American Journal of Semitic Languages and
Literature 39 (1922-23) 89-108.
Public Domain.
THE HEBREW MASAL
BY ALLEN HOWARD
GODBEY
My studies in Hebrew ritual problems
have led me to the con-
clusion that one of the most
universal ceremonial words has thus far
been overlooked. There are two reasons for this.
First, the influ-
ence of the King James
version. Finding the "Book of
Proverbs"
entitled ylwm, the tacit assumption
was that masal
expressed only
verbal likenesses. The existence of a
"pantomime" masal
was not
recognized; that the performance of a symbolical
action was tech-
nically called a masal has been
passed over. The second reason is that
in fragments of priestly procedure as we have them
the masal
has
been taken for granted; the performer of a kipper, an ‘asarah, a
sabbath, might use any one of
various appropriate mesalim
known to
him. In the Babylonian Surpu collection, we know of a
few such
appended to one series—the officiator could take
his choice. But as
the performance of a masal was not restricted to the
temple ritual,
it is not strictly a priestly term (as scholars
have been using
the word priestly). The following collection of
principal data tells
its own story. That we are dealing with much that
scholars call
sympathetic magic need not surprise or disturb.
Considering
Hebrew
antecedents and environment, how could it be otherwise?
There
is no difficulty in explaining its presence. Were it not present,
we would have no rational explanation of that
fact.
Perhaps we should employ the word
"talifice" ("so shall it be
done") for an acted masal. For the verbal masal,
"proverb" is not
an adequate translation, as all agree. "Likening," or "comparison"
is technically more accurate.
In Gen. 37:5 if. Joseph tells a
dream of the grain-sheaves of his
brethren doing obeisance to his. The brethren at
once reply, "Shalt
thou indeed be king over us? or
shalt thou be anything like that to
us?" (masol timsol). Next, sun, moon, and eleven
stars bow to him.
It
is at once construed the same way The narrative
establishes the
fact that for the compiler such sheaf-action or
star-action was a masal.
89
90 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
It
shows his belief in portents. It shows that his principle of inter-
pretation of a portent was that
its masal
or "likeness" was sure to
occur in real life. We are told that Jacob paid
careful attention to
this dabar (oracle?), vs. 11. We may recognize that the compiler
would also call the dream of either butler, baker, or
Pharaoh a masal,
were he asked for a technical term; its
"like" was sure to follow.
This
ancient principle we have so far lost faith in that we say "dreams
go by contraries."
Take next an acted masal: Joash's interview
with the dying
Elisha, II
Kings 13:14 ff.
Too feeble to
act himself, the prophet
acts as master of ceremonies—the king's hands acting
for him as the
prophet held them. An arrow is shot toward the
eastern foe or
place of battle, and the king commanded to complete
the rite by
striking the ground. Then he is angrily told that
his victories are
limited by the number of his ceremonial strokes.
Any Central
African
"fetishman," making
"war-medicine" today, would reason
likewise. So would the King of Babylon, Ezek.
21:21. For the
present inquiry it is immaterial whether such
thought is Elisha's,
or an invention of the narrators. In fact, in the
latter case, it would
be established that the efficacy of such
"war-medicine" was believed
in centuries after Elisha's
death. Then if we turn to I Kings 22:11,
we understand that Zedekiah was making
"war-medicine" against
the same Syrian foe, with his horns of iron. In
neither case is the
word masal used: in each
case the "like-this" idea dominates.
Take then Ezek. 24:3: mesol a masal; then explain
it to the gazing
public, vss. 6-14. Here the masal is the
pot-boiling ceremony; the
terminology is definite. Turning then to Ezek.
21:1–5 (A.V., 20:
45-49),
we find the prophet "sprinkles" (fire) toward Teman
and the
forest of Negeb, and
announces a fire that shall utterly destroy it.
The
prophet demurs on comprehending his instructions: "People
already say of me, He is a memassel mesalim!" a mighty masal
performer.
I think we must recognize that for
the superstitious masses such
men as Ezekiel were powerful magicians, who were
not simply
warning of ruin but performing terrible
incantations to bring it about.
It
is thus I understand Ezekiel's demurrer. Yet if the prophets
abandon such ancient mummeries, who will heed?
On the other
THE HEBREW
“MASAL” 91
hand continuing them only arouses counter-magic; so
what was
gained? Some great Hebrew preachers perished, not for
what they
said, but for what they did—working magic for the
overthrow of the
state, as medieval scientists were deemed "in
league with the devil."
Their
symbol-lessons against the frauds of the time were only "fight-
ing the devil with
fire"—a game in which the devil always has the
best of it. One day the Hebrew preacher will see it.
Further evidence of a masal as "war-medicine"
is afforded by the
Balaam story. His specific task is to
cast such a spell over
that Balak shall easily
defeat them, as all recognize. Undertaking
this, he four times chants a masal, Num. 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15.
Let
us observe at once that in so doing he would be a mosel. The accom-
panying action is not certainly
specified, but we may have a hint in
vs.
23: "There is no serpent against Jacob, nor any cutting up
(kasam) for
serpents." I suspect that he did "call
serpents," and fail; such pre-
tenders, called ha wy, are still in the same region.
Probably such art
is in Amos' mind when he makes the Lord exclaim,
"Though they
be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea,
thence will I command
the Serpent, and he shall bite them," Amos
9:3. We may recall
fiery serpents sent into
"cutting up," observe the covenant ritual of Abraham and
Jeremiah
(Gen.
15:9 ff.; Jer. 34:19), and the cutting up of an ox as
an impreca-
tion or masal by Saul, I Sam. 11:7. We
may ask if the preliminary
"sacrifice" of Balak was the masal that Balaam
hoped to make effec-
tive by incantation or
"vision": "cutting up" animals as Saul and
Ezekiel
did.
Continuing with
credited with being effective, and is called a masal, Num.
21:27.
Sihon had captured Heshbon,
"for thus ('because') oracled the
moselim," and the chant
suggests that fire-flinging and arrow-shooting
were a chief feature of the accompanying ceremony.
The writer
credits the masal with being effective: the
performer is a mosel;
and this is the official title of Sihon in Josh. 12:2, 5. This reminds
us that one who would aspire to Semitic leadership
is surest of success
if credited with unusual magical powers; and that
secular and sacred
functions often combine in an oriental leader. The
words masal
92 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
and mosel are unusually prominent in the
word seems to be a Moabite official title a long
time. In the Mesha
story, II Kings 3:27, Mesha
cuts up his own son upon the wall as a
mighty "war-medicine" (compare the Roman
story of the self-
immolation of Decius). In
consequence there came a terrible keseph,
"cutting to pieces," upon
is the technical term for the penalty of violating
the "covenant cut"
in vss. 11, 15, 16 (cf.
Gen. 15:8–18; Jer. 34:18–19), as also in Josh.
22:18,
20. So every such treaty involves a masal—"so shall the
violator of this oath be cut to pieces."
This penalty for broken faith
is
in Isa. 34:2; 54:8; 57:16; 60:10; 64:9; Zech. 1:2;
Gen. 40:2;
41:10.
Consider again the suggestion above as to an actual masal
of Balak, invoking the
seven fates and cutting up an animal before
each. And in Isa. 16 1 we read, "Send a lamb to the mosel of the land
from Sela' toward the
wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of
foregoing sort of ceremony: "It is time for
the Grand Magician to
get busy!"
With Balaam's acknowledged failure
to find any iniquity in
to conjure with, Num. 23:21, contrast Hab. 2:6, where the gathering
foemen are pictured as "chanting their (war-)masal,"
using all the
cruelty and treachery of
"The
like shall come upon thee." Such requirement is made by
magicians everywhere. In the Babylonian Surpu texts it is
a sine
qua non.
In Sargon, Cylinder 29, we read Kullat nakiri isluhu imat muti,
"all his enemies he sprinkled with the poison of death."
I understand
this to describe the success of similar
war-medicine. Nergal-sharezer,
in Cambridge Cylinder (KB, III, 2, 72), says that in the opening of
his reign Girra, the
Plague-God, gave him his mighty weapons for the
protection of his land and people. Thus the king
had "a covenant
with Death, and an agreement with Sheol," such as was fashionable
in
of it being called moselim, Isa.
28:14–15. Nergal-sharezer explains
that he set up a pair of sirussu (mus russu?)
at each of the four gates
of the kigallu (= Aralu) as protectors of
Esagila and Ezida; as no
king before did. Limnim u aibim izannu imat muti, "upon the
THE HEBREW
"MASAL"
93
wicked and hostile they rain the poison of
death." These symbolisms
of the Underworld, Powers of Death and Darkness,
an innovation
at Esagila and Ezida, point to oscillations between the cult of such
powers and the cult of their enemy, the Rising Sun. It
must have
been such a dragon that Hezekiah destroyed at
torically, Nergal-sharezer's
statement probably means that at his
accession a terrible plague was ravaging his
hostile neighbors.
With this "hailing or raining
the poison of death" upon a foe,
group the birik limutti, "lightning of evil," oft invoked in
Assyrian
imprecations, and the phrase imtu burrudani in
some broken passages
of the Harper letters. In [660] Bu. 91–5–9–15, Adad-sum-usur
says (break) BUR.RU.DA. mes damkuti(?) ma-a-du-ti ni-ip-pa-as,
“we performed many favorable BUR.RU.DA.-mes,” whether
offensive or defensive rituals cannot be
determined. But in [18]
K
490 the order of the king (broken) has been relative to the per-
formance of imtu bur-ru-da-a-ni on the 24th of the month.
Marduk-
sakin-sum replies that it was not
done. Many tablets are in readi-
ness: . . . . as soon as
king orders, in five or six days. . . . If
the king orders performances ana imtu bur-ru-da-a-ni
in the month
Tebet . . . . and as to the
instructions sa imtu bur-ru-da-a-ni which
the king commanded, saying, Send to
I
did not send . . . . and those tablets of instructions
(program)
not complete(?) let (--) bring with him. On the 2d
day of Tebet
let the king perform . . . . on
the 4th day let the crown prince
perform . . . . on the
6th day let the people perform . . . . (four
broken lines). It will be observed that the time of imtu burrudani
here is the time of midwinter storms—near Christmas:
the proper
time either to invoke their aid, or to cantillate against them. Again
the invocation first by king, then by crown prince,
then by all people,
may be compared with the like order of public
petition by shah
and by people in modern
(Hajji
Baba 305–6); I Kings 8:35f. The Burrudani of the
forego-
ing tablet imply matters of
national interest at midwinter solstice.
Again
the imtu burruddni is in the broken [11] K 643 and probably in
K [25] K 639. It appears that the
Sumerian BUR.RU.DA, familiar
as an incantation term, has been adopted and a
Semitic plural form
used in the Sargonid
letters. In a SAG-Ba
SAG-ba
incantation
94 THE
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
published by Zimmern
(ZA, XXVIII, 75 f.) the colophon line reads
INIM-INIM-ma ZI-SUR-ra NIG-H UL-GAL BUR.RU.DA-kam.
But
the banishing of evil is by "smiting it = strike in the face, shatter,
break, blow away, annihilate." The ritual is not
the establishing of a
passive barrier, but evoking a powerful
repellent. The imtu burrudani
then suggests "hailing poison or death"
(Heb. bered
= "hail") as in
previous cases. Such ceremony could be either
offensive or defensive.
In
HABL [977] K 350: "with regard to the procedures which the
king directed, . . . . sighing
of Death in the palace (cf. mehumath
maveth of I Sam. 5:11) . . . .
in the month Kisilimu we did
so
.
. . , plague, sickness not approach the house of men, u kispu
BUR.RU.DA-mes ma'aduti nitapas." In Sabatu
were
NAM
BUR-BI, to ward off evil, then special ceremonies on the first of
Adar,
employing images of Anu, Namtar,
Death, Latarak (plague?),
clay substitutes for the man of different clays;
thirteen different
substances (AJSL, XXVIII, 113), seven of each one.
Note the Fate
and Death covenant, as in Isa.
28:14–15. (Compare the nocturnal
fife-kaditu ceremony to call up a
tremendous storm against the
Assyrian,
Isa. 30:29–33; elaboration requires a separate
paper).
This
Adar or mid-February ritual concludes distress-ceremonies
begun with B UR.RU.DA-mes in November. It suggests
comparison
with a storm-omen text published by Weidner (Babyloniaca, VI,
96) :
If
a reed tornado sweep the land, the command of a
powerful enemy will
encompass
it,
If
a cattle tornado sweep the land, the usurper will be
overthrown,
If
a sheep and goats tornado sweep the land, it will be weakened—the
dom of the land will pass away,
If
a jar tornado sweep the land,—overthrow of the kingdom.
Weidner
thinks such expressions refer to fancied resemblances in the
clouds or to objects moved by the wind. It is fair to
ask if they do
not refer to various rituals for raising a storm.
With this omen text
compare another, cited by Waterman, AJSL, XXIX,
20:
ana musi sa-ri sutu iskun
iskun-ma,
im-sur im-sur-ma. izziz- izziz-ma
ip-ru-ud ip-ru-ud-ma, u-sa-pi-ih,
rubu ina harrani illaku mimma sumsu
busu
kat-su ikassad.
THE HEBREW "MASAL" 95
"When
the south wind blows all night, and having blown all night continues,
and as it continues becomes a gale, and from a gale
increases to a tempest,
and as a tempest does sweeping damage: the prince
on whatever expedition
he goes will obtain wealth."
Compare
the storm-omen to David, II Sam. 5:23–25, and continually
recurrent thunderstorm theophanies
of Yahweh, in O.T. There has
been overemphasis upon the Storm-God theory because of
inattention
to storm-producing ceremonies. Yahweh, ba’al or Adad, etc., would
be alike invocable. With
the use of paradu
in foregoing Assyrian
oracle, note that a southern dialect might use baradu; and that
B
UR.RU.DA also might be PUR.RU.DA in another dialect. Thus
while it is established as an old Sumerian ritual
term of repulsion
(Langdon,
Babyloniaca,
II, 107), Semitic borrowers would be pretty
surely attracted to it by its formal identity with
their own baradu,
paradu. Compare Heb. bered, Arab. bardun,
Syr. bardo, Eth. barade, =
"hail"; Arab. baruda, "to hail, be
cold"; and Isaiah's ritual usage
of the word, 32:19: "and it shall hail
mightily (barad beredeth),
upon
the fortress [reading ryf for rfy, as the parallelism suggests] and
utterly overwhelm the city." The form of
statement, and the
result, is identical with Waterman's text above. Are
we to translate
ib-ru-ud ibrud ma "hail
mightily"? Compare with these storm-
omens, Job 38:22–23: "Hail and snow are stored
for the time of
affliction, for the day of battle and war";
and the Flood Legend,
189–90;
Bel promises Pir-napistim
life at the mouth of the rivers:
"then sleep: six days and seven nights, ina birid buridisu, rittu kima
imbari inappus elisu, "while it stormed
unceasingly and rittu like a
hurricane blew upon him. "
Is the subsequent ritual a BUR.RU.DA?
Thus Isaiah's connecting the moselim of
expected Assyrian hail and overwhelming flood
opens an interesting
group of incantations.
Apart from fifing or whistling, the
two pre-eminent folk-rituals
for rain-making or storm producing are
fire-kindling or throwing, and
water-throwing. They are often
combined as in the contest of Elijah
and the prophets of Baal; the identical procedure
found in some
Negro and Moorish tribes today. The fire-throw
originates in the
observation that as a storm gathers a sudden
downpour of rain
follows nearby flashes of lightning. Hence Ecclesiasticus 43:13–14:
96 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
"Thou
sendest forth the lightnings
of thy judgment: they open the
treasuries: and clouds fly forth as fowls." So
pagan Arabs kindled
fires on mountains, or tied firebrands to cattle's
tails and drove them
bellowing up the mountains to unlock the stores of
rain (Leeder,
Desert Gateway, p. 258). In the
Zend-Avesta fires bring rain; a
Persian
girl of today will circle the family oven seven times that
the fire may grant rain; fire-kindling and
fire-throwing ceremonies
to bring a storm or rain are familiar throughout
South and East
Kay,
Travels and Researches in Caffraria, pp. 181–83; Bentley,
Pioneering
on the
Religious System of the Amazulus, pp. 376, 405; Livingstone, Zambesi
Expedition, pp. 22, 26, 231;
Cameron, Across
The Essential Kaffir, pp. 108, 115, 122,
123; Isaacs, Travels and Adven-
tures in East Africa, I, 119; Stigand, To
out witchcraft, and the use of magic images for
hurtful ends, per-
mitted their use for banishing
fog, hail, storms, etc.1 Observe
that
Ezekiel
is particularly disturbed at his reputation as a memassel
mesalim when called upon to
sprinkle fire toward the forests of the
Negeb, 20:46 (cf. Jer.
21:14), though his career began with the
vision of one called upon to take coals of fire from
the cherubim altar
and sprinkle them over the doomed city, 10:2, 6, 7
(cf. 13:11 f.).
The
populace might take such ritualist-preacher for a mesugga or
lunatic: such ranting dervish as was in mind in Prov. 26–18, "Like a
self-frenzied flinger of firebrands,
arrows and Death—so is he that
deceiveth his neighbor and saith, Am I not in sport?" It is fair to
ask if late editors have not confused ritual
traditions in Exod.,
chap.
9, where they get a plague of lice from the furnace ashes or
coals thrown at the sky, when the subsequent hail and
thunderstorm
is the normal expectation in such ritual. With the
notion of store-
houses of rain and hail, and the fire masal to open
them, compare
Job
38:22–23, cited above, "Hail and snow are stored for the time of
affliction; for the day of battle and war."
The "covenant
with Death and agreement with Sheol" in Isa.,
chap.
28, is specifically connected with raising or averting
a hailstorm.
1 Lea, History of the Inquisition, III, 430.
THE HEBREW "MASAL" 97
Everyone
thinks himself properly "kippered"; but "your covenant
with Death shall be ‘kippered’ away, and your
agreement with Sheol
shall not stand"; "and the hail shall sweep
away your refuge of lies";
"when the overflowing flood passeth
through, ye shall be trodden
down by it," etc. (28:17–18). Yahweh is Lord of
Death and Sheol.
Isaiah
calls these magicians, moselim,
"men of almond-magic":
luz, almond, largely used
in "hastening" ceremonies; and a familiar
foundation ceremony is probably cited in
"Stone! Chosen Stone!
Precious
Corner! Founded! Founded! The established (stone)
shall not haste away!" Jar-floods, such as cited
above, and reed
or almond magic cannot move it. We may ask if like
storm magic
is in mind in Isa.
32:19; compare the death-hail of Isa. 30:27–33;
the hail threats of Ezek. 13:11, 13; 38:22; Isa. 29:6; the historic
Egyptian
hail, Exod. 9:18, produced by the almond rod, Josh.
10:11,
and the jar-pouring of
thunderstorm. Would that we had
Samuel's invocation on this
occasion! For water-pouring or water-throwing
ceremonies to pro-
duce rain or call up a thunderstorm, compare Rae, The Country of
the Moors, p. 72; Kidd, The
Essential Kaffir, pp. 114–15; North
XLI,
335–36; XXV, 89; Krapf, Travels and Researches in
pp.
122, 139, 235–36; W. H. Anderson,
Exploratory Tour in
pp. 208–10;
helplessness of the superstitious
Arab during a thunderstorm,
Peters
observes that the Anazeh camel-drivers and guards
were "more
afraid of the fury of the elements than of the dangers
of war
Poor
Arabs, without tents, were lying like dead men on the ground.
An
enemy could have murdered the whole camp without a man
stirring,"
This unmistakable prominence of
hailing or sprinkling rituals
suggests notice of another Hebrew word to be
classed here. In the
fire-masal of Ezek. 20:45–49 (A.V.) nataf is the verb used of fire on
the
masal against you, and sigh a
sighing." The masal
closes, vs. 6,
Sprinkle not, 0 they
that sprinkle,
Not for these things
shall they sprinkle.
They shall not take away
shame.
98 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
The
nataf
ritual will be utterly unavailing. A few verses farther on
(vs.
11) Micah scornfully says, "Any liar that announces I will
sprinkle to you (rain upon you) wine and strong
drink; verily, he is
the sprinkler for this people!" which compare
with Amos 9:13; Joel
3:
18, "the mountains shall drop (nataf) wine"; and with the kudurru
fragment in King, BBS, No. 37: "The tops of
the mountains in my
land Ea filled with vines; 30 ka of wine for one shekel of silver was the
price current in my land." Micah's liars were
promising like abun-
dance, using a magic and copious masal to insure fulfilment of the pre-
diction. The change of tense above suggests
their chant, "As I
drop, they shall drop." They and their audience
were on the level
of Shakespeare's Jack Cade,
decreeing "that the city sewer run
nothing but claret wine this first year of our
reign" (King Henry VI,
Part
II, Act IV, scene vi). Ezekiel uses the same word nataf in a
dripping and sighing masal, 21:1-7, which he explains
as portending
that all knees shall run water, and all souls faint,
and sigh. Amaziah
was familiar with such dripping and outpouring
ceremonies, and
scornfully sent word to Amos, "None of that
here!" Amos 7:16.
Amos
was instantly angered that he was supposed to employ such
devices.
The great prominence of sprinklings
and pourings in all manner
of ancient ritual is familiar enough. The Bit Rimki series in cunei-
form ritual is available for almost any occasion.
The preparatory
ceremony could be the same for opposite purposes;
the object cursed
or blessed would be the only difference. Recall
the "sprinkling
enemies with the poison of death" cited
above from Sargon; and com-
pare the familiar red heifer-ashes-cedar-hyssop
water for times of
death, in Num., chap. 19. It would suit an Assyrian masmasu or
Babylonian asipu perfectly for Sargon's
ends.
He would have
chanted, "As this heifer is cut to pieces,
this cedar hath been burned,
this hyssop hath poisoned, this water poured forth,
so may the enemy
be cut to pieces, poisoned, burned, swept away by
floods." In the
Palestinian
ritual case of Num., chap. 19, he would have chanted,
"So
may this edimmu
(family ghost) be removed, washed away,"
etc. Did Hebrew priests so chant? Black ark or
hurtful magic is
proscribed, for the masses, yet the priests have
solemn cursing as one
THE HEBREW "MASAL" 99
of their official duties,l
e.g., Num. 5:23; Deut. 27:13. In masal we
see a technical term and the general formula. The
red heifer ritual
probably originated in such solemn cursing and
burning as Mesha
used when he cut his son to pieces and burned him,
that the life
cutting to pieces might come upon
With the sprinkling or pouring wine
or death, indicated by the
passages above cited, compare Josephus'
description of the expulsion
of an evil spirit (
Solomon's mesalim. A magic root and a bowl
of water are the
equipment. When the water is upset or poured out,
the expulsion.
is complete, and the ghost cannot return—recalling
the warning to
David
by the "wise woman," II Sam. 14:14, "For we must die, and
like water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be
gathered up again."
(Did
David perceive a threatened curse in her words?) Such
rimki underlie "I will
pour out my Spirit"; in
seen. Jars of water are brought to a shrine, an
invocation induces
the saint to enter into the water, which is then
poured over any
ailing or demoniac brought for healing. Observe the
contrasting
"He
hath poured out himself unto death," Isa. 53:12,
instead of
pouring out the life of his foemen.
Isaiah also applies the term masal to the
famous apostrophe of
overthrown
of
action accompanying was the smashing or
"annihilating" (sabbath)
of a gilded wand or scepter, perhaps a copy of
Babylonian insignia
(like "trampling upon the flag." The later Isaiah
of Babylon scorns
such mummery: "a bruised reed he shall not
break," Isa. 42:3).
Calling
this wand "scepter of the mosel," vs. 5, may point to certain
ritual activities of the Babylonian king, as head of
the sacred asylum
city. What else was in the masal we cannot tell; but the
result is
that the great functional mosel is "made like" (nimsalta) unto
the
shades that address him in Sheol,
vs. 10, another of Isaiah's famous
1 Cutting up an animal and
burning it to ashes, and using the ashes in decoctions,
unguents, and lotions for marvelous effects is
still part of dervish medicine. The
liver-ashes is in special repute, as in Book of Tobit. A human being not being available,
a monkey is next best, as in Hajji Baba, pp.
68-69, or as in Thuggee lore in
"Cool it with a baboon's
blood,
Then the charm is firm
and good!"—Macbeth
100 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
plays on words. Jeremiah's "one mosel against
another" in
51:46;
suggests the familiar wrangling of her numerous religious
functionaries in time of evil
tidings: "There, must be a takpirtu!"
"A BUR.RU.DA!" "A
day is one of ill-omen!" Isa.
40:10 has such in mind: "Yahweh is
not" hired "by anyone, his work is open
(not secret), his own arm
mosel" (sets the
pattern. Compare oft mentioned ceremonial, "Out-
stretched Arm").
Ezekiel uses the word masal again in
another of his numerous
object lessons, 17:2: “Sharpen a sharpening” (Gesenius) and mesol
a masal, against the house of
the Great Eagle, and his faithless transplanted
vine, which shall be
"cut off," "plucked up." The
"sharpening" and these penal expres-
sions may suggest the
ceremony.
All these rituals against a foeman
bring before us Jeremiah's
great curse-ritual against
the curses; they are solemnly written down. Then Seraiah is to
take the writing, bind a stone to it, cast it into
the
the solemn curse: "Thus shall
evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be
utterly exhausted
(never recover)." This is perfectly accurate "black
art." It must
be emphasized that Jeremiah is not the
"functioning personality"
here. His wishes or desires are as those of any
other man; Seraiah
is the solemnly functioning party. And the narrator
is careful to
explain that such ritual is his special
business; he is sar menuhah,
"Chief Producer of Quiet," vs. 59. We have a suggestion of
the
immense amount of masal ritual implicit every here
in the familiar
"the Lord had given them rest (nuh) from their enemies round
about."
Purely protective magic to such end
is probably in mind in
Isa. 27:4. Yahweh exclaims, " (There is) no poison!
(hemah)
for
me! Who would set briers and thorns against me in
battle? I
would go through them; I would burn them
utterly!" The basis
of such mummery is the practice of fencing a
temporary camp or
zareeba with a hedge of cut
thorns, a precaution familiar to every
African explorer. Manasseh, fleeing, was
perhaps overtaken at such
a thorn-camp: II Chron.
33:11; cf. Hos. 2:6; Prov.
15:19; 22:5.
THE HEBREW
"MASAL"
101
In Nah. 1:10, "For though
surrounded by thorns, and soaked
like a sudd, they shall be consumed like stubble fully dry."1 Isa. 10:
17,
"The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and His Holy One for a
flame; and it shall burn and devour his thorns and
briers in one day "
Ps.
58 is a liturgy dealing with such hemah magic (vss. 4–5) "before
your pots can feel your thorns, like hai (hawwy, a gale? Arab.) like
haron (lightning ?) he will
storm them away, vs. 9." II Sam. 24:6
"And
Belial,—all of them like thorns repelling, For not by
hand can
they be grasped; Yet a man shall approach them! He
will be
equipped with iron and the staff of a spear, and
with fire shall they
be burned where they lie!" Cf. Deut.
32:22–24. Observe that the
pagan Arab divinity al ‘ozzah,
"Uzzy," was represented by a thorn-
bush or thorn hedge (Sale, Koran, p. 14). Lat = Allatu. Hence the
invocation "by Lat and Uzzy"
is an appeal to Death and Thor
magic ("a covenant with Death and agreement with
Sheol"? The
seven Evil Spirits—"Among the thorns on the
Mountain was their
growth"—Smith,
Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 105). Ezek. 28:14,
16,
18, seems to refer to
barrier, which only burns herself. These
suggestions as to thorn-
zareeba protective mesalim must
suffice. The hemah
and "cup of
poison for all nations," Jer.
25:15; Isa. 51:17, with the "poison of
death for all foes" of Assyrian ritual is
reserved for separate and
extensive elaboration.
The readiness of a mosel
to take advantage of an incident for
his purposes is illustrable.
In I Kings 11:29 if. Ahijah takes Jero-
boam's new cloak, tears it
into twelve pieces, and tells him to to take
ten. "Thus you take ten tribes of
when Saul seizes and rends Samuel's cloak, the
superstitious populace,
aware of the conflict as to authority, are certain to
count it an omen
that Samuel's official authority has been rent away.
Ere anyone
else can speak, the old seer with quick wit
exclaims, "The Lord hath
rent the
of William the Conqueror falling as he leaped
ashore in
1 Not a man
"well-soaked" but a channel or protective moat of water-vegetation is
required by the context. Immense masses of such
floating water-weed, a deadly snare to
the foot, block the upper
such will be burned away may be compared with Amos'
fire, so mighty as to devour the
Tehom rabbah, VII, 4.
102 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
As
a murmur of terror at the ill omen rose from some near, the quick-
witted duke cried, "Thus have I seized the land
with my hands!"
In like manner notable cases of
disaster may be used as the objec-
tive starting-point, leaving
only an invocation to be supplied, for
good or for ill. In Isaiah of Babylon we find
reference to such usage,
giving us a vivid picture of the wretchedness of those
Hebrews who
have not accepted assimilation or amalgamation with
their captors.
In
49:7,
framers" (their vilest object of
comparison). In Isa. 52:5, "My
people are taken (utilized) as a Nothing: the moselim make them
a
howling." That is, "May N.N. be made to wail like a Jew!" In
Joel
2:17 ff. is another illustration: "Spare thy people, 0 Lord,
and give not thy heritage to reproach that the
heathen make a
masal of them (or with
them)": which reading is supported by the
assurance in vs. 19, "I will no longer make
you a reproach among the
heathen," and in vss.
26, 27, "My people shall nevermore be
ashamed!" A terse specimen of such a curse-masal in
the exilic period is given by Jer.
29:22, "The Lord make thee like
Zedekiah
and like Ahab, whom the king of
fire! "Compare the official general formula
with ceremonial masal
(word not used) in the jealousy ritual, Num. 5:21, and masal-threats,
Deut.
28:37; I Kings 9:7. Like the Zedekiah Ahab case is the
Deborah-curse
by the fate of Sisera: "So perish all thine enemies,
O
Lord," Judg. 5:31; and Cushi's
by Absalom: 'May the enemies
of my lord the king and all that rise up against t
ee to do thee hurt,
be as that young man is!" II Sam. 18:32. In the
Psalms we find
orthodox liturgy uses the same word, and the lie
objects to curse
or bless by. In 28:1; 143:7, "Lest I be made
like (nimsalti)
them
that go down into the pit! "Probably knowledge of an imprecation
to such end prompted composition of the original
liturgy. Ps. 49
merits consideration here. Entitled "Unto
death," and asserting
that man is nimsal, "made like" unto a beast; was hewing some
beast
to pieces and chanting the liturgy against a named
enemy the original
intention? In
Ps. 83:9, "Do unto them as to Midian; as to Sisera,
as to Jabin at the brook
Kishon"; vs. 11, "Mae their nobles like
Oreb and Zeeb: yea, all
their princes like Zeb and Zalmunna";
vss. 13-15, "like a
wheel—like stubble—as fire buineth (this ?) wood,
THE HEBREW
"MASAL"
103
as flame fireth
mountains so persecute them with thy tempest, nd
make them afraid of thy storm!" The
"war-medicine" origin of
the liturgy is apparent at a glance. The figures
may be compared
with Isa. 17:13. Compare
the imprecatory section of Ps. 109:7ff.
Contrasting
with persons used to curse by, note the blessing masal
in Ruth 4:11, 12: "The Lord make the woman
that is come into by
house like Rachel, and like Leah, which two did build
the house of
"By
thee shall
Manasseh!"
So Deut. 15:6, "thou be a masal for many nations,
but they not for thee."
Numerous other symbolisms occur to
the reader; any of these we
may understand is a masal, though not specifically
stated. There is
Neh. 5:13, a lapshaking
curse; Jer. 5:19, "Like as ye have forsaken
me, so shall ye serve others"; his bottle
breaking, 19:10 ff.; his girdle
ceremony and bottle ceremony, chap. 13; Isaiah's
walking naked and
barefoot three years, Isa.
20:2 ff.—all these actions and solemn curses
and asseverations we may recognize as classifiable
as mesalim.
So
also Ezekiel's siege ceremony, 4:1-8, and the
following famine
warning, vss. 9-17,
are to be given the name Ezekiel himself has given
to like ceremonies. Hananiah
tries to nullify Jeremiah's yoke masal,
Jer. 28:10-11, and is told that the Lord will kill
him for trying to do
so, vs. 16; which reminds us that in a battle of
magicians one is
always facing the possibility of more powerful
"war-medicine," as
the Philistines believed they were doing, I Sam.
4:7ff., and might
fear to attempt counter-magic against a more
powerful divinity.
In Job we find the same use of the
word masal.
In 27:1 he "con-
tinued, chanting a masal." I
believe the reference is to the supremely
solemn asseveration with which he reaffirms that he
will not acknowl-
edge wrong. "Like as God lives! like as He hath taken my vindica-
tion away! sure as I am tormented in soul, I will hold fast my right-
eousness, so long as I shall
live!" vss. 2-6. In 41:33 is an interesting
reference to a hunter's familiar and futile spells
against the crocodile:
"(There
is) no masal
of him (by) those who render harmless!"
Bildad in 25:2 says, "
binding
power for an oath, Gen. 31:53) are with Him"; which means
no spell or ceremony can bind unless God will.
This may be a late
104 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
and rational acknowledgment that no such ritual has
any value.
Compare
David's belief that the Lord might reverse Shimei's
curse,
II
Sam. 16:10–12; and the imprecation in Ps. 109:28 that the
curser's imprecations might return upon him.
Assyrian cross-
questioning of an oracle to know if it is kinis--can be relied on—will
be remembered. As between the alternatives (in
case of failure),
that the god lied, or that any ritual was absolutely
worthless, morality
goes hand in hand with rational views.
Contrasting with foregoing
hunter-magic for mastering the croco-
dile, take Jacob's
ceremonies for hastening increase of herds with
storax and almond (luz), previously
cited, and using spotted plane
tree sticks, that the cattle might be
"likewise" spotted. The word
masal is not used in the
narrative; but we ma notice that the like
general manager of Abraham's affairs is called a
mosel, Gen.
24:2.
We
observe his dependence upon portents or little presages when he
waits at the well for the coming of a gracious
maiden, and that
Rebekah's family are equally influenced, on hearing
his story: "the
thing proceedeth from
God." We have come back to Joseph,
and
find that the remarkably favorable mesalim of his
youth, and his later
aptness in such things in prison, have resulted
at last in his becoming
mosel for all
into the priest-clan of On we can see would mean
that no small part
of his official duties would be participation in
ceremonies for promoting
the prosperity of the land.
phase of his work. Secularly he is merely "lord
of Pharaoh's house"
(mayor of the "palace") as Eleazar
was of Abraham's house. His
"divining cup" we recall. As sare miqneh, "chief herdsmen," we
hope his brethren had the magic skill of their father
Jacob.
The passage already cited from
Josephus, of exorcism of an evil
spirit, occurs in his narrative of Solomon's pre-eminent
wisdom. As a
powerful magician Solomon is still the marvel of
oriental lore—Jew,
Moslem, or oriental Christian. The cavalier
treatment of this
tradition by modern scholars has been due to the
limited conception
of the word masal, and to the popular western
notion that he was an
author rather than a collector. With the data before
us, and the
thousands of such mummeries accumulating for ages
before his day,
I
see no reason to question the statement, I Kings 4: 30–34, that he
THE HEBREW
"MASAL"
105
collected 3,000 mesalim, and that this folklore
included all manner of
plants in magic use, from the hyssop to the cedar. Of
magic incanta-
tions he gathered 1,005 (sirim). It is
such activity as Assurbanipal
displayed; and the material, if available, we
might think indicative
of less intelligence. We may be sure it contained
many duplicates or
variations of the same fundamental masal. Josephus
says specifi-
cally that Solomon had a
"parable" (=masal)
upon every sort of
tree from the hyssop to the cedar; which is decisive
as to the mean-
ing of the word masal in his time
(Ant. VIII, ii, 5). (His water-spilling
masal in this connection has
been previously cited.) It must be
understood that Solomon himself is a master mosel, and as
such
(I
Kings 5:1; II Chron. 7:18; 9:26) enters upon his
career with the
best of auspices and rituals. Observe also that
Gideon having
achieved distinction by the aid of several
notable portents, is promptly
begged, "mesol for us" (Judg. 8:22),
and his ephod is a cultus object
when he declines.
The translation "rule" of
our A.V., coupled with the fact that
the Arabic mathala has not such meaning, turns our attention to the
probable origin of the use of masal in the sense of
"rule." Three new
translations are suggested here:
Gen. 3:16, "Thy longing shall be
toward thy husband; and he shall be likewise (A.V. ‘rule’)
toward
thee" (and not toward another) seems to me the
common-sense trans-
lation. Gen. 4:7 is the same.
The two brothers have appealed to
the judgment of God. The defeated one is angry.
"Were there no
wrong on your part, would you not be accepted? and would not
your brother's longing be toward you ? and you would feel like wise
toward him."
Gen. 1:18; Ps. 136:8: The pious
astrologer-compilers did not
need sun, moon, and stars to give light; they viewed
them as Jacob
did in the case of Joseph's dream, already cited,
giving portents of
coming events: "to show likenesses" and be
"othoth
in the heavens,"
v.
14. In the Seven Tablets of Creation from Asur, we
gather the
same view (VI, 58-95), despite breaks, AJSL, October, 1921: "The
great gods dwelt on their road (ecliptic) The gods of fate,
(planets) seven are they, for . . . . were
stationed. . . . After
fates of heaven and earth had been decreed, a tamsil (likeness thereof)
in heaven he made . . . . let
them not ignore their god," etc. The
106 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
use of tamsil in the sense of "pattern, likeness to be
followed," is too
familiar to need extensive citation. One
headdress is furnished
a workman ana tam-si-li, "as a pattern"; he is to make another
(AJSL,
XXXI, 85). "The works of the god lu ma-la" (Creation
Tabs., VI, 100). Ekal tamsil ekal Babili
(
Bezold1 reads of Mercury
in astrological text, u M 86378, mumas-
sil same, "the mimic of the heavens." Astrologer, held the
influence
of Jupiter and Venus to be good; Mars and Saturn
were bad; while
Mercury
was like his company. This use of mumassil, "mimic,"
compare with Ezekiel's memassel mesalim, already cited. It does
not matter, for the present inquiry, whether the
populace regarded
Ezekiel as a "mimic" or as an
originator of mesalim.
The evidence of the Koran is important: for Mohammed
regularly
follows Gen. chap. 1, and adheres to the word mathala; but
neither he
nor the Jews of his acquaintance understood it as
"rule" in our
A.V. sense. Sura XXIV,
35-36, God created heavens: the stars are
a lamp in glass in a niche whereby God
"strikes out parables."2 In
X,
101; XII, 105, is the same assertion, "and men ignore them";
in X, 5, God "details signs to a people who do
not know." In
XXX,
23-25, the stars obey God and furnish mithl to men. In
XXVII,
25, "God brings forth the secrets of the heavens, and knows
both what they hide and what they manifest." In
V, 16, the signs of
the zodiac oracle futurity, and devils who eavesdrop
are pelted
away by shooting stars. In XXV, 41: "’Ad and Thamud and people
of ar-Rass—for each one
we struck out parables, and each one we
have ruined with utter ruin." Observe ‘amtathala ‘amrun="be
like the order"="obey" (Lane, s.v.). So that "rule" is a derivative
idea ="setting a pattern."
Since portents in the heavens
control the lives of men, Nabu-
naid prays Samas, "Daily in thy rising and thy setting make
favor-
able my portents (ittatua) in heaven and
earth" (Col. III, 18-19).
Cf.
II Sam. 23:3-4, "Said the God of Israel to me; oracled
the Rock
of
God,
and like light of morn, the sun ariseth a cloudless
morn;
with clearness from rain, and herbage from the
earth"—which is
1 Sitz.-Berichte d. Heidelb. Akad. d.
Wiss.—Phil. Hist.,
XIII, Abh. 11.
2 Palmer, SBE, IX, regularly translates mithl so.
3 Parallelism suggests noun Sedek, instead of MT saddik.
THE HEBREW
"MASAL"
107
as definitely astrologic as Nabuna'id.
Just as definite is Jer. 33:25–26
as the ordinances of heaven and earth, so the moselim of the
seed of
David,. Bildad's speech, Job 25:2–5,
has an astrologic base. So
has I Chron. 29:11–12 (masalta); II Chron. 20:6; Ps. 89:9–11;
103:10;
Isa. 60:1–3.
For mesalim of darkness, note the
gloom heralding the day of
Yahweh,
Amos 5:8, 18–20; Joel 2:2, 10, 25, 30, 31; Mic. 3:6;
Nah.
1:8; Zeph. 1:14–15: every earthly disaster has its
presaging
heavenly darkness. So is the fall of
24:21-25;
of
8:22–92;
of
Bright portents are in Isa. 30:26; 60:1–3; 58:6–11; 59:9–11,
presaging favor to
and mofetim of the Hexateuch and
of Isa. 8:18; 20:3; Jer.
33:20;
Dan. 4:2, 3; 6:27. Observe Josephus'
emphasis upon comets, heav-
enly hosts, and earthly
prodigies (
it was the business of the Jewish "sacred
scribes" to interpret such;
and the firm belief of the devout author of Daniel
in the value of
such portents and his insistence that a pious Hebrew
was a better
interpreter than any Babylonian. The fervid effort
to propitiate
these heavenly powers is historic, II Kings 17:16;
21:3; 33:4, 5, 12;
II
Chron. 33:35; Jer. 8:2;
19:13; 7:18; 44:13–25; and there is
the effort to control or provide signs, othoth, Isa. 7:11; 38:7–8;
II
Kings 20:8–11. The prominence of astrology in the Talmud is
familiar to the scholar. Geikie
(Life and Words of Christ, chap. xi)
devote's two pages to citations
that need not be repeated here. With
Jeremiah
scorning such lore (10:1–2), and others announcing portents
of delivery and marvelous signs, perplexity is
inevitable, and there
is consequent inquiry if the niflaoth can be relied on (21:2).
But
the compilers of the Pentateuch evidently approve
such learning;
we have varying shades of opinions from different
O.T. periods.
Thus the astrologic masal or heavenly
portent in the O.T. is
more frequent than any other type, and its
"pattern-setting" best
explains the use of masal in the sense of
"rule." The "ruler" "gives
instructions" or "fixes
the pattern" which his people follow. The
idea of "foreshowing," or
"pattern" passes into the N.T., the word
dei<knumi expressing it, as
Christ forewarns of the crucifixion, Matt.
108 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC ANGUAGES
16:21.
So "Father sheweth Son all that He doeth,"
that the Son
may also do. So Peter is "shown" (Acts 10:2:) the sheet tamsil.
Jas.
2:18; 3:13 has like usage of the word in view; cf. Jude 7. In
Col.
2:15, Christ "set a pattern of boldness, triumphing over them in
himself."
There are very few masal passages in
which the idea suggested is
not clearly discernible. Zech. 6:13 suggests an
earlier mosel activity
on the part of a priest. It could hardly have been
maintained in
exile. Jewish magic could hardly be flaunted in the
face of Baby-
lonian magicians. But
Zechariah hopes for a genuine patesi, a priest
king, and in announcing Joshua, The Branch, declares
"he shall be
mosel on a throne,"
"he shall be priest on a throne"; which seems a
parallelism. In Isa. 3:4,
12 the lady mosel seems to "pronounce
blessed" her dupes, then swallow them.
Ezek. 19:14; Isa. 63:19;
Ps.
59:14; 66:7; Ezek. 16:44; Judg. 14:4; 15:11; Exod. 21:8
do not suggest any ritual. Abimelech
as mosel,
Judg. 9:2, 6, is
logical after Gideon's success in that role. The moselim
in II Chron.
23:20
are third in a religious procession: "captains of hundreds,
adirim, moselim." In Jer. 30:10 the mosel is parallel to the nasi, a
religious functionary.
Popular magic clearly had an
enormous place in pre-exilic Hebrew
life, though not officially detailed in our present
O.T. Morality
demands rationality; magic had to go. Hebrew
preachers who
followed ancient forms of annunciation would be classed
by the super-
stitious with charlatans of past
and present. The exile helped end
the folly. For a fervid ritualist
is commonly infuriated by another
fellow's ritual. But such attitude has large possibilities
of reaction
for the more intelligent. I have known a fervid partisan
to be weaned
from his ceremonial contention by observation of and
reflection upon
the ritual of another. And the final failure of all
Jewish "war-
medicine" was an outstanding fact. So it is
really logical that while
Isaiah
of Babylon scoffs at all the incantation he sees, he should
also declare for a "Servant of Yahweh" who
will use no street can-
tillations nor mummeries with
bruised reeds or smoking flax (extin-
guished in water, Isa. 42:3. Such masal, imprecating a like extinction
of one's self, is still current in
1 See Harris, Highlands of
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
ted.hildebrandt@gordon.edu