Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East.

• Author: Keim, Paul A.

References to vow, oath, and curse in the Hebrew Bible and other literature of the ancient Near East frequently exhibit confusion due to the semantic ranges of these terms in modern Western languages. H. C. Brichto makes a similar point concerning the word "curse" in his monograph, The Problem of "Curse" in the Hebrew Bible (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1963). Tony W. Cartledge begins this important study of vows with a useful clarification of these terms, asserting that "vows, oaths and curses are all quite separate enterprises in the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament" (p. 11).

The study is composed of five chapters: "Preliminary Definitions and Discussion of Vows in Israelite Religion"; "Review of Literature"; "The Ancient Near Eastern Context"; "The Vocabulary and Form of Vows in the Hebrew Bible"; and "The Literary Function of Vows in Hebrew Narrative." A full bibliography follows, with indices of primary and secondary sources. This arrangement of the material, with the relevant Hebrew terminology coming in the next-to-last chapter instead of at the beginning as one might expect, seems a bit disjointed but does not detract from the overall strengths of the book.

In his discussion of the standard vow formula in Biblical Hebrew, Cartledge notes that the poetic style of vows in the Psalter constitutes a conditional construction even though the form deviates from the conventional "if . . . then" type. It is the poetic syntax which "replaces" the conventional conditional clause, he asserts. If this is indeed so, it represents one of the original contributions of this study to an understanding of vows in the Hebrew Bible.

In the last chapter, Cartledge examines five narratives from the Hebrew Bible which contain vows and identifies the literary function of the vows within their narrative settings. The passages are Num. 21:1-3; Gen. 28:10-22; Judg. 11:30-40; 1 Sam. 1:1-11; and 2 Sam. 15:1-8. The analysis of Gen. 28:10-22 illustrates his approach. The vow here, he maintains, accomplishes at least...