an order that moves from the children of Leah, to those of the maidservant, Bilhaa and Zilpa. 

There is a fundmanetal difference between the inheritence of Simeon, and the allotments that came before. No trancing of a border that rises, falls, goes out and come in like a living thing. Instead, Simeon is swallowed "in the midst of the inheritence of Judah," and his inheritence consists of a list of cities "and the fields around these cities. This is the inheritence of the tribe of the Children of Simeon." Simeon's inheritence seems closer to that of Levi--"who does not inherit within the land", but is rather granted cities and fields--than to that of the tribes whose allotment preceded his. The early history of the family of Israel in Genesis which so impacted the inheritence of Judah and Joseph continues to resonate in this  return to the land, as Jacob's final curse of Levi and Simeon is expressed in their scattered inheritence.

This focus on cities continued to play out in the rest of the allotments , which all close with an enumeration of cities and villige which make up "the inheritence of the tribe." Cities, and the uber-cities-- fortresses--are at the center. The "writing" of the landscape by the surveyers who set up to walk and divide the land  has transformed it to a human space, with a focus on its  acculteration, the shaping to human needs. 

The focus on cities and kings, that has accompanied this book since its opening, here seeps into the until-now nomadic Children of Israel. In thedenumoix, the Children of Israel grant Joshua his inheritence: a single city of his very own]. 

Joshua 18: In Writing

Feel the earth:
crumble of soil between your toes
jab of rock against your heel
grit rubbing against your skin.

Watch the trail that stretches away behind you
Shadowy hillocks,
five toed valleys
marking you passgae
from here to there
from where you came to where you go
gaze beyond the horizon

Looking out
the land is filmed
over with the letters of your name.
textured with your skin's veins. 

Joshua: Chapter 18

Held in place on both sides

write yourslef into the land

with your feet

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"How long will you be slack in going to possess the land that God, the Lord of your fathers, has given you?" Joshua demands, when the nation finally "assembles" to recreate a national center. Ostensobly, this is a criticsm that reflects back on Joshua himslef--why has he been slack in completing the allotment that he began?

He continues, "Appoint for yourself three men for each tribe, and I will send them, and they shall rise, and walk through the land, and write it according to their lot, and come to me." Inheritence, it seems, is not passive. Like Abraham, the father to whom the land was promised, the tribes must "rise and walk" (hithalkh--a reflexive form of the verb, iimplying a self-reinforced walking, becoming walkers). And--as in Michel de Certeau "Walking in the City"--this walking becomes a kind of  language, the appointed men "writing" the land. The inherited land is not nuetral territory, but a textual landscape.

Judah's inheritence begins with Caleb's personal connection to Hebron, and the gifting of his daughter to the one who could conquer Kiryat Sefer (lit. "The City of the Book"); Joseph's inheritence holds within it all the painful history of favoritism and usurpation, as well as Jacob's choice of Ephraim. Now the other tribes must find their own viceral connection to the personal tract of land that "God, the Lord of your fathers, has given to you." Only then can the land be their own lot.]

Joshua: Chapter 17

Two or one

One or two

Who gets counted

Why does not

Who is seen

Who disappear? 

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This chapter continues the allotment of the tribe of "Joseph" begun in the previous one, this time detailing the inheritence of the children of Menasseh, "the first-born of Joseph". The themes of the previous chapter continue to resonate, becoming more explicit and extreme. The strange doublness of Joseph--both a single tribe given a single inhertence, and a double tribe receiving a dual inheritence, here comes out into the open. The inheritence of Josph is framed by this question of singlness and duality: the previous chapter begins by defining "the lot for the children of Joseph" before breaking off to define the detailed inheritence of Ephraim; this chapter follows the details of the inheritece of Mennasseh with the "sons of Joseph" coming to complain "Why have you given me one lot and one plot for an inheritence?" The schitsophrenic split between individuality and group identity is reflected in the syntax: even as the tribe of Josph demands a dual inheritence, they speak of themselves in the singlular--"Why did you give me". The utter intertwining of these two tribes is emphasized in the details of Menasseh's inheritence, which is punvtuated by cities that belong to Ephraim. We cannot detail his allotment, without detailing his brother's as well.

On the other hand, the dulaity of Josph's inheritence is here further exsaserbated by the fact that Menasshe is split in two, effectivly inheriting two different sections--one on the west side and one on the east side of the Jordan. The eastern section goes to "Menasseh's first-born", drawing attention to that strange insistence in teh opening verse: "Menasseh, the first-born of Joseph." Indeed, biblically, the first-born is meant to inherit an extra portion. Jacob, in his love to Joseph, gave that double portion to him.  We return to early history of the tribes in Genesis, which has been resonating in teh background since "tribe of Judah" first "approached Joshua-of-Joseph. When Joseph brought his two children to be blessed by Jacob, Jacob gave preference to Ephraim over Menasseh, and Joseph protests, insisting on Menasseh's promigeniture. Both elements continue to resonate here, in the allotment of these tribes. Ephraim is indeed given presedence to Mennaseh, but then the text return to insist that Menasseh is the first born. This contested promigeniture is central to the tribe's identity: this is the only place where the "first born" of a tribe gets a serperate inheritence, neighboring Reuben, another displaced eldest.

Yet in addition to the continued agon with Ephraim, Menasseh's inheritence introduces a completly new element: the question of female inheritence. For the first time, when counting the "children" of Menasseh, the chapter goes out of its way to explicate that they are "male." This is because for the first time, females are also inheriting. The daughters of Tzolphad rise from th ebackground, and break the default story of exclusivly male inheritence. 

In doing so, they also allow for the recollection of the one child of Jacob who receives no mention in this story of inheritence: Dina, daughter of Jacob, who was raped in Shechem and then disappeared from the story of the family.  Menasseh's inheritence begins in "Shechem" (17: 7) and one of his sons is named for that city (and for Dina's rapist), "Shechem" (17 :2).   In the acknowlegment of daughters, her story begins to rise as well],   

Joshua: Chapter 16

Are we one or two

Emeshed in each other

We have no seperate space

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This chapter continues the allotment of the Land to the tribes. From the inheritence of Judah, we move on to detail the inheritence of Joseph. The loaded word "approach" (g'sh), which introduced the interaction between he tribe of Judah and Joshua-of-Joseph in chapter 14 sets into place the allusion to the historic reapproachment of the brothers back in Genesis, which continues to resonate.Alotting the Land is returning to the issues of competition and jealousy that drove apart the brothers in Genesis. Joseph and Judah dominate that story, and it is they that lead the inheritence, in the dual figures of Joshua and Caleb, each of who leads the Land to "rest from war."

"This is the lot of the children of Joseph" opens the chapter, seemingly presenting a single inheritence. Yet Joseph was given the gift of a dual inheritence, and this tension of two-in-one drives the chapter. The chapter begins by presenting a single boundary, "going up from Jericho" (a fitting inheritence for Joseph, the only one of Jacob's sons to never "takes" what is not his).   Yet then it splits, "This is the border of the children of Ephraim." While this might seem to create a clear demarcation within the single block of "Joseph," Ephraim retains "the cities and their villages set aside for the children of Ephraim in the midst of the inheritence of the children of Menasse." The two brothers remain intertwined,  swallowed one within the other. This lack of seperation is echoed in the fact that Ephraim does not completly conquer their territory, but rather ingest the Canannites inhabitants, who "dwelt in the midst of Ephraim, unto this day, and became servants to do taskwork".

If the tribe of Menasse is split, its two sides becoming the sinews holding the two sides of the Jordan together, the tribe of Ephraim also lacks a unified contiguity. There is something in Joseph, beloved, desired, that evades the strict boundaries of self-and-other.]

Joshua: Chapter 15

To everyone their place.

What you are given

What you give

Where you lie.

[For full chapter, click here

This chapter begins the actual allotment of the Land, which was introduced in the previous chapter.  The tribe of Judah, who "approached" with Caleb, are given their inheritence first, and Caleb's inheritance of Hebron is placed within the broader context of the borders of his tribe. Yet the broadening of the context does not come with a loss of detail--on the contrary, the story is expanded here. Instead of a quick "resting from war", we are told the names of the Children of Anak whom Caleb defeated, as well as of the conquest of Debir / Kiryat Sefer, with the fairytale element of the promise of Caleb's daughter's hand in marriage to the man who could win the battle.

This same city of Debir punctuates the chapter at three seperate points: the border rises to Debir from "Emek Ahor"--the "valley of ugliness" that is the site of Ahan's execution and burial ; Debir is the site of Otniel's victory, earning him the right to Ahsa's hand; and it is mentioned in the litany of the cities of Judah asan  alternative name for Beet Saana. 

The repetition of Debir points to how the inheritence of the tribe creates a space for the interaction of its members. Even Ahan, disgraced and rejected, is kept within the borders of his tribe, his burial place defining its boundary. Human interelationships become defined by place. Otniel marries Ahsa through Debir; Ahsa approaches her father with a complex mix of complaint and demand that is expressed in terms of place: "you have given me dry lands, give me water." Whether this evocative exchange is meant literally or as a comment on her marriage, the act of "giving" between parent and child becomes a function of  place. And while the names change, these places remain the same, providing a prims for a slice of history.]

Yehoshua: Chapter 13

What is left undone

The negative spaces before the quiet 

What lies between the name

[For full chapter, click here

From the uplifting soaring of poetry, we land back into the nitty gritty of prose. And discover that the triumphant listing tells only a small part of the story. The land has not "rested from war" (11: 23). What is left is an uneasy truce, and an incomplete possession. In this chapter, we are presented with an alternative map to the victorious presentation of Joshua's victories: the anti-matter map of what has not been possessed; the negative to define the positive. Almost every name mentioned in the course of the description of the battles of 11-12, are here mentioned again, demarcating lines between conquered and unconquered territory. 

As Joshua grows "Old, coming into days" what he sees are the things undone, a landscape of incompleteness.  

All that is left is to assert the virtual possession declared in the last two chapters, and alott the land as though it is already possessed. The assigning rather than possession will be Joshua's final achievement.] 

Joshua: Chapter 12

In the end

look back

and tie it together

with song

[For full chapter, click here

In the last chapter, we begin with sepcific battles that wind into years of warfare; there is a sense of unfolding chaos, the time that passes until the "country rests from war."

This chapter, by contrast, offers a retrospective view, looking back at those blurred years of war in order to place them in context and give them form.. The nameless cities are now enumerated by name, in a repetative, rythmic litany that places all in order. 

Only now, looking back, can the seperate conquests of Joshua and Moses be seen as one, as succesive steps in a single process: "these are the kings whom the Childre of Israel smote, and posessed their land beyond the Jordon, toward the rising sun..." "these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the Children of Israel smote beyond the Jordan westward...for a possesion according to their devisions." Now,  the focus on kingship tht characterizes the Book of Joshua reaches backward to redefine Moses' victories in Deuteronomy.

True, Joshua is more directly associated with warfare, while Moses remains the "servant of God"; true, Moses gave the land as "inheritence", while the westward lands remains to be divided. But for the first time, teacher and student are completly interlinked, working together to acheive the posessions of the two sides of the Jordan.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 21

What do you bring in

When you go out

And what do you take out from within?

[For full chapter click here

The chapter is a mixed back of disparate laws. Its opening reiterates and intensifies the themes of the previous chapter, while its closing looks ahead, to a time after settling in the land, defining the relationship between parents and children in a society where inheritance is at stake.

The opening section reiterates the previous themes of “coming in” and “gone out,” yet complicates them. If in  the previous chapters, we established a sacred space “within” and then “went out” to war, here what is out is brought in, and what is in is taken out.

The opening returns us to the laws of murder, and the metaphysical responsibility for blood: “you must expunge clean blood from within you.” Yet the movement “out” has changed the responsibilities “within” (a key word in all these chapters). In chapter 19, we dealt with the laws concerning inadvertent manslaughter, and the need to provide refuge for the killer from vengeful relatives who seek to “redeem the blood”—a responsibility to those who fit “within” (k’r’v) the roads and center that define Israel. Here, the responsibility is instead to the anonymous corpse, to the outsider who has no relative to demand “redemption.” Literal closeness, physical proximity, creates a bond: “then your elders and judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance unto the cities which are round about him that is slain. And it shall be that the city which is next to he that is slain, the elders of that city shall take a heifer that has not drawn a yoke…”

The ritual of atonement enacted by the elders brings what is outside into the intimate sphere. The unbroken heifer is taken to a wild “river that is not worked,” and what is beyond human habitation comes to atone for human habitation. The ritual shares much in common with the enigmatic laws of the Red Heifer, which comes to purify after contact with death. Here, we restate the connection between inheritance and blood, but a level of primal rituals of contact with the earth.  The stranger is brought “within” the circle of responsibility, and the unmarked spaces beyond the roads are webbed in to the sacred.

After bringing the outside in, we once again move “out” to the laws of war (the two sections are connected by a word play on yi-matze—“find”-- and te-tze—“go out”). Yet if the previous section on war mandated complete destruction, so as to prevent “learning from their abomination,” here, there is a possibility of bringing a captured woman “into your home.” After following a ritual of mourning and symbolic severing “inside your home,” the outside can become intimate: “and afterwards she shall be your wife.”

Uniting these two sections is a focus on seeing and eyes: the elders must swear that “Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it,” so that they will do “the right in the eyes of God.” The unseeing eyes then open  to see “among the captives a woman of beautiful form” (21:7). 

At the closing of the chapter, the focus on seeing shifts to a focus on hearing, as the breakdown of relationship between parents and children is defined by "he does not listen to us" (21: 20); and the son's death penalty is supposed to make "all of Israel listen." Here, what is closest is expunged, as the parents "take out" (ho-tzi-u) their son to the court.
  
There is constant pulsation between bringing in and going out, between closing the senses, and opening them.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 19

 

Beat the bounds

and know the paths

redeem the space

where blood run

where blood pools

within, without

the boundaries that broader

the boundaries unmoved

[For full chapter, click here
This chapter continues expanding up the key words that appeared in the previous one: k'r'v--within, amongs; d'r'sh, investigate, analyze. Now, two  new leitworts enters: g'v'l--boundary, border; and d'r'kh--path, road. We at last speak of the definitive boundaries that create the sacred space "within" and the roads that form the interconnections. These preservation of these boundaries requires taking responsibility on the most primal level: a care for spilled "blood," for perjury, and a constant maintenance of the sacred space within: "you must burn out the the clean blood within" in a continuous re-calibration.  There must be a "redeemer of the blood" (go'el ha-dam). Even if inadvertent, any act of killing is "murder" and demands a complex play of redemption and refuge.

The return to Sinai in the previous chapter also returns us to the laws given in the aftermath of Sinai: "He that hits a man and dies shall be put to death; but if he did not lie in wait, but God brought it to his hand, I shall appoint a place where he shall flee" (Exodus 21: 12-13). These laws are  reiterated in this chapter, but now grounded in the earth "which you are about to enter." Characteristically for Deuteronomy, the laws are now focused on humanity rather than on God: "designate for  yourself three cities within your land."

And it is only in taking this responsibility that the land will truly become "yours." The chapter open by emphasizing that the land does not yet truly belong to Israel: "when God shall cut off the nations whose land God your Lord is giving to you...and you dwell in their cities and in their houses." Only after taking responsibility for inadvertent murder does that land become Israel's: "You shall separate three cities in the midst of your land, which God gave you to posses."

In taking this responsibility, one can even change and move the seemingly immutable outer boundary. Boundaries are  perhaps absolute on a personal level-- "do not encroach on the boundary of your brother, which  the early ones have bound"--but on a national level, the are flexible, expanding to fit the nation's commitments: ": "If God your Lord expand your border...designate another three cities of refuge." ]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 17

move out

and come in

the perfect circle

that creates its own continuation

[For full chapter, click here

This chapter continues the vortex inward movement that defined the previous chapter. If the previous chapter ended with the establishment of local courts--a move outward from center to periphery--this chapter moves back in, as the local courts stream into "the place that God will choose" for consultation. 

The creation of a central core and outer liminal "gates" allows the internal space to begin to function a a single entity. One of the key words of this chapter is k'r'v (close, within): once we have drawn the radii connecting the center and the outer limits, we become aware for what is enclosed "within." The nation begins to function as a single entity:"Burn out the evil from within you" is transformed into  "a burn out the evil from Israel." 

With the establishment of a national entity, the movement to the center in physical space is echoed in the human realm: the centralization of authority through the appointment of a king:"Appoint a king over yourselves, whom God will choose" (17:15). The social center, like the physical center, is not yet defined. It awaits the appointment of God's choice.

  

The appointment of the king introduces the vortex-like circularity into the very structure of the book itself. Deuteronomy here provides for its own self-replication: "and when he sits on his throne, he shall write this mishne torah [review of the Law--another name for Deuteronomy] in a book before the priests and Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear God, and keep all  the words of this Torah, to do all these laws" (17:18-19). The king appointed through this book will assure the continuation of the book. ]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 16

Going out

and coming in

The always

the point

month, day, hour, instant

Where all comes from, 

where it is all going

[For full chapter, click here

In some ways, this chapter is a seamless continuation of the previous one. It continues the theme of scared time, with its pattern of six-to-seven. If the previous chapter focused on the sabbatical year, this chapter focuses on the festivals: the seven days of Passover, the seven weeks leading to Shavuot (lit. ‘weeks,’ Pentecist), the seven days of Succot / Tabernacles. As in the case of the previous chapter, the sacred is now focused on the social / communal element. 

Deuteronomy (lit. "second telling"; in Hebrew Mishne Torah "the review of the Torah") presents Moses' 40 day review of the 40 years of his tumultuous leadership. That narrative voice influences the narrative, and the reprise is significantly different from the various (at times multiple) former presentations. As in the case of the reprise of the laws of the sabbatical year, which here revolve around the protection of the poor. The re-presentation of the festivals continues with this focus, as the inclusiveness of the festival is repeatedly highlighted: "You shall rejoice before God, your Lord, you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maid, the Levite that is within your gates, and the stranger, the orphan and the widow that are in your midst..."

Another element is added here to the previous presentations of the festivals in the Books of Exodus Leviticus and in Numbers.

It is not simply that the nation is brought together. A swirling vortex motion defines the chapter as a whole. Every festival is here redefined by an inward motion towards "the place that God will choose: in order to celebrate the the outward motion of the Exodus, when He "took you out of Egypt." again, and again, the focus is on the specificity of place, a move "from your gates" towards a central point of gravity--the Temple.

This intensification and specification of place is reflected in an intensification and specification of time: we move from a celebration of the "month" to a focus on the "seven days" to a intense focus on the "day". 

The sanctification of the center--temporal and spatial--allows the movement outwards again. The Passover must be offered only "in the place that God will choose" but it is followed by seven days in which "all your borders" are sanctified. The chapter closes with the command to set up "judges" in each gate, sanctifying the periphery, while knitting together the disparate "tribes"]