And Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. (ESV)
Samuel declared:
As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.
Then he hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. (HCSB)
However, Samuel said: “Just as your sword has bereaved women of children, so your mother will be most bereaved among women.” With that Samuel hacked Aʹgag to pieces before Jehovah at Gilʹgal. (NWT 2013)
Robert Alter translates part of 1 Samuel 15:33 this way: "And Samuel cut him apart before the LORD at Gilgal." He then offers these remarks:
Samuel cut him apart before the LORD. "There is a long-standing consensus that the unique verb used here means something to this effect. The ghastly idea seems to be a kind of ritual butchering."
See The David Story, page 93.
A. Graeme Auld gives these comments (I and II Samuel: A Commentary, Page 175):
"33a. How precisely Samuel dispatches Agag is unclear: this is the unique instance of šsp (mt) in hb. The traditional 'dismember' presupposes a link with the later biblical šṣp. The gt’s choice of esphaxen may have been influenced by two sibilants followed by p in the unfamiliar Hebrew."
On page 180, Auld writes: "The slaying of Agag has features of both execution and sacrifice. Samuel’s judgment that the punishment will fit the crime suggests criminal process. and yet what happens is not simply 'at Gilgal' but 'before Yahweh' or 'in Yahweh’s presence' (in this respect, his death anticipates the death of seven of Saul's family in 2 Sam 21:9). There are regular elements of due order, or ritual, in judicial executions; but given the opaqueness of the unique verb šsp, it is unwise to say more."
From David Tsumura's 1 Samuel Commentary:
And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces: McCarter thinks that the LXX translation and the fact that it was done “before the Lord” suggest “sacrificial butchering.” He suggests that “cutting” in covenant ceremonies symbolized the punishment of covenant breakers, and therefore the Amalekites at the time of Moses had broken a covenant with Israel.⁹⁷ However, as Hertzberg holds, Samuel's action rather “takes the event from the sphere of sacrifice into that of the ban”; see the punishment of Achan in Joshua 7. Instead of Saul, Samuel completed the performance of the “ban” on the Amalekites, devoting Agag their king to the Lord.
8 comments:
https://www.sefaria.org/Radak_on_Genesis.42.36?lang=bi
[Shmuel] cut. He cut him into four pieces. This word has no likeness [in Scripture]. The Targum renders וַיְשַׁסֵּף as וּפָשַׁח. And in our Gemara we find, 'he broke off [מפשח] a branch, and gave us several twigs,'32 meaning that he split.33
https://www.sefaria.org/I_Samuel.15.33?lang=bi&with=Rashi&lang2=bi
Thanks, Duncan. The LXX in 1 Sam. 15:33 likewise reads as Auld relates: καὶ εἶπεν Σαμουηλ πρὸς Αγαγ καθότι ἠτέκνωσεν γυναῖκας ἡ ῥομφαία σου οὕτως ἀτεκνωθήσεται ἐκ γυναικῶν ἡ μήτηρ σου καὶ ἔσφαξεν Σαμουηλ τὸν Αγαγ ἐνώπιον κυρίου ἐν Γαλγαλ
See 1 John 3:10-12.
From David Tsumura's 1 Samuel Commentary:
And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces: McCarter thinks that the LXX translation and the fact that it was done “before the Lord” suggest “sacrificial butchering.” He suggests that “cutting” in covenant ceremonies symbolized the punishment of covenant breakers, and therefore the Amalekites at the time of Moses had broken a covenant with Israel.⁹⁷ However, as Hertzberg holds, Samuel’s action rather “takes the event from the sphere of sacrifice into that of the ban”; see the punishment of Achan in Joshua 7. Instead of Saul, Samuel completed the performance of the “ban” on the Amalekites, devoting Agag their king to the Lord.
This particular topic fascinated me years ago when I was reading “The Two Babylons.” This book pointed out the similarity in how the Egyptian god Osiris was defeated by Set and then cut-up into pieces. There is also the similar account in Judges 19:29.
Thanks, Jim. That account in Judges is interesting and raises many questions. One thing that a number of writers seem to remind us is that the notion of "ban" likely is at play when Samuel hacks Agag. Compare Isaiah 34:5-6. And while we're discussing ancient literature, the Bacchae by Euripides is a wild book to read: a woman named Agave rips her son's head completely off because she takes him to be a mountain lion. Wild stuff.
In the Bacchae, another character also gets ripped asunder, "piece by piece."
Thanks for the reference to the Bacchae. Wikipedia offers the following explanation:
Led by Agave, his mother, they forced the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, ripped off his limbs and his head, and tore his body into pieces.
After the messenger has relayed this news, Agave arrives, carrying her son's bloodied head. In her god-maddened state, she believes it is the head of a mountain lion. She proudly displays it to her father, Cadmus, and is confused when he does not delight in her trophy, but is horrified by it.
[end quote]
Then it offers this commentary:
The ancient Greek concept of religion was very different from the concept as it is generally known today. The Greek gods did not demand worship. Instead they merely demanded to be recognized and accepted as a part of the human experience. The scene of Dionysus being brought before King Pentheus to be interrogated regarding his claim of divinity has been compared to Jesus’s interrogation by Pontius Pilate. However, that particular comparison is limited; Dionysus before his interrogator is not a meek sacrifice about to be crucified; rather, the shoe is on the other foot and Dionysus will soon be sending the king to die by being torn apart by his own mother.
[end quote]
Wild stuff indeed. Thank you for the education today!
You're welcome, Jim, but I always learn from you and the other contributors here. I appreciate the time and effort you took to consult Wikipedia for a discussion of the Bacchae. One thing I always loved about Greek tragedies are the interesting plot twists like the one above regarding the shoe being on the other foot.
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