YHWH Cares (Gen 7:16)
The Flood
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16 Then YHWH closed it/him up. וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר יְ׳הוָ֖ה בַּֽעֲדֽוֹ׃
We finished translating 7:16 last time, leaving a few things to discuss today, in this week’s free post, since the last three words of the verse — though individually each of them is not difficult — combine into an expression that leaves us unsure of what precisely happened.
I say we “finished” even though I’ve left the meaning of the last letter of the verse, the ו vav suffix of בעד b’ad, uncertain. We’ve looked at most of the possibilities already; I want to look at just one more that will open the subject up to some broader ideas. First, though, a closer look at that preposition — found 105 times in the Bible — which we are seeing for the first time.
The lexicons offer “behind” as the standard translation of this word; DCH adds these possibilities: “after, around, over, through, on behalf of, for the sake of, because of, in place of, for.” Yes, this is the word you use if you want to look through a window. In modern Israel you can vote for something with this preposition. We saw last time that in the Bible you can shut something up with the same preposition.
Is YHWH closing the box, or closing Noah in, on his behalf? That’s more or less how Richard Elliott Friedman translates our phrase: “And YHWH closed it for him” (my emphasis). And here’s how he explains it:
Note the degree of close contact that is pictured between God and humans at this stage. This will reach a high point in Moses' experience at Sinai in Exodus, and then it will gradually diminish through the rest of the Tanak.
He does not explain how he decided to translate the phrase this way, but his explanation points to another question: Why did YHWH do this? Nahum Sarna explains:
Atraḫasis and Utnapishtim shut the hatch themselves. Here the text is careful to note that the salvation of Noah is solely due to divine will, not to any independent measures of his own.
You remember those catchy names, the heroes of two of the Mesopotamian Flood stories. Ronald Hendel says more:
In the Atraḫasis myth, the flood hero seals his own door: “bitumen (kupru) was brought, and he sealed his door” (III ii 51). In Gilgamesh (XI.95), a boatman named Puzur-Amurru seals the door, for which he receives the flood hero's palace and property as payment. This detail here, with Y׳hweh as the sealer, changes the older tradition into a picture of Y׳hweh's care—and foregrounds his anthropomorphic character in [the J source]. [The Redactor] has moved this statement to its present position in order to have the entry of Noah's family and the animals (7:13-16, P) precede Y׳hweh's sealing of the ark.
That is, if we contrast this action with the other Flood stories (Israelite and non-), we find two things:
YHWH cares. He’s saving Noah not (as he is the other creatures) to have someone left to breed, but because they have a personal relationship of some kind.
This is not the lab experiment of P / Version 1 of Creation, where the planet’s going to be autoclaved so creation can start afresh uncontaminated by the previous version. This is a story.
All of which brings us back to that abrupt transition. I promised a while ago that we would see the priestly version of the story come to a screeching halt. Here you see it happen in real time:. Mind the gap!
… as God had commanded him. Then YHWH closed it/him up.
כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה אֹת֖וֹ אֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר יְ׳הוָ֖ה בַּֽעֲדֽוֹ׃
We’ve spoken about these different ways to refer to God at length in the past. Briefly, elohim is a job title and YHWH is the (no longer pronounceable) proper name of the (current) title-holder. Jewish tradition sees them reflecting two aspects of divinity:
Elohim focuses our attention on God’s desire to see justice served. See Exod 22:8 (v. 9 in Christian Bibles), where Jewish tradition asserts that elohim refers to the judges of a human court. NRSV translates as “God” with notes that hedge: “or the judges.”
YHWH focuses our attention on God’s compassion. It is, after all, his personal name, and “foregrounds his anthropomorphic character.”
It’s reasonable to think that these interpretations were influenced by the first few chapters of Genesis, where elohim thinks the world into being in a more or less scientific way, while YHWH chats with the characters and even gets upset. From this perspective, it’s easy to agree that YHWH’s sealing the escape module is an emotional act, a gesture of kindness and protection for Noah — whom he likes. We can imagine it as tucking a child into bed.
I think it’s a little bit over the top when Yehuda Kiel in the Daat Mikra commentary series (my translation) writes:
The straightforward sense of the text is that YHWH protected him (and his fellow travelers) against the weather outside and against the animals inside. see Job 1:10 for בעד used in this way; also Ps 3:4. But “closed” is to be taken literally as well: He closed the entrance and every possible opening whereby water could get in.
Does he really think the verse is saying YHWH protected Noah against the animals? Neither of the verses he cites uses the verb סגר s‑g‑r ‘close’. Long-time subscribers know that I find more meaning, including more religious meaning, in letting the writer of the story have his say without shoving my own ideas about God in front of the camera. In another story, closing the box might be intended to keep Noah inside. Here, it is protective.
The fact that Jewish tradition sees it that way because YHWH is the divine aspect that demonstrates compassion does not contradict the scholarly view. Rather, it aligns with the scholarly view, which sees the priestly perspective as more focused on what we today would call science and the view of the J voice, more interested in story.
Next time, this box will actually be launched into the waters. See you then.