Back to “HaTanakh Hayah BeEmet” (התנ”ך היה באמת, דר. ליאורה רביד 2009) which I have commented on several times (here, here and here) over the last couple of weeks. This time Liora Ravid makes the assertion that the term “ויחר אף” means particularly violent anger – which it may but also may not, as I will show.
She is discussing the birth of Ya’akov’s children and the names given them by their mothers. This she uses to continue to portray Ya’akov in a far more negative light than I believe he deserves as a violent man and a fraudster. As for the fraudster, I do think can be said of him. His name says as much, he deceived his father and got his uppance Midah keNeged Midah from Lavan with Leah and Lavan even explains himself on this point. He then successfully uses his skills against Lavan for the flocks.
However I don’t see him as a violent man. She takes the names of Leah’s first children (Reuven and Shim’on) to tell a story of domestic violence and the term “sanuah” to mean literally hated as in the modern usage. Joshua Berman maintains in his book that LeEhov in Tanakh means more in terms of faithfulness and preferentialness than love and gives examples both from Tanakh and outside of the verb meaning to be faithful to a covernant. In contrast he maintains that LiSnoh means to be unfaithful and not give special consideration complete with examples. Thus he explains for example Deut 11.1 or 7:13 or 10:13 or more pointedly for us 21:15 that is talking about a man with two wives; one “loved” and the other “hated”. This becomes one given preferential status over the other.
Liora Ravid goes further to suggest that when Leah says “ראה ה’ בעניי” she is aluding to rape as in what Shekhem will later do to Dinah “ויעניה”. Rather tenuous seeing as marital rape was not a crime, and other uses of the word in Gen 31:42 (Ya’akov describes his hard life looking after the sheep to Lavan) or 41:52 (Yosef calls his son Efrayim “כי הפרני אלוהים בארץ עניי”) which both just mean miserableness.
And so we get to Gen 30:2 where Ya’akov remonstrates with the childless Rahel “ויחר אף יעקב ברחל”. Ravid asserts that this term is otherwise reserved for God’s destructive wrath like when he wants to wipe out the people altogether. It is true that it can, but it also can mean just plain annoyance. It can mean the whole spectrum of annoyance and anger. Here are the examples that prove my point:
Ex 4:14 -
וַיִּחַר-אַף יְהוָה בְּמֹשֶׁה, וַיֹּאמֶר הֲלֹא אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ הַלֵּוִי–יָדַעְתִּי, כִּי-דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר הוּא; וְגַם הִנֵּה-הוּא יֹצֵא לִקְרָאתֶךָ, וְרָאֲךָ וְשָׂמַח בְּלִבּוֹ. God is annoyed at Moshe’s persistent refusal and excuses not to do his mission.
Num 22:22 -
וַיִּחַר-אַף אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-הוֹלֵךְ הוּא, וַיִּתְיַצֵּב מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בַּדֶּרֶךְ, לְשָׂטָן לוֹ; וְהוּא רֹכֵב עַל-אֲתֹנוֹ, וּשְׁנֵי נְעָרָיו עִמּוֹ. God is going to kill Bil’am just remind him what the rules are.
Num 24:10 -
וַיִּחַר-אַף בָּלָק אֶל-בִּלְעָם, וַיִּסְפֹּק אֶת-כַּפָּיו; וַיֹּאמֶר בָּלָק אֶל-בִּלְעָם, לָקֹב אֹיְבַי קְרָאתִיךָ, וְהִנֵּה בֵּרַכְתָּ בָרֵךְ, זֶה שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים. Again Balak isn’t going to kill Bil’am, he is just rather annoyed.
I agree, these are my only examples out of 28 instances where most are of the “God was really angry and smote them” type, but that’s what tends to happen when the Tanakh explains that God was angry. However it does show that the term”ויחר אף” does not need to mean particularly violent anger. It can just mean regular anger.
Come to think of it how does the Tanakh say “anger” in other words than”ויחר אף”? Maybe just that people/God who are angry at all in the Tanakh are generally those who are in a position and diposition to cause a great deal of damage? Any suggestions?
My hebrew instructor told us that the word “אף” was an idiom that loosely translated into ‘his/her face became hot’, as an allusion to frustration. I can definitely see where translating this uniformly as ‘anger’ would not be doing the text justice. Do you see the evidence in any text that would imply severe anger, as opposed to just ‘annoyance’?
Great blog; your knowledge of the hebrew language is very impressive.
This could be a case of pa’al and pi’el forms of the verb. ‘oni (poverty in Modern Hebrew) vs. ‘inui (torture in modern Hebrew). If you check the dictionary there is a pa’al and pi’el form of the verb with milder and extremer meanings. Then of course there is ‘anah – to answer – which presumably has a different letter ‘ayin (as there are two different ayins which are preserved in Arabic for example).
Awfrick – interesting idea that “אף” is idiomatic. I you look in a concordance you will see that as I said in the posting the usage of “haron af” can mean varying degrees of anger. There certainly are instances where God uses the term to show his anger that will result in severe retribution, but then there are other examples that show a milder “normal” level of anger.
Moom – my examples were to show that the exact same contraction of the word mean plain miserableness and not something stronger. BTW, the text in Gen 34:2 says “וישכב אותה ויעניה” which would imply that they are separable if not separate acts whereas Deut 22:24 or 29 do imply rape as being the ‘inui.
Um, I’m agreeing with you, not Ravid that ‘oni has nothing to do with rape. I’m assuming that teh Shekhem/Dina case is pi’el… I guess I need to go check the vowelization (though of course it was written down a long time after the story was written originally…)
Yeah, I wrote the comment in a hurry. I understood you were agreeing with me, those were extra thoughts.
In order to answer my own question, I just went looking for other words to describe “angry” in Tanakh and I have drawn a blank. The word “כעס” appears first in Deut 32:27 in Shirat Haazinu where it refers to destructive frenzy of an enemy. Next is in Shmuel I refering to Penina and Hanah, once in Yehezkel and several times in Mishlei and Kohelet. Not a particularly Torah kind of word.
BTW the root “רגז” only appears once in Devarim a few in Shmuel and Melakhim and a couple of times in Iyov. In all these it means more upset emotionally than angry.
So when she says on page 158:
“צמד המילים הזה חוזר בתנ”ך עשרות פעמים, והוא איננו מבטא רוגז חולף בין בעל לאישתו , אלא פרץ זעם נורא ואלים… המחבר… בחר בכוונה באחד מביטויי הכעס הקשים והאכזריים ביותר”
, its not clear what alternative the text could have used.
There is also qacaf I think, seem to remember that somewhere. She does seem to have a lot of very speculative theories…
Thanks Moom. “ק-צ-ף”. This appears in Bereishit (Genesis) in connection to the baker and the drinks-master getting thrown in jail, and in the other books of the Torah mainly relating to Moshe’s or God’s anger in a way that would superficially make it interchangeable with “ח-ר-ה”. The main use is in Devarim (9:19, 1:34, 9:7, 9:8, 9:22) in a way that almost means that the people taunted God or that his anger was impetuous. Deut 29:27 is an interesting one in that it uses three terms together “באף ובחמה ובקצף גדול”. I will get back with a proposed translation.
I have done a little more research into the etymology of words denoting anger.
“אף” is indeed related to fast breathing by somebody who is angry.
“חמה” is somebody getting hot with anger as in “וחמתו בערה בו ” of Ahashverosh.
“קצף” is translated into Latin and from there to English as “indignation”. It is of course connected to foaming water getting all worked up and furious.
“חרה” is apparently to do with glowing and burning.
So where does this leave us? I reckon that “חרון אף” is probably a more deep seated anger than “קצף” which is essentially foaming full of air. Therefore when “ויחר אף יעקב ברחל” this shows that he thought she was serious out of order as opposed to if it had said “ויקצף יעקב ברחל” which would have implied that he was far more transiently and impetuously angry with her and tomorrow he would forget about it.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5271554/13905930
Might interest you.
Odd that a Google search for Liora Ravid comes up with your blog and those two interviews as the top items. Google Scholar returns two articles written by her. Web of Science returns nothing (but not so surprising given her field). Has she ever had an academic position?
Dunno. Don’t think much of the book though but the press seems to enjoy it and gave her a lot of publicity.