Abstract
This article investigates two unique narratives contained in Genesis 32:22-33 and Exodus 4: 24-36. Both stories share elements of what on the surface appear to be violent and fearful encounters with the divine. Ottonian analysis is used to understand how the placement of these narratives in their context allows the larger text and the reader to understand these episodes as not simply fearful, but as moving from fear to awe as the encounter reveals a piece of the fabric of the intimacy between man and God. Ultimately it is the entire narrative taken within its place in the Hebrew Bible, along with later discussion and commentary, that allow these episodes to develop into the story of a rich and complex relationship between man and a God who cannot be reduced to either an unspeakable experience or an articulable set of concepts, but is at once fully mysterious, numinous, and self-revelatory.
Rudolf Otto’s groundbreaking work, The Idea of the Holy (originally titled Das Heilige in its 1917 publication) carries important ideas for both theology and for the study of the history of religion. Particularly striking is the theme, found throughout Otto’s discussion, that elements of the divine defy rational comprehension or description with the linguistic tools available to us.
Despite his insistence upon the failure of language to describe the divine in full, Otto has gifted the fields of theology, philosophy of religion, and history of religion with terms which serve to reduce the gap between experience and expression. “Terms such as ‘the numinous’ and ‘the wholly other’ first introduced by Otto…have made their way into a vocabulary which extends beyond academic circles…and continue to be employed…” (Gooch, 2000, p.2). Of special importance is his coinage of the phrase mysterium tremendum as a way to express the many different aspects of the human reaction to the divine.
The Importance of Otto’s Work
Otto’s books had tremendous impact during his own time: Eichrodt’s Theology of the Old Testament (originally published in 1939) for example, was an important development and application of Otto’s ideas. He continued to be of great influence, particularly in the German-speaking world, up through the 1960s, particularly with S. Plath’s Furcht Gottes (1962) and J. Becker’s Gottesfurcht im Alten Testament (1965), both of which drew upon Otto’s elaboration of fear as an aspect of the human response to the numinous encounter (Ellis, 2014). The time following this period saw a decline in discussion of his work, but interest in these important ideas has never been fully lost. Use of and response to Otto’s work has extended to the present time [See for example U. Rosenhagen, U. and G. Alles (2022) as well as Lauster, Schüz, Danz and Barth (2014), and even been at times divorced entirely from his theistic grounding (see Ware, 2007)].
For Otto, transcendence beyond human comprehension is part of the nature of the divine. As central as this idea is to his work, Otto still maintained the importance of human interpretation of religious experience. In his view the application of defining characteristics to religious experience and to the divine is one of the things that makes a religion “rational” and are for him marks of “high rank and superior value,” (Otto, 1928, p.1). His concern with religion and reason is set out early in his career with his 1909 Philosophy of Religion Based on Kant and Fries. However, Otto insists that this process of rationalization ultimately falls short of comprehending the divine or religious experience. He states: “We must acknowledge that the deity is far from fully comprised by or exhaustively described by any of these attributes.” (Otto, 1928, p.209).
Otto describes the encounter with the mysterium tremendum as both “daunting” and “fascinating.” It inspires both “awe” and “dread”; a desire to approach and to flee. The encounter with the uncanny evokes powerful emotional reactions in the human creature. One of the reasons Otto suggests for this is the overwhelming power and energy which is associated with the divine (Otto, 1928, pp. 21-23, 30). Otto relates his ideas to Schleiermacher’s description of absolute dependence, but he expands this idea of “creature feeling” to include fearful elements as well as powerful attraction and longing (Otto, 1928, p.10).
In his framework of thought, the natural world is sharply divided from the spiritual world (Raphael, 1997). This can be seen in his 1904 work Naturalism and Religion. This leaves room in his understanding for miracles as a manifestation of the mysterium tremendum, a thing that is “absolutely other.” What humans term as a miracle can be anything that “set him a-stare in wonder and astonishment.” This leaves open the possibility of natural occurrences being interpreted as miraculous. He suggests that later religious development sees miracles fade away as a “merely external analogue to the numinous” (Otto, 1928, pp. 65-67).
Criticisms of The Idea of the Holy
Otto’s work has not escaped criticism. Scholars have called his Idea of the Holy “… philosophically and ethnographically underdeveloped” (Raphael, 1997, p.1). In some ways he seems caught between polarities. He has been accused of being too much a historian of religion to be a theologian, and of being too much of a theologian to be a historian of religion. In his own era, his mainstream Christian colleagues felt that his fluid understanding of the numinous was too open and too willing to encompass non-Christian elements. More recent scholars have conversely critiqued Otto as being too heavily influenced by the lens of his Lutheran Christian faith. The extent of Otto’s concern with the Christian faith can be seen in his final work, The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, originally published in in 1938, which deals with the person of Jesus and the message of the kingdom of God (Otto, 1957).
Another objection to Otto’s work lies in the assertion that religious experience cannot be reduced to a moment of consciousness and contact apart from any context (Raphael, 1997). This critique is somewhat overstated: What Otto actually says is that the numinous itself contains elements which are extra-rational. He claims that the holy, the divine in human experience, has both rational and extra-rational components. Humans desire to create clearly defined concepts, but also possess intuition for which words and concepts are insufficient. Otto develops this idea in contact with Jakob Fries’ idea of intuition and feeling as a type of cognition alongside knowledge and belief (Gooch, 2000). Otto does not seek to sever religious experience from context, but he does emphasize the otherness of that experience from the everyday human realm.
To address these criticisms, one must understand two further major features of his work. First is that he, along with Schleiermacher, took an approach which is different from the traditional methodology of investigating God. The classical approach asks first “What can reason tell us about the nature of God?” and from there extrapolates the traditional doctrines of faith. This is not an approach which is exclusive to Christianity. It has also been part of the Islamic and Jewish classical tradition (as notably represented by Ibn Sina and Maimonides) (Burrell, 1986). Schleiermacher and Otto, along with Troeltsch, first sought to address the idea or root of religion as a whole. They then turned their focus upon their own Christian tradition (Gooch, 2000). Instead of asking what reason or metaphysics can suggest to us, this approach first asks what common root of religion (or religious experience) humankind shares. It is in part this unusual approach which has left Otto open to critiques of his methods and confusion as to whether he is a theologian or a historian of religion.
The second feature of Otto’s work that we should be clear upon is his own acceptance of the numinous as a real thing, a real human experience. Otto claims that the holy is an a priori category. He does not seek to examine religious experience as skeptical outsider, nor does he wish his readers to do so. He in fact famously suggests that if one “cannot direct his mind to a moment of deeply felt religious experience … (he should) read no further” (Otto, 1928, p. 9). Because he believes that the numinous must be experienced to be understood, his readers are invited to remember their own numinous experiences. It is for this reason that some critics have claimed that Otto is not making a philosophical argument but is instead interested in converting his readers (Gooch, 2000). This is a spurious argument. Simply suggesting that readers should recall their own experiences to understand what Otto believes to be unexplainable in words is, in his construct, valid. It is also a far cry from an argument for conversion to Lutheranism, or even to Christianity.
Otto and the Hebrew Bible
Otto certainly drew many of his ideas first from the scripture of his own faith. As a Lutheran immersed in a tradition, which emphasized the importance of scriptural knowledge informing personal faith, Otto was familiar with accounts of the numinous as presented in the Hebrew Bible long before he formalized his ideas and applied them to ancient Greek and other religious traditions. In his chapter from The Idea of the Holy entitled “The Numinous in the Old Testament”, Otto says “…the feelings of the non-rational and numinous…are pre-eminently in evidence in Semitic religion and most of all in the religion of the Bible. Here mystery lives and moves in all its potency” (Otto, 1928, p.74).
Following Otto’s idea that religious experience is a real and separate part of human experience to which we only later apply our reason and understanding, I will explore two narratives from the Hebrew Bible which are particularly suited to Ottonian analysis: Genesis 32:22-32, and Exodus 4:24-26. Realizing that for Otto the writing of such an experience means a loss of an essential element of the experience – one that cannot be described – we still can begin with the text as an interpreted expression of a religious experience. The significance of these experiences is not apparent in the plain, unelaborated account of the texts when separated from the rest of the surrounding narrative. These stories are embedded within and connected with a larger developed narrative. They are assimilated into the rational and moral framework of Israelite religion. It is only through these connections and context that the numinous experience realizes its full potential in human spirituality. It is in this way that the experience becomes religion. Otto explains that what is first experienced as dread or awe is not rational. He describes a process of transformative development from experience into religion. He asks how the numinous being becomes understood as God, one who cares for and participates in human life (Otto, 1928). This is how, in a deep sense, the human and the divine are found in partnership in creating religion, in creating faith.
Otto and the Two Texts of Focus
In the following sections, I will analyze the numinous elements found in Genesis 32:22-32 and Exodus 4:24-26 and how the two narratives have been rationalized and incorporated into the main body of Hebrew scripture. Exodus 4 is only noted in passing by Otto, and Genesis 32 is not addressed at all, but both merit closer investigation in light of Otto’s work. The Idea of the Holy was the groundwork of broad and important ideas, and so Otto spends far less time on detailed discussion of specific works and passages, instead using his chapter on the Hebrew Bible to illustrate major points. It is for us to apply his ideas to a more in-depth analysis of specific texts. Otto was a man of his time, and as such his thought is structured around central ideas of “primitive” vs “developed” with a great value being placed upon “progress”. Otto also connects these qualities with time in a linear fashion, and so makes assumptions about later people, cultures, and writing being more developed than earlier peoples and texts. In his chapter on “The Numinous in the Old Testament” he applies this same framework, claiming that the process of rationalization and moralization reaches its peak with the prophetic books. Otto therefore quickly passes over such texts as ours in favor of Deutero-Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Job. He in fact calls texts such as Exodus 4 “…offshoots from the true line of progress, spurious fabrication of the fancy accompanying the numinous feeling” (Otto, 1928, p. 75).
W. Eichrodt, who closely follows many of Otto’s ideas and uses the terms developed by Otto, delves further into the text of the Hebrew Bible. Eichrodt is also like Otto in sharing the linear and progressive outlook of his time. It is in his two volume Theology of the Old Testament (1961) that we can find more detailed discussion of the “majesty”. “glory”, “lovingkindness”, “wrath”, and “holiness” of God. Unlike Otto, Eichrodt does not denigrate episodes such as Genesis 32 and Exodus 4, but sees them as important pieces of the divine puzzle, best understood when set within their larger narrative context (Eichrodt, 1961). My own views closely follow Eichrodt in this matter.
Otto categorizes our texts of interest as being “echoes of the lower stage of numinous consciousness… (daemonic dread)” (Otto, 1928, p.74). It appears to me that Otto misses an opportunity to fruitfully struggle with two difficult texts which illustrate the elements of his mysterium tremendum: “awefulness”, “overpoweringness”, “energy or urgency”, “the wholly other”, and “fascination”. When considered on their own, these texts have elements of the frightful, and we should not underplay that aspect. However, it is the embedding of these accounts within the larger narrative traditions of the Hebrew Bible, and especially their connection with the important and well-developed characters of Jacob and Moses, that is the moralizing and rationalizing element that Otto seeks. This gives us both necessary elements of Otto’s religious construction: the experience of the extra-rational and the application of reason and context to the encounter. Context plus reason become understanding and understanding becomes codified as tradition.
Genesis 32:22-32 recounts the story of Jacob wrestling with a numinous being in the night. Exodus 4:24-26 tells us the strange story of another night attack, this time upon Moses. These two remarkable narratives exhibit the important idea of the fear and dread of the numinous which here translates into direct danger. They also are strong illustrations of the extra-rational element of the numinous experience. In neither case is there a clear explanation for the event. In both cases the being does not speak or identify itself (unlike other encounters such as Genesis 15 and Exodus 3). In fact, both encounters begin with silence, as opposed to the extensive dialog which we find in the Noah story, the Abraham narrative, and other parts of the Moses narrative. This silence provides further room for later interpretation.
There are many other “numinous encounters” in the Hebrew Bible. Only drawing from the first two books, we can note Abraham’s encounters of Genesis 12, 13, 15, and 17, especially the “horror and great darkness” of Genesis 15. Jacob at Beth-el in Genesis 28 and its further explication in Genesis 35 can also be connected to Genesis 32. The burning bush of Moses of Exodus 3, and the following intensive interactions with YHWH as he leads the people from Egypt is another set of such encounters which climax with the mighty display of holy power at Mt Sinai in Exodus 19. All these texts offer rich material for discussion of the numinous. We want to focus upon these two passages of Genesis 32 and Exodus 4 precisely because their strangeness merits further investigation.
The “Fear of God” and Otto’s Tremendum
Before going further, we should clarify the intersection between Otto’s work and the Hebrew Bible relating to the concept of the “fear of God”. One problem in the discussion is a lack of clarity between the usage of the actual phrase in the Hebrew Bible, and the concept of fear. This is likely because Otto uses the English phrase briefly but does not fully explore its usage in the Hebrew Bible, and there are multiple words which signify “fear” in Hebrew. Otto’s use is in the context of his tremendum – an emotional response to God. On a simple level, fear of God can include the moral element based on fear of punishment for sin, which is fairly basic in its psychology. It can also move to obedience and worship not only by fear, but by the awe of God – Otto’s attractive principle – which develops into trust and love. Experience of the mysterium tremendum thus becomes the basis for higher levels of biblical thought, until we find in Prov 9:10 that “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” (Ellis, 2014).
The “Fear of God” as a phrase is more often a moral rather than an emotional dimension. It is connected with obedience and the moral imperatives that are incumbent upon commitment to a good, just, and loving deity. Fout gives numerous examples (Gen 42:18, Lev 19:14, 32; 25:17, 36; Deut 6:24;8:6;13:4) (Fout, 2015). This is “Fear of God” in what Otto would view as the most highly developed rationalization of the mysterium, the outcome of which is devotional love, but is not the same as the fear and “dread” involved with a numinous encounter.
On the other hand, we certainly have sound evidence of people experiencing the emotion of fear and dread in the presence of God. Otto cites Exodus 23:27, Job 9:34, as examples of “a terror fraught with an inward shuddering” (Otto, 1928, p. 14). None of the words for “fear” are used in our two texts. Yet, Genesis 32 and Exodus 4 both contain episodes that would reasonably inspire the emotion of fear on multiple levels. This would be related to the Ottonian tremendum rather than to the idea of moral uprightness based on obligation to God. We need to remember that the word fear is only an analogy.
The point of Otto’s coinage of the term tremendum is to indicate that there is more here than can be expressed in human terms. Most obviously is physical fear, and the direct physical nature of the attacks here certainly inspire this. The fear of a divine encounter is also expressed in Deut 5:24, Judg 6:22-23, and 13:22, where, along with Jacob’s statement in Gen 32:30, the expectation is that one who sees God will die. This is the tremendum carried to its ultimate end, which is destruction of the mortal by the sheer force of the “wholly other”. As powerful as this is, it is a fairly simple and basic idea. Physical threat is obviously present in Genesis 32 and Exodus 4, and certainly more so than in almost any other episode of theophany in the Hebrew Bible (compare 1 Sam 4-5, 2 Sam 6, and Exod 19:20-21, but this is a different issue of non-directed holy power). Also of interest are the other aspects of the tremendum as discussed by Otto, and we will see these play out in the texts below.
Genesis 32:22-32 Jacob Wrestles…Someone or Something
The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.
This text raises many questions. Who is the attacker? Man or Numen? Who says what to whom? The referents of the dialogue are obscure, as we will see is also the case in the Exodus 4 account. “He said ‘Let me go, for dawn is breaking’ but he answered’ I will not let you go, unless you bless me’” is also strange. Why must the contest end at dawn? Even as the questions occur to us, we seek to find a framework by which they may be answered. We cannot simply accept the story as a numinous encounter, and not try to answer these who and why questions. For Otto, it is through this process that we create religion. We will first look at some of the multitude of interpretations of the narrative. This amounts to an expansion of the story in order to answer the who and why questions. We will see how this narrative, by being set in a larger framework of narrative tradition, takes on deeper spiritual significance than it could have had when separated from its fabric of human interpretation.
Darkness and solitude are key primers of fear in human experience. They signify both physical and psychological vulnerability. They are markers of the uncanny and the “wholly other” – both elements of Otto’s numinous. In this brief narrative we have both factors. Solitude and darkness set the stage for the events that are to come. They highlight the dramatic interaction of Jacob with his unexpected visitor. Darkness and solitude are important for the interpretation of this narrative; in this state, we are cut off from both the comforts and the distractions of our everyday world, and we become more receptive to the numinous encounter. They also mark that the true “threat” is not the physical, but the spiritual encounter. Another mark of the numinous tremendum for Otto is “energy” and “urgency” “will, force, movement…activity…compelling and alive” (Otto, 1928, p.20). This entire episode is full of this intensity.
With whom does Jacob wrestle? We are struck by the abrupt appearance of Jacob’s antagonist. The majority of interpretive literature has identified the attacker either with God or an angel. A few commentators have suggested that the contest refers to Jacob’s conflict with his brother Esau, or can be understood as an allegory of internal self-struggle (see for example J. Kodell (1980) and F. Blumenthal (2010)). The text calls the attacker a “man” but we have other narrative segments within the Hebrew Bible where man refers not to a human but to a numinous visitor, as for example the prelude to the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis 18, and the birth narrative of Samson in Judges 13. A reference to this story of Jacob’s contest in Hosea 12:3-4 uses both an angel and God as referents for the struggle, suggesting that even at an early point there was recognition of ambiguity in the story (Vawter, 1977). W. Miller notes that “most scholars of non-Jewish background seem to be willing to consider the Jabbok event as a genuine theophany, while Jewish scholars are much more inclined to consider the opponent to be merely an angel” (Miller, 1984, p.97).
Elements of the story do suggest a numinous attacker rather than a human one. After wrestling “until dawn” the attacker is able to dislocate Jacob’s hip with a touch, so apparently the contest was never an even one. The mysterious visitor could have ended the struggle at any time. He wishes to vanish with the dawn, and Jacob requires a blessing from him. This wrestling at the river Jabbok and the desire to vanish with the dawn has suggested to some an image of a river god or boundary spirit who must be placated or defeated (Whybray, 2007). Again, we need to consider the similarity to Exodus 4, as discussed below. Others have envisioned a demonic figure whose power is confined to the night. Rabbinic commentators held the view that the angel desired to return to sing the praises of God with the dawn (Miller, 1984). We should note M. Poorthuis’ comment on the tactics of Rabbinic apologetics which either substitute an angel or (as in Exodus 4) create blame on the human side to justify the action of God (Poorthuis, 2000).
The visitor does not supply his identity, despite Jacob’s request. “Jacob said ‘Pray tell me your name’. But he said, ‘Why do you ask me my name?’ and there he blessed him” (Gen 32:29). Von Rad calls this a “primitive boldness” on the part of Jacob in his encounter with the holy (Miller, 1984, p. 98). This refusal may reflect an ancient idea that the knowledge of a name conveys to the knower power over an individual. The textual note may be an early effort at giving a larger meaning to the story – a first attempt at interpretation. For Otto, the numinous encounter would not necessarily entail a god who identifies himself. It is left to the humans to provide this interpretation.
The story provides two etiologies of naming, and both are important. The first explains the connection between the names Jacob and Israel, while the second explains the origin of the place name Peni-El. Both inform the reader that this nighttime struggle was a contest with the divine and answer the question of “who”. With this name the narrative identifies the numinous visitor as El. El was the high god of the Canaanite pantheon, but here, embedded as it is in the Hebrew scripture, and in a series of narratives where a particular and uniquely personal god interacts with and makes promises to the male heads of a family line, the interpretation becomes something different. This is the god of Abraham and Isaac, and this incident adds to the richness of a tapestry of interaction between these people and their god. In the even larger context of the entire Hebrew Bible, this is not just “a god” but God singular: YHWH. According to John Kselman, this identification shifts the pattern of the story from a hero tale where there is an “originator” (God) and a separate “opponent” figure. This removes the dualism that might otherwise conflict with a monotheistic outlook (Kselman, 2000). Interestingly this is the opposite process from what we see in later commentary, which seeks a separate identity to this opponent figure both in Genesis 32 and Exodus 4, in order to solve a problem with the actions of God in the episodes.
It is interesting that the naming etiologies address both god and man. The name change from Jacob to Israel is significant for the story of this individual, but also for the story of the people which would look back to these foundational narratives. The name change and the blessing answer our earlier question as to “who says what to whom?” The night visitor “blesses” Jacob; therefore it must be Jacob who will not let go in the struggle, and Jacob who demands the blessing. This moves us towards another aspect of Otto’s mysterium tremendum, that of fascination. Jacob does not want to let go. He exhibits the human draw towards the divine by literally, physically, clinging to it. He is not so overpowered as to be mute like Moses in Exodus 4, but wants to retain part of the holy encounter in the form of a permanent connection: a blessing.
There is yet another mystery. Exactly what blessing is it that Jacob receives? The visitor only changes his name and states “you have struggled with God and man and have prevailed” (Gen 32:28). The actual meaning of the word “Israel” is unknown, but its association here is with the idea of contending with God. This may be etymologized from śārâ “to contend” and ‘ĕlōhîm “God” (Vawter, 1977). Hippolytus notes that some believe this is based upon ‘îš rā’ ‘Ĕl: “a man who sees God”, and this was taken into many Christian circles. Speiser offers “May El Persevere”, and like Rashi says that Jacob’s renaming means that he will no longer be honored for deceiving and superseding, but for rulership and openness (Miller, 1984, also Speiser, 1964). Kselman however simply states that “The etymology offered for “Israel” in 34:28 involves contention: although it is not a philo-logically defensible etymology, it does fit in well with the theme of strife that runs through much of Genesis” (Kselman, 2000, p.103).
Towards a Better Understanding of this Jacob Narrative
By this process of rationalization, we have moved from a story of a frightening nighttime encounter with an unknown visitor, to that of a patriarch who wrestles with the God of Israel and clings to him seeking blessings. Jacob is marked by this encounter. He is changed. This section of narrative has been identified by R. Friedman (2003) as being part of the E source, an early Biblical source originating in the northern section of Israel. B. Vawter (1977), however, has noted that the narrative as is contains elements which are characteristic of both J, the parallel southern tradition, and E, and that the section defies clear or easy attribution. Vawter points out that the geographic references in relationship to the Jabbok create confusion in the progression of the story – they do not “add up” to a reasonable picture of Jacob’s travels. His conclusion is that verses 23-33 were not part of the larger narrative. It is important to note that the twining together of strands of tradition is one of the important features which make the Hebrew Bible greater than the sum of its parts. We should look at the way in which this story fits into the larger set of Jacob narratives, and how the tradition is embraced by the faithful over time. Much of this has to do with who Jacob is. Jacob is a trickster, but also one who is tricked. By manipulation, he takes both the birthright and the blessing from his brother Esau, but himself is tricked when it comes to his marriage to Leah. This story is placed just as Jacob is about to encounter Esau again for the first time after fleeing for his life. Jacob wrestles with God, then goes to meet his brother. Jacob’s gifts of atonement are accepted and the two are reconciled. Jacob has come through a dark and solitary struggle and on the other side of this is able to reconnect the human bonds which he had so deeply damaged. A more cynical view, however, might call attention to the fact that Jacob again deceives Esau by not following him to Seir as he had promised, but instead going to Succoth.
This is a story of human transformation. Jacob becoming Israel brings all of Israel, and by extension all who read the scripture devotionally, into connection with God through this story. By following Jacob in his narrative: his place as the favored child, his deceptions and flight from Esau, his marriages, and his relationship with his father-in-law, we come to relate to this very human character. Now with the name change we associate ourselves even more closely with Israel. Israel is not just “him” – it is “us”. We learn that the divine encounter changes us. It is not without peril that we encounter the divine. The nighttime wrestling match becomes partial validation of human initiative. When Jacob encounters God at Bethel and again at the Jabbok he is not so overwhelmed by the numinous encounter that he loses his sense of self. He, like Abraham and Moses, negotiates and bargains with God. They are active in their relationship with Him. Jacob’s story is about perseverance as well. He holds onto his opponent at the Jabbok just as he held onto the heel of Esau at birth. These are patterns which we only see clearly when the story is placed in context with the rest of the tradition. Faith is not just about waiting and passive obedience. We wrestle with the divine will and purpose, we hold on to our deity, and we ask for a blessing. Victory is not as important as engagement (McKeown, 2008). Next, we will consider another very puzzling passage in which engagement is key, but this time in a rather darker episode.
Exodus 4: 24-26: When God Attacks
And it was on the way at the night encampment Yahweh met him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his feet with it, saying “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me.” And he let him alone. She said “a bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision.
This passage is another excellent candidate for the application of Otto’s work. Like the Jacob story, the scene takes place at night. The two traditions share a sense of danger and fear, as well as elements of the uncanny and the “wholly other” classified by Otto as part of the mysterium aspect of the numinous. In both narratives there is no forewarning or expectation of contact with the divine. The numinous being appears and silently attacks our hero. Little context is provided for understanding the divine nature or motive. Exodus 4:24-26 contains no dialogue between Moses and God. While the scene at the Jabbok is “only” a test or struggle, the short narrative of Exodus 4 reads like a modern horror movie. It is night. A couple and a baby are alone in a strange place. The horrifying attack occurs and is only stopped by a bizarre ritual involving the infant’s blood. We might reasonably claim that this episode fits better into a tale of a ghostly or demonic attack than into the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Propp (1964) notes that Jub 40:2 attributes this attack to the archfiend Mastemah, and that the Fragmentary Targum assigns responsibility to the angel of death. Otto would have viewed this episode as akin to a ghost story, a dead end wherein mankind has failed to fully rationalize a numinous experience. Despite his dismissal of texts of this sort, Otto’s work is still helpful. He bridges the gap between the dark and fearful numinous and the bright and benevolent divine, which we can use to further understand the text within the Hebrew Bible as a whole. He recognizes movement and development in our understanding of experiences. Regarding this passage, Otto says:
…one might easily get from this and similar stories the impression that this is not yet a religion at all, but a sort of pre-religious, vulgar fear of demons and the like. That would, however, be a misconception…if it is not yet itself a ‘god’ (it) is still less an anti-god, but must be termed a “pre-god”, the numen at a lower stage. (Otto, 1928, pp 75-76)
The Exodus 4 story has even less direct context than Genesis 32. How can one create a rational narrative out of this irrational incident? The centrality of circumcision in this passage points the way for a great deal of later interpretation. As with the Jacob story, the incident is left to stand on its own with minimal immediate interpretation, but it is embedded in the life story of a figure who has repeated and complex encounters with God. It is this embedding which gives the story its deeper spiritual meaning.
This passage can function as a sort of religious Rorschach test. How will we rationalize this numinous encounter? The first strange idea is that God is attacking at all. This is against the understanding of the nature of God as expressed in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, P. K. McCarter simply says, “Presumably the attacker is some minor divinity, like the “man” who wrestled with Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok.” (McCarter, 2000, p.125). McCarter is assuming that the nature of God as benevolent is so self-evident and well established within the Hebrew Bible that this story must originally have featured a different attacker altogether. W. Houston also echoes this when he suggests that the original story featured “a demon” (Houston, 2007). This further illustrates the close connections with the Jacob story, where we struggle with the identity of the assailant. Both incidents also take place while the protagonists are traveling and specifically crossing significant boundaries and borders.
With the Jacob story, we can understand the episode as a test intended to teach and transform. By contrast in this text we are bluntly told that God “sought to kill him” Across sources and through the time which lapses from our earliest source to our latest, God is portrayed as benevolent towards humans. He punishes for cause but does not destroy without reason. As presented in the narrative, Moses has already been commissioned by God for his great work of freeing the people of Israel and is in fact on his journey to fulfill this command. There is no foreshad-owing or explanation, and the incident seems utterly at odds with the rest of the Moses narratives.
Another question also arises. If God attacks Moses and seeks to kill him, why is he not dead? We are told that God “met” him, a Hebrew verb which can also mean attack or light upon (compare Hosea 13:8). Are we to envision God in anthropomorphic form, as in Genesis 32? Surely the God of creation would be able to snuff out the life of a man as one would blow out a candle (compare 2 Sam 12:15, 2 Sam 6:7, 2 Chron 13:20, Num 16:32).
The Hebrew Bible presents a picture of God who is transcendent, benevolent, and possessed of free will. This free will is not capricious. This is not a God who is arbitrarily hostile (Nabulsi, 2011). Interpreters therefore seek to find a reason, something Moses perhaps did to warrant this attack. The traditional rabbinic explanation is that the son of Moses, Gershom, was not circumcised, and this is what prompted the event. Zipporah’s circumcision of her child removed the offense and so ended the assault. This explanation depends upon the background story of the command to circumcise and the promise to Abraham contained in Genesis 17.
Later scholarly explanations focus upon the story as an etiology for circumcision, and still others have connected the idea of propitiation of divine wrath with blood and the firstborn with the Passover story (Robinson, 1986). The placement of the story is very suggestive for this. This strange story is a fragment from the J source material and is sandwiched between two sections from the E source tradition (Friedman, 2003). The last line of the E source (per Friedman) is “Now I will slay your first-born” (referring to the first-born of Egypt). The next piece of action is “God met him and sought to kill him” (which is another source). B. Robinson (1986) gives the redactor a motive for its inclusion: seeing symbolic value and giving an air of antiquity to a newer connection between circumcision and Passover. Robinson disagrees with the identification of this fragment with the J source. He claims the derivation of the story is from a separate ancient tradition which was not part of the earliest form of the Moses narrative. Here the blood of circumcision smeared stops the deadly divine attack. In the Passover story, the blood of the Passover lamb smeared also stops the deadly divine attack. It is possible that in both this narrative and the Passover narrative the firstborn are the targets. The redactor of the Torah includes the incident and places it here for a reason, but does not comment upon the meaning, other than possibly adding the note “She said ‘a bridegroom of blood’ because of the circumcision” (Embry, 2010).
Other interpretations abound. Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel Ben Meir, grandson of Rashi) offered a further claim: that the attack was prompted by the initial reluctance of Moses to take up his divinely appointed task (Hays, 2007). Embry (2010) has suggested that, along with the Balaam story of Numbers 22, the danger from an encounter with the holy is a rite of passage directly connected with his “missional journey”. He claims that the protagonist must be endangered and rescued as part of the structure of the story. Propp’s (1964) suggested reason for the attack is that Moses carried bloodguilt which had to be lifted before he could carry out his task. Moses had killed an Egyptian before fleeing to Midian, and now on his return to Egypt must make expiation. Propp notes that the word used here, the hiphil form of the root môṯ “die”, is often used in judicial contexts, as in English the word “execute” is used. All of this discussion is aimed at reconciling the seemingly irrational violence of this narrative with the rest of the Moses story, and indeed with the entire character of God as good, just, and rational. The outcome of this is often to minimize the numinous. “It seems that the texts that are most imbued with a numinous sense of holiness are the most vulnerable to criticism and hence subjected to apologetic interpretations. And precisely these…tend to do away with the numinous” (Poorthuis, 2000, p. 120).
What exactly is Zipporah’s strange ritual, and why is it effective? The referents in the story are unclear. The third person masculine singular pronoun is used throughout the story, leaving the reader with some difficulty as to who “he” is. Is God trying to kill Moses or his son? Who is Zipporah touching with the blood of the circumcision? In this otherwise silent encounter, it is Zipporah’s words, “You are a bridegroom of blood” which allow us to infer that it is Moses who is the object of the attack and to whom Zipporah applies the blood. The only “bridegroom” is Moses, so it is Moses who is the focus of Zipporah’s action here, and we assume it is Moses who is under attack. Even her action itself is unclear, as “feet” may very well be a euphemism for the male genitals (Houston, 72). Such an interpretation of course would draw the connection between circumcision and “bridegroom” even closer, weaving a fabric of marriage, sex, the blood of sexuality and birth, and the firstborn. Propp (1964) interprets Zipporah as shedding the blood of her son in a right of expiation, citing Israelite, Arab, and Phoenician evidence that circumcision was believed to have purifying/cleansing power.
Hays (2007) also views this act of circumcision as connecting with a tradition of pacifying the deity with an offering of blood. Instead of viewing Moses as the object to which the blood is applied (as Propp does), Hays interprets Zipporah as falling at the feet of the deity and offering the blood to him (the god). Here is Otto’s aspect of the “overpoweringness” of the numinous: the dread that leads to “expiation and propitiation” (Otto, 1928, p.32). In this short episode there is a reversal of roles. Zipporah, who does not speak in any other text, here plays the key part. According to Hays, circumcision could be a sublimation of child sacrifice. Moses was attacked with Zipporah as a witness. Using her own background and her own religious tradition, she offers a blood sacrifice to propitiate a violent deity. She is not asked to do so but applies her existing framework of beliefs to the situation.
Moses, who speaks with God far, far, more than any other biblical protagonist, is mute in this episode. We are not told anything about the reaction of Moses to this attack. Otto uses the term “stupor” to signify “blank wonder”, an astonishment that strikes us dumb” (Otto, 1928, p. 26). Is this what we are to make of this moment?
Towards a Better Understanding of this Moses Narrative
It is particularly interesting that this strange story, the most unexplained of all the numinous encounters of the Hebrew Bible, is associated with Moses. Moses is the figure associated with the most rational and ethical aspects of Israelite religion - the Law. “The numinous is at once the basis upon which and the setting within which the ethical and rational meaning is consummated.” (Otto, 1928, p.78). The larger Moses story in which we find this incident is filled with power and miracles. It is filled also with dialogue, with complaints and negotiations between Moses and his God. It is filled with threats, mercy, and the foundation of a detailed covenant between God and his people. In the book of Genesis, the intertwining of sources gives us a picture of God who is immanent, transcendent, and full of complexity. The creator of the universe is also the “God of your fathers.” The one who silently attacks in the night is also the one who provides words of everlasting covenant.
It is in the Moses narrative that God becomes something new – He becomes the God of a people, a nation, and a new emphasis upon ethics and righteousness is found. These ethics are expressed in the covenant – in a tremendous number of detailed laws pertaining to relationships between humans and the world, between people, and between the people and their God. The numinous attack upon Moses set in this context shows us a God who is not chained or domesticated or rationalized by these developments. The juxtaposition perfectly illustrates Otto’s claim that there is and must remain, even in what he might call “fully developed” faiths, an element of the extra-rational numinous. God’s will in the Exodus narrative is expressed frequently and in detail as he commands Moses and guides the people from Egypt to Canaan. A rational God he is, who gives reasons for his decisions and insights into his nature. Yet, we still recall the terrifying numinous moment when the “friend of God” is attacked in the night.
Robinson puts it this way, and gives a nod to Rashbam:
The main thing that the passage is saying is, I should argue, along the lines that ‘it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31)…Moses…faces a much greater danger to his life in the wrath of the God whom he is so reluctant to serve… One’s reluctance to serve YHWH wholeheartedly has to be broken down in a fearsome lone struggle in the darkness, and even before one can meet YHWH there must be a twofold shedding of blood, the blood of circumcision and that of the Passover lamb.” (Robinson, 1986, p. 459)
He makes another suggestion and connects it with the story of Jacob at the Jabbok: “both narratives convey the idea that before a successful relationship can be forged with one’s fellow men (one’s brothers) a costing struggle with God is required, a struggle that takes place in the dark, for one’s assailant is the Unknown God”. “I am sure” he says, “that this was not the original import of either story, but that is what, among other things, the stories are now about” (Robinson, 1986, p. 452). This comment is a clear illustration of the way in which, through our human interpretation, a story of a numinous encounter acquires deeper significance than it originally held.
Conclusion
Otto’s work on the Idea of the Holy is of tremendous importance for understanding our own process of interpretation and the construction of our faith. The great contribution of Rudolf Otto is that he leaves room both for divine will and divine power and human response to that power. The enigmatic nature of these narratives in Genesis 32 and Exodus 4 begs for rationalization and interpretation. This process begins in the text itself with the placement of the narrative and redactional notes. It continues over the centuries with Talmudic discussion of the text and extends into the Christian era with devotional exegesis and scholarly attempts to unravel the mystery of the text (For more on Rabbinic and Christian commentary, see W. Miller (1984), and M. Poorthuis (2000). While it is true that these rationalizations often focus on the defense of God when He seems to act in a way that is difficult to reconcile or understand, each stage of rationalization adds a layer of meaning to the mysterium tremendum as set forth in the text and contributes to the whole that we call the Judeo-Christian religious tradition.
In the words of W. Eichrodt:
It is just those episodes in the early stories which might most readily be understood as the product of demonistic ideas, such as Ex. 4.24 ff. and Gen. 32.25 ff., which exhibit most clearly the transforming power of Israel’s conception of Yahweh…The fact that such dangerously ambiguous situations could be absorbed into the Israelite tradition and interpreted in this way is the best possible testimony of the nation’s living conception of God. To talk in this context of despotic caprice or demonic savagery is to underestimate the largeness of Israel’s picture of God… (Eichrodt, 1961 v.1, pp. 261-262).
Instead of the simple fear and dread of the unknown, these texts set in their scriptural contexts ultimately reveal a complex God: interactive, testing, and self-revelatory, but still retaining the nature of the overwhelming wholly and Holy, other.