"Sonne der Gerechtigkeit": Studien zur Solarisierung der Jahweh-Religion im Lichte von Psalm 72.
Miller, Patrick D.
"Sonne der Gerechtigkeit": Studien zur Solarisierung der
Jahweh-Religion im Lichte von Psalm 72. By MARTIN ARNETH. Beihefte zur
Zeitschrift fur Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtstgeschichte, vol.
1. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2000. Pp. ix + 244. DM 98.
One of the notable developments in the study of Israelite religion
in the last decade or so has been the investigation of possible solar
elements in that religion, particularly in the conception of
Israel's God YHWH. One thinks particularly of the monographs by
Stahli (Solare Elemente im Jahweglauben des Alten Testaments, 1985),
Janowski (Rettungsgewissheit und Epiphanie des Heils, 1989), and Taylor
(Yahweh and the Sun, 1993), as well as several essays by Mark Smith and
especially the important iconographic investigation in Keel and
Uehlinger's Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel
(1998). Much of the attention has been devoted to the epigraphic and
iconographic evidence suggesting an association of solar features and of
sun worship with YHWH and the Yahwistic cult as well as to the
background of this development in Syro-Palestinian mythic and religious
elements. The biblical evidence is varied and often ambiguous. Much of
it is examined in Taylor's book.
Psalm 72 receives only a single citation and without comment. It
has not been a natural focus of attention in examining sun cult and sun
imagery in relation to Israel's God. That gap has been filled now
by the book under review here, which also has the merit of drawing upon
another body of comparative data, in this case Neo-Assyrian royal
ideology, particularly as evidenced in the loyalty oaths of Esarhaddon,
published by Wiseman in The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon, and a
coronation hymn for Assurbanipal. Indeed, it is the similarity of what
Arneth sees as the Vorlage of Psalm 72 to the coronation hymn that opens
up this psalm as a witness to solar influences in Yahwistic imagery and
royal ideology. The book is the outcome of a dissertation prepared under
the supervision of Eckart Otto, who has himself published essays drawing
upon the same material and following directions similar to those of his
student.
Arneth's main intention is to show that Psalm 72 is not a
purely Judean creation but in its earliest form reflects an explicit
appropriation of the coronation hymn of Assurbanipal, while subversively
undercutting it so that the exaltation here is not of the human king,
Assyrian or otherwise, but of the deity YHWH, who is the source of
justice and righteousness, protector of the poor, dispenser of blessing.
Psalm 72 is indeed a royal hymn, presumably also a coronation hymn, with
the king as its object, but the differences from the Assyrian coronation
hymn are the critical indicators of the particularity of Israelite
religion. Note also the way in which the hymn, presumably composed in
Josiah's time, undercut Assyrian claims and the modes of thinking
intrinsic to the Assyrian prototype and its ideology. The Assyrian
coronation hymn itself represents a solarizing tendency with the
inclusion of Shamash in a leading position along with Assur and Ninlil.
Psalm 72 takes over the sun god's thematizing of justice and
righteousness, associates that with YHWH, and structures the psalm
around that theme.
There are several basic congruencies between the coronation hymn of
Assurbanipal and the basic layer of Psalm 72, including the prayer to
the deity to establish righteousness and justice, the establishment of
peace in the internal affairs of the nation, concern for the fertility
of the land, and the wish for the king's long reign. At the same
time, it is significant that the prosperity, peace, and support for the
personae miserae are not the task of the Assyrian king or a reflection
of the prosperity of the Assyrian empire. They come from the Judean king
and thus from the god YHWH--not from the Assyrian king or the Assyrian
deity Assur.
So the subversion is already found in the appropriation of the hymn
in the service of the Judean king and his God. It is in that sense
anti-Assyrian. What is missing in the Vorlage of the Psalm, however, and
in its appropriation of the Assyrian coronation hymn is precisely the
claim about universal rule. There were no words about the other nations
in the original hymn. Verses 8-11, 15, and 17[alpha][gamma]b reflect a
later redaction of the poem that universalizes the reign of the king,
but this is missing from the original form of the poem. There is thus an
Aussenpolitikschweigen, which served as a silent reservation against the
Neo-Assyrian royal ideology. The military supremacy of the king, which
was a part of the coronation hymn for Assurbanipal, was not a part of
the original hymn that presumably served as a coronation hymn for
Josiah. The silence carried an anti-Assyrian position within it. The
emphasis on the king's responsibility for protection of the poor
together with the absence of the motifs of war and rule of the nations
turned the Psalm into a counter word against its original source.
In the course of the book, Arneth goes on to develop in rich ways
some of the relationships between Psalm 72 and other sources, within and
without the Old Testament, including the loyalty oaths of the vassal treaties of Esarhaddon. He sees the roots of some of the ideology of the
Psalm in the Book of the Covenant (Exod. 22:20-26, with its focus on the
stranger and the poor) as well as in what Arneth regards as ancient
lists of officials of the monarchy that served to connect that
institution early on with "justice and righteousness" (2 Sam.
8:15-18; 20:23-26; and 1 Kings 4:1-6). The king is not only commissioned
in the carrying out of justice as, for example, in the Codex Hammurapi,
but actually receives legal judgments from YHWH.
The connections and influences of Psalm 72 and its solar conception
of Israel's god are even more extensive. Thus the subordination of
"sun" and "moon" to YHWH as his representatives in
Ps. 72:5,7,17 is reflected in the same way in Ps. 89:37f. And in Ps.
89:15f., motifs of the solarized deity are reflected in the depiction of
YHWH's throne grounded on "justice and righteousness" as
well as in the people walking "in the light of" his
countenance. Isaiah 60-61 is in Arneth's analysis the high point of
the reception history of Psalm 72, as its direct influence is evident at
a number of places.
The contribution of Arneth's investigation is clear. While he
has made connections between motifs of Psalm 72 and its literary
formation to the Assyrian texts that related the concerns for justice
and righteousness to the worship of the sun deity, the usefulness of his
work may be less in demonstrating a solar dimension to the conception of
Yahweh than in his extensive analysis of Psalm 72 to uncover both its
sources and its influences. The solar dimensions of YHWH seem to be
clear, and that should not be surprising. The Israelite deity absorbed
many features from the divine world in which he rose to prominence or,
better, supremacy. The weight placed on the divine responsibility for
justice and righteousness and for the protection of the personae
miserae--compare Psalm 82--certainly would have made the association a
natural one.
How precisely one can derive Psalm 72 from the Assyrian coronation
hymn depends in no small measure on the analysis of the formation and
composition of the Psalm presented here. That analysis involves the
assumption that elements were not in the text in its original form, an
assumption worked out on the basis of detailed and minute interpretation
of the structure of the Psalm. There is no reason that Arneth's
analysis is any less likely than that of others, particularly in light
of the care with which it is done. His arguments often make sense. By
definition, however, they involve an argumentum e silentio, or, more
precisely, a claim about the significance of the silence of the text,
which in turn depends upon an analysis of the text that suppresses what
it says as not a part of the earliest level. When one finds other
analyses that build upon the present form of the text in a convincing
way as well, the finality of Arneth's analysis inevitably remains
up in the air.
Such interpretive constructions, however, rarely achieve a sense of
finality. The author has made a significant contribution to the study of
this royal Psalm and has further advanced the interpretation of the
character of the Lord of Israel in light of the divine world of which
that deity was a part.
PATRICK D. MILLER
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
