Discursos i pràctiques

Genesis 30:14 ^– 16; 38:28; and Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23

There are three texts in the Hebrew Bible that arguably depict women engaged in acts of  reproductive magic. In Genesis 30:14 ^– 16, Rachel, who is barren (Genesis 29:31), and her sister  Leah, who has ceased to bear children (Genesis 30:9), vie to use the ^“love plants^” (dûda-^’îm, a term kindred to the noun dôd , meaning ^“love, beloved^”)¹ that Leah^’s son Reuben has found in a �eld, in the hope that one of these sisters might bene�t from the love plants^’ powers as an aphrodisiac and their ability to bestow fertility. In Genesis 38:28, the midwife who attends Judah^’s daughter-in-law Tamar as she gives birth ties a red thread around the hand of her son Zerah as his arm emerges from the womb, most probably an act of apotropaic magic meant to protect the baby from malevolent agents. And in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23, an anonymous cadre of  ^“daughters who prophesy^” are said to sew bands of cloth onto wrists,² to put head bands³ on heads (v. 18), and to be associated as well with ^“handfuls of barley^” and ^“pieces of bread^” (v. 19) ^–  all magical rites, according to an interpretation put forward by Nancy R. Bowen (1999), that can be enacted on behalf of expectant women during the course of their pregnancies and at the time of delivery.

To be sure, the classifying of each of these texts as an instance of reproductive magic can be debated. For example, Hector Avalos uses the language of medicine, not magic, to describe Leah^’s and Rachel^’s eff  orts to use the ^“love plants^” that Reuben has found; more speci�cally, Avalos compares moderns^{’ “}medicinal^” use of tea, or lemon juice, or chicken soup to treat various ail-ments to Rachel^’s and Leah^’s vying to perform an act of  ^“self-medication^” or ^“self-help,^” in which the ^“love plants^” serve as a ^“natural remedy^” that ^“cure[s] infertility^” (Avalos 1995: 254 ^– 5;

see similarly Avalos 1997: 454).⁴ Yet as has been long and often pointed out, the boundary between ^“medicine^” and ^“magic^” in the ancient world was largely unmarked,⁵ and thus Marten Stol (2000a: 56), who follows the standard interpretation that Leah^’s and Rachel^’s ^“love plants^” were mandrake roots, can describe the mandrake of Genesis 30:14 ^– 16 as ^“a  magical   plant^” (emphasis added). Likewise, Carol Meyers (2005: 38; see similarly Meyers 2002: 289) writes of  Rachel and Leah engaging in a ^“magical  act performed to promote fertility^” (emphasis added).

Somewhat similarly Meyers, while noting that the purpose that is intimated in Genesis 38:28 for the red thread that is tied around Zerah^’s wrist is not magical, but pragmatic (it marks him as

the �rst of Tamar ^’s twin sons to have breached the womb), nevertheless proposes that the thread has a signi�cance that transcends the rather idiosyncratic function that is described for it on the occasion of Zerah^’s birth. In her words, ^“its [the red thread^’s] use may re�ect a set of  practices involving the apotropaic character of strands of dyed yarn, with both their red color  and the fact that they are bound on the infant^’s hand having magical protective powers^” (Meyers 2002: 290, 2005: 38 ^– 9).⁶ Meyers goes on to remark that in Mesopotamian and Hittite birth rituals, binding with red thread is used in exactly this sort of apotropaic fashion (although in the Mesopotamian example, which is from the Old Babylonian period [1894 ^– 1595 BCE], and in one Hittite text, red wool threads are bound not to the baby, but to the   mother  during delivery to protect her).⁷

As for Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23, Katheryn P�sterer Darr (2000: 336) proposes that there are allusions in this text to ^“séance-like practices,^” which indicates to her that the ^“daughters who prophesy^” are women engaged not in rituals of reproductive magic but in necromancy. This interpretation has also been urged by several other scholars, based on the description of these daughters^’

“hunting for souls^” in Ezekiel 13:18.⁸ This phrase is taken, under the terms of these scholars^’ interpretation, to refer to spirits of the dead, given that, according to at least some among these commentators, ^“the dead can manifest themselves in the shape of birds^” (van der Toorn 1994:

123, quoting Spronk 1986: 100, n. 3, 167, 255).⁹ Ann Jeff  ers (1996: 94) somewhat similarly

�nds allusions in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 to death-related, as opposed to reproductive, magic but she posits that a far more sinister practice than necromancy is being enacted: according to her ana-lysis, the ^“daughters who prophesy^{” “}mak[e] images of people tied up ^… [and] search for per-sonal objects belonging to them,^” which is followed by ^“their burying^” (whether Jeff  ers means the burying of the images, or of the personal objects, or of both, is unclear to me). Jeff  ers then goes on to say that in this way, ^“through the system of correspondences, the person represented by the image should die.^” In support of this argument, Jeff  ers cites Babylonian accounts of  witchcraft that describe witches as making images of their victims and binding these images^’ knees and arms, which she sees as analogous to the binding practices depicted in Ezekiel 13:18.

That Ezekiel 13:18 refers to images, rather than the wrists and heads of actual individuals, is, however, an interpretation that Jeff  ers must impose upon the text, as this is nowhere explicitly indicated; moreover, Jeff  ers has no compelling explanation to off  er for Ezekiel 13:19 and its association of the daughters^’ actions with barley and bread (she can suggest only that ^“the grain or  the barley may have been used to block the mouth of an image^” [1996: 94]). Conversely, those who interpret the daughters^’ acts as necromantic rituals that summon bird-like spirits of the dead can explain the allusions to barley and bread (this food is ^“meant to allure the bird-like souls,^” according to Marjo C. A. Korpel [1996: 103 ^– 4]). But these scholars are less able to explain the binding practices. Korpel, for example, can only suggest that the daughters ^“sew bird-nets which they spread out over their arms,^” in order to snare the bird-like dead spirits (1996: 103). But this de�es the (admittedly difficult) syntax of the passage, which is best understood as distinguishing between those who sew the wrist and head bands and those upon whom these fabrics are bound.

Moreover, the proposition that the dead can take on the shape of birds according to West Semitic religious thought has been challenged by such noted experts as Marvin H. Pope (1987: 452, 463) and Mark S. Smith and Elizabeth Bloch-Smith (1988: 277 ^– 84).¹⁰

Bowen turns, therefore, to consider some of the same sorts of Mesopotamian and Hittite data that I cited above to suggest that the binding acts performed by the Ezekiel 13 ^“daughters who prophecy^” may be magical rites executed on behalf of women of childbearing age during their  pregnancies and at the time of parturition.¹¹ For example, Bowen points out that in addition to the Hittite and Mesopotamian texts that speak of apotropaic red threads that can be bound to a delivering mother and/or her newborn infant, Mesopotamian sources describe how threads of 

Susan Ackerman

various colors could be twined together, knotted, and then bound on a woman^’s hand or other  body parts to stop excessive vaginal bleeding during pregnancy (Bowen 1999: 424, citing Scurlock 1991: 136 ^– 8). This act reminds her of the binding on of wrist bands performed by the

“daughters who prophesy^”; indeed, the speci�c term for the ^“wrist bands^” that the ^“daughters who prophesy^” in Ezekiel 13 apply, ke ^˘   sa-tôt , is arguably related to the Akkadian verb kasû, ^“to bind^” (Bowen 1999: 424, n. 31; also Davies 1994: 121). A cloth band could also be tied on a Mesopotamian mother-to-be to prevent miscarriage (Bowen 1999: 424, citing Scurlock 1991:

138 ^– 9), and special amulet stones could likewise be tied to a mother-to-be^’s body if she was experiencing difficulties. One Neo-Assyrian text, for example, refers to nine stones that were tied around the waist of a pregnant woman who was experiencing profuse vaginal bleeding during the course of her pregnancy (Scurlock 1991: 136; Stol 2000a: 203). Mesopotamian sources describe as well a set of twelve amulet stones that can be tied to the hands, feet, and hips of a woman who struggles during labor and ^“does not give birth easily^” (Stol 2000a: 132 ^– 3; see also ibid: 49 ^– 52, 116, 203; Stol 2000b: 491; Gursky 2001: 98 ^– 9).

Note, moreover, that it is not the amulet stones alone that protect the mother-to-be according to these texts: the knot-magic that is deployed when securing the amulets to the woman^’s body also has signi�cant apotropaic powers according to Mesopotamian lore. Meso-potamian ritual texts (as well as Egyptian tradition) moreover speak of the removal of bands or  the untying of knots at the time of the actual birth (Bowen 1999: 424, citing Scurlock 1991:

139, 141; Foster 1996: 1.138), given that ^“knots [otherwise] ^… constrain birth^” (so much so that, in Egypt, a delivering woman^’s hair was intentionally unbraided and left to hang unbound [Ritner 2008: 174]).

Additionally, in Mesopotamian tradition, a midwife might sprinkle a circle of  �our on the

�oor during a pregnant woman^’s delivery, and off  erings of bread could be made (Bowen 1999:

424, citing Scurlock 1991: 140, 151, 182). This latter ritual, Jo Ann Scurlock hypothesizes, was meant to sate the hunger of demons that might otherwise snatch newborn infants (Bowen 1999: 424, citing Scurlock 1991: 157; Foster 1996: 2.545). Bowen suggests that the association of the ^“daughters who prophesy^” in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 with barley and bread indicates that they used these foodstuff  s in a similar way. All in all, she concludes (Bowen 1999: 424),

the activities that Ezekiel ascribes to the female prophets ^… share some of the same imagery as these various incantations associated with childbirth. In particular they share the imagery of the binding and removal of knots or bands of cloth (13:18, 20, 21) and the use of grain and bread for ritual use (13:19).

The biblical tradition^’s assessment of reproductive magic: Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 After putting forth her interpretation that identi�es motifs that come from the arena of ancient Near Eastern reproductive magic in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23, Bowen turns to ask why the ^“daughters who prophesy^” are excoriated in this oracle, as in v. 17, for example, where Ezekiel is com-manded by God to prophesy against them, or in v. 19, where Ezekiel, speaking for God, accuses the ^“daughters who prophesy^” of having ^“profaned^” the deity. The question is a good one, especially given that Ezekiel^’s scathing denunciation of the daughters^’ acts of reproductive magic is unparalleled in either Genesis 30:14 ^– 16 or Genesis 38:28. Rather, in Genesis 30:14 ^– 16, Leah^’s and Rachel^’s vying to use the mandrake roots that Leah^’s son Reuben has found in a �eld, in the hope that one of them might bene�t from the mandrake^’s aphrodisiac and fertility properties, is presented by the biblical writers in a manner that is wholly matter of fact, without any reser-vations being expressed about this use of ^“plant magic^” (although it is important to note that the

Women^’s reproductive magic 

sisters^’ endeavors are not necessarily judged positively, by being treated as, say, praiseworthy;

more on this below in the section entitled Women reproductive magicians). Likewise, in Genesis 38:28, although one could argue that the biblical writers move to obscure the magical sig-ni�cance of Tamar ^’s midwife^’s endeavors by suggesting that her motivation was only pragmatic (to make clear which of Tamar ^’s twin sons �rst breached the womb), the magical act performed by the midwife ^–  the tying of a red band around the newborn^’s wrist as an apotropaic rite ^–  is not  judged negatively.

Why this diff  erence between Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23, on the one hand, and Genesis 30:14 ^– 16 and 38:28, on the other? The case of Ezekiel is easier to explain, as the prophet represents a point of  view whereby (to quote Bowen [1999: 431]) ^“any religious practice that lies outside Ezekiel^’s priestly worldview is considered to be illegitimate and dangerous, and therefore must be con-demned and destroyed.^” These illegitimate religious practices include anything Ezekiel^’s priestly cohort classi�es as magic ^–  although one must quickly admit that distinguishing between legit-imate ^“religion^”  and illegitimate ^“magic^”  according to the worldview of Ezekiel^’s priestly cohort, and according to the worldview of biblical tradition more generally, is a tricky matter.

After all, how diff  erent is magic ^–  which we might de�ne as ^“a form of communication involving the supernatural world in which an attempt is made to aff  ect the course of present and/or future events by means of ritual actions ^… and/or  ^…  formulaic recitations^” (Scurlock 1992: 464b) ^–  from religion, which is also ^“a form of communication involving the supernatural world^” that employs ^“ritual actions ^… and/or ^… formulaic recitations,^” often with the goal of  aff  ecting present and/or future events? Or, to phrase this question in somewhat more concrete terms: why is it praiseworthy, in 2 Kings 2:19 ^– 22, for the prophet Elisha to throw a bowl of salt into a spring near Jericho, a seemingly magical rite that puri�es the spring, whereas the seemingly magical rite of binding on wrist and head bands in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 is condemned? Both acts arguably defend against miscarriages: in Elisha^’s case, the ^“miscarriages (me ^˘   š akka-let ) of the land^” (that is, its lack of fertility) and perhaps, by implication, the actual miscarriages being suff  ered by the city^’s pregnant women.¹² So too are actual miscarriages one of the things that the Ezekiel 13 binding rituals, according to Mesopotamian parallels, might serve to prevent.

The answer is that what distinguishes the ^“religious^” from the ^“magical^” in the minds of the biblical writers ^–  or more speci�cally here, in the minds of Ezekiel and the author(s) and/or  redactor(s) of 2 Kings 2:19 ^– 22 ^–  is not the performance  of a particular ritual by any given indi-vidual, but the value judgment that is made about that ritual^’s performer  and whether he or she is regarded as properly authorized to execute said deed. ^“It is not the nature of the action itself,^” Stephen D. Ricks writes of the Hebrew Bible (2001: 131 ^– 2), ^“but the conformity of the ^… actor to, or deviation from, the values of Israelite society ^–  as these values are re�ected in the canonical text of the Bible ^–  that determines whether it [the action] is characterized as magic.^” Bowen (1999: 420) tellingly cites in this regard Jacob Neusner (1989: 4), ^“one group^’s holy man is another ^’s magician,^” and Robert K. Ritner (2001: 44) is almost as pithy: ^“magic,^” he writes, ^“is simply the religious practices of one group viewed with disdain by another.^” Sarah Iles Johnston makes the same point more fully (2004: 140): ^“In antiquity,  magic  ^… almost always referred to someone else^’s religious practices; it was a term that distanced those practices from the norm ^–  that is, from one^’s own practices, which constituted religion.^” The Bible^’s magicians are, in short, its ^“others.^”  We can again quote Ricks (2001: 132): ^“magic ^… is quintessentially the activity of the ^‘outsider ^’ in the Bible.^”13

 Yet who, more speci�cally, are the Bible^’s ^“others^” or ^“outsiders^”? Most obviously, they are foreigners, those who are treated by the biblical writers as ethnically ^“other ^” to the Israelites and who, in terms of their political and religious affiliations, stand ^“outside^” the Israelite common-wealth. Deuteronomy 18:9 ^– 12 particularly illustrates this understanding. The text envisions Moses

Susan Ackerman

as speaking to the Israelites at the end of their Exodus sojourn and immediately prior to their entry into the ^“promised land.^” As he speaks, Moses warns that, ^“When you come into the land that  Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall not learn to act according to the abominable practices^” of the nations already within it. He then enumerates what some of these ^“abominable practices^” are by listing at least �ve diff  erent magical specialties (for example, divination, augury, sorcery, the casting of spells, and necromancy).¹⁴ He concludes by reiterating the notion that such practices are

“abominable^” and also stresses that it is on account of the nations^’ engaging in these magical acts that Yahweh is driving them out of the land that Israel will inhabit. Again, what is indicated is that magicianship is to be characterized as ^“foreign^” and, as such, unacceptably ^“other.^”

But the ^“other ^” can also come from within; paradoxically, that is, the ^“insider ^” can simul-taneously occupy the position of unacceptable ^“outsider.^”  This is particularly the case for  ancient Israelite women. In her 1993 book Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical  Narrative , for example, J. Cheryl Exum includes a chapter whose title, ^“The (M)other ^’s Place,^” and especially the parentheses within it, tries to capture the ^“othered^” position that the other-wise ^“insider ^” matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah occupy in the book of Genesis.

On the one hand, as Exum sees it, these matriarchs are central to the movement forward of the Genesis narrative, since the generational progression on which Genesis relies cannot be accomplished without the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begetting a son or sons with a

“right^” or proper wife. What makes a wife ^“right,^” moreover, is her  insider  status: she is not of  the Canaanites nor, like the Egyptian Hagar, of some other people. Rather, the ^“right^” wife is of the patriarchs^’ ethnos and, indeed, of their own family (as Sarah is Abraham^’s half-sister, for  example, according to Genesis 20:12). On the other hand, however, the matriarchs stand as outsiders: Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, for example, are residents of faraway lands that they must leave to dwell with their husbands in Canaan, and once there, as Exum writes (1993: 110),

“they are ^‘other.^’” More important, as Joseph Blenkinsopp points out, all   ancient Israelite women are construed by the patrilocal conventions of Israelite marriage as, at least to some degree,^“other.^” In his words (1997: 59): ^“the woman introduced into her husband^’s household always remained, in a certain sense, an outsider.^”

To construe ancient Israelite women, at least in part, as ^“outsider ^” and ^“other ^” is, though, to affiliate them with those things ^“foreign^” and ^“alien^” about  which the biblical writers can express so much suspicion and concern. For women magicians, the eff  ect can be, colloquially speaking, a double whammy, as magic, the art of the ^“other,^” and women, the ^“other sex,^” come together in an ideological synthesis that renders women magicians the subject of parti-cularly harsh censure. This is why no biblical text speaks positively about women as magical practitioners, not even Genesis 30:14 ^– 16 and 38:28, which we can only describe as refraining from negativity (again, more on this below in the section entitled Women reproductive magi-cians), and certainly not Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23. Indeed, we see in Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 how determi-native gender is as an ^“othering^” principle for women magicians, so much so that although Ezekiel 13^’s ^“daughters^” arguably lay some claim to the title of prophet that otherwise can mark one as a ritual actor who is legitimately allowed, like the prophet Elisha, to perform magical rites, the text^’s ^“daughters who prophesy^”  are nevertheless censured for the exercise of  miscarriage-prevention magic. Conversely Elisha, as we have seen, is presented as worthy of  praise when he performs an analogous ritual.

Again, then, we note the degree to which it is not the performance   of (in this case) miscarriage-prevention magic, but the position of the magic^’s performer  (in this case, the gender  position) that determines the propriety of the act. This also explains why the claim that the

“othered^” daughters of Ezekiel 13:17 ^– 23 ^“practice divination^” (tiqsamnâ) is evoked in a con-demnatory way (v. 23), even as the occasional biblical text can extend to  male  diviners, as well

Women^’s reproductive magic 

as to other  men engaged in divinatory practice, a modicum of respect. In Isaiah 3:2 ^– 3, for 

as to other  men engaged in divinatory practice, a modicum of respect. In Isaiah 3:2 ^– 3, for