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3 Moral Agency in

Israelite Perspective:
Three Case Studies

The entire arc of biblical narrative from Genesis to 2 Kings can be read
as a meditation on moral agency, its successes and its failures. Although
these narratives, especially the ones related to the Deuteronomic History,
sometimes pass moral judgments on characters or portray them as good or
bad, there are only occasional examinations of the underlying assumptions
about what leads to the exercise of good or bad moral agency. This topic
is more clearly brought into focus in the wisdom literature (notably, Prov-
erbs), the book of Deuteronomy, and the prophetic literature. Even these
texts seldom engage in any deeply reﬂective examination of moral agency.
Instead, the focus is typically on a problem in social behavior, which the
text engages by means of critique, exhortation, or advice. It is possible, how-
ever, to tease out implicit cultural models of the self and moral agency that
were broadly shared in ancient Israel, as well as distinctive frameworks that
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

shape the resources for thinking about moral agency and its discontents.
Although the category of moral agency primarily refers to the capaci-
ties of individuals, it is also common in biblical literature to treat collective
bodies as though they were individual moral agents. This, however, is a cog-
nitive metaphor. One construes a collective body (e.g., a city, a nation) as
though it were an individual with an individual’s moral agency. This meta-
phor can have great explanatory power. A collectivity can act with inten-
tion. It seems in many respects as agential as any individual human. One
can credit it with good and evil actions, exhort it, plead with it, and so forth,
using an often-subconscious trope of personification. This personification is
so familiar to the cultural heirs of the biblical imagination that it requires
a bit of effort to recognize that the nation is not a person. It is rather a so-

48
Newsom, Carol A.. The Spirit Within Me : Self and Agency in Ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism, Yale University
Press, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/undiv/detail.action?docID=6721716.
Created from undiv on 2022-05-14 03:57:14.

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 49

cial entity composed of many hierarchically arranged persons and systems

of decisionmaking. Thus to construe it as though it were a person with a
person’s intentionality and agency and moral responsibility is to construe it
figuratively. And while metaphors may map certain aspects of a relationship
powerfully in ways that create significant understanding, they may some-
times mislead. Moreover, the metaphor may also seed the relationship with
the potential energy of unforeseen transfers of meaning back and forth
between tenor and vehicle. What is recognized (and sometimes misrecog-
nized) in treating a complex social entity as though it were a moral agent
may also feed back into how a culture understands the nature of individual
human beings and their moral agency.
Across the literatures of the ancient Near East one can find examples
in which collective entities—cities, nations—are treated as moral agents.
But ancient Israel seems to have developed this trope far beyond most other
attested cultures. Why this was the case is difficult to say. Perhaps it was
because the institution of kingship was never fully mythologized in ancient
Israel but rather was recalled as a specific historical contingency. Thus the
figure of the king could never fully substitute for the figure of the nation
or serve as its privileged symbol. Certainly, the power of the covenantal
model of relationship between God and people (not simply God and king)
that was influential in Israelite and Judean thought from at least the eighth
century BCE was a major factor in establishing the understanding of the
nation as a moral agent. Political covenants in the ancient Near East were
themselves dependent on metaphorical transfers from the realm of human
kinship relationships. Whatever the reasons for the hyperdevelopment of
the metaphor of the nation as moral agent in ancient Israel and Judah, the
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

history of assumptions about personal, individual moral agency is inextri-

cably interwoven with the history of discourse about the nation as moral
agent.
The fatefulness of the interrelationship of ways of thinking about moral
agency of the individual and the nation becomes clear as one examines the
writings that pertain to the national crises, most particularly, the rich litera-
ture produced at the time of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah by the
Babylonians in 586 BCE. This calamity was framed in several texts as a cat-
astrophic failure of moral agency that resulted in a divine judgment, which
manifested itself in the Babylonian conquest. In later years, however, both
the general sense of moral failure and certain models for thinking about the
moral agency of the nation in relation to this crisis were appropriated for

Newsom, Carol A.. The Spirit Within Me : Self and Agency in Ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism, Yale University
Press, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/undiv/detail.action?docID=6721716.
Created from undiv on 2022-05-14 03:57:14.

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50 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

the language of individual prayer and moral reﬂection. Such developments

facilitated profound shifts in the conceptualization of self and spirituality.
These were not the only factors in the evolution of Second Temple beliefs
and practices, but they were a critical element. Thus it is important to track
the flow of models of moral agency in both directions, from the individual
to the nation and from the nation back to the individual, and to reflect on
the possible significance of this transfer.
In what follows I will first examine the common cultural model of
moral agency and then engage in three case studies (Proverbs, Deuteron-
omy, and Ezekiel) that illustrate three different formulations of the prob-
lems of moral agency.

The Assumptional Framework of Moral Agency

Since biblical texts rarely make general statements about the nature
of moral agency, one has to tease out the assumptions as they are reﬂected
in the rhetoric of indictment, rebuke, and warning on the one hand and
hortatory appeal on the other. References to the failure of moral agency
provide particularly useful data. Various texts across a broad spectrum of
genres repeatedly focus on three areas of concern: failure of understand-
ing, a cognitive problem; wrongly directed desire, an emotional/appeti-
tive problem; and stubborn resistance to appropriate authority, a volitional
problem. Many texts, of course, focus on the contents of morally bad ac-
tions (e.g., violence or injustice) or on particular vices (e.g., pride) or on the
consequences of radical sin (e.g., deﬁlement). When the issue is what leads
people to commit such actions or indulge in such vices, however, then the
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

vocabulary and images cluster in the three areas that I have identiﬁed. A
few examples can serve to illustrate each one.
Failure of understanding broadly encompasses inadequate grasp of the
dynamics of situations as well as a failure to know God. Clearly, this is
not a narrowly cognitive failure but one that has to do broadly with the
adequate apprehension of reality. It manifests itself in the rich vocabulary
for the various categories of fools in Proverbs (e.g., petî, h.ăsar lēb, kĕsîl, lēs.,
’ĕwîl), as well as in Hosea’s references to the failure of knowledge of God
(e.g., Hos 4:1, 6), in Jeremiah’s critiques of self-deception on the part of
the leaders of Judah (e.g., Jer 5:12–13, 21, 31), in Deuteronomy’s warnings
against forgetting (Deut 4:9; 6:12; 8:11–14), and in many other contexts. As
for wrongly directed desire, David Lambert has rightly cautioned that “de-
sire” in the Hebrew Bible not be inappropriately psychologized. Instead,

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 51

it must be recognized in all of its material and social dimensions. I would

agree. In almost all cases in the biblical literature wrongly directed desire is
represented as a problem of the whole person in its social context, not as a
problem framed primarily as an “I-Me” dilemma. Only in Second Temple
literature will there be evidence for such a shift in focus. In the prophetic
literature a wide range of wrongful practices and covenantal violations are
figuratively represented as lust leading to infidelity (e.g., Hos 2:15; 5:4; Jer
2:23; 3:2–4; Ezek 16). The vividly narrated desire for food in Numbers 11:5–6
(“meat . . . fish . . . cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic”) is the form that
mistrust and repudiation of Yhwh take. In Proverbs, too, the imagery of
food, drink, wealth, and sex figures desire, both as it should be directed (to-
ward wisdom) and as it is wrongly directed (e.g., Prov 1:10–13; 4:16–17; 5:3;
10:3; 21:10). Such misdirected desire is represented as fundamentally disor-
dered. As Michael Fox observes, the evildoer “not only speaks and does evil,
he delights in it; he is a moral pervert.” Resistance to appropriate authority
as a category of moral failure also underscores the fundamentally social
nature of the moral concern in biblical literature. The rhetorical framing
of Proverbs through a series of instructions in chapters 1–9 foregrounds
the proper stance as obedient listening to the authority of the father and
the mother (1:8). Resistance to the call and rebuke of wisdom lead to di-
saster (1:24–27). Similarly, Deuteronomy frames obedience or disobedience
as life-or-death decisions (30:15–20). Frequently, the imagery of docile sub-
mission or rebellious resistance is framed in imagery from the behavior of
domesticated animals. The “stiff neck” (e.g., Deut 9:6, 13) evokes an animal
that resists the yoke. Hosea refers to Israel as a “stubborn cow” (4:16), an
image Jeremiah reworks to describe Judah as breaking its yoke and tear-
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

ing oﬀ the yoke bindings (2:20). The vocabulary of rebellion and resistance
is prominent in several prophetic books (e.g., Isa 30:1–2; Jer 2:9–13; Ezek
2:3–5; Hos 7:13; Zeph 3:1–2), and in Deuteronomic assessments (e.g., Judg
2:19–23; 1 Sam 8:7–8; 2 Kgs 17:13–15).
In Israelite literature the three aspects of the moral self are not under-
stood as distinct parts or even separate faculties that can be in conﬂict with
one another. Rather, they are deeply interconnected aspects of the whole
person. Nor is any one aspect consistently privileged over others as the key
to good moral agency. Although in Israelite literature certain texts may
identify understanding, wrongful desire, or recalcitrant will as particularly
problematic, the three are largely understood as interactive and reinforcing.
Disorder in one area generally leads to disorder in the others as well. A deep
understanding of the nature of things enables one to direct one’s desires

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52 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

appropriately and grasp the importance of obedience to God and wise el-
ders. By contrast, undisciplined desires cloud the understanding and result
in rebellious behavior, whereas rightly directed desires enhance understand-
ing of how things work and facilitate appropriate behavior. Only the one
who submits to the discipline of appropriate authorities can gain under-
standing and learn to desire what is good. These basic principles undergird
all of the discourses about moral agency in the texts of the Hebrew Bible.
In the following pages I examine selected issues of moral agency in
Proverbs, Deuteronomy, and Ezekiel. Although the book of Proverbs can-
not be simply taken as encapsulating the common moral culture of ancient
Israel, it likely comes as close as we are able to the fundamental assump-
tions that grounded the formation of children and youth. Even though the
book itself is the product of scribal culture, specific social-class perspectives
are reflected in only some sayings. More likely, it is an elite version of shared
culture. That being said, if the instructional and proverbial collections in
Proverbs served as part of the scribal curriculum, as many assume, then it
would have been part of the mental furniture of the scribes who composed
other, more specialized types of literature. The close connection between
Deuteronomy and wisdom literature has often been noted and perhaps
runs in both directions. In my discussion Deuteronomy is important first
of all because it provides a model of distributed moral agency in which
the coordinated agency of individuals is what creates the national agency.
It also self-consciously examines the ways in which agency can fail and
models a variety of strategies for strengthening agency. In its postexilic ad-
ditions it also demonstrates a strategy for recognizing and repairing a cata-
strophic failure of agency. And finally, it provides a moral vocabulary and
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

set of conceptual resources that were exceptionally inﬂuential in Second

Temple literature, concerning both individual and collective moral agency.
Finally, Ezekiel is featured in part because the book is focused almost en-
tirely on the crisis in moral agency provoked by the fall of Judah, but it does
so with a set of conceptual resources derived extensively from priestly tradi-
tions. It, too, creates a way of encompassing and rectifying the collapse of
moral agency through a set of symbols that become critical to many Second
Temple texts that deal both with individual and with collective agency.

The Moral Agent in Proverbs

Proverbs prompts a very basic question: Are all humans capable of be-
coming good moral agents, or are some destined to be wicked? The apho-

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 53

ristic style and the tendency toward rhetorical hyperbole make it difficult
to determine what Proverbs assumes about innate human capacity. This
issue was more explicitly raised in a number of the Egyptian instruction
texts, and several different positions were argued. The most extreme posi-
tion was taken by Ptahhotep, who claims that the character of the fool is
determined before birth, so that no training can make a fool wise (“He
whom god hates does not listen,” l. 546; such a person is “one for whom
an impediment was assigned in the womb,” l. 217). The opposite pole is
argued in Papyrus Anastasi III, 4.1–4, which maintains that, like animals
that can be taught all kinds of behaviors contrary to their natures, humans
can similarly be trained, whatever their given natures (cf. also the Instruc-
tions of Anii, 22.17–23.7). An intermediate view, articulated by Anii’s son
Khonsuhotep, argues that different pedagogies are required for different
students (23.7–11).
It is not clear that Israelite sages ever considered the question explicitly.
Their assumptions must be deduced from the sayings. The sharp contrast
between the wise and the foolish, the righteous and the wicked, leads some
to conclude that character is largely a given, and that formation plays only a
limited role in wisdom. To be sure, many sayings emphasize the intractable
folly of certain types of fools, especially those designated as lēs. (“arrogant
scoffer,” 9:7–8; 13:1b; 14:6; 15:12) and ’ĕwîl (“morally perverse,” 15:5a; 27:22).
But were these types always thus? Or is folly the hardening of a character
that was once malleable? That possibility is suggested by the saying in Prov-
erbs 13:1b, “The lēs.? He never heard reproof.” It is certainly plausible that
the sages acknowledged differences in aptitude for wisdom (perhaps 16:21).
But to assume that character was largely fixed for all is, I think, to mistake
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

the sometimes exasperated rhetoric of Proverbs for its core commitments.

Proverbs is a strenuous and sustained exercise in pedagogy, and such com-
mitment makes sense only on the assumption that it is worthwhile. Fox ob-
serves that the primary audience for Proverbs’ teachings is the naive youth,
the petî (1:4; 8:5), more or less synonymous with the “mindless” (h.ăsar-lēb,
7:7; 9:4). Such children are not simply unformed but may also have folly
(’iwwelet) in their heart; yet the rod of discipline will drive it out (22:15).
The implicit assumption about human nature that makes sense of the say-
ings found in Proverbs and its commitment to strenuous pedagogy is that
humans are by nature impulsive, emotional, and motivated by immediate
desires. Without early and rigorous formation such tendencies will indeed
produce intractable folly, with all of the antisocial behaviors that attend
such a character. It is, as Fox observes, the “ingrained” or “dyed-in-the-wool

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54 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

fool” whose character has been irrevocably set. Anne Stewart articulates
the project of the formation of moral agency in Proverbs well:
. . . one’s moral selfhood must be disciplined into being. Proverbs implies
that moral equipment is innate, but exists in potential only. The origin of
moral selfhood is both with the external aid of discipline, which serves to
reorient one’s concept of the good toward wisdom, and with an internal
capacity to receive and proﬁt from discipline.

Thus while it is possible that there are some individuals who are impervi-
ous to formation, the project of wisdom makes sense only if the default
assumption is that the inchoate perceptions, impulses, and desires of the
young can be shaped by wisdom.
The moral agent who is successfully formed by wisdom is a highly sta-
ble construction. As discipline is internalized, one’s very desires are molded
into appropriate channels, and inappropriate desires become abhorrent.
Cognitive training shapes the individual to perceive the logic of wisdom’s
moral world as an expression of reality itself. Each element feeds back to
strengthen the others. Though Proverbs shows considerable concern for the
dangers of those who resist or elude formation, no anxiety is expressed over
the possibility that a wise person, once formed, will go over to wickedness.
Similarly, the fool, once formed by folly, becomes one of the wicked. And,
as Sun Myung Lyu points out, “no saying or instruction is found to urge a
wicked person to change his course to become righteous.” The character of
the wicked, once formed, is as intractable as that of the righteous. Forma-
tion is forever.
Formation in wisdom takes place at the intersection among the three
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

aspects of human capacity (will, understanding, desire) and the founda-

tional moral values that make up the framework of wisdom’s moral world.
Numerous studies have documented the ways in which Proverbs schools
the understanding to perceptions of the act-consequence relationship in
various social and moral contexts. Michael Fox, in particular, has examined
the distinctive epistemology that shapes the way in which such percep-
tions of the structure of reality are guided according to socially consensual
values. Others have documented the ways in which desires that might be
unruly (for food and drink, sex, and wealth) are imaginatively coopted and
redirected to the desire for wisdom itself. And, of course, the prominence
of physical and verbal discipline as a means of requiring the submissive-
ness of the subject has been frequently examined. It is not my intention to

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 55

rehearse all of these investigations or to attempt to give a complete account

of the formation of moral agency in Proverbs. I wish to focus on one rather
narrow issue concerning how moral selfhood is “disciplined into being,”
and in particular the way in which this process is imagined and rhetorically
presented.
In every human culture moral formation is a process of the internaliza-
tion of norms. With the exception of prisons, concentration camps, and
certain other highly controlled social environments where external authori-
ties police behavior minutely, societies largely depend upon individuals to
monitor and regulate themselves. The “I” supervises the “Me.” But the
degree to which that internalization is represented varies considerably from
culture to culture. Thus I want to look at the imagery and rhetoric by which
Proverbs envisions the nature of discipline.
Not surprisingly, given the rather sociocentric orientation of ancient Is-
rael, social or external imagery dominates over internalized or intrapersonal
imagery, though the latter is not entirely lacking. The introductory chapters
of Proverbs 1–9 establish a speech relationship in which a father instructs
his son, with an occasional appearance by Woman Wisdom. As I analyzed
this discursive relationship in an earlier article, “The father, who speaks, is
the ‘I’ of the discourse. The son, addressed in the vocative and with impera-
tive verbs, is the ‘you.’” The reader is thus oﬀered the subject position of
the son, who is encouraged to listen and attend but never speaks himself.
Thus the rhetorical formation of Proverbs is almost exclusively external and
social rather than internal or intrapersonal. Even in the chapters that have
the rhetorical structure of proverbial sayings rather than instructions, say-
ings are presented as objective rather than subjective perceptions. The reader
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

is invited to give assent to them, as the good son is asked to be attentive and
receptive to the words of the father. Nevertheless, it is clear that the goal
is not mere submission and compliance, as though the father’s authority
were like that of a military commander or overseer of laborers. The imagery
used for discipline might initially suggest such externality, since “rebuke”
(mûsār) or “correction” (tôkah.at) is sometimes ﬁgured as physical (striking,
nākāh; with the rod, šēbet), sometimes as verbal reprimand (gĕ‘ārāh, tôkah.at)
coming from an authority ﬁgure. But that the engagement of the son is
more than submission is clear from the fact that what is sought is atten-
tive listening and receptiveness (šāma‘, “heed”; hiqšîb, “pay attention”; lāqah.,
“accept”; šāmar, “keep”). These are all responses that require the full engage-
ment of the one addressed. Moreover, the purpose and function of rebuke

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56 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

is not simply to correct behavior but to lead to insight. Mûsār is frequently

associated with h.okmâ (8:10–11; 23:23), bînâ (4:1; 23:23), s.edeq ûmišpāt (1:3),
da‘at (19:27; 23:12), and tôrâ (1:8; 4:1; 6:23). Thus the process of becoming a
moral agent formed in sapiential culture is largely a matter of internalizing
the dynamics of teaching and rebuke (3:1; 4:4, 21). Discipline becomes self-
discipline. One becomes a social father to oneself.
But how does this happen? Proverbs does not engage this dynamic
with a great deal of second-order reﬂection. Nor does it describe in any de-
tail practices by which this process takes place. Much of the process is sub-
liminal, and it is doubtful if the authors of Proverbs would even have been
self-conscious of many of their implicit strategies, though some of these
have been analyzed by modern scholars. Since much of what Proverbs
attempts to discipline has to do with actions resulting from personal im-
pulses, desires, dispositions, and proclivities, it is attempting to construct a
regime of self-discipline. Such self-discipline requires self-monitoring and
thus a signiﬁcant measure of what one might call tacit introspection. If one
wishes not to act on greed, lust, bibulousness, impulsiveness, anger, and so
forth, then one has to be able to recognize these impulses in oneself in or-
der to keep from acting upon them. In Proverbs, however, the development
of a vocabulary and a rhetoric of self-examination and self-monitoring is
rudimentary. But it is not entirely absent.

Internalizing External Authority

Internalizing external authority is represented by a shift in the loca-
tion of instruction in relation to the body. What was external is brought
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

close to and even placed inside the body. One of Proverbs’ privileged images
is drawn from the practice of wearing amulets. “Bind them [the father’s/
mother’s teachings] over your heart always; bind them around your throat”
(6:21; cf. 3:3a; 7:3a). That image represents teachings as an external protec-
tive power, but one that is metonymically related to the subject’s own body.
Other imagery suggests that teaching was stored in the body as a liquid was
stored in a jar. Wisdom herself uses such a metaphor when she says that
she will “pour forth my spirit to you; I will let you know my words” (1:23; cf.
Sir 16:25; Ps 19:3a). The rûah. as breath and the rûah. as cognition are part of
the same model for production of thoughts in speech. They pour forth from
the container of the body through the mouth. Learning and preserving
such wise speech is represented in inverse imagery, as in 22:17–18: “Incline

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 57

your ear and listen to the words of the wise, and set your mind upon my
knowledge. For it is pleasant when you store them in your belly, and they
are always ready upon your lips.”
The most powerful image draws on scribal practice, where the father
commands the son concerning his teaching, “Write them on the tablet of
your heart” (3:3b; 7:3b). The tablet or scroll was an aide-mémoire, normally
an external repository for a text that the scribe learned. The “tablet of the
heart/mind” is in part an image for memorization, but it is also likely a
cultural model for the mind itself and the way in which the social norms of
teaching become naturalized within the self. If the teaching and the heart/
mind are merged, then the teaching is an indelible part of the person.
Memorization and recall of the text also bring into focus another aspect
of the subject positions offered by the book of Proverbs. If one thinks of
the text as a record of a social context involving teacher and student, then
the only subject position offered to the reader/hearer of the text is that
of the pupil or son, who is addressed. If, however, one considers the text
as a memorized object that one then recites to oneself, then the one who
has memorized it can be seen as occupying both the subject position of the
father who speaks and the subject position of the son who is spoken to.
That is to say, the externalized relationship of father and son stands in for
the “I-Me” relationship of differentiated subjectivity. To memorize the text
and to recite it to oneself is to internalize the entire relationship. In this way
discipline is internalized as self-discipline. Notably, however, no attempt is
made in the book of Proverbs to explore or exploit this space of the inte-
rior. Instead, internalized self-training and self-discipline are represented as
though they were external social relationships. The culture simply does not
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

seem to be all that interested in constructing a diﬀerentiated model of the

self. But a few texts do begin to develop such a model.
One can see a modest sense of self-diﬀerentiation in the way the ad-
dressee relates to or is asked to control speciﬁc body parts. Self-control is
often imaged as control of these organs. Control of the feet is control of
actions (e.g., “Hold back your feet from their path,” 1:15; cf. 4:27; 19:2; 25:17).
Speech, which is of particular concern to Proverbs, is represented by the
mouth, lips, and tongue, all of which must be subject to supervision and
control (e.g., “The one who guards his mouth, preserves his life; the one
who opens his lips wide—there is ruin for him,” 13:3; cf. 4:24; 14:3; 21:23;
24:28). The capacity to direct the ears indicates the ability to orient the self
receptively (e.g., “If you make your ear attend to wisdom and guide your

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58 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

heart toward understanding,” 2:2; cf. 4:20; 5:1, 13; 22:17; 23:12). Direction of
attention is also described in relation to eyes (“Do not let [my words] es-
cape from your eyes, guard them inside your heart,” 4:21; cf. 3:21; 4:25; 23:26;
28:27). In these instances, however, the body parts seem largely to function
as synecdoches for the person as such. They are not particularly reified as
problematic aspects of a psychosomatic self. The only expression that might
suggest a mistrust of one’s self is the statement about being wise, right, or
pure “in one’s own eyes,” designating self-evaluation (3:7; 16:2; 21:2; 26:5, 12,
16; 28:11; 30:12). These expressions always represent flawed or faulty self-
judgment. They do not appear to represent a congenital problem of the
human composition, however, but simply a failure of formation in wisdom
more generally. One can conclude that the sayings that refer to mistrust of
and the need for control of various body parts are evidence for a concern
with self-monitoring, but they do not suggest a highly differentiated model
of the psychological self.
The most significant organ for self-representation in Proverbs is the
heart/mind (lēb). As the organ that retains external teaching (“Let your
mind guard my commandments,” 3:1b; cf. 2:10; 3:3; 4:4), it is key to self-
formation. Often paired with the ears, it is the organ of attentive focus and
active engagement (“An intelligent mind acquires knowledge, and the ear of
the wise seeks out knowledge,” 18:15; cf. 2:2; 7:25; 22:17; 23:19, 26; 24:32; 27:23).
Unlike the organs that negotiate the sphere of public interaction (e.g., foot,
hand, eyes, mouth, tongue, lips), it is often associated with the self as private
space, sometimes in dangerous ways (“Duplicity is in his mind—the one
who plots evil all the time,” 6:14; cf. 12:20; 14:13; 15:11; 20:5; 23:7; 24:12; 25:3;
26:23, 25), and a place of reflection (“The mind of the righteous considers
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how to answer, while the mouth of the wicked blurts out evil,” 15:28). But
its status as a place of self-privacy is limited, since the wise (20:5) and God
(24:12) are able to search it out. Moreover, its role as the executive function
of the self is constrained by the intentionality of God in directing speech
and actions (“A man may arrange his thoughts, but what he says depends
on the Lord,” 16:1; NJPS; cf. 16.9). The heart/mind appears frequently in
sayings that model self-reﬂexive action, the “I-Me” relationship. In those
sayings, it may be represented either as the “I” that perceives or acts (“The
heart knows the bitterness of its soul,” 14:10a; cf. 16:23) or as the “Me” that
is acted upon (“More than all that you guard, guard your mind, for from it
come the springs of life,” 4:23; cf. 8:5; 15:32; 17:16; 23:12; 24:32; 27:23; 28:14).
There are limits to one’s ability to act upon the self (20:9), and the heart/

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 59

mind, like the eyes, can be a deceptive instrument of self-evaluation (28:26).

The fundamentally sociocentric orientation of Proverbs is reflected in the
way in which what guards against deceptive self-evaluation for the wise is
the receptiveness to rebuke from the social community of other sages (e.g.,
6:23; 10:17; 12:1; 13:18; 15:5, 32). The nepeš is less prominent in Proverbs than
the lēb, though sometimes they are paired (2:10; 19:8). Most often it is used
as a quasi-reflexive term for “self ” or as a term for “life.” In a few cases,
however, it figures self-reflexivity (“the mind [lēb] knows the bitterness of
its soul [nepeš],” 14:10; “the one who acquires a mind loves his soul,” 19:8;
“the counsel of the soul,” 27:9).
The notion of the interiority of a core self or a self that can be hidden
from others is evident in the idiom “chambers of the belly” (h.adrê bet.en).
The metaphor likens the body to a house with a series of rooms. Social pain
caused by the harsh words of others is said to “go down to the chambers of
the belly,” that is, to penetrate to the inner reaches of a person (18:8; 26:22).
Although the overall meaning of 20:30 is debated, the sense of “chambers
of the belly” as the core of the person is clear there as well. Unfortunately,
the gnomic syntax and our limited understanding of Israelite anthropol-
ogy complicate the interpretation of 20:27 (nēr yhwh nišmat ‘ādām; h.ōpēś
kol-h.adrê-bet.en). Even here it is clear that “chambers of the belly” represents
an aspect of the self that is both its core and normally inaccessible to oth-
ers. Breath does go down into the body, and so it may be that it provides
some sort of access to the central part of a person. I agree with Fox that
one should not gloss “human lifebreath” as “conscience” and see the breath
as exercising an introspective examination of the person. That would be a
more developed notion of interiority than appears in the rest of the book. It
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is possible, as Fox and Cliﬀord suggest, that the lifebreath here is under-
stood, as in Genesis 2:7 and Ezekiel 37:9–10, as coming from God, though
there is no intertextual allusion. But in what sense is the lifebreath the
“lamp of Yhwh”? The lamp is clearly something that illuminates what is
otherwise dark and impenetrable. Perhaps nothing more is intended by the
image than the sense that the breath is what connects the exterior and the
interior of a person. Thus to follow the breath to its source is to be able to
examine what a person might think is hidden.
The internalization of discipline and the issue of internal self-action
also come into view in the relation of the person to his or her rûah.. As Tyler
Duckworth has argued, rûah. “operates as a psychosomatic ‘organ,’” and
thus it deserves examination alongside of the other bodily organs related to

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60 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

cognition, character, and action. Although a few occurrences of the word

in Proverbs refer to meteorological phenomena, most refer to the cogni-
tive domain of temperament or mental faculties, though in some instances
also overlapping with the domain of physical respiration. It seems quite
likely that, similar to the way in which Homeric literature represents the
physical organs of respiration as part of the mental faculties, so, too, Israel
may have associated the organs of respiration and the breath itself with
personal vitality, disposition, and cognition. Both the pace and the tem-
perature of one’s rûah. were indicative of psychological disposition. A “cold
rûah.” is associated with good sense, manifested in “holding back” speech
(h.ôšēk ’ămārāw, Prov 17:27). What they mean by “cold rûah.” is clarified by
its opposite. Although the exact expression “hot rûah.” is not used, the as-
sociation of heat with the nose is a common idiom for anger in the Hebrew
Bible, and the nose, along with the mouth, is the conduit of the rûah. (cf. the
discussion of Prov 1:23 above). Thus they belong to the same cultural cogni-
tive model of anger. Elihu in Job 32:2–3 is said to have a “hot nose,” and in
Proverbs 29:22 the “man of nose” (’îš ’āp) is paralleled with the “possessor of
wrath” (ba‘al h.ēmâ). Physiologically, we would think of the phenomenon in
terms of increased blood flow to the face and nose. But it seems likely that
the Israelites attributed the sensation of heat to the rûah. breath. Thus rash
speech or speech that might appear to be rash (in Elihu’s case) is associated
with heated breath as it comes to the mouth and nose. Similarly, the rate of
breathing or the length of breaths was indicative of different dispositions,
as in Proverbs 14:29, where “shortness of rûah.” is contrasted with “length of
nose,” expressions that are typically understood as connoting impatience
and patience, respectively. As Duckworth suggests, these differences may
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well be observations about “an agitated person exhibiting short breaths,” as

contrasted with someone whose breathing is slower and more measured.
The use of “high” and “low” to describe a person’s rûah., as in 16:18b–19a
(cf. 29:23), is likely not a physiological model so much as the application of
another common cognitive model in which height is associated with pride
or arrogance and lowness with modesty and humility. Less clear is whether
references to a “shattered” (šeber) or “broken” (nĕkē’â) spirit are thought of
in physiological terms. We simply do not have enough evidence from the
texts to judge. In Proverbs these expressions appear to denote depression
or sadness (Prov 15:4, 13; 17:22; 18:14), though in Psalms the “broken spirit”
denotes humility before God (Pss 34:19; 51:19).
Although a number of the references to rûah. as psychosomatic organ
are merely descriptive, there are also sayings that presume the ability of a

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 61

person to control his or her rûah.. As Duckworth points out, the descrip-
tion of uncontrolled rûah. (“like a city breached, without walls, is a person
who lacks control of his rûah.,” 25:28) would be meaningless unless it were
possible to exercise control. Such regulation of the rûah. figures explicitly in
a saying contrasting the fool and the wise in 29:11 (“A fool [kĕsîl ] gives full
vent to his rûah., but the wise person holds it back”). Thus an important part
of the training in wisdom is the ability to monitor and control one’s own
temperament and impulses, and indeed, it is one of the highest manifesta-
tions of internalized wisdom: “Better is the one who rules his rûah. than one
who takes a city” (16:32).
All of the sayings that speak of control of the body in its various parts
and organs are part of the system of self-monitoring and control that points
toward the “I-Me” self-differentiation necessary for all human social func-
tioning. Significantly, in Proverbs no organs of the body are seen as intrin-
sically bad or defective. Like the person as a whole, they are educable and
only become problematic when undisciplined and untrained. Those sayings
that are related to the organs that represent the temperament, emotions,
impulses, and cognition—what we take as the psychological domain—are
the most important for estimating the degree to which a sense of interior-
ity and self-differentiation was developed in Proverbs. Judging from the
evidence, one would have to say that while the potential was certainly pres-
ent, it was not developed. In part this may be because the inherited literary
forms of instruction and gnomic saying do not give much scope for the
development of discourses of introspective consciousness. Indeed, the act
of memorizing instructions, with their father/son or teacher/pupil social
relationships, and proverbial sayings, with their generalized authoritative
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voice, reinforces the fundamentally sociocentric orientation of Proverbs

and likely inhibits the development of an introspective turn in wisdom lit-
erature. Even in the later texts of Sirach and 4QInstruction, the situation is
much the same. Qohelet’s development of an introspective and retrospec-
tive voice may well draw on a diﬀerent trajectory, perhaps related to that of
the didactic introspective psalmic style illustrated in Psalm 73, discussed in
chapter 1.

Motivating and Equipping Moral Agents

in Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is a book to be reckoned with for many reasons, not the
least of which is its role in shaping issues of moral agency. Its inﬂuence on

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62 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

the moral imaginary of early Judaism was profound, becoming, as Juha Pak-
kala recently described it, “the core document of Second Temple Judaism.”
Presenting itself as Moses’s farewell speech to the Israelites before his death
and their entry into the promised land, Deuteronomy has a strongly horta-
tory framework. But within Moses’s speech, its covenantal model of Israel’s
relationship to Yhwh is strongly shaped by the model of ancient Near East-
ern suzerain/vassal treaties. This model introduces a number of distinctive
elements into its framing of moral agency, including core assumptions about
the nature of the relationship, analysis of potential failure, and strategies for
securing the reliable exercise of good agency. It is also an excellent example
of the way in which the model of the nation as moral agent is complexly
related to individual moral agency, in that the nation’s obedience and ﬁdel-
ity depend on the distributed acts of agency performed by each and every
Israelite. Given the political framing of the relationship between the nation
and God, however, the dire political fate of the nation raised fundamental
questions about the people’s ultimate capacity for moral agency, an issue
with which Second Temple Judaism struggled in various ways.
How to evaluate the role of Deuteronomy in shaping a model of moral
agency depends in part on establishing its original Sitz im Leben as well as
its reception and adaptation in subsequent times. Debates over Deuterono-
my’s origins have been one of the constants in biblical studies, ever since the
groundbreaking work of W.M.L. de Wette, with proposals ranging from
premonarchic to postexilic. Moreover, it is evident that Deuteronomy is a
complex document that has a complicated literary history, though the con-
tradictory proposals for reconstructing that history are likely indications
that it will never be conclusively recovered in any detail. Currently, the ma-
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

jority of scholars appear to think that Deuteronomy is signiﬁcantly a prod-

uct of Judean scribes working in the Neo-Assyrian period, with evidence
of redactional work in the early postexilic period. An articulate minority
of scholars, however, have argued that Deuteronomy, though incorporat-
ing some earlier materials, is essentially the product of the exilic or early
postexilic periods. Since my interest is in the type of moral relationship
established through the rhetoric of the book, resolving the issue of the date
is not essential, though I am largely persuaded by those who argue for the
Neo-Assyrian context.
For my purposes, I am not concerned to analyze the moral content of
the core of Deuteronomy, the body of laws in chapters 12–26. My interests
are rather in the motivation for obedience and the ways in which such

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 63

motivation is related to the problem of shaping moral agency. Although oc-

casional references to motivations for commitment to the laws are scattered
within chapters 12–26, by and large the issues of motivation and agency
are concentrated in the hortatory framing of the book in chapters 1–11 and
27–30. These chapters lay out the moral basis for commitment to the laws as
a whole, and they do so by highlighting the moral foundations that govern
the relationship between the people and God. While I think it likely that
some form of the Mosaic framing of the presentation of the laws was part
of the literary form of the book before the end of the monarchy, it is evident
that aspects of this framing are aware of and attempt to address the events
of 586 BCE. Throughout this framing material a tension exists between
the absolute necessity for the exercise of moral agency and the recognition
of its fragility. As with much other biblical literature, the problems and pos-
sibilities of moral agency are framed largely in social categories (the “I-You”
relationship) rather than as issues of internal monitoring (the “I-Me” re-
lationship). The notable innovation, however, stemming from the post-586
BCE additions, is the adaptation of the model of divine-human co-agency
into the realm of moral agency before God.
Ever since George Mendenhall’s research in the 1950s, scholars have
recognized the impact of the ancient Near Eastern vassal treaty model in
shaping Deuteronomy. The speciﬁc points of connection between the As-
syrian traditions and Deuteronomy are to be found in chapters 13 and 28,
not in the hortatory material. Nevertheless, as John Collins has observed,
“the drafters of Deuteronomy conceived of the kind of loyalty demanded
by Yhwh by analogy with the loyalty demanded by the Assyrian king,”
a precis of which is embodied in the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4–7, and,
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indeed, throughout the hortatory material. The moral relationship con-

structed by this model is essentially a feudal one. As Avishai Margalit de-
scribes it, feudalism is a primary example of a “thick relationship,” one that
is deeply personal, as opposed to a “thin relationship” that is less personal
and more transactional. The feudal relation is one “based on belonging”
but also on “protection for services.” The moral values that govern feudal
relationships, including those of Deuteronomy, are authority, reciprocity,
and loyalty. Although the assumptions and expectations associated with
this type of moral relationship are made most explicit in political discourse,
they are also broadly constitutive of a wide range of hierarchical social re-
lationships in the ancient Near East. Thus it is helpful to set this model in
broader context.

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64 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

Authority. Social dominance hierarchy is deeply rooted in human so-

cieties, although in certain social contexts the countervailing impulse to
limit bullying and abuse results in more egalitarian forms of social organi-
zation, as is often characteristic of small, isolated hunter/gatherer bands.
Settled groups in larger societies, however, especially those that are in fre-
quent contact with outsider groups, are more typically hierarchical, as was
the case in the agrarian ancient Near East. In hierarchical relationships
a lower-ranking individual shows deference, respect, and obedience to a
higher-ranking individual, whose acknowledged status helps ensure social
harmony and cooperation, as well as providing other benefits for members
of the group. What makes authority a moral foundation is the sense that
a particular hierarchy is deeply legitimate and fundamentally oriented to
the good of the group. It is perceived as supporting security and order and
placing a check on arbitrary uses of power within the group. The authority
of ancient Near Eastern kings and other ranking males is often presented in
just such a fashion. Kulamuwa of Sam’al authorizes his kingship precisely
in terms of his provision of security and prosperity for the mushkabim, a
term that may refer to the poor. Similarly, security, justice, and prosper-
ity are the benefits conferred by the king in Psalm 72. Even in the village
context, Job presents a similar justification for his social rank in Job 29.
This social authority is grounded in an implicit metaphorical extension of
the parent-child relationship to the leader-group relationship, as is made
explicit in Kulamuwa’s claim that “I was to some a father; and to some I
was a mother; and to some I was a brother” (COS 2.30:148), or in Job’s state-
ment that “I was a father to the needy” ( Job 29:16a). In the pastoral ancient
Near East, the shepherd/sheep metaphor also belongs to this set of associa-
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tions. As Moshe Weinfeld and Frank Cross have argued, the political and
diplomatic vocabulary and conceptual apparatus of the ancient Near East
were grounded in such kinship categories and derived much of their power
from those basic bonds. If authority is recognized as legitimate, then the
appropriate response to it is respect, obedience, and submissiveness. Rejec-
tion of authority expresses itself in disrespect, disobedience, and rebellion.
That Deuteronomy frames the role of Yhwh in terms of authority is
evident simply from the repetition of words such as “command” (’āmar,
some thirty-nine times in chapters 1–11, referring both to God and to Mo-
ses) and the various lexemes for “obey,” “keep,” “observe,” “do.” Narratively,
God is presented as exercising a leadership function in bringing the people
out of Egypt and to their new land, providing for them along the way,

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 65

protecting them from enemies, and instituting a social order to live by, thus
representing divine authority as beneficial. The failures of the people are
represented largely as failures in relation to authority—that is, disobedience
and rebellion. The people’s behavior is characterized by such expressions
as “you refused,” “flouted the command,” “behaved insolently,” “would not
listen,” “acted stubbornly,” and the like. Authority asserts itself in the face
of such opposition largely through the threat of punishment, as one sees in
the warnings so prominent in Deuteronomy and the extensive list of curses
for violation of the covenant (e.g., Deut 6:15; 7:10; 8:19–20; 9:13–14; 11:28;
28:14–68).
The moral foundation of authority is usually buttressed by other coor-
dinated foundations. Since Deuteronomy is concerned with the authority
of a deity, one might assume there would be a strong appeal to sanctity.
But while the sanctity of Yhwh is certainly assumed, sanctity plays only a
modest supporting role in Deuteronomy’s hortatory rhetoric, in contrast to
Ezekiel, who tightly binds divine authority to sanctity. Instead Deuter-
onomy mines the resources of reciprocity and also loyalty to fill out its mo-
tivational picture, as one would expect, given its indebtedness to the model
of the suzerain/vassal treaty and thus to the kinship models on which it
significantly draws.
Reciprocity. Authority on its own does not necessarily tap into strong
positive emotions. In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt identifies the
characteristic moral emotions keyed to authority as “respect” and “fear” and
the relevant virtues as “obedience” and “deference.” But because authority,
at least as it manifests itself in feudal relationships, involves the provision of
important social goods, it can pair easily with reciprocity, which brings with
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it a diﬀerent palate of moral emotions, most notably “gratitude” and “guilt.”

Thus the hortatory material of Deuteronomy is replete with reminders of
what Yhwh has already graciously and without obligation done to beneﬁt
Israel and what Yhwh is prepared to do in the future. These include elec-
tion of the ancestors and Yhwh’s availability to the people (4:7–8, 35–36;
9:5; 10:15), deliverance from slavery, the gift of land to occupy, victory over
enemies (5:6–7; 6:10, 18–25; 7:1–2, 8; 8:7–10; 9:1–3; 11:2–6, 10, 22–25), future
prosperity in recognition of obedience (6:3–4; 8:1, 13–15; 10:22; 11:14–15), and
wondrous acts both past and future, including provision in the wilderness
(7:18–21; 8:2–4). The people have done nothing to “deserve” this benefac-
tion. It is a gift. What is the appropriate response? One cannot “repay” the
lavish gift; but one is expected to respond with what is in one’s power to

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66 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

give, and as Yhwh makes clear, what is desired is obedience to the laws and
statutes—that is, recognition of God’s authority. Failure in reciprocity is
selfishness, characterized by forgetfulness (“take care that you do not forget
Yhwh your God,” 9:11), fueled by complacency (“when you have eaten and
are satisfied and built fine houses to live in . . . beware that your heart not
become arrogant and you forget Yhwh your God,” 8:11–14), resulting in
misattribution (“Do not say to yourself, ‘My own power and the strength
of my own hand have gotten me this wealth,’” 8:17). Precisely because the
moral foundation of reciprocity is so deeply ingrained in human relations,
such failures constitute repugnant behavior, as the audience knows.
The logic underlying the account of Yhwh’s graciousness and the con-
ferred benefits—and the logic’s concomitant expectation of something ren-
dered in return—is what is known in evolutionary biology as the logic of
reciprocal altruism. Although reciprocal altruism has been documented
in many species, humans are an extraordinarily cooperative species, in large
part because we have an exceptional ability to keep track of who has done
favors for us and who has not reciprocated when we have done favors for
them. Recent studies have also demonstrated the way in which gratitude
both reinforces the likelihood of further prosocial behavior on the part of
the benefactor and motivates prosocial behavior on the part of the recipi-
ent, both toward the benefactor and even toward third parties (cf. Deut
10:17–19). Some social psychologists differentiate between gratitude on
the one hand and obligation and indebtedness on the other. By closely
associating authority and reciprocity foundations, Deuteronomy blurs the
distinction so that the motivation for obedience is simultaneously grati-
tude for benefits graciously conferred and the obligation of deference to
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authority.
Loyalty. One might discuss the hortatory sections of Deuteronomy
simply in terms of authority and reciprocity. But the signiﬁcant presence of
strong, emotionally charged words and scenarios suggests that loyalty is also
relevant to the moral recipe of this portion of Deuteronomy. In traditional
societies, and especially in feudal relationships, loyalty is strongly personal.
Indeed, feudal loyalty lays claim to priority even over kin and ethnic loy-
alty. Margalit cites the medieval Book of Fiefs: “Vassals must help their lord
against everyone—against their brothers, against their sons, against their
fathers.” Similarly, in Deuteronomy 13:7–19 loyalty to Yhwh explicitly su-
persedes loyalty to brother, son, daughter, wife, friend, or fellow Israelite.
Moreover, in Deuteronomy it is loyalty to Yhwh that is the basis for ethnic

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 67

diﬀerentiation, since the inhabitants of Canaan are to be shunned or even

exterminated because of the danger they pose to exclusive loyalty to Yhwh
(Deut 7:1–5).
As often noted, Deuteronomy is characterized by an emphasis on love,
both the love by Yhwh for the people and the love that the people are com-
manded to show in return (4:37; 5:10; 6:5; 7:9, 13; 10:12, 15, 18–19; 11:13). While
it is generally agreed that the context for the rhetoric of love is the political
culture of ancient Near Eastern treaties, it would be a mistake to minimize
the affective content, as Jacqueline Lapsley has argued. This is love as af-
fective solidarity, originally grounded in the family and kin group. Political
culture appropriated this powerful mechanism by symbolically extending it
to relationships of political allies. It is no accident that royal families also
practiced intermarriage, thus literally forming kin bonds between different
political entities. This is powerful “social glue.” The novel appropriation of
the covenant model to structure the God-people relationship in ancient
Israel, nowhere more fully developed than in Deuteronomy, is a strategy for
tapping into strong emotional bases. Although it offers many advantages,
one of the most powerful is the way in which it recasts veneration of other
gods in terms of betrayal. For most ancient peoples, including many Israel-
ites, the veneration of various gods was simply prudential and advantageous
behavior (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:24–33; Jer 44:15–19; Hos 2:7). But once the relation
to Yhwh has been cast in terms of the exclusive loyalty owed to a sovereign
on the model of political treaties like Esarhaddon’s vassal treaties, then such
practices become repugnant treachery.
Agency. Deuteronomy’s foregrounding of authority, reciprocity, and
loyalty elevates the role of agency in distinctive ways. One can begin to see
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how by contrasting the role of agency in Deuteronomy and Proverbs. Many

scholars have noted the similarities between aspects of the language, cat-
egories, and values of Deuteronomy and wisdom texts. Certainly the scribes
responsible for Deuteronomy were formed by and drew on their grounding
in the sapiential tradition and brought elements of that tradition into the
service of their moral vision. But the differences in the way the moral re-
lationships are cast in Deuteronomy and in Proverbs are significant. Above
all, the moral relationship in Deuteronomy is a thick one, whereas in Prov-
erbs it is thin, or at least thinner. In Proverbs, the father, God, and Wisdom
are all authoritative figures, but the relationships are not filled out with
histories or with strong emotional content. In Deuteronomy, those features
are central. In Proverbs, the successful student ultimately internalizes the

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68 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

teachings, so that his formation results in his, too, becoming a “father” (Prov
4:3), stabilizing his agency as part of his identity. The formation of proper
agency is deeply tied up with the replication of the social order, which it
represents as the manifestation of reality (Wisdom) itself. The student is
directed to “see” patterns of the act-consequence relationship that he then
can conﬁrm for himself. This prioritizing of the cognitive element also
provides a profound stability to successfully formed agency. By contrast,
Deuteronomy represents the central moral relationship as historically con-
tingent. In fact, the contingent nature of the relationship characterizes it at
every moment. The moral relationship in Deuteronomy is both powerful
and fragile. Whereas Proverbs aims to form a subject who is habituated to
good agency and whose failures are subject to correction by the community,
Deuteronomy frames agency as a series of repeated choices, any one of
which is potentially capable of destroying the relationship. Consequently, a
certain tension, even an anxiety, attends to the problem of agency in Deu-
teronomy. There, too, the emotions, both positive and negative ones, have a
more prominent role to play. Finally, Proverbs focuses on the formation of
the individual in the context of replicating the social order. Deuteronomy,
though it often addresses the people as individuals and is concerned with
individual behavior, is ultimately concerned with the formation of the na-
tion as a moral agent. The complex political context of national policy is not
the same as the context of individual decisionmaking; yet this diﬀerence is
strategically obscured because of the way in which national agency is repre-
sented as distributed individual agency in Deuteronomy.
What, then, are Deuteronomy’s strategies for forming successful moral
agency? First is solemnizing and ritualizing the act of commitment. Just
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as certain rituals may be used to strengthen biological and marital kin-

ship relations (e.g., naming ceremonies, coming of age rituals, betrothal
and wedding ceremonies), so the implicit extension of the kinship model
to political relations depends even more on ritual formalization. A solemn
oath of fealty is often sworn in the presence of deities as witnesses and
guarantors, as in the Near Eastern vassal treaties (e.g., VTE i.13–40). In
Deuteronomy, the people are vividly reminded of their participation in the
awful and solemn events at Horeb when Yhwh “declared to you the cove-
nant that he commanded you to observe” (4:13). A second solemn ceremony
is prescribed for enactment when they have crossed the Jordan (27:1–26),
as well as a periodic public reading of “this Teaching” every seventh year at
Sukkot (31:10–13).

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 69

Second, and closely related, is fear. In Deuteronomy, the seriousness of

the covenant relation is grounded in the awe and fear the people experience
at the “mighty voice” that came “out of the fire and cloud” (Deut 4:9–14;
5:2–5, 19–24). Moreover, punishment for violation is a frequent motif of
the rhetoric of Deuteronomy (4:3, 25–28; 6:15; 7:10; 8:20; 9:7–21; 11:6, 17).
The covenant curses may be a formal part of the covenant document, as in
VTE vi.414–viii.668. Or, as in Deuteronomy 27–28, they may be employed
in ritual reinforcement of the obligation undertaken.
Third, in ways that are somewhat similar to the Hittite covenant tradi-
tion, Deuteronomy constructs agency that supports authority, reciprocity,
and loyalty by attempting to heighten the emotions that motivate the re-
lationships. In keeping with the implicit folk theory of moral failure found
in many biblical texts, Deuteronomy identifies three areas of vulnerability.
The most prominent in Deuteronomy is cognitive—the problem of forget-
ting (4:9, 23; 6:12; 8:11, 13, 17, 19; cf. 7:17, 21). This “forgetting” is, of course,
not simple lapse of memory but describes rather a refusal to acknowledge
the nature of the relationship. Thus it is closely linked to the second area of
moral failure, the stubborn will and the reluctance to embrace heteronomy,
most vividly described as being “stiff-necked” (9:6, 13, 23, 27; 10:16). The
third has to do with desire, sometimes related to words for seduction (4:19;
11:16) or entrapment (7:16, 25), and the attractions of other cultures (7:4) or
visible images (9:12, 16). All three dimensions of moral failure are inter-
twined and reinforce one another.
For Deuteronomy, the remedy for these problems is a cognitive/affec-
tive one that puts responsibility on the agent. Scholars have often noted
the central role of memory in Deuteronomy. The preferred term, however,
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is not zākar but šāmar, “to guard, keep,” suggesting a kind of hypervigilant
attention. What is to be remembered is above all the founding events (e.g.,
“take utmost care and watch yourselves scrupulously, so that you do not
forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not
fade from your mind,” 4:9; NJPS) and the catalogue of beneﬁts conferred
by God (e.g., 4:32–34, 37–38; 6:10–11, 20–23; 7:8, 13–15, 21–24; 8:3–4, 7–9, 15–16;
9:1–3; 11:2–4, 9–15). These events form the deeply emotional basis for the
gratitude, loyalty, and respect that make only one choice imaginable: the
choice for obedience. The techniques for remaining in this state of vivid
presence are exhaustive, including eternalized reminders, internalized re-
minders, use of the body as a reminder, reminders keyed to every activity of
the day, teaching one’s children, and so forth. Constant emotional arousal

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70 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

of profound gratitude ensures proper agency (4:9, 13–14; 6:6–9, 20–25; 8:2–6,
10; 11:18–21).
Fourth, a striking part of Deuteronomy’s strategy is vivid recitation of
past moral failures and the creation of scenarios of potential failure in the
future. In its present form the book opens with an extended narration of
the people’s moral failure at Kadesh-barnea, when they refused to enter the
land out of fear (1:22–45), a rebellion that resulted in the condemnation of
virtually the entire generation of those who had left Egypt. That narrative is
bookended by a similarly extended recounting of the moral failure at Horeb
when the people made the golden calf (9:6–29). In various other places past,
potential, and future failures are lifted up (4:25–28; 6:10–19; 7:1–5; 8:11–20).
Although it might seem counterintuitive to bolster agency by repeatedly
drawing attention to past and potential failure, such a strategy works by stir-
ring up anxiety that then stimulates vigilance. This rhetoric makes vivid why
scrupulous “keeping watch over” oneself (4:9) is required. To be sure, there is
as yet no cultivation of an introspective conscience in Deuteronomy in any
psychological sense, though its rhetoric of self-monitoring begins to move
in that direction, a shift that will be taken further in many Second Temple
texts. In keeping with the general social or “I-You” orientation of the rheto-
ric, Deuteronomy mostly frames the scenarios of disobedience in terms of
specific events and the actions of the people in those past or potential situa-
tions. But in the extended description of the apostasy of the people at Horeb,
the rhetoric shifts to suggest that the people are intrinsically given to willful
disobedience, being “stiff-necked” and persistently defiant (e.g., 9:6, 13, 24).
The moral problem is thus not simply what one might do but who one is by
disposition. Again, Deuteronomy does not develop this claim extensively,
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though in a very important passage it presents a model for moral self-repair

that becomes highly influential in the Second Temple period. “Circumcise
the foreskin of your heart, and do not stiffen your neck any more” (10:16).
The striking metaphor of circumcision of the heart may actually originate
with Jeremiah and have been incorporated into Deuteronomy from that text
as part of the reworking of Deuteronomy in the exilic and early postexilic
periods. It is noteworthy in that in this formulation it is not just that one
must monitor one’s will and behavior (as in the instruction not to stiffen the
neck) but must turn attention to the organ that plays a key role in disposi-
tion and agency (the heart) and intervene to improve its functioning.
Theoretically, Deuteronomy’s strategies for constant vigilance would
seem to be effective, though in practice it would be difficult to sustain
the degree of emotional arousal that the book envisions. Even if Deuter-

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 71

onomy’s utopian memory practices had been instituted, they would have
risked becoming routine and rote. Indeed, the final layers of redaction in
Deuteronomy have to grapple with the reality of moral failure. And yet,
it appears that this failure does not significantly alter Deuteronomy’s ap-
proach to agency. Deuteronomy 4:25–31 envisions the future from Moses’s
perspective, a future in which the people commit disloyalty and undergo
destruction, exile, and service to idols. In effect, this experience serves as
a traumatic memory practice, causing the people to turn again to Yhwh,
who redeems the people as in the foundational past. The ability to renew
a broken relationship is one of the inherent resiliencies of thick relations
based on models of kinship and/or shared history, so that failure may be
incorporated into the model itself. The destruction of Judah in 586 BCE,
however, would have appeared from the Deuteronomic perspective as a
massive failure of moral agency, one that could cast into question the ad-
equacy of the model of moral agency upon which it is based. Indeed, there
is evidence within Deuteronomy for just such a recognition of a limit to
human moral agency that makes self-repair impossible. In the postexilic
addition in 30:1–10, as in 4:25–31, the trauma of exile serves to restore the
proper emotions and dispositions that lead to obedience and fidelity, so that
Yhwh once again enacts a redemption and restoration (30:1–5). The inno-
vation is in verse 6, in which Yhwh circumcises the hearts of the people, a
deliberate alteration of 10:16, in which the people are themselves to perform
this repair. But what is the relation of 30:6 to 30:1–2, which seems to envi-
sion a prior “turning” of the people to Yhwh? Most scholars assume that
the alteration of the heart in verse 6 is an additional gift by Yhwh to make
future failure less likely.
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More radically, Marc Brettler argues that the syntax of the passage al-
lows one to understand that it is divine action itself that makes possible
the human turning to Yhwh in verses 1–2. Syntactically, the question has
to do with where the protasis ends and the apodosis begins. Most scholars
take the protasis to consist of verses 1–2, with the apodosis beginning in
verse 3 (e.g., “When all these things befall you . . . and you take them to
heart . . . and you return to the Lord your God . . . , then the Lord your God
will restore your fortunes”; NJPS). It is also syntactically possible, Brettler
argues, that the apodosis begins in verse 1. Thus the logic of the passage
would be governed by the theological perspective of verse 6.
[The passage] would be saying that once the blessing and curse are fulﬁlled
(1a), the following will happen: you will return (vv. 2–3); Yhwh will return

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72 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

and will return you to the land (vv. 3–5), he will then circumcise your hearts
(v. 6) and punish your enemies (v. 7); you will indeed return (v. 8), and Yhwh
will bless you (v. 9).

If the syntax is construed in this manner, then the presupposition would

be much the same as in the narratives in which God engages in dual or
co-agency with Samson to cause him to desire Philistine women, or with
Abimelech to cause him not to have sex with Sarah, or with Pharaoh to
cause him to refuse to let the Israelites go. But for the ﬁrst time this model
of agency would be applied to the repentance of the people as a whole, a
relationship that otherwise assumes only the model of autonomous free
agency. That is not to say that there was any conscious or intentional con-
struction of an analogy with those narrative texts of co-agency. Cultural
models are often present subliminally and brought into play as circum-
stances require without anyone being aware of the innovation.
As Brettler demonstrates, certain later Second Temple texts, includ-
ing Baruch 2:27–35 and 4QDibHama (4Q504) 18:13–18, interpret the text as
describing divine rather than human initiative. Baruch refers to the mercy
that God has shown Israel and alludes to the words of God as cited by
Moses in Deuteronomy 30:
If you do not obey me, this very great multitude will be reduced to a small
number among the nations where I shall banish them. For I know that they
will not obey me—because they are a stiﬀnecked people—but in the land
of their captivity they will repent, acknowledging that I am the Lord their
God. I shall give them a heart and ears that hear . . . , and they will turn from
their stubbornness. (Bar 2:29–33; trans. Brettler)
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The shift of agency is even clearer in 4QDibHama. There the liturgist speaks
of the people dispersed in exile: “You have again placed it on their hearts to
return to You, to obey Your voice. . . . You have poured out Your holy spirit
upon us. . . . You have caused us to seek You in our time of tribulation, [that
we might po]ur out a prayer when Your chastening was upon us” (18:13–18;
DSSR).
Because the syntax in Deuteronomy is ambiguous, however, it remains
unclear whether the passage itself intends to displace the role of the people
in turning to Yhwh or if this interpretation was part of a later tendency to
displace the source of moral agency from the people themselves to God. In
support of Brettler’s reading, however, are the roughly contemporary strat-
egies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Deuteronomistic tradents of Jeremiah

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 73

also understood the people’s adherence to the covenant obligations to be

sustained by the same kind of teaching and memory practices that one
ﬁnds in Deuteronomy. But teaching had failed. Now, if a “new covenant”
is to be a possibility, it “will not be like the covenant that I [Yhwh] made
with their ancestors” ( Jer 31:32). Instead, “I will put my teaching into their
inner parts, and I will inscribe it upon their hearts. . . . They will no longer
teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, ‘Know Yhwh,’
for all of them will know me, from the least to the greatest” (31:33–34). As
in Proverbs, the internalization of teaching is an indication of its indelible
presence. In Jeremiah, however, the personal agency of teaching and mem-
orization is displaced by direct divine agency, bypassing the fallible human
agency. Ezekiel’s imagery is even more stark, as will be discussed below. All
of these texts, however, point to the events of the fall of Judah as creating
a crisis in the models of moral agency and the need to displace the source
of agency onto God. The most sophisticated development of the notion of
dual or co-agency will appear in the Hodayot from Qumran. Early Juda-
ism could not do without a theory of moral agency. The covenantal basis
of the relationship with Yhwh required it. Faced with apparent evidence
of profound failure of human moral agency, they envisioned a secure and
unassailable source for moral agency in the divine covenant partner. In no
other text was this more radically imagined than in Ezekiel.

The Collapse and Reconstitution of

tory address, Ezekiel consists largely of prophetic indictment, followed by

prophecies of hope. In investigating the moral values that inform Ezekiel,
one must take account of this diﬀerent rhetorical context. Furthermore,
although some Deuteronomic assumptions are present in the book of Eze-
kiel, his conceptual and moral world is shaped overwhelmingly by priestly
traditions, with a particularly close connection to the Holiness Code in
Leviticus 17–26.
As with Deuteronomy, Ezekiel also frames his engagement with
his audience in terms of the moral value of divine authority, as one sees
immediately in the prominence of terms for rebellion in the accusations
that open chapter 2: “That nation of rebels, who have rebelled against
me . . . deﬁed me . . . brazen of face and stubborn of heart . . . a rebellious

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74 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

breed” (2:3–4). Similar language, coupled with accusations of disobedience

to laws and rules, occurs throughout the prophetic indictments (e.g., 5:5–9;
12:1–3, 9, 25; 17:12, 15, 19; 20, passim). The ability of the people to obey the
laws and statutes is the goal of their transformation (11:20; 36:27; 37:22–24).
In contrast to Deuteronomy, however, Ezekiel pairs authority almost exclu-
sively with sanctity.
It should be borne in mind that not every mention of a deity is an
index of a concern with sanctity or holiness per se. Anthropomorphized
deities may be incorporated as “superpersons” within various social relations
and the moral foundations that organize them, as one sees in Deuteron-
omy, where authority, reciprocity, and loyalty are all ways of organizing the
divine-human relationship. The realm of sanctity has to do with the radical
qualitative diﬀerence between the divine and all else. Thus, whereas other
moral foundations are grounded in social bonds and pragmatic relation-
ships, the logic of sanctity appears to operate diﬀerently.
I am not persuaded that comparative moral theories have yet given a
persuasive account of the evolutionary basis for human concern with sanc-
tity or holiness. In Moral Foundations Theory, sanctity is discussed primar-
ily in terms of concerns about purity and the emotion of disgust. It traces
this focus evolutionarily to the concern to avoid contaminants and disease
(“pathogens and parasites”). The things associated with these features are
marked as unclean or impure and often elicit physical disgust. The physi-
cal residue of the substance is seen as capable of spreading contamination
through contact and/or as miasma, necessitating cleansing. This schema
also provides a basis for metaphorical or analogical extension to other phe-
nomena, such as certain types of moral or social wrongs, that can be treated
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as though they left a similar dangerous residue, what Yitzhaq Feder calls
the “stain of transgression.” While Moral Foundations Theory under-
stands sanctity as in many respects the mirror opposite of impurity, it has
not articulated the evolutionary bases for the positive role of the sanctity
foundation. It is not possible to address the lacunae in Moral Foundations
Theory analysis here, but it seems likely that, just as those things that elicit
disgust signify invisible vectors of disease and death, so early humans may
have posited forces that sustained life and vitality (e.g., divine blessing).
Thus, sanctity and impurity concern the ultimacies of life and death. This
dynamic might suggest why the sacred seems to have an ontological status
unlike other moral foundations, so that ordinary pragmatic considerations
do not apply—a violation of this realm is a threat to existence per se.

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 75

The ultimacy of the sacred may help explain the extreme rhetoric and
practice that attend the role of sanctity. In the biblical tradition, the justi-
fying motivation for sanctity is tautological: it is the sacred itself (e.g., “so
that you may know that I am Yhwh”; “be holy as I am holy”). Responses
to violations of the sacred are also distinctive. Although provisions for pu-
rification for unavoidable, everyday pollutions are readily available, and the
dangers and pollution of inadvertent sins can be dispelled by sacrifice, in-
tentional sin as a violation of sanctity has no remedy other than death, kārēt
(being “cut off ”), or “bearing one’s sin.” The more socially grounded moral
concerns, such as reciprocity and loyalty, drawing on different emotional
resources, have greater flexibility for repairing even serious violations by
means of enactments of repentance and reconciliation. But unauthorized
contact with the sacred, even if unintentional and well-meaning, can evoke
a response of immediate annihilation, as in the case of Uzza in 2 Samuel
6:6–7 (see also Num 4:18–20; 1 Sam 6:19).
A concern for sanctity is evident in Ezekiel, beginning with the im-
pressive theophany in chapters 1–3 and the definitive contrast between God
and the human Ezekiel, pointedly referred to as ben-’ādām (“mortal be-
ing”). The focus continues with extensive cultic-related themes and vocabu-
lary. The violations for which the people are blamed are overwhelmingly
described in terms related to defilement, impurity, and idolatry. The im-
proper shedding of blood is also prominent in the accounts of the people’s
sins. Key passages include the temple vision of chapters 8–11, which details
defilement of the temple itself; the history of disobedience in chapter 20,
which presents the sins in almost exclusively cultic terms; chapter 24, which
highlights blood and impurity imagery; and, of course, the two allegories
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of chapters 16 and 23, which combine depraved sexuality, infanticide, and

idolatry as means by which holy things were defiled. The restoration of
the people and the land is described primarily in terms of cleansing from
defilement (36:22–28), and the resolution of the book is expressed through
the vision of a new temple and the laws that will ensure it is never again
defiled (chaps. 40–48).
Also in contrast to Deuteronomy, Ezekiel explicitly dispenses with the
foundations of reciprocity and loyalty and the resources of their rich emo-
tionality. One sees this in Ezekiel’s rejection of altruistic motives on the
part of God or any emotional bond with the people. God acts only for the
sake of his holy name—a sanctity motive (20:9, 14, 22; 36:22; 39:35; 43:7). As
Baruch Schwartz puts it, “Ezekiel denies its [divine mercy’s] very existence.

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76 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

Nowhere in his prophetic teaching is Yhwh thought to do anything out of

love, longing, compassion, or grace; indeed, the entire vocabulary pertaining
to these concepts is missing from Ezekiel.” Though a covenant is reestab-
lished, Ezekiel often describes it as imposed punitively and unwillingly on
the people who wished rather to “be like the nations” (16:59–62; 20:32–38).
In analyzing Israel’s sin from the perspective of sanctity, Ezekiel fre-
quently uses vocabularies of pollution and disgust (e.g., “defile” [t.āmē’],
“abomination” [tō‘ēbāh], “loathe” [qût.]). Alien deities are not referred to
as other gods whom people might serve, as in the relational language of
Deuteronomy 7:4, but as “shit-fetishes” (gillûlîm) and “disgusting things”
(šiqqûs.îm). His imagery often evokes physical disgust—food cooked over
human excrement (4:12), a pot with indelible scum (24:6, 12–13), an infant
covered in unwashed birth-blood (16:4), and so forth. Although not all
sanctity violations are framed in impurity terms, where they are, the person
who violates sanctity is not just a rebel but a degenerate, someone perverted
and thus morally disgusting. Sexuality is a common category for character-
izing persons as degenerate (in ways that can be deeply problematic), as one
sees in Ezekiel’s allegories of Jerusalem and Samaria in chapters 16 and 23,
with their descriptions of disgusting sexual depravity and the moral disgust
of infanticide.
Although anger is a response to violations of all moral foundations,
the annihilating rage that Ezekiel depicts in God’s response to Israel’s sin is
both quantitatively and qualitatively different from the depiction of anger
that accompanies violations of reciprocity or loyalty bonds and may well
be related to the absolute quality of the sanctity foundation. In prophetic
rhetoric such as one finds in Hosea and Jeremiah, which draws extensively
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on the moral values of reciprocity and loyalty, divine anger is often couched
in emotional, relational terms and is frequently tied to a larger narrative of
potential reconciliation or to a contrast between the faithless many and the
faithful prophet (e.g., Hos 2; 4; 6; 11; Jer 4–5; 8; 15). In Ezekiel, however, the
emotional model of anger that arises from betrayal is absent. Instead, in
accounts that are often extended, focused, and graphic (e.g., 5:7–17; 7:1–27;
16:37–42; 21:1–22; 22:17–22; 23:22–34, 46–49), the rage that is expressed ex-
plicitly excludes competing emotions of compassion and pity (e.g., 7:4, 9).
“Wrath” (h.ēmāh), one of the favored terms for divine anger in the proph-
ets, occurs some thirty-three times in Ezekiel, as opposed to fourteen in
Jeremiah and thirteen in Isaiah. Ezekiel frequently uses idioms that liken
rage to a liquid that boils over or pours out (thirteen times with šāpak).

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 77

The utter completeness of the expenditure of God’s rage is expressed in the

expression kālā ’āp (“vent anger,” 5:13; 6:12; 7:8; 13:15; 20:8, 22). Most unnerv-
ingly, the expression hēnîah. h.ēmāh (“satisfy wrath,” 5:13; 16:42; 21:22; 24:13),
unique to Ezekiel, suggests an almost orgasmic quality to the rage, which,
once expended, brings quiet and satisfaction to Yhwh. There is, naturally, no
narrative of reconciliation. The end result is simply that the people “know
that I am Yhwh” (e.g., 7:4; 23:49) and that they experience self-loathing and
shame (e.g., 16:61, 63; 20:43).

Agency
In the grouping of authority, reciprocity, and loyalty that one finds in
Deuteronomy, it is easy to see how appeals to emotion and memory serve
to support the kind of agency that those moral values require. But what sort
of agency corresponds to sanctity, and how does one produce it? Since sanc-
tity makes an ultimate claim, good tends to be framed as “like the sacred”
and evil as “unlike the sacred.” What is pure or clean is associated with the
sacred and what is impure or unclean is excluded. Moral agency, where it is
deemed possible, is manifested in a form of imitation of the divine, a kind
of nonontological divinization. Conversely, in order to denigrate human
moral agency, negative anthropologies, such as one finds in the speeches of
Elihu and Bildad in Job 4:17–21, 15:14–16, and 25:4–6, combine an ontologi-
cal opposition between the divine and the human with divine loathing of
human pollution and sin.
To pursue the question of agency within a sanctity context, it is useful
to look, not first at Ezekiel, but at the conceptually closely linked Holiness
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Code in Leviticus 17–26. These chapters largely consist of instructions of

what to do or not to do in various realms of life—primarily in relation to
the cult and to sexuality, but also in certain other areas of communal life.
Rationale and justiﬁcation are sparse, compared with Deuteronomy, and
often articulated very simply in terms of not deﬁling oneself because “I am
Yhwh your God.” On several occasions, however, the text is explicit that
obedience to these stipulations makes the people “holy” as Yhwh is holy
(19:1; 20:7, 24–26; 22:31–33), though there is no ontological transformation
of the people. In the Holiness Code the people are simply assumed to be
capable of following the commandments.
Both the Holiness Code and Ezekiel, however, have to deal with the
problem of catastrophically failed moral agency and the possibility of a

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78 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

future beyond moral failure. In Leviticus 26, which may be an exilic or

postexilic addition to the Holiness Code, the logic of condemnation is
articulated largely in authority and sanctity terms. The disobedience of the
people has polluted the land. No cultic expiation for the situation exists;
the only possible remedy is expulsion from the land. The possibility of
an alternative to the utter destruction of the people and the grounding of
a future is not worked out in terms of the sanctity foundation alone but
through a combination of the resources of the logic of sanctity and the
more relational foundations of reciprocity and loyalty. The severe punish-
ment of expulsion and near extermination leads to an emotion described
with a distinctive idiom found only in Leviticus 26:39 and Ezekiel 4:17,
24:23, and 33:10 (and possibly in Ps 106:43), “to be heartsick over iniquity”
(NJPS; yimaqqû / nāmaqqû ba‘ăwōnām). The verb has a concrete meaning
of “rot, decay” and seems to suggest a distinctive emotional repugnance in
the recognition of a sin against the sanctity of God. The “uncircumcised
heart” of the people is “humbled,” a socially conciliatory stance, and the
people “atone” for their iniquity (Lev 26:41). How atonement is eﬀected is
initially unclear but is then related to the absence of the people from the
land, which allows for the making up of the violated sabbath years (v. 43).
The relational resources of loyalty are also invoked, however, apparently as
a motive for this cultic innovation, as the memory of the covenant with the
ancestors and the Exodus is recalled (zākar).
Ezekiel, however, has radicalized the critique of the people’s moral
agency. Their depravity and obsessively disordered desires go back to their
very origins. This argument is made both in the allegorical histories of
chapters 16 and 23 and in the narrative history of chapter 20. As Jacqueline
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Lapsley has persuasively argued, the people are seen utterly to lack moral
agency. Despite Ezekiel’s representation of the people as “heartsick,” the
option for their active participation in a process of atonement, as in Leviti-
cus 26, is excluded. Ezekiel, however, further plumbs the possibilities of the
sanctity foundation for a novel resolution. He recasts “divinization” not as
an agential imitation of the holiness of God but as an actual transformation.
Although the deep moral pollution of the people is beyond the reach of the
ordinary institutions of cultic reparation, God unilaterally cleanses the peo-
ple (36:25). Then the people are recreated. The heart of stone is removed
and a heart of flesh is given (36:26). More significant, “a new spirit,” which
is specifically God’s spirit, is placed into the people (36:26–27). Although
there are other traditions of divine breath or spirit as the vivifying element

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Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective 79

in humans and other animals (Gen 2:7; Ps 104:30), Ezekiel uniquely associ-
ates the implanting of the spirit with the capacity for obedience to the laws
and ordinances (36:27). The new divine element in humans is the source of
agency. The other eﬀect of this moral transformation, however, is recogni-
tion of the gravity of the previous oﬀenses against sanctity, which expresses
itself in the characteristic emotion of the sanctity foundation, moral dis-
gust, here directed inwardly as self-loathing (36:31; 43:7–11).

The traumatic experience of the fall of Judah to the Babylonians, the de-
struction of the temple, and the exile of significant portions of the lead-
ership classes drew into question the fundamental assumptions of the
widespread understanding of the covenant relationship with Yhwh and the
moral agency it assumed on the part of the people. While there were some
resources for incorporating the failure into a narrative that could anticipate
human repentance, divine forgiveness, and reconciliation (e.g., Jer 29:12–
14), other, more radical constructions emerge in response. Analyses of moral
failure begin to incorporate the possibility that not only the moral will but
even the moral equipment of the people are flawed. Although self-repair
is occasionally envisioned (Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4), other passages treat the in-
herent moral flaw of humans as something that requires divine agency to
enact a repair or transformation of human moral organs (Deut 30:6; Jer
31:33–34; 32:39–40; Ezek 11:19; 36:25–27). That alternative conceptions that
are logically inconsistent with one another should exist side by side is not
surprising, nor should one necessarily assume a developmental trajectory
that resolves the tensions. Multiple cognitive models are to be expected, es-
pecially in cases where new ones are emerging to cope with unprecedented
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

experiences. But the innovative nature of divine intervention to reconstruct

a fatally ﬂawed moral nature in humans should not be overlooked. Deu-
teronomy, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel appear to envision this divine action as
resolving the problem, so that the preexilic understanding of the covenant
relationship could be resumed as the basis for the future of the people with
God. Correspondingly, the assumptions of human moral agency and re-
sponsibility for moral failure reassert themselves in postexilic texts, such as
the newly developing penitential prayers, the historical analysis of Chron-
icles, and other texts. But alongside these texts are others that assume that
the capacity for moral agency requires a repeated or continual divine action,
as already noted in Baruch and 4QDibHam. The shift in Deuteronomy, Jer-
emiah, and Ezekiel develops, of course, to address a problem in the model

Y7881-Newsom.indb 79 6/24/21 7:55 AM

80 Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective

of the nation as a moral agent. But signiﬁcantly, in the Second Temple

period the models constructed to deal with the problem of national moral
agency are coopted to explore the dynamics of individual moral agency. The
consequences of this redirection of cultural resources are profound. The de-
veloping trajectory of personal prayers and psalms increasingly focuses on
the condition of human sinfulness and moral incapacity and the necessity
of divine assistance. Not only is this a shift in moral anthropology, but it
also begins to construct new forms of more introspective selfhood as well
as new modes of spirituality.
Copyright © 2021. Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

Y7881-Newsom.indb 80 6/24/21 7:55 AM

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The Spirit Within Me Self and Agency in Ancient Is... - (3. Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective Three Case Studies)

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The Spirit Within Me Self and Agency in Ancient Is... - (3. Moral Agency in Israelite Perspective Three Case Studies)

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3 Moral Agency in

Y7881-Newsom.indb 48 6/24/21 7:55 AM

cial entity composed of many hierarchically arranged persons and systems

history of assumptions about personal, individual moral agency is inextri-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 49 6/24/21 7:55 AM

the language of individual prayer and moral reﬂection. Such developments

The Assumptional Framework of Moral Agency

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it must be recognized in all of its material and social dimensions. I would

Y7881-Newsom.indb 51 6/24/21 7:55 AM

set of conceptual resources that were exceptionally inﬂuential in Second

The Moral Agent in Proverbs

Y7881-Newsom.indb 52 6/24/21 7:55 AM

the sometimes exasperated rhetoric of Proverbs for its core commitments.

Y7881-Newsom.indb 53 6/24/21 7:55 AM

aspects of human capacity (will, understanding, desire) and the founda-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 54 6/24/21 7:55 AM

rehearse all of these investigations or to attempt to give a complete account

Y7881-Newsom.indb 55 6/24/21 7:55 AM

is not simply to correct behavior but to lead to insight. Mûsār is frequently

Internalizing External Authority

Y7881-Newsom.indb 56 6/24/21 7:55 AM

seem to be all that interested in constructing a diﬀerentiated model of the

Y7881-Newsom.indb 57 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Y7881-Newsom.indb 58 6/24/21 7:55 AM

mind, like the eyes, can be a deceptive instrument of self-evaluation (28:26).

Y7881-Newsom.indb 59 6/24/21 7:55 AM

cognition, character, and action. Although a few occurrences of the word

well be observations about “an agitated person exhibiting short breaths,” as

Y7881-Newsom.indb 60 6/24/21 7:55 AM

voice, reinforces the fundamentally sociocentric orientation of Proverbs

Motivating and Equipping Moral Agents

Y7881-Newsom.indb 61 6/24/21 7:55 AM

jority of scholars appear to think that Deuteronomy is signiﬁcantly a prod-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 62 6/24/21 7:55 AM

motivation is related to the problem of shaping moral agency. Although oc-

indeed, throughout the hortatory material. The moral relationship con-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 63 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Authority. Social dominance hierarchy is deeply rooted in human so-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 64 6/24/21 7:55 AM

it a diﬀerent palate of moral emotions, most notably “gratitude” and “guilt.”

Y7881-Newsom.indb 65 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Y7881-Newsom.indb 66 6/24/21 7:55 AM

diﬀerentiation, since the inhabitants of Canaan are to be shunned or even

how by contrasting the role of agency in Deuteronomy and Proverbs. Many

Y7881-Newsom.indb 67 6/24/21 7:55 AM

as certain rituals may be used to strengthen biological and marital kin-

Y7881-Newsom.indb 68 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Second, and closely related, is fear. In Deuteronomy, the seriousness of

Y7881-Newsom.indb 69 6/24/21 7:55 AM

though in a very important passage it presents a model for moral self-repair

Y7881-Newsom.indb 70 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Y7881-Newsom.indb 71 6/24/21 7:55 AM

If the syntax is construed in this manner, then the presupposition would

Y7881-Newsom.indb 72 6/24/21 7:55 AM

also understood the people’s adherence to the covenant obligations to be

The Collapse and Reconstitution of

tory address, Ezekiel consists largely of prophetic indictment, followed by

Y7881-Newsom.indb 73 6/24/21 7:55 AM

breed” (2:3–4). Similar language, coupled with accusations of disobedience

Y7881-Newsom.indb 74 6/24/21 7:55 AM

of chapters 16 and 23, which combine depraved sexuality, infanticide, and

Y7881-Newsom.indb 75 6/24/21 7:55 AM

Nowhere in his prophetic teaching is Yhwh thought to do anything out of

Y7881-Newsom.indb 76 6/24/21 7:55 AM

The utter completeness of the expenditure of God’s rage is expressed in the

Code in Leviticus 17–26. These chapters largely consist of instructions of

Y7881-Newsom.indb 77 6/24/21 7:55 AM

future beyond moral failure. In Leviticus 26, which may be an exilic or

Y7881-Newsom.indb 78 6/24/21 7:55 AM

experiences. But the innovative nature of divine intervention to reconstruct

Y7881-Newsom.indb 79 6/24/21 7:55 AM

of the nation as a moral agent. But signiﬁcantly, in the Second Temple

Y7881-Newsom.indb 80 6/24/21 7:55 AM

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