Joy as the emotional response to the building of the Temple?

Josh 6; 1 Kings), but also by Ehud, Gideon, 100 or 300 of his men, Saul, Joab, Sheba, in battle by different people, a man, the children of Benjamin, a sentinel, and even by God (Zech 9:14).

Now, since both the shofar and the trumpets are not consistently rendered, it is difficult to judge which Hebrew words stood behind the Greek σάλπιγξ, but surely the fact that the people can also sound the trumpet is a remarkable ele-ment and one that is unexpected in later tannaitic tradition. With regard to sounding the shofar, Shmuel Safrai has keenly observed: “From here we can understand the Tannaitic tradition that the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashana was a prerogative of the priests, just as it was their prerogative to sound the call on all other occasions: Jubilee, public fasts, the shofar of excommunica-tion and the soundings on Sabbath eves and at the end of the Sabbath to distin-guish between sacred and profane.”¹⁵

With regard to “joy”: whereas in Ezra 3:11–13, the word was used twice (3:12 and 3:13), in 1 Esd 5:61 Ra (// 5:64 NRSV), the parallel word, χαρά, is used only once. We will, however, see that the expression of joy is more fully associated with the building of the Temple, as well as with its culmination point, the dedi-cation.

Before turning to the last expression of emotion demonstrated in the con-text of building, I would like to emphasize that with regard to the double emo-tion of the people, trumpets and joy on the one hand and weeping on the other, these emotions were expressed at the dedication of the altar in Ezra-Nehemiah, but here in 1 Esdras they are connected with the laying of the foundation of the Temple.

2.3.4 Joy as the emotional response to the building of the Temple?

There is one word for “joy” that is used twice in 1 Esdras: indeed in 1 Esd 4:63 (Ra and NRSV) and 5:61 Ra (// 5:64 NRSV) χαρά is used. In 4:63 a celebration develops because permission has been given to go up and build Jerusalem and the Temple. In 5:61, the final response to the laying of the foundation of the Temple is recorded (see above).

In almost all the Greek biblical passages where the emotion “joy” is record-ed, there is also a mention of the emotion “gladness”, εὐφροσύνη or the verb

“to rejoice”, εὐφραίνω. The final moment of joy in the book of 1 Esdras may be found at the dedication of the finally rebuilt Temple. For the description of the

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15 Safrai, Jerusalem, 109.

final dedication of the Temple in 1 Esd 7:14 (Ra and NRSV), the Greek verb εὐφραίνω, is used, not the Greek word χαρά; it reads: “they kept the Festival of Unleavened Bread seven days, rejoicing before the Lord” (εὐφραινόμενοι ἔναντι τοῦ κυρίου). In other words, the joy at the final dedication, and at its festive activities, is different from the joy expressed at the beginning of the release from exile and the permission to go to Jerusalem, and different from the expression of joy at the laying of the foundations and its associated joy before the Lord.

Moreover, whereas in the Hebrew text of Ezra 6:22, which is the parallel passage of 1 Esd 7:14–15, joy was mentioned twice: “they celebrated in joy be-cause God had made them joyous,” in 1 Esdras joy is only mentioned once. Also, the last explicative phrase in the Hebrew text: “because God had made them joyous,” has been interpreted in 1 Esd 7:15: “because he (God) had changed the will of the king of the Assyrians concerning them, to strengthen their hands for the service of the Lord God of Israel.” In other words, whereas in the Hebrew-Aramaic book of Ezra, the emphasis lies on the joy at the time of the dedication – a joy instilled in the people by God – in the book of 1 Esdras there is no such emphasis on joy. Moreover, whereas in the Hebrew text, God made the people joyous, in 1 Esdras God changes the attitude of the king, so that the service to God can be strengthened. I note that maybe the translation ought to read, “so that the works of God can be strengthened”, seeing that this is the meaning of the construction in most other biblical passages.¹⁶ This small change may show that the element of joy was less important for 1 Esdras.¹⁷ Fortunately for us, the book of Ezra-Nehemiah, with its abundance of joy, became a canonical text for Judaism. If 1 Esdras had become canonical, then we would have ended up with more blowing on trumpets on Ḥanukkah and I am not sure whether Ḥanukkah would then have ended up as one of the “Days of Joy”.¹⁸ Or, maybe it is precisely the blowing of the trumpets by the people that prevented 1 Esdras being includ-ed in the canon?

Now, one could object and say that the choice of words stems from the Greek translator and not from the Hebrew-Aramaic Vorlage of 1 Esdras. Although further study needs to be done on this specific topic, given that there is interpretation

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16 Exod 34:10; Deut 11:7; Josh 24:29; Esth 4:17; Pss 27:5; 45:9; 106:24; 110:2; 117:17; Odes 8:57;

Sir 11:4; 39:16, 33; 42:15; Jer 28:10; Dan^Th 3:57. Service to God can be seen in Num 8:11 and maybe Jer 31:10.

17 We note that precisely the opposite tendency is visible in the book of Nehemiah, where the noun ה ָח ְמ ִשׂ and the verb חמשׂ, are together used five times. As Böhler, Stadt, 366, notes:

„Diese Freude (fünf Mal חמשׂ!) überbietet noch die Freude, die unter Serubbabel anläßlich der Grundsteinlegung des Tempels und der Tempelweihe geherrscht hatte …“.

18 Cohn-Sherbok, Faith, 181–182.

going on, such as the reorganization of the book, the addition of the trumpets and the lesser emphasis on joy, it seems more logical to ascribe this to the credit of the Vorlage rather than that of the translator; but then yet again, further study is necessary in order to decide the issue.

Abstract

In this paper the emotions expressed on the occasion of the different stages of the building of the Temple as well as the accompanying soundings of the trum-pets are analysed. As these reports can be found in both the Hebrew-Aramaic Book of Ezra as well as its apocryphal counterpart 1 Esdras, the texts of these two books are investigated and the findings compared.

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