balak and bilaam’s bountiful biblical wordplay
In high school english we were always taught to look for the techniques that the author used to give a particular literary effect. The Tanakh and other ancient texts should not at all be seen as an exception.
It was around this time last year that I contacted my Classical Hebrew teacher, Shani Berrin, to point out some nice alliteration and wordplays used in the parsha of Chukat-Balak, read this weekend in synagogues across the diaspora.
In Chukat, a plague of fiery serpents afflicts Israel, and then we get a tongue-twister (Num. 21:9):
וַיַּעַשׂ מֹשֶׁה נְחַשׁ נְחֹשֶׁת, וַיְשִׂמֵהוּ עַל-הַנֵּס; וְהָיָה, אִם-נָשַׁךְ הַנָּחָשׁ אֶת-אִישׁ–וְהִבִּיט אֶל-נְחַשׁ הַנְחׁשֶׁת, וָחָי.
And Moses made a serpent (nachash) of brass (nechoshet), and set it upon the pole (nes); and it came to pass, that if a serpent (nachash) had bitten (nashach) any man, when he looked unto the serpent (nachash) of brass (nechoshet), he lived.
Also a pun between the chet and khaf, though, is this favourite of mine in Balak (Num. 24:10-11):
וַיִּחַר-אַף בָּלָק אֶל-בִּלְעָם, וַיִּסְפֹּק אֶת-כַּפָּיו; וַיֹּאמֶר בָּלָק אֶל-בִּלְעָם, לָקֹב אֹיְבַי קְרָאתִיךָ, וְהִנֵּה בֵּרַכְתָּ בָרֵךְ, זֶה שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים. וְעַתָּה, בְּרַח-לְךָ אֶל-מְקוֹמֶךָ; אָמַרְתִּי כַּבֵּד אֲכַבֶּדְךָ, וְהִנֵּה מְנָעֲךָ יְהוָה מִכָּבוֹד.
And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together; and Balak said unto Balaam: ‘I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed (berakhta barekh) them these three times. Therefore now flee (berach) thou to thy place; I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath kept thee back from honour.’
I just find it amusing that Balak chooses to tell Balaam to flee with the word berach, and not any other, in such a way that it heightens the irony of the situation and Balaam’s berakha.
It is probably worth noting that chet and khaf didn’t always sound the same and are quite different letters. Shani queried Gary Rendsburg, who explained (paraphrasing): The letter chet in Hebrew actually represents two sounds in some ancient Semitic speech: a pharyngeal fricative (a guttural Mizrahi chet), and a verlar fricative (an Ashkenazi chet, also khaf). The letter khaf was once pronounced the same as kaf, ie a [k] sound (verar plosive). By comparing to bits of available Ugaritic, it is possible to see that the word berach (“to flee”) had the pharyngeal “soft” chet. Gary suggests that even with the soft chet, the similarity would have been close enough for this pun to work.
Shani found more examples of this elsewhere in the Torah: Gen. 27:36 has Esau complain that his brother stole first his bekhor (inheritance of the first-born), then his berakha (blessing). But verse 47 has Jacob as a result fleeing (berach).
Finally, Shani pointed out that the most obvious alitteration used in parshat balak is where we find some very rare words. Instead of the usual word to curse “ארר”, this parsha interchanges it with ‘laqov‘ (קבב) for “to curse”, which is both very rare in the bible, and a nice anagram of the name בלק. Then, once the whole saga with Balak and Bil’am is finished, we end the parsha with the story of Pinchas, and find two words not found elsewhere in the bible (called a “hapax legomenon”): qubba (קבה) meaning “tent” and qovata (קבתה) meaning “her stomach” (Num 25:8). It is quite surprising to find these strange words (when more familiar ones could be used) alongside our curse of the same root letters. Make of it all what you will!
I also enjoy finding examples of alliteration and punning within the Tanakh, but am not always sure what they’re doing there. One of the most obvious ones is Genesis 49:19 (גד גדוד יגודנו והוא יגד עקב – in the assumption that my fonts may display). But what is the actual point of it? Is it just a sign that the author is being clever? You said yourself, at the start of this post, that such techniques are utilised in order to give a particular literary effect. Was your closing statement (“make of it what you will”) an indication that you don’t know what this effect was supposed to be? Because neither do I, but I can’t help but feel that there may be an obvious answer.
Comment by Simon Holloway — 9 July, 2006 @ 7:00 pm
The stuff in Jacob’s blessings, you’re right it’s not very clear what the purpose in the poetry is, but I feel that may just be part of the genre of the blessing. While I feel that the three places in these parshiot that I present are really instances of three different things, I would think there is nothing about the genre in any of them that makes poetry and alliteration expected. I feel that in the cases of the nachash and the berakha, it hightens the feeling of the sentence- and Balak’s comment is in general to some extent very theatrical.
As to the the case of קב, Shani understood these as “Stichworte” (lit. references) which are essentially used to tie two otherwise unrelated passages together. Whether this is meant as a sign of documentary coherence—or even to be used as a mnemonic—I’m not sure.
Comment by Joel — 9 July, 2006 @ 11:54 pm
The only other place where I’ve ever come across Stichworte is in the Book of the Twelve, where there exist both individual words and the repetition of certain key themes, both serving to link each of the texts to the one preceding it. In that instance, it’s pretty clear that they’re the result of some kind of deliberate editing, as nobody believes that all twelve books were written by one person. Nogalski has a very comprehensive treatment of the issue, but I don’t know how relevant it is to our case here. I hadn’t thought of the mnemonic idea, but I guess that makes sense too – but is probably more likely in the case of Gen 49 where the text may have served some kind of liturgical/magical purpose than in the case of the Pinchas story which seems to be, well, just a story.
Comment by Simon Holloway — 12 July, 2006 @ 8:42 pm