Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
"A Community of Peoples"
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2022) 53-70
Keywords:
Gad
;
Bible. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Music in the Bible
;
Levites Biblical teaching
;
Prophecy Biblical teaching
Abstract:
In the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles is the only place where prophecy is linked to the Levitical singers, one group of temple personnel institutionalized by David through Gad, the king’s seer. An initial analogy is created with Gad when the collective of Levitical singers is given the title of ḥōzeh in 2 Chr 29:30 and 35:15. However, the Chronicler then differentiates the singers from Gad through the primary label, nābîʾ. Gad is not called a nābîʾ in 1 Chr 29:29 and 2 Chr 29:25, contrary to his title in 1 Sam 22:5 and 2 Sam 24:11. While scholars have noted that the work of the singers is termed prophetic, the contours of the analogous task with Gad have not been addressed. This article evaluates how the Chronicler’s recasting of the non-Levite Gad and the Levitical singers expands the function of prophecy in a monarchy, that is, to invoke the divine and to communicate on behalf of the people, not the king. According to the Chronicler’s innovation in the postexilic period, prophecy does not only constitute communication from the divine to the people through an envoy like Gad. Rather, it now also is defined by the liturgical response of the prophet back to Yahweh in the formalized context of the temple. The nābîʾ is imagined to physically separate the king from the populace, while the prophetic response on behalf of the people must be directed back to Yahweh by singing praise to him.
DOI:
10.1163/9789004511538_005
URL:
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