FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE BIBLE

Instructor: Barbara Sutnick
sutnick@internet-zahav.net

Week 6
MARRIAGE AS A METAPHOR

It is not difficult to see why the prophetic books of the Bible make considerable use of the marriage bond as a symbol of the relationship between God and the people of Israel. Marriage is after all a very flexible metaphor for a relationship. In its ideal form it implies love, fidelity, exclusivity, mutual enhancement, devotion, longevity, etc. At the negative extreme it is replete with resentment, mistrust, betrayal, destruction, separation, and divorce. As we shall see, the relationship between God and Israel depicted in the prophetic books of the Bible can run the full gamut of possibilities, depending upon the behavior of Israel. In addition, human marriage is a useful image for depicting the relationship between God and the people because both are covenantal relationships. On both the human and the Divine/national levels, the parties to the covenant have absolute obligations to each other. The most important of these, for the purposes of this discussion is monogamous loyalty. Idolatry, the violation of that absolute loyalty, is analogous to adultery on the human level.

In studying the prophets it will be helpful to think of the biblical text as a type of hologram. (In fact, this image can apply to other biblical books as well.) When we look at a hologram from one angle, we see one image; from another angle it becomes a second image. (Most major credit cards today have holograms on them; please use yours as a visual aid.) Moving the hologram back and forth will result in the impression that the two images are flipping back and forth, from one to the other, with one being superimposed on the other. Similarly it seems at times that the Bible's message centers on the literal words of the text, while at other times we feel that our understanding should really be on the metaphorical level. There are other times that we sense that it is both. The challenge to the reader provided by the biblical hologram is that we must hold in our consciousness both images simultaneously, without letting one obscure the other.

Let us start with the prophetic book of Malachi, which uses several family images to make its point. Malachi also gives an outright opinion on divorce. (Please read 2:10-16.) As this section opens, God is referred to as the FATHER who created us all. Malachi's logic is that this makes us all siblings who should not be "faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers" (vs. 10). Up until this point it seems that the people are being chastised for violating the commandments concerning decent behavior among HUMAN BEINGS. Almost immediately, however, the image "flips" to the NATIONAL/DIVINE sphere: Judah/Israel (both nicknames for the people of Israel) has "married the daughter of a foreign god" (vs 11). This latter phrase has now transcended both the human-to-human level and the literal level. We have unquestionably entered the world of metaphor, with marriage to the "daughter of a foreign god" symbolizing the people's practice of idolatry. The text then "flips" right back to chastise the individual who would be "faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce says the Lord the God of Israel..." (vs. 15-16) Although we seem to have returned to the individual level with this admonishment, a small echo of the national situation is still heard between the words. Certainly God hates when husbands and wives are faithless and when they divorce (the latter causes the altar to shed tears, according to the midrash). At the same time that we hear this admonition literally, we must also recognize in it the prophet's articulation of God's displeasure at the idolatry of the people. Saying "I hate divorce" can further be seen either as a reassurance that it will never come to that on a national level, or, conversely, as a veiled threat. The allusion to permanent separation on a national level notwithstanding, the tendency of the prophets is to speak at some point of the day when there will be loving reconciliation between God and the people Israel. In summary, the prophet uses metaphor as a tool to move from the realm of the familiar (marriage) to that of the unfamiliar (human-Divine relationship), with the former shedding light on the latter.

Chapter 62 of the Book of Isaiah is a good example of the promise of better times that will follow all the nation's trials and punishments. Speaking of the promised redemption that will come for the people of Israel, we read "you shall no more be called FORSAKEN, and you land shall no more be termed DESOLATE, but you shall be called MY DELIGHT IS IN HER and your land MARRIED ONE (literally, a woman who has marital relations with her husband). For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you." (vs. 4-5) The words in upper case are all usually used in the context of the relationship between a man and a woman. Here they are being applied to God's "beloved," the people of Israel. The message is clear: When the people were exiled from the land they were like a forsaken/desolate wife who is separated against her will from her husband (God). When the redemption comes (i.e., return to the land) the people will again be like a desired wife, resuming relations with her husband.

The prophet Jeremiah also speaks of Israel in the early days as a young bride: "I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest" (2:2-3a). As a preparation for the accusation he is about to hurl at the people, Jeremiah first relates God's longing for the "good old days", when the people were a young devoted nation that followed Him (i.e., the pillar of cloud and of fire) around in the desert after He took them out of slavery in Egypt. Actually, the generation of the desert had no choice but to follow God, since they were at His mercy for their every drop of water and every morsel of food. God's "memories" (so to speak) appear much fonder than the depicted situation in the Bible. The people were hardly like an innocent and devoted bride. In fact they complained constantly and rebelled more than once against the Lord. Perhaps the above quote is NOT meant to describe the Lord's "memories" (we cannot attribute memory lapses to the Lord!), but rather His ideals and original plans for the young nation. We see that the ingredient of human free will, which God allows humanity to retain, quickly brought the relationship to disillusionment.

The admonishments in Jeremiah pick up steam. In 3:1-2 God rhetorically asks if a wife who is divorced and then marries another man can expect to be taken back by her first husband. (It is prohibited in Jewish law - biblical and modern - for a man to remarry his divorced wife if she were married to somebody else in the interim.) The image is then immediately taken to the national level: the second marriage is compared to a pollution of the land, with the people having "played the harlot with many lovers" i.e. other gods. Indeed every hilltop (places where alters were generally erected) is a place in which the people has "been lain with." In 3:8, the exile of the Kingdom of Israel is described: "I sent her away with a bill of divorce." While the prophet is at once condemning a moral laxity in marital fidelity on the human level, his overriding emphasis is the chastisement of the nation against the idolatries symbolized by marital infidelity.

In the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 16, we see a prolonged and intense metaphorical description of the deep sense of betrayal "felt" by the Lord at the idolatries of the people. (Please read this chapter.) Here Israel is not only a wife to God, but begins as an adopted daughter, so to speak. The point is made that Israel's origins were among the idolatrous nations that she is now imitating (indeed Abraham, Sarah and their followers, the first Hebrews, were converts from pagan religion). She is depicted as a bloody, naked, and abandoned infant foundling whom God rescued, nurtured, and raised to young womanhood. He gave the young "woman" all that she needed and desired, in terms of sustenance and adornments, and made her His own. Much descriptive language is used to show the extent to which God doted on the young woman/nation, much as would the parent of an only child. As the image continues, however, the woman/nation became overly self-confident. She "trusted in [her] beauty and played the harlot", i.e. worshipped other gods. God's outrage at this betrayal is poetically described in great detail. The prophet goes on to declare that Israel was even worse than most prostitutes, because she did not take payment for her favors, nor was she solicited by her lovers. On the contrary, the nation/harlot was the one doing the seducing! "Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all harlots; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side for your harlotries . . . none solicited you to play the harlot . . . . therefore you were different (i.e. much worse!, 16:32-34). You even made your wicked "sisters" (i.e. other nations) look good, continues the prophet (vs. 51).

The metaphor continues with the description of the threatened punishment: "I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure . . . . I will gather them against you from every side . . . . And I will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy" (16:37-38). Human betrayal is the metaphorical vehicle for conveying Israel's betrayal of God. Since metaphors are not completely one way, the holiness of the marriage bond is also implied.

The image of a jealous husband in all his vengeful fury is unleashed in the mind of the reader; yet that image is also clearly mitigated. Unlike many vengeful spouses, the prophet indicates that God's purpose in punishing is largely instructive and not purely vindictive. Although God threatens to punish the people thoroughly, He will not continue to do so indefinitely. "So will I satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you; I will be calm and will no more be angry" (16:42). Unlike most jealous spouses, the Lord is able to maintain perspective and see both the crime and punishment as a terrible phase that will eventually pass. He maintains the ability and the proclivity to think back fondly upon the "bride of His youth" and be moved to forgive her. In this, the marriage metaphor is not applicable to everybody. Normal human emotions are not often divine enough to fully parallel God's relationship to the people. It would take an unusual human marriage to withstand the type of betrayal that is described by the prophet and then be able to move toward forgiveness. (Such a degree of tolerance, if fact, would lead to a forbidden marriage, and therefore be considered immoral.)

The Book of Hosea, chapters 1-3, features a most bizarre usage of the marriage metaphor. (Please read these chapters.) The prophet is ordered by God to "take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord" (1:2). We are told that Hosea proceeds to marry Gomer, who bears him three children: "Jezreel" (a reminder of Israel's iniquity), "Not Pitied," and "Not My People." The second chapter consists of a description of the prophet's attempt to persuade his wife to abandon harlotry, God's threatened punishments, and a beautiful description of their reconciliation. Chapter 3 returns to the betrayal mode, with the prophet being ordered to "love a woman who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods..."

It is clear that we have here a hologram image that flips back and forth between the human experience and the parallel national-Divine relationship. Unlike the metaphor in other books, here the prophet is actually ordered to concretize the metaphor in his own life. How are we expected to understand this? Can we accept that the Lord, who is so condemning of adultery, can encourage such behavior even for the sake of making a very important point to the prophet and to the people? Does the seeming absurdity of the situation place us entirely in the realm of metaphor or allegory? Scholarly theories interpreting Hosea abound. Before we turn to these, please take a few minutes to reread the chapters (1-3) and come to your own formulation of what to make of Hosea's and Gomer's actions.

The traditional rabbinic understanding of God's command to Hosea is that it was an allegory or a dream. Hosea was enabled by the Lord to envision or dream about a marriage to a promiscuously adulterous wife, so that he would better be able to identify with God's sense of betrayal by the people. Indeed for the rabbis to assign literal reality to this story would be to accept that God would ask for or condone that one of His prophets enter into a morally repugnant marriage. This possibility is unacceptable to religious commentators who look to the Bible as a guide to individual as well as national morality.

An interesting midrash fleshes out Hosea's "vision" further. In the midrash, when God enumerates the sins of Israel to Hosea, the prophet's stern reaction is "O Lord of the world! -- In place of Israel, why don't you choose another people?" God then realizes that Hosea is not yet sensitive enough to preach His message of repentance. Hosea does not understand the unconditional love that He bears for Israel despite all her shortcomings. God therefore commands Hosea to marry the prostitute, Gomer. After some time, God asks Hosea why he does not send his unfaithful wife away. Hosea says that he cannot, since she has born him three children. "Ahaa," says the Lord, "if you cannot send away the mother of three children whom you are not even sure are yours, how could you expect me to forsake my nation, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and choose another nation?!" (Talmud Pesachim 87a-b) This midrash goes further than to illustrate the long-suffering nature of the Lord. It portrays the command to marry Gomer as an object lesson for the prophet, who was is shown to be in considerable need of sensitivity training. This midrash is much earlier than the medieval commentators who hold that the text can be only metaphorical.

Interestingly enough, the theories of several non-Jewish commentators read like spin-offs of the midrash from Talmud Pesachim. One is that Hosea married a woman of normally decent character who later betrays him. Hosea sends her away in anger. In the end, however, his love for her triumphs over his sense of indignation, and he takes her back and loves her again. Out of this personal experience his understanding of God deepens and he hears the call to prophecy. He then attributes the ordeal he suffered as God's as yet unrevealed plan for preparing him for his calling. This explanation eases the moral problem of a Divine command to Hosea to marry a prostitute, while maintaining Hosea's "lesson."

Hosea is not the only prophet who dramatized his message through his own behavior. Jeremiah makes ropes to symbolize the need for subjugation to Nebuchadnezzar (27:2) and Ezekiel is called upon to join two pieces of wood to symbolize that Judah and Ephraim will ultimately reunite (37:16). Thus, creating a type of visual aid for their audiences was an accepted part of a prophet's skills. As Rabbi Robert Gordis aptly points out, however, what is asked of Hosea is far too extreme to be considered another example of "prophetic drama." "The ancient Hebrew horror of adultery went beyond the guilty parties and forbade the husband to continue to live with his faithless wife. The status of children born in adultery went beyond the guilty parties...That all this could be divinely ordered is difficult to believe." (Poets, Prophets and Sages, pg. 232)

Gordis' interpretation of the story assigns a distinctly national character to the events in chapters 1 and 2. Hosea marries Gomer, a respectable woman, and is ordered to name the children in a way that symbolizes the doom awaiting Israel. The choice of the children's names is in keeping with the "prophetic drama" or "visual aid" technique described above. The description of Gomer as "a woman of harlotry", is not because she is herself immoral (she is NOT, according to this theory), but because "she is implicated in the sinfulness of the nation" as is everybody else (Gordis, 233). In other words, Hosea and Gomer's marriage is offered as one potential representative analogy for the depravity that is wracking the nation.

Taking Gordis' interpretation a step further, it is as if Hosea is saying "Imagine my wife, your wife, all of our wives betraying us with lovers -- this is what we are doing to the Lord. Imagine us begging our children to persuade their mother to give up her harlotries -- this is what the Lord is reduced to in appointing me as His prophet!" In other words, Hosea asks all of the people (and his readers, too) to empathize with God, by thinking about how we would feel if our spouse were unfaithful. Only then can we understand God's horror at the people's idolatries, and begin to justify the wrath He plans to unleash. At the same time, those who have experienced a loyal and loving relationship with their spouses, can also understand why God does not reject Israel outright, and will even forgive her after all the wrongs done. Human experience is Hosea's example for understanding both the power of unconditional love and the devastation of betrayal.

This expression of forgiveness and unconditional love is beautifully expressed in Hosea's words: "And I will betroth you unto Me forever; and I will betroth you unto me in righteousness and in justice, and in loyal love and in mercies. And I will betroth you unto Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord" (2:21-22). Thus we see that Hosea features the marriage bond, in the extremes of "for better and for worse", as a symbol of the relationship between God and Israel. It should be noted the Hosea 2:21-22 is recited by Jewish men as they put on their tefillin (phylacteries) during morning prayers, and is also added by some to the traditional wedding ceremony.

A poignant midrash brought by the Maharal (Eicha Rabati, Petichta, 24) is an arresting converse of the midrash cited above from Talmud Pesachim. It is based on the Jewish tradition that the matriarch Rachel weeps from her grave in Bethlehem about the exile of her children from the Land of Israel. Rachel protests to God:

"What have my children done, that You have brought such punishment upon them? If it because they worship idols - which are called TZaRah - a rival wife - then consider my case. I loved my husband Jacob, and he worked seven years for me, and, in the end, my father gave him my sister as a wife, and I suppressed my love for my husband, and gave my sister code words (see Lesson 2). I am flesh and blood, while You are a compassionate King - how much more should you have pity on them!" And God acknowledges the truth of her words..." (quoted in Aviva Zornberg's book, Genesis: The Beginning of Desire)

In the same way that Hosea is forced to endure betrayal to understand God's "feelings", Rachel claims that she has already experienced such betrayal and withstood it. Rachel offers herself to God as a flesh and blood metaphor for the merciful qualities she challenges Him to find in Himself. While God forced Hosea to see why He would ultimately forgive the nation; Rachel begs him to withhold punishment in the first place.

Before closing this lecture, let us examine a Hebrew root that overlaps in meaning with that used in the word "betroth" (A.R.S.) above. The Hebrew root K.D.SH. in its form l'KaDeSH also means "to betroth". This root is probably better known to many in the forms KiDuSH (prayer over the wine on Shabbat and Jewish holidays), KaDish (prayer for the dead), KaDoSH, KeDuSHa, and m'KaDeSh (words from the prayer book referring to holiness). Another verb form, l'haKDeeSH means "to set aside for holy purposes." The fact that betrothal is inextricably linked to holiness by the important root, K.D.SH., is a key value message in the Hebrew language. It implies that God is a part of marriage, and that there are holy standards of exclusivity that apply to marriage. Conversely, it follows that the Bible should speak in terms of marriage when it seeks out human terms to relate to divine law and divine "sensibilities".

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT

1. Do you find the metaphor of the husband and wife used in the Bible to describe the Divine-human relationship an apt metaphor? Why or why not?

2. What are the limitations of the marriage metaphor?

3. What other metaphors might you use to symbolize the Divine-human relationship?

4. How do you reconcile the use of the metaphors that we discussed with the notion that God is above all human emotion?

5. We saw that God retains the ability to see Israel as "the bride of His youth", even when the nation sins. How does this compare with human marriages?

6. What moral problem remains in the midrash from Talmud Pesachim concerning Hosea? Does the message of the midrash outweigh the moral problem in your opinion? How so/not?

7. The Hebrew root K.D.SH. is also used in a completely different way in the Bible than discussed above. Pagan cult prostitutes were commonly called KaDeSHa (e.g. Gen. 38:21-22, Deut. 23:18, Hosea 4:14). How do you explain the use of this lofty root as the signifier for a cult prostitute? Can you think of another case in which a holy Hebrew word is connected to idolatry in the Bible?

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