Biblical Archaeology Review

Gloucestershire, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1996.

In old translations we often find the rendering “who rides through the desert.” Hebrew ‘arava is a term for “desert.” However, even before the discovery of Ugaritic, some translated “rider of the skies,” by comparing verses 33–34 and verses from elsewhere. We now know that the Hebrew term ‘aravot refers not to “deserts” but to clouds, like the cognate Ugaritic term.

The Hebrew text adds “Nor steppes of offerings!” This makes no sense. Slight emendation of the Hebrew letters (sh-d-y t-r-w-m-t) following the Ugaritic (to sh-r-’ t-h-m-w-t) produces a perfect line: “No welling up of the watery-deeps!” In a footnote, the JPS translation suggests this emendation on the basis of the Ugaritic parallel. With this emendation, the Hebrew text follows the Ugaritic parallel exactly, invoking both the rain from the heavens and the springs from the deep.

See Shmuel Aḥituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period, trans. Anson F. Rainey (Jerusalem: Carta, 2008), pp. 249–252.

Scholem, The Messianic Idea, p. 281.

See Gershom Scholem, “The Star of David: History of a Symbol,” Luah Haaretz (1949), pp. 148–163, in Hebrew; tr. and expanded, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1978), pp. 257–281.

The Biblical texts in fact tell a far more complicated story. See Mark Geller’s comments in the volume under review (Angels and Demons, p. 34) and especially Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007), pp. 11–35.

Shimon Gibson, “Archaeology,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2007).

This synthesis draws on the work of: Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford, 1991); Nathan MacDonald, What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? Diet in Biblical Times (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008); and Ronald A. Simkins, “Family in the Political Economy of Monarchic Judah,” The Bible and Critical Theory 1 (2004).