Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76 57
3) In enumerating the sins of Ahaz, the Chr. finds it necessary to add twice
to his sources in Kings that he burned incense to other gods (2 Chr. xxviii 3, as
against 2 Ki. xvi 3 and 2 Chr. xxviii 25).
The root ‏,קטר as a verb or as a noun, does not occur in Ezr.-Neh. at all.
The material problems involved cannot be dealt with here. But it is worth
noting that the altar of incense, called also the altar of gold, which is mentioned
several times in Chr., is not mentioned at all in the building of the second
temple described in Ezr.-Neh. The sacrifice of incense is not mentioned
either,106 not even among the responsibilities undertaken by the people while
making the covenant described in Neh.
נתינים ועבדי שלמה .6
The נתינים (Nethinim) and בני עבדי שלמה (the sons of Solomon’s servants)
form a part of the Jewish community which returned to Jerusalem in the Restoration
period, as described in Ezr.-Neh. They are a distinct group, belonging
to the cult personnel. But, in spite of their relatively large number,107 they are
always placed at the end of the list. Their names are unusual and probably
foreign.108 The Nethinim and the sons of Solomon’s servants are mentioned,
together or separately, in all the literary strata of Ezr.-Neh. as follows:
a) In the lists: Ezr. ii 43, 55, 58 (Neh. vii 46, 57, 60); Ezr. ii 70; Neh. vii 73; xi
3, 21.
b) In Ezra’s memoirs: Ezr. viii 20.
c) In Nehemiah’s memoirs: Neh. iii 26, 31.
d) In Aramaic: Ezr. vii 24.
e) In parts attributed to the Chr.: Ezr. vii 7; Neh. x 28 (29).
We have presented all of the material at length so as to have no room for doubt
that the Nethinim and the sons of Solomon’s servants were a social reality in
the discussed period. They were two closed classes of temple-servants, similar
to one another. The sons of Solomon’s servants traced their origin, as can be
deduced from their name, to the Solomonic period; the Nethinim are explicitly
106) In Nehemiah’s memoirs the frankincense ‏(לבונה)‏ is mentioned twice, in Neh. xiii 5, 9.
107) Their number among the returnees was three hundred and ninety-two (Ezr. ii 58) which is
more than the Levites, singers and gatekeepers together (Ezr. ii 40, 41, 42).
108) Cf. M. Noth: Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung,
1928, pp. 63-64.