Abstract
Nathan tells David a story about a rich man who takes and kills a poor man’s lamb (2 Sam 12:1–4). This, it turns out, is figurative for David’s own deeds of killing Uriah the Hittite and taking his wife. The story and its application suggest the intersecting power dynamics between groups: rich and poor, male and female, native and foreigner—and, crucially, human and nonhuman. This article argues that intersectional analysis should include an interspecies dimension, and explores these dynamics at work through various mechanisms of relation. Low status human groups are connected with nonhumans through animalisation, and are thereby delegitimised. Nonhuman animals and animalised humans are positioned as objects within mechanisms of domination, such as exploitation, exchange, and semiosis. The relationship between the poor man and lamb, though, offers another possibility: alliance. Care can be extended across species lines, with implications for intergroup relations throughout the intersectional web.
After David’s infamous affair with Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Sam 11), the prophet Nathan tells him a story: a rich man takes a ewe lamb from a poor man, and feeds her to a traveller (12:1–4). The story, of course, is a parable for David’s own deeds—he himself is “the man” (
This question is important for several reasons. Literarily, it will help us to better understand the function and rhetorical power of Nathan’s parable within 2 Samuel. Historically, it will enrich our understanding of Israelite/Judahite society, scholarship on which too often ignores the participation of nonhumans. Ethically, it raises essential questions of justice for all involved.7 I will contend that the lamb is positioned within the intersecting power dynamics of society: the hierarchy of species is entangled with hierarchies of gender, ethnicity, and wealth. She is implicated, furthermore, in several mechanisms which structure social relations, to the harm or benefit of the various players.
Analytic Frameworks
In this article, I will use two analytic frameworks, drawing on cross-disciplinary research. The first is intersectionality. Intersectionality is widely accepted in social and cultural theory as a helpful tool for analysing societies.8 It recognises that all societies are structured by multiple axes of identity and difference, which interact in complex ways to produce hierarchies of privilege and oppression. In this parable and its context, we find the interplay of rich and poor, male and female, native and foreigner. None of these dynamics can be understood in isolation, but only as intersecting parts of a complex system.
With several recent theorists, I contend that a robust theory of intersectionality must also include species.9 The multiple media which ensure human domination over animals10 are entangled, interdependent, and mutually generative with those ensuring, e.g., male domination over female, rich over poor. Even the facile label “human” may already be circumscribed: non-white, -male, and -able-bodied humans are ascribed degrees of animality. Throughout history, slaves and domestic species have been treated alike,11 women and animals have been co-consumed as “meat,”12 liberation campaigns for animals and disabled humans have been entangled.13
Such dynamics are present in the Hebrew Bible, just as in the contemporary world. The Decalogue treats animals, women, and slaves together (Exod 20:17); the plague narratives differentiate livestock according to ethnicity (Exod 9:6); sacrificial codes prohibit physical blemishes in both human slaughterers and animal victims (Lev 21:16–24; 22:17–25). Ken Stone examines the relationship of sexual difference and species difference in the stories of Jacob14 and Jephthah’s daughter.15 Jared Beverly examines tensions between sexual liberation and species exploitation in Song of Songs.16 David Carr exposes a discourse in Gen 1–11 that constructs the male Hebrew subject in opposition to diverse others (animals, women, foreigners).17 I will show how the ewe lamb’s position is determined not only by the human-nonhuman power dynamic, but by inter-human dynamics of wealth, gender, and ethnicity.
The second framework is a system of mechanisms for relating assumed and utilised by the various players: exploitation, exchange, semiosis, animalisation, and alliance. Domestic animals may be exploited by a powerful human group,18 for their physical labour (ploughing and haulage), their lifetime products (milk, wool/hair, and dung), and the products of their death (flesh, skin, and bones). This basic utility value makes them valuable items to be exchanged between human groups. They dominate both trade relationships and the hospitality codes of the gift economy.
This economic potential undergirds a third mechanism: semiosis.19 Here, nonhuman animals function as signifiers within interhuman communication. Their functional value means that their acquisition can index wealth, power, and prestige. Their role as exchange items can negotiate complex social relationships. Their consumption as meat, with its attendant regulations and rituals, can signify social status,20 ethnic/cultural identity,21 and religious affiliation.22 Their sacrifice brings a complex symbolic nexus of religious and social meanings.23 In exploitation, exchange, and semiosis, animals are removed of their agency, reduced to objects or symbols. They are wholly differentiated from the powerful human subject, without notions of reciprocity.
These mechanisms are facilitated by animal difference from humans; animal similarity to humans facilitates others. Powerless groups may be connected with domestic animals in their livelihoods and by their shared lowly status. In a fourth mechanism, this close connection slips into a blurring of categories, with human groups animalised and treated like domestic beasts, repulsive vermin, or fearsome beasts in need of taming.24 Animalised humans may then be treated according to the socially-sanctioned customs and practices usually reserved for nonhuman animals.25 They can be positioned as objects within mechanisms of exploitation, exchange, and semiosis. Relations are not inevitably antagonistic, though. A final mechanism consists of alliance between parties.26 Alliance does not necessitate that both parties have equal power, yet it gives both agency. It does not dissolve differences between parties, but reaches out across them, to the mutual benefit of both.
In this article, I bring together these two frameworks: intersectionality and mechanisms for relating. The two complement each other as the first analyses who wields power, and the second considers how they wield it. Together, they serve as a helpful guide to navigate the complexity of interspecies social relations. I will show how the lamb in Nathan’s parable is caught within a complex power network, her fate determined by the mechanisms acting upon her. I will read the story first “literally,” examining its internal dynamics, and then “figuratively,” as a parable about wider dynamics in Samuel. These sections will consider harmful situations; in a final section, I will discern a model of ethical relating in face of such intersectional interspecies harm.
1 A Literal Reading: Animals, Paupers, Women, Strangers
1.1 A Literal Reading
Most commentators focus on the parable’s figurative meaning: how it applies to David’s personal life. This, however, is myopic, for a “literal” reading is also fruitful. We might be warranted in this by the text’s genre. Many scholars class it as a “juridical parable”:27 it is a realistic story, which the listener initially takes as a real legal case, until it is revealed as a parable for his own circumstances. Nothing suggests that David finds the story fanciful. He understands the lamb as a real lamb, and in his response to Nathan, he proposes restitution of real, literal sheep (2 Sam 12:5–6). We can, therefore, first hear the story with David; that is to say, literally. Indeed, this is borne out by investigation into Israelite/Judahite society, for the parable’s social dynamics and relations are plausible approximations of the historical context.28
There is also an ethical reason to avoid jumping straight to figuration. In literary studies (including biblical studies), the semiotic function of nonhuman animals is often held as paramount. Considered to be mere symbols of the human condition, they are rushed over as lacking significance in themselves. Such an approach is critiqued by the vegetarian ecofeminist Carol Adams29 and posthumanist Rosi Braidotti. Braidotti pushes back against the “empire of the sign,” in which animals are merely a “signifying system that props up humans’ self-projections and moral aspirations.”30 She rejects “the metaphoric habit of composing a sort of moral and cognitive bestiary in which animals refer to values, norms, and morals,”31 arguing instead for a “neoliteral” approach, which takes animals seriously as animals. For Braidotti, this political hermeneutical move is indispensable for creating “a deep bioegalitarianism, a recognition that we humans and animals are in this together.”32 This reading of 2 Sam 12:1–4 embraces this ethic, taking the lamb seriously as a lamb. I focus on how she figures in relationships between rich and poor, male and female, and host and stranger.
1.2 The Lamb between Rich and Poor
A literal reading of this pericope reveals how the lamb, along with other domestic animals, is implicated in human economics. The power dynamics of species and wealth are interconnected as the lamb is positioned within mechanisms of exploitation, exchange, and semiosis. Indeed, Israelite/Judahite economic affairs were determined not primarily by luxury products but by livestock and agricultural produce.33 The parable casts its economic portrait in terms of rich (
Despite these disparities, the men live together “in one city” (
Like human workers, domestic animals were primarily exploited for what they could give while living (through physical and reproductive labour and so-called “secondary” products).41 Sometimes, though, they were killed for meat, shifting their identity from exploited subjects to edible objects—thus our lamb is “prepared” by the rich man (12:4). Meat products were unequally distributed along economic lines. In Iron Age IIb–c Jerusalem, for example, high-status neighbourhoods differentiated themselves by the high quality and quantity of their meat resources42—a story which repeats itself across the region.43 The archaeological record resonates with the presentation of this parable: hierarchical social structure is built and expressed by “division of labour related to animal exploitation and unequal access to meat sources.”44 Such animal usage is semiotic, demonstrating power in private and public domains.45
The productive and symbolic value of domestic animals made them into important exchange items, circulating through the economy (along with those humans connected to them). Though the Iron Age Levant had nothing like a modern capitalist market,46 acquisition through bartering and trade was possible. Thus the poor man “buys” (
The lamb, then, is representative of domestical animals’ integral place within Israelite/Judahite economics, positioned within mechanisms of exploitation (for labour and produce), exchange (trading and taking), and semiosis (signalling social status). As both workers and commodities, animals’ fates are entangled with those of humans (subjugator and subjugated).
1.3 The Lamb between Men and Women
Though less evident on the surface of the text, the parable can also be analysed in terms of gender. The culture and practices of animal exploitation are often inflected with gendered norms.49 In ancient Israel/Judah, animal slaughter is primarily a male activity,50 and may have semiotic function, allowing the performance of hegemonic masculinity.51 Slaughter is a socially-sanctioned channel for violence and aggression. It can assert dominance and possession of another being. It entails control over and manipulation of other bodies. It emulates the masculine power of the deity, even power over life and death.52 Such resonances may be present in our parable when the rich man takes and kills the lamb.53
Conversely, the poor man is feminised by the lamb. Women, inhabitants of the domestic space, are conceptually linked with other domestic beings.54 Like a mother in whose breast (
The sheep too is feminised (
1.4 The Lamb between Host and Stranger
As well as figuring in dynamics of economics and gender, domestic animals are integral as exchange items between clans, tribes, and nations. In Nathan’s parable, the rich man is visited by an unidentified traveller (
Encountering strangers has high stakes, with potential for conflict or alliance, harm or gain. Across Mediterranean cultures, hospitality codes regulate these encounters,63 and they may be central in the projection of Israelite identity.64 Within the social script of ideal hospitality, the host must “offer the best of what he has” to the guest,65 often entailing the gift of animal products. Thus, Abraham gives his three travellers a “calf, tender and good” (
But Samuel also recognises perversions of hospitality, including in the chapters surrounding our parable.67 Such breaches can have serious socio-political implications. Intergroup warfare is almost provoked, for example, when Nabal refuses to give bread, water, and slaughtered meat (
This seems a calculated decision—the rich man first considers his own livestock, then seizes the poor man’s.69 But why should he do this? Does his corruption of hospitality codes not harm his social capital (though protecting his economic capital)? Possibly, the answer lies in the guest’s identity. We know little about him, but the text suggests he travels alone. No servants, wives/concubines, or animals are mentioned,70 and this lack of entourage may suggest his lower social standing. The nature of the gift can assert the host’s perception of social hierarchy; indeed “the more prestigious the guest the more precious the animal.”71 The gift that costs nothing communicates and enacts a power dynamic, both over the traveller (who perceives that the animal is not precious to the giver) and over the poor man (for whom the animal is indeed precious).
A literal reading, then, suggests the lamb’s place between rich and poor, male and female, host and stranger, as the species hierarchy entangles with other social hierarchies. Though living subjects, animals are easily commodified within these dynamics, positioned within mechanisms of domination: exploited for labour, products, or flesh; exchanged for economic or social gain; turned into signifiers for wealth, masculinity, or honour. We will see these dynamics develop further as we turn to a figurative reading.
2 A Figurative Reading: Animals, Women, Foreigners
2.1 A Figurative Reading
With Nathan’s dramatic pronouncement “you are the man” (
Nonetheless, these discrepancies provoke reflection on alternative correspondences.74 As Robert Polzin notes, terminology in the parable is vague (facilitating application to many situations), or rare (preventing easy verbal linkages with the Bathsheba affair while suggesting connections further afield).75 The parable genre is open-ended, never exactly fitting a situation, always open to different applications.76 Indeed, this parable proves paradigmatic, refracting throughout the David story.77 We will not, therefore, be constrained to a single mapping. We will see how, in the conversation between parable and context, our lamb is implicated in dynamics of gender and ethnicity.
2.2 The Lamb between Men and Women
The most obvious mapping connects the lamb with Bathsheba. The common conceptual linkage between women and domestic animals (noted above) may explain why this metaphor was chosen. The lamb is likened to a daughter (
The lamb is not only an object, but an edible object, exploited for gustatory pleasure. Bathsheba, similarly, is not only an object, but a sexual object, exploited for erotic pleasure, with eating the lamb figurative for sex with the woman. Indeed, Stone notes that “food and sex are impossible to disentangle” in this text,83 just as Adams finds them entangled in contemporary discourse.84 In slaughter and rape, animals and women are reduced to their bodies. Both encounters involve the consumer’s pleasure and excess, viscerality, insides and outsides.85 The intersecting dynamics of species and gender give the metaphor its potency.
Women and animals are further entangled in the mechanisms by which they are differentiated from and dominated by the hegemonic male human. Both are excluded from political life and control of the discourse; both are subject to physical mastery and regulation of reproduction; both are “domesticated” (one for husbandry, the other for her husband). Patriarchs negotiate their socio-political power by trafficking such items between households. Particularly important were marriage alliances, whereby a woman, servants, and livestock were transferred from one household to another.86
Throughout Samuel, women are acquired for the house of David.87 This functions semiotically, communicating David’s personal and political power, “the political transitions figured in the sexual transitions.”88 David takes Abigail (1 Sam 25:39), Ahinoam (25:43); Michal (18:21, 27; 2 Sam 3:26), four women in Hebron (3:2–5), even more in Jerusalem (5:13), and of course Bathsheba (11:4). Other men make claims to power through sex with the king’s concubines (3:7; 16:22; 2 Kgs 2:22). David’s sexual conquests stand alongside his military conquests.89 Thus, when he defeats the Amalekites, he takes back the captive women90—along with “all the flocks and herds,” driven before him to declare his power (1 Sam 30:18–20).91
The parable may suggest several instances of taking, as hinted by Nathan’s oracle which follows (2 Sam 12:8–12). As though political history is stuck on loop, the parable reruns in distorted figurations.92 The rich man’s part is first played by Yahweh, who (according to the oracle) takes the women of Saul’s house and gives them into the poor man David’s “bosom” (
2.3 The Lamb between Native and Foreigner
While a woman is the most obvious referent for the lamb, there is another possibility: Uriah the Hittite.97 David initially offers hospitality to Uriah, the foreign traveller from the battlefront, inviting him to “eat” (
How important is Uriah’s ethnicity for this figuration?99 Animalising discourse surrounds foreigners as much as women.100 Thus, in 1 Sam 15, Samuel would “spare” (
The parable itself, however, does not draw attention to “foreignness.” In this sense, the prime opposition may not be male and female, or Israelite and foreigner, or even human and nonhuman, but the sovereign and everyone else. The non-sovereign parties are easy targets for animalisation, permitting the metaphoric structure of parable, and legitimising crimes against them.
3 An Alliance at the Intersections
Above, I have analysed how the lamb’s position is determined by a complex matrix of intersecting power dynamics—species, wealth, gender, ethnicity. Within this matrix, she (along with other powerless groups) is the object of several harmful mechanisms: exploitation, exchange, semiosis, and animalisation. All these mechanisms ignore the agency and individuality of the powerless. In this section, I address a fifth type of relationship—alliance—which can provide a model of ethical relating in face of such oppression.104 This, I suggest, is evident in the bond between the poor man and the lamb.
The relation described is one of intimacy. The form of the text reflects the partnership’s harmony, through the gentle lullaby rock of three concise phrases in syntactic and morphological parallelism:
The domestication of nonhuman animals has been traditionally read as a story of domination, as solely and inevitably a mechanism for exploitation and exchange.109 There is another plotline, though, which should be taken seriously: domestication as a practice of care.110 Kristin Armstrong Oma argues that domestication entails an alliance and “social contract” between humans and nonhumans, requiring trust and reciprocity (without negating power imbalances).111 The process and practices are profoundly relational, with humans and animals “engaged in mutual decision-making, a co-creation of behaviour, termed a mutual becoming.”112
Particularly significant was secondary product usage. For Adam Allentuck, this meant that “members of two species came to rely upon each other to the point of inextricable interconnectedness.”113 Practices like milking require daily intimacy with animals in an atmosphere of care, calm, and trust.114 They entail long-term relationships with individual animals, beyond the age optimal for slaughter. Our parable witnesses the beginning of such a relationship: the ewe has “grown up with” (
Animals’ physical space in the house (the
Living together as kin, humans and livestock may have developed relational bonds. Animals can become psychologically attached to humans and vice versa.119 Sheep, for instance, can show preference for their human attachment figure, are distressed when he/she leaves, and use him/her as a secure base for exploration.120 Sometimes, a lamb’s attachment to a human even resembles that to a biological mother (particularly if the lamb has no contact with the latter).121 If we speculate with William McKane that the ewe “was a motherless lamb which [the poor man] had reared artificially,” something like this might be envisaged.122 The attachment is strongest when care is given from the lamb’s infancy,123 and continues through the subsequent period.124 This may be the case for the poor man’s lamb, which “grew up with him” (
The poor man’s relationship with this lamb, then, presents a plausible alliance, and a model of ethical relating. It represents the inception of an alternative society, where the inter-group bonds are not oppressive but extend practices of care. Alliance allows for the interconnected agency of parties and the possibility of mutual flourishing. No longer is it a priori lamentable that certain groups are associated with each other (such as women and animals); in the right circumstances, such associations can be celebrated, even emulated.
This hopeful possibility should not obscure the immense structural power of domineering forces. In the parable, the alliance is destroyed by the rich man’s desire to feed his guest at the poor man’s expense. Nevertheless, the alliance has residual power, provoking a determinative change in David’s story. David responds dramatically, condemning the rich man in extreme terms,126 not just for economic misdemeanour, but because he “showed no pity” (
And strikingly here, animalisation—usually used to legitimise oppression—becomes a tool for ethical revelation. Compassion for the lamb provokes compassion for those whom she signifies—female and foreign. This human-lamb relationship can serve as a model, for (as Carey Wolfe puts it) nonhuman animals present the “hardest case,” the “most reliable index” for our relationship with otherness and difference generally.127 While, then, alliance may seem to lack power in face of mechanisms for domination, it nonetheless offers glimpses of hope—the possibility for ethics in particular times and places. The implications of these alliances at the intersections may reverberate through the power dynamics which tangle around them.
4 Conclusion
In this article, I have analysed the ewe lamb within the socio-political dynamics of Nathan’s parable and its context. I have focalised the intersecting power dynamics which tangle around her (species, wealth, gender, and ethnicity) and the mechanisms by which these dynamics are negotiated (exploitation, exchange, semiosis, animalisation, and alliance). The investigation has had literary, historical, and ethical implications.
It offers several literary insights. While commentators have argued, often based on the lamb, that the parable is fantastical,128 this investigation suggests it is realistic. Attention to nonhuman animals helps us understand the wealth differential between the men (12:1–3a), the relationship between the poor man and lamb (12:3b), and the significance of hospitality codes (12:4). It explains why the crime is considered so egregious (12:5). The investigation also illuminates the parable’s connection to its context. The symbolism is potent because of the conceptual link between women and animals, their shared consumable flesh, and their co-circulation between households. The common animalisation of foreigners permits slippage in the metaphor, making Uriah a further plausible referent. When the crime is condemned, David’s whole nexus of power play is condemned with it.
The analysis also offers historical insights into the power dynamics and relational mechanisms structuring Israelite/Judahite society. Animals and animalised humans are caught within mechanisms for domination. Domestic animals are exploited for human benefit, with the wealthy establishing estates of flocks and herds (12:2), benefitting from animal labour, produce, and meat. Animals are both workers (alongside humans) and commodities, in the last instance, reduced to consumable flesh (12:4). Their object status and utility value make them important exchange items. Their bodies are gifts within hospitality codes, negotiating dynamics between native and stranger (12:4). Sometimes they are circulated alongside others: servants, land, and women (thus the lamb may figure Bathsheba, Michal, or David’s concubines). Such exploitation and exchange can have semiotic function, communicating power, wealth, and masculinity. Offering animal bodies signals the honoured status of gracious host (12:4).
In face of such harm, another mechanism of relating presents itself: alliance. In particular times and places, relationships of care can extend across group boundaries, even species boundaries, such as in the poor man’s relationship with the lamb (12:3). While such alliances might seem insignificant when confronting mechanisms for domination, they nonetheless offer an alternative model and patchy hope for ethical relating. If compassion can extend across species lines, this has implications for the whole entangled web of human and nonhuman lives.
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Lyke, Larry L. King David with the Wise Woman of Tekoa: The Resonance of Tradition in Parabolic Narrative. JSOTSup 255. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
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Markowitz, Tim M., Martin R. Dally, Karin Gursky, and Edward O. Price. “Early Handling Increases Lamb Affinity for Humans.” Animal Behaviour 55 (1998): 573–587.
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McKane, William. 1 & 2 Samuel. London: SCM Press, 1963.
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Meyers, Carol L. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Millar, Suzanna R. “Dehumanisation as Derision or Delight? Countering Class-Prejudice and Species-Prejudice in Job.” BibInt (forthcoming).
Miller, Virginia. A King and a Fool? The Succession Narrative as a Satire. BibInt 179. Boston: Brill, 2019.
Morrison, Craig E. 2 Samuel. Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2013.
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Nowak, Raymond, and Xavier Boivin. “Filial Attachment in Sheep: Similarities and Differences between Ewe-Lamb and Human-Lamb Relationships.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 164 (2015): 12–28.
Olyan, Saul M. “Are There Legal Texts in the Hebrew Bible That Evince a Concern for Animal Rights?” BibInt 27 (2019): 321–339.
Pioske, D. David’s Jerusalem: Between Memory and History. Routledge Studies in Religion. London: Taylor & Francis, 2015.
Polzin, Robert. David and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Price, Max. “Food and Israelite Identity.” Pages 423–463 in T&T Clark Handbook of Food in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel. Edited by J. Fu, C. Shafer-Elliott, and C. Meyers. T&T Clark Handbooks. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
Probyn, Elspeth. Carnal Appetites: Foodsexidentities. London: Routledge, 2000.
Pyper, Hugh S. “David as Reader: 2 Samuel 12: 1–15 and the Poetics of Fatherhood.” PhD diss., University of Glasgow, 1993.
Pyper, Hugh S. David as Reader: 2 Samuel 12:1–15 and the Poetics of Fatherhood. BibInt 23. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
Rey, M. I. “Reexamination of the Foreign Female Captive: Deuteronomy 21:10–14 as a Case of Genocidal Rape.” JFSR 32.1 (2016): 37–53.
Ruane, Nicole J. Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Russell, Nerissa. “Domestication of Anthropology.” Pages 27–48 in Where the Wild Things Are Now: Domestication Reconsidered. Edited by Molly Mullin and Rebecca Cassidy. Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series. Oxford: Berg, 2007.
Russell, Nerissa. Social Zooarchaeology: Humans and Animals in Prehistory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Sapir-Hen, Lidar. “Environmental and Historical Impacts on Long Term Animal Economy: The Southern Levant in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.” JESHO 57 (2014): 703–744.
Sapir-Hen, Lidar. “Late Bronze and Iron Age Livestock of the Southern Levant: Their Economic and Symbolic Roles.” TA 46 (2019): 227–236.
Sapir-Hen, Lidar, Yuval Gadot, and Israel Finkelstein. “Animal Economy in a Temple City and Its Countryside: Iron Age Jerusalem as a Case Study.” BASOR 375 (2016): 103–118.
Sasson, Aharon. “Animal Husbandry and Diet in Pre-modern Villages in Mandatory Palestine according to Ethnographic Data.” Pages 33–40 in Integrating Zooarchaeology. Edited by Mark Maltby. Oxford: Oxbow, 2006.
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Coats, “Parable”; Copenhaver, “He Spoke”; Gunkel, Folktale, 54–55; Gunn, King David, 40–42; Lasine, “Melodrama”; Simon, “Ewe-Lamb.”
Bailey, Love and War, 101–113; Dietrich, Prophetie, 127–132; Kalimi, “Reexamining”; Schwally, “Quellenkritik,” 153–155.
Copenhaver, “He Spoke”; Derby, “Freudian Slip”; Klitsner, “Therapeutic Parable.”
Fokkelman, Narrative Art, 71–82; de Vulpillières, “David et Bethsabée.”
Berman, “Double Meaning”; Daube, “Nathan’s Parable”; Lyke, Wise Woman, 146–157; Polzin, Deuteronomist, 120–130; Schipper, “Overinterpret.”
But see the discussions of the lamb in Stone, “Affect”; Viviers, “Psychology.”
There is no space here to unpack the place of this parable within the broader landscape of biblical animal ethics. Despite the anthropocentrism of many biblical texts, there are also examples of compassion towards nonhumans: legal codes make provision for animal welfare (Exod 23:10–11, 12; Lev 25:2–7; Deut 5:12–15; Olyan, “Legal Texts”; Schafer, “Rest”), God shows concern for the livestock of Nineveh (Jonah 4:11; Shemesh, “‘Many Beasts’”), and divine covenants are established with all flesh (Gen 9:9–17; Hos 2:20–25[18–23]; Hiers, “Reverence”).
The concept “intersectionality” was seminally introduced by feminist lawyer and critical race theorist, Kimberlé Crenshaw (e.g., Crenshaw, “Mapping”), and has developed widely (e.g., Carastathis, Intersectionality; Davis and Žarkov, Intersectionality; Hill Collins and Bilge, Intersectionality). Within biblical studies, see especially Yee, Hebrew Bible; idem, “Thinking Intersectionally”.
Nocella and George, Intersectionality.
I use the term “animal” to refer specifically to nonhuman animals. This term is, of course, problematic if claimed as a discrete category in opposition to “human” (for humans are also animals), but it is employed for lack of viable English alternatives.
Spiegel, Dreaded Comparison.
Adams, Sexual Politics.
Taylor, Beasts.
Stone, “Animating.”
Stone, “Animal Difference.”
Beverly, “Pasture.”
Carr, “Competing Construals.”
For animal exploitation in Israel/Judah, see Borowski, Every Living Thing; Welton, Glutton, 29–91.
See the thorough investigation of the symbolic and social meanings of nonhuman animals in Russell, Social Zooarchaeology.
Magness, “Conspicuous Consumption”; Meyers, “Menu.”
Price, “Food and Israelite Identity.”
Cf. the food laws of Lev 11, which end “I am Yahweh your God … be holy for I am holy” (Lev 11:44a).
Eberhart, Ritual and Metaphor; Janzen, Social Meanings.
The psychological literature on dehumanisation is vast. For helpful overviews, see Haslam and Loughnan, “Dehumanization”; Vaes et al., “We Are Human.” For an example from the Hebrew Bible, see Millar, “Dehumanisation.”
Spiegel, Dreaded Comparison.
Best, “Rethinking Revolution”; Calarco, “Alliance Politics”; Motilal, “An Alliance.”
Seminally, Simon, “Ewe-Lamb,” who also finds juridical parables in 2 Sam 14:1–20; 1 Kgs 20:35–43; Isa 5:1–7; Jer 3:1–5. Simon has been followed by, e.g., Gordon, Samuel, 256; Janzen, “‘Taking,’” 209; Koenig, Bathsheba, 63. For critiques, see Coats, “Parable,” 370–371; Gunn, King David, 40–42; Pyper, Reader, 103–104; Schipper, “Overinterpret,” 384–385.
I take 2 Sam 12:1–7a as originating in a pre-exilic context, likely from a complex of prophetic traditions which was critical of the monarchy, but accepted its inevitability. Cf. Bailey, Love and War, esp. 108; Hutton, Palimpsest, 196–201, 221, 224; Jones, Nathan Narratives, 96–101; McCarter, II Samuel, 7–8, 304–309. Dietrich (Prophetie, 127–132) and Veijola (Das Königum, 112) argued that the parable belongs to the late-exilic prophetic redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (DtrP). However, Dietrich (“Layer Model,” 50–51) has more recently amended his views, such that, of 12:1–15a, only 12:7b, 8, 9b, 10b, 13 belong to this late layer. Even if the passage is exilic in origin, it likely contains reminiscences of pre-exilic lifestyles. Van Seters (Biblical Saga, 287–301) is atypical in arguing for a post-exilic origin.
For Adams (Sexual Politics, 53), metaphor enables the functioning of the “absent referent”: when a nonhuman animal is subsumed into symbolism, he/she ceases to be present as an animal; his/her own subjective reality is absented. The metaphor is violence, for it facilitates the “moral abandonment of a being” (Adams and Calarco, “Derrida,” 35).
Braidotti, “Anomalies,” 528.
Braidotti, “Anomalies,” 527.
Braidotti, “Anomalies,” 528.
Lev-Tov, “A Plebeian Perspective,” 90; Sapir-Hen, “Late Bronze,” 227–228.
On unequal wealth distribution within a single city, see Sapir-Hen et al., “Animal Economy.”
Pioske (David’s Jerusalem, 198) discusses this arrangement in 10th century Jerusalem, where King David’s story is set. Cf. Shafer-Elliott, Food, 36.
Sapir-Hen et al. (“Animal Economy,” 104) discuss such estates near Jerusalem.
Boer (“Economic Politics”) sees vestiges of such tensions across the Hebrew Bible.
Cattle are generally less frequent than caprids; Sasson, Animal Husbandry, 48–60.
For statistics on the sheep:goat ratio, see Sasson, Animal Husbandry, 35–39.
Sasson, “Animal Husbandry,” 37 table 1.
Welton, Glutton, 29–30. Surveying Bronze and Iron Age sites from the Southern Levant, Sasson (Animal Husbandry, 42) notes that “in 45 of 54 sites (83%) caprines were utilized for a whole range of products rather than a specific product (e.g., meat).”
Sapir-Hen et al. (“Animal Economy”) report that at the high-status Western Wall Plaza sheep were more frequent than goats (being of higher calorific value); animals were culled at a young age (suggesting they were used for meat); they were relatively larger; and their meat-rich upper limbs are over-represented. At the low-status Tel Moza, by contrast, there were relatively fewer sheep; animals were generally older (suggesting their use for lifetime products); they were relatively smaller; and all body parts are represented, regardless of meat yield. Similar patterns are found elsewhere.
Sapir-Hen, “Late Bronze.”
Sapir-Hen, “Late Bronze,” 230.
Sapir-Hen, “Late Bronze,” 233.
See especially Sasson, “Animal Husbandry,” who reiterates that Israel operated with a survival-subsistence economic strategy.
Sapir-Hen, “Late Bronze,” 229–230; Sapir-Hen et al., “Animal Economy.”
LXX has “sevenfold” (
Adams and Calarco, “Derrida”; Deckha, “Postcolonial,” 539.
Ruane, Sacrifice, 35–36; Welton, Glutton, 62–66. When women do occasionally slaughter animals in the Hebrew Bible, it is generally illegitimate or deviant (e.g., 1 Sam 28:24; 1 Kgs 11:8; Ezek 16:20–21; 23:37–39). One possible exception is 1 Sam 1:25 (MT), in which Hannah might be included in the subject of
Ruane, Sacrifice, 2.
Welton, Glutton, 62.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida, Stone (“Animating,” 451) interprets the parable in terms of the man’s hypermasculine “carnivorous virility” (cf. idem, “Animal Difference,” 6; “Affect,” 19).
See Stone’s comments on the feminisation of Jacob through his connection with domestic animals. Stone, “Animating,” 451.
LXX has an additional verb here:
Compare the distorted mirror of this parable in the following chapter, in which Amnon’s alleged illness provokes a request for hand-feeding by the female caregiver; 2 Sam 13:3–4, 10.
Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, 126, 136–139.
See Ruane, Sacrifice, 56–62 on the gendered nature of Israelite/Judahite husbandry.
Sasson, Animal Husbandry, 39–42 for statistics.
Ruane, Sacrifice, 56.
This expression comes from Adams, Sexual Politics, 21. Cf. Deckha, “Postcolonial,” 532.
For
See the seminal work of Julian Pitt-Rivers; e.g., in Da Col and Shryock, From Hospitality.
MacDonald, “Hospitality,” 191.
De Hemmer Gudme, “Invitation,” 92 table 1 and passim.
On the significance of eating and drinking in Samuel, see Dietrich, “Essen.”
See MacDonald, “Hospitality,” 192–194 on 2 Sam 9–11, and de Hemmer Gudme, “Invitation,” 95–99 on 2 Sam 13.
Miller, A King, 72–75.
The rich man “thought it a pity to take” (
Cf. the Levite who travels with servants, concubine, and donkeys (Judg 19:3, 10–11).
Shafer-Elliott, Food, 181.
This glaring omission led Gunkel (Folktale, 55) to conclude “with the greatest certainty” that the parable must have originated in a different context. Daube (“Nathan’s Parable,” 276) speculates that in an earlier version of the narrative, Uriah wasn’t killed; or in an earlier version of the parable, the poor man was.
Seminally, Simon, “Ewe-Lamb.”
Multiple correspondences are suggested by Berman, “Double Meaning”; Boer, “National Allegory,” 102; Lyke, Wise Woman, 145–157; Polzin, Deuteronomist, 120–130.
Polzin, Deuteronomist, 120–121. The rare words he cites are
Lyke, Wise Woman, 146.
Polzin, Deuteronomist, 120–130.
If the postulated Vorlage of LXX is followed (see above n. 50), there is a further possible pun on her name in the restitution David suggests: seven (
Linafelt, “Taking Women,” 108.
Schwartz, Curse of Cain, 137.
Dell’Aversano, “Love,” 98.
See further Millar, “Dehumanisation”; Wolfe, Animal Rites, 6–8.
Stone, Safer Texts, 75.
Adams, Sexual Politics, 50.
Probyn, Carnal Appetites, 61–62.
Stone, “Affect,” 26–29.
Linafelt, “Taking Women,” 100–101.
Boer, “National Allegory,” 103.
Schwartz, Curse of Cain, 136.
From an intersectional perspective, these women’s statuses are determined as much by regional affiliation as by gender (Rey, “Foreign Female Captive”). As residents of Ziklag, they were formerly ruled by Philistine Gath before being transferred to Judah (1 Sam 27:5–6). The Amalekites try to claim them (30:1–2), before David takes them back.
Women and animals co-occur as war booty also in Deut 20:14. Animals are taken in this way in 1 Sam 15:9; 23:5; 27:9.
Polzin, Deuteronomist, 122–130. None of the scenarios described here exactly map onto the parable’s plot line, but all of them hint to it.
Michal is clearly signified in the Syriac text, which reads bnt mrk “your master’s daughter” instead of MT’s
Klitsner (“Therapeutic Parable,” 32) argues that the repetition of
Klitsner (“Therapeutic Parable”) suggests that David is meant to recognise this situation in the parable, arousing his indignation before the tables are turned against him. Daube (“Nathan’s Parable”) argues that the rich-poor-lamb triad originally figured Saul-David-Michal, and was later reapplied to David-Uriah-Bathsheba.
Linafelt, “Taking Women,” 105–108; Stone, Sex, 104–105; Stone, Safer Texts, 73.
Berman, “Double Meaning,” 9; Chibaudel, “David et Bethsabée,” 79; Delekat, “Tendenz,” 33; Schipper, “Overinterpret,” 388; Wesselius, “Joab’s Death,” 346–347.
Bathsheba’s unborn child (2 Sam 12:18); Amnon (13:29); Absalom (18:15); and Adonijah (1 Kgs 2:25). So Wesselius, “Joab’s Death,” 467 n. 15.
See Kim, “Uriah the Hittite” for discussion of Uriah’s ethnicity.
Boisseron, Afro-Dog; Kim, Dangerous Crossings; Jackson, Becoming Human.
Wesselius, “Joab’s Death,” 346–347 n. 15.
For analysis of 2 Sam 11 within the cultural script of Israelite hospitality, see MacDonald, “Hospitality,” 193–194.
Kim, “Uriah,” 72–76.
On the importance of intersectional alliance in contemporary animal justice movements, see Best, “Rethinking Revolution”; Calarco, “Alliance Politics”; Motilal, “An Alliance.”
Morrison, 2 Samuel, 151.
Alter, David Story, 258.
Lasine, “Melodrama,” 105.
Olyan, “Legal Texts”; Schafer, “Rest”; Shemesh, “‘Many Beasts.’”
Ingold, “Trust.”
Armstrong Oma, “Making Space.”
Armstrong Oma, “Trust.”
Armstrong Oma, “Trust,” 179.
Allentuck, “Temporalities,” 99.
Armstrong Oma, “Trust,” 182.
Armstrong Oma, “Trust,” 184; cf. Armstrong Oma, “Making Space.”
Pioske, David’s Jerusalem, 204–206.
Russell, “Domestication,” 35. Russell also highlights other commonalities between domestication and kinship systems: concern for taxonomy and classification; power dynamics controlling the transfer of “property”; regulation of reproduction.
Boer, Sacred Economy, 94.
John Bowlby’s seminal theory of attachment has been applied to humans attached to animals by Zilcha-Mano et al., “An Attachment,” and to animals (sheep) attached to humans by Nowak and Boivin, “Filial Attachment.”
These are Bowlby’s criteria to demonstrate attachment. Nowak and Boivin, “Filial Attachment,” 17–18.
Nowak and Boivin, “Filial Attachment,” 20; cf. Markowitz et al., “Early Handling,” 581.
McKane, Samuel, 233.
Nowak and Boivin, “Filial Attachment,” 20; cf. Markowitz et al., “Early Handling.”
Boivin et al., “Hand-Feeding.”
Boivin et al., “Hand-Feeding”; Markowitz et al., “Early Handling”; Nowak and Boivin, “Filial Attachment,” 19.
David calls the rich man a
Wolfe, Animal Rites, 5.
E.g., Coats, “Parable.”
