For me, the most striking use of the death wish in the Hebrew Bible is the death wish as negotiation strategy, and thus I start with it. These death wishes are found in the Pentateuch, where they are uttered by Rebecca, Rachel, and Moses.Footnote 1 They function as deliberate strategies employed by the person with less power in an unequal relationship. Sometimes the inequality is gendered, as when Rebecca and Rachel speak up against their husbands.Footnote 2 At other times, there is a divine–human power differential, as with Moses’s two death wishes, which are voiced in dialogues with YHWH. Although Rebecca, Rachel, and Moses all utter death wishes, I will argue that they have no real desire to die. Rather, they use the language of the death wish as a means to achieve specific goals. The weaker party is the one who utters the death wish, setting the stakes and taking a substantial risk by bargaining with their life. Because of the power differential between petitioner and addressee, a death wish can thus function as an act of empowerment, as we will see in the following.
A close reading of two prominent examples will illustrate how the death wish as negotiation strategy functions in its literary setting and in the conversation between characters. The first example is the story of Rachel in Gen 30. Rachel threatens her husband, Jacob, with her own death if she does not have sons. The second example comes from the story of Moses, who argues with YHWH repeatedly in the Pentateuch. In two of these arguments (Exod 32 and Num 11), Moses plays the highest card in the deck—the death card—to add force to his argumentation. We will look at how Moses does this in Num 11.
A common characteristic of the death wishes that function as negotiation strategies is that they all occur in conditional sentences, following the pattern, “If x … then y … ,” as in our earlier example, “If we are not there soon, I will die,” spoken by the eight-year-old in the back seat of the car.Footnote 3 “If [you do] not [give me sons], I will die,” Rachel says to Jacob in Gen 30:1.Footnote 4 Following my definition, both these utterances, one from a boy on a mundane car trip to visit relatives, the other from a biblical matriarch, are examples of a death wish (see Table 2.1). They are also conditional clauses. In both examples, we are presented with a condition or a wish, the protasis, the if or if not statement. Both examples also understand death to be the consequence, the apodosis, if the condition is not fulfilled: “I will die.”Footnote 5
In English, conditional sentences are usually identified by the opening conjunction if.Footnote 6 Hebrew generally marks conditional sentences with an opening word as well. Conditional sentences introduced by אִם or כִּי are usually understood as real, fulfilled, or fulfillable conditions. Those introduced by לוּ (neg. לוּלֵי) are unreal, contrary to fact, and unfulfillable conditions.Footnote 7 In other words, “there are two classes of conditionals, depending on whether the condition is real (whether fulfilled in the past or still capable of being fulfilled) or irreal (whether contrary to the facts of a previous situation or incapable of fulfillment).”Footnote 8 Rebecca, Rachel, and Moses’s death wishes are all introduced with אִם.Footnote 9 They are real, fulfillable, conditional sentences, and thus they are powerful in a negotiation situation.
Table 2.2 provides an overview of death wishes used as part of a negotiation strategy in the Hebrew Bible.
| Text | Quotative frame | Protasis | Apodosis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gen 27:46 | “Then Rebecca said to Isaac, ‘I am tired of my life because of the Hittite women. | If Jacob takes a wife from among the Hittite women, such as these, from the daughters of the land, | what will my life be to me?’” |
| Gen 30:1 | “When Rachel saw that she did not bear [any children] for Jacob, Rachel was jealous of her sister, and she said to Jacob: | ‘Give me sons; if not, | I will die!’” |
| Exod 32:32 | “So Moses returned to YHWH and said: (Exod 32:31) | ‘But now, if you will forgive their sin | —1 |
| ‘but if not, | wipe me out of the book that you have written.’” | ||
| Num 11:15 | “And Moses said to YHWH: (Num 11:11) | ‘If this is the way you are going to treat me, | then kill me now.’” |
| ‘If I have found favor in your sight, | do not let me look upon your evilness.’” |
1 An apodosis is lacking here but, as Joüon writes, it is “understood.” Paul Joüon, §167r.
With this overview in mind, we can now take a closer look at the example in Gen 30.
Rachel: “Give Me Sons; If Not, I Will Die!”
Rebecca and Rachel are the only women in the Hebrew Bible who utter death wishes. Both of them do so in dialogues with their husbands. In the following, we will look closely at Rachel’s death wish, in which she threatens her own death if she does not have sons (Gen 30:1). Barrenness and the struggle for children are well-known themes in the Hebrew Bible and reflect the importance of children and childbearing in ancient Israel.Footnote 10 In Genesis, all the matriarchs are portrayed as experiencing periods of infertility and yearning to become pregnant; in the larger context of the Hebrew Bible we also find similar stories about Hannah and the mother of Samson.Footnote 11 The focus here is not infertility as such, but rather how to understand Rachel’s demand to Jacob when she has not borne any children.Footnote 12 There is no uncertainty about what Rachel wants. She wants children, and more specifically, in the context of the patriarchal values of the time, she wants sons.Footnote 13 If she does not have sons, so Rachel claims, she will die. But what does this mean? What are the consequences if she does not have a son? Does Rachel literally want to die if her wish is not fulfilled? In other words, is this a real death wish? As we know, Rachel dies not from not having children but rather from giving birth to her second son: “But as her breath left her—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni” (Gen 35:18).
Scholars have proposed several interpretations of Rachel’s death wish, as we will see in the coming section on her rhetorical strategy and death wish. But before discussing these proposals, I will first argue that Rachel’s death wish functions as part of a careful negotiation strategy. In Rachel’s case, it is a strategy to get a son.Footnote 14 The death wish is the first of several steps that Rachel takes to achieve her goal, and her strategy serves as a means of her own empowerment. In addition, she wants a son for her own sake, not for Jacob’s. Finally, Rachel achieves her goal as a result of her negotiation and strategies (though with the help of God).
The Narrative: Delimitation and Structure
“When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren” (Gen 29:31). This verse (here in NRSV translation since I will discuss my own translation below) serves as the exposition of our narrative and presents two problems: Leah is unloved (שׂנואה),Footnote 15 and Rachel is barren (עקרה).Footnote 16 These problems lead to the sisters’ respective struggles, played out in the narrative, and also to jealousy.Footnote 17 Rachel’s problem, her barrenness, will be our main concern here, since Rachel is the one who utters the death wish. The problem finds a temporary solution when Bilhah, Rachel’s enslaved woman, bears a son (30:5),Footnote 18 but it is only fully resolved when Rachel herself gives birth (30:22–23). After Rachel gives birth, the focus of the narrative changes from Leah and Rachel to Jacob and Laban (30:25);Footnote 19 this shift in focus marks the common delimitation of our narrative as Gen 29:31–30:24.Footnote 20
The narrative is best divided into four scenes, with Rachel appearing in all of them. Scene 1 presents Rachel’s problem (29:31). Scenes 2 and 3 are attempts to find a solution to this problem (30:3, 15), but the problem is only solved in scene 4 (30:22–23). Other observations also support this division. Scenes 1–3 open with the statement “when he/she saw” (29:31; 30:1, 9).Footnote 21 In each of these scenes, the seeing leads to action and the action leads to fertility (29:32–33; 30:5, 8; 30:10, 12). Each scene also includes the naming of one or more children (29:32–35; 30:6, 8; 30:11, 13; 30:18, 20–21, 24). These repetitions create a symmetry, which Walsh refers to as forwarded symmetry, a phrase that suggests progression.Footnote 22 In the fourth and last scene, God remembers Rachel and hears her (30:22). This remembering and hearing also lead to action and to fertility (30:22).Footnote 23 In the first and last scene, fertility is achieved through divine intervention: YHWH/God opens the womb in 29:31–32 and 30:20–21. In the two middle scenes, Rachel’s and Leah’s own actions lead to fertility when the women give their enslaved women to Jacob and have children through them (30:3–4, 9) (see Table 2.3).
These observations suggest the structure presented in Table 2.4.
Two Sisters and Their Characterizations
Rachel’s demand, or in my terminology, her death wish, is introduced with the quotative frame, “When Rachel saw that she did not bear [any children] for Jacob, Rachel was jealous of her sister, and she said to Jacob” (Gen 30:1). This frame has two functions in the narrative.Footnote 24 It introduces Rachel’s speech, which is the frame’s primary purpose, but it also provides the context for Rachel’s request in the larger narrative, in which Jacob was deceived by his father-in-law and ended up marrying both Leah and Rachel, although he loved Rachel more than Leah (Gen 29:30). As a result, the narrator reports, “When YHWH saw that Leah was … , he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren” (29:31). What is it that YHWH sees? The Hebrew word שׂנואה in Gen 29:31 is rendered “unloved” in most English Bible translations.Footnote 25 The DCH also gives the meaning “be hated, i.e. unloved” for our text,Footnote 26 and hate is a common translation of שׂנא in other contexts. The close context of our verse does not support either of these translations, however. Genesis 29:30 says that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, which would imply that he also loved Leah. Several scholars, as epitomized by John Skinner, see שׂנואה in Gen 29:31 as “almost a technical term referring to the less favored of two wives (Deut 21:15ff.).”Footnote 27 Nahum M. Sarna writes: “The term has sociolegal implications in addition to its emotional dimension. It expresses not ‘hated’ as opposed to ‘beloved’ so much as relative degree of preference.”Footnote 28 This understanding can also be found in HALOT, where our case is understood as follows: “a woman who has been scorned, decreased in status.”Footnote 29 Chaim Stern translates שׂנואה as “disfavored,” a translation that makes good sense in Gen 29:31 and again in 29:33: “She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Because the Lord has heard that I am disfavored, he has given me this son also.’”Footnote 30 Based on these observations, I prefer the translation “disfavored” in both verses. The narrator characterizes Leah as disfavored, not unloved. This problem does not find a solution in the narrative.
Whereas Leah is disfavored, Rachel is characterized as עקרה. In this case the translation is not problematic: עקרה means “barren” or “infertile.” What is important here is how barrenness was conceptualized in ancient Israel and in our text.Footnote 31 Joel Baden and Candida Moss argue convincingly that in the ancient Near East the notion of infertility was based not on a biological or medical condition, as today, but rather on social experience: the experience of not conceiving and having a child.Footnote 32 They also argue that infertility was seen as a female condition.Footnote 33 I share both of these assumptions in my reading. Infertility is experiential in Gen 30:1, which says, “When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children.” The experience of barrenness also included the feeling of shame and of being an outcast.Footnote 34 Again, we see this in our text,Footnote 35 when Rachel says, “God has taken away my disgrace” (Gen 30:23). Moss and Baden argue, though, that one is not necessarily responsible for one’s bareness: “Infertility can befall even those who are divinely designated as righteous and worthy… . These five women [the matriarchs] are blameless. They also happen to be infertile.”Footnote 36
Rachel’s Rhetorical Strategy and Death Wish
“Give me sons; if not, I will die!” (Gen 30:1) Rachel’s death wish is formulated in the imperative and set forth in a conditional sentence.Footnote 37 Rachel wants children—or, as specified in the above quote, she wants sons. This is the condition set forth. If she does not have sons, then she will die.Footnote 38 That is the consequence she foresees. “If not x, then y.” Robert Alter notes, “It is a general principle of biblical narrative that a character’s first recorded speech has particular force as characterization. Surprisingly, although Rachel has been part of the story for more than a decade of narrated time, this is the first piece of dialogue assigned to her.”Footnote 39 In addition to providing important characterization, as Alter points out, Rachel’s first speech here is just that: it is the first time she speaks. She continues speaking throughout the episode, where she has the leading voice. If she did not speak earlier, she is making up for it now.Footnote 40 Whereas Jacob speaks only once and then only in response to Rachel, and Leah speaks twice, including once in response to Rachel, Rachel is given four direct speeches in the narrative.Footnote 41 First, she utters her demand to Jacob, “Give me sons!” (30:1). She speaks again when she gives Bilhah to Jacob: “Look, here is my enslaved woman” (30:3). Both her third and her fourth speeches are directed to Leah: “Please give to me some of your son’s mandrakes” (30:14) and “Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes” (30:15). Every instance of Rachel’s speech centers on the quest for fertility. Some scholars have suggested that Rachel also prays in this narrative, which would mean that she spoke a fifth time (see Table 2.5).Footnote 42
The narrative does not include a prayer, nor does the narrator state explicitly that Rachel prayed.Footnote 43 However, elsewhere the narrator seems to imply that Rachel prays. When she names Dan, she says, “God has judged me, and he has also heard my voice and given me a son” (30:6). Later in the narrative, the narrator says that God heard Rachel: “Now God heard her and he opened her womb”Footnote 44 (30:22). A similar statement appears in Gen 30:17 about Leah: “And God heard Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.” These are seen as examples of how God responds with actions to the characters’ verbal requests. There is an alternative way of reading these reports, though, which I find more compelling: in the case of both Rachel and Leah, God might have heard what had been said between the characters. We find a similar notion of eavesdropping in the narratives of Hagar and Ishmael (Gen 21:17) and the Israelites (Exod 2:24). I will return to the significance of eavesdropping later in the section “Did Rachel Succeed?”
It is clear from these observations that Rachel’s speech is the driving force in the narrative. She is the one who initiates speech, and her speech sets in motion everything that follows. And as noted, every instance of her speech is part of her quest for fertility.
Rachel’s first speech is key to understanding the purpose and outcome of the death wish, and is thus the focus of our investigation. The quotative frame of the first speech provides the motivation for Rachel’s demand: Rachel is not bearing children. She wants sons because she does not have any, and the wish is intensified by her jealousy of her sister, who is bearing.Footnote 45 I differ here from Yair Zakovitch, who argues that neither Rachel nor Leah wants children for the children’s own sake; rather, he argues, the children are (only) a means in the fight between the sisters. Concerning Rachel, Zakovitch writes: “Notice that it doesn’t say, ‘that she hadn’t borne children,’ but ‘that she hadn’t borne to Jacob,’ emphasizing how it was not a longing for motherhood that propelled her actions, but something else.”Footnote 46 That “something else” is for Zakovitch the jealousy toward her sister.Footnote 47 But the formulation “to Jacob” (Gen 30:1) is not surprising when we look at the ancestor narrative as a whole. God made the covenant with the fathers; the fathers are the ones who received promises of a people.Footnote 48 The children in the ancestor story are seen as a fulfillment of this covenant and are born to their fathers. The only exception to this is Hagar, who receives her own promise of a son and a people (Gen 16:10–11), but she is also said to bear a son “to Abram” (Gen 16:15).Footnote 49 Also, given the patriarchal context these texts were written in, the formulation should be expected. Children are generally seen as belonging to their fathers. The reference of a son being born “to Jacob” occurs in Gen 30:5 and 7 when Bilhah gives birth, in 30:10 and 12 when Zilpah gives birth,Footnote 50 and in Gen 30:17 and 19 when Leah gives birth. The formulation is not used when Leah gives birth in Gen 29:32, 33, 34, and 35, but it is used in v. 34 (“I have borne him three sons”) and in Gen 30:20 (“I have borne to him”) to summarize the outcome of her childbearing, so the norm still seems to be to emphasize the birth of a child to the father.Footnote 51 With this background in mind, it is therefore actually more surprising and thus significant for our understanding that the formulation is not used when Rachel gives birth (30:23).
Even though jealousy intensifies the desire for sons, I see Rachel’s demand as a wish from a woman who wants sons for her own sake. But what triggers this desire? Laurel Koepf-Taylor emphasizes how the emotional need for children is primarily a twentieth-century construction, whereas children in premodern times were mainly seen as fulfilling an economic need.Footnote 52 She makes a valid and necessary point in cautioning against anachronistic readings of the narratives about barren mothers in the Bible, where infertility is seen strictly emotionally. This said, however, we cannot understand Rachel’s desire for sons as primarily based in an economic need or a desire to add to her husband’s wealth.Footnote 53 Jacob already has children with Leah (Gen 29:32–35), and Rachel’s status as wife is not threatened; she is loved and is Jacob’s preferred wife (Gen 29:18, 30). Rachel wants a son because she desires one. Throughout the narrative Rachel underlines her own desire for sons. Rachel is quoted as saying, “Give me [לי] sons” (v. 1), “so I too might be built up” (i.e., that she will have children through her enslaved woman; v. 3), “he has given me [לי] a son” (v. 6), and finally, when she does give birth to a son, “may YHWH give me [לי] another son” (v. 24). Rachel Havrelock concludes: “Rachel emphasizes her personal need for children through first person pronouns … . [S]he is concerned with her vitality and her own lineage.”Footnote 54 Lineage is important in the Hebrew Bible, and this narrative is built around the genealogy of Jacob’s children. Maybe Rachel needs a son in order to be a successful part of the lineage, the longer chain (in the larger picture, not just this story). Robert Alter claims that Rachel’s demand shows “a Rachel who is impatient, impulsive, explosive,”Footnote 55 and he even refers to her demand as “rather hysterical in tone.”Footnote 56 There is nothing in the quotative frame to support these evaluations of Rachel’s character or her speech, however; nor does the storyline, with her careful maneuvering to get a child, paint a picture of an impatient or hysterical character—rather, it does the opposite.Footnote 57
Leaving Rachel aside for a moment, we might ask if it matters to Jacob whether Rachel has children. In this patriarchal culture, what would it mean to Jacob if Rachel never bore sons? Does he stand to lose something? This is not an easy question to answer, as the narrative does not address it. As mentioned above, Jacob already has children with Leah, so his future is not threatened by Rachel’s barrenness.Footnote 58 But we learn later in the narrative that Jacob loves Joseph more than any other of his children (Gen 37:3–4). The narrator says this is because Joseph was the son of Jacob’s old age, but we might suspect that it is also because he is the son of Jacob’s preferred wife. Thus, even if Jacob does not stand to lose anything if Rachel does not give birth, the sons that she does bear are most dear to him.
Returning to Rachel, the fact that she wants sons for her own sake does not answer our opening question: What is the consequence for her if she does not have children? What does “I will die” mean? Is her life not worth living without children, so that she would want to die? This is Zakovitch’s conclusion: “without sons her life is not worth living,”Footnote 59 a reading more in line with the idea of social death. If Rachel does not have children, she does not fulfill her role as a woman and has no future. This is how Claus Westermann reads our text: “It is the suffering of the childless wife, of which we hear so much in the Old Testament … that cries out in Rachel’s demand … . It was a pain unto death (cf. Gen 25:22; 27:17), the childless wife had no future—such is the despair voiced in this outburst.”Footnote 60 Her future does not seem to be threatened, for she is, as we have already seen, the favorite wife. A third possibility is that death here means that Rachel’s story will never be told. As Rachel Havrelock argues, “Rachel equates her inability to give birth with death, implying that her story will never be told if not condensed in the name of a child; ironically, she will eventually die giving birth to her second child (35:18) …. Rachel speaks to the threat of her negation should she not reproduce.”Footnote 61 Seen in the context of a narrative in which the giving of names is so important and the names tell the mothers’ stories, this reading makes good sense. Again, the lineage and Rachel’s role in it seems to be important. The threat of her negation also reaches beyond her current life. Moss and Baden argue that “these children are desired … for the safety of the mother’s social position and for the continuity of her name; for her status, now and in the afterlife.”Footnote 62
Rachel addresses her death wish, her demand, to Jacob. “Perceiving the limits of her own authority, she turns to a person with immediate authority over her—her husband Jacob.”Footnote 63 As noted above, it is the “weaker” party who utters the death wish and sets the stakes; they take the risk of bargaining with their life.Footnote 64 In the ancient Near East, the woman would be the one with less (at least formal) power in a marriage, and obviously Rachel cannot have children by herself but needs the assistance of her husband, as is apparent when she says “Give me sons” (30:1). In light of this formal power discrepancy, it is interesting to see that Rachel and Leah, the women, are the ones with active power in this story; they are the ones who run the show both for their enslaved women and for their husband. Jacob only speaks and acts on their initiative. Jacob responds to Rachel with words, and the quotative frame introducing his speech emphasizes his reaction: “Jacob became very angry with Rachel” (30:2). Jacob’s angry response leads Rachel to pursue other means to reach her goal. In the terminology of conversation analysis, her request is followed by refusal or dismissal, and it is clearly a dispreferred response. Rachel’s first attempt to have a son (through pregnancy) does not give her what she desires, but I agree with Havrelock, who argues, “[H]ad Rachel not spoken out, her journey would have had no beginning and no fulfillment.”Footnote 65
Ramban goes a step further than any of the readings mentioned above, claiming that not having children would lead to Rachel’s actual death: “and if not [if God did not grant her children] she would mortify herself because of grief” and “die of grief.”Footnote 66 He also understands Rachel to be “attempting to frighten him [Jacob] with her death.”Footnote 67 My own understanding comes closest to the last reading: Rachel is attempting to frighten Jacob with the threat of her death. “If you do not give me what I want, the consequence is that I will die!” This reading fits regardless of how we understand the threatened death. The demand is the first of several steps taken to achieve her goal.
Jacob replies, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (30:2). He clearly sees Rachel’s request as a request for pregnancyFootnote 68 and answers with the conventional biblical notion that God is in charge of the womb—only God can open (or close) a womb and thus provide children.Footnote 69 This might mean that Jacob is making a theological statement to explain to Rachel why he cannot help her, but it may also be understood as passing the buck or washing his hands of responsibility; why else would he reply in anger?Footnote 70
The first step, the first speech, is crucial for the journey, and the journey continues when Rachel speaks for a second time, “here is my enslaved woman” (30:3), and gives Bilhah to Jacob. This time Jacob responds with action, not words. He goes to Bilhah, and Rachel has a son through her (30:4–5); Rachel’s request is thus followed by acceptance.Footnote 71 As noted above, the birth of Dan provides a temporary solution to Rachel’s problem, and had her main goal been to provide a son for Jacob, it would have been a satisfactory solution. However, her struggle continues, a point that strengthens my argument that her desire includes something more than simply giving her husband a son.
Rachel speaks a third time, this time to Leah: “Please, give me some of your son’s mandrakes” (30:14). Leah responds with dismissive words: “Was it not enough for you to take my husband, that you would also take my son’s mandrakes?” (Gen 30:15). Rachel’s request is met with refusal, a dispreferred response. But Rachel does not give up. She speaks for a fourth time: “Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes” (30:15). This time Leah gives her the mandrakes. Rachel’s offer is accepted, but we learn about this first in the reported consequences and in Leah’s own speech to Jacob about the deal: “You must come in to me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes” (30:16).
Did Rachel Succeed?
Did Rachel succeed? Was her negotiation successful? As we know, she gives birth to Joseph at the end of our narrative (vv. 23–24) and later gives birth to Benjamin (Gen 35:17), but is this the result of her own efforts? There are two possible and very different readings of Rachel’s actions in this narrative. One reading understands all Rachel’s attempts as futile. She is seen as jealous, impulsive, and improper.Footnote 72 The only one who can give her children is God. Her request for the mandrakes is a sign of her lack of faith,Footnote 73 and her efforts to conceive a child are not seen as successful. In this reading, Rachel is seen as demanding that Jacob pray for her, and in the end she herself is seen praying to God.Footnote 74 It is when God hears her prayer and remembers her that she is given a son.
The other reading, which I hope I have contributed to here, sees Rachel’s sons as the results of her own efforts. Rachel’s efforts and God’s acts are not mutually exclusive. Rachel uses all of the strategies available to her, and, in the end, she succeeds.Footnote 75 “The mandrakes … do not cure Rachel’s barrenness, but they alert God to her desperation—and the lengths which she is willing to go in order to conceive.”Footnote 76 Rachel does not pray, but she gets sons from God because she tries everything in her power to get them.Footnote 77 The positive reading of Rachel’s speech strategies, suggested above, would have God eavesdropping on the conversations between characters, not responding to a particular prayer from Rachel. “Even for those who did not directly address God, it is God who relieves them of their infertility.”Footnote 78 Rachel’s death wish did not pay off directly, but it was a necessary first step to get a son: “had Rachel not spoken out, her journey would have had no beginning and no fulfillment.”Footnote 79
One question remains, though: To what extent is Rachel’s death ironic? As Havrelock observes, “Rachel equates her inability to give birth with death … ; ironically, she will eventually die giving birth to her second child (35:18).”Footnote 80 Several scholars have pointed out the irony in this: Rachel dies not from lack of sons, as she claimed she would, but from having her wish fulfilled.Footnote 81 Alter goes so far as to suggest that Rachel’s “rash words” in Gen 30:1 “are meant to foreshadow her premature death.”Footnote 82 I do find her death ironic, but I do not see causality implied by the narrator here. Rachel’s original either/or construction—either sons or death—is fulfilled, but it is transformed into a both/and construction—both sons and death.
Moses: “Kill Me Now”
“If this is the way you are going to treat me, then kill me now,” Moses says to YHWH in Num 11:15. “Kill me now!” The story goes like this: the Israelites have been wandering in the desert for forty years, after their deliverance from Egypt. The people are tired of eating manna, the bread from heaven. They long for the food they had in Egypt, and they cry out for meat. YHWH gets upset, Moses gets upset, and Moses starts complaining to YHWH about the burden the people have become to him. YHWH decides to take some of the spirit he had put on Moses and put it on the seventy elders instead, so that they can share the burden of leadership. YHWH also sends quails to serve as meat for the people, although in the end YHWH strikes the people with a plague. In the middle of all this, Moses utters a wish to be killed. The death wish is addressed to YHWH, but what is it that Moses wants when he asks to be killed? Samuel Balentine presents a typical reading of this text when he suggests Moses wants to escape: “If YHWH is to act in this manner, to bring evil on a faithful (and undeserving) servant, then Moses does not wish to live to witness it.”Footnote 83 As I see it, the point of the narrative is not that Moses would prefer to die so that he will no longer see what is going on. Rather, Moses’s death wish functions as part of his negotiation strategy in his dialogue with YHWH. Moses wants something from YHWH, and to achieve his goal, Moses builds up a rhetorical argumentation that ends in a condition. The outcome of posing this condition might be death—after all, he is bargaining with his life—but this is not the outcome that he seeks. Moses’s request to be killed constitutes a threat to the Israelites because the Israelites need Moses.Footnote 84 Moses’s request is also a threat to YHWH, because YHWH needs Moses as well. Moses is the one YHWH has chosen to lead the people, the one mediator between YHWH and the people. If Moses were to die, as he expresses a wish to do, then both the Israelites and YHWH would be in trouble. YHWH’s need for—or even dependence on—Moses is vital to understanding the function of Moses’s request and the power of his negotiation. To understand what Moses finds important enough to bargain with his life for, we need to determine what triggers the death wish in this narrative.
The Narrative and Its Sources
The literary context that the narrative of Moses’s death wish is part of is best delimited to Num 11:4–34, with v. 35, an itinerary formula, serving as a bridge connecting our narrative to the next one.Footnote 85 The exposition and opening problem of our narrative can be found in v. 4, which introduces a new topic: “The rabble who was in their midst had a strong craving; and the Israelites cried againFootnote 86 and said, ‘Who will give us meat to eat?’”Footnote 87 Verse 34 rounds out the narrative by telling us that the people who had the craving were buried. Both v. 4 and v. 34 use the Hebrew root אוה in the hithpael, which means “desire, crave.”Footnote 88 The place mentioned in v. 34, קברות התאוה (Kibroth-hattaava),Footnote 89 plays on the same root. In other words, vv. 4 and 34 form an inclusio and thus provide a strong argument for delimiting the narrative to vv. 4–34.
The narrative starts with the lack of meat and ends with YHWH sending the quails as meat for the people and as a punishment. This leaves us, as readers, with the impression that this narrative is primarily about meat, and it would seem likely that when Moses bargains with his life he does so on behalf of the people, in order to get meat for them. But Num 11:4–34, in all probability, was not originally one narrative. Source critics explain the growth and development of the text in different ways, but most argue that the narrative originally was two separate stories, one concerned with meat and the other with the burden of the people and thus with Moses’s leadership. The two stories are seen as deriving either from two literary sourcesFootnote 90 or from one source that has been updated and edited over time.Footnote 91 This is as far as the consensus goes—which verses belong to which narrative or source is disputed.
My reading of Num 11:3–34 will include both a narrative reading of the final form of the text and a source-critical reading.Footnote 92 These two approaches are often seen as mutually exclusive, or at least the approaches are not often combined. The reason for the combination here is first and foremost that neither of these methodological approaches manages on its own to explain the function of the death wish in this text.Footnote 93 A synchronic narrative reading does not take into account the different storylines, and thus can miss out on a significant reason for the death wish. In source-critical readings, the function of the death wishes easily falls off the radar, given that the aim of the method is identifying the different sources, not inquiring after the rhetorical function of the death wish. When we realize that our narrative is addressing two different problems in two separate storylines, new options for reading the text become available, and establishing the boundaries of the two storylines with some probability will help us to better understand Moses’s death wish. This is the main goal for the following discussion. I am not concerned here with which literary sources are involved or when they date from. I will also (as in other chapters) make observations about the dialogue based on conversation analysis.
One argument for claiming that our narrative originated as two different stories in two different sources is that the narrative deals, as we have seen, with two different subjects: a desire for meat and the burden of the people. Painted in broad strokes, the two storylines can be separated out as follows.Footnote 94 The meat story has its exposition in v. 4. The focus on food continues in vv. 5–9 and is picked up again in Moses’s direct question to YHWH in v. 13: “From where am I to get meat to give to all this people?” Verse 13 mentions meat explicitly and belongs to the meat story; we will see the importance of this in the following. YHWH’s plan for how to provide meat for the people is presented in vv. 18–23, and the plan is executed in vv. 31–34.
The people-as-burden story has no clear exposition of its own,Footnote 95 but the problem of the burden is mentioned for the first time in v. 11. This storyline is also the focus of the main part of Moses’s first speech, vv. 11–15.Footnote 96 Thematically, vv. 11–12, 14, and also vv. 16–17, YHWH’s answer, deal with burden and carrying, and thus I understand all these verses to belong to the narrative about Moses’s complaint and the burden of the people.Footnote 97 Verse 15, the death wish, does not talk of the burden of the people, but neither does it refer to meat. The verse is generally understood to belong to the burden storyline and not the one about meat.Footnote 98 One argument for seeing v. 15 as part of that story is Moses’s statement, “If this is the way you are going to treat me,” which connects to “Why have you done evil to your servant?” in v. 11.
YHWH’s plan for a solution to the people-as-burden problem is given in vv. 16–17, and this plan is executed in vv. 24–25. Verses 26–30 can be seen as a little storyline by themselves, but they are connected thematically to the storyline of the people as burden, not the meat story. Verse 10 does not clearly connect to either of the storylines, and arguments can be made for connecting it to either story. In the final version of the narrative, v. 10 functions as a bridge between the people’s complaint and Moses’s first speech to YHWH. I will return to v. 10 later.
The vocabulary in the narrative is another indicator for source division. The problem for Moses in v. 11 is the burden of the people and, further, that he is expected to carry them. The Hebrew noun “burden” and the Hebrew verb “carry” are related, both being based on the three-letter root נשׂא. Taken together, the noun and verb occur seven times in only four verses here (11, 12, 14, and 17).Footnote 99 Neither this noun nor this verb nor any related word occurs in v. 13; instead, we hear of meat, בשׂר. The noun בשׂר is mentioned only twice in vv. 11–17, both times in v. 13, and בשׂר reoccurs in the latter parts of the narrative, three times in v. 18, once in v. 21, and once in v. 33, all identified above as belonging to the meat story. Both v. 11 and v. 15 use the phrase חן בעיניך (“favor in your sight”),Footnote 100 which is another argument for v. 15 belonging to the people-as-burden story; this phrase also connects the beginning and ending of Moses’s first speech.
Again, v. 10 pulls in both directions. The reference to YHWH’s anger occurs both here and in v. 33. Verse 33 is part of the meat story, so the shared vocabulary here could indicate that v. 10 belongs to the meat story. However, vv. 10, 11, and 15 use the related words רע, רעע, and רעה. Verses 11 and 15 belong to the people-as-burden story; so does v. 10 belong to it as well? Verse 10 functions as a bridge that connects the different parts of the narrative, and I leave open the question of which storyline it originally belonged to. It may also have been written as a bridge by an editor when the two storylines were combined. Based on the above observations, we can divide Num 11:4–34 into two storylines originating from two different sources (see Table 2.6).
The most important result of this source division is that it establishes that Moses’s death wish (v. 15) was originally part of Moses’s dialogue with YHWH about the burden of the people; it was not connected to the problem of meat. In other words, the source division establishes that what triggers Moses’s request to be killed is the burden of his responsibilities for the people, which is raised and addressed by Moses in vv. 11–12 and 14–15. In the final form of the narrative, these verses belong to Moses’s first speech, vv. 11–15. These verses will be the focus of the discussion in the coming section on Moses’s rhetorical strategy and death wish; v. 10 gives the quotative frame for this speech and will be the starting point of our analysis.
Who Is Angry with Whom and Why?
In two well-established English translations, Num 11:10b reads as follows: “Then the Lord became very angry, and Moses was displeased”Footnote 101 and “The Lord was very angry, and Moses was distressed”Footnote 102 (ויחר אף יהוה מאד ובעיני משׁה רע). Both translations are possible, but in my understanding they do not capture the tone of the Hebrew text. The text describes not so much Moses’s feelings as how he evaluates something. In Moses’s opinion, that is, “in the eyes of Moses,” it was רע.Footnote 103 The Hebrew adjective רע means “evil, wicked behavior … unacceptable to people.”Footnote 104 The verb, from the root רעע, is used in v. 11 and means in the hiphil “to do evil, to treat badly.”Footnote 105 In verse 15 the noun רעה is used, and it can have a range of meanings, among them “evil,” “wickedness,” “misfortune,” and “calamity.”Footnote 106 The narrator’s use of רע, רעע, and רעה tie this part of the text together because all of these words refer to something evil. I translate verse 10 as follows: “Moses heard the people crying, every clan apart, and each person at the entrance of his tent. YHWH became very angry, and in the eyes of Moses it was evil.” YHWH is clearly angry with the people (as in 11:1), but what is it that Moses sees as evil?Footnote 107 The verse is ambiguous, and there are two possible interpretations: either Moses is enraged with the people because of their crying,Footnote 108 or Moses is angry with YHWH.Footnote 109
Following the source-critical reading established above, the storyline of the burden of the people has no exposition in our narrative, or it had an exposition that is now lost to us.Footnote 110 This means that there is no reason given for the people’s crying (again, as in 11:1). The root for crying, בכה, “appears in all cognate languages and in each means nothing more than ‘to weep.’”Footnote 111 When we read the narrative in its final form, the only problem that has been presented so far is the lack of meat in v. 4, or more specifically, the problem that has been introduced is the people’s question about the lack of meat. The people said, “Who will give us meat?”Footnote 112 In other words, there is no reason given for Moses (or YHWH) to be upset with the people.
However, Moses will soon give many reasons for being angry with YHWH. When Moses addresses YHWH, the focus is not on the people and their crying but on YHWH. This also supports the idea that what is evil in Moses’s eyes is not connected to the people but to YHWH. Moses is primarily reacting to YHWH’s behavior. It is what YHWH does that is unacceptable in Moses’s eyes. Moses is angry with YHWH because of how YHWH is treating Moses (not the people). Balentine holds this same view:
The dialogue that follows between Moses and God leaves little doubt that from Moses’s perspective the only legitimate target of this complaint is God. It is God’s reputation that is, or ought to be, at stake here, not Moses’s. Thus Moses turns to God with an address designed not simply to direct the complaint in the proper direction but also to raise serious questions about divine intentions.Footnote 113
Moses’s Rhetorical Strategy and Death Wish
Moses’s speech in vv. 11–15 is introduced with a quotative frame that uses the neutral verb אמר: “And Moses said to YHWH.” What he says, though, is not neutral; rather, he poses a series of sharp questions: “Why have you done evil to your servant and why have I not found favor in your sight, that you have laid the burden of all this people upon me?” According to Christoph Dohmen, there is no differentiation between רעע as evil and as bad in the Semitic languages, so the translation here could be “Why have you treated your servant so badly?”Footnote 114 It seems to me, though, that Moses believes the way YHWH is treating him, as YHWH’s servant, is inappropriate and unacceptable, and therefore I translate “evil” here and not simply “bad.” When Moses addresses YHWH, he does not begin with concern about the lack of meat or food. He is not concerned with the people and their needs. (This can, as we have seen, be explained by the source division of the text: we are leaving the meat story and entering the people-as-burden story.) Furthermore, when Moses addresses YHWH he does not ask, “Why have you done evil to your people?” He does not even ask, “Why have you done evil to me?” No, he asks, “Why have you done evil to your servant?” Moses is concerned with himself and the burden the people have become to him, but he is also emphasizing the special relationship between himself and YHWH. Moses is reminding YHWH that he is the servant of YHWH, so why would YHWH do evil to him?
Communication analysis is concerned with what is often referred to as “membership categories” and the question of “why did we characterize our social identity or the social identity of someone else in that particular way at that particular time?”Footnote 115 Why does Moses (i.e., why does the narrator of our story have Moses) refer to himself as “your servant” in this context? Baruch Levine argues that Moses is here speaking in a “self-deprecating manner.”Footnote 116 He suggests this based on the epistolary style known from Old Babylonian letters, a style also found in the Hebrew Bible.Footnote 117 I propose, instead, that Moses calls himself “your servant” for a different purpose, namely, to draw attention to the need YHWH has for Moses and the moral obligation YHWH has to his servant. There is an appropriate way to treat your servant, and YHWH is not living up to what is expected. This reading inverts the traditional use of the membership category and fits better with Moses’s overall speech in this text, as I will demonstrate.
Moses’s second question is, “Why have I not found favor in your sight?” The two questions are parallel. YHWH doing evil to Moses also means that Moses has not found favor in YHWH’s sight.Footnote 118 The inappropriate treatment of Moses is “the burden of this entire people” that YHWH has placed upon him, and this is what Moses is protesting to YHWH about. The two questions in v. 11 can also be understood as laments. They are introduced with למה, “why,” a term that is often an indicator of lament and part of the convention of protest against YHWH.Footnote 119
The focus on the burden in v. 11 is continued in the reference to carrying in v. 12. This verse also follows up with two new questions: “Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that you promised on oath to their fathers?’” אנכי, “I,” occurs twice here. As an independent personal pronoun is not necessary in Hebrew to indicate the subject in a finite verbal sentence, the personal pronoun here is redundant. The function of the redundant pronouns becomes clear when we also notice that Moses’s questions are rhetorical.Footnote 120 Whereas genuine questions request information, rhetorical questions provide information.Footnote 121 The rhetorical questions Moses puts forth do not just expect a negative response, such as, “Of course I did not conceive this people; of course I did not give birth to them.” They also volunteer information, saying, “You, YHWH did this.” The rhetorical questions together with the independent personal pronoun create a contrast between Moses and YHWH in an “I am not the one, you are!” statement. The contrast is formulated as an implicit antithesis, because the contrasting party (YHWH) is not explicitly mentioned.Footnote 122 In this way, Moses builds up his rhetorical argument, stating that it is not his responsibility to carry the people, it is YHWH’s. Moses even claims that YHWH has said to him, “Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that I promised on oath to their fathers.” The narrator has not quoted YHWH saying this. In Moses’s opinion, YHWH is the one who should do this!
The metaphorical language here is striking and powerful, but it is not unprecedented, and today most scholars identify the metaphors as female metaphors.Footnote 123 We have come a long way since the rediscovery of female god-language in the seventies and eighties. That said, many readers, both ancient and contemporary, have found the female imagery in v. 12 remarkable, maybe even troubling, and there is still some scholarly debate about whether the metaphors in Num 11:12 draw on female source language alone, or on a combination of female and male sources.Footnote 124 The main reason for this is the reference to the אֹמֵן,Footnote 125 a grammatically masculine word, in v. 12b, and not to an אֹמֶנֶת,Footnote 126 a grammatically feminine word.Footnote 127 According to my understanding, there is no question that v. 12a draws on female language when Moses asks, “did I conceive, … did I give birth?” הרה, “conceive, be pregnant,”Footnote 128 takes only female subjects in the Hebrew Bible and is thus explicitly marked for female gender.Footnote 129 “The verb ילד is a non–gender specific verb and can be used with both male and female subjects. The two main understandings of ילד are ‘to give birth,’ said of women, and ‘to beget,’ said of men.”Footnote 130 Given the combination with הרה in this verse, the verb should be understood as a reference to a woman giving birth.
Targum Onkelos changes the imagery in our verse to male imagery: “Am I the father of this whole people and are they my children, that you should say to me: Carry it with your strength as a nurseFootnote 131 carries an infant?”Footnote 132 Ramban saw this verse as using female imagery, but he also saw it as portraying Moses:Footnote 133
In my opinion the whole verse is a figurative reference to the mother, and the meaning thereof is as follows: Have I conceived all this people and have I given birth to them? Moses mentioned it in this way because it is the mother who suffers the pain of raising children, remembering what she suffered for them from birth, pregnancy, and conception. But Moses said omein since he is speaking of himself as a nursing-father, since he is not an omeneth (a nursing-mother).Footnote 134
On the surface, Moses is talking about himself, asking whether he is the one who conceived, the one who gave birth. But as I argued above, the rhetorical function of the questions in v. 12 is to make clear that Moses is not the one who has done these things, nor is he the one who should be doing them. YHWH should. YHWH is the one who should carry the people. YHWH is the one portrayed by the metaphors in v. 12. Moses is arguing that YHWH is the one who was pregnant with the people,Footnote 135 and YHWH is the mother who gave birth to them. The question now is whether the female imagery continues as Moses questions YHWH. Some scholars suggest the translation “guardian” for אֹמֵן,Footnote 136 thereby downplaying the female language. I believe Noth was right when he wrote, “in spite of its masculine form, ōmēn must in the context, have a feminine sense.”Footnote 137 I would reformulate it to make it even clearer. In spite of the masculine form, the אֹמֵן here is asked to take on the role and the responsibilities that an אֹמֶנֶת would usually have. According to my reading, this verse portrays YHWH as the mother, and YHWH is asking Moses to be the nurse for them, doing what a female nurse would usually do. This is what Moses does not want to do. Rhetorically, it is understood that this is not Moses’s job. How does YHWH respond to this? In the final version of the narrative, YHWH does not answer at all, and Moses shifts focus to the concern with meat. According to conversation analysis, the lack of response could be understood as a dispreferred second part in the dialogue, but the continuance of Moses’s speech without a pause suggests a different interpretation.
Verse 13 did not originally belong here. Moses’s line of argumentation continued in v. 14 with no mention of meat. In the final form of the narrative, however, v. 13 comes in between and provides yet another question, this time a real question, and real questions request information: “From where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they cry before me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’” Verse 13 is only concerned with meat; there is no mention of carrying or of burden.Footnote 138 It is also interesting to note that Moses claims that the people came to him and asked for meat. This is not what the narrator reported in v. 10. In v. 10, Moses overheard the people’s complaint, whereas in v. 13 Moses understands it as a question and demand of him. Of course, this difference can be explained via source criticism, and I have shown that it is not clear which source v. 10 belongs to. However, if we set the source division aside for a moment and look at the final form of the narrative, there are actually three different representations of what the people said and whom they addressed in this narrative. First, in v. 10 the people ask who will give them meat, and Moses overhears this. Second, in v. 13 the people address Moses, demanding meat; they even cry,Footnote 139 “Give us meat to eat.” The third view is presented in vv. 18–20, where YHWH instructs Moses on what to say to the people. YHWH quotes the people, and he introduces the quote with the following claim: “You have cried in the hearing of the LORD, saying … .” YHWH also adds a new element that we have not seen before in this narrative.Footnote 140 He quotes the people as saying, “Surely it was better for us in Egypt.” YHWH then gives his interpretation of what this statement means, namely, “You have rejected YHWH who is among you, and you have cried before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” From YHWH’s point of view, the people are rejecting him and the entire exodus experience in asking for meat.Footnote 141
Moses continues to speak in v. 14, and we return to the people-as-burden story, the verse picking up on the theme and terminology of v. 12. Following his rhetorical (v. 11) and genuine (v. 12) questions, Moses provides an assessment of the situation: “I am not able, by myself, to carry all this people, for they are too heavy for me.” This is what weighs on Moses; the people are too heavy, and furthermore, he is left alone with all the responsibility for them. He is utterly alone. Once more, the personal pronoun I is technically redundant. But in this verse, it does not create a contrast as it did in v. 12; rather, it emphasizes the subject, Moses, and stresses the emotional aspects of his experience and his aloneness. The emphasized אנכי, “I,” and לבדי, “alone,” show how outrageous this is for Moses. Did I do this (v. 12)? I cannot do this, not me alone (v. 14).
Moses’s speech culminates in v. 15 in a request: “If this is the way you are going to treat me, then kill me now.” Everything prior to this verse has been building up to this request, his death wish. Verse 15 consists of two conditional sentences, each presenting a condition and a consequence.Footnote 142 There are two potential responses, two potential actions YHWH can take toward Moses, which would lead to two dramatically different outcomes. But which of the two responses would be the preferred one? Literally, Moses is requesting that YHWH kill him, but only if YHWH will not stop treating him inappropriately. The preferred response would be a different one (see Table 2.7 on next page).
| Condition—protasis | Consequence—apodosis |
|---|---|
| If this is the way you are going to treat me, ואם־ככה את־עשׂה לי | then kill me now; הרגני נא הרג |
| if I have found favor in your sight, אם־מצאתי חן בעיניך | and do not let me look upon your evilness.1 ואל־אראה ברעתך |
1 For my translation here and my emendation of the Hebrew text, see later in this section.
The condition in v. 15a concerns the way YHWH is treating Moses: “If this is the way you are going to treat me … .” The condition is introduced with אִם, if, which indicates that this is a “real or fulfillable” condition.Footnote 143 If YHWH is going to continue to treat Moses the way he has, YHWH should just as well kill him. It is a real possibility. Jacob Milgrom writes, “Since God is the author of his wretchedness, He might as well finish the job—and take his life.”Footnote 144 It is the evil YHWH is doing to Moses, leaving Moses with the burden of the people, that triggers Moses’s death wish.
Moses is asking YHWH to kill him—not a common request in the Hebrew Bible. We find similar requests in the stories about Elijah (1 Kgs 19) and Jonah (Jonah 4),Footnote 145 and Samson indirectly asks YHWH to kill him (Judg 16) when he asks YHWH for the strength to take revenge and to take his own life along with the lives of the Philistines.Footnote 146 Exodus 32:32 must also be mentioned here, as it has Moses saying to YHWH, “But if [if you do] not [forgive their sins], wipe me out of your book that you have written.”
The verb used in Moses’s request in Num 11:15, הרג, “kill” or “slay,” is often associated with violence.Footnote 147 With people as the subject, הרג is explained as “in murder, assassination or other personal or small-scale violence,”Footnote 148 and it is thus a striking verb choice. The verb is used with YHWH as subject in the exodus story, in the killing of the firstborn (Exod 13:15). Moses is not simply (if one can call it simple) asking YHWH to take his life, as Elijah and Jonah do, but is asking him to do so by violently ending it. The harshness of it fits Moses’s view of YHWH in this text as a whole.
A violent death is one outcome Moses pictures if YHWH continues to treat him evilly. But there is another option; in v. 15b, Moses raises the possibility that he might find favor in YHWH’s sight after all, and then the outcome would be very different. This would be the preferred response. In v. 15b, we again have a formulation in a conditional sentence, and again the condition is introduced with אִם: “if I have found favor in your sight.” In v. 11, Moses asks YHWH, “Why have I not found favor in your sight?” The terminology in vv. 11 and 15 is mirrored, which underlines a close connection in Moses’s speech (see Table 2.8 on next page).Footnote 149
| v. 11. So Moses said to YHWH, Why have you done evil to your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you have laid the burden of all this people upon me? | ויאמר משׁה אל־יהוה למה הרעת לעבדך ולמה לא־מצתי חן בעיניך לשׂום את־משׂא כל־העם הזה עלי |
| v. 15. If this is the way you are going to treat me, then kill me now; if I have found favor in your sight, and do not let me look upon1 your evilness. | ואם־ככה את־עשׂה לי הרגני נא הרג אם־מצאתי חן בעיניך ואל־אראה ברעתך |
1 The combination of אל, אראה, and ב is used only here and in Gen 21:16, where Hagar says, “Do not let me look upon the death of the child.”
The terminology in v. 15 also mirrors v. 11 in another way. In v. 11, Moses said, “Why have you done evil to your servant?” The idea of something evil returns in v. 15b, when Moses says, “Do not let me look upon … evilness.” Here, the noun רעה is used.Footnote 150 The translation “evilness” is not given in HALOT or DCH, but I find it a better rendering in the context than “wickedness.”Footnote 151 Both vv. 11 and 15 refer to something evil, but whose evil are we hearing about in v. 15? I translate, “If I have found favor in your sight, do not let me see your evilness.” Here, my translation does not follow the Masoretic Text (MT), which reads, “Let me not see ברעתי.” In the MT, רעה has a first-person suffix, and the sentence can thus be translated “do not let me see my misery”Footnote 152 or “and let me see no more of my wretchedness!”Footnote 153 As I understand it, this reading does not fit well with the line of Moses’s argumentation. I follow another text tradition, a rabbinical tradition noted in the tiqqune sopherim (“emendation of the scribes”).Footnote 154 According to the tiqqune sopherim, Num 11:15 originally had a second-person masculine singular suffix here and thus referred to “your evilness,” meaning YHWH’s evilness. The emendations that the tiqqune sopherim point out are thought to have taken place to protect reverence for YHWH, and this would clearly be the case here. The text at an earlier stage had Moses blame YHWH for YHWH’s evilness, which a later tradition (now reflected in the MT) found theologically unacceptable, and thus the text was changed to refer to Moses’s own misery. There are no textual witnesses supporting the second-person suffix, but the emendation makes good sense, and as Emanuel Tov comments, “After all if we take into consideration that the rabbis suppressed the uncorrected readings, lack of textual evidence is not necessarily a valid criterion.”Footnote 155 Even though Tov’s argument here is an argument based on silence and thus problematic as a valid argument, it is worth noting as common sense.
Numbers 11:15 is included in twenty-two of the twenty-five lists of tiqqune sopherim and is thus the most frequent case of all the tiqqune sopherim.Footnote 156 All of them list ברעתך, with the second-person suffix, “your evilness,” as the original reading,Footnote 157 which for me is a strong indicator that this might actually be so. Rashi also identifies a tiqqun in Num 11:15, but according to him the text read ברעתם with a third-person masculine plural suffix: “It should have been written their [i.e., the people’s] evil.”Footnote 158 A similar reading also appears in the Fragmentary Targum and in Targum Neofiti: “that I may not see the wretchedness of your people.”Footnote 159 It is hard to understand, though, why there would have been a need to change “their evilness” to “my evilness,”Footnote 160 and so I see no compelling reason to emend the text in that direction. The twenty-two occurrences of our text with the second-person masculine singular suffix in the tiqqune sopherim and the ambiguity in the tradition demonstrated above show that this verse has been challenging for readers, strengthening the possibility that the MT represents an emendation.
Another compelling reason for reading “your evilness” in Num 11:15 is the textual context. There are three references to something evil (רע/רעע/רעה) in Num 11:10–15, and I have argued in each instance that the evil referred to can be understood as YHWH’s. First, in v. 10 it is said that “YHWH was very angry, and in the eyes of Moses it was evil,” and I have posited that it is YHWH’s anger and behavior that is evil in the eyes of Moses in the continuation of this verse. Second, in v. 11 Moses asks YHWH, “Why have you done evil to your servant?” Here, we have an explicit reference to YHWH as the doer of the evilness. Finally, in v. 15 Moses asks YHWH to kill him so he will not see more of YHWH’s evilness: “Let me not look upon your evilness.” In my understanding, what Moses sees as YHWH’s evilness throughout this text is that YHWH has not taken up responsibility for the people but left it to Moses and Moses alone. “Evil” here refers to improper and unacceptable behavior. It is the burden of the people, the burden of his own leadership and responsibility for the people, that pushes Moses to ask YHWH to kill him. From Moses’s point of view, the people are YHWH’s responsibility, not Moses’s. Moses is YHWH’s servant; this indicates a special relationship between YHWH and Moses, but Moses is left to carry the burden of the people, all alone, and he does not want to do it anymore. This leaves YHWH under pressure.
Did Moses Succeed?
Was Moses’s negotiation with YHWH successful? It seems to me that YHWH gives Moses what he bargained with his life for. Moses said, “I am not able by myself to carry all this people, for they are too heavy for me” (v. 14). YHWH answered him, “And I will come down and I will speak with you there; and I will take from the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall carry together with you the burden of the people and you will not carry it all by yourself” (v. 17). This is the preferred answer to Moses’s questions and complaints, as we can see from the mirroring of terminology between the two verses. According to conversation analysis, Moses’s speech (the first part of the adjacency pair) can be understood as an invitation or request, while YHWH’s answer (the second part of the adjacency pair) can be understood as an acceptance.Footnote 161 The second half of v. 17 responds word for word to Moses’s complaint in v. 14 (see Table 2.9).
The word נשׂא is used in both verses. We hear about carrying once in v. 14 and twice in v. 17. The burden of the people is mentioned once in each verse.Footnote 162 Further, Moses said, “I [אנכי] am not able to carry all this people alone [לבדי].” YHWH says, “so that you [אתה] will not carry it all by yourself [לבדך].” Once more, a redundant independent personal pronoun serves to emphasize Moses’s subjectivity. The mirroring connects different parts of the text, and in light of our source-critical analysis, it connects the verses that belong to the narrative of Moses’s burden and leadership.
As for the burden of the people weighing on Moses, he gets the help he requests: the seventy elders. Milgrom has pointed out that Moses might have wanted divine assistance, and if this was the case, Milgrom notes, “God’s answer is not what Moses expected.”Footnote 163 He has a point; after all, Moses was arguing that YHWH was the one who gave birth to the people and thus should carry them. At the same time, Moses’s main argument was that YHWH should stop treating him so badly, that he could not carry the people on his own, and these requests are answered. Moses does not question the proposed solution of the seventy elders. He seems satisfied with YHWH’s plan to relieve him of his burden. His bargaining paid off. Moses’s anger has been appeased; YHWH’s anger (v. 10) has not.Footnote 164
Concluding Remarks
Our first case studies, Genesis 30 and Numbers 11, have demonstrated that uttering a death wish is not necessarily the same as expressing a desire to die—far from it. Rachel and Moses each set forth an ultimatum in which one outcome is death: “Give me sons; if not I will die!” (Gen 30:1) and “If this is the way you are going to treat me, then kill me now” (Num 11:15). In both cases, the death wish is a powerful communication strategy used to negotiate their circumstances and achieve their goals.
Rachel, who has the leading voice in Genesis 30, negotiates with Jacob (30:1) to get a son. Her first speech is met with dismissal, a dispreferred response (30:2), but she continues to speak and act toward her goal. Her voice is the driving force in the narrative, and in the end her speech and her actions receive a preferred response. She gives birth to her son, Joseph (30:22–24).
Moses rages against YHWH, accusing YHWH of treating him, YHWH’s servant, unacceptably. Moses’s death wish is the culmination of a long speech (Num 11:11–15), but it is not his goal to die (though he would prefer death if YHWH does not act favorably towards him). Rather, Moses wants to be released from his sole responsibility for the people. Moses’s death wish is met with a preferred response. YHWH gives him the assistance of the seventy elders (Num 11:16–17); he does not have to carry the burden of the people alone anymore. For Rachel and Moses, uttering a death wish is a powerful, though risky, rhetorical strategy. They are the ones with less power in an unequal relationship, and for them uttering a death wish functions as an act of empowerment.
