Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

60 S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76
a) In Ezr.-Neh. they are designated as Nethinim and the sons of Solomon’s
servants. In Chr. these names are absent. The title in Chr. is םירג 116 and this title
is totally absent from Ezr.-Neh.
b) In Ezr.-Neh. they form a class among the Temple servants. In Chr. they
have no function in the cult, or in the temple. They are mobilized at a certain
historical period to execute the building of the temple and afterwards they disappear.
The fact that “they were given by David . . . to the Levites” is not even
hinted at in Chr. According to Chr. they have no connection, whatsoever to
the cultic orders. The question remains open as to whether the Chr.’s attitude
towards the Nethinim is a result of mere misinformation, or whether it is to
be interpreted as deliberate polemics against this same situation which is
described in Ezr.-Neh.
פחה .9 סגנים .8 מדינה .7
The common denominator which units all these terms is the fact that they are
taken from the realm of state affairs in the period of Persian rule.
מדינה .7
In the writings of the Persian period מדינה is a technical term designating an
administrative unit in the empire, either the satrapy or its subdivisions.117 The
use of the term is common to Ezr.-Neh., Dan., and Esther.118 In the various
strata of Ezr.-Neh. it is the title of the province of Judah: Ezr. ii 1 (Neh. vii 6);
Neh. i 3; xi 3; Ezr. v. 8 (Aramaic).
In other instances, all of them in the Aramaic portion, the term relates to
other provinces, i.e., Ezr. vi 2—relating to the province of Media, in Ezr. vii 16—
to the province of Babylonia, and in iv 15 to provinces in general.
In a later phase of Hebrew the term came to have two meanings: province
and town.119
In contrast to all the writings from this period the word מדינה is not to be
found in Chr. The argument that the Chr. limits his description to the period
of the First Temple loses its validity in view of the abundance of anachronisms
116) Translated by the RSV as ‏.זרים—”‏aliens‏“‏ In 2 Chr. xxx 25 the word is translated “sojourners”.
117) Cf. J. Liver, Encyclopedia Biblica IV (Hebrew), p. 593.
118) The term is very current in Esther, where it appears over thirty times. It appears in Dan. in the
following verses: ii 48, 49; iii 1, 2, 3, 12, 30; viii 2; xi 24. In Eccl. it occurs twice: ii 8, v 5.
119) Cf. Jastrow, op. cit., II, p. 734.