Casting Peace on the Earth

by Leolaia 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Leolaia

  There is one more thing about how Arets "Earth" is described in Hosea and in other passages in the OT. As described above, the Earth was mythologically designated as female, as the wife of "Heaven" (cf. Ki, Arets, Ge/Gaia, etc.). This notion obviously is related to the similarity between the "fruit of the field" and the "fruit of the womb" and the casting of zr' "seed, semen" on the earth. There is one text where a Canaanite king described his neglected fields as "like a women without a man because there is no one to seed them" (EA 74:17-19). In the Ugaritic texts, we find that Baal has a sexual relationship with Arets with his rains being equated with semen:

  "The rain of Baal penetrates ('n) the (female) Earth ('rts), the rain of the Mounter ('ly) penetrates the field, pleasure for the Earth (n'm l-'rts) is the rain of Baal, pleasurable for the field is the rain of the Mounter" (KTU 1.16 iii 4-8).

  The word that signifies the coital act (Ug. 'n) is cognate with Hebrew 'nh which indicates the same thing; cf. Exodus 21:10, "marital rights" ('nth ygr'). The same sexual conception occurs in Hosea. First of all, the prophet overtly indicates that the Israelites equated Yahweh and Baal and declares that Yahweh should no longer be called Baal (who is instead cast by the prophet as the paramour of Israel): "The day will come when you shall call me husband ('ysy) and no longer call me Baal (b'ly), for I will take away the names of the Baals ('t-smwt h-b'lym) out of her mouth" (2:16-17). Yahweh is husband to Israel, but the relationship is described not only between the people but specifically between the land and Yahweh. And here is where we find an oracle of Yahweh denying his adulterous wife her rains so she shrivels up, and also physically abuses her so she is broken: "I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst....(Israel now speaking) He has torn us to pieces....he has injured us" (2:3; 6:1-2). But after his wife comes back to him, Yahweh will restore his rains:

  "He will come (ybw') to us like the winter rains (come to the Earth), like the late rains (mlqs) which impregnates (ywrh) the Earth ('rts)" (Hosea 6:3).

  The concept is that Yahweh first mauls his wife and then abandons her, thus causing her to miss the first coital rains of early winter (gsm) which normally fertilize the newly-ploughed and seeded earth, but if Israel atones for her adultery he will heal her and come (ybw') like the late winter Malqosh of February-March to fertilize (yrwh) and make her fruitful (e.g. prh) once again. The term Malqosh (which also occurs in Proverbs 16:15) derives from lqs "late", hence the late seasonal rains; cf. yrchw lqs "two months of late (planting)" from the tenth century BC Gezer Calendar, and Targumic Aramaic laqqish which refers to late rain and other late-season activities. The verbal root of ywrh (*hrh "fertilize, impregnate") occurs in nominal form as Moreh (mrh) in Joel 2:23 to refer to the early autumn rains. In Job 3:2 hrh itself occurs to refer to the "conception" that occurs through coitus, Isaiah 28:9 uses ywrh metaphorically to mean "teach" (e.g. impregnating ideas in someone), and the related form brh (usually translated "give birth, produce") occurs in Isaiah 59:4 where it is paralleled with yld "impregnate". In Hosea, ywrh is used as a transitive verb that acts upon the Earth ('rts); in other contexts ywrh has a de-sexualized meaning of "shoot forth, cast forth" (cf. Isaiah 37:33). There is also a Ugaritic text in the Lay of Aqhat where Ug. yr "impregnate" occurs in a rain-making context (according to Margalit):

  "Whereupon Danel, the Rapha man, entreated the clouds anxiously: 'O Procreator ('n yr), when will the clouds shower ('rpt tmtr) the summer-fruit, the dew distill on the grapes? Seven years Baal shall fail, for eight, the Rider of the Clouds! No dew, no rain, no welling up of the deeps, no goodness of Baal's voice" (KTU 1.19 i 40-46).

  The Hosea text may also be readily compared with Isaiah 55:9-10 which uses the sexual term yld "impregnate, beget": "For as the rain descends from heaven never to return, but saturates the Earth (hrwh 't-h-'rts), impregnates it (yld) and makes it flourish, providing seed (zr') for the sower and bread for the eater".
• 

  JCanon

  Hi Leolaia, this is interesting. I didn't realize there was so much reference to Michael the Archangel in the book/s? of Enoch. Is there anywhere these books are published on the net that you prefer? I will try to do a search myself, but just in case, could you give me a net reference for the books of Enoch? Thanks. JC

  Of course, I agree with half your assessment that there is some "common influence" in what the Jews believed and what appears in other cultures. Per Alexander Hislop and the witnesses, a common influence of many concepts originated in Babylon before the languages were multiplied and people spread from there to all other the earth, each maintaining but varying these basic concepts. So maybe the Jews got these ideas from Babylon and not Caanan. That's the argument by many, including many who follow "The Mysteries" origins, influenced more by Egypt but eventually traced back to Babylon according to Hislop and the witnesses. Something about Babylonian religious thought that influenced everybody else. But that's logical. The very astronomy the Western world has today, based upon the 12 zodiac signs, came from ancient Sumer and got adopted by Egypt and then the great thinkers of Greece studying in Babylon (i.e. Thales, et al) gave this to the Greeks who in turn influenced (became) modern Western culture.

  Thanks, again for another interesting comparison! Especially since apparently Enoch was quoted from am I interested in looking up this book. I guess in the Jewish apocrypha? I'll report back.

  JC
• 

  JCanon

  Hi Leolaia, I did find a copy of Enoch on the net....interesting. I plan to read the whole book and see what's up.

  Of note, the passage you are referring to was the pronouncement of peace immediately before the flood and not specifically to the millennium of peace if that was the casual inference; that is, the peace mentioned in Enoch was specially earlier than the peace that might have been referred to occur again after Armageddon and the millennium of 1000 years the Bible talks about. Here's that quote:

  And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because 16 they have wronged mankind. Destroy all wrong from the face of the earth and let every evil work come to an end: and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear: and it shall prove a blessing; the works of righteousness and truth' shall be planted in truth and joy for evermore.

  17 And then shall all the righteous escape,
  And shall live till they beget thousands of children,
  And all the days of their youth and their old age
  Shall they complete in peace.

  18 And then shall the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and shall all be planted with trees and 19 be full of blessing. And all desirable trees shall be planted on it, and they shall plant vines on it: and the vine which they plant thereon shall yield wine in abundance, and as for all the seed which is sown thereon each measure (of it) shall bear a thousand, and each measure of olives shall yield 20 ten presses of oil. And cleanse thou the earth from all oppression, and from all unrighteousness, and from all sin, and from all godlessness: and all the uncleanness that is wrought upon the earth 21 destroy from off the earth. And all the children of men shall become righteous, and all nations 22 shall offer adoration and shall praise Me, and all shall worship Me. And the earth shall be cleansed from all defilement, and from all sin, and from all punishment, and from all torment, and I will never again send (them) upon it from generation to generation and for ever. 11 1 And in those days I will open the store chambers of blessing which are in the heaven, so as to send 2 them down upon the earth over the work and labour of the children of men. And truth and peace shall be associated together throughout all the days of the world and throughout all the generations of men.'
• 

  JCanon

  Mark Smith in his commentary on the Baal Epic, has made an interesting observation on Messianic motifs in the OT and NT, particularly as relating to the bringing of a new era of peace (slwm). Such passages announce an impending epoch of peace, and describing it in agricultural terms as "planting peace" or "casting peace" as one casts seeds. Ezekiel 34:25-40 describes the removal of hostilities from the earth and the advent of paradisical conditions. Verse 29 in the MT reads "and I will raise up for them a famous plantation (mtt' lsm)", but the LXX reads phuton eirenes, suggesting an original Hebrew *mtt' slwm, "a planting of peace". Leviticus 26:3-6 speaks of nature cooperating to produce abundant harvests and the elimination of conflict: And I will set peace (slwm) on the earth". Similarly, we read in Zechariah 8:10-12 that Yahweh promises: "I will sow peace (*'zr' slwm, on the basis of LXX deicho eirenen). The vine will give its gruit, and the earth will give its yield, and the heavens will give their dew". There are also intertestamental and NT parallels. In 1 Enoch 10:16, God tells the archangel Michael: "Destroy injsutice from the face of the earth. And every iniquitous deed will end, and the plant of righteousness will appear, and plant eternal truth and joy". 1

  You, very interestingly, bring up a critical literary issue regarding these Caananite references to peace, especially since in my general recollection these references have to do with original wars between the gods, etc. Most pertinently, Enoch's reference to this "planting of peace" is not Messianic but specifically post-Deluvian. That brings up the interesting issue of whether many of these references have to do with the war between God and the angels of Noah's day that would bring peace to the earth vs. what later Messianic and eschalogical references in the Bible make reference to in regarding to the messianic rule of Christ. Thus, particularly in the case of the Bible, it would be important to separate references to this general planting of peace as it relates to the peace to be estabilshed after the Flood vs the peace that would come via the Jewish promised Messiah. As it is, you are lumping everything together. ???

  Just trying to follow along and follow up, but see how this falls apart so quickly, Leolaia...yet again? What can I say? You don't leave much choice.

  Thanks again for lighting my interest in Enoch again. I think some things probably are based on some facts of ancient Jewish tradition, with a few distortions which disallowed some parts from the Jewish canon -- i.e. though it might have been quoted from by the NT Bible writers, it was never part of the original canon of the Jews and I think, if I recall per some discussion, there are some parts that contradict the Torah. But still quite interesting!

  JC
• 

  Leolaia

  JCanon.... I had already asked you not to comment anymore in my threads. Remember?

  Considering your offensive attitude towards me and my Satan-inspired postings (as you imply above), I now ask you not to post anymore in my threads, keep yourself out of them and I won't post in yours. Okay?

  Furthermore, your comment was way off base. Even if the reference wasn't eschatological, my mention of the 1 Enoch text was entirely appropriate for discussing the planting-motif which can be appropriated in different ways in the immediate context. I was not interpreting 1 Enoch, I was ennumerating different reflexes of the planting-motif. Second, the passage in ch. 10 is thoroughly eschatological. Please read more carefully....there is the allusion to the Flood in v. 12 ("destruction of their beloved ones"), then a binding of the angels for "seventy generations underneath the rocks of the ground UNTIL the day of their JUDGMENT and of their consummation, until the eternal judgement is concluded". In v. 13 we next read that "IN THOSE DAYS they will lead them into the bottom of the fire ... where they will be locked up forever" and in v. 14 "AT THAT TIME those who collaborated with them will the bound together ... unto the END OF ALL GENERATIONS"... Then injustice will be destroyed from the face of the earth and "every iniquitous deed will end, and the plant of righteousness and truth will appear FOREVER and he will plant joy" (v. 16). Very plainly we see that this is entirely eschatological and following the Day of Judgment -- not merely after the Flood. The description continues in paradaisic terms: "the whole earth will be worked in righteousness", "every seed will yield a thousand measures and one measure of olives will yield ten measures of presses of oil"...."you will cleanse the earth from all injustice....all the nations will worship and bless me.....the earth will be cleansed from all pollution and from all sin....it shall not happen that I shall send these upon the earth from generation to generation and forever", "peace and truth shall be partners together in all the days of the world," etc. The book is filled with such eschatological descriptions of the future; this is one of them. Just compare 1 Enoch 10:19 with Isaiah 5:10, 2 Baruch 29:5, and the relevant fragment from Papias.
• 

  peacefulpete

  My wife and I enjoyed reading and benefitted from your research Leolaia. Interesting how what casually passes as Hebrew idiom betrays cultural and mythological kinship when laid beside the literary works of their neighbors.