SOURCE: Nicholson, E. W. “The Origin of the Tradition in Exodus XXIV 9-11.” Vetus Testamentum 26, no. 2 (April 1976): 148-60.

[In the following essay, Nicholson discusses the religious and historical background of the tradition of divine manifestation.]

In two previous articles (‘The Interpretation of Exodus xxiv 9-11’, VT 24 (1974), pp. 77-97, and ‘The Antiquity of the Tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11’, VT [Vetus Testamentum] 25 (1975), pp. 69-79) I argued that this short passage is a separate unit of tradition in the Sinai pericope; that the introduction to these verses in Exodus xxiv 1-2 is not original; that the tradition neither knows of nor implies the existence of a covenant between Israel and God; that it is a theophany tradition and is strikingly different in several ways from the theophany tradition(s) in Exodus xix and elsewhere in the Pentateuch; and finally that this theophany tradition is of great antiquity and very probably originally contained no mention of the four individuals now referred to in it but mentioned only the seventy elders as ‘the leaders of Israel’ (’^aṣīlē b^enē yiśrā’ēl). In this final article I wish to discuss the religio-historical background of this tradition.

I

Before turning to this, however, I wish to revise my opinion on the meaning of the phrase ‘they ate and drank’ which I discussed in the first article mentioned above. There I maintained that the phrase meant that the representatives of Israel on the mountain, having seen God, ‘rejoiced’ or ‘worshipped’ and I referred to a number of texts describing cultic scenes in which ‘eating and drinking’ has the connotation ‘rejoicing’ or ‘worshipping’ (e.g. Exod. xviii 12; Deut. xii 7; xiv 26). The objection to such a procedure to which my attention has subsequently been drawn by Mr A. R. Millard is that in such passages the ‘eating’ or ‘eating and drinking’ occur in contexts where sacrifices have been offered. Since, however, according to my understanding of Exodus xxiv 9-11, this passage cannot have originally belonged with verses 3-8, where sacrifices are recorded as having been offered, it is inadmissible to draw the analogy I have drawn between the ‘eating and drinking’ in verse 11 of this chapter and the other passages in the Old Testament which I cited.

In an earlier draft of the first article mentioned above my proposal for the interpretation of that phrase was that it meant that the representatives of Israel on the mountain in spite of having seen God ‘lived’ (i.e. survived)¹. It is this interpretation of the phrase that I now wish to advance as the correct understanding of it.

The support I adduce for this understanding of the clause is twofold. Firstly, there is evidence that the expression ‘to eat and drink’ or ‘to eat bread’ or simply ‘to eat’ is sometimes used in the Old Testament to connote ‘to live a prosperous life’, ‘to enjoy life’ or, again simply, ‘to live’. For example, it is recorded that in the days of Solomon ‘the people of Judah and Israel were countless as the sands of the sea; they ate and drank, and enjoyed life’ (1 Kgs. iv 20). Another example is provided by Jeremiah's words to Jehoiakim about his father Josiah: ‘Did not your father eat and drink and deal justly and fairly?’ (Jer. xxii 15) where the context appears to indicate that Josiah ‘enjoyed life, but did not omit to fulfil the solemn duties for which he, as king, was responsible’. A very pertinent text, in my opinion, is to be found in Ecclesiastes v 16 where the Hebrew text is kol-yāmāw baḥōšek yō’kēl, which must be understood ‘all his days he shall live or spend in darkness’². It is possible that another text where ‘to eat bread’ means ‘to live’ is Amaziah's command to Amos ‘Seer, be off with you to Judah and there eat bread and prophesy there’ (Amos vii 12), though the usual understanding of ‘eat bread’ here is ‘earn your living’³. We may note, however, that the LXX translates ‘eat bread’ in this text by χαταβίου ‘live’.

My second argument is that scholars have frequently pointed to the poetical style of this short passage, and there are grounds for believing that the author has employed parallelismus membrorum. Thus verse 10a reads ‘and they saw the God of Israel’ which, after a brief description of what they saw ‘beneath his feet’, is followed in verse 11a by ‘but he did not stretch forth his hand against the leaders of Israel’, that is, God did not destroy them in spite of their awesome experience in having seen him. Verse 11b forms a direct parallel to verses 10a + 11a: ‘They saw God and ate and drank’, that is, they saw God but did not suffer the usual consequences of such an experience—they lived.

II

I now turn to the problem of the religio-historical background of this ancient tradition and draw attention firstly to the discussion of it by W. Beyerlin⁴. Beyerlin argues that the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 originated in the context of the sacral union of the twelve tribes of Israel, that is, the so-called amphictyony of the pre-monarchical period in Israel's history (pp. 33 ff.; ET pp. 27 ff.). He argues firstly that the reference to ‘the seventy elders’ in the text supports this. The institution of the elders had its beginnings in the presettlement period, but since the text refers to Israel it presupposes that the amphictyony of the twelve tribes was already in existence. The terminus a quo of the tradition is therefore the union of the twelve tribes under Joshua at Shechem (Josh. xxiv). The last time the elders are mentioned as representatives of the tribes is at the dedication of Solomon's temple; after this they disappear as an institution. Accordingly it is argued that, since it was in the amphictyonic period that the elders of Israel exercised their function as representatives of the tribal union as a whole, the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 must have originated at this time.

Such an argument is not without some force. But even Noth did not claim that Israel was from the beginning conterminous with the twelve-tribe amphictyony. He suggested that an earlier six-tribe league comprising the Leah tribes may have already borne the name Israel and that the later twelve-tribe confederation acquired this name from its six-tribe predecessor⁵. Accordingly, even if there was a twelve-tribe amphictyony in the pre-monarchical period it does not follow that the Israel mentioned in the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 presupposes it and it cannot be argued that the terminus a quo of this tradition is the formation of the twelve-tribe amphictyony at Shechem under Joshua. We may note in addition that it has become increasingly questionable in recent years whether Noth's thesis that pre-monarchical Israel took the form of an amphictyony can be sustained⁶. The whole question of the origins of Israel is once again open.

Further evidence that the tradition originated within the context of the amphictyony is adduced by Beyerlin from the description of God's presence on the mountain. He believes the imagery here employed has its basis in the Ark as the throne of the invisibly present Yahweh whose theophany took place above the Ark in Israel's cult. Since the Ark was the central cult-object at the central shrines of the amphictyony, this description of God's presence on the mountain derives from the pre-monarchical period. Against this, however, there is nothing in this imagery which can seriously be linked with the theophany which took place above the Ark as the Cherubim throne of Yahweh. Indeed, on Beyerlin's own understanding of the Cherubim as representing cultically and symbolically the clouds and thick darkness which concealed Yahweh's epiphany, it is difficult to see how the hiddenness of God in such an epiphany can be reconciled with the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 that the representatives of Israel saw God⁷.

Finally, Beyerlin points to the eating and drinking of a sacral meal as an ancient covenant-making ceremony which is attested for the patriarchal period but also for the period of the conquest (cf. Josh. ix) and he maintains that the eating and drinking in the presence of God in Exodus xxiv 11 is further evidence that this tradition originated in Israel's early history. In view of my own conclusions, referred to earlier, that the ‘eating and drinking’ in Exodus xxiv 11 has nothing to do with a covenant-making rite I will not comment further on Beyerlin's argument at this point⁸.

To the extent that Beyerlin believes this tradition to be of ancient origin I fully agree with him. I cannot accept E. Zenger's argument in his recently published work Die Sinaitheophanie: Untersuchung zum jahwistischen und elohistischen Geschichtswerk, Würzburg 1971, that Exodus xxiv 9-11 derives from the ‘Jehovistic’ redactor of J and E who worked after the fall of Northern Israel in 721 b.c. and during the period of Hezekiah (p. 164). Zenger argues that this redactor combined and supplemented J and E, certainly as far as the Sinai pericope is concerned, in direct support of Hezekiah's reformation and that he inserted Exodus xxiv 9-11 ‘zur Verherrlichung des Zion’ (p. 164).

Zenger regards of the mention of Nadab and Abihu as a secondary addition to this passage by P. But in P Nadab and Abihu are described in Numbers iii as having been wiped out without progeny because of some apostasy they had committed. It is difficult to reconcile this tradition, preserved in P, with the view that a Priestly redactor associated these two men (why not their brothers Eleazar and Ithamar?) with the awesome and highly privileged experience of those on the mountain in Exodus xxiv 9-11. Noth is surely correct in claiming that the mention of Nadab and Abihu, though probably not connected with the tradition in its earliest form, was nonetheless attached to it at a very early stage in its transmission (see my discussion in VT 25 (1975), pp. 71 ff.).

Furthermore, what purpose could the mention of the seventy elders together with Moses and Aaron have served ‘zur Verherrlichung des Zion’? Ancient Israelite tradition witnesses to the death of both Moses and Aaron before the settlement of the tribes in Canaan. How then could any Israelite living in the late eighth century b.c. have been expected to understand Exodus xxiv 9-11, in which on Zenger's view they are both original, as intended ‘zur Verherrlichung des Zion’? Similarly, the seventy elders were an institution long since obsolete by the late eighth century when this ‘Jehovistic’ redactor worked and, though the elders of Israel are represented as having been present at the dedication of Solomon's temple, it is not said that they were seventy in number. It may also be asked whether, if a ‘Jehovistic’ redactor did wish in some way to use or compose this tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 ‘zur Verherrlichung des Zion’, he would have found a better context for it in, for example, Numbers xi (largely J and E material). Here the seventy elders are mentioned as recipients of the divine prophetic charisma at the Tent of Meeting. That surely would have been a more apt place to have inserted Exodus xxiv 9-11 on Zenger's understanding of it. In addition, however, is it likely that a ‘Jehovistic’ redactor would have stated at such a late stage in Israel's history that those on the mountain saw God? There is so much about the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 to suggest that it is of very ancient origin that Zenger's argument at this point can scarcely carry conviction.

III

An entirely new understanding of the background to Exodus xxiv 9-11 has recently been advanced by T. C. Vriezen in an article entitled ‘The Exegesis of Exodus xxiv 9-11’ in The Witness of Tradition, OTS [Oudtestamentische Studien] 17 (1972), pp. 100-33. Vriezen, with many other commentators, regards Exodus xxiv 9-11 as a separate unit of tradition and reconstructs the original introduction to it as ‘And God said to Moses: come up to me you and the seventy elders of Israel’. He believes that the mention of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu was a secondary addition to the passage.

Vriezen also believes that this tradition describes the making of a covenant. He argues that it portrays God as heavenly King seated on his throne, which stands on a pavement of lapis lazuli, holding an audience for his people represented by the seventy elders who not only see God but also hold a sacral meal in his presence. Thus the covenant community came into existence.

Whilst acknowledging that meals as a means of making a covenant are attested in nomadic societies, Vriezen argues that the representation of God as heavenly King can scarcely presuppose a semi-nomadic origin in the wilderness: the tradition in this important respect presupposes a Canaanite background (p. 115). In this as in other ways he believes it displays a number of features which mark it off from the other traditions in the Pentateuch concerning the theophany and the making of the covenant between God and Israel. He contrasts the ‘serenity’ of Exodus xxiv 9-11 with the phenomena of the theophany described in Exodus xix; Exodus xxiv 9-11 ‘makes only the clear blue sky testify to the glory’ of God, the God of Israel (p. 109). He contrasts also the remarkable experience of the elders on the mountain in not only seeing God but also eating and drinking as his royal guests with the unapproachability of Yahweh in Exodus xix, xx 19 ff. He further suggests the possibility that in all this ‘something breaks through of an original basic disparity in the representation of El and Yahweh’ (p. 109). Furthermore, he suggests that in view of the presentation of God in Exodus xxiv 9-11 as heavenly King, this ‘majestic Elohim fits more into the picture that in the rather highly developed world of Canaan was made of the god El’ (p. 115).

Vriezen is careful to point out that the worship of El by the early Hebrew tribes in Canaan does not mean that they adopted the Canaanite El cult with all its trappings; the Hebrew concept and representation ‘lacked the extravagances of the Canaanite El’ (p. 116). It was a process of adaptation rather than wholesale adoption of the Canaanite El worship. Similarly, when at a later time there was a confluence of the patriarchal worship of El with the cult of Yahweh, once again the concept of El will have changed, whilst at the same time the concept of Yahweh now came under the influence of the worship of El. Vriezen sees a process at work whereby ‘the El religion [was] integrated more and more, without becoming lost totally’ (p. 116).

He describes El as having been regarded by the Canaanites as the father of mankind, the creator, the god of wisdom and goodness, the king of eternity and he alludes to the presence of much of this in the patriarchal religion. Then turning to Exodus xxiv 9-11 he concludes that the tradition here preserved contains all the characteristics of this concept and representation of God: ‘not only the names of God, but also the content [of the passage] bear witness to this: the fact that the seventy might see God and eat and drink in his presence must have to do with the goodness of El/Elohim. He might be approached, in spite of the skyhigh mountain where God's abode was. Though there is also, according to this tradition, an unbridgeable distance between the majestic Elohim and Israel, He nevertheless allowed the real communication with Israel by inviting a full representation of the people. The word berit may not be used, the matter is a fact’ (p. 117).

Vriezen concludes that ‘Yahweh of Sinai has to be considered representing another divine type than the ’Elohim of our text’ (p. 127) and maintains that in more than one way the concept and representation of God here can be compared with the representation of the ancient god El.

At this point Vriezen alludes to the tradition in Genesis xxxiii narrating the erection of an altar by Jacob who called it ’ēl ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl (Gen. xxxiii 20). Beyerlin and before him Steuernagel⁹ saw a connection between this tradition as well as Joshua viii 30, xxiv 2 on the one hand and Exodus xxiv 9-11 with its reference to ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl on the other, and Vriezen accepts a connection between all these texts and the ancient sanctuary of Shechem. He sees a connection between Genesis xxxiii 20 and Exodus xxiv 9-11 ‘in so far as both might have in view a similar or the same divine worship of ’El/’Elohim/’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl’ (p. 127). At the same time he argues that an important distinction must be drawn between the names of God in both texts: he relates the first,’ēl ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl, to the patriarchal period and cites Smend's suggestion that this god is to be connected with Noth's hypothesis of a six-tribe Leah amphictyony which is believed to have once existed in the vicinity of Shechem¹⁰. Vriezen believes that the later twelve-tribe amphictyony, ‘the new Israel’, established by Joshua at Shechem replaced this earlier amphictyony and came under the protection of Yahweh ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl, thus maintaining that in this development the name Yahweh replaced El. ‘But’, he continues, ‘it cannot be expected that the name and the representation of El/Elohim immediately would have had its day. We may, on the contrary, expect that in ancient Israel, as everywhere else in the world, religious practices had a very long life. Moreover, Yahwism did not put aside the El religion, but incorporated it …’ (p. 128). Accordingly, Vriezen concludes: ‘Because the cult of ’Èlōhē Yiśrā’ēl originally had its centre in the neighbourhood of Shechem and also the idea of God as the covenantal God in Canaan [cf. Deut. xxvii; Josh. xxiv] is connected with the same place, it is nearly impossible not to think first of all of Shechem as the place from which a tradition of ’Èlōhē Yiśrā’ēl as covenantal God, as we find in Ex. xxiv 9-11 is originating’ (p. 128). He suggests that this passage may have arisen in connection with the establishing of a new Israelite community under the protection of El and believes that ‘Elohistic’¹¹ circles in Northern Israel preserved this ancient tradition of a covenant between Elohim and Israel and that it was later given a place in the Sinai cycle by the Deuteronomic authors¹². Finally, Vriezen suggests that at least three traditions of a covenant between God and Israel were known in early Israel: one in connection with Jethro and the Midianites (Exod. xviii 12); the Sinai covenant tradition (Exod. xixff.); and the Shechemite El-covenant (Exod. xxiv 9-11) (p. 130).

I agree with Vriezen on the uniqueness of the tradition under discussion as also with his view that this tradition is independent of other traditions in the Sinai narrative and that it is of ancient origin. But several considerations raise serious doubts whether his main conclusions with regard to the religio-historical background of this tradition can be sustained.

Firstly, although throughout his article he stresses the role of the seventy elders without mentioning Moses (see e.g. pp. 107, 110, 113), his proposed reconstruction of the original introduction to the passage presents Moses as the one to whom the divine command to ascend the mountain is given (p. 103). But by apparently including Moses in the scene described in Exodus xxiv 9-11 Vriezen considerably weakens his thesis, for it involves Moses as a non-Yahweh worshipper. But the whole burden of evidence is that Moses was the leader of the exodus groups and also a worshipper of Yahweh. If the scene on the mountain depicts an El-worshipping Israel then Moses must be regarded as not having originally belonged to this tradition. From my own discussion of the antiquity of the tradition (VT 25 (1975), pp. 76-78) I remain convinced that none of the individuals now mentioned in Exodus xxiv 9-11 was originally referred to in it.

A further objection to Vriezen's view concerns the nature of what is described in this tradition. I cannot agree with him that it narrates a covenant-making scene. I remain persuaded that we are dealing here with a theophany tradition. Accordingly, it cannot be maintained, in my opinion, that what is here described resembles a royal banquet held by a king for his vassals. In addition, Vriezen is surely reading too much into the description of the pavement of sapphire or lapis lazuli beneath God's feet mentioned in verse 10. It does not follow from this that the imagery has a throne in mind above this pavement. In short, there is nothing in this tradition which must of necessity be understood as portraying the royal scene which Vriezen believes it depicts.

Vriezen's contention that the ‘divine type’ reflected in this tradition must be understood in terms of El rather than Yahweh must also be rejected. What feature or features of the concept of God in Exodus xxiv 9-11 can be claimed to be typical of El but incompatible with the concept of Yahweh? It is surely inadmissible to say that the ‘goodness’ in the deity referred to in this passage has ‘to do with the goodness of El/Elohim’ (p. 117). All cultic communities believed in the beneficence of the god or gods whom they worshipped (for example the Moabites, as is evidenced from the Moabite Stone) and Yahweh cannot be regarded as in any way an exception. The original worshippers of Yahweh, that is, those who worshipped him even before the exodus, must surely have believed in his ‘goodness’. What the exodus did was not to create the concept of Yahweh as ‘good’ but to deepen it.

Vriezen points to the approachability of God in Exodus xxiv 9-11 as against the unapproachability of Yahweh in, for example, Exodus xix as evidence that the deity in question is to be understood as El. But this argument too must be rejected, for the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 leaves us in no doubt that it was this very approachability on this occasion which rendered the experience described unique. To see God was not a normal experience of those who worshipped him; on the contrary, it usually entailed certain destruction. It was the unique and privileged experience of the representatives of Israel on this occasion that they saw God without the usual consequences; it was an experience which betokened the special relationship between God and his people as a whole here represented by the seventy elders. God ‘did not stretch forth his hand against the leaders of Israel; they saw God and lived’. Accordingly, far from witnessing to the approachability of God, this tradition testifies to his otherness. As such it is entirely compatible with Israel's concept of Yahweh.

What about the names of God in this tradition,’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl and hā-’^elōhīm? Do they support the view that this tradition is to be understood as an El tradition rather than one concerned with a theophany of Yahweh? It is very improbable that they do. With regard to the first, it is an ancient appellative for Yahweh and in every occurrence of it in the Old Testament it refers to him. The only exception is Genesis xxxiii 20. But here it is preceded by ’ēl¹³. In Exodus xxiv 10, however, it is ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl without any reference to ’ēl. It is probable, therefore, that here ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl refers to Yahweh.

Hā-’^elōhīm, which occurs in verse 11, is widely used, both with and without the definite article, throughout the Old Testament to refer to Yahweh and in numerous instances is employed without the article as a proper name synonymous with Yahweh. Once again the strong probability is that its usage in Exodus xxiv 11 designates Yahweh and not ’ēl.

One further objection must be levelled against Vriezen's views. It is a weakness in his exegesis that he makes no attempt to deal adequately with the question of the identity of the mountain which this tradition appears to presuppose. He simply implies that the mountain in question is ‘the skyhigh mountain where God's abode was’ (p. 117). But it can scarcely be maintained that the mountain in this tradition is El's mountain, the mountain of the assembly of the gods. It is beyond the scope of this article to enter into a discussion of the complex question of El's abode in the Ugaritic texts¹⁴. There is certainly evidence that El's abode was a mountain, though its name remains unknown¹⁵. It is also the case that both El and Baal hold ‘banquets’ upon their respective mountains. To this extent it might appear that there are resemblances between such descriptions of divine ‘banquets’ and what is portrayed as having taken place in Exodus xxiv 9-11¹⁶. But the similarities are merely superficial. In the Ugaritic texts the ‘banquets’ held by El and Baal are for other gods in order to honour one another or to celebrate the erection of a temple; by contrast there is no hint in Exodus xxiv 9-11 of a gathering of gods on the mountain—this alone accentuates the difference between the ’^elōhē yiśrā’ēl in this text and the gods in the Ugaritic texts. The solitariness of God upon the mountain in Exodus xxiv 9-11 surely supports the view that this God is to be identified with Yahweh. In Exodus xxiv 9-11 it is the elders of Israel, the representatives of the people of God, who ascend the mountain. In the Ugaritic texts men never visit or ascend the mountain of El, the mount of the assembly of the gods, and in so far as El is seen by men it is always in a vision. By contrast, there is no sound reason for believing that the seeing in Exodus xxiv 9-11 is to be understood as seeing in a vision¹⁷.

Attention has been drawn to descriptions in the Ugaritic texts of the building of Baal's palace in which bricks (lbnt = Heb. libnath) and sapphire or, more probably lapis lazuli (Ug. ’iqn’im = Heb. ha-sappīr ‘sapphire’, or ‘lapis lazuli’) and hence to the description of the ‘pavement (libnath) of lapis lazuli’ under God's feet in Exodus xxiv 10¹⁸. But once again the similarity must not be pressed. There is no hint in Exodus xxiv 9-11 of a palace or temple and the description of what was beneath God's feet as ‘a pavement of sapphire/lapis lazuli, clear as the very heavens’ may be intended as nothing more than a means of describing, though in a reserved manner, the awesomeness of what the elders beheld.

IV

The real difficulty is that Exodus xxiv 9-11 is such a short passage that any conclusions as to its background, origin and purpose must remain at best tentative. But the evidence, such as it is, points to the probability that was understood from the beginning as a tradition concerning a theophany of Yahweh. If I am correct in maintaining that it originally contained no mention of any of the four individuals referred to in it but mentioned only the seventy elders of Israel, then it seems likely that the tradition is of pre-Mosaic origin.

Such a conclusion immediately raises the question of the origin of Israel and at what stage and how it came to worship Yahweh. The name Israel itself suggests that Israel was at one time an El-worshipping community: the name means ‘El is or does such and such’. Caution is therefore called for at this point. But it need not be the case that the cult of Yahweh was first introduced to Israel by those who came from Egypt under the leadership of Moses to settle in Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. The cult of Yahweh is assuredly older than the exodus event and appears to have originated in the territory south of Palestine. In view of this, one final and again only tentative suggestion may be advanced concerning the origin and purpose of the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11.

Is it possible that the tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 arose in connection with an ancient Israelite pilgrimage to the holy place of Yahweh the God of Israel? Noth has suggested that the narrative of Elijah's journey to ‘the mountain of God’, Horeb, in 1 Kings xix together with the nucleus of the old itinerary encampments in Numbers xxxiii may contain evidence of such a pilgrimage in the pre-exilic period¹⁹. Since, however, it is unlikely that a pilgrimage to this far-off ‘mountain of God’ would have been the ad hoc idea of Israelites at a late period and at a time when the belief in Yahweh's presence amongst his people in the land of Canaan had been fully developed, it seems probable that such a pilgrimage would have originated at a very early time. We may add to this the possibility that the tradition underlying Exodus xviii 1-12 may also point to a regular pilgrimage to ‘the mountain of God’ involving Midianites and Israelites. If such a view is acceptable, is it possible that the tradition in Exodus xviii 9-11 arose as an account of the unique experience of Israel's ancestors in a primordial pilgrimage to the holy mountain, that is, a story with an aetiological motif?

Suggestions such as these must remain tentative in view of our present state of knowledge about the origins of Israel. But I hope that this and the preceding two articles in which I have discussed Exodus xxiv 9-11 may have shed some light on the meaning and origin of the remarkable tradition preserved in these verses and at the same time will simulate further investigation of them. For it is, in the end, best to conclude with the comment of G. Henton Davies on these verses when he says that they ‘are some of the most astonishing and inexplicable verses in the Old Testament’²⁰.

Notes

1. The first draft was read at a meeting of the Glasgow University Oriental Society in 1972. The revised draft, which was enlarged and read at the Biblical Congress in Oxford 1973, is substantially what was published as the first article referred to above.

2. See G. R. Driver, ‘Problems and solutions’, VT 4, (1954), p. 228-9. Driver compares the Arabic expression ’akala ’umurahu (Lane) i.e. ‘he completely spent his life in such and such a way’, and also points to the Arabic ’akala rauqahu ‘he ate his life’ = ‘he became extremely aged’ (Lane).

3. Against this see E. Würthwein, ‘Amos-Studien’, Wort und Existenz, Göttingen, 1970, p. 79 (originally published in ZAW [Zeitschrift fuer die Alttestamentische Wissenschaft] 62 (1949-50), esp. p. 21), who understands Amaziah's words to Amos thus: ‘So wollen die Worte in 7:12b nur besagen: ernähre dich dort, friste dort dein Leben (das, wenn du hier bleibst, gefährdet ist).’

4. W. Beyerlin, Herkunft und Geschichte der ältesten Sinaitraditionen, Tübingen 1961. ET by S. Rudman, Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Traditions, Oxford 1965.

5. M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels, BWANT [Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament] IV: 1, Stuttgart 1930, p. 83.

6. For a survey of the discussion see A. D. H. Mayes, Israel in the Period of the Judges, London 1974.

7. On the imagery employed here see below p. 159.

8. For my discussion of it as a theophany tradition see my article in VT 24 (1974), pp. 88 ff.

9. C. Steuernagel, ‘Jahwe, der Gott Israels. Eine stil- und religionsgeschichtliche Studie’, BZAW [Beihefte. Zeitschrift fuer die Alltestamenliche Wissenschaft] 27, 1914, (Festschrift for J. Wellhausen), pp. 329-49.

10. R. Smend, Die Bundesformel, Theologische Studien, Heft 68, Zürich 1963, and note 39 on p. 36.

11. By this term Vriezen refers to a ‘historico-religious trend’ and not to the well known literary source (E) in the Pentateuch.

12. I find this view very hard to accept. To judge from Deut. iv 12 and v 22 ff. a tradition such as Exodus xxiv 9-11 would have been the last they would have wished to insert into the Sinai pericope.

13. There can be no doubt that ’ēl in this text is a proper name. See M. H. Pope, El In The Ugaritic Texts, SVT 2, Leiden 1955, p. 15.

14. For the most recent discussion see R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and The Old Testament, Harvard Semitic Monographs, 4, Cambridge, Mass., 1972.

15. Ibid., pp. 35 ff.

16. Ibid., p. 112.

17. B. S. Childs, Exodus, London 1974, p. 507 states that the ‘shift from the verb r’h to ḥzh in Exodus xxiv 10, 11, the latter word being the technical term for prophetic clairvoyance, again appears to be an attempt to characterise this viewing as a special category of perception’. But there is no reason for regarding this change of verb as anything other than the choice of a different word for seeing than the verb r’h in verse 10; such a change is more easily explained in terms of the use of parallelismus membrorum which can be discerned in the passage as a whole.

18. R. J. Clifford, p. 112; B. S. Childs, p. 509. See A. Herdner, Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques, Paris 1963, 4, IV, 62; 4, V, 74; 4, V, 80-1; 4, V, 97.

19. M. Noth, ‘Der Wallfahrtsweg zum Sinai (Num. xxxiii)’, PJB [Palestinajahrbuch] 36 (1940), pp. 5-28.

20. Exodus, London 1967, p. 193.