Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers: New Light from the Ugaritic Legal Text RS 94.2168

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VetusTestamentum

Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers: New Light from the Ugaritic Legal Text RS 94.2168

Joseph LamUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

[email protected]

Abstract

This paper offers a fresh reading of Psalm 2 with special attention to the presence of legal motifs in the poem, including that of inheritance rights as a metaphor for YHWH’s del-egation of earthly authority. A new impetus for such a reading comes from the recently published Ugaritic legal text RS 94.2168, which provides the first attestation in Ugaritic of a transitive verb BHL denoting the exclusion of a biological heir from the inheritance of his father’s estate. In light of this technical usage, it will be proposed that the Piel form ,in Psa 2:5 is best understood, not as an act of terrifying the rulers of the earth יבהלמוbut as YHWH’s (metaphorical) disinheritance of them, a declaration that is naturally fol-lowed by the designation of his anointed one as the exclusive heir of the nations (2:8).

Keywords

Psalms – inheritance – metaphor – kingship – legal terminology – Ugaritic

Psalm 2, as the quintessential royal psalm, has figured prominently in discus-sions of royal ideology in ancient Israel. Since the pioneering works of Gunkel and Mowinckel,1 the Sitz im Leben of Psalm 2 has been regarded by a majority

* I wish to thank Shalom Holtz, Jacqueline Jay, Dennis Pardee, Matthew Suriano, and the participants of the Book of Psalms session at the 2012 SBL Annual Meeting (Chicago, IL) for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. I bear full responsibility, however, for any short comings that remain.

1 H. Gunkel, Die Psalmen (Göttingen, 1926); idem, Einleitung in die Psalmen: Die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels (Göttingen, 1933); S. Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (2 vols.; trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford, 1962).

35Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers

Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014) 34-46

of scholars as a coronation ceremony for the Judean king, with opinions dif-fering on the secondary issue of whether the hymn would have been recited only at enthronement or at a more regular (e.g., yearly) festival of commemo-ration.2 Furthermore, scholars have adduced important parallels from the ancient Near East, such as Mesopotamian adoption formulae and Egyptian royal coronation rituals, to illuminate different aspects of the psalm, though the precise relevance of each of these parallels remains debated.3 A particular focus of much interpretive attention has been the statement in verse 7, “You are my son; today I myself have begotten you,” which many take to refer to an act of adoption of the Judean king by YHWH, as distinct from the metaphysical assertion of divine sonship (i.e., a more literal “begetting”) that one encounters in Egyptian texts.4 As Kraus argues, “the emphasis on the king’s sonship with God . . . is akin to the Egyptian custom of applying the name—without, how-ever any semblance of a mythically oriented conception of a physical beget-ting . . . [T]he sonship of the Jerusalem king is based on a process of adoption”.5

Beyond the notion of royal ideology, however, no interpretation of the psalm would be complete without a recognition of the legal terminology and imagery that pervades the poem. A number of elements in the psalm are suggestive of a legal court context for imagining the relationships between YHWH, the Judean king, and the foreign rulers. Take the combination of the verb התיצב and the preposition על in verse 2, which appears to allude to a formal legal dispute

2 For a concise summary of the history of scholarship on this question, see S. Janse, “You are My Son:” The Reception History of Psalm 2 in Early Judaism and the Early Church (Leuven, 2009), 10-13.

3 See, inter alia, B. Becking, “‘Wie Töpfe Sollst Du Sie Zerschmeißen:’ Mesopotamische Parallelen zu Psalm 2,9b”, ZAW 102 (1990), pp. 59-79; K. Koch, “Der König als Sohn Gottes in Ägypten und Israel”, in E. Otto and E. Zenger (eds.), ‘Mein Sohn bist du’ (Ps 2,7): Studien zu den Königspsalmen (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 192; Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 1-32; E. Otto, “Politische Theologie in den Königspsalmen zwischen Ägypten und Assyrien. Die Herrscherlegitimation in den Psalmen 2 und 18 in ihren altorientalischen Kontexten”, in E. Otto and E. Zenger (eds.), ‘Mein Sohn bist du’, pp. 33-65; G. Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation? Psalm 2:6 in Light of Egyptian Royal Ideology”, VT 60 (2010), pp. 323-336.

4 As argued by G. von Rad, “Das judäische Königsritual”, Theologische Literaturzeitung 72/4 (1947), pp. 211-216. On the origins of this interpretive line and its subsequent critique, see J. J. M. Roberts, “Whose Child is This? Reflections on the Speaking Voice in Isaiah 9:5”, HTR 90 (1997), pp. 115-118.

5 H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Continental Commentary (trans. H. C. Oswald; Minneapolis, 1993), p. 131; emphasis added.

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taking place in the context of the heavenly king’s court.6 This phraseology is reminiscent of the prose introduction to Job, in which it is said that “the sons of God came on a certain day to stand in the presence of (להתיצב על) YHWH, and the accuser (השטן) also was in their midst” ( Job 1:6; also 2:1); this depicts a heavenly court in which not only divine attendants bring their reports but also legal accusations are made.7 Later in the book, in Job 33:5, Elihu issues a verbal challenge to Job: “If you are able, answer me; arrange [your lawsuit] before me, take your stand” (אם־תוכל השיבני ערכה לפני התיצבה), again tying the term התיצב to a courtroom context.8 In Psalm 2, note that the alterna-tive interpretation of התיצב as referring to the arrangement of troops for battle seems less congruent with either the mention of “conspiratory counsel” on his (יושב) ”in verse 2 or the explicit reference to YHWH’s “sitting (נוסדו־יחד)heavenly throne in verse 4—another detail that is evocative of a trial context.9

In fact, when viewed against the background of the ancient Near East, the idea of a legal dispute being brought before a palace court poses no particu-lar difficulties. Throughout various periods in the ancient Near East, the king represented the ultimate legal authority, a “supreme court of one” who was the final arbiter for unresolved disputes in lower courts. In Mesopotamia, this role of the king is reflected in the various royal law codes that have been preserved

6 On the act of “standing” in biblical trial contexts in general, as expressed by the verbs עמד, see P. Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in ,התיצב and ,נצבthe Hebrew Bible, trans. M. J. Smith ( JSOTSup 105; Sheffield, 1994), 233-235.

7 On the legal connotations of the term שטן, see Bovati, p. 297. In particular, the role of the “accuser” (השטן) as a prosecuting attorney can also be found in Zechariah 3:1-2, where the relevant phrase is לפני/על For a detailed discussion of the legal interpretation of this .עמד part of the Joban narrative (including the phrase על see F. R. Magdalene, On the ,(להתיצב Scales of Righteousness: Neo-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job (Brown Judaic Studies; Providence, RI, 2007), pp. 99-123.

8 See N. Habel, “The Narrative Art of Job: Applying the Principles of Robert Alter”, JSOT 27 (1983), p. 105; idem, The Book of Job: A Commentary (The Old Testament Library; Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 32-33, 56, 461, 571. Marvin Pope appears conflicted between the legal and military interpretations (i.e., a “battle array”) here ( Job [AB 15; New York, 1965], p. 247).

9 As Bovati observes regarding ישב: “The judge appears to have two characteristic positions in a trial: (1) that of being seated (both as a movement and as a state); (2) that of rising . . . In a legal context, the verb yšb refers to a judge’s action in beginning and holding a law court session. This is so universally accepted as not to require special comment” (Re-Establishing Justice, pp. 231-232). On the alternative interpretation, that of a military confrontation, see Kraus: “התיצבו in the sense of marshaling forces for battle (1 Sam. 17:6; Jer. 46:4) provides good sense and avoids a correction to יתיצו (so corresponding to Ps. 83:3, Graetz, Lagarde, and Gunkel)” (Psalms 1-59, p. 124); also M. Dahood, Psalms I: 1-50 (AB 16; New York, 1965), 8. See also note 8 above on Pope’s interpretation of Job 33:5.



from the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia (Ur III, Lipit-Ishtar, Eshnunna, Hammurapi) as well as in records of actual rulings from different periods.10 In the ancient Israelite context, one is reminded of Solomon’s judgment regarding the two women and the baby (1 Kgs 3:16-22) as a story exemplify-ing the ideal of the king as judge. So Psa 2:1-3 can be taken to refer to a set of actions preceding the submission of a legal dispute before YHWH, the great king and arbiter of justice. Specifically, verse 2aα portrays the action of stand-ing in preparation for a trial, while verses 2aβ-3 elaborate the machinations of the earthly rulers. The irony, of course, is that the nations and rulers are seeking to bring their dispute against the judge himself—not a recipe for a successful outcome. Verse 4, in turn, depicts YHWH’s mockery of the would-be litigants, before their complaint can even be formally lodged.11

The additional virtue of positing a metaphorical legal context for the first part of the psalm is the way in which it coheres with the language of verses 5-8. While the intent on the part of the nations to bring a dispute is set forth in verses 2-3, it is verse 6 that describes the initial verbal response of YHWH the heavenly king, a response that can be understood as a pre-emptive legal ruling: “I have ‘poured out’12 my king on Zion, my holy mountain”. The idea of a legal ruling is reinforced in the term חק in verse 7, which has clear legal connota-tions in most of its usages in Biblical Hebrew.13 In the context of the poem, nothing prevents the reader from understanding both the quotation in verse

10 J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (London, 1992), pp. 277-278.

11 Since the psalm represents a poetic evocation of a trial context rather than a literal record of a trial, the omission of the formal complaint poses no insurmountable problems for this interpretation. Verse 3, in its use of 1st person plural verb forms, is best understood as the internal deliberations of the earthly kings among themselves; the third person plural suffixes in the verse (מוסרותימו “their fetters” and עבתימו “their cords”) refer back to the mention of YHWH and his anointed in verse 2. The fact that YHWH’s response occurs before the nations are even able to issue their complaint only intensifies the irony of the scene.

12 For a discussion of the difficult form נסכתי in verse 6, see now the article by Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation?”, pp. 323-336, which argues convincingly that the traditional translation of “install” derives from the discomfort felt by the LXX translators toward the ancient Egyptian notion of the divine procreation of the king via the “pouring out” of semen.

13 On the legal connotations of the root חקק, see Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice, p. 188 n. 48. As for the collocation אספרה אל in verse 7, I take this verb-preposition combination to denote a secondary reporting of an event or a piece of news (i.e., “let me recount concern-ing” or “let me tell of”), a parallel to which can be found in Psa 69:27 (ואל־מכאוב חלליך and they recount concerning the pain of those you have wounded”). A similar“ יספרו

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6 as well as the secondary quotations in verses 7-9 (that is, the parts that the human king are reporting as having been uttered by YHWH) as all being part of this “decree” that verifies the legitimacy of the ruler of Zion.

Here it is important to note that, in the history of interpretation of this verse, the word חק has been given a more specific interpretation on the basis of an Egyptian parallel. Von Rad, in an influential essay titled “Das judäische Königsritual” (1947), associated this word, as well as the terms עדות in 2 Kgs 11:12 and ברית in Psa 89:40, with the “royal protocol” (nḫb.t) in ancient Egypt given by the god to pharaoh at accession—a document written by the god Thoth and containing both the fivefold royal titulary and an affirmation of the divine parentage of the king.14 However, this notion of a royal protocol need not be understood as contradictory to the interpretation of חק as a legal ruling. In fact, the two ideas reinforce each other on the level of poetic meaning: the decree that YHWH the heavenly king issues is precisely that which provides legitimation for earthly rulership.15

One other thematic component of the psalm with clear legal connotations is the idea of inheritance in verse 8: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession”. Again, the speaker is reporting what YHWH had said to him, and what is being related is a promise from YHWH to grant to his king—his appointed heir in Zion—the nations as his inherited portion. The appearance of the terms נחלה and אחזה, especially following the identification of the kingly figure as YHWH’s son in verse 7, makes sense as an appeal to the metaphor of a father’s apportioning of his estate as a means of conveying YHWH’s delegation of earthly rule to his chosen heir.

The mention of the specific legal issue of inheritance in verse 8 leads into the next phase of my argument, which involves a reconsideration of the verb in verse 5. My contention is that a new interpretation of the meaning of יבהלמוthis form, based on a technical usage preserved in a recently published Ugaritic text, makes better sense given the context of verse 5 itself and in light of the metaphorical legal framework discussed so far. The verse reads as follows:

sense is conveyed with the preposition על in Joel 1:3. See also G. H. Jones, “The Decree of Yahweh (Ps. II 7),” VT 15 (1965), pp. 336-337.

14 Von Rad, “Königsritual”, pp. 213-215; Roberts, “Whose Child is This?” pp. 115-116.15 For more on the Egyptian background of the “royal protocol”, see K. Koch, “Der König als

Sohn Gottes”, pp. 6-7; O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and The Book of Psalms (trans. T. J. Hallett; New York, 1978), pp. 259-261, esp. figs. 349-350 (p. 260).



אז ידבר אלימו באפו ובחרונו יבהלמו

“Then he speaks16 to them in his anger, and he [בהל Piel] them in his wrath”.

The verbal root בהל is reasonably well attested in Biblical Hebrew, occurring primarily in the Niphal, but also in the Piel, Pual, and Hiphil stems. In the Piel the verb is mostly used with the transitive meaning of “to terrify [someone],” though the sense of “to make haste” (intransitive) seems required in four instances: Eccl 5:1, 7:9, Est 2:9, and 2 Chr 35:21.17 In the context of Psa 2:5, the meaning of “to terrify” has been applied nearly without exception by trans-lators and commentators, despite the arguably inexact parallel between the verbal notions of “to speak to” (אלימו and “to terrify”. Admittedly, the (ידבר intensification of a verbal idea between the first and second halves of a bicolon is not uncommon in Hebrew poetic parallelism.

Still, one must not overlook the fact that the notion of the earthly rulers expressing fear is at most implicit in the rest of the psalm, if not altogether absent. Apart from the verb יבהלמו, the only explicit mention of fear among the rulers of the earth is in verse 11. However, that represents an exhortation to the kings to fear (i.e., “serve YHWH with fear”), as opposed to a statement of them having actually adopted such a posture. Moreover, verses 10-12, which are clearly marked off as a separate section by the introductory ועתה, are regarded by some commentators as secondary to the psalm’s composition, based on content considerations as well as the additional verbal connections to Psalm 1 making it possible that this section served—([v. 12] אשרי ,[v. 12] ותאבדו דרך)as a redactional layer linking Psalms 1 and 2 together as a single introduction to the Psalter.18 So, within 2:1-9, what some consider the “Grundpsalm,” the

16 It is also possible to translate ידבר here as “he spoke” in light of the function of the state-ment as a rehearsal of a mythologically-past event; on the combination of אז + prefix conjugation with past time reference, compare texts such as Exod 15:1, Num 21:17, Deut 4:41, and Josh 10:12 (and for a fuller list, see J. Dus, “Gibeon—Eine Kultstätte des ŠMŠ und die Stadt des Benjaminitischen Schicksals”, VT 10 [1960], p. 358 n. 1).

17 Since the finite verb forms in Ecclesiastes and Esther are clearly intransitive, it seems preferable to analyze the pronominal suffix on the Piel infinitive construct in 2 Chr 35:21 as a subjective genitive relative to the infinitival form (i.e., “he commanded me (לבהלני)to make haste”). Note also that these four forms all happen to occur in “Late” Biblical Hebrew books.

18 See F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger, Die Psalmen: Psalm 1-50 (Neue Echter-Bibel; Würzburg, 1993), 50-51; M. Saur, Die Königspsalmen: Studien zur Entstehung und Theologie (Berlin, 2004), 27-28.

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mention of the kings “fearing” appears out of place. Even if verses 10-12 were part of the earliest phase of the composition of the poem, one could argue that, given the progression of the four stanzas of the psalm, from the tumult of the nations (vv. 1-3) to YHWH’s response (vv. 4-6) to the role of the enthroned king (vv. 7-9) to the warning to the nations (vv. 10-12), it would make better sense for יבהלמו in verse 5 to represent an act of declaration on the part of YHWH rather than the inducing of an emotional reaction on the kings of the nations.19 To put it another way, it is the attitude of defiance, not fear, that is expressed in verses 1-3 and warned against in verses 10-12, making a reference to terror on the part of the rulers in verse 5 appear inconsistent with the rest of the psalm.

However, a new possibility for the interpretation of יבהלמו in verse 5 has been opened up by a recently published Ugaritic legal text from Ras Shamra, RS 94.2168. This text was first presented in preliminary form in Pierre Bordreuil and Dennis Pardee’s Manuel d’Ougaritique (2004),20 and then given a more detailed treatment by Pardee in 2010,21 with the official editio princeps hav-ing recently appeared in 2012.22 The text, which is almost perfectly preserved, provides the first attestation in Ugaritic of a transitive verb BHL denoting the exclusion of a biological heir from receiving a portion of his father’s estate prior to his death.23 The transliteration and translation of the text (as given in Pardee’s 2010 article) are as follows, with the occurrences of the verb BHL indicated in bold:24

19 On the rhetorical structure of Psalm 2, see S. Terrien, The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), pp. 77-87; and K. Schaefer, Psalms (Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN, 2001), pp. 8-11.

20 P. Bordreuil and D. Pardee, Manuel d’Ougaritique (2 vols.; Paris, 2004), vol. I, p. 159 (line drawing); vol. II, pp. 105-106 (transliteration and translation).

21 D. Pardee, “RS 94.2168 and the Right of the Firstborn at Ugarit”, in W. H. van Soldt (ed.), Society and Administration in Ancient Ugarit (PIHANS 114; Leiden, 2010), pp. 94-106.

22 P. Bordreuil and D. Pardee with R. Hawley, “RS 94.2168: Contrat permettant à ‘Abdimilku de léguer ses biens au fils qu’il choisira”, in Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville***: Textes 1994-2002 en cunéiforme alphabétique de la maison d’Ourtenou (RSO XVIII; Lyon, 2012), pp. 135-141. The discussion of the text in this paper will interact primarily with Pardee’s 2010 article given the greater detail he gives therein to the relevant semantic and interpreta-tional issues of the term BHL.

23 On the classification of RS 94.2168 within the broader collection of “legal” texts at Ugarit, see D. Pardee, with the collaboration of R. Hawley, “Les textes juridiques en langue ougaritique”, in S. Démare-Lafont and A. Lemaire (eds.), Trois millénaires de formulai-res juridiques (Hautes Études Orientales–Moyen et Proche-Orient 4/48; Geneva, 2010), pp. 125-140.

24 Reproduced from Pardee, “Firstborn”, pp. 98-99.



RS 94.2168

Text(1) l . ym . hnd (2) l ˹.˺ pn . ‘mṯtmr (3) bn . nqmp‘ (4) mlk . ugrt

(5) bhtm . šdm . d . ytn (6) mlk l . ‘bdmlk (7) w . l . bnh . u . l (8) bn . bt . mlk (9) u . l . bn . ṣrdth (10) u . l . bn . amhth

(11) d . ihb . ‘bdmlk (12) b . bnh . l . bnh . hwt (13) ytn . ‘bdmlk (14) bhth . šdh (15) ˹m˺r‘h

(16) ˹w˺ . ‘bdmlk (17) bnh . km (18) lbh . yškn . l˹h˺m (19) hm . lb . ‘bdmlk (20) bhl . bnh . w . km (21) lbh . ybhl . hm

(22) hm . lbh . bhl (23) bnh bn . bt . mlk (24) w . km . lbh (25) ybhl . hm . w . hm (26) lbh . bhl . bn . ṣrdth (27) u . bn . amhth (28) w . km . lbh (29) ybhl . hm

Translation(1) On this day, (2) in the presence of ‘Ammiṯtamru, (3) son of Niqmêpa‘, (4) king of Ugarit (the following decision was handed down): (5) (As regards) the houses (and) the fields that the king (6) has given to ‘Abdimilku (7) and to his sons, whether to (8) sons by the daughter of the king, (9) or to sons by his free-born wives, (10) or to sons by his female servants, (11) the one whom ‘Abdimilku will prefer (12) among his sons, to that son (13) ‘Abdimilku may give (14) his houses, his fields, (15) and his pasture lands. (16) Moreover ‘Abdimilku, (as regards) (17) his sons, as (18) he wishes he may dispose (of his property) to them. (19) If ‘Abdimilku wishes (20) to dismiss his sons, as he wishes (21) he may dismiss them. (22) If he wishes to dismiss (23) his sons by the daughter of the king, (24) as he wishes (25) he may dismiss them. If (26) he wishes to dismiss his sons by his free-born wives (27) or his sons by his female servants, (28) as he wishes (29) he may dismiss them.

The first elements worth noting are the morphosyntactic characteristics of the Ugaritic verb. The Ugaritic verb BHL is clearly transitive, being accompanied by an explicit direct object or an accusative pronoun in each of its six occur-rences in the text (lines 20, 21, 22-23, 25, 26-27, and 29). Moreover, the object in every instance is personal—either explicitly bnh (“his sons,” lines 20, 23), the phrase bn ṣrdth u bn amhth (“his sons by his free-born wives or his sons by

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his female servants,” lines 26-27) or an accusative pronoun standing for one or more of the sons (lines 21, 25, 29). The subject in each case is either the father ‘Abdimilku, or a phrase involving the word lb (“heart”), a circumlocution denot-ing his desire to do something. As for the stem of the verb, given the lack of vowels in the Ugaritic orthography, and the absence of a clear participial form in the text, there is no way to be certain whether these are G or D stem forms in the text. Though Pardee vocalizes the verb in every instance as a G stem (presumably) by default,25 nothing prevents its construal as a D stem; in fact, the transitivity of the form in this text might lend marginal support for such an analysis. In other words, all of the morphosyntactic elements are closely paral-lel to the form of the Hebrew cognate in Psalm 2:5.

The meaning of BHL has been inferred partly on the basis of functional par-allels in the Akkadian legal texts from Ras Shamra. In the Akkadian of Ugarit, the verb zakû is used in relation to a son’s status as “free” or “pure” from the obligations of the father’s estate, either in the G stem, “to be pure/free,” or in the D stem, denoting the father’s act of “making pure/free”.26 The latter would denote the severing of the son’s legal ties to the estate, whether in the nega-tive sense of dissolving his claim on any portion of the inheritance, or in the positive sense of dissociating him from any debts that the father might have had outstanding. Pardee, in his discussion of the text, takes no firm stance on whether the verb BHL would have had clearly positive or negative connota-tions, adding that he “cannot see anything in [the] data that precludes the pos-sibility that the verb . . . might express the concept of ‘dismissing’ a son with a gift” (italics original)27—a situation that might be envisaged in one of the Akkadian texts in question (RS 16.129), though the tablet is damaged, making the reading of the relevant line uncertain.28

Be that as it may, RS 94.2168 certainly makes no mention of a gift, and things do not appear overtly positive for the recipients of the verbal action in this case. Whatever the reason behind the king’s issuance of this decree, it grants ‘Abdimilku the right to apportion his property to his sons however he pleases: “The one whom ‘Abdimilku will prefer among his sons, to that son ‘Abdimilku

25 See the vocalization of the text in Pardee, “ Firstborn”, p. 99.26 For details, see Pardee, “Firstborn”, pp. 95-106, with the relevant Akkadian texts presented

in transliteration and translation.27 Pardee, “Firstborn”, p. 96; cf. Tropper’s interpretation of the verb as denoting simply ‘dis-

missal’, with clearly negative connotations (“Zehn neue Texte aus Ugarit”, UF 36 [2004], p. 517), as well as H. Gzella’s rather neutral assessment (“Some Penciled Notes on Ugaritic Lexicography”, BiOr 64 [2007], p. 538).

28 See Pardee, “Firstborn”, p. 100, esp. n. 7.



may give . . .” (lines 11-13). In this context, the verb BHL specifically denotes the corresponding action done to the sons he does not prefer—namely, their “dis-missal” or “exclusion” from receiving the father’s property.29 One additional point of semantics is relevant to our purposes: Pardee suggests, based on “a distant etymological link” with the Akkadian verb ba’ālu (“to pray, beseech”), that it might be preferable to understand the term as “a verbum dicendi rather than a verbum faciendi”30—that is, as a verb denoting a declaration of the son’s status rather than the altering of that status per se. Such a declarative under-standing of the sense of the verb would provide a closer semantic parallel to the act of “speaking” (ידבר אלימו) than would the idea of “terrifying”.

Therefore, given the morphosyntactic correspondences between the Ugaritic verb and the Hebrew form יבהלמו (with the stems of the two forms being potentially identical [D stem], and with the two verbs having the same number and type of syntactic arguments), as well as the intriguing thematic parallels between the two contexts, I would suggest that the verb in Psa 2:5b represents a retention of this technical legal usage from earlier Northwest Semitic in Hebrew. This is best understood as a distinct usage of the known Piel form in Hebrew, and not as expressive of a different lexical root. As is evi-dent from the discussions of Pardee and Tropper, the meanings attested for the cognate roots in the various Semitic languages are all plausibly related to one another, even if the particular usage in RS 94.2168 is not entirely derivable from etymology alone.31

I am not insisting on an early date for Psalm 2, though the present inter-pretation would not be inconsistent with such a claim, especially in light of the archaic-looking pronominal suffixes on יבהלמו and other forms in the psalm.32 What my argument does depend on is the distinctive link between

29 As Pardee observes, in spite of any lingering ambiguities that might pertain to the mean-ing of BHL, it “is rather clearly the verb by which the sons of any of the three categories mentioned in this text may be denied the status of principal or exclusive heir” (“Firstborn”, p. 95).

30 Pardee, “Firstborn”, p. 96.31 Although Pardee asserts that the cognate Semitic “data are too diverse to allow for a sim-

ple etymological explanation of Ugaritic BHL” (“Firstborn”, p. 96), he does not go so far as to posit a distinct root (ibid., pp. 95-96 [esp. n. 3]); see also Tropper, “Zehn neue Texte”, p. 517.

32 Dahood was of the opinion that “the genuinely archaic flavor of the language [of Psalm 2] suggests a very early date (probably tenth century)” (Psalms I, p. 7). On the archaic (or perhaps archaizing) nature of the -mô suffix in particular, which appears five times in Psalm 2, see D. A. Robertson, Linguistic Evidence in Dating Early Hebrew Poetry (SBLDS 3; Missoula, MT, 1972), pp. 65-69; GKC §58g, 91l3.

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this proposed meaning and its surrounding legal context. It is that context that justifies the application of a technical legal sense over against the more com-monly attested meanings of the verbal root elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.33 Most importantly, I would contend that this suggested rendering of the verb in Psa 2:5b has the result of unifying the various components of the psalm already discussed into a coherent interpretation. In response to the rebellious attitude of the kings and dignitaries of the earth, who are understood metaphorically as “sons” of YHWH,34 he issues a ruling affirming the king of Zion as a true son and the preferred heir. He “dismisses,” indeed “excludes,” the other rulers of the earth from a share in his inheritance, and instead offers his anointed all of the land that would have belonged to these other kings. Analogous to a father who possesses the legal right to apportion his estate to whichever of his sons he pleases, YHWH chooses his son in Zion to be the sole recipient of the earthly inheritance of the nations.35 Thus, Psalm 2 is worth consider-ing alongside other biblical texts—notably Deut 32:8-9 and Psa 82:8—that speak of the nations as allotments of earthly inheritance by a divine patriarch,

33 There are only two other contexts in the Hebrew Bible where a similar meaning would be at all possible: in Proverbs 20:21, the Pual participle of בחל (but בהל in the Qere) is used explicitly to qualify the noun נחלה (“inheritance”); in Isaiah 65:23, the notion of the bearing of children “for behālāh” (a *qattalat noun derived from the root בהל) occurs in parallel with a phrase denoting the idea of toiling for no purpose. The applicability of the technical meaning of “dismiss/disinherit” is more dubious with these other cases and would require further investigation to establish.

34 Though length limitations preclude a detailed discussion here, this interpretation adds a dimension of wordplay to the use of the verb התיצב in verse 2, given the evocative use of the related root נצב elsewhere in connection with what sons do before fathers: e.g., 2 Sam 18:17-18, where Absalom is said to have erected (נצב Hiphil) a pillar in response to a lack of a son to perpetuate his name, only to have a heap of stones piled (נצב Hiphil) on top of him; 1 Kgs 16:34, where Hiel of Bethel is said to have erected (נצב Hiphil) the gates of Jericho at the price of (ב) his youngest son; and Psa 82:1, where Elohim stands (נצב Niphal) in the presence of El. Note also, in Ugaritic, the name yṣb (probably yaṣṣub[u] or yaṣṣib[u], from NṢB) as the name of the son of Kirta in the Kirta Epic. Cf. S. L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Urbana, 2009), pp. 190-191, n. 71.

35 Strictly speaking, while the Ugaritic text has the king granting permission for his official ‘Abdimilku to perform this action of “dismissal” as he wishes, the poetic context of Psalm 2 puts YHWH in the place both of the king issuing the decree and the father apportioning his estate. Aside from this slight deviation of legal usage—which does not strike me as an insuperable problem for the interpretation—the use of the term יבהלמו, in Psalm 2:5 represents a clear metaphorical projection of a technical legal meaning into the realm of royal ideology.



though Psalm 2 appears distinctive in its explicit identification of the earthly king as heir.36

Incidentally, the use of inheritance as a metaphor for the handing down of kingship is also known from ancient Egypt. As Frandsen observes, from the Ramesside period on, we find the Egyptian term imyt-pr—i.e., a “deed of trans-fer” (lit. “that which is in the house”), a document that “concerned the trans-fer of personal items and real estate from one individual to another . . . [and] frequently from father to son”37—used as a legal metaphor for the transfer of the office of kingship itself.38 For instance, when Sety I succeeded Ramesses I to the throne, a text inscribed on a shrine built by the son for the deceased father describes how the gods “gave to you [i.e., Sety] this land by the way of a deed of transfer and curbed the Nine Bows for you”.39 These examples could be multiplied. For our present purposes, the point is that the metaphorical use of the legal terminology of inheritance for conveying “the interplay of the divine and human dimensions of kingship”40 has precedent elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

As to the question of whether “adoption” is in view in Psa 2:7, the interpreta-tion offered here does not categorically rule out such an understanding, since it is possible (metaphorically) that an act of adoption preceded the disinheri-tance of the “original” heirs. Nonetheless, it is worth repeating the suggestion

36 In both Deut 32:8-9 and Psalm 82:8, there is ambiguity in the textual tradition as to whether the deity (YHWH/Elohim) was the one distributing or taking possession of the inherited portions. Regarding the Deuteronomy text, Mark Smith notes (following the observation of Emmanuel Tov) that the Septuagint and Qumran versions reflected a text that had אלהים ישראל instead of בני in verse 8, thus hinting at an earlier stage בני in which YHWH was understood as one of many divine sons of Elyon (The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts [Oxford, 2001], pp. 48-49). Regarding Psa 82:8, Peter Machinist discusses the (at least) one Hebrew manu-script that reads תנחיל instead of תנחל (MT) as perhaps a “correction” of the Psalms text to the idea of YHWH distributing inheritances expressed in the MT of Deut 32:8-9 (“How Gods Die, Biblically and Otherwise: A Problem of Cosmic Restructuring”, in B. Pongratz-Leisten [ed.], Reconsidering the Concept of Revolutionary Monotheism [Winona Lake, 2011], pp. 189-240, esp. pp. 192, 224-226, 240).

37 T. Logan, “The Jmyt-pr Document: Form, Function, and Significance”, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 37 (2000), p. 49.

38 P. J. Frandsen, “Aspects of Kingship in Ancient Egypt”, in N. Brisch (ed.), Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond (OIS 4; Chicago, 2008), pp. 62-65.

39 K. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical, Volume 1: Ramesses I, Sethos I, and Comtemporaries (Oxford, 1975), p. 110, lines 6-8; cited in Frandsen, “Aspects of Kingship”, p. 63.

40 Frandsen, “Aspects of Kingship”, p. 63.

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of J. J. M. Roberts that, for Psa 2:7, the language of the Egyptian coronation ritu-als offer a much stronger parallel than that of Mesopotamian adoption formu-lae, which are not as close to the psalm in their phrasing as is often assumed.41 Roberts notes that “[past] scholars have been reluctant even to consider [the] possibility” of a direct Egyptian parallel “because of an apologetic desire to distance Israelite conceptions of the king’s divine sonship as far as possible from the allegedly crudely literal Egyptian conceptions of the physical engen-derment of the Egyptian king by the deity”.42 My interpretation of Psalm 2 as depicting both the “disinheritance” of earthly rulers and the designation of the Judean king as the legitimate heir of YHWH is evocative of this ancient Egyptian notion of the king as the begotten son of the god. In fact, it is this idea of the divine procreatedness of kings that makes possible the use of inheri-tance rights as a metaphor in the poem.43

41 Roberts, “Whose Child is This?” pp. 115-129; see also Nicolas Wyatt’s assertion of the “divine birth” interpretation over against the “adoption” one (‘There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature [SOTS Monograph Series; Aldershot, 2005], p. 212 n. 67). On adop-tion in the Hebrew Bible, see J. H. Tigay, “Adoption”, in F. Skolnik and M. Berenbaum (eds.), Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition (Detroit, 2007), 1:415-417; S. Paul, “Adoption Formulae: A Study of Cuneiform and Biblical Legal Clauses”, MAARAV 2/2 (1979-1980), pp. 173-185.

42 Roberts, “Whose Child is This?” p. 126. The importance of Egyptian motifs for the under-standing of Psa 2:7 has also been emphasized recently by Koch (“Der König als Sohn Gottes”, pp. 2-15) and Otto (“Politische Theologie in den Königspsalmen”, pp. 34-38). For the recent argument that נסכתי in 2:6 refers to the concept of divine procreation of the human king, see Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation?”, pp. 323-336.

43 As Lanny Bell argues, in New Kingdom Egypt “possessing the royal ka and being possessed by it were potential at a person’s birth, but they were actualized only at his coronation” (“The New Kingdom ‘Divine’ Temple: The Example of Luxor”, in B. E. Shafer [ed.], Temples of Ancient Egypt [Ithaca, 1997], p. 140), possibly (and partially) elucidating the function of the phrase בני אתה אני היום ילדתיך in Psa 2:7.

Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers: New Light from the Ugaritic Legal Text RS 94.2168

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Transcript of Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers: New Light from the Ugaritic Legal Text RS 94.2168