1 Introduction
The combination of nephesh and ’adam (םדא שפנ) occurs only once in the books of Chronicles: in 1 Chr 5:21, almost at the centre of 1 Chr 1–9 (at v. 197 out of 407).
Although both components are unremarkable nouns, they are combined only rarely in the Hebrew Bible. As in Chronicles, םדא שפנ is found in only one context in each of books. (a) Lev 24:17–18 distinguishes between killing ‘any human being’
(םדא שפנ־לכ) and killing an animal: [־שפנ] הכמו תמוי תומ םדא שפנ־לכ הכי יכ שיא הנמלשי המהב (LXX does not attest the repetition of שפנ in v. 18). There is a differ-ence in penalty: death for killing a human but payment for an animal. (b) Ezek 27:13 talks of humans being traded, humans as articles of exchange in Tyre’s commerce: ךברעמ ונתנ תשחנ ילכו םדא שפנב. Lev 24 makes a distinction between humans and animals; however, by contrast, Ezekiel lumps humans along with lifeless bronze items as joint items of Tyre’s trade. Then we find them on three occasions in Numbers: in Num 9:6 and 19:11, 13 in definitions of ritual unclean-ness; and in Num 31:35, 40, 46 alongside animals, as in 1 Chr 5:21, among the prizes of war. Leviticus and Numbers are among the broadly ‘priestly’ books of the Pentateuch; and Ezekiel and Chronicles have many affinities with the priestly literature. Yet such priestly links may prove quite irrelevant to understanding how the few instances of םדא שפנ are related.
Translations of 1 Chr 5:21 will be reviewed next (2). Then the wider paragraph (18–22) will be discussed under three main headings: Transjordanians and Levites in the books of Numbers, Joshua, and Chronicles (3); stories of victory, booty, and survival in Chronicles (4); and the sources of 1 Chr 5:18–22, 25–26 (5). Some con-clusion will then be drawn (6).
Graeme Auld, University of Edinburgh
Open Access. © 2021 Graeme Auld, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110707014-005
2 Translation issues
םדא שפנ may be near central in the Chronicler’s prologue, but what does it mean?
1 Chr 5:21 is often paraphrased rather than translated literally. Roddy Braun’s translation1 is not untypical:
םהינקמ ובשיו So they seized their cattle ףלא םישמח םהילמג (fifty thousand camels,
ףלא םישמחו םיתאמ ןאצו two hundred and fifty thousand from their flocks, םיפלא םירומחו and two thousand asses),
ףלא האמ םדא שפנו together with one hundred thousand men whom they took alive.
ולפנ םיבר םיללח־יכ Many others fell slain …
1. הנקמ overwhelmingly in HB refers to domestic animals, and the widespread choice to render הנקמ by cattle/Vieh/livestock2 gives priority to this usage over the primary sense of property or ‘possessions’, as rendered by Jacob Myers.3
2. Many agree in making a distinction between animals and humans – but that does not come straightforwardly from the simple Hebrew ־ו. Myers and Gary N. Knoppers4 seem to me to be correct when they include humans straightfor-wardly in the list of םהינקמ.
3. יכ at the start of 22 is taken as causal by some and emphatic by others.
4. How do the fallen םיבר relate to what has gone before? Are they contrasted with the immediately preceding םדא שפנ, or does their great number help to explain how the Transjordanians were able to take such huge amounts of plunder, including human slaves?
5. Whatever the answer to 4., the ‘many fallen slain’ at the start of 22 have influenced Braun, Willi, and Knoppers5 to give separate value to שפנ from םדא in translation.6 However, Myers (‘men’) and Ralph W. Klein (‘people’) take םדא שפנ as a single semantic unit.7
1 Roddy Braun, 1 Chronicles. WBC 14 (Waco: Word Books, 1986), 70.
2 Rendering םהינקמ at the start by ‘livestock’ (as also NRSV) may not be sensitive to the issues of life and death in the context – simply ‘stock’ would be better.
3 Jacob M. Myers, 1 Chronicles. AB (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 33.
4 Myers, 33 and Gary N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles AB (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 376.
5 Braun, 70, Thomas Willi, Chronik BK xxiv.1 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), and Knop-pers, 376.
6 Braun’s expansive ‘whom they took alive’ corresponds more closely to ובש םייח [םיפלא תרשע]
in 2 Chr 25:12 (see section 4.3 below).
7 I am puzzled that Sara Japhet (I & II Chronicles. OTL [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993], 139) finds in this verse ‘the only occurrence in Chr of שפנ alone meaning “person”, which is
םהינקמ can be read strongly as defining the possessed status of all the living creatures that follow:
They captured their stock: their camels 50,000 and sheep 250,000 and asses 2,000 and humans 100,000
ףלא םישמח םהילמג םהינקמםהינקמ ובשיו ףלא םישמחו םיתאמ ןאצו
םיפלא םירומחו ףלא האמ םדא שפנו
So read, םדא שפנ may have been slaves of the Hagrites, a fourth element of Hagrite property. However, if the 100,000 were surviving Hagrites who escaped being among the many who fell (5:22), then םדא שפנ is a second object of ובשיו,8 and co-ordinate instead with םהינקמ:
They captured their stock: their camels 50,000 and sheep 250,000 and asses 2,000
ףלא םישמח םהילמג םהינקמםהינקמ ובשיו ףלא םישמחו םיתאמ ןאצו
םיפלא םירומחו and humans 100,000 ונפש אדם ונפש אדם מאה אלף The absolute numbers are extraordinary, and even the proportions surprising.
100,000 human captives alongside a total of 302,000 animals is just credible. But Klein’s extraordinary suggestion9 that these 100,000 humans may all have been virginal females surely constitutes one argument against joining him in reading 1 Chr 5 in light of Num 31:35, 40, 46.10
3 Triangular relationship?
םדא שפנ would be even closer to the centre of 1 Chr 1–9 if ch. 5 were organised more logically: vv. 23–24 belong logically with vv. 1–17, while vv. 25–26 naturally link with vv. 18–22.
5:1–10 Reuben 5:11–17 Gad
5:18–22 all three together 5:23–24 half-Manasseh 5:25–26 all three together
the more common usage in the priestly stratum’; and I suspect that her Hebrew has suffered in English translation.
8 Die Bibel (in heutigem Deutsch), 435 supplies a second verb for the second object: Sie erbeuteten von ihnen … und nahmen 100,000 Mann gefangen.
9 Ralph W. Klein, 1 Chronicles. Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 168.
10 See section 3.2 below.
However, to focus on the near-central location of שפנ within the opening chapters of Chronicles would probably lead interpretation into a cul de sac. Yet there is more than one structural way to suggest significant links. Within the register of all Israel (1 Chr 4–8), we find Transjordan (5) and the Levites (5–6) at the centre:
between the southern (4) and the northern (7–8) tribes west of the Jordan. A similar distinction between groups of tribes is achieved differently in Joshua by having Transjordan and Levites and refuge not separate south from north but set before (Josh 13–14) and after (20–22) south and north (15–19).
1 Chr 4–8 Josh 13–22
4 South 13–14 Transjordan and Levites
5A Transjordan 15 South
5B–6 Levites and refuge 16–19 North
7–8 North 20–22 Refuge, Levites, and Transjordan
It is the same two groups that receive special attention at the end of Numbers:
Transjordan (Num 32) and Levites and refuge (Num 35). Some key terms have similar prominence in these same books.
– הזחא (holding/possession) is concentrated at the end of Numbers (and related end of Deuteronomy), in Josh 21–22, at the end of Ezekiel, and in Chronicles.11 – In seven contexts in the narrative books, הנקמ (possession/holding of live-stock) denotes property belonging to David and subsequent kings in Jeru-salem12; but ten times in the narratives listed below, all set between Exodus and monarchy, הנקמ is exclusively associated with Israel in Transjordan or Reuben/Gad/half-Manasseh in particular.
Num 20:19 Israel and Edom
31:9 Israel and Midian
32:1, 4, 16, 26 Gad and Reuben
Deut 3:19 Reuben/Gad/half-Manasseh
Josh 22:8 Reuben/Gad/half-Manasseh
1 Chr 5:9, 21 Reuben, then Reuben/Gad/half-Manasseh
An eleventh case (Josh 14:2–4) explains how the Levites relate to the 12 tribes understood as 9½ west of the Jordan +2½ east.13
11 Num 27:4, 7; 32:5, 22, 29; 35:2, 8, 28; Deut 32:49; Josh 21:12, 41; 22:4, 9, 19, 19; 1 Chr 7:28; 9:2; 2 Chr 11:14; 31:1; and 14x in Ezek 44–48.
12 1 Sam 23:5; 30:20; 2 Kgs 3:17; 1 Chr 28:1; 2 Chr 14:14; 26:10; 32:29. 1 Chr 7:21 provides the sole exception.
13 The Cisjordanians are described as 9½ tribes only in Num 34:13; Josh 13:7; 14:2.
There is further evidence of a triangular relationship between the end of Numbers, the framework of Josh 13–22, and 1 Chr. לעמ often appears in these books in contexts that have already used הנקמ.
הנקמ לעמ
Numbers 31:9; 32:1, 4, 16, 26 31:16
Joshua 14:4; 22:8 22:20, 31
1 Chr 5:9, 21; 7:21 2:7; 5:25; 9:1; 10:13
Itzhak Amar draws attention, within his discussion of how the Chronicler portrays exile differently for Judah, Israel, and the Transjordanians,14 to the several simi-larities noted by Yair Zakovitch15 between the portrayal of west and east in Num 32 and Josh 22. But he does not comment on the fact that Reuben and Gad are found in parts of these texts without half-Manasseh.
– They (mostly in the order Gad-Reuben) are the only players in Num 32:1–32, with half-Manasseh added only in 32:33–42.
– In Josh 22 MT, Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh feature throughout vv. 1–31 while only Reuben and Gad in the concluding vv. 32–34.16
– As already noted, 1 Chr 5 starts with Reuben alone, moves to Gad alone, then reports on all three together before a separate mention of half-Manasseh.