The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14-20): Philology and Hydrology, Geography and Ethnography.

• Author: Steiner, Richard C.
• Position: Critical essay

In memory of Louis and Jennie Weiss [phrase omitted], the chieftain and noblewoman who dug the well from which I and my extended family have drawn for five generations. INTRODUCTION

Numbers 21 contains an excerpt from the "Book of the Wars of the Lord" (henceforth, the/our excerpt). Many scholars believe that the excerpt consists of "only a few damaged lines" (1) (viz., vv. 14b-15), from which "even the main verb has disappeared," (2) and that it is "no longer intelligible to us." (3)

In this study, I shall argue that the aforementioned belief is incorrect. The excerpt turns out to be surprisingly intelligible, once it is recognized that 1) v. 14b, without any consonantal or vocalic change, has verbs hiding in plain sight; 2) those verbs form clauses whose meaning is elucidated by numerous parallels, in the same chapter and elsewhere; and 3) the excerpt extends to v. 20:

[phrase omitted] [14] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [15] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [16] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [17] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [18] [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] [19] [phrase omitted] [20] [phrase omitted] I shall further argue that a close reading of this longer passage reveals that it is a poetic exhortation to visit inspiring sites, most of them 1) located in and around the Desert of Kedemoth and the Steppes of Moab; and 2) related to the Lord's wars with Transjordanian rulers. The following translation, containing some explanatory interpolations in parentheses (especially in v. 14), can serve as an introduction to the proposed reading:

[14] On account of that, it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord: (If you wish to be inspired by the wonders that Israel experienced during the period of conflict with Sihon, Og, Balak, and the five Midianite rulers,) come to (Mt.) Waheb (in the Desert of Kedemoth) during a storm, and come to the Arnon's (tributary) wadis (surrounding that mountain), [15] and to the confluence of those wadis (at that mountain), (the confluence) that turns toward the settled area of Ar and hugs (lit. leans against) the (northern) border of Moab. [16] And from there, (the confluence at Mt. Waheb, come) to the/a well--the well about which the Lord said to Moses, "Assemble the people that I may give them water." [17] It was on that occasion that Israel sang this song: "Spring up, O well! Sing (O Israel) to/of it! [18] The well that the chieftains dug, that the nobles of the people excavated, with (only) a scepter, with their own staffs-- a gift (mattanah) from the desert." [19] And from (that well, named) Mattanah, (come) to Nahaliel ("mighty canyons"), and from Nahaliel, (come) to Bamoth(-baal), [20] and from Bamoth(-baal), (come) to the valley (in front of Baal's temple on Mt. Peor) in the open country of Moab, (and) to the top of Pisgah, overlooking the wasteland. THE PHILOLOGICAL PROBLEM AND PREVIOUS SOLUTIONS

The first one and a half verses of the excerpt, Num. 21:14b-15, have defied the best efforts of leading text critics. George Buchanan Gray described them as "an obscure fragment beginning in the middle of one sentence and breaking off in the middle of the next." (4) W. F. Albright referred to them as a "fragment... which cannot be reconstructed." (5) Martin Noth concluded that "the quotation has been transmitted in such a fragmentary and obviously, in part, incorrect fashion that it defies all explanation." (6) More recently, Horst Seebass has conceded that "because of the state of the text, a universally satisfactory solution is hardly to be found," (7) adding that "whoever raises to a dogma (the view of) MT as the only admissible text will stay with its incomprehensible wording." (8)

Not surprisingly, the inability of scholars to make sense of Num. 21:14-15 has led to skepticism about the surrounding verses as well. J. Maxwell Miller describes Num. 21:10-20 as a passage "which commentators and biblical cartographers have struggled with for years on the mistaken assumption that it is supposed to make geographical sense. But it simply does not...." (9) Christian Frevel asks whether Num. 21:10-20 is a "geographical and redactional hodgepodge" and answers in the affirmative. (10)

Let us examine this infamous crux more closely. The quotation from the Book of the Wars of the Lord begins with one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Pentateuch: [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] (Num. 21:14). The first word in this phrase, [phrase omitted], looks like the so-called "accusative marker" (i.e., the preposition used to mark definite direct objects), (11) and that is the way most exegetes have understood it. The problem is that this interpretation of [phrase omitted] seems to turn the phrase into gibberish because "Waheb and the valleys are in the accusative case and require a verb to govern them." (12)

According to Arnold Ehrlich, there is also a secondary problem: the direct object marker "occurs extremely rarely elsewhere in poetry." (13) Ehrlich's claim is significant, even if it is overstated. The direct object marker [phrase omitted] is one of the so-called "prose particles," which are used sparingly in poetry, especially in the poetry of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. (14)

A few medieval Jewish exegetes and modern scholars have believed that the context calls for the other preposition [phrase omitted], the one that means "with" when governing a personal name and "next to" when governing a place name. (15) This preposition, sometimes called comitative (= expressing accompaniment), is a homonym of the direct object marker. (16) Interpreting our [phrase omitted] as comitative eliminates the secondary problem, but not the primary one. We are still dealing with a sentence fragment in search of a verb. In that respect, the only difference between the two prepositional interpretations of [phrase omitted] is whether the missing verb is transitive or intransitive.

One noteworthy response to this problem appears in an eleventh-century Hebrew commentary from Castoria, the Leqah Tov of Tobias b. Eliezer: "[phrase omitted]--he came and gave ([phrase omitted]): he came and gave ([phrase omitted]) signs and wonders." (17) This comment appears to suggest that both [phrase omitted] and [phrase omitted] are verbs--perfects (3ms) of roots known primarily from Aramaic but attested in Biblical Hebrew poetry as well. Tobias b. Eliezer was preceded by at least one exegete in his interpretation of [phrase omitted], (l8) but I know of no other Jewish exegete--before or after him--who took [phrase omitted] as a verb. (19) It was not until 900 years later that Duane Christensen hit upon a similar solution, revocalizing [phrase omitted] (but not [phrase omitted]) as a verb in the perfect, viz., [phrase omitted]. (20) His treatment of [phrase omitted] was initially welcomed by scholars, despite the additional emendations that it entailed. (21) In recent decades, however, those emendations have been criticized as excessive and unnecessary. (22)

[phrase omitted]: A NEW SUGGESTION

My own interpretation agrees with these earlier interpretations (of which I was not initially aware) in taking [phrase omitted] as a verb from the poetic Hebrew root [phrase omitted], "come." However, I see no reason to take [phrase omitted] as a perfect, against the received vocalization. I submit that [phrase omitted] in our excerpt is quite naturally construed--without the slightest change in spelling or vocalization--as an apocopated or biliteral (23) imperative of [phrase omitted], "come."

This is an archaic form, belonging to the poetic dialect of Hebrew. Its closest relatives are 1) the imperfect [phrase omitted], "it shall come" (Mic. 4:8); 2) the converted apocopated/biliteral imperfect [phrase omitted], "and he has come" (Isa. 41:25); (24) and 3) the Arabic conjoined masc. sing. imperative form [phrase omitted] fa-'ti, "and come." (25) The relationship between [phrase omitted] and [phrase omitted] is essentially the same as that between the apocopated/biliteral imperative forms [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], and [phrase omitted] (2 Sam. 13:5) (26) and the apocopated/biliteral converted imperfect forms [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], and [phrase omitted], respectively. We may note that the apocopated/biliteral imperative form [phrase omitted] is attested in Num. 20:25, only eighteen verses before what I am arguing is the apocopated/biliteral imperative form [phrase omitted].

My claim is not that [phrase omitted] was the only imperative of [phrase omitted] in BH. It may well have coexisted with an unapocopated imperative form, [phrase omitted] (or [phrase omitted]), just as the apocopated imperative forms [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], and [phrase omitted] coexisted with the unapocopated imperative forms [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], [phrase omitted], and [phrase omitted]. However, it must be stressed that no unapocopated singular imperative form is attested for [phrase omitted] in the Bible.

As for the vowel of [phrase omitted], it is precisely what one would expect in an imperative of a I'-IIIy root, judging from the (poetic) triliteral plural imperative [phrase omitted], "come!" (Isa. 21:12, 56:9, 12), (27) and the biliteral plural imperative [phrase omitted], "bake!" (Exod. 16:23). In a stressed syllable, the apocopated/biliteral singular would have been [phrase omitted], with a sere. In our verse, however, the imperative is unstressed, pronounced together with the following word (proclitic), as indicated by the maqqef in [phrase omitted]. In the latter, we find the underlying sere shortened and lowered to segol, as is usual in a closed unstressed syllable. This alternation is well attested in all grammatical categories, including imperative forms that resemble the imperative [phrase omitted] ~ [phrase omitted] An example involving a biliteral imperative is [phrase omitted] (Ps. 115:1) ~ [phrase...