long, framing repetitions in biblical historiography

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Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography Author(s): Burke O. Long Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 385-399Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3261063Accessed: 28-08-2014 11:48 UTC

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JBL 106/3 (1987) 385-399

FRAMING REPETITIONS IN BIBLICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

BURKE O. LONG Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011

In biblical narrative, the resumptive repetition of words, phrases, or sentences to form a framework around other literary material has mostly been taken as a sign that an editor or compiler had cut the thread of a primary narrative, inserted other material of a different character, and then resumed the temporal sequence of the first account by repeating a word or phrase that had occurred at the point of insertion. Recently, H. Parunak treated this sort of framing repetition as one of several devices used to mark out material that was peripheral to the course of argument.2 Parade examples according to several scholars include 2 Chr 2:1, 17 (framing w 2-16); 12:2, 9a (framing w 3-8); Gen 37:36 and 39:1 (bracketing chap. 38); 2 Sam 3:1, 6a (framing w 2-5); 13:34aa, 37a (around w 34ap-36).3

As Shemaryahu Talmon has realized, to view framing repetitions in this way makes them captive to a dissecting mode of criticism which has been characteristic of source and redaction analysis.4 To source critics, repetition is secondary redundancy; it marks not simply the peripheral within a sequence but the signature of a derivative writer at work inserting, editing, and touching up an original document. However, the notion of "secondary" has actually covered a number of different theoretical operations: (1) editorial

I For a brief history of this line of investigation, see S. Talmon, "The Presentation of Syn- chroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narrative," in Studies in Hebrew Narrative Art throughout the Ages (ed. J. Heinemann and S. Werses; Scripta hierosolymitana 27; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978) 9-26. This principle of "resumptive repetition" is much used by J. Trebolle-Barerra as a technique for identifying stages of recensional and redactional history; see, e.g., his "Redaction, Recension, and Midrash in the Books of Kings"' Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies 15 (1982) 12-35.

2 H. Van Dyke Parunak, "Oral Typesetting: Some Uses of Biblical Structure," Bib 62 (1981) 160; see also A. Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: Almond, 1983) 126.

3 See H. Wiener, Composition of Judges 2:11 to 1 Kings 2:46 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1929); C. Kuhl, "Die 'Wiederaufnahme- ein literarkritisches Prinzip?" ZAW 64 (1952) 1-11; I. L. Seelig- mann, "Hebraische Erzahlung und biblische Geschichtsschreibung" TZ 18 (1962) 314-24; Parunak, "Typesetting."

4 Talmon, "Synchroneity' 14.

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Journal of Biblical Literature

insertion or rearranging (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:6, 23b, framing a commentarial excursus); (2) one author's digression on the primary "story" (e.g., 2 Chr 6:12, 13b and 1:3a, 5bp); (3) a writer's expansion of one source with material from another in a single act of literary composition (e.g., 2 Chr 12:2, 9; cf. 1 Chr 16:7, 37 framing material that derives from at least three known psalms and conforms to standard Hebrew poetic style).5

Something like these thoughts may have led Talmon to observe that in many instances resumptive repetitions were used by a writer to convey synchronous events in one or more locales (e.g., 1 Sam 2:11b, 18, 21b, 26; 3:1, 19; 19:12, 18; 18:20a, 28b; 2 Sam 13:34, 37). The technique lent itself to intricate structuring in those cases which required an author to present a variety of contemporaneous events (a partial overlap of temporal setting) or simultaneous events (complete concurrence of time). To his list of instances, Adele Berlin added Exod 20:18, 21; Gen 45:2, 16; 1 Sam 4:11 + 5:1 and noted a link with the use of chiastic sentences to express simultaneous action.7

These last authorlike nuances given to the word "secondary," even though they still function within a model of historical or diachronic explanation, actually move us closer to a synchronic theory of narrative poetics.8 One imagines the writer of Samuel or the Chronicler as authors, not redactors, rather much as one might assume that any anonymous text, whatever its history might have been, implies an "author" and a "reader" whose narrative strategies and response may be inferred from the "work"9 This shift in

5 A. Hill, "Patchwork Poetry or Reasoned Verse? Connective Structure in 1 Chronicles xvi,' VT 33 (1983) 97-101.

6 Talmon, "Synchroneity" 17-25. 7 Berlin, Poetics, 126-28. See also F I. Andersen, The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew (The

Hague: Mouton, 1974) 121. 8 Note recent studies which suggest that Assyrian scribes periodically authored, not simply

edited or revised, royal inscriptions by abbreviating, paraphrasing, deleting, interpolating, or harmonizing their sources-all in the interest of updating the accomplishments of their king (see H. Tadmor, "Observations on Assyrian Historiography," in Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of . J. Finkelstein [ed. Maria de Jonge Ellis; Hamden, CT: Archon, 1977] 209-10; M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, "Gyges and Ashurbanipal: A Study in Literary Transmission," Or 46 [1977] 65-85; L. D. Levine, "The Second Campaign of Sennacherib"JNES 32 [1973] 312-17). Note also that some classicists now view Herodotus as an author and explain the Histories, despite the oc- currence of long digressions and inattention to dramatic plot, as the product of a singular act of composing-not clumsy editing or numerous revisions by later hands. See, above all, H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, OH: Western Reserve University Press, 1966); and H. Wood, The Histories of Herodotus: An Analysis of Formal Structure (Paris: Mouton, 1972).

9 G. Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980) 211-62. The notions of implied author and reader used by Wayne Booth (The Rhetoric of Fiction [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961]) have been the subject of much discussion during the past twenty-five years. Note Booth's comments in the second edition of his book (1983), pp. 421-25.

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Long: Framing Repetitions

theoretical perspective allows us to consider other examples of repetitions within the historiographical books in a similar way (e.g., 1 Sam 5:6, llb3, around vv 7-llba; 25:1 + 28:3, framing 25:1b-28:2; 2 Sam 3:1, 6a, around w 2-9; 8:6b, 14b, framing vv 7-14a).

Study of these and other examples adduced by various scholars suggests that although some resumptive repetitions may be explained as signs of secondary insertions, they all do not plausibly yield to such analysis. Ambigu- ity among the data yields indeterminacy in the results. Furthermore, to recognize that historical theory might unnecessarily restrict our understand- ing of literary phenomena is to invite other theoretical models to inhabit the house. One might consider a biblical text with its repetitions as in effect- and possibly originally, although the matter can never be resolved -a singly "authored" composition. In this case, one looks to narrative poetics and synchronic explanations of literary composition and function rather than to historical (redactional and source) theory for the vantage point from which the object of study is defined and investigated.10

To advance discussion further, I propose to relate resumptive repetitions to some broader aspects of synchronic narrative theory. This move will allow one to supplement historical explanations by appreciating other examples of the device as flexible tools by which ancient authors, as implied in the writings we possess, achieved interesting literary effects.

I

Structuralist literary theory emphasizes that the study of narrative is essentially the study of relationships between narrative and narrating."l Taking a metaphor from the grammar of verbs, one may say that the task of analysis has to do with three interrelated aspects of narrative: tense, mood, and voice.

Tense refers to the varied relationships between time in the story and the temporal aspects of the narrative discourse. One artificial time (the sequentiality of events in the story) is thrown constantly against another artificial time (sequentiality in the narrating or reading). Simultaneity of occur- rence is a simple example: story events, if completely simultaneous, must

10 See R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981); G. Hammond, "The Bible and Literary Criticism," Critical Quarterly 25/2 (1983) 5-21; 25/3 (1983) 3-15; B. O. Long, First Kings with an Introduction to Historical Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984); M. Perry and M. Sternberg, "The King through Ironic Eyes: The Narrator's Devices in the Biblical Story of David and Bathsheba and Two Excurses [sic] in the Theory of the Narrative Text" Hasifrut 1 (1968-69) 263-92 [English summary, pp. ii-v]; Sternberg, "The Bible's Art of Persuasion: Ideology, Rhetoric, and Poetics in Saul's Fall,' HUCA 54 (1983) 45-82; Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

1 I am drawing on G. Genette, Narrative Discourse; see also R. Barthes, "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative," New Literary History 6 (Winter 1975) 237-72; W. Booth, Rhetoric.

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necessarily be told in serial sequence or perhaps be indicated grammatically, "At exactly that moment...,' or "while [so and so was happening]" (see 1 Kings 1:22a). Or a narrator may begin a story in the midst of a situation and only later go back to explain how events came to that point (e.g., 2 Kgs 4:8-10). Obviously much more complicated examples are possible, especially in modern fiction.l2

Mood indicates the modalities of narrative representations. One may tell more or less about events, and one may focus them through certain characters, a narrator, or the author.'3 Narrative information for the reader has its degrees, more or fewer details, and it has its modes, more or less directly communicated. Moreover, information may be regulated by the narrator with comments, screening, or according to the capacities of one or another participant in the story. For example, in 1 Samuel 18, the author directly reveals Saul's emotional state (w 8, 17b) while refusing comment on David's. In 1 Kgs 20:42, a command issued by God to the king is withheld from the reader until after it has been transgressed. These various aspects of mood contribute to the reader's sense of distance from, and perspective on, narrative events. We notice both in relation to tense in the story and its narration.14

Voice refers to the narrating instance, to the ways in which narrating itself is implicated in the moment of enunciation, and, along with this, how narrating involves the narrator with a real or implied audience. The basic questions lead one to see complex relationships. Identifying the narrator, who may be the author or a character, requires also that we grasp four main functions of narrating: (1) simply to tell the story or a part of it; (2) to refer to the narrative text in a metalinguistic way, for example, marking internal organization by means of a prophetic fulfillment formula (1 Kgs 15:29b; 16:12); (3) to establish or maintain contact, even dialogue, with the narratee, who may be the reader or a character in the story (e.g., Neh 5:19; 6:9b, 14 present narrator-Ezra's comments to God, who is made at that moment the implied reader of the narrative; or 1 Sam 15:13-23, wherein Saul's narrating of events is played off against Samuel's probing and skeptical comments); (4) to maintain a testimonial or ideological relationship to the story (e.g., a commentary, 2 Kgs 17:7-8; or in 1 Samuel 15, a more subtle strategy to persuade the reader of the justness of Saul's condemnation).'5

12 Genette, Narrative Discourse, 33-112. 13 See Berlin, Poetics, 43-82, for a discussion of point of view in biblical narrative. 14 Genette, Narrative Discourse, 161-211. Cf. R. Alter's treatment of the narrator's "reticence"

in 1 Samuel 18 (Art of Biblical Narrative, 117-25); or G. Hammond on Judges 19 ("The Bible and Literary Criticism" Critical Quarterly 25/3 [1983] 7-8); E. Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953) characterizing biblical narrative as "fraught with background"; see also Perry and Sternberg, "The King through Ironic Eyes,' and Sternberg, "Art of Persuasion."

15 See M. Sternberg, "Art of Persuasion"

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Narrative voice must also be heard at various levels, within or outside of stories and associated with various narrators. For example, in 1 Kings 1, Nathan and Bathsheba tell of Adonijah's celebratory feasting within another moment of narrative communication between author and reader. At the same time, both characters refer to David's vow (1 Kgs 1:13, 17, 24), which is an event in the story world-whether real or contrived by Nathan-that lies beyond the temporal boundaries established in the main story of palace conspiracy.

For our purposes, since some examples of resumptive repetitions in the Bible mark synchronous events, it is helpful to relate the notions of mood and voice to the concept of anachrony, that is, the various ways an author, narrator, or narrating character, achieves freedom from the constraints of temporality within a story.

Anachrony creates discord between the temporal sequence in the narrative and the time frame of the narration, as when, for example, someone retrospectively supplies information after the fact (analepsis), evokes in advance an event that will take place later (prolepsis) or narrates simultaneous events.6 Such anachronies may take place at the level of narrator- author or at the level of a character embedded within the story. Naturally they may entail all sorts of complex relationships, especially in modern literature, which exploits the "omnitemporality of the remembering consciousness."7

The chief variables have to do with reach, extent, and frequency.'8 Viola- tion of sequentiality may cover a temporal span into the past or future that is far from, or near to, the moment in story time that was interrupted to make room for the anachrony. This is reach. For example, 2 Sam 18:18 extends back into time before the moment of Absalom's burial, and the phrase "until this day" reaches far into the future, into the time of the implied reader. On the other hand, the anachrony itself-the author's remark, or a character's momentary reflection - may cover a period in story time that varies in length. Nathan's report about Adonijah's sacrifices (1 Kgs 1:25) covers no more than one day's duration, whereas the narrator-author in 2 Sam 13:38 runs ahead and fills a gap of three years' length. This sort of temporal duration is the extent of anachrony. Finally, within anachrony, one may note frequency, the system of relationships established between the capacities for repetition which are inherent in the narrated events and the discourse about those events. Thus, one might state once what happened once in the story (singulative narration, e.g., 2 Sam 13:7-8); or by grammatical construction one may narrate once what happened over and over again in the story

16 See W. Martin, "'Dischronologized' Narrative in the Old Testament,' in Congress Volume: Rome, 1968 (VTSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1969) 179-86.

17 E. Auerbach, Mimesis, 481. See Genette, Narrative Discourse, 48-85. 18 Genette, Narrative Discourse, 47-67, 113-60.

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(iterative narration, e.g., 1 Sam 1:7). A third possibility, often found in tradi- tional narratives, is to narrate two or more times what happened only once in the story (e.g., 2 Sam 13:34, 37, 38 "and Absalom fled").

The importance of achieving some clarity about these theoretical concepts is that it will help us to see more completely how a biblical writer's use of framing repetitions relates to the varied structural relationships set up in a narrative.'9 We shall explain certain examples of such repetition as a device by which a narrator manipulated time and altered the structural relationships associated with tense, mood, and voice. In becoming more attentive to these matters, it is to be hoped that the imaginative and fictive dimensions of biblical historiography will stand out all the more clearly.

II

Framing Repetition and Synchroneity Talmon's study as summarized above may be supplemented and broad-

ened with a few additional examples. 1. 2 Kgs 4:12b, 15 (qerd'. . . wayyiqrd'-lah watta 'mod lepanayw / qerd'-

lah wayyiqrii'-lah watta'imod bappatah). These phrases surround the main dialogue between Elisha and Gehazi. One imagines that prophet and servant speak about this Shunammite woman while she stands by, having presented herself to the prophet (v 12b). Apparently hearing their musing conversation, she intrudes tentatively (v 13b), as though answering but speaking to no one in particular, and the men carry on without acknowledging her comment (v 14). The repeated motif in v 15 draws both sequences of simultaneous action together into one discourse and also marks the transition to direct communication between Elisha and the Shunammite. Representing just these dialogic sequences as occurring simultaneously seems more than hap- penstance, for the anachrony powerfully aids in characterizing the relationship between Elisha and the woman. She approaches, drawing closer "in the doorway" (v 15 adds this small variation, bappdtah, in the repetition), but is ignored. Elisha addresses her directly only in v 16. Save for this moment, the woman deals with him through Gehazi the go-between. This suggestion of protocol between Elisha and the woman is characteristic of the narrator's vision; it is evident in w 25-27, 36 and is vigorously upset by the Shunammite herself in v 27 as she emerges as a forceful mother determined to wrest moral

19 We exclude cases of "ring" or chiastic composition, the use of repetitions to intensify and extend meanings, set up contrasts and analogies, state leitmotifs, create rounded high style, or otherwise to mark out sections of discourse. See S. Talmon and M. Fishbane, "Aspects of the Literary Structure of the Book of Ezekiel," Tarbiz 42 (1972) 27-41 (Hebrew); H. V. D. Parunak, Structural Studies in the Book of Ezekiel (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1979; Y. Radday, "Chiasm in Kings,' Linguistica Biblica 31 (1974) 52-67.

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restitution from Elisha. In short, anachrony which expresses simultaneity and which is marked by framing repetition also helps the narrator characterize protagonist and antagonist.

2. 2 Kgs 4:25a, 27a (wattelek wattb6' 'el-'is h'el6ohm 'el-har hakkarmel / wattdbo' 'el-'is hadelohim 'el-hahdr). This framing repetition seems to mark out a dialogue between Elisha and Gehazi and a meeting with the Shunam- mite woman, both occurring while she approaches Mount Carmel. If w 25b-26 supply information after the fact, then the framing repetition would also mark analepsis, a retrospective filling of an ellipsis, in which case we would have anachrony within anachrony. To catch this nuance, one would translate, "She came to the man of God-now when the man of God (had) seen her from afar, he said to Gehazi ... [after the woman is met, the account resumes] and she came to the man of God to the mountain and grabbed hold of his feet." Like w 12-15, this disruption of narrative time contributes to the narrator's characterization of the Shunammite woman. This event dramatizes her determined, impassioned singlemindedness. As she did with her husband's earlier attempts to discourage her visit to Elisha (v 23), the woman turns back the prophet's greeting with one word, sdl6m. She thereby refuses Elisha's proffered concern and thrusts aside what his offer protects, the protocol that sets distance between woman and prophet.

3. 1 Kgs 20:12a, 16 (wehu' soteh hu' wehammeldkim bassiikot / uben- hidad soteh sikk6r bassiuk6t hu' wehammeldkim .

..). This text may be con- sidered along with vv 27, 29aa (wayyahdnu bene-yisrd'el negddm / wayyahdnu 'elleh nokah 'elleh) since both cases of framing repetition describe a continuing situation in the Aramean camp, while focusing our attention on concurrent prophetic oracles among the Israelites. In the first, Aram's drink-crazed mustering of an army frames a picture of Israelite consultation with a prophet. With this wraparound of images, which is inten- sified by the incremental change in v 16 (the Arameans have grown to thirty- two kings, and Ben-Hadad is "drunk" [sikkor]), we are made to view Aram as a great host led by drunkards. One implicitly draws a contrast with Ahab, who in our imagination drinks soberly from an oracle's cup. In the second example, vv 27-29, another oracle for Israel (v 28) comes concurrently with an ongoing condition described by framing repetition: the once-defeated kings, reconstituted army for army, encamp opposite tiny Israel. The divine word, which partly commits a second anachrony by referring to an event already past, particularizes a new confusion that afflicts the Arameans. They make up a massed army, frozen and poised for battle in this moment while Yahweh speaks to his own. But the prophet ridicules them as a foolish, misguided horde whose premises are comically mistaken. Aram staggers here as much from false assumptions about Israel's God as it did in Samaria from strong drink. Framing repetitions mark anachronies that portray concurrent events; they also provide occasion to characterize the combatants and draw a special relationship with the narratee. The forces are not simply opposed militarily,

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the reader learns, but ideologically as well. Furthermore, attending to narrative voice, the author-narrator persuades the reader with sarcasm and trium- phant superiority that Israel's victory is justly deserved.

4. 2 Kgs 5:11aa, 12b[3 (wayyiqsop na'amdn wayyelak /wayyipen wayyelek behema). This motival repetition reports Naaman's angry departure from Elisha and marks an enclosed speech-event as concurrent with his going away. The resulting anachrony provides one of those rare glimpses into the interior motivations and perspectives of a biblical character. Naaman's words, presumably uttered to himself but overheard by his servants (v 13), also contain within them analepsis, which supplies information withheld from the reader at an earlier point in the narrative. On journeying to the Israelite man of God, Naaman had thought to find ceremonial pomp and respectful initiative from the curer. He carried a bundle of expectations rooted in success and royal favor among the Arameans. What he received was an order, insultingly simple and quite unceremonial, to wash his affliction in an Israelite river. In this instance, framing repetition that carries within it simultaneous speech-event and analepsis offers an evaluation of events by a principal character. At the same time the anachrony supplies the reader some basis for inferring Naaman's attitudes. However, one must set his private perspective against another- the author's own comment made directly to the reader in v 1. There Naaman's high position was explained on quite different grounds: he was in favor with the king because Yahweh, not human prowess, had given him military victory. Much of the story's power in the reader's experience grows from these counterposed focalizations of the narrative- the perspective of author-narrator and Naaman-narrator.

Framing Repetition and Analepsis Certain examples of framing repetitions mark out analepses, those

points at which a narrator, who may be the author or a character in the narrative, disrupts the chronological sequence of story time and retrospectively fills a gap in the reader's information. In such cases, time in the primary narrative passes unchronicled or comes to an absolute halt; attention shifts to the analepsis, which has its own more or less complicated sequentiality. Analepsis is always measured relative to a narrative moment to which it is temporarily subordinate. Its essential function is to convey explanatory antecedents to that moment. See, for example, analepsis without framing repetitions in 1 Kgs 2:28; 12:2; 2 Kgs 6:32a; 11:2-3.

1. 2 Kgs 4:8aoc, llao (wayehi hayyom wayya'dbor 'elisi' 'el-siunem... ydsur sdmma . . / wayehi hayyom wayydb6' gdmmd wayydsar 'el- hd'a~lyya . . ). The primary narrative event, Elisha's going to Shunem, encloses a retrospective remark in which suggestions of character and past relationships between the prophet and the Shunammite woman emerge in a network of repeated images. The idiom wayehi hayyom marks Elisha's travel

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to Shunem as a singulative event, that is, a one-time happening which is told only once (cf. 2 Kgs 4:18; 1 Sam 1:4; 14:1; Job 1:6, 13; 2:1). The analepsis itself suggests both singulative and habitual activity external to the main story, for it recounts events of indefinite duration, some of which repeatedly took place before this particular journey to Shunem. The prophet was accustomed to taking food from this woman (note the durative construction, wayehi midde + infinitive, v 8b; cf. 1 Kgs 14:28a; 1 Sam 1:7; 18:30). However, this particular habit had been encouraged by the woman's decision to provide lodgings for Elisha, who habitually passed by ('ober 'alenu tamfd). The catchwords 'br and yasur sdmma bind Elisha's customary action with the Shunammite's plan to care for him (vv 8b3, 9, 10). The same words link up with the framing repetition (vv 8b, Hla). Thus, the whole is a well-constructed opening exposition for the longer narrative (vv 8-37). Narration begins in medias res, then immediately disrupts narrative sequentiality to offer a palpable sense of the Shunammite. When the main narrative resumes, she and the man of God meet with background, obligations, and intimacies already established in the reader's consciousness. Cf. a similar case in 2 Chr 1:3a, 5bp. A framing motif around analepsis explains how cultic objects had been appropriately gathered at Gibeon, making it for the time a legitimate place to which Solomon "went up" to offer sacrifices. Cf. further, simple analepsis within framing repetition in Esth 2:19-21.

2. 1 Sam 1:3a, 7a (we'dida h 'is hahu '.. . miyyamim yamtm ... lyhwh / weken ya 'dseh sana bgesnd midde 'alota bebet yhwh). This framing device duplicates the sense more than the actual wording. Nevertheless, it seems to function similarly to the repetition in 2 Kgs 4:8, 11. The framework marks analepsis which conveys certain background information. Through it the narrator-author manipulates the reader's perception of those events to which the analepsis is subordinate, Hannah's distress on one particular occasion (vv 7b-8). The framing words convey iterative action: Elkanah went up to the sanctuary "every year" (miyyamim ydmimd); and so it happened "year by year as often (sand bgesnd midde... ) as she [Hannah] went up" This iterative frame apparently lends its durative frequency to the one-time expressed event in vv 4-6 (note the singulative idiom wayehi hay ym in v 4a [cf. above at 2 Kgs 4:8, 11]). Analepsis reaches far into the indefinite but iterative past and thus adds the weight of Hannah's life experience to her anguish in the present (vv 7b-8).2

3. 2 Kgs 7:5b, 8a (wayyabo 'u 'ad-qeseh mahinhh 'dram / wayyabo'u hamesor 'fm ha'elleh 'ad-qeseh hammahdneh). This framing repetition marks the point at which the narrator-author interrupts the lepers' journey out to the enemy and retrospectively explains how the Aramean camp came to be totally empty. The analepsis fills a gap within the primary story with

20 Note how wattibkeh welo' to'kal in v 7b seems to take up the primary narrative after the concluding remarks on the analepsis (weken ya'ageh ... ken tak'lgenna).

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privileged information aimed only at the reader. Thus, the device disrupts chronology in the interest of narrative voice. It persuades the reader of the grope and stagger by which both the Israelite king and the lepers make their way, and it dramatizes the hidden causality that matters most: Yahweh's power to thwart the Arameans, mystify the lepers, and mock the king's perception of reality (6:31, 33; 7:12).

4. 1 Kgs 1:1, 4 and 1:15b (wehammelek ddwfd zdqen ... wattehi lammelek sokenet wattesaretehu / wehammelek zaqen me'od wa'abisag ... mgesrat 'et hammelek). This framing repetition marks out analepsis (vv 5-14) which conveys background information relevant to two ongoing series of contemporaneous events: Adonijah's feasting at En Rogel (vv 9, 41ff.) and the palace intrigue in Jerusalem (vv 15-40). The frame itself conveys additional background by suggesting that David's infirmity is a precondition for all other events. Further complications in temporality arise owing to the report of Adonijah's kinglike feast, v 9, which is both antecedent to some events (e.g., Nathan's proposal, w 11-14) and-we learn from v 41-contemporaneous with others (e.g., the representations made to David [w 15-31]). Further- more, mention of Adonijah's feast nests with another anachrony which locates antecedents of his celebration in earlier, continuing acts of self-glorification (w 5-8).21 Adonijah (had been) exalting himself (Hebrew durative participial phrase, mitnasse).... He (had) prepared chariots (v 5) ... (had) conferred with Joab, and his supporters (had) followed after him (v 7). Moreover, the narrator embeds still another anachrony within this iterative past. Stepping out of narrative sequentiality altogether, he remarks in v 6 on the problematic of the whole affair. Adonijah's self-promoting actions-going on while David is doting within the palace and while Nathan and Bathsheba are plotting- have a certain justification even if they force divisions of loyalty and challenge the hidden favor of Yahweh toward Solomon (2 Sam 12:25). David had never protested his son's overreach, and Adonijah, after all, was handsome-a prerequisite for royal leadership (cf. 2 Sam 14:25-26; 1 Sam 10:23; 16:12). Adonijah is also the legitimate crown prince, since Absalom is dead.

This intricately structured analepsis provides a sense of ambiguity to events and complicates the reader's attitudes toward them. What might have been presented ideologically as simply a question of morality or of Yahweh's design is instead explored amid the realistic tensions of human life where choices must be made, but not so assuredly. At the point where palace intrigue begins to run its course, when the main narrative sequence resumes, the reader reserves judgment, withholds sympathy, and possibly defers commitment to one faction or another.

In this story, one of the best crafted in the books of Kings, framing repetition marks a rather complex moment of narration. It seems calculated

21 See J. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: King David I (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981) 348, for useful observations on the temporal relationships depicted in w 5-8.

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to provide antecedents to a doubly sequenced, contemporaneously running, primary narrative: Adonijah's celebration at En Rogel and the developing conspiracy against him in David's palace. At another level the author-narrator shapes the reader's attitudes toward this background with a rhetorical strategy of playing multiple aspects of voice against one another: his own atemporal comments, his straightforward recounting of events, Nathan's and Bathsheba's version of Adonijah's tale. One arrives at David's room heavy with bags, deftly handed one at the door.

5. 1 Sam 14:1a, 6a (wayyomer yonatan . .. 'el-hanna'ar nose ' kelayw leka wena'berd 'el-massab pelistzm / wayyomer yehondtdn 'el-hanna'ar nse' kelayw leka wena'berd 'el massab hd'drelim). This framing repetition marks a pause in the narrating of Jonathan's mission to the Philistine garrison. The author disrupts the primary sequence to give added information and descriptive details, all of which belong to the spatiotemporal universe of the story, not to the world of commentarial excursus, as, for example, 2 Kings 17 (see below). First, there is analepsis internal to the story time. When Jonathan called his armor-bearer to the mission, Saul, some six hundred fighting men, and an Elide priest were already in Gibeah (Geba).22 They are unaware of Jonathan's intentions, a fact that becomes important in v 17. Thus the narrator informs us in retrospect of a synchroneity of sequences: Saul and company in one place, Jonathan in another (note that participial and nominal phrases express accompanying circumstances [w 2-3]). In fact, this double focus is the key structural element in the narrative to follow (w 7-23), which tells of Jonathan's mission among the Philistines concurrently with Saul's reactions, and the eventual coming together of the two sequences in vv 21-22. There is also a proleptic description of the place to which Jonathan is headed (w 4-5). Before it becomes relevant, the reader gains a vivid image of the saw-toothed terrain that will be the setting for Jonathan's daring plan ("going up,' w 9-13). The framing motif (v 6a) brings the reader back to the main narrative where Jonathan repeats his call to the armor-bearer. The narrator allows incremental variation on the repetition and so opens a window onto Jonathan's inner attitude: the Philistines are "the uncircum- cised,' and, by contrast, Jonathan is Yahweh's warrior, confident in the Lord's strength (v 6b). In sum, framing repetition marks out a pause in the main story while the narrator establishes synchroneity of events in two locales, offers descriptive details important to the larger narrative, and suggests the ideological contrasts that are to define victor and vanquished.

6. 1 Sam 18:5, 14, 30 (bekol 'aser yislahennu sa'ul yaskil /wayehi dawid lekol derdakw maskil wyhwh 'immo /wayehi midde s 'tdm sakal dawTd mikkol 'abde sa'ul wayyiqar semo me'od). This framing repetition marks a complex anachrony that establishes David as a member of Saul's court, Jonathan's

22 Hebrew, mistakenly gib'a? Cf. v 5b.

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friend, and the object of Saul's murderous plot (17:57-18:4 + 19:1ff.). It also is similar to the type of repetition that gives special thematic emphasis, as, for example, in 1 Sam 5:6, llb-12; 2 Sam 8:6b, 14b. Within the frame, the text offers a pastiche of singulative narrative moments, each related somewhat differently to each other and to the main story (w 6-9, 10-11, 12-16, 17-29). Further, the narrator gives each moment an iterative nuance as though to suggest a rising swell of habitual bad feeling between Saul and David (vv 9, lib, 16b, 29b). In addition to marking this anachrony, the repeated motifs in the frame provide a sort of thematic distillation-David, with ease, succeeds at every turn (vv 5, 30; ya&kil / skal).

The first narrative moment, vv 6-8, is analepsis. At a time when David had already apparently entered Saul's court, fresh from his victory over Goliath (17:57), the narrator takes the reader back to an incident on the way home from that battle (v 6; note the reference to "the Philistine,' obviously meaning Goliath). However, a closing remark turns this single occasion into a condition that extends into the indefinite future: "and Saul kept an eye on David from that day on" (mehayyOm hahu' wdhali'd). The next day (after David had come to Saul's court?), the king tries to kill him (vv 10-11). The narrator generalizes this moment too. A quick remark doubles the frequency: "and David escaped him two times" The third section, vv 12-16, reports less an event than a summary of Saul's growing fear and David's increasing success. The key motifs of the framework appear again, and the narrator summarizes ongoing effects: "(David) went out and came in before them" (v 16b; note the use of participles to convey repeated action). A fourth event, Saul's desperate plan to engineer David's death (vv 17-27), also ends with iteration and, moreover, binds itself to vv 12 and 16 with key words: Saul is still more afraid in the light of David's success and the love the people show him; the king became his enemy "ever after" (kol hayydmtm, v 29). Finally, the narrator brings us back to the outer ring of repetition (v 30). He provides an iterative summary, picking up the framework motif of military "success" (sdkal; cf. v 5) and mentioning again the "servants of Saul,' who since v 5 had dropped from sight. The whole composition seems calculated to suppress ordinary chronological sequence. There is a kind of atemporality about events within the framework (vv 5 and 30), or rather a feeling that Saul's brooding madness has no clear beginning and no foreseeable end. Note the intensity of emotion expressed in v 29: wayyo'sef sd'au2l ler' mippene ddwid 'od, "Saul was still more afraid of David"' In brief, this extensive anachrony fills a pause in the primary narrative and evokes background and motivation for Saul's command in 19:1 where action moves forward again. All subsequent events now fall within the penumbra of Saul's insatiable, violent eclipse of reason.

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Framing Repetition and Commentarial Excursus Certain examples of framing repetition surround a narrator's commen-

tary on events within the primary narrative. In such cases, story time tends to come to an absolute halt, while the narrator-author addresses the reader directly. The commentary itself involves varied temporal relationships and in fact takes on a kind of omnitemporality unrestrained by the spatiotemporal boundaries of the main narrative. In biblical historiography, this kind of excursus typically offers a far-reaching didactic exposition.

1. 2 Kgs 17:6b, 23b (wayyegel 'et-yisra'el 'assurd ... / wayyigel yisra'el me'al 'admdto 'assurd 'ad hayyom hazzeh). This framing repetition marks an interruption in the main narrative (vv 1-6a), which resumes at v 24.23 Whether vv 1-6 and 7-23a stem from a single writer or from multiple hands and how one might reconstruct the text's compositional history depend in part on arguments and suppositions that are independent of 2 Kings 17. For our purposes, it suffices to ask how the study of framing repetitions from a synchronic perspective casts new light on a narrative much in dispute.24

Without presuming to solve the problems raised by historical scholarship, one might observe that the present text implies an author who halted the flow of story time and turned to explanatory comments for the reader's edification. In this case, spreading before us a colossal anachrony, the narrator pauses at the moment of exile for the northern kingdom to give reasons for such a catastrophe. The reach of this analepsis extends far back beyond the parameters of the monarchy (w 7-8) and covers an indefinite time span during the monarchy but still anterior to this moment of exile. The horizon also extends proleptically to the demise of the southern kingdom (w 19-20), completely running ahead of the moment at which the primary narrative sequence had been disrupted. The author then resorts to analepsis again to recall that decisive moment in which the people of the northern kingdom went astray (w 21-22). Finally, in the outer part of the framing repetition (v 23), one is led back to the narrative "present" and just as quickly turned to the future with the proleptic attestation "as at this day" With this remark the narrative overtakes the time frame of the narrating; the author removes

23 This text has been a favorite proving ground for conflicting hypotheses of compositional and redactional history of the books of Kings. For our purposes it is unnecessary to engage in the full range of debates. See H.-D. Hoffmann, Reform und Reformen (Zurich: Theologische Verlag, 1980) 127-39; R. D. Nelson, The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1981) 55-65; A. D. H. Mayes, The Story of Israel Between Settlement and Exile (London: SCM, 1983) 125-28; E. Wiirthwein, Die Biicher der K6nige 1 K6n. 17-2 K6n. 25 (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 391-403. For a study that gives special attention to framing repetitions, see S. Talmon, "Polemics and Apology in Biblical Historiography-2 Kings 17:24-41,' in The Creation of Sacred Literature (ed. R. E. Friedman; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) 57-68.

24 Note how a notion of proper chronological sequence is one crucial element in Nelson's argument (Double Redaction, 55-56).

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the distinction between his situation and that of his narrative. There is nothing unusual here (cf. 1 Sam 14:1-6). The text offers a plaus-

ible example of a familiar phenomenon, the omnitemporality of the remembering consciousness or the digressing ancient historian.25 It is not unreasonable to imagine the implied author as surveying the events he speaks about and drawing from them all, in one interpretative sweep, the lessons for his reader.6

2. 2 Kgs 17:33-34, 40-41 (... 'et-yhwh hdyu yere'Im... hagg6oym... 'ad hayy6m hazzeh hem 'oszm kammispdatm hdr'sonim ... / wel6' sam me'u kt im-kemispdatm hdar'son hem 'oszm.... wayyihyiu haggoyim ha 'lleh yere'jm 'et-yhwh ... ka'aser 'adu 'abotam hem 'o6sm 'ad hayyom hazzeh). Like w 7-23, this section is often seen as secondary insertion and implicated in the various disputes about redactional history in chap. 17. For reasons set forth above, we may set aside these concerns and look provisionally to a theory of repetitions to explain the text.

The narrator set up doubled repetitions and made vv 34a and 40b a framework within another frame, vv 33 and 41. This outer ring, with its catch phrase, "(they) the nations continued revering Yahweh" (hdyu [wayyihyu] 'et- yhwh), is a thematic motif that ties vv 34b-40 to the main subject ofvv 24-28 and its related comment, vv 29-32. (See 2 Sam 8:6b, 14b; 1 Sam 5:6, 11b-12 for framing repetitions that set thematic boundaries.) The inner repetition, w 34a and 40b, encloses proleptic commentary which extends temporal reach far beyond the time of the northern kingdom's exile. In relation to this time frame and that of w 24-28 (+ 29-33), which simply continue the sequentiality of vv 1-6, the story has overtaken the narration. Commentarial excursus merges past into present, into the immediacy of narration that is simultaneous with what is reported. The transgressions of the north com- mitted long ago continue right now. Not only the phrase "as at this day" but also the present tense participles in v 34b suggest this reading.

Thus, the narrator-author paused in recounting the aftermath of the northern kingdom's exile and offered a commentarial excursus which ran backward and forward in time (note the analepsis in vv 35-39 that reaches outside the "main story" of monarchy). Through analepsis within prolepsis, through retrospective within a direct appeal to the time of narrator-author- reader, the comment convicts those northerners-even to their children's children (v 41)-of continuing their confused allegiance to Yahweh and the other gods. Such omnitemporality of consciousness seems analogous to the

25 For an ancient parallel to such far-reaching digression in a historiographical work, see J. Cobet, Herodots Exkurse und die Frage nach der Einheit seines Werke (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1971).

26 Synchronic analysis converges with diachronic explanation in M. Noth's hypothesis of a single exilic historian who produced a sweeping history of Israel and, incidentally, most of the chapter under discussion, from a vantage point in the Judean exile; see Uberlieferungs- geschichtliche Studien (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1957) 85-86, 108 (Eng. trans. The Deuteronomistic History [Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1981] 73, 97).

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sort of freedom modern writers of fiction achieve. If one imagines an author standing in a time in which all of this history is a matter of memory, then such violations of chronology in the telling are not only reasonable, but plausible and effective in expressing the didactic purposes of the historical work.

III

To summarize the results: A common historical or diachronic theory explains resumptive or framing repetitions in biblical historiography as marking points at which a second author or editor inserted material into a previously existing text; in other cases such a device allowed an author to present two or more synchronous events in different locales. Using an alter- native model, a synchronic theory of explanation, we propose to view the latter cases and a number of other examples within a broader theory of narrative poetics. A number of resumptive repetitions may be understood relative to various structural relationships set up in narratives by a narrator's exercise of freedom from the spatiotemporal constraints of his story world. They demark anachronies in the act of narrating, that is, points at which violations of story time (or primary sequentiality) were exploited to various effect. One may distinguish three types: (1) narration of synchronous events [Talmon]; (2) marking analepsis or retrospective narrative of varying complexity; and (3) surrounding commentarial excursus in which didacticism is served by the final convergence of story time and narrating time.

With the analytical power gained from the notions of narrative tense, mood, and voice, one may appreciate that not all examples of resumptive repetition need be explained diachronically with theories of redaction. In quite a few instances one may plausibly speak of a writer, as demanded by and inferred from the text, who manipulates the chronology of events and the reader's experience (a reader is also inferred from the text). With control of information, including the use of framing repetitions, the narrator could sharpen characterization, provide ironic perspective, or comment on the story with didactic intent-all in the rhetorical interest of shaping sympa- thies, attitudes, and perceptions.

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Article Contentsp. 385p. 386p. 387p. 388p. 389p. 390p. 391p. 392p. 393p. 394p. 395p. 396p. 397p. 398p. 399

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 385-576Front Matter [pp. 400-566]Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography [pp. 385-399]Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10:1-16 [pp. 401-408]The Mission of Udjahorresnet and Those of Ezra and Nehemiah [pp. 409-421]The Structure of the Sermon on the Mount [pp. 423-445]Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16:19-31 [pp. 447-463]The Use of Group Profiles for the Classification of New Testament Documentary Evidence [pp. 465-486]Critical NotesEarly Evidence for the Ritual Significance of the "Base of the Altar": Around Deut 12:27 LXX [pp. 487-490]T. Mos. 4:8 and the Second Temple [pp. 491-492]

Review: Review Essay: The Bible in America [pp. 493-509]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 511-513]Review: untitled [pp. 513-515]Review: untitled [pp. 515-516]Review: untitled [pp. 516-518]Review: untitled [pp. 518-519]Review: untitled [pp. 520-521]Review: untitled [pp. 521-523]Review: untitled [pp. 523-525]Review: untitled [pp. 525-527]Review: untitled [pp. 527-528]Review: untitled [pp. 528-529]Review: untitled [pp. 529-533]Review: untitled [pp. 533-534]Review: untitled [p. 535]Review: untitled [pp. 535-537]Review: untitled [pp. 537-539]Review: untitled [pp. 539-541]Review: untitled [pp. 541-543]Review: untitled [pp. 543-544]Review: untitled [pp. 544-545]Review: untitled [pp. 545-547]Review: untitled [pp. 547-548]Review: untitled [pp. 548-549]Review: untitled [pp. 549-551]Review: untitled [pp. 551-553]Review: untitled [pp. 553-555]Review: untitled [pp. 555-556]Review: untitled [pp. 556-558]Review: untitled [pp. 558-560]Review: untitled [pp. 560-562]Review: untitled [pp. 562-563]

Books Received [pp. 567-572]Back Matter [pp. 573-576]

long, framing repetitions in biblical historiography

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biblical narrative

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biblical structure

framing repetitions

biblical historiography

journal of biblical

sort of framing repetition

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