RE’EH (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17)
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — I have chosen four passages for comparison with texts from ancient Israel’s pagan neighbors dealing with curses, destruction of cities, false prophets, and rules for sacrifices.
I. Deuteronomy 11:26-28 “See…I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord…and curse, if you do not obey…”
In pagan literature, and indeed the Torah, the ‘treaty model’ offered blessings and curses to the parties, alternatively for performance or its failure. There are indeed curses expressed by ‘gods.’ Remember that in pagan societies, the king was a ‘god,’ who clearly made curses.
Here are a couple of examples:
(a) In the Legend of Sargon, Ur-Zababa, the king-god, developed blood in his urine and was simultaneously fearful of Sargon, his son. It happened that Sargon dreamed of Ur-Zubaba being drowned, and for this Ur-Zababa ordered the murder of Sargon. Sargon later became his successor and founded the Akkad dynasty.
(b) Ashurninari V of Assyria, recognizied his treaty with Matilu of Arpad was violated, perhaps, e.g. the involved water was contaminated. He cursed Matilu and ordered that Arpad be burned. [1]
II. Deuteronomy 12:2-3 “You must destroy all the sites at which nations you…dispossess worshipped their gods…Tear down their altars…and cut down the images of their gods…”
There is no shortage of full destruction of enemy cities, throughout history, including in our own time, e.g. Dresden and Hiroshima in WWII.
The fear of such a fate was the rationale for ancient walled cities.
Herodotus recorded that Persians burned down the sanctuaries of Eritrea (in NE Africa) in 490 BCE and took away all its citizens as slaves.
Xerxes I of Persia (380 BCE) had Athens torched, the Acropolis razed, and the Old Temple of Athena and the Older Parthenon destroyed.
Hannibal of Carthage, in 409 BCE, engaged in a heavy battle for the Sicilian city of Selinus. Defending women of Selinus hurled bricks and tiles for days from the rooftops onto his soldiers. Hannibal ultimately prevailed and razed the city and carried off the temple treasures.
The Romans, in 167 BCE destroyed 70 towns and enslaved 150,000 people in Epeiros, a Greek archipelago which today is shared with Albania. Rome’s brutality stands out with few parallels in the ancient world. [2] [3]
Of course, Deuteronomy 13:14-17 is no less brutal in its mandate for destruction of Israelite wayward cities: “.(If)..some scoundrels from among you…subverted the inhabitants of their town…put the inhabitants of that town to the sword…its cattle to the sword…gather all its spoil as a holocaust…it shall remain an everlasting ruin, never to be rebuilt.”
III.Deuteronomy 13:6 “As for that (false) prophet or dream-diviner (among you), he shall be put to death for he urged disloyalty to the Lord…”
I found no direct accusations of false prophets among the pagan writings. However the early Christian Church has warnings against false prophets. The Apostle Paul, in Acts describes his encounter with a ‘Jewish false prophet,’ Bar-Jesus. Paul addressed him as “You son of the Devil.” (Acts 13:6-12) There is also a false prophet mentioned in the Book of Revelation, called the ‘agent of the Beast,’ ultimately cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. (Rev. 19:20) The Beast is described (Rev. 13:11) as “outwardly benign as a lamb, but…It speaks like a dragon.” [4]
IV. Deuteronomy 12:13-14 “Take care not to sacrifice your burnt offerings in any place you like, but only in the place (Jerusalem) that the Lord will choose…”
There are parallels in pagan and other religions as to the times for sacrifices e.g. birth, puberty, marriage, death–and daily, monthly, or seasonal, but I found no equivalent as to a geographical location. A typical specified location is the ‘altar site.’ For the Greeks, it could be a grave marker. Such sites were called omphalos, the naval of the earth. [5]
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NOTES
[1] https://religion-and-theology-articles-blogspot.com/2017/08/the-epic-of-gilgamesh.html
[2] https://classicalstudies.org/scs-news/conference-destructions-survival-and-recovery-ancient-greece
[3] Wikipedia, “Achaemenid destruction of Athens” and “Battle of Selinus”
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_prophet
[5] https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacrifice-religion/Christianity
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.