Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

64 S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76
Once it is taken over from his sources: 2 Chr. i 15 // 1 Ki. x 27.
Three times the sources are slightly changed and לרוב is introduced; 2 Chr.
iv 18 // 1 Ki. vii 47 ‏;)מרוב־לרוב)‏ 2 Chr. ix 1 // 1 Ki. x 2 ‏;)רב־לרוב)‏ 2 Chr. ix 9 //
‏.(הרבה־לרוב)‏ 1 Ki. x 10
The word recurs thirty-one other times, and it might be said that there is no
section in which it does not appear. It is variously translated as: great, greatly,
great quantities, great numbers, abundant, abundantly, in abundance, much,
plenty, etc.136
In Ezr.-Neh. it occurs once, in an independent text which was incorporated
into the book, i.e., in the congregation’s prayer in Neh. ix 25137 “and fruit trees
in abundance”.
The text of this prayer belongs to a more elevated linguistic stratum than the
usual prose account of Ezr.-Neh.138 In the prose parts of the book it is not found
at all. On the other hand, it belongs to the basic style of the prose accounts in
Chr. and there it is abundantly used. We can discern here both a linguistic difference
and a peculiar stylistic quality of the Chr.
שמעוני .C
This particular form of the verb שמע functions as a characteristic way of
address at the opening of speeches in Chr.: 1 Chr. xxviii 2; 2 Chr. xiii 4; xv 2;
xx 20; xxviii 11; xix 5.
It is defined by Driver as “One of the many marks which the speeches in
Chr. contain of the compiler’s hand”.139
There are speeches, addresses, etc. in Ezr.-Neh. as well, but none of them
opens with this special way of address,140 which occurs, as a matter of fact, only
once more outside of Chr.141
136) Cf. 1 Chr. iv 38; xii 40 (41); xxii 3, 4, 5, 8, 14. 15; xxix 2, 21; 2 Chr. ii 8; xi 23, xiv 14; xv 9; xvi 8; xvii 5;
xviii 1, 2; xx 25; xxiv 11, 24; xxvii 3; xxix 35; xxx 5, 13, 24; xxxi 5, 10; xxxii 5, 29.
137) Cf. Myers, Ezra-Nehemiah, pp. 166-170.
138) Another instance, of approximately the same period is Zach. xiv 14, here too in a prophecy,
i.e., in an elevated linguistic stratum.
139) Op. cit., p. 504.
140) As to the origin and character of these speeches cf G. v. Rad: “Die Levitische Predigt in den
Büchern der Chronik”, Gesammelte Studien 1958. p. 248ff. v. Rad finds an actual situation for such
a preaching in Neh. viii 7. But all the speeches he deals with are found in Chr. proper. Actually
the peculiar type of speech described by v. Rad is confined to Chr. and is not found in Ezr.-Neh.
at all.
141) Gen. xxiii 6.