In 1958, Reymond wrote about water and its meaning in the Old Testament. This book purported to undertake a comprehensive exploration of water and/or water-related phenomena in the Old Testament, but scarcely makes use of the Old Testament wisdom books.53 From the 1980s, a number of works appeared with explicit limited scope of study on the Pentateuch, Prophets or Psalms. In 1987 Propp54 carefully
51
Psalms (Ps 104; 107 etc.), Pentateuch (Gn 1; 6-9; Lv 14:5-6; Ex 15; 17; Nm 20, Dt 8 etc.), Prophets (Is 17:12- 13; Jr 31:10-14 etc.).
52 Grisanti, M A 1997. םִי מ (mayim), in VanGemeren, W A (ed), New International Dictionary of Old Testament
Theology & Exegesis, 929-934. Vol.2. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.
53 See Reymond, P 1958. L’eau, sa Vie et sa Signification dans l’Ancien Testament. Leiden: Brill. (VTSup VI).
One will hardly notice in this book isolated references to the wisdom books, such as Proverbs 5:15; 21:1.
54
See Propp, W H 1987. Water in the Wilderness: A Biblical Motif and its Mythological Background. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press. (HSM 40).
explored the subject of water in the wilderness in relation to mythological references from Exodus, Psalms, Deuteronomy and a variety of texts from the prophetic books in Jeremiah, Second Isaiah and Ezekiel.55 The book hardly refers to the mythological text of Job 28:9-11 which is given a secondary status with almost no analysis (Propp 1987:37).
This tendency also occurs in most of the subsequent studies on water and water- related phenomena. In this sense, in order to establish a link between his hydrogeological findings about water resources in ancient Palestine and Bible texts, Issar (1990)56 thoroughly selected texts from Genesis, Exodus, the Deuteronomic literature (Dt, Jos, Jdg, Sm, Ki) and Chronicles.57 None of the references come from the wisdom literature. Indeed, this archaeologist author is not to be blamed since his study is not about a theological analysis of biblical texts. As a non-biblical scholar, he referred to texts that are often raised in biblical works. Still, his selection reflects the vein of favouring certain texts that characterised theological and biblical studies on water in the Bible.
Thereafter, Woods58 issued his book dealing with the rainstorm, in the Deuteronomic history, mainly in the cycles of Elijah/Elisha, where this water-related phenomenon is polemically used in a persuasive context against Baalism (1994:8). The author explicitly limited his investigation to the books of Kings and Chronicles. It is obvious that other parts of the Bible are out of his focus. It should also be admitted that the Old Testament wisdom books have no explicit entries on water and the Baalism, except an implication in some poem about the rainstorms in the book of Job.59 With the same perspective, one can also raise the book of Tsumura60 that is explicitly titled to be
55 Lists of references: Exodus (17; 32), Psalms (78; 81; 95; 105; 107; 114), Deuteronomy (8; 33; 32) 56
See Issar, A S 1990. Water shall Flow from the Rock: Hydrogeology and Climate in the Land of the Bible. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
57 One will notice verses such as Genesis (1:6-10; 2:4-5.10; 7:10-12), Deuteronomy (11:10-11; 32:1-2), Exodus
(9:23; 15:22-23); Joshua (3:15-16); Judges (5:19-21), Kings (1Ki 20:20) and Chronicles (2 Ch 32:2-4)
58
See Woods, F E 1994. Water and Storm Polemics against Baalism in the Deuteronomic History. Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Wien/Paris: Peter Lang. (AUS).
59 The wisdom books have no explicit entry about water and Baalism, but it is implied in the imageries of Job
22:22-38 about the storm-god and the origin of rain and land fertility as well as in Elihu’s speech (36:26-37:13) with its references to the raincloud.
60
Tsumura, D T 1989. The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation. Sheffield: JSOT Press. (JSOTSup 83).
about a linguistic investigation of ‘water and earth in Genesis 1 and 2.’ The reference to Job 36:27 is only raised to show that his assumption about ‘ ׇ אד -waters’ in Genesis 2:6 also fits the meaning of ‘ ׇ אד -waters’61
in Job 36:27 (Tsumura 1989:115).
Similarly, in her book entitled Chaos Uncreated: The Reassessment of the Theme of
‘Chaos’ in the Hebrew Bible, Watson62
is mainly interested in addressing the issue of waters of destruction in the book of Psalms. It is in this sense, that some texts in Job and Isaiah63 are given a secondary status in order to show whether her argument can be supported by evidence in other books of the Old Testament (Watson 2005:265). Indeed, one could not expect much from the book since its scope is clearly stated to be about the Psalms that have a mythological background.
In addition to the tendency of favouring certain texts and ignoring the wisdom books, many books also have a clear inclination to the romantic aspect of water. This is the case for the essay of Hembrom64 enlisting five notions of the significance of water in the Old Testament: the essentiality of water for the survival of living beings, water as a cleansing agent, the ritual use of water, water and food making and some metaphorical uses of water to mean fertility.65 Hembrom (2007:49-56) only pointed out a few isolated texts66 from the wisdom books without further analysis. The same trend is visible in the study of Ross67 about ‘water and life’. Not only does Ross omit the wisdom books,68 but he also radically affirms that water has always meant life in the Bible (2007:88). For him, even when water was used as a destructive agent against enemies it was for the purpose of salvation (life) of God’s people.
61
These matters will be discussed further in the third chapter in the textual critical analysis of the Hebrew text of Job 36:26-37:13.
62 See the introductory pages of Watson, R S 2005. Chaos Uncreated: A Reassessment of the Theme of ‘Chaos’
in the Hebrew Bible. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
63 Job 7:12; 38:8-11; 26:7-13 ; Isaiah 19:5ff; 27:1; 44:24-28
64 See Hembrom, T 2007. Significance of Water in the Old Testament, in John, V J (ed), Water Struggle, 49-56.
Kolkata: Bishop’s College.
65
For the essentiality of water for the survival of living beings (1Ki 6:22; Ps 1:3; Ezk 17:5; Job 8:11 etc.); for water as cleansing agent (Ex 29:4; Gn 18:4; 24:32); for the ritual use of water (1Ki 7:23; Lv 14:15ff); for water in food preparation (Ki 19:21; Lv 8:31) and for the metaphorical use of water (Ps 1:3; Job 29:19).
66 These are Job 8:11; 9:30; 14:9; 24:19; 28:8; Proverbs 30:16.
67 Ross, M M 2007. Water for Life, Water of Life and Water as Life: Meaning and Symbol in Theology, in
John, V J (ed), Water Struggle, 80-101. Kolkata: Bishop’s College.
Likewise, in his essay on the use of water as a metaphor in the Bible, Caleb69 not only ignores the wisdom books, but also points to passages in which references to water and water-related phenomena appear with romantic potential such as water as symbol for life and strength, water as symbol for purity and humility and water as a metaphor for God’s justice.70
What is striking is while his study is entitled ‘the use of water as a metaphor and symbol in biblical theology’, he omitted the Old Testament wisdom books whereas these are the ones that have more metaphorical uses of water than any other part of the Bible (cf. Appendix A).
Continuing the same favouring trend in his substantial work on the water symbolism in wide-ranging literature ranging from Mesopotamia to Palestine during a period of more than two millennia, Stéphanie Anthonioz (2009)71 discusses three water-related phenomena: the flood, crossing of water, and the abundance of water. In this study, he made use of many texts from Genesis, Exodus and the Deuteronomic books.72 The author explicitly said that the scope of his study is about historical and mythological texts of the Old Testament, and therefore deliberately excludes what he called ‘pragmatic texts’ – such as the wisdom books (Anthonioz 2009:1).
In September 2014, an outstanding book was published with the title Thinking of
Water in the Early Second Temple Period73. In the introductory section, Levin (2014a:1) boldly claims that the book is not primarily about water as such, but rather the effect of water on the awareness of people, and the degree to which it determined not only daily life’s conditions, but also the intellectual and spiritual culture. A number of distinguished biblical scholars engaged with the ideological and linguistic symbol of water and water-related phenomena in the literature of the late Persian/early Hellenistic periods.
69 Caleb, S M 2007. The Use of Water as a Metaphor and Symbol in Biblical Theology: An Exploration, in
John, V J (ed), Water Struggle, 69-79. Kolkata: Bishop’s College.
70 His references include Exodus 15:22-17:7; Isaiah 35:7; Jeremiah 17:13 for water as life; Isaiah 1:16; Ezekiel
36:26; Psalm 51:4 for water as symbol for purity/humility and Jeremiah 15:18; Amos 5:24 for water as a metaphor.
71 Anthonioz, S 2009. L’eau, Enjeux Politiques et Théologiques, de Sumer à la Bible. Leiden/Boston: Brill: 72 His biblical texts include Genesis 1-2, 6-9; Exodus 14; Deuteronomy 1-4 and Joshua 1, 3-4, 6, 10, 13 and
several other references, except the wisdom books.
73
See Ben Zvi, E & Levin, C 2014 (eds). Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Although Proverbs, Qoheleth, Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon belong to the period of the Second Temple, their perspectives on water are simply ignored in favour of pentateuchal and prophetic texts as well as ‘a brief overview’ on the images of water and water phenomena in the book of Job (Nõmmik 2014:279-297). Unlike many previous publications, the book is aware of the life-giving and life-threatening function of water in biblical texts.
Indeed, most of these publications must not be blamed for ignoring the Old Testament wisdom books since they have explicitly defined the scope of their studies. Yet, they have inherited the vein of favouring certain texts that are traditionally and intuitively recognised as primary loci for the study of water and water-related phenomena.
2.2.3.2 Articles on water and water-related phenomena in the Old