Sunday, October 16, 2005

Shir HaShirim 1:1 and Yonah

In Yonah 1:7, as the ship tosses in the storm, the sailors cast lots to determine who is at fault:

ז וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל-רֵעֵהוּ, לְכוּ וְנַפִּילָה גוֹרָלוֹת, וְנֵדְעָה, בְּשֶׁלְּמִי הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת לָנוּ; וַיַּפִּלוּ, גּוֹרָלוֹת, וַיִּפֹּל הַגּוֹרָל, עַל-יוֹנָה. 7 And they said every one to his fellow: 'Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.' So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.
Here we have a contraction and coalescence of be asher le mi. The asher contracts to she, and joins with the le, though placing a strong dagesh in the lamed. (We see this in the word shel.) See also בְשֶׁלִּי in pasuk 12. Yet even though asher becomes she, it can still exist independently. Thus, in pasuk 8, we see:

ח וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו--הַגִּידָה-נָּא לָנוּ, בַּאֲשֶׁר לְמִי-הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת לָנוּ: מַה-מְּלַאכְתְּךָ, וּמֵאַיִן תָּבוֹא--מָה אַרְצֶךָ, וְאֵי-מִזֶּה עַם אָתָּה. 8 Then said they unto him: 'Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us: what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?'
This phrase is the same as the word above, except that asher does not become she, but remains independent. Elsewhere we also see asher standing independently - for example, כַּאֲשֶׁר in pasuk 14. Just because asher becomes she in one place does not mean that it cannot remain asher in another place.

This should be obvious, and I apologize for belaboring the point. But now let us turn to the application.

Shir HaShirim 1:1 begins the sefer:

א שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים, אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה. 1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
This is a superscription to the book, assigning authorship. Scholars like to often claim that superscriptions are added later than the rest of the book. This is relevant here because most modern academic Biblical scholars deny Solomonic authorship of the book. Some will say that there are multiple songs in the book, one of which dates to Solomon's time, and could have been written by him or some poet for him, but that other songs in the book are of later authorship and of other locations in Israel. (I won't go into all of their reasons here.) Others would deny a connection to King Solomon entirely. The superscription, then, written at a later (post-Exilic) time, would be mistaken, possibly as a result of extending authorship from the one song to the entire book, or influenced to a few scattered references to King Solomon or "the king" in the book.

One prominent piece of evidence brought that the superscription is a later addition is a linguistic one. The first pasuk uses the full word asher - אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה. Meanwhile, in the remainder of the 8 perek book, we have occasional use of the word, but always contracted. Thus, (as Gordis notes at the beginning of his commentary - page 78)
1:6 - שֶׁלִּי
1:7-שַׁלָּמָה
5:8 - שֶׁחוֹלַת
6:5 - שֶׁהֵם, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ
6:6 - שֶׁכֻּלָּם;
etc.

But, as the pesukim in Yonah show, one need not be restricted to just one form. You can write asher and write she or sha elsewhere.

However, that is not in truth what the Biblical scholars are arguing. Rather, it is that we do not find the form asher anywhere else in the book. That is, the author of Shir HaShirim restricts himself to the contracted form, yet we find the full form in the superscription. This would seem to suggest separate authorship of the superscription.

In answer to this, I first wonder if the number of examples of the contracted form occurs frequently enough in the book to make this assertion confidentally. Perhaps had more songs been included, or had the book been 8 chapters longer, the form asher might have occurred.

Secondly, especially since many scholars assert authorship of the songs by many different authors in many different time periods, would they really say that in none of those time periods, the full form asher would not have been preferred? The claim of consistency of the short form she seems somewhat predicated on single authorship and thus consistent style, so how can one then turn around and say that there were multiple authors from multiple places, with presumably different styles?

Thirdly, this linguistic evidence appears to ignore the basic fact that the book is one of Song. Song has meter, and requires balance in terms of things such as number of words. Biblical poetry is also short - it eschews long-winded grammatical construction. The fact that the word asher, when it crops up, is made short and appended to the word, does not seem to me to be a linguistic feature of how they spoke and wrote in general, but rather a fitting to the requirements of the specific form and the keeping the meter in the specific verse. Meanwhile, the superscription, even if written by King Solomon, would still be a superscription, and not poetry, and the change of genre seems sufficient to explain the change in style. Alternatively, and more so, perhaps the keeping of the full asher is due to musical/lyrical considerations. Shir HaShirim / Asher LiShlomo makes a nice division, with two words in each subdivision. SheLiShlomo or ShelShlomo would not sound as right.

Fourthly, this ignores the fact that some of the shortenings of asher to she or sha can be explicitly seen to exist for lyrical reasons. Thus, for example, 1:6:

ו אַל-תִּרְאוּנִי שֶׁאֲנִי שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת, שֶׁשְּׁזָפַתְנִי הַשָּׁמֶשׁ; בְּנֵי אִמִּי נִחֲרוּ-בִי, שָׂמֻנִי נֹטֵרָה אֶת-הַכְּרָמִים--כַּרְמִי שֶׁלִּי, לֹא נָטָרְתִּי. 6 Look not upon me, that I am swarthy, that the sun hath tanned me; my mother's sons were incensed against me, they made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.'

The alliteration of sh sounds is stressed even more by the she's leading the word, instead of being placed in the midst of a separate word.

The strange word שַׁלָּמָה in the verse 1:7:

ז הַגִּידָה לִּי, שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי, אֵיכָה תִרְעֶה, אֵיכָה תַּרְבִּיץ בַּצָּהֳרָיִם; שַׁלָּמָה אֶהְיֶה כְּעֹטְיָה, עַל עֶדְרֵי חֲבֵרֶיךָ. 7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that veileth herself beside the flocks of thy companions?
is clearly (to me at least) influenced by a desire for Biblical parallelism. The word שַׁלָּמָה is meant to evoke the name שְׁלֹמֹה. Now, compare with verse 1:5:
ה שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה, בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם; כְּאָהֳלֵי קֵדָר, כִּירִיעוֹת שְׁלֹמֹה. 5 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
Thus, in verse 1:5 we have Shlomo, and more specifically the curtains of Shlomo. In verse 1:7, we have:

ז הַגִּידָה לִּי, שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי, אֵיכָה תִרְעֶה, אֵיכָה תַּרְבִּיץ בַּצָּהֳרָיִם; שַׁלָּמָה אֶהְיֶה כְּעֹטְיָה, עַל עֶדְרֵי חֲבֵרֶיךָ. 7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that veileth herself beside the flocks of thy companions?
Thus, Shlomo parallels שַׁלָּמָה, and כְּעֹטְיָה, like one veiled, parallels כִּירִיעוֹת, like the curtains.

The use of sha is absolutely necessary because of other considerations, and asher would simply not suffice. One should not draw any conclusions from its use.

Another example: 6:6:

ו שִׁנַּיִךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָרְחֵלִים, שֶׁעָלוּ מִן-הָרַחְצָה: שֶׁכֻּלָּם, מַתְאִימוֹת, וְשַׁכֻּלָה, אֵין בָּהֶם. 6 Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes, which are come up from the washing; whereof all are paired, and none faileth among them.
The word שֶׁכֻּלָּם, "that all of them," is required to anticipate וְשַׁכֻּלָה, "and faileth." Use of she later in the pasuk can influence the adoption of she earlier in the pasuk, in שֶׁעָלו.

{Update, copied from my later post here:

However, that would not really account for she in the previous verse:
א הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי, הִנָּךְ יָפָה--עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים, מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ; שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מֵהַר גִּלְעָד. 1 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that trail down from mount Gilead.
In fact, beside the shekkullam/shakkula sound parallelism, there is additionally a larger pattern of alliteration (like the one I mentioned in verse 1:6). Thus, looking at the alliteration pattern in the two verses:
עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים, מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי, הִנָּךְ יָפָה
שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מֵהַר גִּלְעָד שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים
שֶׁעָלוּ מִן-הָרַחְצָה. שִׁנַּיִךְ כְּעֵדֶר הַקְּצוּבוֹת
וְשַׁכֻּלָה, אֵין בָּהֶם שֶׁכֻּלָּם, מַתְאִימוֹת
In each case a shin or sin in the first half is matched by a shin in the second half.
}

Thus, she or sha can be required for meter, for alliterative purposes, or to construct word-play and parallels. This should perhaps cause some reconsideration in terms of assuming that the consistent use of she exists because asher would not be used, and to date a pasuk on such linguistic grounds.

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