17. a smoking oven and a blazing torch] the two together
making an emblem of the theophany, akin to the pillar of
cloud and fire of the Exodus and Sinai narratives (cf. Ex. 32
199 1321 etc.). The oven is therefore not a symbol of
Gehenna reserved for the nations (Ra.).—On the appearance
of the (
Hebrew characters), see the descriptions and illustrations in Riehm,
HWb. 178; Benzinger, Arch.2 65.—passed between these pieces] cf. Jer. 3418f. (the only other allusion).
On this rite see Kraetzschmar, op. cit. 44 ff. Although attested by
only one other OT reference, its prevalence in antiquity is proved by
many analogies in classical and other writers. Its original significance
is hardly exhausted by the well-known passage in Livy (i. 24), where a
fate similar to that of the victim is invoked on the violators of the
covenant.[1] This leaves unexplained the most characteristic feature,—the
passing between the pieces. Rob. Sm. surmises that the divided
victim was eaten by the contracting parties, and that afterwards "the
parties stood between the pieces, as a symbol that they were taken
within the mystical life of the victim" (RS2, 480 f.).
18. This ceremony constitutes a Berîth, of which the one
provision is the possession of 'the land.' A Berîth necessarily
implies two or more parties; but it may happen that
from the nature of the case its stipulations are binding only
on one. So here: Yahwe alone passes (symbolically)
between the pieces, because He alone contracts obligation.—The
land is described according to its ideal limits; it is
generally thought, however, that the closing words, along
with 19-21, were added by a Deuteronomic editor, and that in
the original J the promise was restricted to Canaan proper.
The (Hebrew characters) (not, as elsewhere (Hebrew characters) = Wādī el-Arīsh) must be the
Nile (cf. Jos. 133, 1 Ch. 135). On an old belief that the W. el-Arīsh was
an arm of the Nile, see Tuch.—(Hebrew characters)] cf. Dt. 17 1124, Jos. 14. The
boundary was never actually reached in the history of Israel (the notice
17. (Hebrew characters)—(Hebrew characters)] pf. with sense of plup. (G-K. § 111 g).—(Hebrew characters)] only
here and Ezk. 126. 7. 12. G φλὸξ is certainly wrong ((Hebrew characters)? (Hebrew characters)?).—(Hebrew characters)]
GVS read the ptcp., hence Ball emends (Hebrew characters).—(Hebrew characters)] the noun recurs
only Ps. 13613; but cf. the analogous use of the vb. 1 Ki. 325. 26.
- ↑ ". . . tum illo die, Juppiter, populum Romanum sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hic hodie feriam, tantoque magis ferito quanto magis potes pollesque." Cf. Il. iii. 298 ff. Precisely the same idea is expressed with great circumstantiality in an Assyrian covenant between Ašur-*nirâri and the Syrian prince Mati'ilu: see Peiser, MVAG, iii. 228 ff.
