The Autonomous Curse in Zechariah 5:1-4 and Assyro-Babylonian Incantations

• In Event: The Bible in its Ancient Near Eastern Context

Abstract

The similarities between ancient Near Eastern and biblical curses present a source of constant fascination for modern commentators. One aspect that often arises in the context of curses in the Bible is the question to what degree the Hebrew Bible represents the cultures and customs of Israel’s surrounding nations. A text which has received relatively little attention in this respect is Zechariah 5:1-4. Here the prophet witnesses a vision in which a flying curse scroll attacks the habitations of individuals who have stolen or sworn falsely (Zechariah 5:1-4). This paper seeks to situate Zechariah’s vision against its ancient Near Eastern background by comparing the conceptualization of the curse and its context to its Assyro-Babylonian counterpart. The Assyro-Babylonian texts this paper will focus on are the incantation series Šurpu and its subcategory Lipšur. It will be shown that the prophet was well acquainted with ancient Near Eastern concepts of sin and retribution. At the same time, however, Zechariah’s visionary experience extends the scope of the curse to the whole country while the punishment is limited to the destruction of houses. This spin on the effects of curses gives witness to the utopian nature of Zechariah’s visions in which God protects his people by permanently banishing sinners from the land of Judah. In this paper, the nature of biblical and ancient Near Eastern curses will be evaluated using functionalist and cognitive methods.

author

• Isabel Cranz, University of Pennsylvania