Where is Cushan-Rishataim from?

In my previous post, I quoted Barry Webb's comical survey of origin suggestions for the foreign king who subjected Israel to slavery for eight years:

Cushan-rishathaim has been variously identified as a Babylonian Cassite (cf. Gen. 10:8), a Nubian, an Edomite, an Asiatic usurper in Egypt (Malamat), a Midianite (cf. Num. 12:1; Hab. 3:7), a chieftain of a tribe related to the Midianites who had migrated north and settled in Syria (Kaufmann), a surviving chieftain of the southern Judean hills (Boling), and, more recently, an Aramean adventurer from the great west bend of the upper Euphrates (Kitchen).

Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 159.

As I've been working on it a bit more, I doesn't seem quite so intractable a problem. Let me tell you why.

We are told two things about this king's origin. First, at the beginning of the episode:

3:8b And he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishataim, king of Aram-Naharaim

And then at the end of the episode:

3:10d And Yhwh gave Cushan-Rishataim the king of Aram into his hand

It seems the main difficulties with describing him as an Aramean seems to be the spatial dislocation. Aram is north of Israel (roughly modern south-west Syria), while from chapter 1 we know that Othniel is in the south of Israel, linked to the tribe of Judah, and these are pretty-much as far away as can be.

However there are a couple of things worth noting. The first is the exceptional circumstances. In chapter 1 Othniel was called to step up in order to defeat a city and thereby to gain a wife. In chapter 3 however the Spirit is at work. We know from elsewhere that the Spirit may dislocate people (see the farcical episode in 1 Kings 18), so why not?!

The second thing worth noting is that, even if we don't know what Aram-Naharaim refers to (v8), we do know where Aram (v10) is. We also know what Naharaim means - it means "pair or rivers", with -aim the dual-form ending, and nahar meaning river. And we also know that in Aram there are two rivers, described by Naaman in 2 Kings 5:12:

Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

Now, I had a look on google maps and they're not readily apparent. You have to know what you're looking for and zoom in. A lot. They're two rivers which don't seem to come from or go anywhere - they just peter out as far as I can tell. Today they're called (respectively) the Barada and Awaj rivers, with the Barada flowing (when it does flow) through the heart of Damascus; the Awaj at its closest point is 13km or so south of the Barada. 

Image made using Accordance Bible Software.
Rivers are the thin blue lines with the red words describing them.
Abana is the more northern river, Pharpar the more southern.

The point is, in a desert landscape, despite their diminutive size, these two rivers would be pretty important, and one could understand why a king would be titled after his kingdom's not one but two water sources. That being said, one could also understand why this king might want to extend his kingdom to the more well-watered land south toward Lake Chinnereth (the Sea of Galilee).

So I don't know if I've solved a riddle, or simply added yet another to the long list of suggestions, but it seems like it makes sense. 

Update:

Here's a clearer image from research gate. It seems they come from springs and end up in lakes, which I assume fill and dry up, depending on the season. 

The names of Israel's enemies in Judges 3

Cushan-Rishataim

I've been reading through Barry Webb's NICOT commentary on Judges, he noted the way Cushan-Rishataim's name is used multiple times, and it gives shape to the whole episode.

There is an introduction (3:7-8a), then we hear Cushan-Rishataim's name twice (3:8b-c). The action follows in 3:9-10c, and in the denouement we hear Cushan-Rishataim's name twice more (3:10d-e), before the ending (3:11).

3:7-8a Israel's evil, Yhwh's anger

3:8b-c Cushan-Rishataim set loose

3:9-10c Israel cry out, Yhwh raises up Othniel

3:10d-e Cushan-Rishataim cut down

3:11 Quiet in the land

We can see how the two double uses of Cushan-Rishataim's name frames the raising up of the judge his actions of saving Israel by judging and making war. 

We actually know nothing about Cushan-Rishataim; Webb surveys the various suggestions as to his origin in a list that become ever more farcical: 

Cushan-rishathaim has been variously identified as a Babylonian Cassite (cf. Gen. 10:8), a Nubian, an Edomite, an Asiatic usurper in Egypt (Malamat), a Midianite (cf. Num. 12:1; Hab. 3:7), a chieftain of a tribe related to the Midianites who had migrated north and settled in Syria (Kaufmann), a surviving chieftain of the southern Judean hills (Boling), and, more recently, an Aramean adventurer from the great west bend of the upper Euphrates (Kitchen).

Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 159.

There could also be some funny business going on with his name. 3:8b describes him as "Cushan-Rishataim, king of Aram-Naharaim." Naharaim means "two rivers", so if you deconstruct Rishataim, the "aim" ending is a dual form (i.e. two) and the "Risha" beginning uses the consonants of "wicked" - hence "Double-wickedness". We don't know anything about what wickedness he got up to, but he dominated Israel for eight years, causing them to repent (at least for a time) of their apostacy and to cry out for a saviour.

Eglon the king of Moab 

Anyway, that is all a precursor to what I was most interested in - the use of the name of Israel's enemy in the second section. Essentially what we see is a degradation in the name of Eglon the king of Moab throughout the episode. It begins with a short chiasm:

3:12a Israel again did evil in the eyes of Yhwh

3:12b Yhwh raised up Eglon the king of Moab

3:12c Because they did evil in the eyes of Yhwh

As the episode goes on, Eglon the king of Moab is mentioned numerous times:

3:12b And Yhwh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel

3:14 And the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab 18 years

3:15c And the children of Israel sent in [Ehud's] hand a gift to Eglon king of Moab

3:17a And [Ehud] presented the gift to Eglon king of Moab

However, this is the last time Eglon gets the full title. The next mention, in the same verse, is just his name, and no title:

3:17b Now Eglon was an exceedingly fat man

After this devastating description, his name is never mentioned again. He is "he", "him", and is described as in the WC (literally, something like "the upper cool room"), on his "throne" (I think this is a punny way of saying the toilet), and so overwhelmingly obese that Ehud's sword is swallowed by his fat as faeces comes out.

Indeed, the only other time he gets a mention is as "their lord" (3.25d), who had fallen on the ground, dead. 

Once Eglon the king of Moab is dead, Moab are prey for the hunter, and Ehud has Israel essentially guard the Jordan so that any Moabites trying to escape back over the border get killed , with 10,000 rich and powerful men dying. 

Reflection

I'm still trying to work out whether this is about making fun of Israel's enemies, or about making fun of Israel. On the one hand, the death of Eglon is told comically (with certain similarities to the poo jokes in Daniel 5), so that Israel's victory through an unlikely saviour (a lefty!) is even greater. But on the other hand, it is these morbidly obese people who are able to subdue Israel for 18 whole years. Those they killed trying to escape at the Jordan were not warriors but fat bureaucrats, and if Israel were devoted to their LORD rather than to evil, then they may have been able to withstand their Moabite "Lord".

Epilogue

Interestingly, Shamgar, the final Judge of this chapter (3:31), has no named adversary, but just the Philistines more broadly. If you're interested to read more about him, there's a fascinating blog over at isthatinthebible you might be interested in. 

The unfilled eye - Ecclesiastes 1:8; 4:8

I'm working through Ecclesiastes again for a daily devotion thing I'm sending out, and noticed a phrase pop up again which I hadn't previously. It's "the eye(s) is(are) not filled." 

It's an odd phrase because we don't think about eyes being filled, although it's not hard to make sense of it. It's also missed because the two occurrences are translated differently. In 1:8 the NIV has "the eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing." (has enough represents the verb שׂבע.) In 4:8 it comes across a little differently, "there was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. (not content represents the verb שׂבע.)

As you can see (no pun intended), the same verb with the same subject represents two different subjects which can never fill one's eyes. In the opening poem, it is the ever-changing world and innumerable experiences which can never fill the eyes. In the observation of the lonely man in chapter 4, it is greed which is the bottomless hole. Of course, it could be that greed for experiences in chapter 1 is what binds the two expressions together. Although it is described as wearying in chapter 1, it could well be that this is the reflection of someone who has spent life trying to experience enough (like Faust, perhaps) and has reached a point when they have lost all desire to learn anything or experience anything new (like the end of The Good Place, perhaps). 

It was also interesting to chase this phrase a bit further. "Not filled" is a phrase which occurs some 20 times in the Old Testament, fairly evenly divided between the prophets and the writings (only once in the Pentateuch, Lev. 26.26). 

Mostly the description of what one cannot be filled with (moving now beyond just the eye) is food as a punishment. "You will eat but not be satisfied" is the common way of expressing this. Usually a punishment, it can also be Yhwh's means of testing - when they realise this, will they turn back to me?

The next most common way this phrase is used is to do with idolatry, as people went whoring after the nations or after greed, but as they did so and were not satisfied, their idolatry was exposed. They pursued something they thought would satisfy their desires but were left nonetheless with a bottomless hole, a gaping pit that could not be filled. 

One interesting unsatisfiable was Sheol/Abbadon, which could not be satisfied with death. I'm not sure if this is negative or nature - if probably depends on the context (eg Prov 30:15-16). There was also one positive, which was Job's conative use, asking whether anyone ever went away from his feasts not satisfied (expecting the answer "no"). 

But for me it's the greed-idolatry one which stands out most clearly. The way God has ordered this world means that serving the god of greed is a service which can never end and never give satisfaction. When greed, the accumulation of wealth is your god, there can never be enough. You will sacrifice friendships to the altar of greed but you will still never the gifts from the hand of God of true friendship, of true security, of shelter in the storm (see Eccl. 4:7-12).

Hallelujah!

I'm getting to the end of my psalm per day reflection that I've been sending out to people from church (plus a few others) and in the last few I'm coming across the phrase "Hallelujah" quite a bit. You probably know that it means "Praise Yah", where Yah is short for Yahweh (or, as I choose to write it, Yhwh). It's one of those transliterations, which is to say "Hallelujah" isn't a translation, nor is "Hosanna" or "Baptise" or "Amen" - they have acquired meanings in English but they are not translations. (For those who are interested, Hosanna means save us, baptise means wash or overwhelm, amen is to do with agreement or trust).

Hallelujah is mostly two words, sometimes joined with a maqqep (essentially a Hebrew hyphen), sometimes separated, and once they are joined into one word. Oh, and they all occur in the last third of the psalter, as follows:

• Hallelu-Yah 17 (102:19; 104:35; 105:45; 106:48; 113:9; 115:17; 115:18; 116:19; 117:2; 135:3, 21; 146:1, 10; 147:20; 148:14; 149:9; 150:6b)
• Hallelu Yah 9 (111:1; 112:1; 113:1; 135:1; 147:1; 148:1; 149:1; 150:1, 6a*)
• Hallelujah 1 (106:1)

I think this is all of them - it's from a software search and I haven't double checked it. But you'll notice a couple of things:

1. The two words joined with a maqqep is by far the most common. 
2. There is one case (150:6a) where the verb takes a different form, it's tehallel yah (all breath will praise Yah).
3. Every time the standard form occurs without a maqqep, and including the time where they're joined (106:1), is in the first line of the psalm. The hyphenated form never occurs at the beginning of a psalm, and with the exception of 150:6a, the un-hyphenated form only occurs at the beginning. 
4. If the form begins the psalm, it often occurs later on also. Of the nine which begin with Hallelu Yah or Halleljuah, seven have Hallelu-Yah later on. 
5. As mentioned already, they are all in the last third of the psalter, and are clustered in a few groups: 102-106 (but not 103), 113-117 (but not 114), 146-150, with 135 the only one on its own. 

It's also noteworthy that the phrase Hallelujah (or Allelujah in the KJV) has come into English, perhaps not from the Psalms, but from the book of Revelation, where it is transliterated from Hebrew to Greek and then into English. It occurs four times in Revelation 19:1-6, and is the noise of those in heaven roaring praises to God for destroying Babylon, vindicating his saints, and bringing them to the wedding feast of the Lamb. 

What do we make of all this? I'm not yet sure. But it's interesting! It's also wonderful that we say it so much - and I think probably preserving the meaning - Praise Yah for his powerful works of rescue and redemption on earth, and for the future he is bringing about through the Lord Jesus. Hallelujah indeed!