Abstract
This new series from Koren Publishers is a welcome addition to the world of Tanakh study. The volume on Exodus is beautifully produced with high quality, glossy pages that make it a pleasure to use. The book contains the text in Hebrew and the English translation by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (as found in the Magerman edition of the Tanakh, also published by Koren), and a number of short articles relating to the text. The verse numbers are colour co-ordinated in both Hebrew and English in order to help the reader find the appropriate article; thus, green numbers indicate an article relating to language and red numbers give more information about the Ancient Near East and the background etc. As such the text does not usually appear as a large block, but rather in short segments with the relevant articles below and beside the biblical text. They are categorised as articles on Archaeology, Egyptology, Near East, Mishkan (what the Tabernacle might have looked like, its significance and importance), Language, Geography, Flora and Fauna and Halakha. Thus, the articles cover a large variety of topics. Inevitably, some will interest one reader more than another, and another reader will lament the absence of a particular topic. These articles use evidence from other Ancient Near Eastern cultures and languages, from rabbinic commentaries and from archaeology as appropriate. This is seen most particularly in the discussion of the plagues, where each one is placed into an Egyptian context, enabling the reader better to understand why such a plague was so terrifying for the Egyptians. Some of these articles are directly about the text, but this is not the case for all of them and so this volume will not replace the traditional detailed exegetical commentary, but will rather be a useful addition to such a commentary.
The articles are complemented by beautifully reproduced illustrations, be they pictorial renditions of the incident displayed from a variety of traditions (e.g. Pharaoh and the midwives in the Golden Haggadah on p. 8 or Rembrandt’s painting of Moses smashing the tablets of the Law on p. 138), or statuary (e.g. Michelangelo’s Moses with horns) and Egyptian wall paintings.
The Hebrew text is reproduced in the classic Koren font, which is clear to read, with its characteristic extended qametz hatuf. The ketiv is unvocalised, with the qere being vocalised in the margin. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ translation is very good and refreshingly new, although with some surprises here and there where the translation is less literal than one might expect, e.g. in 18:7 “בניה” is translated as “your sons” rather than “her sons”. Contextually this is correct, but from a strictly literal reading, this is incorrect.
The approach to the text comes from the Orthodox Jewish tradition, and this book has much to offer to Christians and scholars from any background, whether religious or secular. It sees the events of the Exodus as historical (c. 1550-1069 BC, during the New Kingdom), noting that no nation invents for itself a background of slavery and idolatry, and that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The articles are written by a variety of scholars and enable the reader to understand the text better. Any library with a section on the Old Testament/Tanakh should seriously consider buying this volume and (probably) the others that will appear in this series as and when they are published. I look forward to seeing the other volumes when they are available and will certainly be using them in my own work.