Further Studies in the Five Books of Moses

By Dr. Martin Sicker

The eight studies in this volume focus on additional aspects of the narratives in the Five Books of Moses that have frequently been glossed over by commentators, ancient and modern, and remain contentious to this very day. These studies address subjects such as the primal mission of man in the creation narrative, the ‘covenant between the pieces,’ the symbolism of circumcision, the story of Jacob and his four wives, and the rape of Dinah, as depicted in the book of Genesis; the story of the exodus from Egypt as related in the book of Exodus; the reason for the premature death of the sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, and the reason for the dietary laws, as set forth in the book of Leviticus. Although these studies do not claim to resolve the issues they examine, it is their purpose to stimulate further interest in the complexities of the ancient biblical narratives and the hidden insights about human nature they provide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664179189

Dr. Martin Sicker

Dr. Martin Sicker is a writer and lecturer on the Middle Eastern geopolitical and cultural history, with a special focus on Jewish history and religion. He is the author of 62 previous books on these subjects as well as on geopolitics, political theory, and political economy.

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Contents

1.   Mankind’s Primal Mission

2.   Covenant between the Pieces

3.   The Symbolism of Circumcision

4.   Jacob and his Wives

5.   The Rape of Dinah

6.   The Deaths of Nadav and Avihu

7.   The Dietary Laws

References

Notes

Mankind’s Primal Mission

1

Mankind’s Primal Mission

And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (1:26).

Of special interest for purposes of this study is the divine assertion in the Hebrew text, veyirdu . . .vekhol haaretz, translated as let them have dominion . . . over all the earth. The word veyirdu, derives from the verb radah, meaning ‘to ‘subdue’ ‘subjugate’ or ‘dominate.’ It has been observed that in most contexts in which it occurs it seems to suggest an absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery.¹ In the present context it has been suggested that it means bringing something out of its free independence into your power, making it subservient to you . . . in certain respects. This is the position Man is to have towards all other living creatures on earth. He has not been given the mission to make them all, and indeed not entirely, subservient to him. The earth and its creatures may have other relationships, of which we are ignorant, in which they serve their own purpose. But Man has been given the position . . . to exercise his mastery over living creatures, and on the earth itself, to bring some of them out of their free independence under his hand for the fulfilment of his human calling.²

It has been pointed out that the charge to let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air posits a great challenge to humankind because the sea and the air are alien environments for them. Man can only impose his dominion over those creatures through great cunning since the fish are not on land within one’s grasp, and it is not in man’s nature to fly like the birds. Accordingly, man can impose his will on them only through deception and the instruments he fashion’s with his hands that enable him to penetrate their environments. It is because of the difficulties in imposing domination over them that they are listed first, to indicate that man can more readily dominate every creature that shares the land with him.³

However, it has been argued that the coercive power accorded to man here and again in (1:28) cannot include the license to exploit nature banefully, for the following reasons: the human race is not inherently sovereign, but enjoys its dominion solely by the grace of God. Moreover, at this stage man is conceived as functioning within the context of a ‘very good’ world [Gen. 1:31] in which the interrelationships of organisms with their environment and with each other are entirely harmonious and mutually beneficial.⁴ Having decided on the most fundamental human mission, God then directly addresses and instructs the first man and woman. The transcendent God of creation transforms Himself into the immanent God, the personal God, who enters into unmediated communion with human beings.⁵

And God blessed them; and God said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth(1:28).

Upon reflection, these passages, among the several important messages that they contain, also exemplify the biblical concept of human free will and therefore mankind’s moral autonomy. This may be seen reflected in the initial unspecified blessing given to man, And God blessed them, followed by the directive, And God said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth. It has been pointed out that a distinction is made between the blessing given to man here and that previously given to marine life. With regard to the latter, it states: And God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful, and multiply (1:22). The latter text uses the term lemor, translated as saying, but denoting only an act of will; God willed the animal to be fruitful. It has been suggested that terms such as va-yomer, ‘and He said,’ are "used in the Bible to indicate the creative act of God which is identical with His will. Va-yomer Elokim yehi or, and God said ‘Let there be light’(Gen. 1:3). Va-yomer does not refer to speech; God could not have spoken to the void of nihility (nothingness). The same is true of the lemor when He created the animal."⁶

By contrast, with regard to man it states: And God blessed them; and God said unto them: Be fruitful and multiply. In the case of the marine creatures, the blessing is explicit and dispositive, namely that they will be fruitful and multiply. They are not told to do anything to fulfil that blessing; there is no volitional aspect involved in the matter. As part of the normal course of their nature, instinct will assure that it takes place. However, with regard to man the approach taken is quite different. "In the blessing conferred on man, the Pentateuch employs a new term ‘va-yomer lahem, and He told them’; the grammatical dative appears for the first time in the story of creation. This term sheds a new light upon man’s position in the universe. While the blessing denotes the implanting of an inner tropism in man’s tensions and insistences under whose impact he is driven to do something, [in combination with va-yomer lahem] implies already both biological pressure translatable into motion, by virtue of which accumulated energies are being discharged, and the awakening of the personality, of an I-awareness within natural man . . . Man is forced not only by an organic push but by a new sort of pressure to act in a certain way. In this terse address the ought was born and, with the emergence of the imperative, the birth of a new personality, the ethico-religious, was announced."⁷

For man, the propagation of the species is volitional, it will not happen unless man chooses to do so. Because man is created with free will, the blessing in the form given to the fish will not serve its purpose. In human beings, the blessing, i.e. the granting of the power and ability, is separated from the fulfilment i.e. from using this power and ability for the purposes for which God intended them . . . That which in animals is a purely physical act becomes in Man a free-willed moral act.⁸

Because the propagation of the species among humans is volitional, custom and tradition have promulgated a large number of rules regarding the propagation process. In this regard, it has been observed that all the laws regarding the relations between husband and wife involve important points of Jewish practice and highly significant obligations . . . This is alluded to when the Torah states, ‘Be fruitful and multiply . . . and dominate the fish of the sea.’ One might logically ask what connection fish have to this commandment. But if a husband and wife carefully keep all of these rules, they are considered to be fulfilling the commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ . . . If they do not keep these rules, they are no better than a fish spawning out of blind instinct and cannot be considered to be fulfilling any commandment.⁹

It is noteworthy that the sages of the Talmud engaged in a somewhat heated and inconclusive debate over the meaning and significance of the text under discussion here. According to one view, the text clearly indicates that because the phrase pru urvu, is stated in plural form, both men and women are commanded: Be fruitful and multiply, a command with which they must choose to comply in order for the blessing, which is attested to by the statement And God blessed them, to take effect. In other words, procreation is the moral responsibility of both men and women. However, other sages noted the later biblical text that states, in the story of Jacob’s dream, And God said unto him: I am God Almighty. Prei urvei, stated in singular form, or Be fruitful and multiply (35:11), which they interpreted as indicating that the responsibility for carrying out the divine command rested on the man and not on the woman.¹⁰

In this regard, a modern commentator has argued that "the mission of pru urvu, propagation, is given to both sexes, for united cooperation of both sexes is equally essential. Nevertheless, it implementation is essentially dependent upon the possession of the means as implied in the word vekivshuhah—the transforming of the earth and its products for human purposes. It is primarily the male’s function to force the earth to yield them, and as the Talmud notes from the defective spelling of vekivshuhah [which can be read as first-person singular], the duty of marrying and establishing a home is given directly and unconditionally to the man."¹¹

It also has been suggested that the imperative, Be fruitful and multiply, was necessary lest man conclude that because he was created ‘in the image of God,’ he might become so engrossed in the spiritual and intellectual implications of that concept that he might neglect the physical aspect of his role and fail to carry out his assigned mission in the divine scheme.¹² The essence of the unspecified blessing, therefore, may be assumed to be that if they should comply with the divine command, as a general proposition they will be fruitful and successful in populating the earth.¹³ It also has been proposed that the need for a command to propagate is a consequence of man as a species having the lowest birthrate on earth. What then is the purpose of the unspecified blessing? God’s blessing to him was peace: that no other living creature should threaten him. Rather, he ‘rules over them.’ . . . By this blessing, then, does mankind endure in the world, even with its low birthrate.¹⁴

However, it might appear that the command to be fruitful and multiply is redundant since ‘being fruitful’ clearly seems to imply ‘multiplication.’ Accordingly it has been suggested that multiply implies the need for being ‘fruitful’ within the context of ‘family’ because the mere physical increase of the human race presupposes something more than just begetting children. More so than in the case of many species of animals whose survival is assured by care for the young, a human child would have no chance of survival at all were it not cared for by its parents [at least until modern times] right from birth and its bodily preservation and development furthered by this parental care. Not the birth, the aftercare is the real factor of increase of the human race.¹⁵

It is important to note that in addition to the command to be fruitful and multiply, man is instructed to fill the earth. That is, man is not only to propagate the human race but is also to disperse it throughout the world. The carrying out of man’s mission on earth is not attached to any particular zone or climate, and cannot be affected by any special conditions brought about by the influence of any land or climate . . . Everywhere, under every climatic and topographic influence, and with every variety of life brought about thereby, the great mission of life can be carried out.¹⁶ It has been noted, in this regard, that by nature, man is not a parochial being. Man was not assigned a locus. He can be anywhere he chooses. He can readjust his location far more easily than flora or fauna. A spark of omnipresence is hidden in man. He can explore far beyond his own terrestrial regions.¹⁷

Alternatively, it has been suggested that the instruction to mile’u et haaretz, commonly translated as fill the earth, may have the more immediately relevant meaning of ‘seek fulfilment of what you lack.’ When man was created, he entered a world full of vegetation. However, he would quickly discover that he was unable to enjoy much of it because he didn’t have the means with which to make it accessible to him. Accordingly, he was told to make use of his inherent ingenuity to fashion the tools necessary to overcome the problem of accessibility to the resources divinely provided, and thereby mile’u et haaretz, find fulfilment of his needs in the abundance of the land.¹⁸

Although man is to constitute but one element in the panoply of created nature, there is to be something singularly distinctive about him that sets him apart from the rest of the natural order. He is destined, by the expressed wish of God his maker, to play a unique role in the divine scheme of creation; he is to have dominion . . . over all the earth. Man is designated to be a surrogate of the divine, that is, God’s lieutenant on earth. Just as God is sovereign over all creation, including man, so man reflects this sovereignty. He has sovereignty delegated to him; he is given dominion over all other living creatures.¹⁹ This view is given clear expression by the Psalmist, who, reflecting the assertion: And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him (1:27), wrote: Thou hast made him but little lower than God, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet (Ps. 8:6-7). In effect, God, King of the universe, designated man to serve as the king of the terrestrial sphere.²⁰ The question, of course, is how does man achieve dominion over the works of Thy hands, when much of the animal world can overwhelm him physically? The answer, it has been suggested, is implicit in the assertion that that man was created in the image of God, which implies that the physical strength of animals can be neutralized by the intellectual strength divinely granted to man.²¹

Man’s quintessential obligation to his maker, an obligation already imposed on him prior to and in anticipation of his creation, is to establish man’s dominion over the universe in which he is to be placed. Man is to enter into existence as a truly political creature. Because God delegates authority to him, and because there is no legitimate authority without responsibility, man is necessarily answerable before his maker with regard to how he exercises that authority. In this vein it has been argued that the order given to the human race to subdue the earth implies the right to be master of and transform the earth’s riches and resources and to appropriate them freely . . . Hence, man-made laws must protect the rights of ownership and condemn any damage done to another’s property as a violation of a Divine right and as an affront to God. Founded on an inalienable God-given right, the norms of ownership offer absolute guarantees which no other reason advanced by men, be it occupation, accession, natural law, prescription, or social utility, can ever supplant.²²

The instruction that man should subdue the earth appears has been understood by some to refer to overcoming the vicissitudes of nature by the use of man’s intellect in order to fully benefit from the food supply that the earth is capable of producing, but will not do so unless brought under man’s control. In other words, man is instructed that he must gain control over the physical environment in which he lives if he is to thrive there. Some have gone so far in this regard to assert that the meaning of subdue is that man is given unlimited power over the earth. No human work on it can be called a violation of God’s will.²³ However, it has been argued, Human sovereignty over creation is far from absolute, it is God’s will for creation, and not our own, that we are directed to enact.²⁴ Thus, commenting on the teaching of the Psalmist, The heavens are the heavens of the Lord; but the earth hath He given to the children of men (Ps. 115:16), it has been asserted: "The ignorant think that humanity’s rule over the earth is the same as God’s rule over the heavens. But they are mistaken, because God rules over everything. The meaning of ‘but the earth He gave over to humanity’ is that the human being is God’s steward (pakid) over the earth and everything that is on it, and she must act according to God’s word."²⁵

Given the context of the topographic and climatic region in which the Bible emerged and in which the Israelites were to found their home, viability as a settled civilization meant preventing desertification, providing for irrigation, and planting crops. In this regard it has been asserted that the instruction that man should subdue the earth means that in order to carry out the command to fill the earth, it would be necessary to first take control of it from the beasts who naturally are its masters. With regard to exercising dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, notwithstanding that generally speaking their existence contributes very little to man’s mastery of the earth, they do serve as a significant source of food for mankind.²⁶

It has been suggested that the Torah has interwoven man’s drive for power with his sexual will. In his gratification of the sex-appetite he finds not only sensual pleasure . . . but another kind of satisfaction as well—the exercise of power . . . The reason for this peculiar combination is to be found in the ability of man to develop his biological drive into a technical intelligence which is guided by his associative memory . . . The technological capacity, although not constituting a unique endowment in man, is nevertheless more developed in him than in the animal . . . The awakening of the human personality occurs through his sex drive. The it-it contact turns into an I-it relationship.²⁷

Early commentators saw a significant implication of the image of God concept in the charge, let them have dominion, and in the subsequent blessing accorded to them, that is, to humankind, that stipulated that they were to have dominion over all animate creatures, in the sea, on the land, and in the air. They noted a distinction in the Hebrew terms used in the text for the charge and the blessing, the first being veyirdu and the second uredu. Although both are forms of redu or dominate, some Sages saw a subtle difference between them, namely, that veyirdu could also be read as a form of yered or descend. Accordingly, one sage asserted, "if he merits it, [God says,] ‘uredu’ (have dominion); while if he does not merit, [God says,] ‘yirdu’ (let them descend). Similarly, another sage asserted that God said, of him who is in our image and likeness [I say] ‘uredu’; but of him who is not in our image and likeness [I say] ‘yirdu.’"²⁸

The point of this homiletic reading of the text is that man is entitled to the preeminence over nature that has been divinely granted to him only for as long as he reflects those qualities that conform to the divine image and likeness. However, when he does not, according to this interpretation of the text, as far as Scripture is concerned, he descends to the level of brute creation and is no better than the other creatures of the animal world, and therefore is unfit to dominate them.

Upon further consideration, one cannot but wonder why the text chose to connect the story of