Waldman, Nahum M.

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THE SPRINKLING OF VENOM by NAHUM M. WALDMAN Gratz College, Philadelphia ABSTRACT: The expression Z:Jl'Oq marah batta/midlm is shown to be based upon the imagery of the serpent which spits venom. In other passages, the rabbis are compared to serpents in the assertion of their authority. Material from Sumerian and Akkadian literature, while not being a direct influence upon the rabbinic passages, helps elucidate the imagery. Gods and kings are described as serpents whose venom imposes fear and obedience upon those who would disobey them. The charge of the dying patriarch, Judah, to his son, Gamaliel, z:Jroq ma.rah battalmidlm (K:Jtuf2ot l03b) has been understood as 'cast bile among the students (be austere against them)', that is, be stern so that the students will not be given to frivolity (Jastrow, 1886-1903, p. 838a), or, as Rashi explains, that the fear of the teacher always be upon the students. The MaHaRSHa on the passage explains that it is the nature of the marah, the melancholy humor, to prevent the teacher from showing the students a merry or jocular face. It is clear that marah 'bile' also means 'poison, venom', as in the mishnaic passage: bde seto'f2atj_ bahen hammarah '(the quantity of water that is acceptable for drinking when it has been exposed for the length of time it would take for a serpent to come forth from a nearby place and drink from it) must be such that the poison would be lost in it' (Misnah T:Jrumot 8:5; see commentaries of Maimonides and Bertinoro and compare Misnah 4 and Danby, 1933, p. 62). The presence of marah 'poison' is an image describing the effect of authority and communal discipline, which, while bitter and unpleasant, has an ultimately beneficial function, e.g., sehagg:xio/'im sebafs.em marafan p:Jrusah bafs.em k:J'eskol, 'that the poison of the great ones among you is distributed in you as (the juice) in the grapes', and, further, sehahasidlm W:Jhakk:Jserim seb7i'5_em hamafan kattanninim 'for the venom Of the pious 199 200 NAHUM M. WALDMAN and righteous among you is like that of serpents', and h7ir7is1m seba!s:_em kappeten hazzeh 'akzar'i 'your leaders are like the cruel asp' (Sifre, Deu-terono~y, par. 323,based on Deuteronomy 32:32-33; cf. Yalqut Sim'oni, Deuteronomy, par. 946 and Jastrow, 1886-1903, p. 838). Another instance of zrq marah is the rabbinic interpretation of the sir'ah 'hornet' (Exodus 23:28) which stood on the bank of the Jordan 'w~zar:>qah bahen marah w:>Simm~{iih 'enehen milfomaalah w;)Sersafan milfomattah 'sprinkling bile at them (the enemies), blinding them from above and sterilizing them from below' {Sotah 36a). I would suggest that the passage from K~tufl.ot l03b compares the rabbis hyperbolically to serpents which sprinkle their enemies with venom. The use of such a hyperbole is not meant to obscure the life-giving value of Torah study and teaching, but it does emphasize that the rabbis were entitled to and would insist upon the authority of their position. There are other passages where the rabbis are compared to serpents with respect to their authority and the discipline they impose, e.g., 'for their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting is the sting of a scorpion, their hissing is the hissing of a fiery serpent' (Misnah Afl.ot, 2: 10) and 'any disciple of the wise who does not avenge and bear a grudge like a serpent is not a true disciple of the wise' (Yoma 22b-23a; cf. discussion and differing opinions). The various views concerning stern versus mild leadership are collected and discussed by Urbach (1971, pp. 569-82). The image of the rabbinical authority sprinkling venom upon his stu-dents in order to inspire fear may be compared with richly attested material in Sumerian and Akkadian literature. It will be noticed that there is a difference in the application of the imagery. In the Mesopotamian material it expresses a great power of destructiveness. It is directed against enemies, whereas in our passage it is directed against students. The parallel material is not being presented as evidence for a theory of borrowing, but rather as confirmation for the view that z:Jroq marah is based upon the imagery of the serpent. In Mesopotamian lore demons are conceived of as dripping with gall and venom (Jacobsen, 1976, pp. 12-13; Saggs, 1962, pp. 290--305). Of the demon, a bi-lingual Sumerian and Akkadian passage states: 'gall keeps dripping from his claws; there is venom where he has trod'. 1 The cognates of zrq marah appear in the passage: [s]u.na im.mi.in.dih.eS" ze.ta ba.an.su.su, f zujmursu il'ibuma mart a izzarqu'Su 'they (the demons) covered his body I. Nies and Keiser ( 1920, p. 24, lines 35-36, plate IX). The reading adopted here is that of CAD M / 1, 297b, lexical section. THE SPRINKLING OF VENOM 201 with scabs (and) sprinkled gall on him' (Reiner, 1958, p. 36, Tab. VII, lines 25-26).2 The connection of the might of the god and his imposition of destructive power upon his enemies with the imagery of poisonous venom is apparent from the Sumerian Temple Hymns: 'Your prince is the highly esteemed prince, Asarluhi ... he is like an onrushing storm, he gores the rebellious land, as long as it is not obedient he pours out poisonous foam upon it' and ur.mab galam.e kur.re usx (KA x BAD) sum.mu '(Your lord, the great lord, the son of Enlil), is a lion who ..... , pouring out poisonous venom over the hostile land' and, further, 'like a great dragon raging against the rebellious land ... he besmears the enemy with spittle' (Sjoberg and Berg-mann, 1969, p. 25, lines 140-143 and p. 42, lines 431-2, 434-6). The goddess Ishtar is also described in similar terms, e.g., usumgal.gim kur.ra usx (KA x BAD) ba.e.si 'like a dragon you have deposited venom on the land' (Hallo and Van Dijk, 1968, p. Ii, line 9, plate 4).3 Sargon II makes the claim: me/mes [if mat mutt aslul]a nisesu 'water with poison of death I sprinkled upon his people' (Lie, 1929, p. 60, line 413) and similarly, Esarhaddon states: e/i kullat nakiri aslul]a imat muti 'upon all the enemies I sprinkled the venom of death' (Borger, 1956, p. 87, no. 57, line 12). Neriglissar boasts of seven bronze serpents he installed at the gates of the temple Esagila, 'Sa limnim u ajjiibi izannu imat mutt 'which sprinkle upon foes and enemies the venom of death' (Langdon, 1912, p. 210, line 27). In conclusion, the expression z:>roq marah battalm'it!im is based upon the imagery of the serpent sprinkling or spattering its enemies with venom. That the preferred translation for z:>roq is 'sprinkle' or 'spatter', rather than 'cast' is made clear by the parallel Akkadian passages which use various words for 'sprinkle' and 'spatter' when speaking of the action of 2. An alternate translation is: 'they have infected his body with li'bu'; see CAD, l, la'abu, p.6a-b, and li'bu, pp. 18la-182a. The CAD, ibid., 182a, states that there is no clue to the nature of li'bu (and the corresponding verb laabu), with the exception of a lexical passage which clearly points to a skin disease (garabu=li'bu, Malku Supplement, pl. 7, K.4166, ii 8) and references from synonym lists which explain li'bu by words for fever (li'bu. ummu=~untu, An IX, 40f.). 3. I am grateful to Dr. Sol Cohen of Dropsie University for pointing out to me this preferred reading on plate 4, as against (KA x SU) of the editors on page 14. I gratefully acknowledge his help in reading the Sumerian material but accept full responsibility for the conclusions. Akkadian imtu 'venom' is identical with Hebrew hemah (cf. Deuteronomy 32:33) and Ugaritic hmt. In lexical lists imtu and martu 'bile, poison' are equated; see CAD M/1, 297a-300a. Compare Ugaritic 'Smrr and hmt 'venom', Pardee (1978) p. 74, lines 4, 6; p. 76, lines 10, I!; and elsewhere in the composition. 202 NAHUM M. WALDMAN the serpent (sala~u. zanu) and one which uses zaraqu when speaking of the action of demons (marta izzarqusu). Akkadian zaraqu means 'sprinkle' as does zrq in biblical Hebrew (Exodus 29:16, 20; Leviticus 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13; Hosea 7:9).4 The rabbinic use of the image is limited to the assertion of authority and does not have the total destructive intent of the Meso-potamian material. There is no compelling evidence to demonstrate a direct dependence of the rabbinic passage on Mesopotamian material. As I am unaware that there is any intervening material which could serve as a link between them, it is plausible to conclude that the expression we have been considering is an application of a well-known metaphor for power. The value of the parallel Mesopotamian material lies in the clarification and confirmation that it offers for the view that indeed serpent imagery is being invoked in the Patriarch Judah's injunction to his son. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1964ff., Chicago (abbreviated: CAD). Borger, R. 1956. Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Konigs von Assyrien. Archiv .fur Orientforschung, Beiheft 9. Graz. Danby, H. 1933. The Mishnah. London. Hallo, W and J. J. A. Van Dijk. 1968. The Exaltation of Inanna, Yale Near Eastern Researches 3. New Haven and London. Jacobsen, T. 1976. The Treasures of Darkness. New Haven and London. Jastrow, M. 1886-1903. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature. New York. Langdon, S. 1912. Die neubabylonischen Konigsinschriften, Vi>rderasia-tischen Bibliothek 4. Leipzig. Lie, A. G. 1929. The Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria. Paris. Nies, James B. and C. E. Keiser. 1920. Babylonian Inscriptions in the Collection of James B. Nies, vol. 2. New Haven. Pardee, D. 1978. "A Philological and Prosodic Analysis of the Ugaritic Serpent Incantation UT607." The Journal of the Ancient Near East-ern Society of Columbia University 10:74. 4. For zonu, see CAD, Z, 47a-49b; for zaraqu, ibid., 65b-66a; for sala~u, see von Soden (l 959ff., IOI 3a-b). Cf. wkzwhly 'pr ywrw lhm/tmj, 'and like (serpents) that crawl on the ground they cast their venom', Dead Sea Scrolls, Hodayot V:27. THE SPRINKLING OF VENOM 203 Reiner, E. 1958. Surpu, Archiv fur Orientforschung, Beiheft 11. Graz. Saggs, H. W F. 1962. The Greatness That Was Babylon. New York. Sjoberg, A. and E. Bergmann, S. J. 1969. The Collection of Sumerian Temple Hymns, Texts From Cuneiform Sources, 3. Locust Valley, New York. von Soden, W 1959ff. Akkadisches Handworterbuch. Wiesbaden. Thureau-Dangin, F. 1912. Une Relation de la Huitieme Campagne de Sargon. Paris. Urbach, E. E. 1971. HaZa"L, Pirqey 'emunot vooe'ot. Jerusalem. 

The Sprinkling of Venom

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The Sprinkling of Venom

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