JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

20). That the blood of the slain must come into contact
with the ground is confirmed by the rabbinic dictum that if
the murder was perpetrated by some other means, e.g., hanging,
the heifer ceremonial is not required (Sot. 9:2; TJ, Sot. 9:2,
23c). In rabbinic law, just as in the Hittite Code, paragraph
6 (earlier version, cf. Pritchard, Texts, 189), the corpse is interred
on the spot where it was found (BK 81b), and the original
owner loses his rights to a set area circumscribing the
corpse.
According to biblical law, “the land shall have no expiation
for blood that is shed except by the blood of him who
shed it” (Num. 35:33b). However, what if the murderer is unknown:
will the land be permanently blighted? The ʿeglah
ʿarufah is the cultic prophylactic to avert this contingency. Its
purpose is to transfer the land polluted by the corpse to an uncultivated
plot, removed from the settled area. Thus it closely
resembles the rites of the *azazel goat and of the purification
of the healed *leper, whereby sin and impurity, respectively,
are exorcised from the afflicted and banished to the wilderness.
Here, however, the fact that land and not man needs to
be expiated necessitates the use of another method, not banishment,
but transference. Through the killing of the heifer,
the murder is, in effect, reenacted; the blood of the heifer
(ha-dam ha-zeh, “this blood,” Deut. 21:7) becomes identified
with the blood of the slain, and the pollution is transferred
from the area of the corpse to the area of the heifer. This rite
of reenactment and transference explains why the ceremonial
must take place at a perennial stream: the blood must not
come into contact with the earth again and trigger the fatal
polluted soil-drought syndrome, and it is thus drained off to
some distant sea. Also explained is the need for the elders of
the nearest settlement to wash their hands and recite a confessional
over the broken-necked heifer: since the blood of
the heifer represents the blood of the slain, they must purify
themselves and declare their innocence of either committing
or witnessing the crime (Deut. 21:6–7). Finally, the rabbinic
law that the land surrounding the heifer is forever forbidden
to be cultivated further underscores that the purpose of the
ritual is the transference of land impurity from the human to
the animal corpse.
According to this interpretation the Torah has incorporated
an ancient rite, whereby land pollution due to an
untraceable murder is transferred from a desirable area to an
undesirable one. At the same time, it should not be overlooked
how an act of pure sympathetic magic was transformed by
the Torah to conform to its basic spiritual and ethical outlook.
First, the ritual was placed in the hands of the priests,
those “chosen by the Lord to serve Him” (21:5), and removed
from the authority of the lay-elders, who might be addicted
to its pagan origins. Then, the declaration was given an
appendix (21:8–9), whereby the automatic, magical expiation
presumed by the ritual was abolished, and the expiation
and, indeed, all forgiveness of sin attributed solely to the
Lord.
[Jacob Milgrom]
eglon
In the Talmud
No less than nine mishnayot (Sotah 9:1–9) and six folios of the
Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 44b–47b) are devoted to the laws
of the ʿeglah ʿarufah, despite the fact that the rite was abolished
at the beginning of the first century (see below). Unless
otherwise stated, the details that follow are derived from
those passages. According to the rabbis, this act of expiation
and disavowal by the elders was not for the murder itself, of
which no one could possibly accuse them, but for failure to
create conditions which would make such a crime impossible.
“He [the victim, or possibly the murderer?] did not appeal
to us for help and we dismissed him without providing him
with food; we did not allow him to depart without an escort.”
The measurement of the distance between the corpse and the
nearest town was performed by three or five elders from the
Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. When they had finished their
task and had decided to which city the murder was to be ascribed,
they returned to Jerusalem, and the rite of breaking
the heifer’s neck (from behind with a hatchet) was performed
in the presence of all the elders of that city. The rite was performed
only when it was presumed that the undetected murderer
was a Jew, and it was therefore not performed in a city
near the border or where the majority of the inhabitants were
gentiles. Nor did the rite apply to Jerusalem. It was limited to
a murder executed with a lethal weapon and therefore did
not apply in the case of hanging or strangulation. The heifer
had to be less than two years old. The ceremony took place by
day, and the carcass was buried in situ. The rite of the ʿeglah
ʿarufah was discontinued “when murderers increased in number.”
Its discontinuation is connected with *Eleazar b. Dinai,
also called Tehinah b. Parishah, a notorious murderer who is
probably identical with the Zealot leader of the same name
(c. 35–60 C.E.) mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 20:121 and 161;
Wars, 2:235–6, 253).
[Louis Isaac Rabinowitz]
Bibliography: H.J. Elhorst, in: ZAW, 39 (1921), 58–67; R.
Patai, in JQR, 30 (1939), 59–69; S.H. Hooke, in: VT, 2 (1952), 2–17; A.
Rofé, in: Tarbiz, 31 (1961/62), 119–43.
EGLON (Heb. ןול ֹ גְ ע), ֶ Canaanite royal city. According to the
Bible, Debir, king of Eglon, joined the confederation of Amorite
kings, led by *Adoni-Zedek of Jerusalem, against *Gibeon.
They were defeated by Joshua at Aijalon and slain near the
cave of Makkedah, where they had sought refuge (Josh. 10).
Eglon was subsequently captured, sacked, and destroyed (ibid.
10:34–35). The king of Eglon is again mentioned in the list of
conquered cities (ibid. 12:12). The city was allotted to the tribe
of Judah in the Lachish district (ibid. 15:39). It does not appear
in later sources; Eusebius mentions an Agla, present-day Khirbat
ʿAjlān, 12 mi. (19 km.) west of Bet Guvrin (Eleutheropolis)
(Onom. 48:19). Scholars are divided as to the location of
Eglon; the identification generally accepted is that of Tell al-
Ḥasī proposed by Albright. This tell is situated 7 mi. (11 km.)
southwest of Lachish, at the edge of the foothills that extend
into the Coastal Plain. Elliger has suggested the more west-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 221