Harbona

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Anton Petter : King Ahasver sentenced Haman to death , 1835 ( Österreichische Galerie Belvedere )

Harbona : Hebrew חַרְבֹונָא Ḥarvōnāʾ is a person from the Bible.

Harbona as a literary figure in the Book of Esther

The plot of the Book of Esther takes place at the court of the Achaemenid king Ahasuerus in Susa , but was written in the Hellenistic period at a distance from the events depicted . One of the means by which a Persian color is produced is the appearance of two groups of sevens of court officials ( Est 1.10  LUT ) and scholars ( Est 1.14  LUT ) with Iranian or Iranian-sounding names in the first chapter. One of the court officials is called Harbona. Various studies have dealt with the Iranian world of names in the Book of Esters, the majority of which (and so also in the case of Harbona) are to be regarded as “artificial names” created by the author of the biblical novella .

While most of the secondary characters of the first chapter are then forgotten, Harbona has another appearance in Est 7,9  LUT . The action has reached its dramatic climax here. Haman pleads with Queen Esther for mercy, which the king, entering at this very moment, misunderstands as a sexual rapprochement. That seals Haman's fate. Now Harbona suddenly appears and reveals that Haman had a gallows set up for Mordechai , which the reader had long known, but the Queen and King did not. With Harbona's speech, the two storylines of the Ester book, the conflict between Haman and Mordechais and the way Ester at the royal court, are linked.

The Greek version of the Book of Esther

In addition to the Hebrew version of the Masoretic text, the Book of Esther has come down to us in two Greek versions that differ significantly from it, in addition to the Septuagint as a so-called A-text, which is represented by some early medieval manuscripts. Harbona does not appear in these Greek versions. At the banquet, "Bugathan, one of the eunuchs" (Septuagint) or "Agathas, one of his slaves" (A text) appears and points out Haman's gallows to the king.

reception

The banquet scene with Haman's conviction became the subject of paintings several times. Harbona is shown as a minor character approaching the king. In the oil painting Anton Petters z. For example, Harbona is an old man who points out the window where you can see the gallows built by Haman in the landscape.

literature

  • Beate Ego : The Book of Esther (= Biblical Commentary Old Testament . Volume 21 of the revision). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ,. Göttingen 2017. ISBN 978-3-7887-2966-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Witte : The Ester Book . In: Jan Christian Gertz (Hrsg.): Basic information Old Testament . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 6th revised and expanded edition 2019, pp. 481–494, here p. 485: “The idealized milieu and the fairytale-like features… show that it is a literary fiction . Individual narrative trains can be based on historical motifs ... but overall typification predominates. "
  2. ↑ Beate Ego: Das Buch Ester , Göttingen 2017, p. 133.
  3. ↑ Beate Ego: Das Buch Ester , Göttingen 2017, p. 15 f.
  4. ↑ Beate Ego: Das Buch Ester , Göttingen 2017, pp. 331–334.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Kraus, Martin Karrer (Ed.): Septuaginta German. The Greek Old Testament in German translation . German Bible Society, Stuttgart 2009, p. 593 f.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Kraus, Martin Karrer (Ed.): Septuaginta German. The Greek Old Testament in German translation . German Bible Society, Stuttgart 2009, p. 610.