WHAT WAS THE NAME OF KING ABIJAH'S MOTHER? (I KINGS 15:2; II CHRONICLES 11:20; 13:2)

A skeptic's website points to an apparent genealogical contradiction regarding this question. Was the answer Michaiah, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah (II Chronicles 13:2) or Maachah daughter of Absalom (II Chronicles 11:20)? However, Absalom had only one daughter whose name was Tamar.

This conundrum has been well known to Bible scholars for approximately 2000 years, and there are three general approaches to solving the problem.

A. The Abishalom of I Kings 15:2 and II Chronicles 11:20 is not the same person as Absalom, the son of David.

“Although the name Abishalom is the same as Absalom..., and despite the fact that the two are rare names, there is no compelling reason for identifying the two persons.” (G.H. Jones)

Williamson notes that identifying the two as the same Absalom “is far from certain.”

Myers says that the choice is between options A and B. But regarding Option A, he explains, “Since no family connection is given, this appears to have been another Absalom.” This reading is also that of T.H. Jones, writing in the New Bible Commentary.

One practically insurmountable problem with the reference being to the son of David is brought up by C.G. Martin: “His mother's name [I Kings 15:2] is given as Maacah daughter of Abishalom. If this is Absalom, David's son, his daughter would be much older even than Rehoboam [her supposed husband].”

B. Micaiah/Maachah was in fact the granddaughter of Absalom, not his daughter.

“The use of daughter to fit the concept of granddaughter is a phenomenon not unknown in Hebrew. See the similar usage in Genesis 46:15, where the 'sons' of Leah includes grandsons.” (Kaiser) Or we could compare Jesus' genealogies in Matthew and Luke in which several generations are skipped over in order to make a particular theological point.

Concerning the view of some modern translations, Cogan notes that NEB translates “granddaughter of Abishalom” and NBJ reads “descendant of Absalom. “Accordingly, Maacah bore the name of her great-grandmother (cf. 2 Sam 3:3).” LaSor agrees with this assessment.

Ellison simply states, “Rehoboam's favorite wife was Maachah, or Michaiah (II Chron.13:2), the grand-daughter of Absalom (cf. v. 20 with 13:2).” By the way, there is virtually no difference between the two spellings in the original Hebrew text since it lacked vowels.

Thus, we may suppose that Tamar the daughter of Absalom married Uriel and that their daughter was named Maachah, an explanation going back as far as Josephus in his Antiquities viii.10.1.

C. There are two irreconcilable traditions at work here which cannot be harmonized.

This is the general stance taken by those who do not take the details of biblical history that seriously to begin with since they already assume the accounts will be filled with much later legends and traditions which cannot be trusted to convey the actual truth of the events. But even these skeptics may include a number of sincere believers who look primarily for the spiritual importance of the text and do not treat it as a mere attempt to convey historical data. Thus, Salvesen labels the name 'Micaiah' in II Chronicles 13:2 as a possible “attempt to harmonize the discrepancy with I Kings 15:2.”

D. We do not have enough information to go on to allow us to label this as a contradiction.

Williamson could be cited as an example of this approach to such problems: “With so little of the necessary information available it is more prudent simply to observe what is said without assuming that it must be irreconcilable or that it is necessary to harmonize.”

In a similar vein, Howard says, “In view of the complexity of the [royal] family tree with so many wives, concubines and children it is likely that there were a number of variant traditions and any solution can only be speculative.”

For example, “Maacah” appears in the OT History Books to apply to three different men and five different women, one of whom is actually Absalom's mother. (Beeching and Millard)

Note that options C and D represent two general stances regarding Scripture. The first (C) assumes a contradiction unless otherwise proved while Option D assumes there is no contradiction unless proved otherwise. This shows one of the basic differences between religious liberals and conservatives.

 

DEUTERONOMY 29: HIDDEN MESSAGES IN THE BIBLE

The last verse of this chapter says that the hidden (or secret) things of the LORD belong to Him. (For more on this verse, see my post “What are the 'Secret Things of God'?”) Therefore it is with a slight case of irony that I would like to demonstrate some “hidden” things in this very chapter.

But first, I should issue a warning that we should all be duly suspicious of anyone who claims to have discovered the hidden secret of how to understand the Bible. In almost all cases, it turns out to be a lot of hype and is easily refuted.

One example is the ancient Jewish practice of gematria based on the fact that Hebrew letters can also be used to represent numbers. This concept is more familiar to us through the example of Roman numerals, where the letters I, V, X, C, etc. indicate particular numerals as well. With that in mind, Jewish mystics made it a practice to first add up the numerical value of all the letters in a particular word or longer passage of Scripture. Then they would try to reconstruct another word or phrase which also totaled that same number. This was supposedly the hidden meaning of the text.

In more recent years, another rabbinical method found as early as the Middle Ages was resurrected called ELS. Those letters stand for Equidistant Letter Sequences. In this methodology, an extended text such as the whole Old Testament or a particular book of the Bible, especially Genesis, was reduced to a large string of letters. Then one would choose, for example, every other letter to construct an entirely different list of letters which could be searched to look for completely different words hidden in that text.

This methodology was revived in more recent years with the publishing of The Bible Code. The same method could also be used with every third letter, fourth letter, etc. to generate an almost endless number of long letter strings. Once one found a group of adjacent letters which appeared to be meaningful, such as JFK, one would then search within the same vicinity of the same matrix to see if any pertinent words showed up, such as Dallas, Oswald, kill, etc. Using this method on a number of historical personages and events, proponents were able to find some apparently miraculous examples of fulfilled “prophecies” and even extend the method to predicting yet future events.

There are a number of insurmountable problems with ELS which have been enumerated since the method became popular. Just a few include:

    1. The impossibility of starting with a biblical text which is free of possible textual errors. Keep in mind that even one letter out of place can disrupt the whole ELS method.

    2. There is the question of deciding whether to only use the original consonantal text or the standard 9^th century AD Hebrew text with vowel pointings included.

    3. Some proponents even use the KJV in place of the Hebrew text.

    4. There is no real standardization as to which Hebrew letters correspond to which English letters, and some letters can be used for more than one sound.

    5. There is no prior definition of what constitutes a “close vicinity” for any two related words.

    6. Many of the specific examples touted by proponents have been shown to rely on a little fudging to get their results.

    7. It relies on the old trick known to professional mind readers and magicians of not revealing in advance what answer you are looking for so that whatever you come up with can be interpreted after the fact as if it were a supernatural event.

    8. Statistical experts have demonstrated mathematically that the claimed results of ELS are no greater than one would expect from random occurrences with any other text of about the same size. Thus, critics have obtained similar results using a book such as Moby Dick instead.

    9. But to me the overwhelming problem with both gematria and ELS is that the “hidden messages” have absolutely no relationship to the original biblical text. They replace that text in importance rather than bringing out extra nuances in the text to help understand it.

There are one, or possibly two, possible exceptions to the caveat I just stated, and that involves the method of gematria. Thus, one both popular and scholarly view of the puzzling number of the beast in Revelation 13:18 is that 666 is a case of gematria in which the author purposely hid the identity of the beast by reducing it to numbers instead. And note that in this particular case the author gave a large hint that he was using some sort of code when he stated: “This calls for wisdom.” See my post “Book of Revelation: The Language” for various attempts to identify the beast using gematria.

So getting down to the subject at hand, I would like to zero in on Deuteronomy 29 to use it as an example of how “hidden” information can be found right in the biblical text using more acceptable principles of hermeneutics, and that this information is not extraneous to the text at hand but actually reinforces it.

The first point to determine is exactly where a given passage starts and ends. And here we run into controversy on both ends. Thus, the Hebrew numbering system, unlike the one in most of our English translations, considers Deuteronomy 29:1 as the end of chapter 28 instead. And there are those scholars today who argue that Deut. 29:29 should be rightly considered to be the introduction to chapter 30 instead of closing out chapter 29.

The second issue in understanding Deuteronomy 29 is how to divide it into separate paragraphs in order to better get a handle on the overall flow of the chapter. Levinson, for example, comes up with the following divisions: Introduction (v. 1), Review of Israel's History (vv. 2-9), and Penalty for Disobedience (vv. 10-29). But a more usual scholarly consensus (Cousins, Thompson, Mayes) recognizes three divisions: A.1-9, B.10-15, and C.16-29, with the last section sometimes broken into two smaller ones. So this is a second issue that needs clarification.

As a starting point, let us make two starting assumptions and see where that leads us: (1) that the three-fold division above is the correct one and (2) the present chapter divisions are correct. The usual place to begin looking for confirmation is to examine each of the openings and closings of the three sections for similarities. This is what one comes up with:

    Section A: As an inclusion [i.e. set of bookends] we can see the phrase “the words of the/this covenant” in verses 1 and 9.

    Section B: There is an inclusion formed from “You stand assembled today...before the LORD your God (v. 10)” and “You who stand here with us today before the LORD our God (v. 15).” Mayes even detects a chiasm (symmetrical organization around a midpoint) for verses 10-15. Whether or not this is correct, Levinson does feel that the repeated phrase “sworn by an oath” in verses 12 and 14 “frames the central idea [of the whole chapter], the binding relationship between God and Israel.”

    Section C: There is an approximate inclusion with allusions to idols in verses 17 and 26. In addition, the section begins much like the opening of Section A: “You have seen (vv. 2,17)” and “in the land of Egypt (vv. 2,16).” Also, the endings of both sections are similar: “observe the words of this covenant (v. 9)” and “observe all the words of this law (v. 29).”

So far, our reasoning appears to confirm that the present Chapter 29 is correctly separated as a distinct literary unit from the bracketing chapters. In addition, it seems to indicate that a three-fold division of the chapter is the best way to understand it. Thirdly, there appears to be a correspondence between the first and third sections, with the central point of the chapter located in the middle of Section B.

From this point, we can now start looking for the “hidden” information in the chapter for possible confirmation of the above and to lead us to a better understanding of the chapter as a whole.

The information I am talking about is coded in the key words and phrases in the chapter and involves numbers, but not in the sense of gematria. The only numbers of importance here are symbolic ones well recognized by biblical scholars for centuries: “three” standing for the Deity (as in the Trinity) and “four” representing the creation (as in the four corners of the earth or the four living creatures of Revelation).

By adding the two numbers together we get “seven” as the totality of the universe, symbolizing perfection or completion (as in the seven days of Creation or the many “sevens” that appear in the completing book of the Bible).

By multiplying the two numbers, representing God working through His creation or those who are specially chosen by God, we come up with the symbolic rationale for twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles.

So what does this have to do with hidden information in Deuteronomy 29? Let me explain.

There are several words and phrases which are repeated throughout this chapter, and as with many other discrete literary units in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament), they tend to appear exactly 7 or 12 times. Thus, “covenant” occurs seven times; there are seven time indications given in the chapter; the divine designation YAHWEH (often rendered as LORD in English translations) appears 12 times; and the phrase “LORD your/our God” is used 12 times.

What can we deduce from these statistics? The first point is that if you look at the text of Deuteronomy 29 carefully, you will note that these symbolically significant numbers are disrupted if one either considers v. 1 as belonging to the previous chapter and/or deletes v. 29 as being more properly considered as the beginning of Chapter 30. So we have another way of confirming the limits of the passage we are assuming to be a unity.

Just as important is the way the above key words and phrases are distributed within chapter 29:

    All the appearances of LORD alone appear in Sections A and C, none in B. This can be taken as additional information indicating that there is a general correspondence between the first and last sections of the chapter.

    There is another indication that Section B is a transition section of sorts in that “the LORD your God” appears only in A and B while “the LORD our God” is found only in B and C. And note that within Section B, Moses only includes himself in the phrase after he has stated in v. 14 that he is making the oath along with the rest of the people.

    But perhaps the most telling use of the above statistics concerns the seven time indicators within the chapter. All five of the usages of “today” appear in Section B where Moses directs the Israelites' attention to the importance of their actions at that present time as they consider what God expects of them in terms of His “covenant” (a word which is evenly divided in appearance between all three sections, indicating that it is an everlasting agreement) with them.

    Bracketing these occurrences of “today” are the reference to “up to this day” in Section A (v. 4) and “forever” in Section C (v. 29). So the conclusion is that we can now firmly propose the following structure for Deuteronomy 29. Notice that I have broken out verses 1 and 29 due to their similarities, but they can alternatively be considered as part of their adjacent sections.

                                         Figure 1: Organization of Deuteronomy 29

            I. Introduction (v. 1)

                        II. Past Blessing (vv. 1-9)

                                    III. Present Covenant (vv. 10-15)

                        II'. Future Curses (vv. 16-28)

            I'. Conclusion (v. 29)

Thus, we can now clearly see that the “covenant” between God and the Israelites is an eternal one (the word appearing in all three major sections) stretching back into the past (Section II), confirmed in the present (Section III) and stretching forward to the end of time (Section II'). And the purpose statement appears in the center of the center section at v. 13: “in order that he may establish you...as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors.”

 

MIRIAM: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

 Names were very important to those living in biblical times and often carry more information than meets the eye. For example, Miriam appears in the book of Exodus as Moses' older sister, and including their brother Aaron the three of them were the leaders of the Israelites as they fled from Egypt. But the origin of the name Miriam is shrouded in mystery.

Branch says that her name “perhaps means 'wish' or may come from the Egyptian word mr for love.” However, after her rebellion against Moses resulted in her temporarily contracting leprosy, “Miriam's name evidently became associated with punishment and leprosy (see Deuteronomy 24:9). Her name can also mean 'bitterness' for it resembles the Hebrew word for bitterness.” Smalley expresses his strong doubt that “love” or “beloved” is the proper etymology.

It turns out that words derived from mar (“bitter”) are found especially in the Pentateuch in passages such as Genesis 26:35; 37:34; Exodus 1:14; 12:8; 15:23,25; 23:21; Numbers 5:18-27; and Deuteronomy 32:24.

A short article in “Biblical Archaeology Today” (Fall 2023) also weighs in with additional information concerning the origin of the name: “The biblical Hebrew name likely combines the Egyptian verb mrj (to love) with the Semitic theophoric element yam (sea), possibly referencing the Canaanite sea god, Yamm. The particular verbal forms 'beloved' (passive participle) and 'loving' (active participle, albeit both without the feminine ending, t) produce the meanings 'Beloved of Yamm' and 'Lover of Yamm.” But it is also conceivable that the name Miryam comes solely from an Egyptian noun of agent mr 'the one who loves', reformulated into Northwest Semitic. A different etymology links the name to the identically spelled phrase 'their rebellion' (miryam) found in Nehemiah 9:12. In the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and the NT, the name is spelled Mariam and Maria.”

That brings us up to the New Testament, by which time the name Mary (or its variations just mentioned) had become more common, witness Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Smalley notes that for the latter personage, the manuscripts are divided between spelling it as Mariam or Maria.

Raymond Brown has the following to say on the subject: “Since Mariam is closer to Masoretic Heb. Miryam, some have proposed [in John 20:16] that John portrays Jesus as speaking to Mary 'in Hebrew' [i.e. in Aramaic]...The whole theory is dubious on a number of scores.” The two major problems are as follows:

    1. Mariam is probably to be read also in John 20:18, which is not a direct speech.

    2. The original Hebrew form in consonants only was Mrym. However, by the 1^st cent. AD Mryh also appears in inscriptions so that Maria might be “an informal designation for women named Maryam from the Aramaic rather than from the Hebrew Miryam.”

Returning back to the OT usage, the BAR article notes some hidden puns in the text: “The unvocalized written form of the name [i.e. containing no vowels] – which is how the Hebrew Bible circulated before vocalization marks were added in the ninth century CE – offers several interesting wordplays in the books of Exodus and Numbers, where during their desert wanderings the Israelites rebel against their leaders. In Numbers 20:10 some scholars see the prophet's name echoed in the word 'water' (mayim), while the word 'rebels' (morim”) and the name 'Miriam' appeared identical in the pre-Masoretic text. In Exodus 15:22-23, following Miriam's victory song, her name may echo in the words 'days' (yamim), 'water' (mayim), and Marah (marah), while the word 'bitter' (marim), again, looked identical in the unvocalized text.”

So you can see that where the Bible is concerned, often the answer to “What's in a name?” is “A lot.”

GENESIS 3:15

After cursing the snake in Genesis 3:14 by making him crawl on the ground, God then says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring (“seed”) and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

There have been two basic ways scholars have taken these words over the years, which can be summarized under two different titles, both rather scholarly words which need a little definition.

Etiology – the investigation or attribution of the cause or reason for something, often expressed in terms of historical or mythical explanation.

The very name of this first book in the Bible, Genesis or “beginning,” is an indication that one reason for its writing, especially the earlier chapters, is to explain the origin of the physical and spiritual world we experience today. Thus, in Genesis 1 we are given a stylized account of the creation of the physical world; the next chapter demonstrates the great love God had for humanity and the responsibility we were given to carefully tend what He had given us; and Genesis 3 shows how mankind failed miserably and rebelled against God's authority, resulting in expulsion from His presence and the perfect world He had intended for us.

Closer at hand to the verse in question, Genesis 3:14 appears to be an etiological explanation for why snakes slither on the ground to move. Interestingly, ancient Jewish seals picture snakes with sets of wings. Was the snake perhaps punished by having his wings removed? Alternatively and more likely, fossils from Australia have provided our first evidence that snakes had hind legs. It is interesting that in the description of the new heaven and new earth in Isaiah 65, it says that “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent – its food shall be dust!” Alternatively, the curse may have been a figurative one on Satan himself, stating that he would never rise in the world to the position he desired. Remember the passage in Revelation 12 where the dragon/serpent was thrown down to earth from the heights of heaven.

If we look at the other curses in Genesis 3:14-19, they can be viewed as explanations for other puzzling phenomena in our world today such as the hatred and fear of snakes by most women (15a), the increased pain during human childbirth compared to most other mammals (v. 16a), the eternal love-hate relations between the sexes (16b), the difficulty in growing food (17-19a), and eventual death (19b). Note the presence of the word “dust” at both the start and conclusion of these curses.

Protoevangelium – (1) another name for the apocryphal 2^nd century writing also called the Gospel of James; (2) an account which shows us that God always had the plan of salvation in mind, and informed us of His plan as soon as sin entered the world. It is only this second definition which is of interest to us here.

Genesis 3:15 is probably the first prophecy of the Savior coming as a human being; “offspring” can be singular or plural, but here it is singular, best translated by the word “he.” The Hebrew verb in this verse can mean crush or snap at according to context. So one way of translating these words to the snake is “He will crush your head and you will snap at his heel.” Satan may harass Christ, but Christ will conquer him. Many commentators take this to be the primary message of this verse:

    Ellison: This verse is the “germinal pronouncement of the gospel. The long conflict between those who are the children of God and the children of the evil one, which is one of the main themes of the OT, is here foretold. Not until the Virgin Birth could the full implication of the promise be understood (cf. Isa 7:14).”

    Kline: “Since this verse elaborates the declaration just made of Satan's doom, the point of the contrast between the wounding of head and heel is that the first is fatal, and the second is not. Clearly, however, the redemptive victory would involve suffering.”

    Beale: “The promise in Genesis 3:15 of the seed of the woman who would decisively defeat the serpent likely entails also an implicit reversal of his work that introduced death. It might not be unexpected that the reversal toward life might mirror the inaugurated and consummative aspect of the death.”

One point quite germane to understanding this verse entails a discussion of the grammar of the sentence. Thus, R.A. Martin observes that only in this verse, of the 103 times in Genesis where the Hebrew masculine pronoun is used, did the 3^rd century B.C. producers of the Greek Septuagint come up with a translation in which the pronoun “he” (masculine) did not agree in gender with that of the noun to which it was referring (“seed,” neuter).

From this observation, Kaiser concludes that “the divine intention deliberately wished to designate the collective notion which included a personal unity in a single person who was to obtain victory for the the whole group he represented.” This is why Eve, in Genesis 4:1, says mistakenly, “I have gotten a man, even the LORD” (not, according to Kaiser, “with the help of the LORD” as commonly translated).

Wenham's View – He critiques both of the above views. Concerning the etiological interpretation, Wenham states, “On the face of it, the saying looks like mere etiology. It is an explanation of why men try to kill snakes, and why snakes try to bite men...On the other hand, it must be remembered that this is a curse on the serpent, not on mankind, and something less than a draw would be expected...Once admitted that the serpent symbolizes sin, death, and the power of evil, it becomes much more likely that the curse envisages a long struggle between good and evil, with mankind eventually triumphing.”

In terms of the messianic view, he comments, “The NT also alludes to this passage, understanding it in a broadly messianic sense (Rom 16:20; Heb 2:14; Rev 12), and it may be that the term 'Son of Man' as a title for Jesus and the term 'woman' for Mary (John 2:4; 19:20) also reflects this passage...While a messianic interpretation may be justified in the light of subsequent revelation.., it would perhaps be wrong to suggest that this was the narrator's own understanding. Probably he just looked for mankind eventually to defeat the serpent's seed, the powers of evil.”

Conclusion

There are good reasons, as seen above, for rejecting the merely etiological viewpoint of this verse. So the weight of evidence, including the passage's understanding by early Christians and Jews alike, indicates a messianic interpretation instead. And although Wenham brings up the perennial question of whether or not the inspired authors of the OT truly understood all the implications of what they were saying and writing, note that he ignores the grammatical evidence pointing, even back in the OT text, to the fulfillment of this prophecy through a single man, not by humanity as a whole.

 

DESIRE AND MASTERY (GENESIS 3:16; 4:7)

Some commentators have pointed out the interesting conjunction of the rare Hebrew word teshuqah (“desire”) and mashal, meaning “to rule” in both Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 4:7. This points to a probably purposeful parallel the author is drawing between the sinful act of Adam and Eve and that of their son Cain. So let's consider both those stories, looking for other parallels between them:

Genesis 2-3                                                                 Genesis 4

Adam is to till and keep the garden (2:15)                   Cain was a tiller of the ground (4:2)

God warns against the tree of knowledge (2:16-17)     God warns Cain to do well (4:7a)

Serpent tempts Adam and Eve (3:1-5)                         Sin crouches like a lion for Cain (4:7b)

They eat of the fruit (3:6-7)                                          Cain kills Abel (4:8)

God: “Where are you?” (3:9)                                        God: “Where is your brother Abel?” (4:9a)

They deny responsibility (3:10-13)                              He denies responsibility (4:9b)

Adam punished with cursed ground (3:17-19)             Cain punished with cursed ground (4:10- 12a)

God's provision of garments (3:21)                              God's provision of a protective mark (4:15)

God's punishment is exile (3:22-24)                             God's punishment is exile (4:12b-14,16)

In this last parallel, one can point to the common phrase “drive me from” found in 3:24 and 4:14.

Regarding 3:1-5 // 4:7b, Kline notes that 'sin crouching at the door' is “in illustration of temptation's assault on Cain and recalling the serpent of Gn. 3.” In a similar vein, McKnight says, “The personification of sin and how it develops in order to master the human, as well as the insight into human nature, reminds the reader of the serpent and sin of the Fall.” And if Speiser's understanding is correct that the word translated “sin” instead refers to the name of an ancient demon, then the parallel between the two verses becomes even stronger.

Another parallel between the two accounts is found in 3:14 and 4:11, the only places where God actually uses the traditional formula “Cursed are you.” (Wenham)

The two stories may help in both directions in helping to understand them. Thus, Wenham notes that God's question in Genesis 3:9 has been taken to indicate God's ignorance of Adam and Eve's location. However, the parallel question in 4:9 is immediately followed by an indication that God knew the answer all along.

From the above correspondences, one can now propose that the sins of the parents and their oldest son may be even closer than first suspected. And so we are ready to tackle the meaning(s) behind the parallel verses 3:16b and 4:7b. The problem we begin with is that neither of these two passages is exactly crystal clear in itself. Thus, Heron states that “God's statement in 4:7 is notoriously untranslatable,” and Ellison proclaims, “The Heb. of v. 7 is difficult.” In marked contrast, Hamilton says, “Here is a case where the clear meaning of 4:7 illuminates a less clear meaning of 3:16,” and Wenham states his opinion that in Genesis 3:16, “it is more difficult to grasp the author's precise intention.”

Here is how the RSV translates these two verses in which God addresses Eve and Cain, respectively:

    “To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Gen. 3:16)

    “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Gen. 4:7)

The parallels between these two verses is not perfect, however. Thus, at this point Heron notes that the consequences of doing evil in 4:7 “do not have the same sort of unconditional negativity that one finds elsewhere [such as in Genesis 3:16]...It seems to be the expression of a divine hope for Cain that, unfortunately, will not be fulfilled.”

Similarly, Wenham points to other differences between the two verses and concludes: “Clearly then, though the writer of Genesis wants to highlight the parallels between the two stories, he does not regard the murder of Abel simply as a rerun of the fall. There is development: sin is more firmly entrenched and humanity is further alienated from God.”

“Will” or “Shall?”

One of the first interpretation barriers is whether to translate certain words in these passages as “shall” (indicating a punishment) or “will” (a mere prediction of fact). Translators and commentators are divided on that subject, as you can see below:

In commenting on 3:16, Ellison says that “rule over” is “not a command, as it is normally rendered; NIV is correct with 'he will rule.'” Kaiser agrees with this assessment.

For a contrary view, Foh says, “Therefore, just as Cain was instructed to rule over and master sin, so the husband must rule over his wife.”

Hamilton: “It is less clear whether God describes or prescribes these consequences. In other words, are these negative consequences engineered directly by God, or is God simply informing the woman the way it is to be from this moment on? Perhaps this question is inappropriate, for it may assume ways of thinking that are alien to the ancient Hebrew mind. That is, it is difficult to conceive of an ancient Israelite who did not attribute all phenomena in life to God. In God's second word to the woman one does hope that God is speaking descriptively and not prescriptively. For this consequence deals with a marriage relationship that will go askew: the woman shall desire her husband but he shall lord it over her.” Keep Hamilton's conclusion in mind as you read below since his view is not universally shared.

“Desire”

There is a similar disagreement regarding the exact meaning of the Hebrew word teshuqah. The problem is that it only appears three times in the Old Testament: the two Genesis passages in question and Song of Songs 7:10. Depending on whether one chooses either Genesis 4:7 or Song 7:10 as the appropriate parallel will have an effect on its meaning in 3:16. This has given rise to two different basic understandings of what “desire” refers to.

One standard way of taking the word in Genesis 3:16 is a reference to sexual desire, as we see in Song of Songs: “I am my beloved's and his desire is for me.”

Wenham says, “Women often allow themselves to be exploited in this way because of their urge toward their husband: their sexual appetite may sometimes make them submit to quite unreasonable male demands.”

Brauch feels that Eve's desire for Adam implies a sexual desire, to which L.A. Turner agrees.

For several reasons, I doubt that this is the best interpretation. In the first place, one could argue that it is just as likely for the man to be led into unfortunate associations due to sexual desires as for women. Also, it is a view which unfairly characterizes women as being swayed by emotion much more than by reason. And thirdly, it utilizes the Song of Songs passage in a quite diverse context rather than the much closer and appropriate parallel use of “desire” in Genesis 4:7.

The only way to salvage this view, in my mind, is to adopt the suggestion made by a few commentators that the primary reason for this sexual desire by women is in order to have children. We see this sort of desire throughout the Old Testament; just witness Eve's jubilance expressed in Gen. 4:1. That explanation would indeed fit well with the first part of 3:16 referring to childbirth.

In my mind, the alternative interpretation of “desire” makes much more sense. This is appropriately based on the demonstrably closer parallel between Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 4:7.

Foh argues that Eve will have the same type of “desire for her husband that sin has for Cain; a desire to possess or control him.” Wenham comments, “There is a logical simplicity about Foh's interpretation that makes it attractive, but given the rarity of the term 'urge', certainty is impossible.” But rarely is “certainty” possible; probability is all we can hope for here.

C.J. Collins also states that, “in parallel with 4:7, the desire is that to master.”

Hess: “In both cases the desire is one of authority, and the struggle is one of the wills that exists between people.”

Victor Hamilton has done a good job of summarizing this viewpoint: “What 4:7 describes is sin's attempt to control and dominate Cain. Because his offering has been rejected by God he is seething with anger. In such an emotional state he is easy prey for sin which crouches lionlike and wants to jump on him. Cain is to fight back, turn the tables, and dominate sin and its desire. Applied to 3:16, the desire of the woman for her husband is akin to the desire of sin that has poised ready to leap at Cain. It means a desire to break the relationship of equality and turn it into a relationship of servitude and domination. The sinful husband will try to be tyrant over his wife. Far from being a reign of co-equals over the remainder of God's creation, the relationship now becomes a fierce dispute, with each party trying to rule over the other. The two who once reigned as one attempt to rule each other.”

“Rule over”

If anything, there is even greater division of opinion regarding the implications of this phrase in Genesis 3:16, mainly as to whether it is something commanded and whether or not it is a desirable thing. Taking a negative stance toward the situation are the following two commentators, as well as those quoted above:

Carr: “The man's rule over the woman here is a tragic reflection of the original connectedness between them.”

Wenham: “It is...usually argues that 'rule' here represents harsh exploitive subjugation, which so often characterizes woman's lot in all sorts of societies...”

But C.J. Collins rejects the common view that Eve's “husband will dominate her. His reasoning is as follows: The word mashal does not usually have negative associations unless the context demands it...the 'ruling' [in Gen. 4:7] is not a punishment but the necessary remedy. If we apply this to 3:16, we conclude that God describes a condition of human marriages that is all too familiar, namely, competition for control. The proper remedy is a return to the creational pattern of the man's leadership – loving, not dominating.”

The problem with Collins' reasoning is that the direct context for 3:16 does describe the various negative consequences resulting from the Fall, neither the remedy nor the original “creational pattern.” It appears as if he has thrown hermeneutical principles out the window in order to support his view of male headship in marriage.

As Atkinson says regarding 3:16, it is “hard to see how discussions of 'male headship' as an 'ordinance of creation' can be sustained by a appeal to this chapter. This chapter describes how things should not be; this is the broken world.” And Hess pointedly adds, “It is no more sinful to reject and seek to overturn it than it is to use weed killer in light of Genesis 3:18.”

And the way to overturn a divided marriage in which the two parties fight for control is not necessarily for the male to be the head of the family since the “creational pattern” was joint leadership. This is where the model of Genesis 4:7 breaks down in when taken too far in explaining Genesis 3:16. The struggle between good and evil is an eternal one in which God's will is that good must win, whereas the relationships between husband and wife were never intended to be in such eternal conflict.

 

IN THE WILDERNESS (EXODUS 11-18)

                                                       In the Wilderness (collage, 1989)

 

 Exodus 11-18 is a little difficult to fit into a neat literary scheme, and part of its structure has to be deduced by a process of elimination from the other symmetrical organizations found within Exodus. The overall theme of this section is easy to comprehend; of the seven occasions of Israel's rebellion against God identified by the Talmud, five appear in this section. (Ashley)

Fokkelman offers a detailed breakdown of the crises in this section comprising Exodus 15:22-18:25:

                a. Crisis of water (15:22-27)

    b. Crisis of food (ch. 16)

                c. Crisis of water (17:1-7)

                d. Crisis of war (17:8-16)

                e. Crisis of leadership (ch. 18)

From what has already been seen in terms of other biblical organizations, units (a) and (c) look to be suspiciously parallel to one another. Not only do they both involve Yahweh's provision of water for the people, but in both passages “Moses cried to the LORD” and the LORD “proved” the people. Working outward from this point, we should naturally search earlier in the book for a possible parallel to Unit d. In fact, the major story preceding this section is the encounter with the Egyptians at the Re(e)d Sea. That story has in common with 17:8-16 (a) the only two appearances of the archaic Yah as a divine name in the book and (b) the use of Aaron's lifted rod by Moses to supernaturally defeat an enemy.

That leaves, by logical extension, the Passover episode as a possible parallel to Unit e. Both of these passages involve a combination of narrative and legislative material. In addition, there is a correspondence of sorts in that the first born of Israel are preserved in the Passover story while Moses' first born is restored to him in ch. 18. So the final form of this section is proposed to be that shown below. This literary structure may provide an explanation as to why the events of Exodus 17:8-18:27 are given in that location rather than where they should appear chronologically, according to both Propp and Durham.

Figure 1: The Organization of Exodus 11-18

A. Passover narrative and regulations (11:1-13:16)

B. Crisis of war (13:17-15:21)

C. Crisis of water (15:22-27)

D. Crisis of food (ch. 16)

C'. Crisis of water (17:1-7)

B'. Crisis of war (17:8-16)

A'. Teaching the statutes and judging the people (ch. 18)

Hunt perceptively notes that perhaps God does not punish the people for their murmuring/grumbling described in sections C-D-C' since (a) these instances involved basic human needs and (b) occurred before the Sinai Covenant.

 

CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN SAMUEL-KINGS AND CHRONICLES

Here are two apparent contradictions that can be seen by comparing parallel historical accounts in the combined books of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. As with many such “problems” with the Bible you will find on the internet, they involve numbers (which are notoriously hard for scribes to copy accurately from generation to generation) and discrepancies in chronology.

Did the first attempt to move the ark to Jerusalem occur before (I Chronicles 13) or after (II Samuel 6:1-11) defeating the Philistines?

In posing this chronological quandary the skeptic who proposed it is naively assuming that all historical accounts are written with the events narrated in strictly in the order in which they occurred. But that is not even true of modern secular histories, much less biblical accounts which are written primarily for the theological lessons they can convey.

In fact, one can point to examples throughout the OT and NT where events are told in a literary or topical order instead. Just look at the last chapters of Judges, which all scholars agree should have been placed toward the start of the book instead if chronology were all that mattered. Or consider the way Luke has the tendency to group Jesus' sayings together according to similar topics.

With that in mind, we can approach the above question, quoting the opinions of five different scholars who explain in slightly different words what the respective biblical authors have accomplished by the different ways in which they present the historical material.

Myers: In discussing I Chronicles, he notes, “The most striking feature of the story is that the attempted removal of the ark to the place where David was (vs. 12) was a religious matter and not a semi-military ceremony as in Samuel. Moreover, Yahweh was invoked too. Because it seemed right in the sight of all, the venture was made so as to remedy the defeat in Saul's attitude toward the ark...That is why the passage stands before the Philistine raids here whereas it follows them in Samuel. It must be remembered that the Chronicler's story is primarily religious and he arranges his material accordingly.”

Then if we look at the account that follows the moving of the ark, we can see a second reason for the way the material is arranged. “On closer inspection of the material itself it is obvious that...his purpose...was rather to show further how Yahweh was with David in his undertaking as shown by the progress on his building enterprises, the expansion of this family and his defeat of the Philistines and so partially offsets the disconcerting failure to deal with the ark.”

Ellison on I Chronicles 13:1-17:27: “This section represents 2 Sa. 6:11-7:29 with considerable additions of a religious nature. In order to enhance the importance of David's dealings with the ark, the Chronicler has presumably put the first attempt to bring it to Jerusalem out of its proper chronological position as shown in 2 Samuel.”

Williamson: “In the earlier history, the whole account is given in one continuous chapter (2 Sam 6)...The Chronicler, however, has divided this account between chs 13 and 15-16..by its new position,..., as well as some light editorial touches, this itself now contributes in a fresh way to the development of the Chronicler's main concerns.”

He explains what he means by saying that “the various blessings which this chapter describes are, because of their new position, to be seen as a result of seeking the ark; consequently, the chapter shows in a number of details a reversal of the 'exilic' situation described in the account of Saul's death (ch. 10)...We may observe further the emphasis is placed on this theme of blessing at the opening and close of the chapter (cf. 2 and 17), indicating that this is the correct approach to its interpretation.”

Thus, in I Chronicles 14:2 the author has added “highly” to the wording in II Samuel 5:2 (David's kingdom was highly exalted) and appended v. 17 regarding David's fame, not found in II Samuel 5.

Howard: “The material here [I Chronicles] follows a different order from Sam., but almost certainly neither is in chronological order in respect of David's reign...The point of the Chronicler in recording the events here, however, is clear. He wished to show that God was with David in his enterprise in spite of the set-back over the ark.”

Eskenazi: “Even when Samuel was still venerated as an unbiased history, Chronicles was already read as if its particular literary constructs express its own theological and historical preoccupations.”

“In the case of historiographic material, such as Chronicles, a literary analysis neither proves nor disproves the historicity of Chronicles. The literary analysis rather explores what the text says by looking at how it says it. Placing the battles with the Philistines after the initial attempts to bring the ark toward its destination allows Chronicles to link the ark more firmly to the dialogue between David and God. Twice in the battles against the Philistines David consults with God and receives direct answers. Indeed these are the only semblance of dialogue in the ark narrative of chaps. 13-16. Chronicles implies that the proximity of the ark facilitates such communication between David and God.”

You can see from the above that although the scholars may differ a little in their specific explanations, they all agree that the basically chronological account of II Samuel has taken on new theological significance by the way the Chronicler re-ordered his material.

There is, however, yet another approach, that of literary structure, which may alone account for the order of these two narratives or work in conjunction with the theological rationales mentioned above. This is illustrated in the two proposed symmetrical organizations given below:

           Figure 1: Organization of I Chronicles 11-20

A. Warriors and Battles (chs.11-12)

B. The Ark is Moved (ch.13)

                                                C. David's House Established (ch.14)

B'. The Ark is Moved (chs.15-16)

C'. David's House Established (ch.17)

A'. Warriors and Battles (chs.18-20)

                Figure 2: Organization of II Samuel 5-8

                A. Various battles (II Sam. 5)

                        B. God's House (II Sam. 6)

                                1. The ark carried in (6:1-4)

                                        2. Joyful response (6:5) 

                                                 3. Inappropriate response (6:6-10a)

                                                        4. Obededom’s house blessed (6:9-11)

                                1'. The ark carried in (6:12-13)

                                        2'. Joyful response (6:14-15a)

                                                3'. Inappropriate response (6:15b)

                                                        4'. David's house not blessed (6:20-23)

                          B'. David's House (II Sam. 7)

                A'. Various battles (II Sam. 8)

In what year of King Asa's reign did Baasha, King of Israel die? (a) 26^th year (I Kings 15:33-16:8) or (b) he was still alive in the 36^th year (II Chronicles 16:1).

Williamson explains in some depth that the Chronicler elsewhere changes the chronology systematically so as to locate punishments of kings to follow directly after their time of disobedience and delays punishments or deaths as the reward for the obedience of kings.

As to the specific mention of “36th year” in II Chronicles 16:1, it is proposed that “in the reign of king Asa” was a later scribal addition to an original text which was referring to the 36^th year of the Divided Monarchy instead.

Ellison calls Williamson's explanation “more plausible than convincing,” while Howard labels it as “more ingenious than convincing.” Howard, however, notes that the famous archeologist William Albright has found evidence from an inscription on a commemoration stele dating to the reign of Ben-Hadad from a slightly later period indicating the possible accuracy of the II Chronicles chronology over the account in I Kings. In that case, it would appear that the phrase “26^th year” there could have been a simple scribal error in copying “36th” instead. As I have explained elsewhere, such accidental errors are much more likely to have crept into the Bible with the transmission of numbers than with words, and in any case are rarely of any importance in affecting our overall understanding the text.

 

THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT (EXODUS 7-10)

                                                 The Plagues of Egypt (collage,1989)

 

 One way of approaching any portion of biblical history is to first consider the historical and geographical background. Next, one should concentrate on the actions of all the leading characters in the narrative, including God Himself. When we take this approach to the story of the plagues of Egypt, here is what we come up with.

Background of the Story

Many commentators have noted that all of the first nine plagues are known to occur in the land of Egypt at one time or another naturally and they even form a logical progression in which each disaster leads naturally to the next. High rainfall in the Nile headlands brings down masses of fine-grained red clay and and toxic algae which kills the fish; this drives frogs infected by dead fish on to the shore where they infect the vegetation; the receding flood leaves behind pools of water which breed mosquitoes and flies which spread disease; the cattle contract anthrax ingested from infected pastures while the boils on people and beasts come from infectious bites from the flies. Then in spring, massive hail ruins the early crops followed by locust that strip the later crops. By March, in dryer weather, strong dust-laden winds start blowing, which darken the skies.

Now, of course, all of the details of the account in Exodus can't be explained that way, but for the most part these can be looked at as natural events common in Egypt where the most supernatural element is in their precise timing and location – generally not affecting the part of Egypt where the Jews lived.

God's Actions

The first thing to point out is that there is also a spiritual rationale for these plagues since each one targets a deity worshiped by the Egyptians. God turns each of these deities against the Egyptians.

The last plague of the first-born dying, of course, can't be explained by merely naturalistic means, although some scholars have actually attempted it. However, even this Tenth Plague can be seen as part of a consistent pattern of God's actions starting with God killing an animal to use its skin to clothe Adam and Eve after they sinned; God providing a sheep for Abraham to slaughter in place of his son Isaac; the need for the first-born of the Egyptians to die in order to free the Jews; the necessity of the Jews to sacrifice a lamb so that their firstborn wouldn't be affected; the first-born of Israel being ransomed by animal sacrifices; the various animal sacrifices required in Leviticus; and finally the necessity of God's own first-born, Jesus – the lamb of the world – to die in our place in order to ransom us from the penalty of death.

One major problem seems to have been caused by the structural divisions made so far; the tenth plague is severed from the other nine. This is, however, not as big a difficulty as might at first appear and is the accepted analysis of Childs and others. The account of the tenth plague is set apart from the others not only by its length, but also by its inclusion of much legislative material and the fact that it does not as easily lend itself to a naturalistic explanation. Also, it has been noted by Gordon that the first nine plagues, from a literary perspective, actually form three cycles of three:

Figure 1: Exodus 7:14-10:29

                        Cycle A: 1. blood (7:14-24)

2. frogs (7:25-8:15)

3. gnats (8:16-19)

Cycle B: 1. flies (8:20-32)

2. plague on the cattle (9:1-7)

3. boils (9:8-12)

Cycle C: 1. hail (9:13-35)

2. locust (10:1-20)

3. darkness (10:21-29)

Such an organization can be viewed as another piece of evidence for God's orderly actions behind the scenes.

Moses' and Aaron's Actions

There is a similar pattern behind these two men's actions in the way they confront Pharaoh since each of the three cycles includes the following elements:

Plagues “1”: announced in the morning by the riverside using identical wording

            Plagues “2”: announced in the Pharaoh's palace using identical wording

            Plagues “3”: given without any prior warning, symbolic gesture employed

There is, however, a progression as one moves from one cycle to the next:

Cycle A: Egyptian magicians compete with Moses

            Cycles B and C: clear distinction made between Hebrews and Egyptians

Also:

Cycle A: rod of Aaron employed

            Cycle B: no rod mentioned

            Cycle C: rod or hand of Moses mentioned

It is interesting to note in passing that the word “Hebrew” appears at the beginning of four plague accounts: the first of Cycle A, the second of Cycle B, and the first and second of Cycle C.

Pharaoh's Actions

The repeated motif concerning Pharaoh in this narrative is seen in the variations on the theme of his hardness of heart. If one reads them in chronological order, God starts out in 4:21 by saying “I will harden.” This appears to be an absolute statement, but (a) “if” clauses are sometimes missing in OT prophecies even though the prophecy is conditional upon man's reactions; (b) foreknowledge by God of future events is not really the same as predestination; and (c) it doesn't state when God is going to do it.

The next instances of hardening in the Exodus passage either say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart or that his heart was hardened (leaving the question open as to who caused it). Then we at last get to the point where God is definitely stated as the “hardener.” But even after that time, the text states, “Pharaoh sinned yet again and hardened his heart.” So we can conclude that he still had a measure of free will even at that point and could have repented if he wanted to.

 

HOW MANY YEARS OF FAMINE WAS DAVID THREATENED WITH? (II SAMUEL 24:13; I CHRONICLES 21:12)

I just ran into another interesting source on the internet criticizing the Bible. It contains a post titled “101 Contradictions in the Bible.” Many of these have been addressed in some of my earlier blogs, But I ran into some new ones here that I will be responding to in the future. Today, I would like to concentrate on its Contradiction #4: God sent his prophet to threaten David with how many years of famine? II Samuel 24:13 says “seven” while the parallel passage in I Chronicles 21:12 has “three” instead. I enjoy queries such as this one because they bring out some important points one should realize when reading the Bible.

The passage in question reads roughly as follows: “So the prophet Gad visited David and told him, 'The LORD offers three things for you to choose between as punishment: three [seven in I Chronicles] years of famine on the land, three months of fleeing before your enemies, or three days of pestilence. Consider and decide what answer I shall relay to God.'”

First, let me make two general comments regarding suspected numerical errors in the Bible. The most important thing to note is that virtually none of these errors or contradictions is of any real significance to our understanding of God or his will for our life, or even for understanding the meaning of the particular passages in question.

Secondly, there are likely to be many more accidental errors in the transmission of numerical information over the years than with repeated copying of words. This is due to the concept of redundancy in language. We can usually understand what a sentence means even if it is filled with grammatical errors, poor punctuation, missing words and transposed letters. Why? Because there is built-in redundancy to words in any language. Words contain a lot more information than we really need. And if all else fails, we can guess at the author's meaning from the context in which a given dubious word appears. But, for example, what if in the course of generations of copying and recopying a text, the number 717 is mistaken for 771 by a scribe? Without any real manuscript evidence, there will be no way to recapture the original number. For more on this subject, see my post “Mathematical Objections to the Bible.”

This second principle, however, usually applies to larger numbers in the Bible, not smaller ones such as 3 and 7. Here it is more doubtful that accidental errors are at play to cause the difference in reading between these two parallel accounts. Since the main uncertainty concerns the II Samuel passage, let us concentrate on it, looking first at what translations and other respected sources have to say.

Arguments in favor of “seven years” in II Samuel 24:13 are as follows:

    1. The number “seven” in 2 Samuel 24:13 is present in all the known Hebrew manuscripts, and therefore it is chosen by the KJV and Living Bible, for example.

    2. In addition, the ancient commentator Josephus (Antiquities, 7.13.2) opted for “seven.”

    3. A second approach might be to look at any possible preferences in wording elsewhere that the respective authors of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles might have had that would influence which particular time period they used in these parallel passages. But here we run into conflicting data which gets us nowhere since Samuel-Kings shows a propensity to utilize both the phrases “three years” and “seven years” much more often than either time period appears in I-II Chronicles.

    4. Textual critics are quick to point out that often it is the most difficult reading that is to be preferred. The reason is that a scribe is not going to be inclined to alter a smooth reading (with three time periods defined by “three”) into a more awkward one (7-3-3) without very good reason, whereas the temptation to do the opposite is much more likely. So if purposeful alterations are at work here, one should actually be more suspicious of the I Chronicles wording, assuming this principle is at work.

Countering the above are those arguments for “three years” in II Samuel 24:13:

    1. Most modern English translations go with “three,” which is the reading in the Greek Septuagint instead and is also in agreement with I Chronicles 21:21 (see RSV, NEB, NRSV, TEV, NIV, JB, AB). So this majority view merely states that the Septuagint must have retained the original meaning whereas the Hebrew text became corrupted somewhere during the process of transmission over the years. This view is, of course, devoid of any real concrete manuscript proof that I Chronicles has the more accurate reading.

    2. A literary approach might get us somewhere if we look at the verse as a whole. From that viewpoint, it would seem highly unlikely that we would encounter three options for punishment with time periods of, respectively, “seven-three-three.” A much more likely and smoother series would have “three” in all three options.

    3. One might next take a more historical approach and investigate the duration of other famines occurring during biblical times in biblical regions to see which time period is the most likely. But this again causes us to run into a brick wall since the Egyptian famine during Joseph's time lasted seven years while two other famines occurring in Samuel-Kings lasted only three years (see II Samuel 21:1 and I Kings 18:1).

But if we ignore the Egyptian famine since it occurred during another time period and in another land, we are left with a situation in which “three years” appears to be the most likely historical duration for the II Samuel 24:13 famine also. Tsumura makes the same deduction and additionally points to the three-year famines mentioned in II Kings 19:29 and Isaiah 37:30. Besides, he says, “Probably even two years of famine would cause real suffering.”

    4. Then there is the logical approach which reasons that God was likely to have presented David with three choices of punishment which were somewhat comparable in terms of lives lost. Hertzberg and others point to the obvious fact that “the shortening of the duration...corresponds with an intensification of their content. Myers speaks to this issue: “The choice...was equally severe, three days of pestilence being about equivalent to three years of famine...as the number of unfortunate victims indicates.”

Another way of viewing the three choices has been mentioned by some scholars: God presents two options to David which he had already encountered in his life – a time of fleeing from his enemies (time unknown) and precisely three years of famine earlier (II Samuel 21:1). David does not want to undergo either of those disasters again and so he throws his fate and the fate of the people into God's hands (God was widely felt to be behind pestilences, as in the plagues of Egypt).

Solution: Both Are Correct

Thus, there are equally strong arguments for either three or seven years in II Samuel 24:13. It appears that the critic I quoted to start this discussion may be correct in labeling this a true biblical contradiction. But, in fact, we don't have to make a choice between options the way David did. The reason is that both “7” in II Samuel 24 and “3” in I Chronicles 21 can both be correct at the same time, as Tsumura hints in his comment: “It seems that while the Books of Samuel reflect the epic style that adopts the perfect number 'seven' to describe a severe famine (cf. Gen 4:1), the Chronicler is more realistic in describing the length of famines in general.”

To paraphrase his words, when II Samuel 24 speaks of “seven years of famine,” it is using “seven” in its known figurative meaning of “completion” or “a complete and perfectly fitting punishment.” By contrast, the Chronicler expresses the time of famine in literal language.

Let me elaborate on this possibility by pointing to two additional Old Testament passages:

    “If thieves are caught they will pay sevenfold;

    they will forfeit all the good of their house.” (Proverbs 6:31)

This form of Hebrew poetry is called Symbolic Parallelism, meaning that the two lines express exactly the same idea, however in one of the lines it is given literally (line 2 in this case) while in the other (line 1 in this case) it is expressed using figurative language. In fact, the actual punishment for a thief was literally fourfold restitution of property (Exodus 22:1), not seven-fold.

With that in mind, we can now turn to another statement of punishment involving David, this one found in II Samuel 12. After Nathan describes the fictional case of a rich man taking a poor man's only pet lamb from him (alluding to David taking Bathsheba away from her husband), David becomes enraged and proclaims in verses 5-6, “The man who did this thing deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold...”

This reading fits with the literal punishment outlined in Exodus 22:1. However, the textual evidence in the Hebrew manuscripts is mixed, with some reading “seven” instead. Translations such as RSV and NRSV read “fourfold” while AB chooses “sevenfold.” Apparently some scribes felt that complete punishment, including death for the offending party, was better expressed by the figurative number “seven” than with the literal “four,” as specified elsewhere.

So here we have an almost perfect analogue between the case at hand and this earlier one:

    1. Both involve punishments to be meted out on David for his sin.

    2. In each case, it is David himself who determines the appropriate punishment.

    3. There is mixed manuscript evidence between “7” and a lower number (“3” or “4”). In the case of II Samuel 24:13 it is caused by the differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts of the verse. In the case of II Samuel 12:5-6, the differences between the two options appear in different Hebrew manuscripts of the same passage.

    4. In each case, there is another pertinent passage of Scripture which would appear to support the lower number. For II Samuel 24:13 it is the parallel passage in I Chronicles 21:12. For II Samuel 12:5-6 it is specified in the legal section of the Pentateuch at Exodus 22:1.