Imagery and Analogy in Psalm 58:4-9
In: Vetus TestamentumSearch for other papers by Adam E. Miglio in
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This article treats the images and logic of Ps 58:4-9. Drawing on Stanley Tambiah’s work on “performative analogies,” it compares the images of serpents and unborn children as well as the ways in which these images are used in Ps 58 with incantations from Syro-Mesopotamia. It focuses on the similarities between Ps 58 and Syro-Mesopotamian incantatory traditions, emphasizing how the latter serves as a catalyst for understanding Ps 58 as a YHWHistic religio-magical expression.
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2
Tambiah, 1968, pp. 189-90; Tambiah, 1985, esp. pp. 64-77. As for the term magic, it has long been noted that it is a designation that carries negative value judgments about rites or beliefs of non-Judeo-Christian groups. For an overview of magic and the difficulties of defining it in opposition to religion in the ancient Mediterranean, see Johnston, 139-154. Additionally, a sustained interaction with anthropological literature and its values for understanding the nature of ancient Mesopotamian magic, in particular, can be found in van Binsbergen and Wiggerman, pp. 3-34 (supplemented by the helpful review of Scurlock, 2002, esp. 477-481). For my part, I have considered it less prejudicial to use the designation ‘religio-magical,’ taking my cue from the use of the hyphenated term medico-magical (e.g. Scurlock, 2006) to deal with a similar classificatory challenge in the study of medicine in ancient Syro-Mesopotamia (see e.g. N. Wasserman, 2007). That is, the term religio-magical seeks to foreground the fact that any distinction between religion and magic in the ancient Near East is an etic one (see also Wright, 1993, pp. 473-506, who adopts a similar line of thought yet employs the term ritual). That said, at times I have occasionally retained the term magic and magical when I engage historiography that employs this term.
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9
See Doyle, pp. 126-135; also the layout and remarks of Hossfeld and Zenger, pp. 77, 80.
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13
van Dijk and Geller, p. 22.
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17
van Dijk and Geller, p. 33. More generally, Ur iii incantations suggest significant connections between the malevolent creatures that cause illnesses that are spellbound in incantations and the defeated chaos creatures from mythological texts (see Cunningham, 1997, pp. 92-93).
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20
See Miglio, pp. 30-48.
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21
In Veldhuis, 2000, pp. 383-399.
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22
van Dijk and Geller, pp. 22, 48.
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23
Cunningham, 1997, p. 35. Conversely, a Sumerian curse states: “May illness(-inducing) teeth bite that ruler in his ruined palace” (Cunningham, 1997, p. 47).
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31
See, Pardee, 2002, p. 188 n. 34; he notes that puns and plays on words are common in incantations.
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36
Cowan, p. 918.
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38
See the summary of literature in Wright, 1996, p. 227 esp. n. 37.
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39
Krawczack, pp. 96-7.
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42
Veldhuis, 1991, pp. 13, 44-45.
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43
See the discussion of Steyl, pp. 133-34.
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44
See Veldhuis, 1991.
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46
Farber, 1989, pp. 149, 151.
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48
van Dijk and Geller, pp. 21-22. The rationale for dealing with these two medical conditions together is not explicit in the incantation, but cf. van Dijk and Geller, who offered the suggestion that it may have been that a “snakebite was perceived as a factor contributing to childbirth problems” (p. 22).
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50
See Velhuis, 1991, 14. Note that embryos could also be portrayed as a fish (dadum), both images being evocative of early modern recapitulation theories of embryology that accentuated fish-like as well as reptilian attributes in human embryos (see, for example Gould, especially chapters 2-3).
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54
Cf. especially Seybold, pp. 53-66, who posits that verses 4,6,7, and 11 are additions. Also, Wright has suggested that the images in this psalm were disparate, even dissonant, and as such contributed to an ever-intensifying ethos of the poem (1996, pp. 213-236). Poetically, it should be noted that Ps 58:9 can be understood as an asyndentic relative clause (“[Let them be] like a stillborn, wasting away as it is born, like a woman’s miscarriage, never seeing the sunlight”) that functions akin to the marked relative clause in Ps 58:6, hence further tying these two images and further developing the analogical logic of the poem’s “persuasive analogies.”
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55
Kaufmann, p. 109.
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58
Abusch, 2004, p. 355.
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60
See Lambert, 1974, pp. 274-75, 294. In light of this similarity, it is noteworthy that Lenzi has also highlighted the correlations between the invocations in the psalms of individual lament and dingir.šà.dib.ba prayers. As he observes, both share brevity of address, “reflect[ing] a more familiar connection between the supplicant and the deity. . . .” (2010, p. 304).
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Imagery and Analogy in Psalm 58:4-9
In: Vetus TestamentumSearch for other papers by Adam E. Miglio in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This article treats the images and logic of Ps 58:4-9. Drawing on Stanley Tambiah’s work on “performative analogies,” it compares the images of serpents and unborn children as well as the ways in which these images are used in Ps 58 with incantations from Syro-Mesopotamia. It focuses on the similarities between Ps 58 and Syro-Mesopotamian incantatory traditions, emphasizing how the latter serves as a catalyst for understanding Ps 58 as a YHWHistic religio-magical expression.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 330 | 39 | 4 |
| Full Text Views | 249 | 6 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 112 | 11 | 2 |