Did G.o.d Hit Jacob Below the Belt?
GENESIS 32 tells the story of a weird wrestling match between Jacob and somebody-or something. Jacob was on his way back home to Canaan, which he had left over twenty years earlier. He was traveling with his four wives, eleven sons (Benjamin wasn"t born yet), and one daughter. It sounds like one of those early Mormon caravans, and like the Mormons, Jacob was fleeing persecution. He had just learned that his brother Esau, whose death threats caused Jacob to leave Canaan in the first place, was coming toward him with four hundred men. In an apparent effort to protect his family, Jacob had placed his wives and children on one side of the River Jabbok and had crossed to the other side to meet Esau. There, quite out of the blue, a "man" attacked Jacob and wrestled with him all night.
The "man" was actually a supernatural being of some sort. We know this because he changed Jacob"s name to Israel, which means "he wrestles with G.o.d." Also, Jacob named the place "Peniel," meaning "face of G.o.d," because he said he saw G.o.d face-to-face. In addition, a reference to this event in the Book of Hosea says that Jacob strove with an angel.1 In the middle of the match, the supernatural being saw that he was not winning and hit or touched Jacob on the hollow or socket of his hip or thigh. The conclusion explains that this is why Israelites do not eat the body part that is on that socket (and Orthodox Jews still don"t).
But scholars have long puzzled over what exactly this body part is. It is typically translated "sinew" or "nerve" or even "muscle." But it is uncertain just which sinew, nerve, or muscle the story refers to. One common understanding is that the organ in question is the sciatic nerve, which is the longest nerve in the human body, running from the hip to the heel. Other animals have a sciatic nerve running the length of their back legs too. A problem with this view, however, is that there is no special law anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible against eating the sciatic nerve. There is also no obvious reason why the eating of that particular nerve should be prohibited.
Family Jewels A new proposal for which part of Jacob"s body was injured in this wrestling match was put forward by S. H. Smith in 1990 in the prestigious British journal Vetus Testamentum.2 Smith"s article built on and expanded an earlier suggestion by Stanley Gevirtz, now deceased, who was a longtime respected professor at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.3 As you might have guessed from the general direction of this puerile handbook, Gevirtz and Smith think the mystery organ is the human wiener. Their arguments (like the arguments made in the "Adam"s p.e.n.i.s bone" chapter) spring from the fact that there is no formal word in the Hebrew Bible for "p.e.n.i.s." Instead, the Bible uses various euphemisms. Smith argues that there are three euphemisms in the story of Jacob"s wrestling match. The first is the word translated "hollow" or "socket." (We won"t tell you what the Hebrew word is because it figures into another chapter and we don"t want to ruin the surprise.) Smith a.s.serts that this word is strongly related to a recognized euphemism for the p.e.n.i.s in the Bible, and so he suggests that this word may be one as well. Heck, everything in the Bible is a euphemism for p.e.n.i.s.
The second word is "thigh" (another Hebrew word we"ll save for later), which is used with a wink and a nudge in several other biblical texts. When Abraham commissioned his most trusted servant to travel back to the land Abraham came from to search for a wife for his son Isaac, he called him in and said to him, Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the LORD, the G.o.d of heaven and earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but will go to my country and to my kindred and get a wife for my son Isaac.4 The "thigh" here refers to Abraham"s p.e.n.i.s or s.c.r.o.t.u.m. His servant swore to him while cupping Abe"s goods. (Recall that the Latin root of the word "testify" also refers to the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, because in Rome men swore on their own t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. That would make jury duty interesting, don"t you think?) Abraham wasn"t the only one who made someone swear on his gonads. Later on in Genesis, Jacob did the same thing.5 Jacob was dying and didn"t want to be buried in Egypt. He made Joseph put his hand under his thigh and swear that Joseph would transport Jacob"s body back to Canaan to be buried in the family tomb.
Modern readers probably find all this peculiar. None of the television crime dramas show witnesses taking the stand and swearing on their own groins to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But the reasoning behind swearing on your dearest self makes good sense. Both Abraham and Jacob were near the end of their life. Like most old men, they were thinking a lot about having s.e.x with younger women-just kidding. Rather, each was thinking about his family line, which of course led him to contemplate his family jewels. This sacred organ held a man"s power to pa.s.s on his DNA. Since n.o.body knew about DNA in those days, it also represented the fulfillment of G.o.d"s promise to make Abraham and his heirs a great nation and to give the land of Canaan to his descendants.
And for Jacob, who was perhaps less concerned about the perpetuation of his family line, since he already had many children, his testes represented his ancestry. He wanted to be taken back to the land of Canaan to be buried with his parents and grandparents in their family tomb, on their family land. Jacob wanted to sp.a.w.n. Ancient peoples felt strongly attached to their family land, which was pa.s.sed down through generations. Jacob did not want to be forgotten or isolated in death. He wanted to be buried in the land G.o.d had promised to him.
Smith also observes that the Hebrew expression translated "thigh" on several occasions in the Bible literally means "those who come forth from the thigh" and refers to a person"s direct descendants. One of these pa.s.sages gives the number of Jacob"s family members who journeyed to Egypt as sixty-six, distinguishing between those who were his direct descendants ("from the thigh") and the wives of his sons, who were related to him only by marriage (from someone else"s thigh).6 A similar text at the beginning of Exodus sets the number of Jacob"s direct descendants at seventy.7 You also see this in the story of Gideon in the Book of Judges, which says that Gideon had seventy sons (not including daughters) and was the father of all of them by many different wives.8 Gideon had one busy "thigh."
The third euphemism Smith finds in the Jacob story is rendered "sinew" or "nerve." (This is like shooting fish in a barrel.) This expression is actually two words in Hebrew: gid hannasheh. Both words are relatively uncommon in the Hebrew Bible. Gid occurs five times outside of Genesis 32 and refers to a body part in the nature of a sinew or tendon a.s.sociated with the neck,9 the body in general,10 and the tail or legs.11 In a footnote, however, Smith mentions an instance in later Hebrew where this word refers to the "membrum virile," i.e., the p.e.n.i.s.12 Scholars like to put dirty words in Latin, perhaps to try to protect their reputations.
The other word, nasheh, occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its exact meaning is uncertain. But both Smith and Gevirtz suggest that it may derive from the word nefesh ("life") or the word enosh ("man"), meaning "sinew of life" or "male sinew." Try that one out on your partner tonight.
Combining these three euphemisms, Smith and Gevirtz arrive at the following interpretation. In the course of the "rumble on the river," G.o.d (or G.o.d"s representative) struck Jacob in the groin, causing Jacob to roll around on the ground in abject pain saying, "That"s not fair!" (we surmise). At the end of the story, the author says this is why the Israelites don"t eat the "male-sinew" or "life-sinew," that is, the p.e.n.i.s of animals. The law of the Hebrew Bible doesn"t specifically prohibit eating the genitals, probably because it was clearly understood that this was way the heck off limits. And anyway, as we learned before, there"s too much bone in animal p.e.n.i.ses to make good eating, unless you are dining on spider monkey, which is illegal and you probably should be jailed.
On All Fours Since Smith a.s.sumes that the words for "hand" (yad) and "foot" (regel) or "feet" are two of the most common euphemisms in the Hebrew Bible, it may be helpful to look at some pa.s.sages where they are generally recognized as dirty words in disguise. One of the best examples is in the Song of Solomon. It reads: My beloved thrust his hand (yad) into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him.13 Whoa. Did we stumble into the Penthouse Forum? The image here is of the male lover opening the door to the female"s bedroom, but the double entendre is obvious.
For the euphemistic sense of "feet," consider the following two pa.s.sages from the Book of Isaiah: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.14 On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River-with the king of a.s.syria-the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.15 The first pa.s.sage describes a vision of G.o.d that the prophet Isaiah had in the temple. The creatures attending G.o.d, called Seraphs ("burning ones"), were apparently something like angels with three pairs of wings. They flew with one pair, covered their faces with one pair, and covered their feet with the third pair. The latter two actions were signs of reverence in G.o.d"s presence. Some have interpreted "feet" to mean the literal appendages and have pointed to the story of Moses removing his sandals in G.o.d"s presence.16 But the comparison doesn"t really work, because Moses was exposing his feet rather than covering them. There is no precedent in the Bible-or elsewhere so far as we know-for anyone covering their feet as a sign of reverence or humility. But interpreting "feet" as a euphemism for the genitals makes perfect sense in view of the sense of modesty commonly a.s.sociated with those organs.
The euphemistic use of "feet" is even more evident in the quote from Isaiah 7. Here, the prophet was threatening the destruction of the nation of Judah at the hands of an invading army from a.s.syria. The king of a.s.syria is likened to a razor that will "shave" the countryside of Judah, leaving it barren and empty. The land, therefore, is compared to a man"s body. The specific areas to be shaved are the head, beard, and feet. Shaving the head and beard, of course, is perfectly understandable. But the only way to make sense of shaving the feet (unless you"re a Hobbit) is to recognize that the word is a euphemism for the pubic region.
There"s even one instance of a double double entendre-two euphemisms in one. This is in 1 Kings 12, where the northern tribes of Israel came to Rehoboam to approve him as their king. They asked him, though, to lighten the tax and labor burden that his father, Solomon, imposed on them. He responded by telling them that he would be tougher than his father, and he chose a crude way of putting it. "My little finger is thicker than my father"s loins," he said.17 The loins, by definition, are the seat of the reproductive organs and can be used to refer specifically to them. What is most interesting about this sentence, however, is that the word "finger" is not in the Hebrew text. It might be translated as "my little (one)" or "my little (member)," or, even better, "my weenie." In the same context with the word "loins," it is a euphemism for the p.e.n.i.s. Rehoboam is boasting that his p.e.n.i.s is thicker than his father"s whole torso. We a.s.sume he was exaggerating.
Equal Opportunity Employment The euphemisms in the Bible aren"t used just for male genitals. There are some for female equipment as well. One of these is in a poem in the Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs) that describes a full frontal view of the female lover beginning with her feet and proceeding upward: How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.
Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.
Your two b.r.e.a.s.t.s are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are like pools in Heshbon, by the gates of Bath-rabbim.
Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus.
Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple.18 The translation "thighs" here doesn"t fit very well. The poem compares the thighs to jewels. The Hebrew word translated as "jewels" is used only one other time in the Hebrew Bible, where it is paralleled with a ring of gold.19 Here the NRSV translates the word as "ornament." The parallel indicates that the word in question refers to a small "jewel" or "ornament"-about the size of a ring-rather than something the size of a thigh. The ornament in the second pa.s.sage is also made of gold, like the ring.
The comparison with jewels seems to indicate a body part other than thighs in the Song of Solomon poem. And since "thigh" is used for the reproductive organ in other pa.s.sages, as we saw earlier, it may have a similar meaning in Song of Solomon. Of course, in Song of Solomon it refers to the female organs that are visible from a frontal view. This would also explain why the word in the Song of Solomon poem is in the plural. It probably refers, in other words, to the parts of the female v.u.l.v.a-the l.a.b.i.a-the larger l.a.b.i.a and perhaps the smaller l.a.b.i.a as well. These would be more the size of jewels. They are rounded, as described in Song of Solomon-especially so when a woman is s.e.xually aroused. This interpretation fits the s.e.xual nature of Songs of Solomon, as erotic literature, especially well.
Even though Smith missed the euphemism in Song of Solomon, he did include another female example. In another part of his article, he suggests that the story of Jacob and Esau"s birth also contains a euphemism.20 In that story as it is usually read, the twins, Esau and Jacob, wrestled in the womb. Esau was born first. Then Jacob came out second holding on to his brother"s heel. Smith proposes that "heel" here was another euphemism for the male genitals. But he bases this proposal on the fact that it occurs in Jeremiah as an obvious euphemism for the female variety: "It is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up and you are violated."21 The image is that of Jerusalem as a woman who is raped. The last expression is literally "your heels are violated," which makes little sense unless "heels" is a euphemism. After all, the skirt would hardly need to be lifted to access the literal heels. What is envisioned as violated are the opposing sides of the v.u.l.v.a. Similarly, Smith reasons, the single form, "heel," is a euphemism for Esau"s s.e.xual organ in Genesis 25.
As if he needed further support for his colorful reading, Smith cites the poem in Hosea 12, which he thinks brings the two wrestling episodes together: In the womb he took his brother by the "heel,"
And in his manhood he strove with G.o.d.22 The idea, according to Smith, is that Jacob took over his brother"s procreative power and therefore his right to the promise inherited from his grandfather and father, Abraham and Isaac. In the encounter at the Jabbok, however, G.o.d"s striking Jacob on his privates was a way of reminding him that he owed his power and fertility not to his own strength or cleverness but to G.o.d"s blessing.
Smith and Gevirtz have compiled a pretty convincing case for the existence of a number of different euphemisms in the story of Jacob"s wrestling match at the Jabbok. None of the words discussed here is always or necessarily a euphemism for the s.e.xual organs. But then, that"s the beauty of euphemisms. They work both sides of the fence.
This is the point that Smith makes in discussing the overall perspective of the Jacob story. None of the euphemisms in that story is an explicit reference to the s.e.xual organs. They are all merely suggestive. But this suggestiveness fits well with the whole story, which is focused on Jacob"s role as the heir to the promises given to Abraham and Isaac, on the one hand, and as the progenitor of the nation of Israel through his twelve sons on the other. The story of Jacob is all about family, descendants, and heritage. It is all about the ancestral line that pa.s.ses through Jacob"s "loins," "hand," "feet," "palm," "thigh," "male sinew," "finger," and "heel"-which ultimately point to the same special place on Jacob"s body.
11.
Did King David Have a Potty Mouth?
AS MOST READERS KNOW, men and dogs love to pee whenever and wherever they can. Modern laws usually prohibit men from whizzing in public, reflecting the strong influence of women in politics these days, but just tag along on any camping or fishing trip or pay a visit to a construction site and you"ll find men unzipping at opportune moments and leaving their marks proudly upon trees, rocks, bushes, and walls-anything that happens to be in their trajectory.
Peeing comes into play in one of the most artfully told stories in the Bible-that of David and Abigail.1 This story takes place against a background of serious strife between David and King Saul. Saul had become jealous and fearful of David"s success, so Saul tried numerous times to kill him. David fled into the wilderness, where he surrounded himself with a small army that survived by making raids on foreign villages and undoubtedly peeing on their bushes, trees, and walls too. That"s one privilege of belonging to a small army.
A Fool and His Money Our story gets rolling with a man named Nabal who lived in the town of Carmel in the Judean wilderness. Nabal was very wealthy, but he had a nasty personality. As the NRSV puts it, he was "surly and mean."2 In fact, the name "Nabal" means "fool." But Nabal"s wife was his opposite in character. Her name was Abigail, and she is described as "clever and beautiful." How they ended up together, n.o.body knows. Maybe it was one of those unexpected high school matches-the smart girl marrying the stoner, say. Or perhaps she thought she could change him. Come to think of it, not much has changed in several thousand years.
Back at the ranch-Nabal"s ranch-it was sheep-shearing time, which meant great celebration. Who doesn"t like a full slate of sheep-related festivities? During this high time, Nabal received an envoy from David. Perhaps David was hoping to catch Nabal in a generous mood, swept up in the elan of wool gathering. David"s envoy consisted of ten men, and they brought a request for provisions. They needed food. In his message, David pointed out how he and his men had protected Nabal"s shepherds and sheep in their wilderness pastures. The request, perhaps familiar to anyone who"s been threatened by the local mafia, may have felt like a shakedown to Nabal. But at least it was polite.
Nabal"s response was neither polite nor smart. He insulted David, calling him a runaway slave and a vagabond. Perhaps the wool fibers had gone to Nabal"s brain. Or perhaps he felt that particular bravado people often feel when surrounded by skinny, quivering sheep. Predictably, his response infuriated David, who gave orders for his men to put on their swords and march against Nabal. Meanwhile, one of Nabal"s servants, sensing the danger they were in, called upon Abigail and explained the situation to her. She hurried to load provisions on donkeys and rode off to intercept David before he could kill her husband.
As she approached him, David was swearing to avenge the insult he had suffered from Nabal by killing every man in his household. Abigail dismounted her donkey and bowed down to the ground in front of him. She apologized for her husband and offered David the provisions she had brought. Speaking with great eloquence and not a little flattery, she argued that it was in David"s own best interests not to carry out his murderous threats against Nabal. She expressed her confidence that G.o.d would make David king. But, she continued, if David killed all of Nabal"s men, many innocents would die, and their blood would be a stain on David"s reputation and an obstacle to his future kingship. Abigail ended her speech with a veiled proposal of marriage, asking him to remember her "when Yahweh has dealt well with my lord." Abigail"s method of approaching David was so smooth that it seems to us that she had probably saved Nabal"s bacon before when other business relationships had gone sour, but that is neither here nor there.
Abigail returned home to find Nabal drunk, so happy was he with the success of sheep-shearing season. She wisely waited until the next morning to tell him what she had done, perhaps to avoid being hurt in a drunken fit of rage. When she told him what she had done, "his heart died within him; he became like a stone." Ten days later, he gave up the ghost. Shortly thereafter, David sent for Abigail and married her. He knew a good woman when he saw one.
Now back to our original subject: public urination. Buried in this story is a choice vulgarity uttered by David, the man after G.o.d"s own heart, that relates to this most male of activities. We turn to the work of Peter J. Leithart, a theologian and pastor, who points out that the expression David used for "male" in this pa.s.sage literally means "one who p.i.s.seth on the wall."3 He is not making this up. Grab the King James Bible you inherited from your grandmother, dust it off, and look up 1 Samuel 25:22. Yes, the Bible says, "p.i.s.seth," in a wonderful collision of playground crudity and hifalutin English.
Leithart suggests that David used vulgar language as a kind of locker-room pep talk to drive home his point about Nabal"s insult to him and his men.4 But Leithart also a.s.serts that this lowbrow expression is more than a stand-alone statement. It ties into several features of the story. Thus, at the beginning of the story, Nabal is called a "Calebite," a name nearly identical in Hebrew to the word for "dog." Dogs are well known for urinating on walls and anything else with a vertical profile, and they have the great fortune of not being constrained by law from doing so. David and his men are likened to a protective wall around Nabal"s shepherds.5 The idea is that Nabal was like a dog, p.i.s.sing on the protection that David and his men had provided in the wilderness. Them"s fightin" words.
To add to this image, Nabal"s name is very similar to the word for "bottle" or "wineskin" (nebel), and he is portrayed as having been filled with wine. In fact, Leithart argues, the expression usually translated "when the wine had gone out"6 should be rendered "while the wine was going out." He believes, in other words, that Abigail told her husband about her meeting with David while Nabal was seeing a man about a horse. For you non-Texans, that means he was taking a leak, full as he was from wine he had drunk the night before. Again, Abigail showed real smarts: if Nabal had become angry at her for meeting with David, she would have had a head start while he finished shaking the dew off his lily. In the overall scheme of the story, this element fits nicely with the meaning of David"s vulgarity.
p.i.s.s-Poor a.n.a.lysis?
Does Leithart"s p.i.s.sy proposal work? Yes, with two minor adjustments. The first is to point out (because we are nitpicky Bible experts) that the word for "wall" in the phrase "one who p.i.s.ses on the wall" is not the same as the one used by Nabal"s servant in referring to David and his men (verse 16). Both words, however, do denote a similar structure, so they might conjure up the same idea in the minds of readers. We"ll give that one to you, Leithart.
Second, the time reference in verse 37 is not quite as certain as Leithart claims. The grammatical construction there usually denotes simultaneous action. But it does not have to be translated "while." It could just as accurately be rendered "as soon as," "when," or "after" the wine went out of him. What we"re trying to say is that Nabal might have been whizzing or he might have just finished whizzing. In either case, Leithart is right that the expression refers literally to the wine leaving Nabal. This implication is often missed in translations that go for the G-rating and simply say something to the effect that Nabal had sobered up.
Leithart is also right about the literal meaning of the phrase for "male" being "one who p.i.s.ses on the wall," as you can plainly see in the King James Bible. This may seem crude to us today, but it may not have been in previous times and cultures. The King James Bible, which was a model of proper English at the time it was produced, clearly shows that what is considered vulgar or inappropriate language may change over time. The verb "to p.i.s.s" was considered polite social talk in sixteenth-century England but is now regarded as profane. We don"t know what Hebrew expressions the ancient Israelites might have considered profane or vulgar-none of their Dictionaries of Bad Words have survived. David"s expression may have been intended to rile up his troops. Or he may have simply been stressing his intention to kill all the males. That left only Abigail, a female, to avert disaster. Still, it is a safe bet that the image of someone urinating on you would be as unwelcome then as it is today. So we buy Leithart"s suggestion that David was alluding to Nabal as a dog urinating on the "wall" of David and his men.
Leithart is also on target in noting the literary sophistication of this story. Its eloquent narration highlights the importance of the episode. With David"s marriage to Abigail, he gained wealth and prominence among the Calebites that had belonged to Nabal. Since the Calebites were the leading clan in Judah, it was not long before David moved up to become king over Judah and from there to the throne of all Israel. The episode of the death of Nabal and his marriage to Abigail was more than a pit stop for David-it marked a watershed moment in his career.
12.
Does the Bible Command Bikini Waxing?
THE LAST PLACE you might expect to find a divine dictate for pubic shaving is in the last four books of the Pentateuch. These books are considered so dry and tedious that even evangelicals, known for their biblical devotion, rarely make it through alive. Viewed as a vast wasteland of verbal tedium, akin to reading the federal penal code, the books contain long lists of laws G.o.d gave to Moses soon after the Israelites escaped from Egypt and began their forty-year sightseeing tour of the desert. The most famous regulations found here are the Ten Commandments. But among the litany of rules are some hidden gems, and this chapter takes up an especially good one.
First, a quick legal lesson for your own good. The Israelite codes in the Pentateuch included two types of laws-those that supplied punishments and those that didn"t. The Ten Commandments are an example of the second kind: they did not come with a punishment. But many other Hebrew laws did. For example, here"s a colorful one you don"t see practiced much anymore except maybe in Saudi Arabia: "When the daughter of a priest profanes herself through prost.i.tution, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death."1 And try these others on for size: "Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death"2 (meaning no kid today would survive).
"You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live."3 "You shall not have s.e.xual relations with any animal and defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman give herself to an animal to have s.e.xual relations with it: it is perversion."4 "You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD."5 The strange thing about these laws is that they indicate people must have been doing these things-getting tattoos, having s.e.x with animals, cursing Mom and Dad, and practicing sorcery. Some "chosen people." No wonder G.o.d let all (but two) of them die in the desert.
The Problem in a Nutsh.e.l.l Now let"s shine our bright light of research on perhaps the strangest crime mentioned in the Bible: grabbing a man"s cojones. The Scripture states: If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.6 This has probably happened to all of us. You get into a fight with another guy, and your wife rushes into the fray and grabs the guy"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es to try to break it up. Ouch! These days a simple "I"m sorry" and perhaps a friendly lawsuit restores order. But in Old Testament times, such a common mistake was punishable by much more than that. In fact, this is the only law in the Hebrew Bible that demands physical mutilation as punishment. (You might interject, if you were alert enough, "What about the law that says "an eye for an eye"?" Well, smarty-pants, that legislation, which is called the lex talionis, means "law of retaliation," which you probably did not know, and is more about limiting vengeance by inflicting equivalent damage on the guilty party. And anyway, it doesn"t specifically prescribe mutilation.7) After reading this pa.s.sage from Deuteronomy, the women are probably asking, "Why would the code demand the amputation of the woman"s hand when all she did was give the guy"s b.a.l.l.s a firm squeeze? His pain would subside after a few minutes, but her hand would never grow back." Scholars, those overeducated, underpaid people currently teaching your children job skills, try to answer this question in several ways.
Some s.a.d.i.s.tic scholars take the text at face value. The woman"s hand should be amputated because that"s what she deserved, they say. These scholars tend to be men with humiliating t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e-grabbing experiences in their past. But they have one strong point: if a woman back then put a viselike grip on a man"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, he could lose his reproductive powers. That was a serious crime and perhaps worthy, at least in those days, of the Saudi royal hand chop.
The other way these scholars justify hand amputation is to see the crime as a really bad social faux pas. By roughing up (or even just touching) the genitals of a man who is not her husband, the woman has shamed herself, her husband, and her victim, and she must suffer the consequences. If she didn"t, all the other ladies would get the idea they could go around grabbing their neighbors" nuts at a whim. Not good for social order.
But there"s an interesting fact about this text that we haven"t disclosed. The Hebrew uses two different terms for the word "hand." To start, the woman reaches out her yad (hand), but at the end of the pa.s.sage her kaf is cut off. Kaf in ancient Hebrew means "hand" and sometimes refers euphemistically to a person"s private parts. We"ll show you how in a few minutes. Naturally scholars get little kicks out of suggesting that the punishment is actually a type of genital mutilation, perhaps c.l.i.toridectomy. (One of the first scholars to propose this was Lyle Eslinger in a 1981 article with an awesome pulp fictionsounding t.i.tle: "The Case of the Immodest Lady Wrestler in Deuteronomy 25:1112."8) A shortcoming of both these alternatives is that they still see the woman"s punishment as some kind of physical mutilation or maiming, which far exceeds the crime. As we mentioned before, no other crime demands mutilation as punishment.
A Slap on the Wrist The scholar Jerome T. Walsh throws us a life preserver.9 He points out that while in some places the word kaf means "hand," elsewhere in the Bible it refers to a particular part or quality of the hand. In some references, the yad (hand) has a kaf (specific part of the hand). For example, Jezebel, easily the baddest babe in the Bible, meets her fate in a gruesome and sort of funny way-several eunuchs daintily throw her out a window and she"s trampled to death by horses and eaten by dogs. Talk about piling it on. When the soldiers not-so-daintily rush downstairs to retrieve her corpse, all that remains are her skull, feet, and the kafs of her two yads.10 What is this kaf? In light of usage elsewhere in the Bible, it most likely refers to the palms of Jezebel"s hands. Sometimes a kaf refers to a bowl or spoon used in the temple"s ceremonies. It can also refer to the branch of a palm tree. It describes the hollow of a sling,11 like the one used by David to kill Goliath. The sole of the foot is also called a kaf.12 All of these objects are curved or cupped. When the word kaf is used in reference to the hand, it usually describes grasping or holding rather than striking or pointing. So when kaf is used to denote part of the hand, it must mean the palm.
But how do you cut off someone"s palm? Perhaps you don"t. Walsh thinks kaf has a s.e.xual connotation. You knew we"d take it there.
Walsh supports his theory by pointing to the wrestling match between Jacob and a mysterious unknown figure, which we discussed in chapter 10.13 After wrestling together all night, the other combatant ends the match by touching Jacob on the kaf-yerek. This is typically translated as "hip joint" or "hollow of the thigh," but Walsh thinks Jacob"s opponent has borrowed a tactic from the immodest lady wrestler in Deuteronomy, because the Hebrew word yerek, "thigh," can sometimes refer to the reproductive organs, as we saw. You may recall, for example, that two pa.s.sages referring to Jacob, who must have had a kaf-yerek worth talking about, describe his descendants as those who come forth from his yerek.14 "Hip" or "thigh" would hardly be an accurate translation here.
Even more instructive is a steamy s.e.xual fantasy in Song of Solomon in which a hot and bothered young lady envisions a tryst with her man.15 Using the plural form of kaf, she describes "myrrh" flowing over the kafot-hamanul, which spineless Bible translators usually render as "handles of the bolt." Right-"handles of the bolt," my foot. (Or rather, my kaf-yerek.) Song of Solomon is one long s.e.x poem, thick with erotic metaphors and wordplay, which suggests strongly that this Hebrew phrase alludes to the woman"s genital area, not the Masterlock on her chamber door.
This a.n.a.lysis of kaf allows Walsh to conclude that in some cases it describes "the open concave curves of the pelvic region, and would correspond most closely to the English word "groin" or perhaps "crotch.""16 Okay, so Walsh got to use the words "groin" and "crotch" in a scholarly journal. Fine. But how do you cut off someone"s groin? Remember, that"s the punishment we"re talking about here. Or is it? Walsh goes against all translations and commentaries, which agree that the woman"s kaf is to be cut off. He believes they misunderstand the Hebrew verb qatsats-them"s fighting words among Bible geeks. In Hebrew, verbs can appear in many different conjugations, each with its own impact on the verb"s meaning. The basic verbal conjugation is called the qal form. Another common conjugation is the piel, which intensifies the meaning. For example, if the qal meaning of a verb is "to break," the piel meaning might be "to smash to pieces."
The root of the verb qatsats appears about fifteen times in the Hebrew Bible. The great majority have it in the piel form, which intensifies it to mean "to cut off," among other things. It"s found, for example, in the Book of Judges in the description of another weird punishment: "Adoni-bezek fled; but they pursued him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes."17 The other times it appears in its less intense form, including in the text we"re talking about here. In the Book of Jeremiah, it refers to a group of people who live in the desert and are called the qetsutse peah. The second word means "edge" or "side," and the phrase appears to designate a group of people who had strange haircuts on the sides of their heads (we kid you not).18 Walsh argues that this meaning best fits the verb in Deuteronomy 25:12. He says, "It seems reasonable, then, to infer that qatsats (qal) means not "to amputate," but "to cut or shave [hair]," particularly when it is used in conjunction with a term that can refer to a part of the body where hair grows."19 He therefore concludes that the punishment for a woman who grabs the b.a.l.l.s of a man (who is not her husband) during a fight is the removal of her pubic hair. The text he proposes is, "You shall shave [the hair of] her groin."
Why would pubic shaving be considered punishment? Many modern women shave the hair down there as part of a regular grooming routine. But in ancient Israel, shaving hair was a form of humiliation. The clearest example, according to Walsh, is in Isaiah 7:20, where G.o.d played the role of a barber who promised to use the king of a.s.syria as a razor to shave off all the hair of the Israelites, to embarra.s.s and disgrace them as prisoners of war. The text distinguishes between the hair of the head and the "hair of the feet," which is a common Hebrew metaphor for genitals. (G.o.d was indeed threatening to shave their heads and their groins.) So shaving the pubic region was truly humiliating for a woman in ancient societies.
The Bare Truth How do you like that? We went from biblical Hebrew to women shaving their p.u.b.es. This should increase our teenage readership. But who"s to say Walsh isn"t just p.a.w.ning off a theory on us for his own amus.e.m.e.nt? Why do we even listen to this guy?
For one thing, he knows ancient Hebrew. It would be impossible to come up with this reading without being tuned in to the language"s nuances. The distinction he makes between the meanings of the verb in its qal and piel conjugations is often overlooked even by the most experienced Bible scholars-us included.
His approach is also appealing because it makes the punishment fit the crime. We can almost hear Moses announcing, "Ladies, listen up. If you grab a guy"s b.a.l.l.s, even in an effort to save your husband during a fight, you"re going to get shaved where the sun don"t shine. Got it? Now, moving on to stolen donkeys...." The offending woman"s public humiliation at having her pubic hair shaved matches the offended man"s shame at having some chick give him the knuckle-baller. It"s not "eye for an eye," but it"s pretty darn close. Walsh"s interpretation also resolves the problem of this being the only offense in the Bible for which physical mutilation is the penalty.
So we think the Bible may well command bikini waxing or at least pubic shaving-but as a punishment, not a beauty aid. My, how times have changed.
13.
Was Jael a Dominatrix?
ONE OF OUR FAVORITE T-shirts reads, OLD GUYS RULE. That was certainly true in ancient Israel. It was a patriarchal society (old guys ruled!), and genealogies were traced through male lines. That"s why most of the stories in the Bible (have you noticed?) are about men. Women usually appear in stereotypical "good" roles as wives and mothers (think June Cleaver, Harriet Nelson, or Edith Bunker if you"re into vintage TV like we are) or in "bad" roles as prost.i.tutes and temptresses (think Pamela Anderson. Okay, now stop thinking of Pamela Anderson). Women in the Bible are rarely portrayed as CEOs or political leaders, which is one reason why the Bible ain"t so popular with the Ms. magazine set.
But there are important exceptions in the Bible to "old guys rule." One of them is the story of Jael.1 You"ve probably never heard of Jael, but her story is remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, Jael and most of the people in the story except for the "bad guy" are women. It"s like a Hebrew version of Charlie"s Angels, and like Charlie"s Angels, these women stepped way outside of the stereotypical roles and proved to be courageous warriors.
Also, very remarkably, there are two versions of this story in the Bible, one written in prose2 and one written in poetry.3 The poem is one of the oldest in the Bible, meaning that this story was an ancient and highly regarded tradition in Israel. Apparently, G.o.d"s chosen people liked female action heroes as much as modern audiences do.
Jael"s Tale Jael"s brief, heroic story is set in the time of the judges, the national leaders who ruled Israel before there were kings. The judge at the time was a woman named Deborah. She was also a prophet. One day Deborah received a message from G.o.d for Barak, the commander of the Israelite army. G.o.d said to attack the Canaanites, who had subjugated Israel. But Barak, either because he was a ma.s.sive weenie or because he had such great confidence in Deborah"s leadership, refused to go to war unless she accompanied him. Deborah agreed to go with him but warned that as a result the enemy general, Sisera, would be killed by a woman.
Sure enough, G.o.d caused Sisera"s army to panic, and the Bible says that they were all killed except for Sisera, who fled on foot. He came to the tent of a woman named Jael, whom Sisera took to be a typical shrinking violet and not the femme fatale she proved to be. Jael invited him in to rest and gave him some milk to drink-the first step in her devious plan. Sisera, like a pleased kitty who"d been out all night, fell asleep. While he was sleeping, Jael took a tent peg and a hammer and drove the peg through his temple, killing him. Do we have to explain why we absolutely love this story?
There is even a postscript. After reporting his death, the final scene in the poem takes us back to Sisera"s palace. His mother was looking anxiously through the palace window and wondering aloud why he was taking so long to return. Her ladies-in-waiting rea.s.sured her that Sisera was simply enjoying the spoils of war (or, perhaps, some warm milk and a tent peg through the head-ha ha!). That detail about "spoils" implies that Sisera"s mother and her attendants thought Sisera was enjoying illicit battlefield s.e.x with the captive Israelite women and that he would bring home the women"s garments for his mother. They were right in one respect-Sisera was getting nailed, though not in the way they imagined.
If the Tent"s A-Rockin"...
Susan Niditch, a prominent Bible scholar who teaches at Amherst College in Ma.s.sachusetts, isn"t so sure that Sisera got pegged through the head. Niditch sees s.e.x everywhere she looks in this story.4 For example, she points out that Jael came to Sisera in secret (NRSV: "went softly").5 The expression "come to" (Hebrew ba el) occurs commonly in the Bible as an idiom for s.e.xual intercourse. The phrase "in secret" is also found in the story of Ruth in the scene at the threshing floor, another steamy Bible moment.6 But the main verse on which Niditch builds her case is Judges 5:27, which states that Sisera fell dead at Jael"s feet. This too has strong s.e.xual connotations. (When you"re a hammer, everything"s a nail, isn"t it?) Niditch points out that a more literal translation is that Sisera fell "between her legs." She further observes that in this same verse Sisera is described as "kneeling" or "bowing" (NRSV: "sank") and falling "between her legs," so that his posture was that of a would-be lover. This verse also says that Sisera "lay" at Jael"s feet. This is another well-known idiom for s.e.x in Hebrew as well as in English. Finally, Niditch notes that the last word in 5:27, translated "dead" in the NRSV, means "despoiled, devastated." She quotes Jeremiah, where the same word is used in a metaphorical description of Jerusalem as a woman who has been violated by her lovers.7 Niditch concludes that the language of the Jael story, especially in Judges 5:27, is deliberately ambivalent. It evokes both violent death and s.e.x at the same time. Niditch says that this combination of s.e.x and death is a common theme in battle epics and that the story of Jael makes sense in this light because, as women have long been aware, s.e.x can be a way of a.s.serting power.
Pegged Niditch"s observations about the double meanings in this story have a great deal to recommend them. In many ways-even some not noticed by Niditch-s.e.x and female-male relations appear subtly as themes in these two chapters. For instance, the first line of the poem alludes to the prominence of women in the story and perhaps in Israelite society at the time when it says, "When locks were long in Israel."8 That means the women, for once, were on top. The prose writer also amps up the s.e.xual tension by saying that Jael penetrated Sisera with a peg-a phallic weapon-thus reversing s.e.xual roles. This reversal of roles is exactly what Deborah had prophesied to Barak.