Part 2: Units of The Woven Torah
Introduction: Non-linearity
The analysis of the Decalogue and the
stone-tablets narratives in the previous section has taught us that
the author of the Torah knew how to write a single text for two
different audiences. One audience, the public, would grasp it
piecemeal, shattered, while the other, individuals, could see it as
a coherent whole. We will see that this description of two intended
audiences applies to the whole Torah. The same technique which
established the coherence of the Decalogue as a composition, tabular
organization, was applied to all the literary units of the Torah. As
a public text, to be read in public, the Torah appears to be a
linear composition. However, each of its literary units was
constructed as a tabular, or more properly, woven, non-linear, text.
These textual units share certain
characteristics, such as non-linearity, closure, chiasm and
linguistic pattering, which demonstrate that the Torah is to be
grasped as a literary construct built according to a consistent set
of rules. The term “chapter” would be the most appropriate to apply
to the literary units. However, since that term is used to refer to
the divisions marked by Archbishop Stephen Langton in the thirteenth
century, I refer to the literary divisions as “Units”. Langton
divided the Torah into one-hundred-eighty-seven chapters. In
comparison, the current annual Jewish reading-cycle divides the text
into fifty-four parts while the ancient tri-annual cycle divided it
into one-hundred-fifty-four parts. There are eighty-six Units in the
Torah. The full text of the Torah has been divided into Units which
are arranged in a format which reflects the inner structure of each
Unit in The Woven Torah (TWT). The full text of TWT is found
at chaver.com.
The Units of the Torah were originally
constructed in a format that looks like a table in TWT. However, it
is more accurate to characterize these compositions as weaves or
tapestries. This should not be a total surprise
since both the Hebrew “מסכת” and
the Latin “textus” are based on weaving imagery. Each individual
Unit has characteristics akin to works of visual art, as well as
being a vehicle for communicating information. The Units of all five
books, legal collections as well as narratives, were all originally
composed as weaves. This format enabled the author to embed
information within the text by means of juxtaposition of textual
elements within the weave. The overall “picture” created by the
weave provided the larger context for understanding the placement of
each particular within the Unit. The information provided by
juxtaposition in the woven text is virtually inaccessible in the
linear reading, as we have seen in the Decalogue. TWT makes that
information available to the careful reader.
The non-linearity of the Torah is not limited
to the structures of individual Units. The Units themselves are
arranged in non-linear groupings within each book. These groupings,
or sets of Units, reflect some of the same principles of
organization employed in the construction of the Units themselves.
This point is expanded in the chapter on Leviticus in Part 4. The
fact that similar principles have been identified in the
construction of individual Units as well as in the construction of
whole books supports the thesis that the Torah was composed by a
single author or school.
Since an analysis of structure involves
describing the parts and the way that they fit together, the
identification of the Units was the necessary prerequisite to
deciphering the formal structure, or plan, of the Torah. Without a
clear definition of the parts, the Units, it was not possible to
perceive the plan. Once the Units were identified, it became
possible to identify the way Units associated in sets and how the
sets associated with each other to create larger scale components
which determine the formal characteristics of each of the five
books. The final product of this macro analysis was the construction
of a “map” of the Torah which visualizes the literary structure of
each of the five books. This map is the subject of Part 4.
The first creation narrative provides tools for
discerning how the Torah itself was created in Units and how it
should be read. The “creation weave” has proven to be the prototype
of how each of the eighty-six Units of the Torah was woven. In
addition, it clarifies the author’s position regarding the origin of
the Torah. If God speaks in weaves, according to the Decalogue, then
woven text is the appropriate format for His revelation. Since one
of the goals of this book is to prepare the reader to benefit from
the unique layout of TWT, I will utilize Unit I of Genesis to
illustrate how the text is arranged on the pages of TWT, how the
woven structure was identified, and the insights to be derived from
studying the Torah according to its non-linear structure.
Chapter 1. The Creation Weave
Genesis Unit I (1:-2:3)
|
א1 |
ב1 |
|
1:1 In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. |
1:2 Now the earth was unformed
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and
the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. |
|
א2 |
ב2 |
|
A 1:3 And God said: 'Let there be
light.' And there was light. 1:4 And God saw the light, that
it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
{P} |
A 1:14 And God said: 'Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day
from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons,
and for days and years; 1:15 and let them be for lights in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.'
And it was so. 1:16 And God made the two great lights: the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule
the night; and the stars. 1:17 And God set them in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 1:18
and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide
the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth
day. {P} |
|
B 1:6 And God said: 'Let there be
a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters.' 1:7 And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
1:8 And God called the firmament heaven. And there was
evening and there was morning, a second day. {P} |
B 1:20 And God said: 'Let the
waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl
fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' 1:21
And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living
creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after
its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw
that it was good. 1:22 And God blessed them, saying: 'Be
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth.' 1:23 And there was evening
and there was morning, a fifth day. {P} |
|
C i 1:9 And God said: 'Let the
waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,
and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. 1:10 And God
called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the
waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good. |
C i 1:24 And God said: 'Let the
earth bring forth the living creature after its kind,
cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its
kind.' And it was so. 1:25 And God made the beast of the
earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and
every thing that creepeth upon the ground after its kind;
and God saw that it was good. |
|
ii 1:11 And God said: 'Let the
earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree
bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof,
upon the earth.' And it was so. 1:12 And the earth brought
forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree
bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind;
and God saw that it was good. 1:13 And there was evening and
there was morning, a third day. {P} |
ii 1:26 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.' 1:27 And
God created man in His own image, in the image of God
created He him; male and female created He them. 1:28 And
God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish 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.' 1:29 And God said: 'Behold, I have given you every
herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed--to you it shall be for food; 1:30 and to every beast
of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every
thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a
living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.' And
it was so. 1:31 And God saw every thing that He had made,
and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and
there was morning, the sixth day. {P} |
|
א3 |
ב3 |
|
2:1 And the heaven and the earth
were finished, and all the host of them. |
2:2 And on the seventh day God
finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the
seventh day from all His work which He had made. 2:3 And God
blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it
He rested from all His work which God in creating had made.
{P} |
The Layout of the Page
Perhaps the first thing that strikes the eye
upon seeing the above arrangement is that there are multiple levels
of division, each indicated by a separate form of notation, as
opposed to the common printing which recognizes only chapter and
verse divisions. There are in fact several structural elements
larger than a verse and smaller than a chapter in every Unit. This
was one of the foundational discoveries which made it possible to
identify the formal structures of the Units. There are seven levels
of division noted in this Unit, three relating to traditional
divisions and four that are unique to TWT. Traditional chapter and
verse divisions are noted by Arabic numerals before each verse.
Another traditional, though less known, division is the “paragraph”
division of the Masoretic Text (MT) which appears in Torah scrolls,
mentioned in Part 1. These are indicated in the scrolls in two ways.
An “open” or major paragraph division (in Hebrew
פתוחה) begins on a new line and is
marked “{P}”. A “closed” or minor paragraph division ((סתומה,
begins nine letters after the preceding paragraph, on the same line,
and is marked “{S}”.
The notation which is unique to TWT begins with
the Units, which are marked by Roman numerals and counted separately
in each book, so that each book begins with I. The major divisions
within the Units are marked by Arabic numerals. In the example,
there are three such divisions. They can be viewed as rows of a
table, however, as will be explained, it is more accurate to
consider them weft threads of a weave. The next level of division
divides the rows in the example into two components each,
א (aleph)
and ב (bet), which will be termed
“segments”. The reason Hebrew letters have been employed is because
of the need for a variety of markers. The segments form columns,
which are like warp threads. Parts of both the warp and the weft
will be referred to as “threads”. The use of Arabic numeral or
Hebrew letter will determine whether the reference is to weft or
warp. In the example, the segments of thread 2 are further
subdivided into elements A-C. Element 2C is divided
into parts i and ii, using lower case Roman numerals. If we include
divisions of verses with the formal divisions unique to TWT, then
Genesis I demonstrates six levels of division within the Unit:
·
weft, (1-3)
·
warp, (א, ב)
·
segments, (combination of 1-3 and
א, ב)
·
elements within cells, (A-C)
·
parts of elements, (i-ii) and
·
verses
The linear flow of the text goes from left
segment to right segment and then down to the left segment of the
next row. The Hebrew text uses identical notation but goes from
right to left. There are also three highlights employed in this
Unit. The most frequently used highlight is
this. It is used to mark linguistic
parallels between segments of a single weft thread; for example, “Let
there be light” and “Let
there be lights” in thread 2.
Parallels between cells within a warp thread are marked like “And
God called” in thread א. Closure,
between segments in the first weft thread and the last, appears like
this “the heaven and the earth.” The
full color-code appears before the text of TWT.
1. The Structure
Two Three-Day Cycles
We begin by examining thread 2, which contains
the days of creation. This thread effectively creates a weave within
the weave. The elements of 2א (A-C)
are parallel to the elements of 2ב.
This arrangement, as noted in the previous section, reflects the
initial insight which lead to identifying the formal structure of
creation. Many commentators have pointed out that the first three
days of creation form a block that is parallel to the next three
days of the creation story. The specific creations of days four to
six (2ב) give expression to the
parallel creations of days one to three (2א).
The light that was created on day one appears from the heavenly
bodies created on day four. The land creatures created on day six
utilize the earth and plants created on day three. The fish and
birds of day five are found in the elements of day two, the sky and
the ocean. The six consecutive days of creation should be read as
two cycles of three days each. They divide up in two different ways,
as two cycles of three days each, 1-3 and 4-6, and also as three
pairs of days: 1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6. The arrangement as a weave
integrates these two arrangements. The argument for arranging the
parts in the weave is that this arrangement makes more information
available about what the text says than the normal linear
arrangement does. The woven format gives the reader a set of
instructions, as it were, that are not otherwise available. This is
the set of instructions about how the parts relate to each other. It
reflects a mode of writing that can very well be compared with
weaving. This is the format of chapters of Mishnah as well as the
Units of the Torah. In order to better understand the full
significance of the weaving metaphor, I will make a short digression
and explain the workings of a simple loom.
Introducing: “The Literary Loom”
The loom pictured above is a tapestry loom. In
its most basic form it consists of a wooden frame with rows of pegs
or nails across the top and bottom of the frame. The threads of the
warp are stretched between the pegs on the top and bottom of the
frame. The weft, or woof, is then woven across the warp. The two
components have directional sense; the warp is vertical while the
weft is horizontal. There is also a constant difference between the
threads. The warp consists of thin colorless threads. Their function
is to hold the weave without being seen. The picture or pattern in
the tapestry consists solely of the threads of the weft.
How is the text woven? Each thread of the weft
consists of a set of textual elements, usually a pair or a triad,
such as each of the three pairs of days. Each thread is identified
as a set (pair or triad) by standard literary techniques. Usually
they have a common subject. Often, they have within them recurring
words or phrases. The common subjects of the weft threads create the
tapestry that carries the “picture” of the text. Where are the
hidden warp threads? They are found in a fixed relationship between
the elements of the weft. In the creation weave the elements of each
pair in 2 are ordered so that the first element, thread
א, describes a primary creation,
like light. The second element of each pair, thread
ב, describes a secondary creation
that utilizes its paired primary creation, as the greater and lesser
lights of day four utilize the light of day one. In all cases there
is a regular difference between the warp and the weft: the warp
points to a constant relationship between the vertical components;
the weft presents substantive similarities within the horizontal
lines. The distinction between the hidden warp and the visible weft
makes the weave analogy more suitable to the text than a simple
table. We will now further clarify our understanding of the literary
loom by seeing just how it affects our reading of The Creation
Weave.
The Warp
We will start by looking at the
warp. We can read the arrangement of days 1-3 and 4-6 in separate
threads as an indicator that we should look for something that the
first three days have in common and something else that the next
three have in common, as well as an identifiable relationship
between the columns. Each of the first three days has a creation
specifically named by God: 1, light; 2, sky; 3, earth. God names a
unique creation on each of these days. On the
other hand, each of the days in thread ב
mentions a class of objects: 4, stars; 5, birds and fish; 6,
land animals. So we can begin with the fact that the warp
indicates a distinction between singular creations and classes or
plural creations. This distinction is reinforced by an action
that is common in all three segments of column
א, separation. Each of the first
three days has an act of separation: 1, light from darkness; 2, the
waters above from the waters below; 3, the oceans from the dry land.
The act of separation emphasizes uniqueness or singularity. This
last observation sends us back to thread ב
to see whether or not it contains a counterpart to “separation” in
א. As a matter of fact each of the
last three days of creation describes the “occupation” of another’s
space. The terminology is sharp: the sun, moon and stars are placed
in heaven to “rule” day and night; man is told to “conquer” the
earth; the fish are to fill the sea. In each case a second cycle
creation in column ב “invades” or
controls its first cycle parallel in column
א. This is clearly in opposition to
the first cycle principle of “separation.” Another distinction
between the first three days and the last three is that the
creations of the first three do not move, while the creations of the
last three do. We can see that the warp threads are in several
senses opposites, based on distinctions like simple and complex;
singular and plural; primary and secondary; analysis and synthesis;
immovable and movable. This demonstrates the characteristic of the
warp, a fixed relationship between the vertical components.
The Weft
Now let’s look at the weft, the horizontal
rows. The initial impetus to examine the days of creation in the
format I have presented was the observation that the days are
paired. However, once the parts have been arranged in a weave, more
information becomes apparent. In effect, the parts of the puzzle
fall into place and the picture of the whole, the tapestry, becomes
apparent. The three parallel segments of 2 are arranged according to
a visual key. On the top, in A, we see the heavenly bodies, sun,
moon and stars: the upper, luminous, transcendent realm. On the
bottom, C, we find the earth-bound creatures, the immanent lower
world. In the middle, B, are the creatures that fill the space
between heaven and earth, as well as the very division between above
and below (day two). Suddenly, the grid clicks into place and the
creation story takes on a whole new perspective. The non-linear text
comes into focus and we see the woven text, or literary tapestry, as
it was created on the literary loom.
The Tapestry
From this point on any further analysis must
take into consideration the image painted by the arrangement of the
six individual days in the creation weave, the picture woven into
the tapestry. The critical juncture is the appearance of a coherent
picture with the stars above, the earth below, and a middle level
connecting them at the center; the world as we see it. I consider
this visualization the stamp of truth and an internal verification
of our non-linear arrangement. In order to see the picture we must
arrange the six days, as we have, in two parallel warp threads. Only
then the three-tiered representation of the world as it is
experienced appears. Up to this point we dealt with an interesting
literary phenomenon made up of complex parallels. Now we must
acknowledge that this is more than a literary curiosity. Using just
six “knots” of warp and weft, the Torah has woven the weave of
reality. The appearance of a clear representation of experienced
reality out of the peculiar division of creation into six parts
marks the text as a work of art, a tapestry woven on the literary
loom by a master craftsman. The visual hierarchy of the creation
parallels the conceptual hierarchy we found in the Decalogue.
It is clear now that the creation story has two
aspects. It is meant to appear as a linear text by having its parts
marked serially from one to seven. Nevertheless, in order to
understand its underlying coherence, it must be seen as a non-linear
construct. The reader must superimpose the pattern of the loom from
which the text was woven. In other words, there is an additional
level of meaning that can be accessed only by an active reader
reading the text according to its structure. Logically, we are now
confronted by the very real possibility that the creation narrative
was first conceived as a two dimensional woven text that would
deconstruct into a linear text. Like the Decalogue, it was written
on two “tablets” which were subsequently shattered.
The Prologue and the Epilogue
The authenticity of the non-linear reading is
reinforced by the addition of the remaining threads of the creation,
1, the “pre-creation” and 3, the Sabbath. Since these threads fall
outside the boundaries of creation proper, the six days, I refer to
them as the prologue and epilogue of creation. Both the prologue and
the epilogue divide into two parts. The first part of the prologue
and the first part of the epilogue relate to the first three day
cycle. The second part of each relates to the second three day
cycle. In effect, each of the three day cycles has its own prologue
and epilogue.
|
1א
When God began to create |
1ב
the earth being unformed and void, |
Each of the first two verses should be
associated with one of the three day cycles, the warp of our weave.
The first verse contains three unmodified nouns, God, heaven and
earth. This is similar to the first three day cycle in which the
simple elements are created and named. In fact, two of the entities
that are named in the first three days, heaven and earth, are
mentioned in verse 1. Verse 2 is like the second cycle of days. It
contains three descriptions which are parallel to the three
unmodified nouns of verse 1. However, the parallel is inverted
(chiastic). A similar distinction can be seen between the two
segments of day seven.
|
3א
Finished were the heaven |
3ב
Finished was God on the seventh day (the work
that He had been making),
[1] |
I have divided day seven into two sections
based on the repetition of the verb yechal, finished. In the
Hebrew, both sections begin with this verb. Again we see
three unmodified nouns in the first section, two of which, heaven
and earth, appear in the parallel section of the prologue.
The second section of the epilogue is composed of three divine
actions. Here too, as in the prologue, the second section contains
descriptions as opposed to the unmodified nouns of the first
section. It is now clear that the prologue and epilogue divide into
two sections each in a manner similar to the division of the six
days into two cycles. This makes it possible to place the prologue
and epilogue in The Creation Weave, thereby creating the 3X2 weave.
2. New Meanings
In the previous section we saw that the seven
days of creation can be represented in a 3X2 weave. In this section
we will see that viewing the text in this manner leads us to new
insights concerning the substance of the text. I will speak about
the relationship between structure and meaning and show how certain
literary techniques are used to invest the structure of the text
with meaning. The purpose of this section is twofold: to demonstrate
the meanings embedded in the creation weave and to give examples of
literary techniques used in the Torah to convey meaning by way of
the woven structure.
The creation weave can be viewed as having
three major components, 1) the prologue, 2) the core text made up of
the six days of creation, and 3) the epilogue. These three divisions
can be taken together to indicate that the process of creation has
three distinct stages. We have made some observations about the
picture in the six-day weave in the Unit which can help us
understand the mechanics of a three stage process. We noted a
symmetrical arrangement around the center of the picture. The
heavenly lights were above, the earth was below, and in the middle
was a self-defined separation/connection between above and below.
(While the picture is spatially symmetrical, there are also other
symmetries between 2A and 2C which we will explore.) The key point
is that a special relationship exists between the first and third
sections of a three part structure. The relationship can be viewed
as a pair of opposites. The middle element provides a bridge between
the opposites, much as 2B bridges that which is above (2A) and that
which is below (2C). Let’s see how that works with the three part
division of prologue, core and epilogue.
Conceptual Symmetry
Conceptual symmetry is based on a complementary
relationship between symmetrically related parts of the text. This
relationship can usually be seen as a pair of opposites or poles. We
can see this relationship between threads 1 and 3. The polarity
between 1 and 3 can be expressed in a pair of terms such as “before
and after” or “potential and actual.” The prologue directs us to a
base state of “without form and void” that exists as a
proto-creation, like a blueprint, before God begins the six detailed
days of creation. This blueprint is called “the beginning.” The
seventh day describes the opposite pole, “finished.” The building
has received a certificate of occupancy.
From Describing Structure to Deriving Meaning
Before we look at more examples of conceptual
symmetry, I want to clarify the connection between structural
symmetry and conceptual symmetry. The first (1) and last (3) threads
of the creation weave are set apart from the three-segment middle
thread both structurally and conceptually. The obvious structural
difference is that the middle thread is made up of three pairs of
days that do not follow each other in the linear flow. We might call
them “artificial” or “synthetic” pairs. The extreme lines, on the
other hand, are made up of “natural” pairs, consecutive blocks of
text. This effectively divides the table into two structural
sections, one containing threads 1 and 3, and the other containing
thread 2. This marks the extremes, 1 and 3, as a pair in terms of
the formal structure. Once they have been identified as a structural
pair, we can compare them and see in what sense they are a
conceptual pair. That is precisely when we begin to understand the
meaning embedded in the structure. Let’s focus in on the comparison.
When comparing 1 and 3 we are immediately
struck by the similarity of the opening sentences. Both deal with
“heaven and earth.” This linguistic parallel is much like a bridge
between the formal link and the conceptual link. It is like the
formal similarity between the prologue and epilogue because it is
clearly identifiable, but since it is part of the content it can
also lead us to a meaningful link. This meaningful connection is
found in the contexts in which the phrase “heaven and earth”
appears. The differences lead directly to the conceptual symmetry we
found between the pair of units.
|
In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth |
Thus the heavens and the earth were
finished |
The first Hebrew word in the prologue is,
beraisheet, beginning; God began creating heaven and earth. The
first word in the epilogue is, vayachulu, completed, (even
though the normal English syntax puts the verb at the end),
“Completed were the heaven and earth.” Now we have completed the
transition from describing the structure to deriving new meaning and
can speak of the “conceptual symmetry” of the prologue and the
epilogue. The next element of meaning that we will derive is based
on having seen the polarity of 1 and 3. The poles, beginning and
end, define the limits of what falls between them. The material in
the middle is both a structural middle and a conceptual middle.
The Conceptual Middle
Between the first stage, creating the
blueprint, and the final stage, occupancy, are the six days of
construction, the conceptual middle between the poles. We have a
clear linguistic sign that the six days of creation should be read
as a sub-unit. Each of the six days begins with the phrase “God
said” and ends with the formula “There was evening and morning….”
Neither of these phrases appears in 1 and 3. So again we find a
linguistic indicator of which parts of the text are to be read
together. The linguistic evidence couples with the structural fact
that 2 is set off from 1 and 3 to insure that we see the three
central segments, 2A-C, as a sub-unit. Once we have identified 1 and
3 as “beginning” and “end” respectively, the block of 2A-2C is
clearly meant to be read as “in the middle”- between the beginning
and the end.
In this specific case, with respect to time,
the fact that the six days of creation are a conceptual middle is
essentially trivial. However, if we consider the three steps as
“without form” (1), “formation” (2), and “fully formed” (3), then
the conceptual middle is no longer trivial. It is the link between
potential and realized. During the six days of creation God works
from the blueprint and delivers a finished product on the Sabbath.
The six days show how God realizes His plan. We have determined
according to the structure that the six days combine into three
intermediate stages 2A-2C. These three stages also exhibit
conceptual symmetry amongst themselves. We will see now how the
three middle stages utilize the four primary elements, fire, air,
water and earth, to create conceptual symmetry.
Fire, Air, Water and Earth
Each of the segments in the core text, 2A-2C,
is associated with a specific element, or elements. 2C is obviously
the earth. 2A deals with light. The Hebrew for light,
אור, also means flame. If we wish
to remain close to the classical “elements”, we can say that the
element associated with 2A is fire. The other two classical elements
are found in 2B, air and water. The placement of air and water
between fire and earth indicates that 2B is meant to be a conceptual
middle between 2A and 2C. There are several indications that this is
the case. The first is the fact that 2B includes two elements. One
of them is like 2A and the other is like 2C. Air is like fire (2A)
because it is intangible and tends to go up as in smoke or vapor.
Water is tangible like earth (2C) and tends to go down, seeking the
lowest point. This combination explains the appearance in 2B of the
birds that go up in the air and the fish that go down in the water.
So 2B is a conceptual middle because it combines aspects of 2A and
2C. This is one of the fundamental characteristics of conceptual
symmetry: the intermediate element provides a dividing link. (This
is exactly where we saw “human life” in the Decalogue as the middle
between divine will and human will.) We might call this “The Second
Principle of Torah Dynamics” since it is so similar to the actual
creation of the second day, the firmament that divides “above” from
“below”- the middle. Yet another example of conceptual symmetry is
found in the first three days of creation. It is based on the five
entities that are named in the first three days.
The Divinely Named Elements of Creation
God gives names to five parts of the creation.
On day one He names light “day” and darkness “night”; on day two He
names the firmament “heaven”; and on day three He calls the dry land
“earth” and the bodies of water “oceans.” These five names are
distributed symmetrically in our Weave: two in 2אA,
one in 2אB, and again two in 2אC.
Only three of the named entities are mentioned as intended parts of
creation, things that were directly created by acts of divine will.
On day one only light is created, although both day and night are
named. On day two the firmament is created and named “heaven.” On
the third day only the dry land is created while “earth” as well as
“oceans” are named. So we see that each of the first three days has
a single named creation, light, the firmament, and the earth. The
addition of two more names awakens our curiosity: Why did God find
it necessary to name night on day one and the seas on day three even
though He did not set out to create them on those days? What is the
function of the additional names given on days one and three? These
questions will lead us to see another example of conceptual
symmetry.
Naming the Non-created
In order to answer the questions we have
raised, we should look at the relationship between the entities that
were created and named on days one and three and those that were
named but not created. The connection between light and darkness of
day one is similar to the connection between dry land and the ocean
of day three. Both relationships are antithetical. Light and
darkness cannot coexist, nor can the sea and dry land. We can also
note that both maintain a continuing dynamic, cyclical relationship:
the cycles of day and night and the tides. Both pairs are also
associated with sight. Light makes it possible to see what the
darkness hides. The movement of the waters makes it possible to see
the dry land. Let’s look more closely at exactly how the light and
dry land are created.
|
1:3 And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was
good: and God divided the light from the darkness. |
1:9 And God said, Let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the
dry land appear |
Light is created directly from divine speech.
There is no intermediary. The land, on the other hand, is not
actually created. The movement of “the waters under the heaven”
reveals it. Neither night nor the oceans are directly called into
being. Darkness, which is called night, is separated from light
after God creates light on day one. The oceans are a by-product of
the creation of dry land on day three. Each of these named but not
created entities stands in a different relationship with the named
creation of its day. Light causes darkness to disappear. The created
entity of day one, light, negates its “uncreated” antipode,
darkness. On day three however, the water is told to gather together
and thus reveal the dry land. The movement of the oceans causes
the earth to come into being. The “non-creation”, water, plays a
role in the appearance of the earth. So we can postulate that the
two named “non-creations” are utilized to emphasize two different
types of causality.
Light is a direct expression of God’s will.
There are no intermediary stages or elements; it comes into being
immediately when God wills it to be. It is the only creation of its
kind, the only one that God saw individually, “And God saw the
light.” Earth, on the other hand, wasn’t really created on day
three. It was discovered. God discovered the earth when the waters
rolled back, “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.” It
appeared as part of a process of events. The distinction between the
creation of light and the creation of land is the difference between
supernatural and natural. This is consistent with our original
understanding of the picture in the weave. The supernatural is
associated with the transcendent, above, and the natural is
associated with the immanent, on the earth below. God made light
directly without any identifiable cause but established the dry land
through a natural process. This distinction is emphasized by the
difference between the way light separates from darkness as opposed
to the way the waters separate from the land. “God divided the light
from the darkness”, but He did not directly divide the water from
the dry land.
The Torah Teaches Hermeneutics
We have by now derived enough new information
about the meaning of our text in order to justify having arranged it
as a weave. We have also begun to see the close correlation between
structure and meaning, and have become acquainted with some of the
Torah’s rhetorical devices, such as the conceptual middle. Now we
will see that the Torah utilizes its first verses in order to teach
principles of hermeneutics. These first two verses demonstrate how
to read the Torah as a non-linear text as well as prefiguring the
six days of creation.
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
Verse 1 |
God |
Heaven |
Earth |
|
Verse 2 |
Earth |
The Deep |
God |
The first verse contains three nouns: 1, God;
2, heaven; 3, earth. The second verse contains three descriptions:
1, “the earth was without form and void”; 2, “darkness was upon the
face of the deep (space)”; 3, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters.” Since we now know that structure can contain
information, we are drawn to compare the two triads. It is
immediately clear that verse 2 refers to two of the nouns in verse
1, God and the earth. Closer inspection reveals that the two nouns
that are repeated are the first and last elements of each triad. God
appears at the beginning of verse 1 and at the end of verse 2 while
the earth appears at the end of verse 1 and in the beginning of
verse 2. This reversal of order is known as chiasm, from the Greek
letter chi, which is shaped like an X. It is also known as inverted
parallelism and is one of the most fundamental principles of
organization in the Torah.
Chiasm
Chiasm is a device that keeps parts of the text
together while at the same time defining limits. The appearance of a
chiasm clarifies the structure while indicating that it is
significant. In the case we are examining the chiasm implies, “These
two verses form a single unit. They must be read together.” (This is
further evidence that our initial identification of the verses as a
separate unit, the prologue, was correct.) It also indicates that
God is definitely part of the first triad. If we did not find the
chiasm, we could not be sure that we should see the first verse as
having two or three parts. We could say that it contains two parts,
the grammatical subject, God, and a double object, heaven and earth.
The appearance of God as part of the triad in the second verse tips
the balance in favor of reading the first verse as having three
elements. However, it is the chiasm that forces the decision. Once
the reader sees that the two verses form a single, crafted, block of
text based on a chiasm she sees that it has two triads.
So, the text has pointed out that the two
triads in the first two verses are significant. Where do we go from
here? Fortunately, we have already discovered the twin cycles of the
first six days and can see the similarity between the inner
structure of the prologue and the structure of the six days. The
first triad of the prologue contains three simple, unmodified nouns,
just as the first three days contain three named creations. The
second triad of the prologue modifies the elements introduced in the
first verse, much as the fourth to sixth days modify the parallel
creations of the first three days. So the prologue is not just a
precursor of the elements of creation, but actually contains the
form of creation. It is in fact the very blueprint that we earlier
anticipated it should be. The feature that enabled us to reach this
conclusion was the chiasm.
Separating God from His Creation
So far I have pointed out well-known literary
devices, such as symmetry and chiasm, to demonstrate how to derive
meaning from structure. Now I will work with some of the peculiar
characteristics of our text. The first two verses of the epilogue,
3, begin with the same word, a verb that can be translated as
finished, or completed. “Completed were heaven, earth, and their
multitudes. Finished was God….” Why does the Torah repeat the same
verb twice, once referring to the creation and once to God? If the
text means that God finished the creation, wouldn’t it be sufficient
to say “He finished and rested on the seventh day”? What is added by
dealing with heaven and earth and their hosts independently of God?
I believe that our reading of the prologue offers an answer to this
question.
|
A God creates |
D The earth is chaotic |
|
B The heaven |
E The deep is dark |
|
C The earth |
F God hovers |
The double triad of the opening verses begins
and ends with God. He begins creating heaven and earth and finishes
hovering above the water. He is involved with the creation as a
participant and hovers above it restlessly. His personal status is
not mentioned again until we hear that He rested on the seventh day.
This rest is in opposition to the “hovering” in the beginning. This
is yet another aspect of the polar symmetry that we noted between 1
and 3. The same principle can be employed to solve the problem of
the double use of “complete” in the epilogue.
The effect of the double appearance of
“complete” is as if to say that God is no longer involved with
heaven and earth and their hosts. He is resting in His blessed
Sabbath while His creation stands apart completed. In a manner of
speaking, God, who was intimately and restlessly involved with His
creation for six days, has separated from it in day seven. The
separation is itself the sign that the creation has been completed.
This observation will perforce influence our understanding of the
process of creation. Earlier we identified the conceptual middle as
expressed in 2A-2C as the movement from unformed to formed. Now we
must take into account that the middle may also indicate the
transition from a state in which God and His creation are
inseparable to a state in which they are apparently independent of
each other. (This point will reappear in Part 3 where it is the
fifth stage of the decalogue of Leviticus 19.) In order to see just
how this change takes place, we must broaden our reading of the
creation weave.
Rereading the Weave
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the
3X2 weave is that each of the warp threads is coherent within
itself. All of thread א contains
individually named creations while all of
ב contains descriptions. There is yet another factor that
distinguishes between the warp threads. We can best understand it by
having another look at the prologue.
|
א1 God creates |
ב1 The earth is chaotic |
|
B The heaven |
B The deep is dark |
|
C The earth |
C God hovers |
We have already seen that the two triads are in
reversed order. This reversal is further emphasized by the middle
elements: “heaven” or “the sky” and “the deep”. The significance of
their parallel is strengthened by the fact that “the deep” appears
four other times in the Torah and in all four cases it is paired
with “heaven.” They are both terms that refer to space and are
opposite in sense. Heaven points up while “the deep” points down.
(This is quite similar to the function of the middle level of
creation (2B) that determines the values “above and below”.) So the
only element which differs in the two triads actually indicates that
they are opposites. What is even more significant is that the
opposite directions can be applied both to the triads of the
prologue as well as to the warp threads. The first triad begins with
God, the perspective of “above”. The second begins with the chaotic
earth, the perspective from below. The movement in the first triad
is from the top down and in the second from the bottom up. These
distinctions are consistent within each column. The left column
begins with God’s activity and ends with the independent creation.
The right column begins with chaos and ends with God at rest. The
creation weave has led us to two different aspects of creation,
creation from the top down and creation from the bottom up.
Creation from above,
א, leads us to the God of the philosophers, a transcendent
God who creates an idealized universe and then retires. Creation
from chaos introduces a different aspect of God. In
ב we see a personal God who has a
spirit, an image and a likeness. His first act, in day four, is to
begin to create order out of the chaos. This is consistent with our
understanding of thread 1 as a blueprint. The first of the three
elements in ב1 is the chaos upon
the earth. God turns the chaos into order by creating heavenly
symbols (אותות). In His final act,
on day six, He creates an image of Himself, man and woman, who are
instructed to complete the process of establishing order in the
world. In the first three days God creates a perfectly ordered
world, one in which the causes are clear and each entity has a name,
the world of four prime elements. In the next three days God creates
a world which is constantly shifting and falling into disarray, a
world that needs continual attention to its symbols, a yeasty world
of possibility. We can read the two columns as describing both
different aspects of God and different aspects of creation.
3. Summary and Conclusions
Seven Days and Seven Principles of Organization
From what we have seen, we can deduce that the
days of creation and their objects are not the primordial elements
of reality according to the Torah’s narrative. They are logically
preceded by a weave of two sets of principles found in the warp and
weft. The unique creation of each day comes to signify the unique
meshing of two primary principles which are conceptual threads, one
in the warp and one in the weft. The day itself is the knot of the
two threads. There are five such principles in the six-day weave,
two vertical and three horizontal. The addition of the prologue and
the epilogue, two more horizontal principles, brings the total
number of prime principles to seven- like the total number of days
mentioned in the narrative. So we have seven numerated “days” or
stages in the linear narrative matched by seven embedded principles
of organization that are inaccessible without reconstructing the
creation weave. If we take the days of creation to express aspects
of the physical world, then the embedded primary principles would
pertain to metaphysics, since they logically precede the creation.
The exoteric reading of creation as a description of the physical
world is paralleled by the esoteric, hidden, weave that reveals the
metaphysical underpinnings of creation.
The seven days of the linear creation narrative
are based on seven principles embedded in the non-linear structure
of the weave. If the non-linear stratum of the Torah is an integral
part of the text, as it appears to be, we must ask why the text has
both linear and non-linear aspects. Inevitably, this question leads
us to query the very nature of the Torah. Our previous reading of
the Decalogue and the tablets narratives has provided us with
internal evidence that can be used to clarify these two aspects of
the creation narrative. We learned from the tablets narratives that
the Torah can direct the same text to different audiences. The
creation weave is another instance of this principle. Here too,
there is a linear reading, which is parallel to the shattered public
tablets, and a non-linear reading, which is parallel to the hidden
tablets. The stone tablets themselves have, in effect, morphed into
the warp threads of the creation weave. The dyads of “one and many”
and “separate and connected” which we have seen in the creation
weave can be employed to distinguish between the two stone tablets
containing five consecutive pairs of Words according to the scroll
division. This confirms our earlier hypothesis that the divine
writing on the tablets is meant to provide a paradigm for how the
Torah was composed for two audiences.
The Primacy of the Warp
We noted that there are two different types of
threads on the loom, the warp threads that are meant to be
invisible, and the visible weft threads. The warp must be strung on
the loom first in order to receive the weft. So we could say that
the warp, which is the equivalent of the stone tablets, even though
it will ultimately disappear, is the first principle of the weave.
We characterized the warp of the creation weave as distinguishing
between the unique singular creations of the first days and the
manifold creations of the last days. In other words, the most
fundamental principle of the created world is a distinction between
“one” and “many.” Translating this principle from metaphysics to
experience, we can say that the most fundament characteristic of
human experience is the divide between the one, the self, and the
many, society, or more abstractly, subjectivity and objectivity.
These dyads lead us to the distinction between our two readings of
the Torah which parallel the two sets of stone tablets.
The two readings of the Torah speak to two
different readerships, the nation as collective and individual
readers. As a public document, one to be read in public, the Torah
must sound like speech, like the voice of Moses speaking to the
people. Each law and each bit of narrative must be graspable as an
entity, like the numbered days of creation. This is the linear,
exoteric, Torah which forms the basis for the relationship between
God and the Israelite nation. But the Torah also connects each
individual member of the nation to God. This is the hidden esoteric
stratum found in the structure, as we found in the creation weave
and the Decalogue. This is the Torah that the Rabbis said must be
taught to individuals, not in public. Each individual who reads the
Torah in this manner receives it as a unified whole, like Moses. The
prophet who received the Torah thus becomes the model for the
student of the esoteric Torah, just as Moses the law-giver is the
model of a national leader. Ultimately, the reader who takes Moses
as a paradigm will aspire to integrate within himself the two
aspects of Moses, the unique person standing before God, and the
citizen committed to the public good. Moses is the model of the
integrated individual. He is able to translate his deepest
subjective experience, the voice of God, into objective reality, the
Torah set before the nation. We will return to this point in Part 5.
This chapter has presented two aspects of the
woven Units of the Torah. First, from a purely technical
perspective, we noted the layout on the page and the division into
components of Genesis Unit I. We then explored some of the
possibilities of exegesis afforded by the identification of the
woven structure. In the next chapter we will broaden the analysis by
examining a Unit with a slightly different format. The exegesis of
that Unit will lead us back to the creation weave.
Chapter 2. The De-creation Weave
Exodus Unit III (6:29-11:10)
|
א1 |
ג1 |
||
|
6:29 And it happened on the day
the LORD spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the LORD
spoke to Moses, saying, “I am the LORD, Speak to Pharaoh
king of Egypt all that I speak to you.” 6:30 And Moses said
before the LORD, “Look, I am uncircumcised of lips, and how
will Pharaoh heed me?”{P}7:1 And the LORD said to Moses,
“See, I have set you as a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your
brother will be your prophet. 7:2 You it is who will speak
all that I charge you and Aaron your brother will speak to
Pharaoh, and he will send off the Israelites from his land.
7:3 And I on My part shall harden
Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and My
portents in the land of Egypt. 7:4
And Pharaoh will not heed you,
and I shall set My hand against Egypt and I shall bring out
My battalions, My people the Israelites, from the land of
Egypt with great retributions, 7:5 that the Egyptians may
know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand over
Egypt and bring out the Israelites from their midst.” 7:6
And Moses, and Aaron with him, did as the LORD had charged,
thus did they do. 7:7 And Moses was eighty years old and
Aaron was eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.
{P} |
7:8 And the LORD said to Moses
and to Aaron, saying, 7:9 “Should Pharaoh speak to you,
saying, ‘Give you a portent,’ you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take
your staff and fling it down before Pharaoh, let it become a
serpent.’” 7:10 And Moses, and Aaron with him, came to
Pharaoh, and they did as the LORD had charged, and Aaron
flung down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants,
and it became a serpent. 7:11 And Pharaoh, too, called for
the sages and sorcerers and they, too, the soothsayers of
Egypt, did thus with their spells. 7:12 And each flung down
his staff and they became serpents, and Aaron’s staff
swallowed their staffs. 7:13 And Pharaoh’s heart toughened,
and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken. {S} |
||
|
א2 |
ב2 |
ג2 |
|
|
A 7:14 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hard. He refuses
to send off the people. 7:15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning.
Look, he will be going out to the water, and you shall be
poised to meet him on the bank of the Nile, and the staff
that turned into a snake you shall take in your hand. 7:16
And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD god of the Hebrews sent
me to you, saying, Send off my people, that they may worship
Me in the wilderness, and look, you have not heeded us
yet.7:17 Thus said the LORD, By this shall you know that I
am the LORD: Look, I am about to strike with the staff in my
hand on the water that is in the Nile and it will turn into
blood.7:18 And the fish that are in the Nile will die and
the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will not be able to
drink water from the Nile.’”{S} |
A 7:26 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh, and you shall say
to him, ‘Thus said the Lord: Send off My people that they
may worship Me. 7:27 And if you refuse to send them off,
look I am about to scourge all our region with frogs.7:28
And the Nile will swarm with frogs and they will come up and
come into your house and into your bedchamber and onto your
couch and into your servants’ house and upon your people and
into your ovens and into your kneading pans. 7:29 And upon
you and upon your people and upon all your slaves the frogs
will come up.’” |
A
|
|
|
B 7:19 And the LORD said to
Moses, “Say to Aaron: ‘Take your staff and stretch out your
hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers and over
their Nile channels and over their ponds and over all the
gathering of their waters, that they become blood. And there
shall be blood in all the land of Egypt, and in the trees
and in the stones.’”7:20 And Moses and Aaron did thus as the
LORD had charged. And he raised the staff and struck the
water that was in the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and
the eyes of his servants, and all the water that was in the
Nile turned to blood. 7:21 And the fish that were in the
Nile died and the Nile stunk, and the Egyptians could not
drink water from the Nile, and the blood was in all the land
of Egypt. 7:22 And the soothsayers of Egypt did thus with
their spells, and Pharaoh’s heart toughened and he did not
heed them, just as the LORD had spoken.7:23 And Pharaoh
turned and came into his house, and this, too, he did not
take to heart. 7:24 And all of Egypt dug round the Nile for
water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the
Nile. 7:25 And seven full days passed after the LORD struck
the Nile. {P} |
B 8:1 And the LORD said to Moses,
“Say to Aaron: Stretch out your hand with your staff over
the rivers, over the Nile channels and over the ponds, and
bring up the frogs over the land of Egypt.” 8:2 And Aaron
stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the
frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 8:3 And the
soothsayers did thus with their spells and brought up frogs
over the land of Egypt. 8:4 And Pharaoh called to Moses and
to Aaron and said, “Entreat the LORD that He take away the
frogs from me and from my people, and I shall send off the
people, that they may sacrifice to the LORD.” 8:5 And Moses
said to Pharaoh, “You may vaunt over me as for when I should
entreat for you and for your servants and for your people to
cut off the frogs from you and from your houses—only in the
Nile will they remain.”8:6 And he said, “For tomorrow.” And
he said, “As you have spoken, so that you may know there is
none like the LORD our God.8:7 And the frogs will turn away
from you and from your houses and from your servants and
from your people—only in the Nile will they remain.” 8:8 And
Moses, and Aaron with him, went out from Pharaoh’s presence,
and Moses cried out to the LORD concerning the frogs that He
had put upon Pharaoh. 8:9 And the LORD did according to
Moses’s word, and the frogs died, out of the houses and out
of the courtyards and out of the fields,8:10 and they piled
them up heap upon heap, and the land stank. 8:11 And Pharaoh
saw that there was relief and he hardened his heart and did
not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken.{S} |
B 8:12 And the LORD said to
Moses, “Say to Aaron: Stretch out your staff and strike the
dust of the land and there will be lice in all the land of
Egypt.” 8:13 And thus they did, and Aaron stretched out his
hand with his staff and struck the dust of the land, and
there were lice in man and in beast, all the dust of the
land became lice in all the land of Egypt. 8:14 And thus the
soothsayers of Egypt did with their spells, to take out the
lice, but they were unable, and the lice were in man and in
beast. 8:15 And the soothsayers said to Pharaoh, “God’s
finger it is!” And Pharaoh’s heart toughened, and he did not
heed them, just as the LORD had spoken. {S} |
|
|
א3 |
ב3 |
ג3 |
|
|
8:16 And the LORD said to Moses,
“Rise early in the morning and station yourself before
Pharaoh—look, he will be going out to the water—and say to
him, ‘Thus said the LORD: send off My people, that they may
worship Me. 8:17 For if you do not send off My people, I am
about to send against you and against you servants and
against your people and against your houses the horde, and
the houses of Egypt will be filled with the horde and the
soil, too, on which they stand. 8:18 But I shall set 18
apart on that day the land of Goshen upon which My people
stands so that no horde will be there, that you may know
that I am the LORD in the midst of the land. 8:19 And I
shall set a ransom between My people and your people.
Tomorrow this sign will be.’” 8:20 And thus the LORD did,
and a heavy horde came into the house of Pharaoh and the
house of his servants, and in all the land of Egypt the land
was ravaged in the face of the horde. 8:21 And Pharaoh
called to Moses and to Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to
your god in the land.” 8:22 And Moses said, “It is not right
to do thus, for the abomination of Egypt we shall sacrifice
to the LORD our God. If we sacrifice the abomination of
Egypt before their eyes, will they not stone us? 8:23 A
three days’ journey into the wilderness we shall go, and we
shall sacrifice to the LORD our God as He has said to us.”
8:24 And Pharaoh said, “I myself will send you off, that you
may sacrifice to the LORD your god in the wilderness, only
you must not go far away. Entreat on my behalf.” 8:25 And
Moses said, “Look, I am going out from your presence and I
shall entreat the LORD, that the horde may turn away from
Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people tomorrow.
Only let not Pharaoh continue to mock by not sending the
people off to sacrifice to the LORD.” 8:26 And Moses went
out from Pharaoh’s presence and entreated the LORD. 8:27 And
the LORD did according to Moses’s word, and the horde turned
away from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people,
not one remained. 8:28 And Pharaoh hardened his heart this
time, too, and he did not send off the people. {P} |
9:1 And the LORD said to Moses,
“Come into Pharaoh and you shall speak to him, ‘Thus said
the LORD, God of the Hebrews: Send off My people, that they
may worship Me. 9:2 But if you refuse to send 3 them off and
you still hold on to them, 9:3 look, the hand of the LORD is
about to be against your livestock which is in the field,
against the horses, against the donkeys, against the camels,
against the cattle, and against the sheep—a very heavy
pestilence. 9:4 And the LORD will set apart the livestock of
Israel from the livestock of Egypt, and nothing of the
Israelites’ will die.’” 9:5 And the LORD set a fixed time,
saying, “Tomorrow the LORD will do this thing in the
land.”9:6 And the LORD did this thing on the next day, and
all the livestock of Egypt died, but of the livestock of
Israel not one died. 9:7 And Pharaoh sent and, look, not a
single one had died of the livestock of Israel, and
Pharaoh’s heart hardened, and he did not send off the
people. {P} |
9:8 And the LORD said to Moses
and to Aaron, “Take you handfuls of soot from the kiln and
let Moses throw it toward the heavens before Pharaoh’s
eyes,, 9:9 and it shall become a fine dust over all the land
of Egypt and it shall become on man and on beast a burning
rash erupting in boils in all the land of Egypt.” 9:10 And
they took the soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh,
and Moses threw it toward the heavens and it became a
burning rash with boils erupting on man and on beast. 9:11
And the soothsayers could not stand before Moses because of
the burning rash, for the burning rash was on the
soothsayers and in all of Egypt. 9:12 And the LORD toughened
Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not heed them, just as the LORD
had spoken to Moses. {S} |
|
|
א4 |
ב4 |
ג4 |
|
|
A 9:13 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Rise early in the morning and
station yourself before Pharaoh, and you shall say to him,
‘Thus said the LORD, God of the Hebrews: Send off my people,
that they may worship me. 9:14 For this time I am about to
send all My scourges to your heart and against your servants
and against your people, so that you may know that there is
none like Me in all the earth. 9:15 For by now I could have
sent forth My hand and I could have struck you and your
people with pestilence, and you would have been wiped off
the face of the earth. 9:16 And yet, for this I have let you
stand—so as to show you My power, and so that My name will
be told through all the earth. 9:17 You still block the way
to My people, not sending them off. 9:18 Look, I am about
to rain down very heavy hail at this time tomorrow, the like
of which there has not been in Egypt from the day of its
founding until now. 9:19 And now, send, gather in your
livestock and everything you have in the field. Every man
and the beasts that will be in the field and that are not
taken indoors, the hail shall come down on them and they
shall die.’” 9:20 Whoever feared the LORD’s word among
Pharaoh’s servants sheltered his slaves and his livestock
indoors. 9:21 And whoever paid no mind to the LORD’s word
left his slaves and his livestock in the field. {P} |
A And the
LORD said to Moses, “Come into Pharaoh, for I Myself 1 have
hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, so that I
may set these signs of Mine in his midst, 10:2 and so that
you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son’s son
how I toyed with Egypt, and My signs that I set upon them,
and you shall know that I am the LORD.” 10:3 And Moses, and
Aaron with him, came into Pharaoh, and they said to him,
“Thus said the LORD, God of the Hebrews: ‘How long can you
refuse to humble yourself before Me? Send off My people,
that they may worship Me.10:4 For if you refuse to send off
My people, look, I am about to bring tomorrow locust in all
your territory. 10:5 And it will cover the eye of the land,
and one will not be able to see the land. And it will
consume the rest of the remnant left you from the hail, and
it will consume every tree you have growing in the field.
10:6 And they will fill your houses and the houses of all
your servants and the houses of all of Egypt, the like of
which your fathers did not see nor your fathers’ fathers
from the day they were on the soil until this day.’” And he
turned and went out from Pharaoh’s presence. 10:7And
Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this fellow
be a snare to us? Send off the men, that they may worship
the LORD their god. Do you not yet know that Egypt is
lost?”10:8 And Moses, and Aaron with him, were brought back
to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, worship the LORD your
god. Just who is going?” 10:9 And Moses said, “With our lads
and with our old men we will go. With our sons and with our
daughters, with our sheep and with our cattle we will go,
for it is a festival of the LORD for us.”10:10 And he said
to them, “May the LORD be with you the way I would send you
off with your little ones! For evil is before your
faces.10:11 Not so. Go, pray, the men, and worship the LORD,
for that is what you seek.” And he drove them out from
Pharaoh’s presence.{S} |
A
|
|
|
B 9:22
And the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the
heavens, that there be hail in all the land of Egypt,
upon man and upon beast and upon all the grass of the field
in the land of Egypt.”9:23 And Moses stretched out his staff
over the heavens, and the LORD let loose thunder and hail,
and fire went along earthward, and the LORD rained hail on
the land of Egypt. 9:24 And there was very heavy hail, with
fire flashing in the midst of the hail, the like of which
there had not been in all the land of Egypt from the time it
became a nation. 9:25 And the hail struck through all the
land of Egypt whatever was in the field, from man to beast,
and all the grass of the field did the hail strike, and
every tree of the field did it smash.9:26 Only in the land
of Goshen, in which the Israelites were, was there no hail.
9:27 And Pharaoh sent and called to Moses and to Aaron and
said to them, “I have offended this time. The LORD is in the
right and I and my people are in the wrong. 9:28 Entreat the
LORD, and no more of God’s thunder and hail! And let me send
you off, and you shall not continue to stay.” 9:29 And Moses
said to him, “As I go out of the city, I shall spread out my
hands to the LORD. The thunder will stop, and the hail will
be no more, so that you may know that the earth is the
LORD’s. 9:30 And as for you and your servants, I know that
you still do not fear the LORD God.” 9:31 And the flax and
the barley were struck, for the barley was in bud and the
flax was in ear.9:32 But the wheat and the emmer were
unripened. 9:33 And Moses went out from Pharaoh’s presence
out of the city and spread out his hands to the LORD, and
the thunder stopped and the hail and the rain were not
sluiced earthward. 9:34 And Pharaoh saw that the rain and
the hail and the thunder had stopped, and he continued to
offend, and he hardened his heart, both he and his servants.
9:35 And Pharaoh’s heart toughened, and he did not send off
the Israelites, just as the LORD had spoken through
Moses.{P} |
B 10:12 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land
of Egypt for the locust, that it may come up over the land
of Egypt and consume all the grass of the land that the hail
left behind.”10:13 And Moses stretched out his staff over
the land of Egypt, and the LORD drove an east wind into the
land all that day and all the night. When it was morning,
the east wind bore the locust. 10:14 And the locust went up
over all the land of Egypt, and settled, very heavy, over
all the territory of Egypt. Before it there had never been
locust like it and after it there never would be. 10:15 And
it covered the eye of the land, and the land went dark. And
it consumed all the grass of the land and every fruit of the
tree that the hail had left, and nothing green in tree or in
grass of the field was left in all the land of Egypt.10:16
And Pharaoh hastened to call to Moses and to Aaron, and he
said, “I have offended before the LORD your god and before
you. 10:17 And now, forgive, pray, my offense, just this
time, and entreat the LORD your god, that He but take away
from me this death.” 10:18 And he went out from Pharaoh’s
presence and entreated the LORD. 10:19 And the LORD turned
round a very strong west wind, and it bore off the locust
and thrust it into the Sea of Reeds, not a locust remained
in all the territory of Egypt. 10:20 And the LORD toughened
Pharaoh’s heart, and he 20 did not send the Israelites
off.{P} |
B 10:21 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the
heavens, that there be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a
darkness one can feel.”10:22 And Moses stretched out his
hand over the heavens and there was pitch dark in all the
land of Egypt three days. 10:23 No one saw his fellow and no
one rose from where he was three days, but all the
Israelites had light in their dwelling places.10:24 And
Pharaoh called to Moses and said, “Go, worship the LORD.
Only your sheep and your cattle will be set aside. Your
little ones, too, may go with you.” 10:25 And Moses said,
“You yourself too shall provide us sacrifices and burnt
offerings, that we may do them to the LORD our God.10:26 And
our livestock, too, shall go with us, not a hoof shall
remain. For from it we shall take to worship the LORD our
God, and we ourselves cannot know with what we shall worship
the LORD our God until we come there.” 10:27 And the LORD
toughened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not want to send them
off. 10:28 And Pharaoh said to him, “Go away from me. Watch
yourself. Do not again see my face, for on the day you see
my face, you shall die.” 10:29 And Moses said, “Rightly have
you spoken—I will not see your face again.”{P} |
|
|
א5 |
ג5 |
||
|
A 11:1 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Yet one more plague shall I bring
upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will send you off
from here; when he sends you off altogether, he will surely
drive you out from here. |
A 11:4 And
Moses said, “Thus said the LORD: ‘Around midnight I am going
out in the midst of Egypt. 11:5 And every firstborn in the
land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh
sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slavegirl who
is behind the millstones, and every firstborn of the
beasts.11:6 And there shall be a great outcry in all the
land of Egypt, the like of which there has not been and the
like of which there will not be again.11: But against the
Israelites no dog will snarl, from man to beast, so that you
may know how the LORD sets apart Egypt and Israel.11:8 And
all these servants of yours shall come down to me and bow to
me, saying, Go out, you and all the people that is at your
feet. And afterward I will go out.’” And he went out from
Pharaoh’s presence in a flare of anger. {S} |
||
|
B 11:2 Speak,
pray, in the hearing of the people, that every man borrow
from his fellow man and every woman from her fellow woman,
ornaments of silver and ornaments of gold. 11:3 And the LORD
will grant the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians.
The man Moses, too, is very great in the land of Egypt in
the eyes of Pharaoh’s servants and in the eyes of the
people.”{S} |
B 11:9 And
the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will
not heed you, so that My portents may be multiplied in the
land of Egypt.” 11:10 And Moses
and Aaron had done these portents before Pharaoh, and
the LORD toughened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not send off
the Israelites from his land.{S} |
||
The next example Unit we will examine contains
the signs, or “plagues”, that preceded the redemption from Egypt. I
have chosen to present this Unit for two reasons. First, its
structure is a variation on that of Genesis Unit I and will
introduce us to another non-linear format employed by the author of
the Torah. Second, it is inextricably linked to the reading of
Genesis I as a weave. As we reconstruct Units of the non-linear
Torah, we develop the tools to understand yet other sections and how
they depend on the non-linear reading. We can now see an excellent
example of this principle by reading the “signs” in Egypt in light
of the creation weave. We will see that the author meticulously
created the signs in Egypt in order to form a weave in which the
stages of creation associated with the three-tiered arrangement of
the six days are negated, thereby creating a “de-creation” weave.
This reading supports the conclusion from the creation weave that
the Torah has been constructed to be read in two different ways,
linearly and non-linearly. It also reinforces the conclusion from
the stone-tablets narratives that the same text can address two
different audiences. In the course of the analysis, we will see
additional examples of how clarification of the formal structure
leads to new directions for exegesis. We begin by defining the
extent of Exodus III and then examine how its parts connect with
each other. Finally, we will see how its internal organization
depends on the creation weave.
The Structure of Exodus III Compared to Genesis I
|
The Creation Weave Genesis I
(1:1-2:3) |
The De-creation
Weave |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The de-creation weave differs from the creation
weave both in form and in size. It has five weft threads, the first
and last of which have two segments while the middle three have
three each. This format, in which the weft threads differ in size,
is found in ten of the Torah’s eighty-six Units. We look at them as
a group in the appendix. In Exodus III, threads 1 and 5, like
threads 1 and 3 in Genesis I, create a framework. The author has
emphasized the framework aspect of these two threads by making both
of them differ in size from the central threads. Threads 2-4 contain
nine signs, or “plagues”, from blood to darkness, arranged in sets
of three signs in each thread. These three threads are closely
related to the middle thread (2) of Genesis I. There we treated two
parallel segments, each of which has three elements (A-C), as if
they were three threads. In Exodus III, threads 2-4 can be seen as
formal expansions of the three-tier image created within thread 2 of
Genesis I, with one major difference. While the creation weave is
ordered from the top down, the order in the de-creation weave is the
inverse, from the bottom up. In thread 2 Aaron uses his rod to point
to the earth and bring about three signs based on the earth. In
thread 4 Moses points up and initiates three signs that are linked
to the sky. We will look more closely at these parallels towards the
end of this chapter.
The Extent of the Unit
The author of the Torah has used several
techniques to mark the limits of Units. (The next chapter presents
some of these techniques.) Exodus III can serve as an example of a
Unit defined by “closure.” This is a technique widely applied by the
author to delineate the beginning and end of a Unit. It consists of
an introduction at or near the beginning of a Unit which is
reflected in a summary or linguistic echo at or near the end of the
Unit. We have already seen a complex example of closure between
threads 1 and 3 in Genesis I. Here is the text which forms the
closure in Exodus III.
|
Opening |
Closing |
|
7:1 And the LORD said to
Moses, … 7:3 And I on My part shall harden
Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and My
portents in the land of Egypt. 7:4 And Pharaoh will not heed
you…7:6 And Moses, and Aaron with him, did as the LORD had
charged, thus did they do. |
11:9 And the LORD said to
Moses, “Pharaoh will not heed you, so that My portents may
be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” 11:10 And Moses and
Aaron had done these portents before Pharaoh, and the LORD
toughened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not send off the
Israelites from his land. |
These segments have several elements in common:
1) God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, 2) to prevent him from sending off
the Israelites, 3) in order to multiply his signs and portents in
Egypt; 4) Aaron and Moses did what the Lord told them. These common
elements not only define the extent of the Unit, they also define
its content: signs and portents. The Unit begins in 6:29 with God
instructing Moses to speak to Pharaoh, two verses before the
beginning of chapter 7. (This is an example of how the division into
chapters corrupts the underlying literary structure.) The end of
Exodus III presents an apparent difficulty. Unit IV begins with the
details of the Pascal sacrifice which is a new subject. However, it
also includes the death of the first born. Since Unit III is
ostensibly about the “plagues”, or signs in Egypt, it would appear
that it should include the death of the first born. However, all of
the details of the Passover which surround the death of the first
born clearly create a new Unit. So why has the author separated the
death of the first born from the other signs which are in the Unit
we are about to examine? The answer is found in the closure text
above. Unit III is only about the signs and portents which “Pharaoh
will not heed.” Since Pharaoh responded to the deaths of the first
born by sending off the Israelites, it is not included.
The Unit we have delimited by means of closure
between threads 1 and 5 includes two signs which are not usually
included when counting ten “plagues” in Egypt. The first is tanin,
variously interpreted as snake, crocodile, sea monster, or dragon;
the second is a warning concerning the impending deaths of the first
born. Since God Himself refers to tanin as one
of His portents, we too should include it. Although the first born
do not die in this Unit, Moses does warn Pharaoh that they will. We
will see in the next paragraphs why the warning is itself to be
taken as a sign. It is well known that the nine signs from blood to
darkness form a tight structural unit consisting of three triads
based on the cyclical repetition of the introductions to the signs,
as we will see in detail. The tanin in 1 thus balances the
warning of the death of first born in thread 5; together they create
a framework around the three sets of triads, and combine with them
to form a five-part structure:
1. tanin
2. first triad (blood, frogs, lice),
3. second triad (mixture, pestilence, boils),
4. third triad (hail, locust, darkness),
5. warning of death of first born
Integrating the Signs
The five-thread structure can be seen as
containing five ordered stages with five levels of signification.
The ordering principle that creates the sense of flow or process
from stage to stage is political and the process can be described as
destabilization of the state. We will first look at the stages in
outline and afterwards in depth.
·
1. prologue (6:29-7:13), includes tanin;
A purely symbolic threat to Pharaoh’s
authority, restricted to an audience consisting of Pharaoh and his
advisors.
·
2. blood (7:14-25), frogs (7:26-8:11), lice
(8:12-15)
Largely symbolic, lacking real damage
·
3. mixture (8:16-28), pestilence (9:1-7), boils
(9:8-12)
Both symbolic, distinguishing between Israel
and Egypt, and causing significant damage, death of herds
·
4. hail (9:13-35), locust (10:1-20), darkness
(10:21-29)
Largely non-symbolic, inflicting
regime-destabilizing damage
·
5. epilogue (11:1-10), includes warning of death of
first born
A non-symbolic threat to Pharaoh’s hegemony
supported by the people of Egypt
Each of the five stages has a different degree
of signification. The first is almost purely symbolic. It takes
place in a setting that includes only Pharaoh and his court. The
effects of the first sign do not extend beyond the seat of
authority. The staff is a symbol of authority. Aaron turns his into
a living symbol and is followed by Pharaohs’ councilor-magicians who
also turn their symbolic staves into living symbols. When Aaron’s
staff swallows those of Pharaohs’ councilor-magicians, the act
itself is symbolic, indicating that Aaron serves a higher, or more
powerful, authority. No real damage is done, nor is the creation of
a living symbol a unique power bestowed upon Aaron. It is,
apparently, within the job description of all higher level
authorities. God Himself similarly indulges in pure symbolism in the
prologue. He tells Moses that he, Moses, will appear to Pharaoh as a
god, and Aaron will appear as Moses’ prophet (7:1). The fact that
the structure begins with pure symbolism is totally fitting in a
literary unit devoted to signs.
Stage 2, the first triad, has common elements
with the first stage, tanin. All three of the signs are
brought about by Aaron by means of his staff and are then imitated
by Pharaoh’s councilor-magicians. The effects are
largely symbolic, more nuisance than damage. While bodies of water
turned to blood, water was still to be had by digging; frogs in
one’s dinner plate might be unhygienic and disgusting, but no worse.
One significant change from stage 1 is in the circle of
people affected. While the change of the staff to tanin was
limited to Pharaoh’s court, the three “annoyances” of stage 2 effect
the entire population. The stench of rotting fish and frogs that
filled the air of Egypt may indicate a general malaise that the
people began to perceive.
Stage 3 is significantly different from the
first two. As opposed to stage 2, it cannot be understood as a duel
between Aaron and Pharaoh’s councilor-magicians. Actual damage is
caused with the loss of personal property, death of livestock. The
text emphasizes the distinction between the Egyptians who suffer and
the Israelites who are unaffected. While the distinction between the
two peoples may have been implied in the earlier stages through
Aaron’s superior mastery of matter, it becomes explicit in this
stage. God Himself declares He will distinguish between Egyptian and
Israelite. This point is further emphasized by Moses when he tells
Pharaoh that the Israelite form of worship is abhorrent to the
Egyptians. The basis for sedition is prepared in this triad by the
separation of one part of the population from the other. This theme
is further developed in stage 4.
The seeds of Pharaoh’s political
downfall, sown in 3, take root in stage 4. The warning before the
hail makes a unique appeal to the citizenry not to fall into the
trap set for Pharaoh. “Those among Pharaohs courtiers who feared the
Lord’s word brought their slaves and livestock indoors to safety;
but those who paid no regard to the word of the Lord left their
slaves and livestock in the open (9:20,21).” Egyptian society has
undergone a change that threatens its very existence, “Pharaohs
courtiers said to him, How long shall this one be a snare to us? Let
the men go to worship the Lord their God! Are you not yet aware that
Egypt is lost? (10:7).” The process reaches a peak in thread 5 when
we learn that Pharaoh’s antagonist, Moses, has achieved fame
throughout the land, “Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of
Egypt, among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people (11:3).”
Moreover, Moses then directly threatens Pharaoh that his people will
change their allegiance, “Then all these courtiers of yours shall
come down to me and bow low to me (11:8).” What began as a dual of
symbols in tanin, has turned into a true revolution with the
threat embodied in the warning concerning the first born. Insofar as
this five-step process teaches about God, it would appear that it is
within God’s power to foment civil insurrection. With this in mind,
we will now turn to a close reading of the three triads, stages 2-4.
They will lead us to the connection with the creation weave.
The Nine-Sign Table
The central structure of nine signs must be
visualized as a weave in order to be fully understood. In fact, it
comprises the clearest example of woven text in the Torah. Before I
present the nine-sign weave, I will list the signs consecutively
with some of the characteristics of each one. The list shows how the
weave is discovered, and consequently the structure of the Unit.
|
Cycle |
Thread |
Sign |
Instruction to Moses |
Agent |
|
First |
2 |
Blood |
"Present yourself to Pharaoh in the
morning" |
Aaron |
|
|
|
Frogs |
"Come to Pharaoh" |
Aaron |
|
|
|
Lice |
"Say to Aaron, Stretch your rod" |
Aaron |
|
Second |
3 |
Mixture |
"Rise up early in the morning and
present yourself to Pharaoh" |
God |
|
|
|
Cattle plague |
"Come to Pharaoh" |
God |
|
|
|
Boils |
"Take handfuls of ashes" |
Moses and Aaron |
|
Third |
4 |
Hail |
"Rise up early in the morning and
present yourself to Pharaoh" |
Moses |
|
|
|
Locusts |
"Come to Pharaoh" |
Moses |
|
|
|
Darkness |
"Stretch out your hand" |
Moses |
In the above list the nine signs are divided
into three cycles. Each cycle repeats a set of three different
instructions to Moses. In the first sign of each cycle God tells
Moses to present himself (נצב) to
Pharaoh in the morning. In the second sign of each cycle, God tells
Moses to come (בא) to Pharaoh. The
third sign in each cycle has no introduction; God simply tells Moses
how to bring it about. In respect of these three different
instructions, each of the three cycles is identical to the others;
the three instructions appear in the same order in each cycle. There
is, however, another element that distinguishes one cycle from the
other, the agent who brings about the sign. All three signs in the
first cycle are brought about by Aaron. Similarly, all three signs
in the third cycle are brought about by Moses. The middle cycle has
a combination of agents; two signs are brought about by God Himself
and one by Aaron and Moses together. We now have two different means
of classifying the signs. We can divide them into three groups
according to the three different instructions, and we can divide
them by agents. One of the advantages of the woven arrangement is
that it demonstrates the two different methods of grouping
simultaneously.
|
|
|
Warp Thread |
א |
ב |
ג |
|
|
|
Instruction |
Present Yourself |
Come |
None |
|
Weft Thread |
Cycle |
Agent |
|
|
|
|
2 |
First |
Aaron |
Blood |
Frogs |
Lice |
|
3 |
Second |
Mixed |
Mixture |
Livestock Plague |
Boils |
|
4 |
Third |
Moses |
Hail |
Locust |
Darkness |
All of the information that I presented in the
previous paragraphs is directly accessible from the above weave. The
classification by opening instructions appears in the warp,
ג-א. The classification by agents
appears in the weft, 2-4. The weave makes it clear that two "lines
of thought" were employed in organizing the signs, one that is
expressed in the warp and one that is expressed in the weft. Each
individual sign is defined by the intersection of its "agent" thread
and its "introduction" thread. The planning lines give new meaning
to "context." The context of a sign is determined by its position in
the weave, not just by its place in the linear flow of the text. The
full analysis of the signs must take into account the warp and weft
as organizing principles.
At this point, the main value of the weave is
methodological. It indicates that each weft thread and each warp
thread of the weave should be examined as a three-sign set, six sets
in all. The three weft sets can then be compared with each other. So
too, the three warp sets can be compared. The first weft thread (2)
is performed by Aaron by pointing at the ground. All three of these
signs have their source in the ground. In the last weft thread (4)
Moses points to the sky to initiate each sign. These signs come out
of the sky. The signs in the middle thread come neither from the
ground nor from the sky, but from between them. So there is a clear
spatial theme in the organization of the signs, which is expressed
by the relative positioning of the threads. This three-tiered
arrangement is identical to the creation weave except that it is
inverted, from the bottom up. Once we see that the top thread points
down and the bottom thread points up, we can see that they both
point to the middle thread, where God makes an unmediated
appearance, producing the mixture and livestock plagues without the
assistance of Moses or Aaron. God is revealed in the meeting of
heaven and earth. This is similar to the theme of Mt. Sinai.
Moreover, revelation is God’s stated purpose in causing the signs.
Now let us look at the warp.
Characteristics of the Warp
|
|
א |
ב |
ג |
|
Realm |
Public |
Public Meets Private |
Private |
|
General Content |
Changes to Natural Order |
Animals |
Personal Experience |
|
2 |
א2 |
ב2 |
ג2 |
|
3 |
א3 |
ב3 |
ג3 |
|
4 |
א4 |
ב4 |
ג4 |
The warp draws our attention to the
introductions, and consequently, the "actors" in each scene. In
א God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh,
“present yourself.” The language indicates that, as opposed to
ב, God will not accompany Moses. In
ב God invites Moses to come with
Him to Pharaoh. Here I must clarify a point. The Hebrew verb that
appears in the introductions to the three signs in
ב is bo, "come", even though
it is often mistakenly translated in this context as "go." The
importance of properly understanding this verb is that it positions
the speaker, God. Moses is told to "come" to Pharaoh, thereby
implying that either God is with Pharaoh, or that He will go with
Moses to Pharaoh. Thus there is a contrast with the first thread,
where Moses is apparently sent to Pharaoh without God. In
ג Moses does not go to Pharaoh at
all; he is with God. This gives us the following arrangement of
players: א, Moses and Pharaoh;
ב, God, Moses, and Pharaoh;
ג, Moses and God. Since Moses is
common to all three, he can be ignored in considering the unique
characteristics of the threads. Ignoring him leaves the following
arrangement: א, Pharaoh;
ב, God and Pharaoh;
ג, God. ב
is a combination of the two adjacent threads. This is similar to the
phenomenon that we noted in the weft, where the middle thread
combines aspects of the extremes, such as Moses and Aaron combing to
bring about boils.
The signs of א,
the bodies of water changing to blood, mixture, and hail, are all
pointedly announced to Pharaoh by the light of day in the morning.
These three signs bring about changes in the three levels of the
created world: the lower waters, the upper waters (that fall to the
ground), and the divider between them. This is the physical world
over which Pharaoh claims mastery; hence, he alone appears in this
column. Next we are going to look at ג.
There is an important methodological point that explains why we skip
from א to
ג. We have noted that the central warp thread, as well as the
central weft thread, combines elements of the extremities, i.e.
Pharaoh on one extreme, God on the other, and both of them in the
middle. Therefore, we should first study the extremes and then see
how they combine in the middle. This is an example of the visual
orientation of the Torah, as we saw in the previous chapter. The
synthesis, the conceptual middle, is in the textual middle. We will
make extensive use of this principle in Part 4 in analyzing the
structures of Genesis and Leviticus.
The most obvious difference between the signs
of א and lice, boils, and darkness,
in ג, is visibility. Lice are
virtually invisible, boils have no visible cause, and darkness is
the negation of visibility. The invisible signs were brought about
without any visible warning from the invisible God. These three
signs directly affect individuals, as opposed to the cataclysmic
natural changes of the signs in א.
Even darkness, which might appear to be an objective change, is
reported in terms of individual blindness: "no one saw his fellow."
It is possible to make a case for calling this sign “depression”
rather than “darkness.” The verb used to bring it about, veyamosh,
literally means “was made palpable.” The palpable darkness prevented
individuals from interacting; it was so bad that “no one rose from
where he was three days.” This sounds to me like a description of
mass clinical depression. We can sharpen the comparison between
א and ג
by examining the order within each thread.
We have already noted that
א reproduces a picture drawn by the
first days of the creation in which the primal world consists of
three levels, the upper and lower waters and the divider between
them. This is the objective world clearly seen by the light of day.
ג deals with personal experience,
the itch of a mite, the discomfort of a skin eruption, and
debilitating depression, “darkness.” These three signs are ordered
experientially. They begin with an itch caused by the smallest of
visible creatures, followed by a skin eruption that could have
either an external or psychosomatic cause. Finally, there is a
darkness of the spirit. The order is “internalization”, from the
outside inward. It points to experience that forces an unmediated
confrontation between the individual and God. As Pharaoh’s councilor
magicians noted concerning lice: “God’s finger it is!” The extreme
threads have defined the separate realms of “public events” and
“private experience”, or perhaps, “objective” and “subjective”
realities.
Now that we have identified threadsא
and ג, we can
see how ב functions as a conceptual
middle between them. The text has provided us with guidelines to
follow in order to understand the function of thread
ב. The first is based on our
earlier analysis of the key “players” in each scene. We saw that
א is associated with Pharaoh,
ג with God and
ב with both of them. This
observation should combine with the readings of
א as dealing with the realm of the
“natural” or “objective”, and ג the
“personal” or “subjective.” One subject connects
all three cells of ב, living
creatures: frogs (2), domestic animals (3) and locust (4). Two of
them, frogs and locust, demonstrate a meeting between the private
space of individuals and nature. In thread 2 this provides a degree
of comic relief: “And the Nile will swarm with frogs and they will
come up and come into your house and into your bedchamber and onto
your couch and into your servants’ house and upon your people and
into your ovens and into your kneading pans. (7:28)” In 4 it is no
less dramatic when the locusts “fill your houses and the houses of
all your servants and the houses of all of Egypt, the like of which
your fathers did not see nor your fathers’ fathers from the day they
were on the soil until this day. (10:6)” The author has used
literary flourishes in order to emphasize the clash between private
space and the “natural” realm it is supposed to keep out. Segment
ב3 takes a slightly different
approach. Its use of domesticated animals has a similar effect by
pointing to members of the “natural” realm that have been taken into
private space, i.e., domesticated. This verifies that the thread has
indeed been constructed as a conceptual middle and helps sharpen our
understanding of threads א and
ג, and consequently the distinction
between God and Pharaoh which is to be derived from the structure.
Pharaoh is associated with the “natural” realm while God is
associated with people. This is consistent with our earlier
observation that the overall process described through the five
stages of the Unit, expressed in the weft threads, demonstrates
God’s ability to destabilize the state.
Viewing the signs as a woven text reveals
additional meanings not easily accessible from the linear reading.
We will now see the author’s verification that this is by design.
|
For Pharaoh |
For Israel |
|
Ex. 7:3 And I on My part shall harden
Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and My
portents in the land of Egypt. 7:4 And Pharaoh will not heed
you, and I shall set My hand against Egypt and I shall bring
out My battalions, My people the Israelites, from the land
of Egypt with great retributions, 7:5 that the Egyptians may
know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand over
Egypt and bring out the Israelites from their midst.” |
10:1 And the LORD said to Moses, “Come
into Pharaoh, for I Myself have hardened his heart and the
heart of his servants, so that I may set these signs of Mine
in his midst, 10:2 and so that you may tell in the hearing
of your son and your son’s son how I toyed with Egypt, and
My signs that I set upon them, and you shall know that I am
the LORD.” |
The Lord refers to the wonders that He wrought
in Egypt as “My signs” in two places in the above verses. In both
places He includes reasons why He caused them. In Exodus 7, He says
that the purpose of His signs in Egypt is to teach the Egyptians
that He is the Lord, “the Egyptians may know that I am the
LORD, when I stretch out My hand over Egypt and bring out the
Israelites from their midst” (7:5). Later He adds “that
you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son’s son how I
toyed with Egypt, and My signs that I set upon them, and you shall
know that I am the LORD
” (10:2). God gives two different
reasons for why He displayed His signs in Egypt. One reason applies
to the Egyptians while the other applies to the Israelites. What
they have in common is the knowledge of God. In chapter 7, that
knowledge is limited to the Egyptians; chapter 10 adds the
Israelites.
It appears that the Israelites and the
Egyptians learn two different lessons about God from the signs. The
Egyptians learn that God is YHWH, the Lord, from the outcome of His
signs, the ultimate release of the Israelites. It seems that the
signs themselves and the actual process of redemption are, at most,
marginally significant in the education of Egypt. They are impressed
by the power of YHWH to deliver the Israelites from the midst of
Egypt. The lesson for the Israelites, on the other hand, appears to
be inseparable from the details of the signs, details that are to be
retold from generation to generation. God reveals Himself to Israel
through the details of how “I toyed with Egypt, and My signs
that I set upon them, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
God teaches His people about Himself through the signs. Pharaoh’s
heart was hardened so that God could reveal all of His signs for the
sake of Israel. The details of how God’s signs were displayed in
Egypt are meant to teach Israel theology, the nature of God. Since
Pharaoh and Egypt relate only to the actual redemption, which takes
place in Unit IV with the death of the first born, Unit III, the
de-creation, is solely for future generations of Israelites.
The verses from chapter 10 indicate why it was
necessary to create a set of signs associated with the redemption
from Egypt. It was not to convince Pharaoh to release the children
of Israel. He would have done that much sooner had God not hardened
his heart. It was in order for future generations to know the nature
of God by studying His signs in the text of the Torah. Pharaoh, the
Egyptians, and the Israelites of that generation, all experienced
the signs linearly as a display of divine power. They did not have
access to the text which contains within its structure divine
knowledge. That knowledge becomes fully accessible only when the
signs are read in light of the creation weave, as we will see
shortly. Since the Torah was not given until after the Exodus, there
was no way for those in Egypt to relate the signs to the creation.
Therefore, the knowledge of the link between the creation and the
signs preceding the Exodus would only be accessible to future
generations, after the writing of the Torah. This is an extremely
important point which leads to a far-reaching conclusion. As we
began to sense from our reading of the Decalogue, the God of the
Torah is a literary God. He provides knowledge of Himself through a
text which trumps experience. Because they were lacking the text,
neither the Egyptians nor the Israelite slaves who experienced the
redemption were able to understand the true nature of God, even
though they saw the signs. Moreover, it would appear that events
related in the Torah happened in order for them to appear in the
Torah. According to this reading, experience leads to literature
which leads to knowledge of God.
We are now faced with another division of
audiences similar to that which we noted in the stone-tablet
narratives. Here the distinction is between those who experienced
events but did not have the text, and those who live after the
events and read of them in the Torah. One is the audience of
experience, and the other the audience of the book. (This
distinction is reinforced in the next Unit of Exodus which
distinguishes between the first Passover in Egypt and its
commemoration in following generations.) We can combine this
observation with our previous distinction between a public linear
reading similar to the shattered tablets and a private non-linear
reading parallel to the whole tablets. Those who read the Torah
linearly are like the generation of the redemption. They can sense
the power behind the signs, as did Pharaoh. But they miss the
theology, the knowledge of God, embedded in the non-linear reading.
We will now compare it with the creation weave.
Connections between the De-creation Weave and the Creation Weave
|
1 |
תניןdragon
/ serpent |
|
|
2 |
א2 |
ג2 |
|
3 |
א3 |
ג3 |
|
4 |
א4 |
ג4 |
|
5 |
Death of the first born |
|
The upside down world of Exodus III in which
the three-tiered hierarchy of creation is inverted, is symptomatic
of the overall thrust of the signs, which is to cause Egypt to
return to primal chaos. Each of the weft threads of creation is in
some way “undone” in reverse order. In 4, the last of the nine
signs, darkness, negates day one, light. On the same weft thread,
lights fall out of the sky in the form of fiery hail, in opposition
to day four during which the lights were placed in the sky. On the
“earth” thread, 2, the bodies of water formed on day 3 turn to blood
and the creatures created from the earth on day six are attacked by
the very earth which gave birth to them in the form of lice. On the
middle level, the “divider” of day 2 is negated by “mixture.” The
capstone is provided by the parallel between the introduction of the
creation weave and the last sign, the death of the firstborn. The
Hebrew for “firstborn” בכור is
virtually interchangeable with ראשית,
as in ראשית אנו
“first yield of manhood (Deuteronomy 21:17).”
ראשית, (beginning) is the first
word of the Torah. So the death of “the beginnings”, the firstborn,
negates the introduction of the creation weave. In the introduction
of the signs, where Aaron changes a staff to a dragon, the Lord says
that He will withdraw from Egypt his צבאות,
“brigades.” The same word צבאות
is mentioned in the conclusion of creation (א3).
The author has utilized the visual language of creation embedded in
the weft to deconstruct creation. As interesting as the
“de-creation” is as a literary phenomenon, it is even more important
for our attempt to understand the intent of the author. The
de-creation, which takes place in Egypt, can only be fully grasped
after the creation weave has been analyzed as we did in the previous
chapter. The author used the creation weave as a model for the
return to chaos in Egypt. The signs are a step-by-step reversal of
creation, within a limited context; each sign brings Egypt closer to
chaos. We can understand this by connecting the signs in
Egypt to the creation weave. However, as the author pointed out,
this reading of events was not intended for Pharaoh, but rather for
future generations of Israelites who could connect the redemption in
Egypt to the creation narrative in order to learn about the nature
of God.
Does the Creation Teach Theology?
If the structure of the signs is in fact based
on an inversion of the creation, what can be learned from that? It
might seem intuitively appropriate to link the theological study of
God’s actions in Egypt to the creation narrative. Surely God’s acts
in the creation also illuminate His nature. Actually, this is not
necessarily the case. One can argue that God’s acts of creation are
purely arbitrary and teach nothing of His nature. Therefore they are
totally unrelated to theology, or His signs in Exodus. This argument
would contend that God could have created the world in one day or in
a thousand, and He could have created its parts in any order He
pleased. Therefore, the creation narrative can teach us about the
nature of the world God created, but not necessarily about God. It
requires further evidence in order to determine whether or not the
creation is a function of God’s nature, or is arbitrary. This
evidence is supplied by the Exodus narrative, and specifically by
the way in which God’s signs in Exodus reflect the structural
paradigm of creation, as detailed in the creation weave.
In Exodus, God states explicitly that the signs
teach the Israelites about Him and not the created world. The
miraculous nature of events in Egypt highlights the dichotomy
between the self-sufficient state of the completed world after the
days of creation, and divinely influenced events. It is as if the
Torah acknowledges that science is an insufficient tool for
theology. It is the history of God’s involvement in human affairs,
such as the signs in Egypt, which provides the datum for theology.
However, when we see that the integration of God’s signs in Egypt
reproduces the same web of underlying principles as the creation
weave, we can conclude that both the created world and the political
world are expressions of God’s nature, and therefore proper objects
for theological studies, and that the two narratives can illuminate
each other. Reading the Torah as a weave makes this possible.
Summary
The creation weave demonstrates that the Unit
was composed according to a two-dimensional model which is
consistent with the distinction between warp and weft. The
conceptual framework of the creation, including concepts such as
“one and many” and hierarchical organization, is embedded in this
structure. The author has employed this format in the “signs”
narrative in Exodus, thus demonstrating that a full understanding of
the Torah as it was written demands an understanding of its “woven”
format. The creation weave provides the reader with the basic tool
necessary to identify and de-linearize the remaining eighty-five
literary units of the Torah. Once this is done, it is possible to
identify the literary structures of each of the five books as well
as the Torah as a whole. In Part 4, the three-tiered, one-and-many
creation weave provides an important key to unlocking the structures
of Genesis and Leviticus.
Chapter 3. Identifying and Classifying Units
All the Units of the Torah have been returned
to their pre-linearized, woven, format in TWT. While they are
displayed as weaves, they differ from one another in terms of their
exact formats and dimensions. There are two formats: regular and
irregular. In regular Units, all weft threads are the same length-
either two or three segments, such as the creation weave. There are
seventy-six regular Units which vary in size from 2X2 to 10X3 (weft
X warp). The ten irregular Units contain weft threads of different
sizes, like the de-creation weave. For example, the structure of
Genesis XIII is 12221. Its first and last weft threads contain a
single segment while the middle three contain two. As in this Unit,
all irregular Units are symmetrical, so the first and last weft
thread will be the same size, as well as the second and penultimate,
if there are more than three weft threads.
The irregular Units highlight the fact that all
Units are symmetrical, whether regular or irregular. This structural
symmetry is paralleled by conceptual symmetry, which often takes the
form of closure or a chiasm between the opening and closing threads.
We noted the closure between threads 1 and 3 in the creation weave
and threads 1 and 5 in the de-creation. This symmetry has proven to
be one of the more reliable tools for identifying the limits of
Units. Here are several obvious examples from irregular Units
Closure in Irregular Units
Genesis XIII
|
1 |
|
26:34 And when Esau was
forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of
Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the
Hittite. 26:35 And they
were a bitterness of spirit unto Isaac and to Rebekah.
{S} |
|
5 |
|
28:6
Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away
to Paddan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as
he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying: 'Thou shalt not
take a wife of the daughters of Canaan';
28:7 and that Jacob
hearkened to his father and his mother, and was gone to
Paddan-aram; 28:8
and Esau saw that the daughters of
Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;
28:9 so Esau went unto
Ishmael, and took unto the wives that he had Mahalath the
daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth,
to be his wife. {S} |
Exodus XII
|
1 |
|
28:1 And bring thou near
unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from
among the children of Israel, that
they may minister unto Me in the priest's office,
even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's
sons. 28:2 And thou shalt make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother, for splendour
and for beauty. … |
|
4 |
|
28:40
And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make tunics, and thou shalt
make for them girdles, and head-tires shalt thou make for
them, for splendour and for beauty.
28:41 And thou shalt put
them upon Aaron thy brother, and upon his sons with him; and
shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them,
that they may minister unto Me in the
priest's office. … |
Exodus XIX
|
1 |
|
39:32
Thus was finished all the work
… |
|
3 |
|
So Moses finished
the work. … |
Deuteronomy I
|
1 |
|
… 1:6 The
LORD our God spoke unto us in Horeb, saying: 'Ye have dwelt
long enough (רב
לכם) in this mountain; 1:7 turn you, and
take your journey, and go to the hill-country of the
Amorites and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the
Arabah, in the hill-country, and in the Lowland, and in the
South, and by the sea-shore; the land of the Canaanites, and
Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
1:8 Behold,
I have set the land before you: go in
and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give unto
them and to their seed after them.' |
|
5 |
|
…3:26
But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and hearkened
not unto me; and the LORD said unto me: 'Let
it suffice (רב לך)
thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter.
3:27 Get thee up into the
top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and
northward, and southward, and eastward,
and behold with thine eyes;
for thou shalt not go over this Jordan… |
Framing Threads in Regular Units
A similar phenomenon can be found in regular
Units. Here are examples in which the first and last thread form a
framework around the central text, similar to the creation weave.
Genesis Unit X
|
א1 |
ב1 |
|
22:20 And it came to pass
after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying:
'Behold, Milcah, she also hath borne
children unto thy brother Nahor: 22:21
Uz his first-born, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the
father of Aram; 22:22 and Chesed, and Hazo, and
Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.' 22:23 And
Bethuel begot Rebekah; these eight did Milcah bear to Nahor,
Abraham's brother. 22:24 And his concubine,
whose name was Reumah, she also bore Tebah, and Gaham, and
Tahash, and Maacah. {P} |
23:1
And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty
years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.
23:2 And Sarah died in Kiriatharba--the same is
Hebron--in the land of Canaan… |
|
א4 |
ב4 |
|
25:1
And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah.
25:2
And she bore him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian,
and Ishbak, and Shuah. 25:3
And Jokshan begot Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan
were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.
25:4 And the sons of
Midian: Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah.
All these were the children of Keturah.
… |
25:7
And these are the days of the years of
Abraham's life which he lived, a hundred threescore and
fifteen years. 25:8
And Abraham expired, and died in a good old age, an old man,
and full of years; and was gathered to his people.
25:9 And Isaac and Ishmael
his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field
of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before
Mamre; 25:10 the field
which Abraham purchased of the children of Heth; there was
Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
… |
This frame is placed around the narrative of
Abraham’s servant and Rebecca.
Genesis XVIII
|
א1 |
ב1 |
ג1 |
|
41:46 And Joseph was
thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of
Egypt.--And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh,
and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 41:47
And in the seven years of plenty the earth brought forth in
heaps. 41:48 And he
gathered up all the food of the seven years which
were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the
cities; the food of the field, which was round about every
city, laid he up in the same. 41:49 And Joseph
laid up corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until they
left off numbering; for it was without number. |
41:50 And unto Joseph were
born two sons before the year of famine came, whom Asenath
the daughter of Poti-phera priest of
On bore unto him. 41:51 And Joseph
called the name of the first-born Manasseh: 'for God hath
made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house.'
41:52 And the name of the second called he
Ephraim: 'for God hath made me fruitful in the land of my
affliction.' |
41:53 And the seven years
of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came to an end.
41:54 And the seven years of famine began to
come, according as Joseph had said; and there was famine in
all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.
41:55 And when all the land of Egypt was
famished, the people cried to Pharaoh
for bread; and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians: 'Go unto
Joseph; what he saith to you, do.' 41:56
And the famine was over all the face of the earth; and
Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the
Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt. |
|
6א |
6ב |
6ג |
|
47:13
And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was
very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan
languished by reason of the famine.
47:14
And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found
in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the
corn which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into
Pharaoh's house. 47:15 And
when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in
the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and
said: 'Give us bread; for why should we die in thy presence?
for our money faileth.' 47:16
And Joseph said: 'Give your cattle, and I will give you
[bread] for your cattle, if money fail.'
47:17 And they brought
their cattle unto Joseph. And Joseph gave them bread in
exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the
herds, and for the asses; and he fed them with bread in
exchange for all their cattle for that year. |
47:18
And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second
year, and said unto him: 'We will not hide from my lord, how
that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my
lord's; there is nought left in the sight of my lord, but
our bodies, and our lands. 47:19
Wherefore should we die before thine eyes, both we and our
land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land
will be bondmen unto Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may
live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.'
47:20 So Joseph bought all
the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every
man his field, because the famine was sore upon them; and
the land became Pharaoh's. 47:21
And as for the people, he removed them city by city, from
one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end
thereof. 47:22 Only the
land of
the priests
bought he not, for the priests had a portion from
Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them;
wherefore they sold not their land. |
47:23
Then Joseph said unto the people:
'Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for
Pharaoh. Lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow
the land. 47:24 And it
shall come to pass at the ingatherings, that
ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh,
and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and
for your food, and for them of your households, and for food
for your little ones.' 47:25
And they said: 'Thou hast saved our lives. Let us find
favour in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's
bondmen.' 47:26
And Joseph made it a statute
concerning the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh
should have the fifth; only the land of the priests
alone became not Pharaoh's. |
This is the framework around the narrative of
Joseph’s brothers coming to Egypt.
The different formats and characteristics of
Units have been summarized in the following table. It will be
utilized both in this section and section IV. When placed in an
Excel or similar worksheet, the table becomes a data base for
comparing Units.
Table of Unit Formats
|
Format |
Irregular |
Unique |
Type |
|
|
Genesis I |
3X2 |
CL |
||
|
Genesis II |
3X2 |
|||
|
Genesis III |
6X2 |
F |
||
|
Genesis IV |
2X3 |
U |
||
|
Genesis V |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis VI |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis VII |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis VIII |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis IX |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis X |
4X2 |
F |
||
|
Genesis XI |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis XII |
3X2 |
|||
|
Genesis XIII |
12221 |
I |
F |
|
|
Genesis XIV |
12221 |
I |
F |
|
|
Genesis XV |
2X2 |
|||
|
Genesis XVI |
4X2 |
|||
|
Genesis XVII |
3X2 |
|||
|
Genesis XVIII |
6X3 |
F |
||
|
Genesis XIX |
2X3 |
|||
|
Exodus I |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus II |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus III |
23332 |
I |
F |
|
|
Exodus IV |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus V |
3X3 |
U |
||
|
Exodus VI |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus VII |
4X2 |
|||
|
Exodus VIII |
7X2 |
|||
|
Exodus IX |
5X3 |
F |
||
|
Exodus X |
3X3 |
U |
||
|
Exodus XI |
12221 |
I |
F |
|
|
Exodus XII |
1221 |
I |
F |
|
|
Exodus XIII |
4X2 |
|||
|
Exodus XIV |
4X2 |
|||
|
Exodus XV |
5X2 |
U |
||
|
Exodus XVI |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus XVII |
3X2 |
|||
|
Exodus XVIII |
2X2 |
|||
|
Exodus XIX |
131 |
I |
F |
|
|
Leviticus I |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus II |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus III |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus IV |
3X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus V |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus VI |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus VII |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus VIII |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus IX |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus X |
2X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XI |
2X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XII |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XIII |
232 |
I |
U |
|
|
Leviticus XIV |
3X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XV |
2X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XVI |
2X3 |
|||
|
Leviticus XVII |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus XVIII |
4X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus XIX |
2X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus XX |
323 |
I |
||
|
Leviticus XXI |
3X2 |
|||
|
Leviticus XXII |
2X3 |
|||
|
Numbers I |
3X2 |
|||
|
Numbers II |
2X2 |
|||
|
Numbers III |
3X3 |
|||
|
Numbers IV |
2X3 |
|||
|
Numbers V |
4X2 |
F |
||
|
Numbers VI |
2X3 |
|||
|
Numbers VII |
2X2 |
U |
||
|
Numbers VIII |
2X3 |
|||
|
Numbers IX |
4X2 |
|||
|
Numbers X |
4X2 |
|||
|
Numbers XI |
2X2 |
|||
|
Numbers XII |
1X2 |
E |
||
|
Numbers XIII |
212 |
I |
||
|
Deuteronomy I |
13331 |
I |
F |
|
|
Deuteronomy II |
5X2 |
Cl |
||
|
Deuteronomy III |
4X2 |
Cl |
||
|
Deuteronomy IV |
4X2 |
Cl |
||
|
Deuteronomy V |
4X2 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy VI |
2X3 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy VII |
4X2 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy VIII |
1X3 |
E |
||
|
Deuteronomy IX |
4X2 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy X |
4X3 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy XI |
3X2 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy XII |
4X2 |
|||
|
Deuteronomy XIII |
5X2 |
U |
Cl |
|
|
F |
Framework |
|||
|
CL |
Closure |
|||
|
U |
Unique |
|||
|
E |
Exception |
|||
In Part 4, we distinguish between Units on the
basis of whether they link with other Units to form sets of Units.
“Unique” in the table refers to the fact that the specific Unit does
not link to other Units to form a set. Spaces
between Units in the above table mark the ends of sets of Units. The
irregular Units are examined as a planned subset of Units in the
appendix. In the remainder of this section we will turn our
attention to the Units which are marked as exceptional in the table
and see that they are in fact “exceptions that prove the rule.”
Chapter 4. Signs of Deconstruction (Linearization)
If the Torah was constructed from woven,
non-linear Units, then how did it come to be known in its current
linear format, without any sign of its true structure? Was the text
first published in a non-linear format which was later deconstructed
and linearized, or was the original author the same one who
deconstructed the text and hid its non-linear structure from the
time of its first dissemination? Two exceptional Units, each of
which contains only a single weft thread according to the
classification table, may shed light on the stages of the Torah’s
construction and deconstruction, Numbers XII (1X2) and Deuteronomy
VIII (1X3).
The deconstruction of eighty-four woven Units
was done identically, according to the weft threads, the rows, of
the original weaves. Only Deuteronomy VIII was deconstructed
according to the warp threads, the columns. Numbers XII was never
really a weave. Deuteronomy VIII is the most beautiful and
meticulously crafted weave in the Torah, containing ten weft threads
in its original format. Numbers XII contains two bare warp threads
without any weft weaving them together. Structurally, these two
Units are the most complex and the simplest of all the Units in the
Torah. Neither of them are what was defined as “unique” Units, those
not part of sets. Both of them are clearly meant to be seen as parts
of sets, as we will see in Part 4. This fact eliminates the
possibility that they were later additions and consequently do not
follow the same rules as the other Units. So, two Units, which are
integral parts of the overall plan of the Torah, are presented as
pure warp. We will now examine their significance.
Numbers XII
|
|
|
א
Communal Offerings |
ב
Private Vows |
|
Opening |
|
28:1 And the LORD
spoke unto Moses, saying: 28:2 Command the children of
Israel, and say unto them: My food which is presented
unto Me for offerings made by fire, of a sweet savour unto
Me, shall ye observe to offer unto Me in its due season. |
30:2 And Moses spoke unto the heads of
the tribes of the children of Israel, saying:
This is the thing which the LORD hath
commanded. |
|
single |
A |
Daily |
Man’s vow |
|
pair |
B |
Sabbath |
Woman in father’s house, father holds
his peace |
|
C |
New Month |
Father disallows |
|
|
pair |
D |
Passover |
Married woman, husband holds his peace |
|
E |
Weeks |
Husband disallows |
|
|
pair |
F |
Blowing the Horn |
Divorced or widowed Woman whose husband
held his peace |
|
G |
Atonement |
Divorced or widowed Woman whose husband
disallowed |
|
|
single |
H |
Tabernacles |
General rule that the
husband must disallow immediately or allow |
|
Closing |
|
30:1 And Moses
told the children of Israel according to all that the LORD
commanded Moses. |
30:17 These are
the statutes, which the LORD commanded Moses, between
a man and his wife, between a father and his daughter, being
in her youth, in her father's house. |
There are several reasons to see Numbers XII as
a Unit, even though it is not a proper weave. It consists of two
structurally similar sets of laws placed between narrative Units. It
is immediately preceded by the appointment of Joshua as Moses’
successor in XI and followed by Moses’ last battle, to take
vengeance against the Midianites. So it is a legal text embedded in
narrative. Numbers contains four such Units and they are crucial to
defining its format. As explained in the chapter on Numbers, they
are “flag” Units, defining the four “sides” of the book, just as the
flag tribes defined the sides of the camp. They serve to create a
textual structure parallel to the structure of the camp. This last
point makes it clear that the Unit is an integral part of the
overall plan of Numbers.
The laws themselves regulate two very different
activities. One set contains eight public calendric offerings as
listed in the table above. The other contains eight laws concerning
private vows. There are other signs that the two sets of laws were
constructed to be seen as parallel, besides the fact that both
contain eight segments. One of these signs is found in the openings
and closings.
|
|
א |
ב |
|
Opening |
28:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses,
saying: 28:2 Command the children of Israel |
30:2 And Moses spoke unto the heads
of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the
thing which the LORD hath commanded. |
|
Closing |
30:1 And Moses told the children of
Israel according to all that the LORD commanded Moses. |
30:17 These are the statutes, which the
LORD commanded Moses |
The calendric laws begin with the Lord telling
Moses to command the children of Israel regarding His offerings.
They end with the statement that Moses told the children of Israel
what the Lord commanded. The order is reversed in the set of laws on
vows. It begins without any reference to the Lord, as if the laws
came from Moses. However, it closes with a statement that these laws
were in fact commanded by the Lord. The reversed order forms a
chiasm tying the two sets of laws together.
There are other signs that the two sets have
been designed as formal parallels. Both are divided “1+7”, where the
first law is general and inclusive while the following seven are
particular. The first offering mentioned (A) is the daily offering.
All the others are more limited, whether weekly, monthly or annual.
The first vow regulation applies to men. They have the power to make
binding vows. The seven other regulations refer to women and detail
their dependency on men for their vows to be binding.
Both sets of laws are also divided in a
1-2-2-2-1 pattern. In the vows, B and C refer to an unmarried woman
in her father’s domain; D and E a married woman; F and G a divorcee
or widow. Element H returns to the case of a married woman to add
details about the limit of the husband’s ability to disallow the
vow. Elements D-H in the calendric laws clearly follow this pattern,
while B and C require a clarification. D and E, the Passover and
Pentecost are linked by the days counted between them. F and G,
Trumpets and Atonement, are a pair of ahistorical non-agricultural
holy days. H returns to the cycle of historical/agricultural
festivals, much as H in the vows returns to details regarding a
married woman. B and C, the Sabbath and New Moon are not an obvious
pair, although it could be argued that the division into weeks is
related to the cycle of the moon. It seems that the author was aware
of the lack of clarity in seeing these two as a pair and found a way
to mark them as such. While all the holy days of the annual cycle
(D-H) indicate that the unique offering of the day is in addition to
the daily offering by means of the word
מלבד (besides), only B and C use the word
על (in addition).
The above analysis leads to the conclusion that
the author carefully constructed this Unit as two parallel warp
threads, while leaving it as an exception containing a single weft
thread, or, more properly, no weft at all. How can this be
explained? While there is no obvious explanation, it is possible to
develop a theory consistent with the rest of the Torah. The key
element in developing the theory is the obvious distinction between
the subjects of the two threads. The calendar, containing days of
historical significance, is one of the prime characteristics of
nationhood. It is a pure expression of the collective. Oaths, on the
other hand, are expressions of individuality. So the threads can be
seen as expressing foundational dyads such as “one and many” and
“individual and community.”
As we have seen, the dyad “one and many” is an
underlying concept embedded in the warp of the creation weave, and
as such, a basic, perhaps the most basic, concept of biblical
metaphysics. It would appear then that the author is giving a
demonstration of what we might call “the art of the warp.” Warp
threads are constructed so that they exemplify an underlying
concept, such as the community and the individual – a concept which
appears in bold relief in this example. The beauty of the
demonstration is linked to the purity of the warp threads. There are
only formal correspondences between their parts. No linguistic or
subject parallels are to be found between them. The one substantive
connection, the chiasm of the openings and closings, is also formal,
lacking legal content. We are being shown a pure warp on a loom. It
is one of a pair of witnesses that testify that all of the Torah
consists of Units displaying the characteristics of a weave. The
other witness is Deuteronomy Unit VIII.
Deuteronomy VIII
Deut. VIII is linked to Num. XII by a
remarkable device. It is the only Unit of the Torah which was
deconstructed according to the warp rather than the weft. That makes
it and Num. XII the only Units in which the linear flow of the text
in our books follows the flow down warp threads rather than across
weft threads. They are also the structural poles of the Torah in the
sense that Num. XII is a bare warp while Deut. VIII is the most
complex weave, containing ten weft threads. If Num. XII is “the art
of the warp”, then Deut. VIII is “the art of the weft.” Its ten weft
threads are woven across three warp threads, thus employing thirty
segments of text to create the weave.
א |
ב |
ג |
|
[1] 21:10-14 |
[11] 22:13-21 |
[21] 24:1-4 |
|
[2] 21:15-17 |
[12] 22:22-23:1 |
[22] 24:5-6 |
|
[3] 21:18-21 |
[13] 23:2-9 |
[23] 24:7 |
|
[4] 21:22-23 |
[14] 23:10-15 |
[24] 24:8-9 |
|
[5] 22:1-3 |
[15] 23:16-17 |
[25] 24:10-13 |
|
[6] 22:4 |
[16] 23:18-19 |
[26] 24:14-15 |
|
[7] 22:5 |
[17] 23:20-21 |
[27] 24:16 |
|
[8] 22:6-7 |
[18] 23:22-24 |
[28] 24:19 |
|
[9] 22:8-9 |
[19] 23:25 |
[29] 24:19 |
|
[10] 22:10-12 |
[20] 23:26 |
[30] 24:20-25:4 |
The segments of Deut. VIII are numbered
according to their order of appearance in the table above and
include the chapter and verse notation. In all the other weaves of
the Torah, the order of appearance of these segments in our linear
texts would be according to the weft, 1, 11, 21, 2, 12, 22 etc. Only
this Unit appears according to the warp, 1, 2, 3 etc. Num. XII helps
clarify the distinction between warp and weft in the Torah. The
weft, as in weaves, carries the “picture” as opposed to the
virtually invisible warp. We found formal relationships in Num. XII,
but no subject that spanned the threads. In Deut. VIII, there are no
clear subjects when the text is read as it appears in our books.
However, when it is reconstructed according to the above weave,
every triad, such as 1, 11 and 21, turns out to be a carefully
constructed literary entity which explores a single subject from
three different perspectives.
|
א |
ב |
ג |
|
Ai 21:10
Should you go out to battle against your enemies and the
Lord your God give him in your hand and you take captives
from him, 21:11 and you see among the captives a
woman of comely features and you desire her and take
her for yourself as wife, 21:12 you shall bring
her into your house, and she shall shave her head and do
her nails, 21:13 and she shall take off her captive’s
cloak and stay in your house and keen for her father and her
mother a month of days. And afterward you shall come to bed
with her, and you shall cohabit with her and she
shall become your wife. 21:14 And it will be, if you
like her not, you shall send her away on her own, but you
shall certainly not sell her for silver, you shall not
garner profit from her inasmuch as you have abused her. |
Ai 22:13
Should a man take a woman, and come to bed with her and hate
her, and he impute to her misconduct and put out a bad name
for her and say, “This woman did I take and I came close to
her and I found no signs of virginity for her,”
22:15 the young woman’s father and
her mother shall take and bring out to the elders of the
town at the gate the signs of the young woman’s virginity. 22:16
And the young woman’s father shall say to the elders, “My
daughter I gave to this man as wife, and he hated her. 22:17
And look, he has imputed misconduct, saying, ‘I found no
signs of virginity for your daughter,’ but these are the
signs of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread out
the garment before the elders of the town. 22:18 And
the elders of that town shall take the man out and
punish him, 22:19 and they shall fine him a
hundred weights of silver and give it to the young woman’s
father, for he put out a bad name for a virgin in
Israel. And she shall be his wife, he shall not be able to
send her away ever. 22:20 But if this thing be true,
no signs of virginity were found for the young woman,
22:21 they shall take the young woman out to the
entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town
shall stone her to death, for she has done a scurrilous
thing in Israel to play the whore in her own father’s house,
and you shall root out the evil from your midst. |
Ai 24:1
When a man takes a wife and cohabits with her, it shall be,
if she does not find favor in his eyes because he finds in
her some shamefully exposed thing, and he writes her a
document of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her
away from his house, 24:2
and she goes out from his house and goes and becomes
another man’s, 24:3 and the second man hates her and
writes her a document of divorce and puts it in her hand and
sends her away from his house, or the second man, who took
her to him as wife, dies, 24:4 her first husband, who
sent her away, shall not be able to come back and take her
to be his wife after she has been defiled, for it is an
abhorrence before the Lord, and you shall not lead the land
to offend that the Lord your God is about to give you in
estate. |
When the segments are placed side by side, as
they appear in TWT, it is obvious that they form a coherently
crafted three-part text: each part speaks of a relationship between
a man and a woman. Segments ב and
ג begin with the identical phrase
"כי יקח איש אשה", “A man takes a
woman.” In א this appears as “ולקחת
לך לאשה”, “take her to wife.” So the act of “taking” a wife
is found at or near the beginning of all three segments. Two other
parallels between the three segments, intercourse and divorce,
create a three step process that appears in the same order in all
three segments. These same three actions, marriage, intercourse and
divorce, form the basis of a macro-micro relationship between the
whole thread and each of its segments. Each segment emphasizes one
of the steps in the process, in the same order that they appear
within each of them. The first, א,
is largely concerned with the preparations for marriage. On the
other end, the law in ג focuses on
events that take place after a divorce. The middle segment is wholly
concerned with intercourse. I believe that this micro-macro
relationship is built into the text in order to guarantee
unmistakable identification (setting) of the warp and to certify the
need to read the deconstructed text as three parallel cycles. In
terms of the weaving analogy, the threads of the warp are tied
tightly to the top of the loom. It is also strong evidence that the
text was originally conceived with these three segments as a thread.
Further evidence is found in the closure created by “ונתנו
ה' אלהיך בידך”, “the Lord your God deliverith them into thy
hands” at the beginning, and “ה' אלהיך נתן
לך”, “the Lord thy God givith thee” at the end. In order to
emphasize the artfulness of the text, we will examine how the next
weft thread pairs with the first.
|
ii 21:15
Should a man have two wives, the one beloved and the other
hated, and the beloved one and the hated one bear him sons,
and the firstborn son be the hated one’s, 21:16 it
shall be, on the day he grants estate to his sons of what he
has, he shall not be able to make the beloved one’s son the
firstborn over the firstborn son of the hated one. 21:17
For the firstborn, the son of the hated one, he shall
recognize to give him double of all that belongs to him, for
he is his first yield of manhood, his is the birthright’s
due. |
ii 22:22
Should a man be found lying with a woman who has a husband,
both of them shall die, the man lying with the woman and the
woman as well, and you shall root out the evil from Israel.
22:23 Should there be a virgin young woman betrothed
to a man, and a man find her in the town and lie with her,
22:24 you shall bring them both out to the gate of
that town and stone them to death—the young woman, for her
not crying out in the town, and the man, for his abusing his
fellow man’s wife, and you shall root out the evil from
your midst. 22:25 But should the man find the
betrothed young woman in the field and the man seize her and
lie with her, only the man lying with her shall die. 22:26
And to the young woman you shall do nothing, the young woman
bears no capital offense, for as a man rises against his
neighbor and murders him, so is this thing. 22:27 For
he found her in the field: the young woman could have cried
out and there would have been none to save her.
22:28 Should a man find a virgin young woman who is not
betrothed and take hold of her and lie with her, and they
be found, 22:29 the man lying with her shall give
to the young woman’s father fifty weights of silver, and she
shall be his wife inasmuch as he abused her. He shall not be
able to send her away all his days. 23:1 A man shall
not wed his father’s wife, and he shall not uncover
his father’s skirt. |
ii 24:5 When
a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out in the army and
shall not cross over on its account for any matter. He shall
be exempt in his house for a year and gladden his wife whom
he has taken. 24:6 One may not take in pawn a
hand mill or an upper millstone, for one would be taking in
pawn a life. |
The chronology implied in the order of the
first thread, marriage, intercourse and divorce, is reversed in the
next thread. The last segment in the second thread (22), speaks of
marriage, the middle, (12), intercourse, and finally, children in
(2), the first segment of the thread. Each of the segments in the
second thread deals with broader aspects of marriage than in the
first. The laws of the first were limited in application to the
husband and wife. Segment (2) introduces children, (12) potential
sexual partners outside the marriage, and (22) society at large,
represented by the army. We can now see that there are three rules
at work in the organization of the two threads, the rule of the two
as a whole, and the rules of each thread. The whole section deals
with marriage. The rule of the first thread is relations between
husband and wife, while the rule of the second is the social
ramifications of marriage. Deut. VIII contains five such pairs of
threads and each of the five pairs produces three rules of
organization in a similar manner. The chronological reversal of the
second thread creates a pattern that may be based the weaving
technique displayed in the following illustration.
(Courtesy of
Ferrell Jenkins/BiblePlaces.com)
The picture above demonstrates a weave on
a loom like those in use in biblical times. The different colors are
like the paired weft threads in Deut. VIII. Examining the last weft
thread, it can be seen to loop around the left-most warp thread. In
so doing, it reverses direction, precisely as we saw in the second
thread of text. While this inverted text can be identified as
a chiasm, the picture demonstrates that it also reflects a common
biblical-period weave.
It is now possible to draw some conclusions
about the construction of the Torah based on the witnesses presented
in this chapter. The two witnesses have been constructed to
exemplify the characteristics of the literary weave, the warp in
Num. XII and the weft in Deut. VIII. In addition, they appear in our
books as two exceptions to the rule of deconstruction applied to the
original non-linear text. Eighty-four Units were constructed and
deconstructed in a manner that presents the consecutive segments of
weft threads as consecutive elements of the linearized text. Only
these two were not. They are not “unique” Units, according to our
earlier definition, but rather integral parts of higher order
constructs, sets of Units. In addition, they are masterful
artifices, not scribal “accidents”. Considering all these points
together, it follows that the same hand that wove the Torah
deconstructed it. Moreover, it was planned to be a “hidden” text.
The linearized version would be disseminated while the original
woven version would not. It would remain a secret text known only to
the few. Further evidence supporting this last point is to be found
in Parts 3 and 5. The full text of Deut. IX is examined at length in
Part Six. Its elegant complexity is one of the literary wonders of
the woven Torah.
[1]
I read the verb vayechal, complete, in verse 2 as
parallel to the same verb in verse 1. In verse 1 it is
intransitive, describing the state of the subject. I think
that the parallel construction implies that verse 2 should
be read as having a similar meaning. Therefore, I do not
read “the work that He had been doing” as the object of
“complete” in verse 2, i.e. “God completed the work”. As in
verse 1 the verb is intransitive, describing the subject,
God. This reading is supported by the fact that the
grammatical indicator of the direct object, et, does not
appear before “the work.” That is why I indicate that “the
work…” is a parenthetical reference to the seventh day.