LAW AND NARRATIVE IN EXODUS 19-24

7 In this paper Scripture references are to the English Bible versifications. Exodus 21:37 in the Hebrew Bible is 22:1 in the English Bible, and thus English Bible references in Exodus 22 are numbered one unit higher than Hebrew Bible references to that chapter.

8 The typical source-critical explanation for the impersonal formulation of the civil laws in the book of the covenant is that these laws were derived from an earlier, non-Israelite law-code and incorporated into the book of the covenant with relatively little modification.

9 [Yahweh to Moses:] "Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, 'When a man from among you [pi.] wishes to present an offering to Yahweh from the livestock, you [pl.] may present jour offerings from the herd or the flock'" (Lev 1:3).

10 You [sing.] occurs in Lev 2:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15; you [plural] in v. 12.

11 After Watts, Reading Law 63.

12 Bernard S. Jackson, "The Literary Presentation of Multiculturalism in Early Biblical Law," International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 7.23 (1995) 183.

13 Jackson, "The Literary Presentation of Multiculturalism" 204.

14 Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narratives (Bible and Literature 9; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983) 38-39.

15 Watts, Reading Law 90.

16 The translations of the Laws of Hammurabi are from Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 80-81, 133.

17 Watts, Reading Law 101. As Watts notes, the laws never explicitly call God king, but the character of the laws as decrees clearly implies the kingship of Yahweh.

18 Watts, Reading Law 105.

19 "God" could declare guilt through the oath-taking process. The accused could be found guilty by refusing to make a self-curse. Or the accused could break down under the intense questioning of the oath procedure and confess. On why "God" is more likely than "judges" as the meaning of 'elohim at both Exod 21:6 and 22:11; see Joe M. Sprinkle, 'The Book of the Covenant': A Literary Approach (JSOTSup 174; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 56-60, 145-48. A good case can be made at Exod 21:6 for an alternative view that 'elohlm refers there to ancestral figurines or teraphim.

20 Watts, Reading Law 52.

21 Walter Brueggemann, "The Book of Exodus" in The New Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994) 1.839.

22 M. Weinfeld, "The Decalogue: Its Significance, Uniqueness, and Place in Israel's Tradition," in Religion and Law: Biblical Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (ed. E. B. Firmage et al.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 13 n. 28.

23 Lev 18:2, 4, 5, 6, 21, 30; 19:3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 15, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37; 20:7, 8, 24, 26; 21:8, 12, 15, 23; 22:2, 3, 8, 9, 16, 30, 31, 32, 33; 23:22, 43; 24:22, 25:17, 38, 55; 26: 2, 13, 44, 45.

24 G. C. Chirichigno, "The Narrative Structure of Exodus 19-24," Bib 68 (1987) 457-79. Also Sprinkle, 'The Book of the Covenant' 17-34. This synoptic/resumptive analysis of Exodus 19-24 is criticized by Richard Averbeck, "The Form Critical, Literary, and Ritual Unity of Exodus 19:3-24:11" (paper presented to the Biblical Law Group at the annual meeting of Society of Biblical Literature Biblical, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 Nov 1995) 24 n. 30.