Demons on a Leash: Habakkuk 3:3b-7

Evil is demonic in the Bible (excuse the uncouth generalization; there are exceptions, for example, the concept of evil in Qohelet is shorn of metaphysical attributes outside of God). No sunny side to it. The demons are either instruments of God on a short leash, or are themselves marked for destruction. The demons at God’s side as he renews hostilities with the forces of chaos in Hab 3 are those from which he saves in Psalm 91. A similar polarity, I would argue, is contained in the doctrine of the devil developed later, but that topic is beyond the scope of this post.

In Hab 3:3b-7, God tramples the grapes of wrath. He has two sidekicks, Deber (Plague-man) and Resheph (Fever-man). Theodore Hiebert’s remarks (1986: 92) are worth quoting:

When ’Eloah goes out from har pā’rān, the ancient sanctuary of Yahweh in the southeast, he does not march out alone. He is accompanied by two attendants, Deber and Resheph. . . . One of these attendants, Resheph, originally pronounced rašp(u), was a deity known throughout the ancient Near East. . . . Resheph was a warrior, an appropriate kind of deity to be included in Yahweh’s military retinue in Hab 3:5. Resheph was pictured in his iconography with mace-axe, spear, quiver, and shield: described as fierce in battle: and adopted as a military patron by Syrian and Egyptian kings. He appears to have been a god of the underworld, identified explicitly with Babylonian Nergal at Ugarit, and associated with such deadly forces as plagues and disease. In some biblical references to Resheph he still seems to retain his personalized character of a divinity or demon (Deut 32:24; Ps 78:48; Job 5:7). Even when the term appears to be used more as a common noun depicting the forces associated with the deity Resheph, the mythological roots of the expression are not far from the surface (Ps 76:4; Cant 8:6).

Resheph resembles the Mesopotamian god, Erra. Erra, “warrior of the gods,” is equated with Nergal (equated, as already noted, with Resheph at Ugarit) in The Poem of Erra, an absolutely must-read composition by a Babylonian priest: “The one who composed the poem about him [Erra] was Kabti-ilani-Marduk, a Dabibi. He revealed it to him in the middle of the night, and when he recited it upon waking, he omitted nothing at all, nor added a single word” (V: 42-44). Benjamin Foster (2005: 880) introduces The Poem of Erra with these words – they will pop right out at anyone who has been following this series on Habakkuk:

[The Poem of Erra] is one of most original and challenging compositions in Akkadian. The text is a portrayal of violence: its onset, course, and the consequences – how it needs to be recognized and feared . . . Violence can eliminate even the order ordained by the gods and sweep away in its frenzy all the hopes and accomplishments of civilization. The author, Kabti-ilani-Marduk, who may have lived in the eight century b.c., must have seen and suffered the consequences of violence and strife.  

Or consider these introductory words by Stephanie Dalley (2003: 404):

Certain evidence of older associations has been noted, particularly with reference to the Suteans, traditionally nomadic enemies who damaged Babylonian cities in the eleventh century bce, but they may have been incorporated deliberately to lend an air of antiquity and thus authority to the poem. Such a possibility is reinforced by an apparent element of pseudo-prophecy, which is expressed in Tablet IV, when Erra proclaims: “But afterwards a man of Akkad will rise up.” So a date in the ninth or eighth century bce seems likely.

I would, however, like to point out something about Dalley’s characterization of Erra’s words as “pseudo-prophecy.” We need to be clear that such statements are not borne of a “religiously-neutral hermeneutic” - something scholars like to hold up as an ideal, but rarely practice. Thank goodness they do not practice it. If they did, their work would be insipid. But I digress.

Erra, after all, is a god. By definition he has foreknowledge, and his actions have to be judged in light of the premise that he possesses foreknowledge. To speak of anything Erra says as “pseudo-prophecy” is, emically speaking, a category mistake. Dalley’s characterization is an exercise in demythologization. To be sure, a scholar is free to demythologize any text, ancient or modern, including the Bible, whenever he or she likes, according to whatever lights she or he holds dear. Bring it on. But please, do not pretend that demythologization is a religiously neutral act. (My contribution to the discussion Doug Magnum has initiated.)

The challenge is to approach a text like Hab 3:3b-7 with what Paul Ricoeur (whose contributions to the study of evil deserve careful consideration; for a first introduction to his thought with the student of religion in mind, go here) called a second immediacy or second naivete, or with what Dilthey called Einfühlung or reflective empathy.

Why? Because that is the only chance we have of making sense of a text. If only momentarily, we have to accept the premises of what we are reading in order to understand it, whether what we are reading is Winnie-the-Pooh, The Night before Christmas, or I Have a Dream. Here is Hab 3:3b-7, text and translation.

כִּסָּה שָׁמַיִם הוֹדוֹ

וּתְהִלָּתוֹ מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ׃

 

וְנֹגַהּ כָּאוֹר תִּהְיֶה

קַרְנַיִם מִיָּדוֹ לוֹ

וְשָׁם חֶבְיוֹן עֻזֹּה׃

 

לְפָנָיו יֵלֶךְ דָּבֶר

וְיֵצֵא רֶשֶׁף לְרַגְלָיו׃

His majesty covered the sky,
      his praise filled the earth!
A gleam appears, like sunlight,
      by his side, a two-pronged bolt -

     there, the hiding place of his power.
Pestilence marches before him:
      let the plague set out at his heels!

עָמַד וַיְמֹדֶד אֶרֶץ

רָאָה וַיַּתֵּר גּוֹיִם

 

וַיִּתְפֹּצְצוּ הַרְרֵי־עַד

שַׁחוּ גִּבְעוֹת עוֹלָם

הֲלִיכוֹת עוֹלָם לָווּ*׃

 

*תֹּהוּ וָ*אָוֶן רָאִיתִי

אָהֳלֵי כוּשָׁן יִרְגְּזוּן

יְרִיעוֹת אֶרֶץ מִדְיָן׃

*MT לוֹ; MT תַּחַת

He stood, and took the earth’s measure;
       he looked, and startled nations.
Age-old mountains shattered,
       primeval hills sank low,
       primeval routes twisted*.

I saw *waste and* havoc,
       the tents of Cushan shake,
       the curtains of the land of Midian.

*MT to him; em twisted; MT under; em waste and

The scenography begins with a starlit night: “his majesty covered the sky / his praise filled the earth” (cf. Psalm 8). Then God appears, like the gleam of dawn. Attention is drawn to the two-pronged rod of lightning at his flank (a sometime feature of ANE iconography of warrior gods). The hiding place of his power is there, in the bolt, perhaps; more likely, in the gleam or brilliance. The divine man of war’s entourage is described forthwith. Deber is on the march: may Resheph set out at his heels! The style of past narration is taken up, until the end, when once again, imperfects of vivid speech are employed. Cushan and Midian are not the destination of יהוה’s march, but their nomadic dwellings, to the south of יהוה’s point of departure, shake, literally and figuratively, at the shock of his demarche (cf. Ex 15:14-17).

Bibliography

Francis I. Andersen, Habakkuk, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 25; New York: Doubleday, 2001); Stephanie Dalley, “Erra and Ishum,” in The Context of Scripture (3 vols.; William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., eds.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 1:404-416; Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (3^rd ed.; Bethesda: CDL Press, 2005) 880-911; Theodore Hiebert, God of My Victory: The Ancient Hymn in Habbakuk 3 (HSM 38: Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986)

Comments

[Ranger]

"But please, do not pretend that demythologization is a religiously neutral act."

Exactly! I think Doug would agree as well though.

I think much of the discussion hinges on how we define apologetics. I see apologetics as anything one writes ultimately in support of their view. Therefore, I can't divorce my primary axioms from my scholarship (ala Dooyeweerd, Clouser and the rest of the Amsterdam school). Neither can unbelieving scholarship or Mike Fox or anyone else.

Doug is focusing on a particular type of apologist that I think most of us oppose together. The terminology of apologist vs. critical scholar causes some confusion though, and the framing of the discussion as "liberal" criticism being good versus "fundamentalist" apologists being bad (and vice versa) doesn't help.

Doug, Nick, Art, Calvin, you and I have much in common. We have a shared faith, and many of our conclusions are really, really similar in regards to the text.

[JohnFH]

Hi Ranger,

I actually am in favor of apologetics. The great debates thrive on apologetics going both ways. It's just that a lot of apologetics on behalf of more traditional or classical teachings is pretty shoddy. So there is work to be done.