Word Play: The Power of the Written Word in Ancient Israel Talkback Add Your Comment
 Click to view a slide show of larger images and captions. To the modern world, the written word is often taken for granted. We are so removed from the origins of writing that when we write something, whether on a piece of paper, on a sign or on the internet, we don’t even think about the physical act of creating words. For us, writing is simply a means to an end, an almost primordial and instinctive technology that we use to communicate with each other.
But 3,000 years ago, when alphabetic writing had just begun to spread across the masses of the ancient Near East, written words were far more than idle marks meant simply to be read. Words were repositories of power, physical vessels that gave material reality to one’s innermost thoughts and even the soul itself. So it was in ancient Israel.1
In the Hebrew Bible there are clear indications that writing was often thought to have tangible, even magical, properties. In Numbers 5:11-28, a woman accused of adultery is made to consume “the water of bitterness,” a cloudy concoction infused with the washed-off ink from the words of a written curse. If the woman is innocent, the curse will have no effect; if she is guilty, the curse will cause her thighs to waste away and her belly to swell. In a similar vein, when Ezekiel accepts his prophetic mission from God during a dreamlike trance, he eats a scroll inscribed with the words of the divine message (Ezekiel 2:9-3:11). Having ingested the words, Ezekiel and God’s message become one.
The magical properties of writing meant that written words, once they came into being, were active and sometimes even unstable forces that could be manipulated, both for good and for ill. Numerous short dedicatory inscriptions found in Iron Age Israel and elsewhere make requests for divine blessing and protection,* many having only the author’s name, what is requested and the name of the deity. As Biblical scholar Susan Niditch has said, it is as if the act of writing the prayer “[brought] the God-presence into a sort of material reality,” thus allowing the words to become infused with “visceral power.”2
But just as writing could help an author’s prayers get answered, it could also be used to inflict pain and suffering. Curse inscriptions often protected tombs, monumental inscriptions and seemingly mundane graffiti throughout the ancient Near East, and ancient Israel was no exception.** In a world where the simple act of erasing an author’s name was tantamount to wiping out a person’s very life and essence, author’s went to great lengths to ensure that would-be vandals and robbers suffered the same fate. Hiram, a tenth-century B.C. king of Byblos, wrote on his sarcophagus that anyone who attempted to destroy his inscription would have their own inscription (i.e., life) blotted out. Likewise, the anonymous author of an inscription found at the seventh-century B.C. site of Horvat ‘Uza in the eastern Negev claimed that if the words of his text were not heeded, the grave of the disobedient reader would be destroyed.
Similar ideas about the transformative power of written words continued to persist among the Jewish populations of the Near East throughout antiquity. In late antique Babylonia (third–seventh centuries A.D.), for example, countless ceramic bowls were inscribed with prayers, curses and healing rituals written in the Jewish-Aramaic script.*** The spiraling, cramped inscriptions of the bowls often encircled drawings of bound demons and other evil spirits. Writing, even in this late period, was still invested with the power to bring prayers and curses to life.
 Notes
*Gabriel Barkay, “News from the Field: The Divine Name Found in Jerusalem,” BAR, March/April 1983.
**Hershel Shanks, “The Tombs of Silwan,” BAR, May/June 1994.
***Hershel Shanks, “Magic Incantation Bowls,” BAR, January/February 2007.
1 For a thorough overview of the power and uses of the written word in ancient Israel, see Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1996).
2 Niditch, Oral World and Written Word, pp. 46-47.
Check out “Rare Magic Inscription on Human Skull” in the March/April 2009 issue of BAR for more information about ancient inscriptions.
Word PlayLetters, words (one or more letters), sentences (one or more words), paragraphs (etc.), chapters (etc.), books (etc.), etc. are simply predefined symbols and each are given and contain and can convey increasing amounts of information. Language is one of three major ways that both the Creator and the Creator’s image can store information and/or communicate to oneself or another equally intelligent being who’s mind translates any received letters, word, sentences, etc., into the sender’s intended meaning. Language has value and power only when it is understood by the communicator and the receiver of the communication. “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me!”. Words without intelligent beings to receive their meaning are harmless, but if you are standing blindfolded against a wall and hear the word, “Fire!”, it would be hard to argue that you will not be hurt by that word. The other two forms of information storage and of potential information transfer are: 1) the things one has created or made and 3) the actions one chooses to take. The Creator has used all three ways to communicate information to all humans or initially a selected subset of humans. 1) The Creator’s Word in the Creation: Almost all humans have access to information from and about the Creator through the physical creation medium. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-- and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Rom 1:20-25 NKJ) 2) The Creator’s Word in Words: A subset of humans was trusted with information about the physical creation, the Creator and the Creator’s way through the oral and written language medium. They will eventually fulfill their mandate to transfer that information to all other humans. 6 `And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exo 19:6 NKJ) 3) The Creator’s Word in the Flesh: The Creator has also communicated with various individuals and nations, especially Israel, through actions as a spirit being and some believe also through actions in the flesh as a human being. NKJ Isaiah 59:1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. 4 No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. (Isa 59:1-4 NKJ) 37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Mat 23:37 NKJ) Humans have also made use of these three ways to store and communicate information, sometimes unintentionally. Thankfully they did not always know they were storing information or they might have destroyed it and left Archaeologists and Forensic Scientists with much less to work with! • • • • • • • Bible textAll the ORDINARY writing in Egypt in the time of Moses was in HIERATIC. If he wrote the Pentateuch, it seems probable that he would have written in hieratic. • • • • • • • Word PlayIt is remarkable that our very literate modern era treats words as merely a means to an end as stated in this BAR article. I respect the ancient notion expressed in the article that written words are physical vessels which give physical reality to our innermost thoughts. For example, when one writes "I love..." (not when anyone - but: I love)...then truly my soul is revealed. I wish moderns would take more care of their words, both written and uttered from within their souls. Use them less copiously. Use them with more respect unto the words themselves. It is said, From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things....The Word became a human being...God's thought into words into Creation...we humans are reversed...flesh making marks on paper being made into thoughts in other people's souls...then made into the human creation of understanding. How joyful of words! How must words enjoy their divine origin! • • • • • • • Magic writingThe writing on that skull in the other article presents a parallel to modern practice and quasi-magical thinking regarding scriptures. When my grandmother, now over 100 years old, was a child, when someone wanted to know whether a devoutly wished for event would occur, he or she would open the family Bible and, with eyes closed, place the index finger upon a passage at random. If that passage turned out to begin, as often happened, with the words, "And it came to pass," then the wish would come true. Or so they believed. I'm sure no priest, minister, or rabbi authorized this sort of practice, but it was common in the rural South. The inscription on that skull, speaking of eating and not being filled, drinking and not being sated, recalls very much a passage from Haggai in the Old Testament. I wonder if someone had that specifically in mind in writing that on the skull. The prophet was recording the words of the Lord, encouraging the people to rebuild the Temple. But the inscriber of the skull possibly thought the same "magic" words might keep a badly behaved spirit unsatisfied. My granny would have gone along with that sort of thing, I reckon, once upon a time. • • • • • • • Power of Written WordsAnd the notion persists today in the Jewish practice of writing prayers on paper and inserting the paper in a niche in the Western Wall. We focus on its being the holiest place, but it is still the physical words that are being placed there, that a person who cannot be present at the wall can have his prayer placed there where it will be most efficacious. • • • • • • • Wailing Wall PrayersThis article brought to mind the still current practice of inserting small pieces of written prayers into cracks in the remnant of the Jersalem Temple. • • • • • • • Written wordInteresting. On a related matter, what was the literacy level among the general populace during the period of the Second Temple? Might Paul's letters have taken on greater significance in shaping Christianity because James and Peter did not write? Might Paul's views have carried more weight because the were written rather than just oral? • • • • • • • Power of words in ancient IsraelThus it is not an accident that perhaps the only words of the Torah preserved in a pre-exilic setting are found in amulets in which the priestly blessing, Numbers 6:24-26, "May the Lord bless you and keep you..." were written. • • • • • • • Power of WordsAn excellent article. Words still retain their mystical powers; we just don't recognize them as such. In an age of millions of blogs and countless new terms entering the lexicon to explain our use of words (IM, twitter, e-mail) we get further removed from the sway words can have when arranged a certain way. Powerful narrative still elicits emotions and, sadly, hurtful words can inflict damage (e.g. suicides caused by hateful online words directed at one person.) History, as shown in this piece, reminds us to choose our words carefully. KFZ www.zubisrises.com • • • • • • • |
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