Divine Rape (Reconstituted)

O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived; You have overcome me and prevailed.  I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. Jeremiah 20:7  NASB

Deceived – I am sure you remember our investigation of Jeremiah’s use of the words pātâ and ḥāzaq.  We recounted Heschel’s analysis:

“This standard rendition misses completely the meaning of the text and ascribes to Jeremiah a pitiful platitude (‘Thou art stronger than I’).  The proper rendition of Jeremiah’s exclamation would be:

            O Lord, Thou hast seduced me,

            And I am seduced;

            Thou hast raped me

            And I am overcome.

The meaning of this extraordinary confession becomes clear when we consider what commentators have failed to notice, namely, the specific meaning of the individual words.  The striking feature of the verse is the use of two verbs pātâ and ḥāzaq.  The first term is used in the Bible and in the special sense of wrongfully inducing a woman to consent to prenuptial intercourse (Exod. 22:16 [H. 22:15]; cf. Hos.2:14 [H. 2:16]; Job 31:10).  The second term denotes the violent forcing of a woman to submit to extranuptial intercourse, which is thus performed against her will (Deut. 22:15; cf. Judg.19:25; II Sam. 13:11).  The first denotes seduction or enticement; the second, rape.”[1]

The powerful imagery in Jeremiah isn’t the only place that this idea is expressed.  Zornberg reminds us Rabbi Meir’s analysis of that strange passage in Exodus: “Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it ^[a]as the people listened; and they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!’” (Exodus 24:7).  How is it possible to “do” before “hearing”?

Focusing on the core utterance to God, na’aseh ve-mishma—We shall do and we shall hear! R. Meir declares that this was a moment of ‘seduction’; heart and mouth are at odds, inner experience pulling away from language.  Or, more strongly, language being used by the wayward in order to beguile God.[2]

Obedience to the law is not the final goal; that is why it is written first, as preamble to the larger demand.  For Sefat Emet, the purpose of the Exodus and the Revelation at Sinai is to acquire this position of listening.  When the people desire to return to Egypt, to the condition of slavery, they resist this divine demand.  To return to Egypt is the easy option, falling back on habit, on the constricted life of the slave for whom obedience is all.  Freedom means a turning toward the future and its possibilities, its difficult demands.  Always hoping to hear more from God, one realizes the exodus project in its fullness.[3]

While these comments offer some radical views of this strange verse, we would be remiss if we didn’t take Jonathan Sacks analysis into account.  You can read it here.  As you can see, even the vocabulary of this verse is open to multiple interpretations.  Is one correct and the other is false?  No, I don’t think so.  As is so often the case, Hebrew is just messy enough for the reader to understand what he or she wants to understand.  Interpretation of the text often reveals more about the reader than about the original audience.  This is essentially Sacks’ conclusion, couched in the commitment of the community to uniformity of action.

What might we learn together?  We might learn that God’s great seduction was not of a prophet here and there in the history of Israel, but of Israel itself, overwhelmed by His real presence, impossible to deny and equally impossible to resist.  Isn’t that what we want to experience ourselves, to be overpowered by His care and work out our individual expressions of faith afterward?

Topical Index: pātâ, ḥāzaq, seduce, overwhelm, action, faith, Exodus 24:7, Jeremiah 20:7

[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, p. 113

[2] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus (Schocken Books, 2022), p. xv.

[3] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus (Schocken Books, 2022), p. xvi.