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I would argue that the depiction of a war against idols that is fought on two fronts provides a literary context that strongly calls for the distinction of the prohibitions. In this context, the idol prohibition is surely not exclusively concerned with the divine images of alien deities. While the open-ended nature of the prohibition obviously includes the rejection of the latter, stronger and more immediate connections are made with the worship of YHWH via divine images.

As mentioned above, the division of the kingdom itself provides further warrant for the distinction between the prohibitions. The kingdom is torn in two when Solomon goes after alien deities and that division is maintained when Jeroboam sets up the golden calves. Read in light of the prohibitions, Solomon breaks the prohibition of other gods and Jeroboam breaks the prohibition of idols. While it could be said that Solomon and Jeroboam both sinned by “going after idols,” it is difficult to avoid the obvious difference between the two: Solomon went after alien deities while Jeroboam did not.

These conclusions are of course drawn from a synchronic reading of the prohibitions within the wider context of the Old Testament narrative.189 I recognize that such findings may at certain points clash with the concerns of those focused upon the original intent of the prohibition or the concerns of those attempting to establish a certain Sitz im Leben for the texts dealing with Israel’s battle on the domestic front. However, I am intentionally avoiding these diachronic lines of

189

See Childs, Exodus, 67. Here Childs suggests that, although the prohibition of idols once functioned independently, it may be understood within its present canonical position in light of Deut. 4, Judg. 17-18 and the golden calves.

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inquiry in order to consider the insight that a narrative approach can bring toward the differing enumerations of the commandments. As noted above, I would argue that the differing enumerations have arisen from the attempts of interpreters to grapple with the relationship between the prohibitions in light of the wider biblical context.

4.7 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I have sought to demonstrate that the war against idols in texts

depicting the era before the fall of the Northern Kingdom is fought on a foreign front against alien deities and the divine images associated with them as well as on a domestic front against the worship of YHWH via divine images. This depiction directly affects how interpreters understand the relationship between the worship of other gods and the worship of idols within these texts and subsequently, how they understand the relationship between the prohibitions. If the war in these texts was exclusively fought on a foreign front, there would be very little reason to distinguish between the worship of other gods and the worship of idols in these texts. However, because the texts also fight a battle on a domestic front, the distinction between the issues and the prohibitions finds ample warrant within the wider biblical context. Worshiping other gods and worshiping “idols” cannot simply be equated in this literary context.

I would argue that these conclusions call for a re-examination of one of Barton’s points. Barton suggests that the biblical traditions point to an earlier belief in the existence of other gods which gave way to a later denial of their existence and that the fusion of the commandments reflects the later idol polemics which treat the worship of other gods as the worship of the work of human hands. This can easily

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lead to the assumption that the distinction between the issues was the result of an earlier belief in the existence of other gods as “real sources of divine power” which could be distinguished from the images associated with them. However, I would argue that this is surely not the reason for the distinction between the prohibitions which either the immediate context of the Ten Commandments or the wider Old Testament context suggests. Instead, the impetus for the distinction between the prohibitions is the context in which the war against idols is fought on both a foreign front as well as on a domestic front.

However, as we shall see in the following chapter, the depiction of the fall of Israel brings about a shift in the war against idols within the Old Testament and this shift certainly appears to eliminate the distinction between the issues.

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Fundamental changes took place in Judah following the destruction of Israel. We need only mention the immigration of Israelites into Judah, the

devastation of Judah by the Assyrians at the end of the eighth century BCE, and the frequent changes in royal policy from Hezekiah onward to indicate the profundity of these changes.

Evans190

Was it not Israel’s apostasy that brought about its demise? Could not similar deviations from the prescribed cult be pointed to within Judah?

Cogan191

In the last chapter I argued that, in texts depicting the era before the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the war against idols is fought on two fronts. On the one hand it is fought on a “foreign front” against alien deities and the divine images associated with them. Israel is commanded to destroy the idols of the Canaanites, the statue of Dagon falls before the Ark, and multiple references are made to “the gods of the nations” which are “wood and stone.”192

On the other hand, the war is also fought on a “domestic front” against the worship of YHWH via divine images. I have made the case that the directions for worship in Deut. 12, the narrative of Micah’s idols in Judg. 17-18, the rationale for the prohibition of idols provided in

190 _{Evans, “Cult Images, Royal Policies and the Origins of Aniconism,” 200.} 191

Cogan, 2 Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988), 220.

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Deut. 4:15-16, and the texts dealing with the golden calves of Aaron and Jeroboam193 are all concerned with this “domestic front.”

Within this literary context, the worship of other gods and the worship of idols are not quite synonymous issues. Again, as Barton put it, “Worshipping gods other than Yahweh, and using images in worship, are essentially two different phenomena, not merely two different aspects of the same aberration.”194

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distinction can therefore be made between the worship of YHWH via divine images and the worship of alien deities and the divine images associated with them. This creates a literary context which strongly calls for a distinction between the

prohibitions.

However, in this and the following chapter I will argue that any distinction between the worship of other gods and the worship of idols is lost in texts depicting the era after the fall of the Northern Kingdom. What can account for this apparent fusion of the issues? In section 5.1 I will review five works that touch upon the question. Although a few of these works employ methodologies that I have not adopted in this thesis (e.g. source critical approaches), they have each offered an explanation to the question I am interested in and therefore merit some review. Having reviewed each one, I then introduce my own explanation. I argue that the issues appear to be fused in these texts because the war against idols is exclusively fought on a foreign front against alien deities and the divine images associated with them. In sections 5.2 to 5.4 I demonstrate that the sequence of events associated with the fall of the Northern Kingdom marks the end of the biblical battle on the domestic front. Then, in sections 5.5-5.8, I explain how this paves the way for a war

193 _{Exod. 32; Deut. 9; 1 Kgs. 12.}

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against idols that is exclusively fought on a foreign front against alien deities and the divine images associated with them.