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The Second Passover, Pilgrimage, and the Centralized Cult*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

Simeon Chavel
Simeon Chavel*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The passage in Numbers 9:1-14 presents new legislation on the Passover sacrifice. For one who contracted impurity immediately prior to the Passover or was too far away to participate in it, the amendment prescribes an alternate date, one month later:

When any of you or your posterity who are defiled by a corpse or are on a long journey would offer a passover sacrifice to the Lord, they shall offer it in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight (vv. 10-11).

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ARTICLES
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 102 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 1 - 24
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2009

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References

1 Arnold Ehrlich, Scripture in Its Plain Sense (3 vols.; Berlin: M. Poppelauer Buchhandlung, 1899-1901) 1:254 [Hebrew].

2 For one brief critical review of Mircea Eliade's foundational work in this area, see Jonathan Z. Smith, Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) 88-103. For the extreme example of the Passover as the sole focalizing moment of an entire calendar in early Christianity, see the citation and discussion in idem, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 88.

3 See Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993). According to the standard interpretation of 2 Macc 10:5-8, the Maccabees modeled their temple inauguration on the Festival of Sukkot, which they had been forced to forego only shortly before, and the letter in 1:1—9 refers to the festival celebrated thereafter as “the Festival of Booths.” At the very least, it would go far beyond the evidence to infer that Hanukkah served essentially as an annual opportunity to make up a missed Festival of Booths. Joseph Tabory does not make much of these references for a reconstruction of the original Hanukkah, or of the opinions he conveniently collects that do; see his Jewish Festivals in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud (3rd ed.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000) 374—75 [Hebrew]. In a similar spirit, see Uriel Rappaport, The First Book of Maccabees (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2004) 78 [Hebrew]. Daniel Schwartz sees 2 Mac “ 10:5-8 as an interpolation by the author of the letters in the first two chapters, and refers to it as an early interpretation” of Hanukkah; see his The Second Book of Maccabees (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2004) 14—16, ' 89-95 [Hebrew]. For an argument against these texts making any reference at all to the Pentateuchs Feast of Tabernacles, see Moshe Benovitz's online piece [in Hebrew] at http://www.schechter.ac.il/bima.asp?ID=35 (a more detailed, scholarly version, in print, is in preparation).

4 “Instructions to Priests and Temple Officials, 9,” in The Context of Scripture, Volume One: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr.; trans. G. McMahon; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 217-21, at 219. McMahon notes that the verb he has rendered as “persuade” (loosely, apparently, to judge by his use of italics) is the medio-passive “to see.” This idiom appears throughout the ancient Near East in the context of visiting king (= doing homage or seeking audience) or deity (= pilgrimage), often with attending gifts. In this context, it would seem that when the Hittite law speaks of “conducting business” it has these gifts in mind, and envisions the farmer offering some kind of a bribe, perhaps in the form of a donation to the temple.

5 Ibid.

6 What is more, note the way the form of Num 9:1—2 seems to parallel Exod 12:2—3, which suggests deliberate modeling:

Exod 12:2-3:

Num 9:1-2:

7 See Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1986; repr. 1989) 98-106.

8 For example, Wilhelm M. L. de Wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die kanonischen und apokryphischen Bücher des Alten Testamentes (6th rev. ed.; Berlin: Reimer, 1845) 203-8 (§§152-153); Samuel R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (7th ed., 1898; repr. Cleveland: Meridian, 1963) 159; Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. B. W. Anderson; Germ. orig. 1948; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972) 261-76, esp. 272, 273, 275; Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (trans. J. Feldman and P. Rodman; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995) 105 and passim.

9 For some arguments that the law first existed without the narrative altogether, see Heinrich Holzinger, Numeri (KHAT; Tübingen-Leipzig: Mohr-Siebeck, 1903) 35; Diether Kellerman, Der Priesterschrift von Numeri 1:1 bis 10:10 (BZAW; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970) 129-32; Jacob Licht, A Commentary on the Book of Numbers (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985-1995) 1:135, 138-39 [Hebrew]; Knohl, ibid., 90.

10 Ehrlich, Scripture in Its Plain Sense, 1:254. In Ehrlich's opinion the author of Chronicles reports an historical event but did not know the law legislated in its aftermath. Ehrlich does not go so far as to state that Numbers 9 was written after 2 Chronicles 30. For a convenient list of Pentateuchal references found in the book of Chronicles, see Judson R. Shaver, Torah and the Chronicler's History Work: An Inquiry into the Chronicler's References to Laws, Festivals, and Cultic Institutions in Relationship to Pentateuchal Legislation (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989) 73-121. On the nature of such references (for example, 2 Chr 30:15-16, 18), see the important discussion in Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (trans. A. Barber; 2d rev. ed.; Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997) 234-44, esp. 239—44.

11 H. L. Ginsberg's aptly coined term in his work, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1982) 1-2.

12 Shemaryahu Talmon, “Divergencies in Calendar-Reckoning in Ephraim and Judah,” VT 8 (1958) 48-74; reprinted as “The Cult and Calendar Reform of Jeroboam I,” in idem, King, Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986) 113-39.

13 See, for example, Isac Leo Seeligmann, Studies in Biblical Literature (ed. A. Hurvitz et al.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 199) 11—45, at 37-39 (Hebrew; German translation: idem, Gesammelte Studien zur Hebräischen Bibel [ed. E. Blum; FAT 41; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004] 77-118); also Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 256-61, 530-34.

14 Gustaf Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (7 vols., 1928-1942; repr., Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964) 2:215-18; 3:1-6; Yehuda Feliks, Agriculture in Eretz-Israel in the Period of the Bible and Talmud: Basic Farming Methods and Implements (2d rev. ed.; Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1990) 173-88, esp. 175-79 [Hebrew].

15 See John Gray, I & II Kings: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1964) 292-93; Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 59. On this specific point, see also the criticisms in Oded Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987) 41—42.

16 For a balanced illustration of how to mine Chronicles for historical data, see Gary Knoppers, “History and Historiography: The Royal Reforms,” in The Chronicler as Historian (ed. M. Patrick Graham et al.; JSOTSup 238; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 178-203. For a critical survey of the history of scholarly positions on the reliability of Chronicles, see Kai Peltonen, History Debated: The Historical Reliability of Chronicles in Pre-Critical and Critical Research (2 vols.; Helsinki: The Finnish Exegetical Society, 1996).

17 See, for instance, the lists of correspondences in de Wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung, 241—42; Abba Bendavid, Parallels in the Bible (Jerusalem: Carta, 1972) 141-42, more broadly, 140—44, 156 [Hebrew]; of particular significance, Robert Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1976) 27-28; also, John C. Endres et al., Chronicles and Its Synoptic Parallels in Samuel, Kings, and Related Biblical Texts (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1998) 209-306, esp. 300 (the graph), 303-5. From 2 Chronicles 29 to the end of the book in chapter 35, the ratio between material revised from the book of Kings and unparalleled material radically changes from that in the rest of Chronicles, which makes the historicity of this section highly dubious. Note well how Steven McKenzie's study The Chronicler's Use of the Deuteronomistic History (HSM; Atlanta: Scholars, 1984) stops at 2 Chronicles 28.

18 For several relevant telltale signs of Late Biblical Hebrew, see Eduard Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1959) esp. 266-74, 305-14, 340-42 [Hebrew]; Jan Joosten, “The Distinction Between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew as Reflected in Syntax,” Hebrew Studies 46 (2005) 327-39 and bibliography; with respect specifically to Chronicles, Polzin, ibid., 28-84 (but regarding the placement of numerals, qualify by Steven Weitzman, “The Shifting Syntax of Numerals in Biblical Hebrew: A Reassessment,” JNES 55 [1996] 177-85).

19 Nadav Na'aman and Ran Zadok, “Sargon II's Deportations to Israel and Philistia (716-708 B.C.),” JCS 40 (1988) 37—46; David P. Wright, “The Laws of Hammurabi as a Source for the Covenant Collection (Exodus 20:23-23:19),” Maarav 10 (2003) 11-87, at 58-67; J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Israel and Judah (2d ed.; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 388-90, 403-10.

20 Nadav Na'aman, “The Debated Historicity of Hezekiah's Reform in the Light of Historical and Archaeological Research,” ZAW 107 (1995) 179-95, at 180-81. Hezekiah's rebellion against Sargon II's son Sennacherib (2 Kgs 18:17-19:37) would represent a change in policy meant to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the death of the previous king, during the instability presumably occasioned by it, not evidence of an ongoing struggle emerging now in full-blown proportions. Compare Miller and Hayes, ibid., 410-20, who reapply this “northern initiative” in 2 Chronicles 30 to preparations for war in the wake of Sargon's death. But they couple this move with Hezekiah's centralization of the cult more broadly, which raises more problems than it solves. For further remarks on the problems in taking the story as historical, see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 155.

21 The point will have to appear elsewhere, but the hermeneutical touchstones comprise 1) the apparent contradiction between 2 Kgs 18:5 and 2 Kgs 23:25 and the historical questions raised by them; 2) Hezekiah's unique opportunity to undo the damage wrought by Jeroboam I and return to the glorious days of Solomon; and 3) the role of the Levites in the Passover in Ezra 6:20 (see also 2 Chr 35:2-6, 10-14). On Chronicles' Hezekiah as a second Solomon, see Andrew G. Vaughn, Theology, History, and Archaeology in the Chronicler's Account of Hezekiah (Atlanta: Scholars, 1999) 174—79. On the reunification of Israel and Judah as a constitutive ideological plank in Chronicles, see Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles, 267-334.

22 In this vein, note Ehrlich's remark: “The author of Chronicles did not know the laws of the Second Passover; otherwise, he would have said of Hezekiah's Passover that it was done in accordance with the Torah” (Scripture in Its Plain Sense, 1:254). The citation in 2 Chr 30:18 could refer to the implicit assumption in Num 9:6, 7, 10-11, but much more likely, it points to the explicit prohibition in Lev 7:19-20.

23 For a discussion of the Priestly concept of guilt that has implications for the concept of , see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. D. P. Wright et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995) 3-21, esp. 8-14.

24 See m. Pesah. 9:3; t. Pesah. 8:7; Sipre §69.

25 While answering these questions, the laws in vv. 11b-12 also improve the formulation of the original laws in Exod 12:8-10. Literary-critical indications suggest that these three elements represent a secondary expansion, and also, against consensus opinion, that Exod 12:46 then borrowed from and revised Num 9:12.

26 Note that the phrase, which appears to suggest a relative state rather than the absolute one of impurity, almost always applies to the priests and Levites alone (1 Chr 15:12, 14; 2 Chr 5:11; 29:5, 15, 34; 30:3, 15, 24; 31:18; 35:6; contrast only 30:17).

27 On the basis of 2 Chr 30:6-9, 14; 31:1, it seems safe to conclude further that the Chronicler meant to indicate that the impurity contracted by these Israelites have contracted derives not from a corpse but from idolatry; so Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 154, 156, 249. On impurity caused by idolatry, see, for example, Lev 18:21, 24—30; 19:31; 20:1-7; Jer 2:23; Ezek 20:7, 18, 27-31, 43; 22:3—4; 36:18; 37:23; Ps 106:34-40. On its character see Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 26-31.

28 This comprehensive set of essential differences between the Second Passover of Numbers 9 and Hezekiah's deferred holiday precludes the opposite contention as well, that the story in 2 Chronicles 30 represents the extension and application of the law in Numbers 9, as Fishbane would have it (Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 154—59, 248—49). Indeed, had the author of 2 Chronicles 30 in fact derived the deferred Passover he described from the Second Passover in Numbers 9, he would have drawn upon such Pentateuchal authority explicitly, as so often occurs precisely in these kinds of legal midrash throughout Chronicles (see above, n. 10). As said already above (n. 22), it is just this reasoning that led Ehrlich to suggest that the law in Numbers 9 emerged in the wake of Hezekiah's Passover as described in 2 Chronicles 30: why have Hezekiah “consult” with local leaders if he could rest on such a pillar as Mosaic authority by citing a Pentateuchal passage (Scripture in Its Plain Sense, 1:254)? The differences analyzed above suggest that the author of the story in 2 Chronicles 30 did not cite from or even refer to the law in Numbers 9 because he saw them as two distinct phenomena, analogous perhaps, but with no actual points of contact between them to warrant drawing a direct connection. As Fishbane's study illustrates so trenchantly, exegesis leaves a trail; in this case, though, no signs of it exist. And one cannot use the analogy between the texts as an indication of exegesis, for it is the presence and nature of just this analogy that is under debate.

29 Contra Fishbane, ibid. The text is my translation; see the even more pronounced similarity in the Hebrew original:

Num 9:6

2 Chr 30:3

30 Italics mine.

31 On the phenomenon, see Simon Price, Religions of the Ancient Greeks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 25-29. Thanks to Amram Tropper for pointing me to this discussion.

32 Plutarch's Lives (vol. 7; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1919; repr., 1967), “Alexander,” ch. 16 §1-2, pp. 263-65; chap. 25 §1-2, pp. 295-97.

33 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (vol. 3; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1921; repr., 1966) book 5 §53-54, pp. 105-7.

34 Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (rev. J. Gould and D. M. Lewis; 2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 65.

35 Plutarch's Lives (vol. 9; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920; repr., 1968), “Demetrius,” ch. 26 §1-3, pp. 61-63.

36 For additional examples, but without their historical contexts, see Benjamin D. Meritt, The Athenian Year (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961) 161-65.

37 See m. Pesah. 4:9; b. Pesah. 56a. More stringently, recall the Hittite law cited above: “You who (are) temple officials: If you do not perform the festivals at the time of the festivals; (if) you do the spring festival in fall, (or) the fall festival in spring” (The Context of Scripture, 1:219 §9). Against this background, it seems quite plausible to see in a similar light the month “dreamt up” by Jeroboam I—and the sharp derision of it—in 1 Kgs 12:32-33, as suggested in Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, Second Century BCE—Tenth Century CE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 2-3.

38 Abū al-Walīd (Jonah) Ibn Janāh, Sefer Hashorashim (ed. W. Bacher; trans. J. Ibn Tibbon; Berlin, 1896; repr. Jerusalem, 1966) 524—25 [Hebrew]; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Study Edition (trans. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson; rev. W. Baumgartner and J. J. Stamm; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 2:1604—5.

39 See also Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 200 n. 7, 229; Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1993) 939—40.

40 Holzinger, Numeri, 35.

41 Similarly, for instance, Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2001) 193-94. In this spirit, note the following remark on the implementation of monotheism in the Return period:

[T]he differentiation between truth and reality, operational as it is in the distinction of gods and a true God, presuppose (sic!) most probably the mind's acculturation to a monetarian economy in which every thing has a value measured and attributed different from its inherent (natural) virtues (e.g., to feed, warm, or protect). So, monotheism might have indeed originated in Jerusalem (or, previously or simultaneously, in the Babylonian support group of the settlers of the Persian period).

Ernst A. Knauf, review of Othmar Keel, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und die Entstehung des Monotheismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), RBL 05/2008, n.p. [cited 16 June 2008]; online: http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6377_6859.pdf.

42 Along these lines, see Jan Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17-26 (SVT 67; Leiden: Brill, 1996); Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus (3 vols.; AB; New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001) 2:1352-57, 1391-93, 1397-1404, 1407-14.

43 David S. Margoliouth, “Trade and Commerce,” in James Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939) 944-46. Analysis of commercial terms and consciousness in Qohelet exemplifies the point well; see James L. Kugel, “Qohelet and Money,” CBQ 51 (1989) 32—49, at 45—49, esp. 46.

44 Margoliouth, “Trace and Commerce,” 946.

45 See Ephraim Stern, “The Archaeology of Persian Palestine,” in The Persian Period (ed. W. D Davies and L. Finkelstein; vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of Judaism; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 88-114. The granaries found in Palestine, reflecting the Persian military system (ibid., 113), have been linked to regional trade by which the Persians intended to strengthen Yehud and the entire western frontier; see Charles E. Carter, “The Province of Yehud in the Post-Exilic Period: Soundings in Site Distribution and Demography,” in Temple Community in the Persian Period (ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards; vol. 2 in Second Temple Studies; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 106—45, esp. 139—45.

46 Kenneth Hoglund, “The Material Culture of the Persian Period and the Sociology of the Second Temple Period,” in Studies in Politics, Class and Material Culture (ed. P. R. Davies and J. M. Halligan; vol. 3 of Second Temple Studies; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 14-18, at 18.

47 Carter, “The Province of Yehud in the Post-Exilic Period.”

48 Ephraim Stern, The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods (732-332 B.C.E.) (vol. 2 of Archaeology of the Land of the Bible; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 307-11, 323-26, 348-50, 576-82.

49 Ibid., 434-36.

50 Jack Pastor, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine (London: Routledge, 1997) 1-20, 168-70.

51 Yaron Dan, “Trade within and Trade without the Land of Israel in Second Temple Times,” in Chapters in the History of Trade in the Land of Israel (ed. B. Kedar et al.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi and the Israel Exploration Society, 1990) 91-107 [Hebrew]; see further Ephraim Stern, “Between Persia and Greece: Trade, Administration and Warfare in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods,” in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (ed. T. E. Levy; London: Leicester University Press, 1995) 432—45; idem, The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods, 379—422, 559-61. Jacob L. Wright adds that in Neh 13:15-22, “Nehemiah's Memoir” ascribes the activity of long-distance trade to Phoenicians, not Yehudim (personal communication).

52 Ze'ev Safrai, The Economy of Roman Palestine (London: Routledge, 1994) 222—414, esp. 315-16.

53 The classic work on the topic is Moses I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (3rd ed.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); see also Karl Polanyi, The Livelihood of Man (ed. H. W. Pearson; New York: Academic Press, 1977). For a collection of essays qualifying Finley's views, see Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World (ed. D. J. Mattingly and J. Salmon; London: Routledge, 2001), esp. 3-11, a nuanced overview of the significance of the volume for Finley's theories.

54 Magen Broshi, “On Trade in Ancient Times: Some Methodological Notes,” in Chapters in the History of Trade in the Land of Israel, 195-201 [Hebrew].

55 Richard A. Horsley, “Empire, Temple and Community—but No Bourgeoisie! A Response to Blenkinsopp and Peterson,” in Persian Period (ed. P. R. Davies; vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 163-74.

56 See also J. David Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 2; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001) 83-89, 101—4, 140—41 and passim.

57 See Baentsch, Exodus-Leviticus-Numeri, 492; also Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 103; from a different point of view, Alexandser Rofé, Introduction to Deuteronomy: Part I and Further Chapters (expanded ed.; Jerusalem: Academon, 1988) 14—18, at 17 [Hebrew].

The conjunction “or” can often serve as a hook by which to add material into an existing text (examples and discussion in Fishbane, ibid., 170-72), but this does mean that it must do so in every casuistic law; the prime impetus for arguing as much in this case ultimately comes from the imbalance created by the story, which throws all its weight behind the issue of impurity.

58 In addition to the unique form of this clause, which otherwise appears only as “for your/their descendants” (), note its absence in the similar casuistic laws in the parallel pericopes in Lev 24:10-23, Num 27:1-11, and 36:8-9. The fact that, as opposed to Lev 24:10-23, Num 27:1-11, and 36:1-13 (also Num 15:32-36), the passage in Num 9:1-14 does not have a mediating section in which God responds first to the actual case, then reformulates and elaborates for posterity, may exacerbate the way the legal section jars with the narrative. On the history of the term, see Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Survey of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel: A New Approach to an Old Problem (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982) 98-101.

59 Literary-critical analysis, moreover, indicates that the story represents a secondarily prepared frame intended to incorporate the law into the the larger Priestly work; see above, n. 9.

60 See Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

61 See especially Rofé, Introduction to Deuteronomy, 14—18.

62 Subsequently, the passage in vv. 13-19 extended this allowance to the temple city as well.

63 According to Moshe Weinfeld, the dispensation in vv. 24—26 applies to the firstborn animals mentioned alongside the tithed produce in v. 23 (Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School [1972; repr., Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1992] 215). In this case a contradiction emerges with 15:19-23, which requires one annually to bring to the temple all the male firstborn animals. August Knobel interpreted the provision in vv. 24—26 to apply only to the tithed produce and not to the firstborn animals (Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua [KEHAT; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1861] 264—65); likewise, August Dillmann dismissed the presence of the firstborn animals in v. 23 as a tangent mentioned along with the tithe in passing because of their similarity or because they were brought to the temple at the same time (Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua [2d ed.; KEHAT; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1886] 304-5).

64 On the development of the cities of asylum, see Alexander Rofé, “The History of the Cities of Refuge in Biblical Law,” in Studies in Bible (ed. S. Japhet; Scripta Hierosolymitana 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986) 205-39, repr., idem, Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation, 121—47.

65 Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (3rd ed.; ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1902; repr., 1960) 181-85.

66 Regarding vv. 20-21, see Knobel, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 268; Dillmann, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 310. The connection made here between centralization and the blemish law in vv. 21-22 seems to have escaped scholarship.

67 Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 233-36.

68 On temple support of the local poor, see Marty E. Stevens, Temples, Tithes and Taxes: The Temple and the Economic Life of Ancient Israel (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 2006) 131—22, 167-71. In the phrase “with all the desire of his soul” () in 18:6, Menahem Haran hears the Deuteronomic law's recognition of the difficult disconnection suffered by a Levite who leaves hearth and home to join the temple priests (Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School [2d ed.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1985; repr., 1995] 61-62, esp. 62 n. 6).

69 Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 58-60. The prayer may very well have undergone a corresponding transformation from communal hymn to individual declaration.

70 Milgrom, Leviticus, 3:1981-2011, esp. 1986-87, 1991-96, 2006-7, 2009. Note that in his opinion, this change actually took place before centralization, since even a trip to a regional temple would take too much time at such an important moment in the agricultural cycle. But, in that case, one must explain how the rite ever successfully established itself at that critical period in the first place. Here, too, it seems preferable to imagine a change having taken place, one that made the rite that much more difficult to maintain, namely, centralization.

71 See Jeffrey Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1996) 155.

72 Levinson argues that the law commands the pilgrim to return home after the first day of the Passover and observe there the unleavened bread laws (Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation, 53-57). For a strong critique and an alternate reading of the text, see Shimon Bar-On (hereinafter: Gesundheit), Festival Legislation in the Torah: A Literary-Historical Analysis of Exod 12:1-20, 21-28; 23:14-19; 34:18-26; Deut 16:1-8 (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 1999) 144—240 [Hebrew]; translated and abbreviated in “Der deuteronomische Festkalendar,” in Das Deuteronomium (ed. G. Braulik; OBS 23; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003) 57-68.

73 Shmuel Safrai, “The Pilgrimage Commandment,” in The Pilgrimage in Second Temple Times: An Historical Monograph (Tel Aviv: Am Hasefer, 1965) 24—41 [Hebrew]; repr. with addenda in In the Days of the Temple and in the Days of the Mishnah: Studies in the History of Israel (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994) 1:43-60 [Hebrew]. Consistent with the centralization framework posited here, Safrai's survey turns up that the Babylonian Talmud reverts to the straightforward meaning of the Pentateuchal pilgrimage passages; since the Babylonian amor aim lived without any temple whatsoever, they had no motive or determinative realia pushing them to interpret otherwise.

74 See, for example, m. Pesah. 9:2; Sipre §69. According to an amazing anecdote in b. Pesah. 70b, one sage went south before the onset of Passover in order to escape the obligation to perform it.

75 Safrai, In the Days of the Temple and in the Days of the Mishnah, 1:57.

76 It would appear that pilgrimage enjoyed something of an upsurge in Hasmonean and especially Herodian times. See Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome A.D. 66-70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 50-58; “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” in Jerusalem—Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (ed. L. I. Levine; New York: Continuum, 1999) 69-76; Seth Schwartz, “Herod, Friend of the Jews,” in Jerusalem and Eretz Israel: Arie Kindler Volume (ed. J. Schwartz et al.; Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 2000) 67-76; idem, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 40-62, 94-95.

77 The translations in this paragraph are mine.

78 If the variant was created by the translator, it would reflect the needs of the Alexandrian community itself, at least rhetorically and ideologically, since in practice an annual Passover pilgrimage would seem be even more distant than for those living within Yehud. The variant more likely reflects a Hebrew text:

79 See Dillmann, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 46.

80 See Knobel, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 38.

81 On the unpredictable end of the rainy season, see Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, 2:15; on weather conditions as a factor in the extent of any given year's Passover pilgrimage, see in general terms Feliks, Agriculture in Eretz-Israel, 186-87; in specific terms, Milgrom, Leviticus, 3:1999-2001. On the many and varied challenges besetting the farmer during harvest season, see David C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age (Sheffield: Almond, 1985) 223-27; Feliks, Agriculture in Eretz-Israel, 186-88, 194.

82 B. Zuckermann, “Materialen zur Entwicklung der altjudischen Zeitreichnung im Talmud,” Jahersbericht des jüdisch-theologisches Seminar in Breslau (1882) 39; Elias J. Bickerman, “Calendars and Chronology,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, 1:60-69, at 65.

83 Contrast Rofé, who remarked on the relationship between the law of the Second Passover and Deuteronomy with regard to the concern for proximity but presumed Deuteronomy to have influenced the Priestly law, perhaps to the degree that it led to the interpolation of proximity into it (Introduction to Deuteronomy, 17). Closer to the suggestion made here, Baruch Levine sees centralization behind the law of the Second Passover, but he too argues for Deuteronomic literary influence on Num 9:1-14 (Numbers 1-20 [AB; New York: Doubleday, 1993] 293). However, literary-critical analysis of the passage reveals no Deuteronomic signs whatsoever, the text having been minted purely in the Priestly coin.

84 See, for example, Knobel, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 38; Markus P. Zehnder, Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament. Eine semantische Untersuchung der alttestamentlichen und altorientalischen Weg-Lexeme mit besonderer Berücksichtigung inhrer metaphorischen Verwendung (BZAW 268; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999) 312-15, esp. 312. Compare biblical idiom in Prov 31:14, , and Prov 7:19, , or even the expression in Deut 29:21; Josh 9:6, 9; 1 Kgs 8:41; 2 Kgs 20:14; 2 Chr 6:36. For a briefer semantic study of , but without specific reference to Numbers 9, see Semantics of Ancient Hebrew (ed. T. Muraoka, ed.; Abr-Nahrain Supp. 6; Peeters: Louvain, 1998) 11-37.

85 Compare, for example, Exod 13:17; Deut 30:11-14.

86 See m. Pesah. 9:2; Sipre §69; b. Pesah. 70b.

87 See vv. 13 and 7, respectively. On various grounds it appears that in the original form of v. 7, the plaintiffs argued, (“Why should we be cut off from among the Israelites?”). So already Abraham Kahana, The Book of Numbers (1914; repr., Jerusalem: Makor, 1969) 28 [Hebrew]. Original becomes current in one of three possible scenarios: a) text-critical error due to graphical similarity (on interchanges, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992] 247—48); b) a copyist's stylistic change due to the interpolation of , making the verse's final clause qualify not the now distant verb but rather the closer verb ; c) an editor's attempt to highlight the significance of all Israel performing the Passover together. In the first two scenarios, the interpolated clause, , could have entered the text at the wrong place, in the middle of the sentence rather than at its end as originally imagined. In the third scenario, it reflects the original intention of the interpolator. Relatedly, on the basis of several considerations, it appears that v. 13 originally concluded with .

88 This point holds for the current form of Deut 16:1-8. If vv. 1, 3, 4, 6b, and 8 comprise a series of additions, as convincingly argued by Gesundheit (above, n. 73), the possibility exists that originally D did not hold as rigid a view of the Passover date and one of the goals of the editors consisted of providing just such a delimitation of the date.

89 Surely the law in Exod 22:30 does not command one who chances upon a carcass out in the field to pick it up, carry it somewhere, and there toss it to the dogs. Rather, the expression means “you shall abandon it to the dogs” or “you shall leave it for the dogs.” For other instances where means “expose, abandon, leave untouched,” see Gen 21:15; 37:20 (as opposed to vv. 22, 24 there); Isa 2:20-21; 34:3; also 1 Kgs 13:24, 25, 28; Jer 14:16; 36:30; Dan 8:11, several of which were already discussed in Morton Cogan, “A Technical Term for Exposure,” JNES 27 (1968) 133-35. On the phenomenon of the semantic extension of verbs from the action itself to the result of that action, see Edward L. Greenstein, “Trans-Semitic Idiomatic Equivalency and the Derivation of Hebrew ml'kh,” UF 11 (1979) 329-36, esp. 335. Incidentally, according to Koehler and Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 2:1527, the identification of the root as the Š pattern of goes back to C. J. Labuschagne in 1971. In fact, Naftali Tur-Sinai had already made the suggestion twenty years earlier, in 1952; see Eliezer Ben Yehuda, A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew (ed. H. Ben Yehuda, M. Z. Segal and N. H. Tur-Sinai; 17 vols.; Tel Aviv: La'am Publishing House, 1948-1959) 14:7167 n. 2 [Hebrew].

90 The Priestly law allows the average Israelite to eat carrion but requires proper treatment of the resulting impurity (Lev 11:39—40; 17:15). Priests, by contrast, may not contract impurity by eating meat of an animal that did not undergo ritual slaughter (22:8). It remains unclear whether this position reflects centralization or a different conception altogether. See, for instance, the discussion in Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 225-32.

91 Note how the motive clause about the people's holiness in Exod 22:30 now frames an entire series of dietary and other laws shorn of the original cultic value in Deut 14:1-21.

92 For the argument that the section begins in 11:31 and not in 12:1, see Alexander Rofé, Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation (London: T&T Clark, 2002) 97-99.

53 On some of the broader implications of centralization for sacrality, see Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 225—43.

54 See m. Pesah. 7:4, 6 and 9:4; Sipre §§65, 70; and the many discussions in b. Pesah. 69a-b, 77a-80b.

55 In this context see also lines 4—5 of the Aramaic “Passover Papyrus” from Elephantine: “And from the fifteenth day to the twenty-first day… . Be scrupulously pure.” For the text see James M. Lindenberger, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters (2d ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 61-63, 65-67; for a reconstruction of its historical context, see Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 278-82.

96 The theory advanced here does not depend on the broader question as to whether the Priestly literature in the Pentateuch presumes (an ideology of) centralization. (For some classic statements, see, on one side, Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel [trans. J. S. Black and A. Menzies; 2d ed.; Edinburgh: Black, 1885]; Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, esp. 132-48, 189-204, 289-348; on the other, Yehezkel Kaufmann, The History of the Israelite Religion [4 vols.; Jerusalem: Bialik, 1937-1957] 1:113—42 [Hebrew]; trans. and abridg. M. Greenberg, The Religion of Israel from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile [New York: Schocken Books, 1960; repr., 1974] 175-89; Milgrom, Leviticus, 2:1503-14.) Two factors limit the relevance of this overarching question to the interpretation of Num 9:1-14. First of all, the profoundly ambiguous nature of the Priestly Passover texts in the Pentateuch—1) two notoriously cryptic calendar entries in Lev 23:5 and Num 28:16 offer no more of a hint as to its character than the brief formulation , which recalls typical sacrificial terminology; 2) the domestic form detailed in Exod 12:1-11, 22 said in vv. 24—25 to endure for generations but destined in vv. 14—20 to transform into a seven-day “festival” connoting a temple pilgrimage; 3) and the seemingly domestic setting envisioned in the land in Exod 12:46—sets the Passover apart as outside whatever framework the Priestly texts have otherwise established for the sacrificial cult, if these texts do not themselves actually debate precisely this point. Secondly, scholars have routinely identified the passage in Num 9:1-14 itself as secondary within the Priestly text (for instance, Carl Steuernagel, Lehrbuch des Einleitung in das Alte Testament [Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1912] 161 §40, 5d), which allows it its own independent set of presupposed circumstances, as reconstructed here.

97 The argument does not treat, depend upon, or affect the question as to whether, in the wake of the centralization of sacrifice, the people kept no Passover whatsoever or, despite centralization, kept the Passover at home, presumably continuing something akin to whatever it is that Exodus 1, attests. Suffice it here to survey briefly the meager evidence for a domestic Passover—essentially Exodus 12, which, moreover, may have conjured up a domestic Passover for historiosophical reasons (see August Knobel, Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus [KEHAT; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1857] 92-93; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 102; Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 347—48; but compare Gesundheit, Festival Legislation in the Torah, ch. 2).

It would go too far beyond the available evidence to draw any conclusions from the Passover Papyrus (see above, n. 95). The existing text contains neither the word Passover nor any description of an associated rite, the weight in the text falling substantially on the technical details relating to leavened foods during the period of the fifteenth to the twenty-first days of the month (compare lines 4 and 5-9). Indeed, the very scheme of the fourteenth day of the month, on the one hand, and the fifteenth to the twenty-first, on the other, that presumably emerges from lines 4—9 and which could suggest some independent content specific to the fourteenth, does not in fact hold up under scrutiny. In lines 4—5, all that remains of the relatively small amount of space originally dedicated to the fourteenth—less than a single line—specifies only that one count fourteen days. Taken together with the calendrical framework explicitly defined in line 8 as “from sundown [sic!] until the twenty-first,” the counting of fourteen days looks like nothing more than a run-up to the evening at the end of the fourteenth and the prohibition against leaven that begins then, exactly like the counting of forty-nine days that leads up to the Pentecost on the fiftieth in Lev 23:14—15. Precisely such a calendrical rubric, defined by the same emphasis on leavened foodstuffs, appears in Exod 12:18-20 and (with slight differences in the specific date) in Ezek 45:21. (In this direction, see the relevant comments in Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 7, 9-10, 221-24; Lindenberger, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, 61-62; on Exod 12:18-20, see the instructive analysis in Gesundheit, Festival Legislation in the Torah, 73-143, translated and compressed in idem, “Zur literarkritischen Analyse von Ex 12,21-27,” ZAW 107 [1995] 18-30, at 25-26). Significantly, the papyrus comes from Elephantine, where in any case centralization did not have the strongest of holds for the Jews there maintained their own temple.

Likewise, no evidence can be gleaned from the ca. 500 b.c.e. ostracon that says, “Tell me when you will be doing the Passover” (on which reading see E. L. Sukenik and Y. Kutscher, “A Passover Ostracon from Elephantine,” Qedem 1 [1942] 53-56, at 55-56 [Hebrew]; Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 8; Lindenberger, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, 48). The text gives no indication of any rite performed on the Passover and could refer to the same week of prohibited leaven.

Yet another fifth century B.c.E. ostracon (for the text of which see A. Dupont-Sommer, “Sur la fête de la Pâque dans les documents araméens d'Eléphantine,” REJ 7 [1947] 39-51, at 45; Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 8) seems to link the term Passover with inspecting vessels. The rabbis use just such a nomenclature; see, for instance, m. Pesah. 2:2—4; 3:1.

Again, in the absence of other evidence, the vehement tone with which the later Book of Jubilees stresses the temple provenance of the Passover in 49:9-21 does not warrant inferring a live polemic against a domestic Passover (for the text, see R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees, or the Little Genesis [London: Black, 1902] 256-57; J. C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees [Louvain: Peeters, 1989] 317-24). Qumran writings do not reflect any awareness of such a practice; the Temple Scroll, for that matter, a sectarian document, explicitly locates the Passover in the temple courts (col. XVII lines 7-9; Elisha Qimron, The Temple Scroll: A Critical Edition with Extensive Reconstructions [Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1996] 27). Rabbinic literature, too, seems ignorant of a domestic Passover; see, for instance, m. Pesah. 4:4; 5-9.

Finally, Num 9:1-14 itself betrays no signs of having been formulated against Exod 12:1-24; to the contrary, its terms and conditions, in the law as well as in the narrative, consistently target one who fails to bring the Passover altogether, not one who does so away from the tabernacle/temple, “in the open” (Lev 17:5).

98 Noted in Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 90.