Iotam fable
The Jotam fable is a fable from the book of the judges of the Tanach or the Christian Old Testament . It is placed in Jotam's mouth, who recites it to the inhabitants of Shechem and Bet-Millo on Mount Garizim . The fable thematizes the legitimacy of royalty and is a classic example of a biblical apologue .
The fable
The fable is:
“ 8 Once the trees arose to anoint themselves a king, and they said to the olive tree: Be our king! 9 The olive tree said to them, Shall I give up my fat, which is used to honor gods and men, and go to sway over other trees?
10 Then the trees said to the fig tree, Come, be our king! 11 The fig tree said to them, Shall I give up my sweetness and my good fruit and go and sway over the other trees?
12 Then the trees said to the vine, Come, be our king! 13 The vine said to them, Shall I give up my wine, which delights gods and men, and go to sway over the other trees?
14 All the trees in the thorn bush said, Come, be our king! 15 The thorn bush said to the trees, Do you really want to anoint me your king? Come find shelter in my shadow! But if not, then fire should go out from the thorn bush and eat the cedars of Lebanon . "
The olive tree , the fig tree and the vine are offered to become king, and all three turn down, so that the royal dignity is offered to the thorn bush.
It is characteristic of this fable that it dispenses with a theological argumentation or a divinely legitimized judgment and rather argues “profane”. YHWH does not appear, instead - very unusual in the Old Testament - "gods and men" are mentioned several times in the same breath.
Classification in the context
The ninth chapter of the book of judges describes the time when Abimelech was judge of Israel ; before that his father Gideon (nicknamed "Jerubbaal", Ri 6,32 EU ) held this office.
Abimelech succeeded in persuading the population of the city-state of Shechem to use him as sole leader instead of the rule of "seventy men" ( Judg 9,2 EU ). In addition they gave him seventy pieces of silver from the temple treasury of the "Baal of the Covenant", the city god of Shechem, with which Abimelech hired a troop of mercenaries. So he attacked Ofra , the place of origin of his father Gideon / Jerubbaal, in order to kill the leading family, his own relatives. He was then crowned king by the citizens of Shechem and Bet-Millo.
Only Jotam, the youngest son, survived Abimelech's killing of his family because he was in hiding (verse 5). After learning of his royal coronation, he gave a speech (verses 8-20) to the population "on the summit of Mount Garizim [...] with a raised voice" (verse 7), which begins with the narration of this fable. This is followed by a warning: If it was faithful, honest and due to the father Jerubbaal and the (extinguished) house to make Abimelech king, then people and king will enjoy each other, otherwise fire will go out from the people and from Abimelech, which they consume one another.
After his speech, Jotam “flees from his brother Abimelech to Beer” (verse 21) in order to settle there.
After Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years, “God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, so that the citizens of Shechem fell away from Abimelech. The crime against the seventy sons of Jerubbaal [that is, his seventy brothers] was to be avenged; the punishment for the bloodshed was to come over her brother Abimelech, who had killed her, and also over the citizens of Shechem, who had actively helped him in the murder of his brothers ”(verse 23f.): There was an uprising against Abimelech. As a punitive action, he destroys Shechem, the city that made him king; a thousand people perished (v. 49).
Abimelech is killed in the city of Tebez , north of Shechem , which he then tries to conquer: A woman throws a millstone on his head from a castle. “So he called his arms bearer and said to him: Hurry, draw your sword and kill me! One shouldn't say of me: A woman killed him. The young man pierced him and he died ”(v. 54). Abimelech's reign of violence failed because of his own violence.
interpretation
In the artistically designed fable, two common motifs in ancient oriental royal ideology can be recognized:
- The king is the tree of fruit and life for his people.
- The king protects his people and offers them shade.
The point is that none of the three fruit trees want to take over the royal dignity, but of all things the thorn bush accepts the choice and poses as “protector” and “shade provider”.
The classic interpretation is accordingly a criticism of monarchical rule: the kingship promises what it cannot keep.
How strong the criticism of the king is, however, is controversial. Many exegetes see the fable as a very sharp or principled rejection of kingship, Martin Buber even went so far as to describe it as the “strongest anti-monarchical poetry in world literature”. Other interpretations do not go so far and believe that the fable only warns against entrusting the office to those unsuitable for the royal dignity.
Origin and history
Since the Jotam fable only fits into the context of the text presented to a limited extent in terms of form history, most exegetes assume a piece originally handed down independently, which was only later woven into the (already literary woodcut-like) context of Judge 9. According to Rüdiger Bartelmus , their emergence goes back to educated aristocratic circles from the time of King Jehu (approx. 841– approx. 814 BC), who opposed kingship due to their negative experiences such as oppression and exploitation.
literature
- Reinhard Müller: royalty and rule of God. Investigations into the criticism of the Old Testament monarchy. Mohr Siebeck, 2004.
- Hanna Liss : The fable of Yotam in Ri 9,8-15: Attempt at a structural interpretation , in: Biblische Notizen 89, 1997, 12-18.
- Martin Mulzer: Jotam. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Buber : Kingship of God 1932, page 29; Heidelberg ³1956, page 24.