The Two “Betweens”

Then all the people of war who were with him went up and approached, and arrived in front of the city; and they camped on the north side of Ai. And there was a valley between him and Ai.  Joshua 8:11 NASB

Between – There an important lesson buried in this text, in a tiny little “nothing” of a preposition.  Uncovering it helps us realize why the ancient Hebrews had a written and an oral religion.  Here’s the text as it is written in the Tanach today:

וְכָל־הָעָ֨ם הַמִּלְחָמָ֜ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אִתּ֗וֹ עָלוּ֙ וַֽיִּגְּשׁ֔וּ וַיָּבֹ֖אוּ נֶ֣גֶד הָעִ֑יר וַֽיַּֽחֲנוּ֙ מִצְּפ֣וֹן לָעַ֔י וְהַגַּ֖י בֵּינָ֥יו (כתיב בֵּינָ֥ו) וּבֵין־הָעָֽי

As you can see, there’s an indicator that the word for “between” is written one way but read another.  It is written as a plural but read as a singular.  Of course, in English we would never see this difference because English doesn’t match gender and case with prepositions and nouns.  But Hebrew does.  So we end up with this oddity.

The question is “Why is the text written differently than the way it is read?”  The grammatical answer might be obvious, but . . . if the text is written as a plural, what would motivate the oral tradition to change that?  The answer is about the context of leadership.

The oral text treats the people as a plural collection.  So “they” is collective noun, plural.  There are two groups: Joshua and the people.  But the written text is a singular.  The entire group is viewed as one, even if this is grammatically incorrect.  Now the emphasis is on Joshua’s involved and enmeshed leadership, something missing in the previous encounter with Ai.  In fact, as you will recall, God berates Joshua for not accompanying the troops in the first encounter.  The oral text matches the correct grammar, but the written text emphasizes the correction of this leadership mistake.  In the written text, Joshua takes the role of the responsible leader at the front of the group.

You would not know this change by simply listening to the text.  You must have both the written and the oral to properly understand it.  The transmission of the story cannot be accomplished by simply reading aloud or telling the story.  There must also be a written component.  You can only see the change from singular to plural if you read the text while listening.

This is incredibly important.  Why?  Because many if not most ancient religious practices were entirely oral.  The legends, myths, and theological content was passed down from one generation to the next through memorization of oral tradition.  In fact, even today the Quran is really an oral recitation of God’s words.  But Hebrew culture was both oral and written.  Literacy was of utmost importance, as was exact replication of the written text.  That process made the oral component self-correcting.  A standard accompanied the storyteller.  That meant there is a way to “check up” on the story.  How marvelous!

Topical Index: written and read, between, Joshua 8:11