David Noel Freedman

A critical and exegetical commentary on Hosea

Here Andrew Macintosh provides a major introduction, followed by translation and verse-by-verse commentary to Hosea. Incorporating up-to-date evidence from archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the insights of more recent major commentaries, he places particular emphasis on the work of the Rabbinic authorities and especially that of Ibn Janah. He reveals important new evidence concerning the meaning of Hoseas dialectical language to provide an indispensable reference for scholars, students and clergy.

Studies in ancient Yahwistic poetry

This classic study of ancient Yahwistic poetry untangles some of the serious textual difficulties and linguistic obscurities that for many years have been a challenge to students of the Hebrew Bible.

The Forms of Hebrew Poetry

the initial presumption is now rather against His being the speaker, since He is referred to several times in the third person. It may, therefore, be asked whether verses 1-8 (omitting ver. 2) are not, after all, a Servant passage with the Servant as the speaker throughout. On this hypothesis the Servant addresses the Jews and refers unmistakably to the coming restoration of the people, quite in the manner of the Babylonian Isaiah. In spite of xlix. 6, such a feature is so unlikely to occur in a Servant passage that probably its presence is by itself sufficient to negative the supposition. Some parts of the previous argument for the division of the passage, slightly restated, are also still relevant. The con~ clusion, therefore, remains that only verses 4-6 constitute the Servant passage and that the adjoining verses are an utterance of the Babylonian Isaiah in which Jehovah is the speaker, although He refers to Himself in the third person. WILLIAM B. STEVENSON.

An Inscribed Jar Handle from Raddana

touched a handle to participate in a ritual. What was the nature of the ritual? It could have been some unknown ceremony of pouring out a drink offering which would have been practiced by agricultural villagers like those at Raddana in Iron Age I. These and other problems, hopefully, will be solved as we learn more about the Raddana village in further excavations and as specialists attempt to answer some of the technical questions raised above.

Yahweh of Samaria and His Asherah

A scrutiny of biblical texts and a group of inscriptions found recently at QuntilletcAjrud, on the border between the southern Negeb and the Sinai peninsula, suggests that the worship of a goddess, a consort of Yahweh, was deeply rooted in both Israel and Judah during preexilic times.

The Real Story of the Ebla Tablets: Ebla and the Cities of the Plain

One of the greatest archeological finds of the twentieth century is discussed in a provocative and stimulating article, relating information from the Ebla tablets to biblical history, specifically the patriarchal period.

“Son of Man, Can These Bones Live?” The Exile

The Bible as a literary entity is a product of the exile.. .. The record of the revolutions of the human spirit that took place during those years.

A Second Mesha Inscription

The new Moabite inscription from Kerak is a welcome addition to the scanty epigraphic library of early first millennium Palestine, and Messrs. Reed and Winnett are to be commended for prompt and accurate publication of the fragment.At the same time, a few suggestions about the nature and interpretation of the text may be in order. It will be noted that, so far as it has been preserved, line 1 of the new inscription corresponds exactly with the first line of the Mesha stele.2 The authors are doubtless correct in identifying the name [K] m y t as that of the father of Mesha, and for that reason the letters yt should be restored in line 1 of the Mesha stone. It seems equally clear however that the Kerak inscription should be attributed to Mesha, rather than to his father as suggested by Reed and Winnett.3 We should restore the missing words exactly as in the Mesha stone:

The Name of Ashdod

3 C. F. A. Schaeffer-J. C. Courtois, Syria, 1963, pp. 341-347. H. de Contenson, BULLETIN, No. 172 (December, 1963), pp. 35-40. In BULLETIN, No. 172, p. 35, the writer inadvertently failed to say that all the work at Ras Shamra was carried out under the general direction of Professor C. F. A. Schaeffer and as part of the stratigraphical research program of the French Archaeological Expedition at Ras ShamraUgarit. THE NAME OF ASHDOD

Archaic Forms in Early Hebrew Poetry

Archaic forms and particles have been identified in increasing number in Hebrew poetry, especially in the earliest Israelite songs. Since none of these features was in regulär usage in the language after the 13th Century B. C., and since they do not noticeably affect meaning, it would appear that their chief function was aesthetic. Examination of a number of examples indicates that their use was structural rather than ornamental, deliberate rather than haphazard. It seems to the present writer that a specific metrical purpose is deducible in several cases, whereby one colon or half-line is lengthened in this manner in order to balance the parallel colon or half-line. In short, these features were artistically employed to achieve a symmetrical pattern. Such balance or symmetry is a principal characteristic of early Hebrew poetic structure, deriving apparently from its musical framework (i. e., rhythmic dancing and singing, along with simple or complex choral antiphony). In analyzing the metrical evidence, scholars may reduce it to some kind of arithmetic pattern, but this does not mean that the poet consciously used a numerical process. It is not likely that the Israelites counted syllables carefully, or even accents for that matter, when composing their poetry. But it is convenient for us to do so in tabulating the evidence. It may be desirable to point out that only a small fraction of the original number of archaic forms in Hebrew poetry are now preserved in the Masoretic Text. In the course of transmission most of them were edited out of the text. The process of grammatical, Orthographie, and general linguistic revision is well known in all literatures; that archaisms survive at all in MT is partly the result of accidental cir-