Abstract
In the prophetic literature, vision descriptions (which are not to be equated with ‘vision reports’) have certain temporal and deictic orientations. Temporally, they are either past, as the vision itself is presented as past from the speech time, or present, meaning that it is described as if were occurring before the prophet’s eyes at the speech time. The spatial orientation of the text is also affected in vision descriptions as the location is in the world of the vision. Identifying a text as a vision description offers a much more coherent and meaningful interpretation of the text and fosters a deeper understanding of the text’s significance in its literary context. To that end, this study identifies two linguistic expressions that function as vision signals, that is, they indicate that the text is describing a vision. This study fills gaps in the commentary literature on the relevant texts and the literature on prophetic visions.
Keywords
Introduction
A prophetic vision is a kind of ‘divine revelation that comes by means of a visible or visualized experience’ (Stead, 2012: 818). But when reading the prophets’ descriptions of visions, it is essential to bear in mind that the visions were not simply visual but also filled with sound (Zimmerli, 1982: 98; Rogland, 2003: 88). Whenever a prophet described what was seen or heard in a vision, one way or another the text signals that it is a vision description. Sometimes this is done overtly, such as when the prophet claims to have seen something or when there is a narrative that frames the reception or recounting of a vision, as is typical of ‘vision reports’. At times, however, the vision is signaled in other ways. But unfortunately, many of the visions that do not have these overt signals have not been identified as visions in the literature. This has led to the misinterpretation of many prophetic texts. Proper recognition of vision descriptions is critical for the correct interpretation of the text, particularly as it pertains to the text’s temporal and deictic orientations. Not only does properly recognizing them give a more coherent and meaningful interpretation of the material in these texts but it also affords a better understanding of how these texts function within and relate to their literary contexts.
This study takes a linguistic (semantic and pragmatic) approach to prophetic visions that improves the interpretation of the relevant texts and fills a gap in the literature on prophetic visions. In the following sections, I describe the ways in which visions are signaled in the prophetic literature and explain how the prophets’ descriptions of their visions affect the temporal and deictic orientations of the text. I then argue that the word קול (‘sound’, ‘voice’) and masculine, plural imperatives (usually strings of them) are used to signal descriptions of phenomena that occurred in visions, indicating an audible experience or a direct address, respectively.
Vision Descriptions and Vision Signals
Vision descriptions are signaled in a variety of ways in the Hebrew Bible. Some vision descriptions have narrative frameworks that inform the reader of the vision before it is described. For example, when Joseph recounts his dreams and Daniel his visions, there is a narrative framing the description. Similarly, each of the visions in 1 Kings 22, Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1 and 24, Ezekiel 1-3, and Amos 7 also have an introductory narrative framework. 1 These are commonly referred to as ‘vision reports’. 2 Scholars have identified the following features as the structural elements of vision reports: (1a) the first part begins with a narrative introduction claiming that something was seen, expressed by √ראה (‘to see’) and (1b) transitions with הִנֵּה (‘behold’) into a description of the vision, and (2) the second part contains a speech, either a monologue by the Lord or a dialogue between the Lord and the prophet, introduced by √אמר (‘to say’) (Amsler, 1981: 359; Behrens, 2002: 32-60; Long, 1976: 355-356). But many vision descriptions do not have this specific literary form. 3 As one scholar has correctly noted, ‘[w]hat constitutes as prophetic vision must be decided with reference to content, and not merely with reference to form’ (Stead, 2012: 822). Rogland has observed that when vision descriptions have narrative frameworks, the events of the vision are described in past time, meaning that when Joseph, Daniel, or the prophets describe their visions, 4 they refer to the events of the vision in past time because what they saw and heard in the vision was in their past, even if the vision depicted something that was still future (2003: 64-71). Rogland also noticed that many other prophetic passages describe events in past time and yet apparently depict future or potential 5 events (2003: 72-75). In these passages, such as Isa. 8.23-9.5 and Isa. 22.1-14, the prophet describes the events with verbs in the perfect and wayyiqtol conjugations, making it clear that the events described are temporally past with regard to the speech time (i.e., they occurred in the speaker’s past) but refer to situations that had not yet come to be (i.e., still future from the speech time).
However, not every prophetic vision is described in past time, as has been noted by Cook (2012a: 315-317), who has observed that some visions are described as if ‘present before the eyes’ of the prophet. 6 In such visions, the vision is described as if the events were taking place in front of the prophet as he watched them unfold. The situations in these visions are often progressive, expressed with participles, or stative, expressed with copular clauses or stative perfects (e.g., Isa. 63.1-6; Jer. 38.22-23aα). The prophet, describing the events of the vision as he experienced them or as they progressed through the vision, sometimes refers to situations that are past or anterior relative to the reference point in the vision (cf. Cook, 2012a: 315-316). Thus, the temporal orientation of this sort of vision description is based in the time and place in which the prophet saw and heard the vision rather than the time and place of the speech or composition of the text.
The temporal orientation of vision descriptions, whether as past or ‘present before the eyes’, is itself a signal that what is being described is in fact a vision (cf. Rogland, 2003: 71-72; Cook, 2012a: 315). This signal is found in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and scattered throughout the minor prophets, but it is not found in the book of Ezekiel (see Rogland, 2003: 64-92; Cook, 2012a: 315-317). Similarly, I have found that vision descriptions in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the minor prophets (but not in Ezekiel) are found to contain linguistic expressions that, along with their temporal orientation, signal that a vision is being described. In what follows, I argue that there are two linguistic expressions that function as vision signals: (1) the word קול (‘sound’, ‘voice’) and (2) masculine, plural imperatives that address individuals who are not a part of the prophets’ speech or text audience.
קול as a Vision Signal
The prophets, primarily Isaiah and Jeremiah, used the word קול (‘sound’, ‘voice’) to signal a vision description by introducing sounds or voices heard in the vision. When used this way, the word makes a ‘direct referential link’ to the world of the vision (Diessel, 2013: 2407).
The word קול is not inherently deictic, but when signaling a vision, it is used deictically as it referentially connects the audience to the spatio-temporal location of the vision (Diessel, 2013: 2407-2408). In passages in which קול signals a vision, the things that were heard in the visions are consistently described as if past or ‘present’ before the prophet.
In some passages, as Zimmerli (1982: 97-98) has pointed out, Jeremiah stated explicitly that he heard certain sounds in visions he experienced.
(a) Jer. 4.19-21 מֵעַי מֵעַי אָחוּלָה קִירוֹת לִבִּי הֹמֶה־לִי לִבִי לֺא אַחֲרִישׁ בִּי קוֹל שׁוֹפָר שָׁמַעַתְּי נַפְשִׁי תְּרוּעַת מִלְחָמָה׃ שֶׁבֶר עַל־שֶׁבֶר נִקְרָא כִּי שֻׁדְּדָה כָּל־הָאָרֶץ פִּתְאֹם שֻׁדְּדוּ אֹהָלַי רֶגַע יְרִיעֹתָי׃ עַד־מָתַי אֶרְאֶה־נֵּס אֶשְׁמְעָה קוֹל שׁוֹפָר׃ ‘My bowels! My bowels! I writhe (in pain)! O walls of my heart! My heart roars! I cannot keep still, because my soul has heard (the) sound of a shofar, a shout of war! ‘Breaking upon breaking has taken place,
7
for the land is destroyed! Suddenly my tents are destroyed! In a moment, my tents! ‘How long will I see the battle-standard? (And) hear (the) sound of a shofar?’
Jeremiah has heard the shofar and the battle-cry. He has seen the land destroyed. He wants to see and hear these things no more. But, importantly, though these things are described as past, they have not yet taken place outside of the vision. In v. 22, Jeremiah describes the state of the people at speech time as sinful, rather than destroyed (cf. v. 30). The following verses (vv. 23) describe a vision of destruction, 8 as each verse begins with ראיתי ‘I saw’ and consistently describes everything that was seen in past time (cf. Rogland, 2003: 87-88). 9 The text then reveals what the Lord declared in vv. 27-28, which, having imperfects and modal perfects, 10 clearly refers to the coming destruction as yet future, before returning the description of the vision in vv. 29 and 31 indicated by קול, that is, the sounds that were heard (שָׁמַעְתִּי, v. 31; cf. Jer. 30.5). That verses 19-21, 23-26, 29, and 31 describe a vision or series of visions that were seen and heard is not only the natural reading of the text, since the text explicitly refers to seeing and hearing these things, but it also makes the most sense of the temporal orientation(s) of the text. In this passage, the vision depicting judgment is described in past time while the destruction is clearly still future.
Certainly, Jeremiah was having a visceral reaction to the things he heard and saw, but why would he describe the visions rather than simply telling his audience about the coming judgment and their need to repent? The answer may be found in the fact that vision descriptions functionally differ from other prophetic speeches in that the vision description invites the reader to experience the vision, in a small way, like the prophet did, thereby heightening the reader’s emotive and cognitive connections to the revelation God gave the prophet (cf. Amsler, 1981: 362; Behrens, 2002: 66-70; Reimer, 1993: 168-169; Tull, 2010: 261-262). 11 As Amsler has noted, vision descriptions emphasize the moment of reception rather than the moment of transmission. 12 Essentially, describing the visions reduces the amount of filtering and mediation done by the prophet, putting the prophet and the people on similar footing to receive it. Thus, in Jeremiah 4, when the prophet described parts of the vision, with the sights and sounds of battle and destruction, he set himself right alongside the people in hopes that they would feel the terror and pain he did and so repent. Even his depiction of the current beauty of Jerusalem and her adornment in 4.30 contrasts starkly with the vision description in the following verse where he describes not the sounds that would accompany elegant lady Jerusalem dining and making merry, but rather the sound of a woman gasping for breath and laboring (v. 31).
The word קול is used to signal vision descriptions most frequently in Jeremiah, though it is also found in Isaiah, Zechariah, and Nahum. 13 Typically, these descriptions are short and dramatic, and often קול is accompanied by other words referring to something heard in the vision, such as ‘weeping’ or ‘wailing’ (e.g., בְּכִי, Jer וִילְלַת 3.21; Jer. 25.36). No matter what the temporal orientation(s) of the surrounding text, the temporal orientation of each of these descriptions is consistent with a vision description, that is, it is past or ‘present before the eyes’. The situations in these vision descriptions are all stative, progressive, past, or anterior. Some vision descriptions only have copular clauses (Isa. 66.6), 14 expressing present or past states. Others have participles, expressing ongoing situations (Jer. 10.22), 15 or perfects (Jer. 3.21; 47.3; Zech. 11.3), 16 expressing stative, past, or anterior situations.
(b) Isa. 66.6 קוֹל שָׁאוֹן מֵעִיר קוֹל מֵהֵיכָל קוֹל יְהוָה מְשַׁלֵּם גְּמוּל לְאֹיְבָיו׃ ‘A sound of uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the Lord rendering recompense to his enemies!’
(c) Jer. 10.22 קוֹל שְׁמוּעָה הִנֵּה בָאָה וְרַעַשׁ גָּדוֹל מֵאֶרֶץ צָפוֹן לָשׂוּם אֶת־עָרֵי יְהוּדָה שְׁמָמָה מְעוֹן תַּנִּים׃ ‘A sound, a report – behold, it is coming! A great quaking from the north country to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a lair of jackals.’
(d) Jer. 3.21a קוֹל עַל־שְׁפָיִים נִשְׁמָע בְּכִי תַחֲנוּנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל ‘A sound is heard upon the barren heights, the weeping of the supplications of the sons of Israel.’
(e) Jer. 47.3 מִקּוֹל שַׁעֲטַת פַּרְסוֹת אַבִּירָיו מֵרַעַשׁ לְרִכְבּוֹ הֲמוֹן גַּלְגִלָיו לׂא־הִפְנוּ אָבוֹת אֶל־ בָּנִים מֵרִפְיוֹן יָדָיִם׃ ‘From the sound of the stomping of his stallions’ hooves, from the quaking of his chariotry, the roar of his wheels, fathers did not turn to (their) children because (their) hands were dropped (lit. from slackness of hands).’
(f) Zech. 11.3 קוֹל יִלְלַת הָרֹעִים כִּי שֻׁדְּדָה אַדַּרְתָּם קוֹל שַׁאֲגַת כְּפִירִים כִּי שֻׁדַּד גְּאוֹן הַיַּרְדֵּן׃ ‘The sound of the wailing of the shepherds, because their majestic (pasturage) is destroyed; the sound of the roaring of lions, because the thicket of the Jordan is destroyed.’
A closer look at two examples helps to further illustrate the significance of recognizing קול as a vision signal. In addition to improving the understanding of the functional significance of describing a vision and its impact on the surrounding material, recognizing these verses as vision descriptions greatly enhances the temporal interpretation of the text. Some of the perfect conjugations in vision descriptions have been erroneously described in the literature as ‘prophetic perfects’, but recognizing the temporal orientation of visions enables us to interpret these verbs in a manner that is consistent with the other clauses in the vision descriptions.
Near the end of Jeremiah’s oracle against Edom (49.7-22), a vision is introduced with קול and described in past time.
(g) Jer. 49.21 מִקּוֹל נִפְלָם רָעֲשָׁה הָאָרֶץ צְעָקָה בְּיַם־סוּף נִשְׁמַע קוֹלָהּ׃ ‘From the sound of their fall, the earth quaked! A cry – its sound was heard at the Reed Sea!’
The verses immediately surrounding (vv. 17-20 and 22) refer to future situations depicting the judgment coming on Edom. But because the scholarly literature has failed to recognize that v. 21 describes a vision, many scholars interpret the verbs in this verse as referring to the future though they have not explained how the perfects could have future time reference (e.g., Allen, 2008: 490, 493; Bracke, 2000: 137-138; Brueggemann, 1998: 458; Carroll, 1986: 804-805; Haney, 2007: 109; Huey, 1993: 403; Parke-Taylor, 2000: 155). Many scholars have long been uncomfortable with the ‘prophetic perfect’, but lacking alternatives, reluctantly invoke it. Holladay, apparently hesitant to translate these perfects as futures, renders the verbs in present tense (1989: 371), but that is not very helpful. It is far better to interpret this verse as a vision description, a vision in which the earth quaked in response to the sound of Edom’s fall and their cry was heard as far away as the Reed Sea. In this interpretation, the perfect verbs express past situations and the description of what was heard in the vision bolsters understanding and acceptance on the part of the audience that Edom will fall. Jeremiah has, after all, already seen and heard it!
Although Rogland suggested that Jer. 49.21 referred to a vision (2003: 103), he did not recognize קול as a signal of an auditory experience in a vision which hindered his interpretation of this passage. 17 It also kept him from identifying the verse below as a vision description. 18
(h) Isa. 33.3 מִקּוֹל הָמוֹן נָדְדוּ עַמִּים מֵרוֹמְמֻתֶךָ נָפְצוּ גּוֹיִם׃ ‘From the sound of tumult, peoples fled; from your rising up, nations scattered!’
The initial unit of the chapter (vv. 1-6) consists of several subunits (cf. Beuken, 2000: 248; Sweeney, 1996: 421-423). The first is a woe oracle against those who destroy and act treacherously (v. 1), and the second begins a prayer to the Lord with pleas (vv. 2aα, 2b) and a confession of trust (v. 2aβ, לְךָ קִוִּינוּ ‘for you we have waited’). Then comes a description of things seen and heard in a vision (v. 3). Brueggemann commented that the ‘rhetoric is presented as a characterization of what has already happened. In light of the “wait” of verse 2, we may conclude that the past tense is in fact anticipation of what Yahweh will yet do’ (1998: 260). Other commentators have expressed similar ideas, treating the perfects in this verse as if they were ‘prophetic’ (Driver, 1998: §14α; Keil and Delitzsch, 1996: 337; Young, 1972: 406 n. 5; cf. Motyer, 1999: 209; Smith, 2007: 553-554). But these perfect verbs do not somehow express future situations, though they do refer to future situations. The prophet has seen the enemy nations flee from before the Lord (cf. Watts, 2005: 491), which spurs his confidence as he turns to the enemies and claims that they will be plundered (v. 4). Then, in verses 5-6, the prophet praises God and expresses trust in Him.
Masculine, Plural Imperatives as Vision Signals
The prophets, again primarily Isaiah and Jeremiah, also use plural imperatives to signal visions. Typically, these occur in clusters or ‘strings’ (Reimer, 1993: 161) as a number of commands are given in the same address, though there is one text that only has one plural imperative (Jer. 22.30). Imperatives have a significant impact on the temporal and deictic orientations of the text. 19 As deictic expressions, imperatives ‘establish a direct referential link between world and language’ by directly addressing present parties (Diessel, 2013: 2407; cf. Levinson, 1983: 61-73). Imperatives are temporally anchored to the speech time and deictically centered in the location the utterance was given, unless otherwise specified by the context (Levinson, 1983: 64; Lyons, 1977: 636-638). 20 In other words, when the time and location of an imperative is unspecified, the default interpretation is, temporally and deictically, the time and location of the utterance.
In the prophetic literature, two things contextually indicate an alternative spatio-temporal location for the utterance. First, when a speaker quotes another individual’s speech, and second, when the addressee(s) are not present when the prophet shared the utterance with his audience.
The Lord addressing his servants: heralds and others
When a speaker quotes another individual’s speech, the default interpretation is oriented from the time and location of the quoted utterance, that is, the time and place of the original speaker. In visions the prophets see the Lord enthroned in heaven with his heavenly servants all around and hear them speaking to one another (e.g., 1 Kgs. 22.19-22; Isa. 6.1-12). 21 Sometimes the prophets are addressed directly by the Lord in the midst of this heavenly council (cf. Jer. 23.21-22), such as in Isa. 6.8 (אֶת־מִי אֶשְׁלַח וּמִי יֵלֶךְ־לָנוּ ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’). The setting of the divine council provides a clear explanation for the Lord’s first-person plural reference (Lindbom, 1962: 113), since he speaks on behalf of all heaven over which he sits supreme, 22 and it also explains the masculine, plural imperatives the Lord uses to give his commands (e.g., Isa. 40.1-2; 48.20-21) (Whybray, 1971: 82).
Examining texts in Deutero-Isaiah, Cross found that with the backdrop of the divine council, ‘plural imperatives…characteristically introduce Yahweh’s commands to his heralds’ (1953: 274, 277). In passages that depict the Lord addressing his heralds, the spatio-temporal location of the speech is in the throne room or divine council of heaven, often depicted as if located above the vault (e.g., Ezek. 10; Isa. 40.22). Consequently, when there is an imperative that addresses beings in a heavenly council, the temporal and deictic centers have shifted to that time and place, thereby signaling that this is a description of things seen and heard in a vision. It should be noted, however, that the deictic center of the messages God gives to the heralds to deliver to his people is typically Jerusalem (see, e.g., Jer. 31.7-12). 23
Consider the plural imperatives in Isa. 40.1-2.
(i) Isa. 40.1-2 נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי יׂאמַר אֱלֹהֵיכֶם׃ דַבְּרוּ עַל־לֵב יְרוּשָׁלִַם וְקִרְאוּ אֵלֶיהָ כִּי מָלְאָה צְבָאָהּ כִי נִרְצָה עֲוֺנָהּ כִּי לָקְחָה מִיַּד יְהוָה כִּפְלַיִם בְּכָל־חַטאֹתֶיהָ׃ ‘“Comfort! Comfort my people!” Says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is finished, that her iniquity is paid for, for she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.”’
Although many explanations can be found in the literature, none have improved upon Cross’s explanation that the imperatives are addressing heralds of the heavenly council (Whybray, 1971: 82; Paul, 2012: 127-128; Sweeney, 2016: 43-46). Cross recognized the connection between the plural imperatives and the visionary setting of the divine council, but since this passage, and the others in Isaiah identified by Cross and other scholars, do not have a narrative or even an introduction to indicate that the setting is the divine council, the only feature of these verses that signals the setting is the chain of plural imperatives. 24 This use of the imperatives should, therefore, be considered a vision signal, because, in these verses, it is only the imperatives that indicate the temporal and deictic shift to the world of the vision. This interpretation is supported in the following verses (vv. 3-8) by the description of what the heralds say in the vision, signaled twice by קול: the sound of ‘one crying out’ in v. 3 and the dialogue between the herald and the prophet, ‘one saying, “cry out”’ in v. 6 (cf. Cross, 1953: 275-276; Whybray, 1971: 82; Paul, 2012: 133).
Plural imperatives are also used as vision signals in Jeremiah. 25 At times the Lord addresses his heavenly heralds and tells them the message they are to deliver, with little else to be said about the setting in which the commands were given. 26
(j) Jer. 31.7 כִּי־כֹה אָמַר יְהוָה רָנּוּ לְיַעֲקֹב שִׂמְחָה וְצַהֲלוּ בְּרֹאשׁ הַגּׂויִם הַשְׁמִיעוּ הַלְלוּ וְאִמְרוּ הוֹשַׁע יְהוָה אֶת־עַמְּךָ אֵת שְׁאֵרִית יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ ‘For thus said the Lord, “Shout for Jacob with gladness! And shout out for the head of nations! Proclaim! Praise! And say, ‘The Lord has saved your people, the remnant of Israel!’”’
However, the Lord also addresses others of his servants in the heavenly council and not just messengers. On one occasion, the command is directed at heavenly scribes (cf. Lundbom, 2004: 163).
(k) Jer. 22.30 כּׁה אָמַר יְהוָה כִּתְבוּ אֶת־הָאִישׁ הַזֶּה עֲרִירִי גֶּבֶר לֹא־יִצְלַח בְּיָמָיו כִּי לֹא יִצְלַח מִזַּרְעוֹ אִישׁ יֹשֵׁב עַל־כִסֵּא דָוִד וּמֹשֵׁל עוֹד בִּיהוּדָה׃ ‘Thus said the Lord, “Write this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days, because from his seed no man will succeed, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.”’
On another occasion, the Lord orders the council to call for heavenly lamenters to lift up a lament over the council.
(l) Jer. 9.16-17 כּׁה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת הִתְבּוֹנְנוּ וְקִרְאוּ לַמְקוֹנְנוֹת וּתְבוֹאֶינָה וְאֶל־הַחֲכָמוֹת ֺשִלְחוּ וּתְמַהֵרְנָה ותִשֶּׂנָה עָלֵינוּ נֶהִי וְתֵרַדְנָה עֵינֵינוּ דִּמְעָה וְעַפְעַפֵּינוּ יִזְּלוּ־מָיִם׃ וְתָבוֹאנָה׃ ‘Thus said the Lord of hosts, “Consider! And summon lamenters, that they might come, and send for the skillful ones, that they might come! Let them quickly lift up lamentation over us, that our eyes might run with tears, and our eyelids flow with water!”’
The imperatives are masculine plural, showing that they address the council and not the lamenters, which are apparently feminine. In the following verse, the Lord explains the reason these lamenters are to be called; a sound of lamentation (קול נהי) was heard in Zion saying ‘How we are destroyed! We are very ashamed!’ (v. 18). The lamenters, therefore, are to raise a lament over the council so that they – the Lord and members of the council – might mourn the dolorous state of Zion.
In Jeremiah 5, the Lord addresses what seems to be the entire court of heaven. In this case, the prophet is there in heaven and is included among those addressed by the plural imperatives. 27
(m) Jer. 5.1 שׁוֹטְטוּ בְּחוּצוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם וּרְאוּ־נָא וּדעוּ וּבַקְשׁוּ בִרְחוֹבוֹתֶיהָ אִם־תִּמְצְאוּ אִישׁ אִם־ יֵשׁ עֹשֶׂה מִשׁפָּט מְבַקֵּשׁ אֱמוּנָה וְאֶסְלַח לָהּ׃ ‘Roam around in the streets of Jerusalem and see and know! Search in her plazas (to see) if you can find a man, if there is one who does justice, seeking faithfulness, that I might forgive her.’
The plural imperatives indicate that this address took place in a vision. Holladay identified the audience of this address as ‘witnesses’ in ‘a cosmic law court’ (1986: 175). This setting is the divine council, but the matter addressed in this passage is a legal one regarding the covenant. But importantly, the following verses (vv. 3-5 especially) continue the vision description, depicting what Jeremiah found when he roamed the streets of Jerusalem. 28 The events of vv. 3-5 are all described in past time. 29 In v. 3 the prophet responds to the Lord by describing how the people had gotten to this point, stating that though the Lord had ‘struck them’ (הִכִּיתָה אֹתָם) in discipline, they ‘refused to repent’ (מֵאֲנוּ לָשׁוּב). Then he said to himself (וַאֲנִי אָמַרְתִּי) that these are only the poor and he decided to go to the rich expecting them to know the way and justice of their God (vv. 4-5a). But he discovered that all of them had ‘broken the yoke’ (שָׁבְרוּ עֹל) and ‘torn off the bonds’ (נִתְּקוּ מוֹסֵרוֹת). Interpreting Jer. 5.1-5 as a vision description makes the most sense of all its parts, and is supported by other parts of the chapter, including the Lord’s commands to his heralds in v. 20 (cf. Fretheim, 2002: 108). 30
Addresses to those no longer present
The second contextual indicator of an alternative temporal and deictic center is when the addressee(s) of an imperative are not present when the prophet shares the utterance with his audience. This is a prominent feature in the book of Jeremiah. To address someone who is not present initially sounds like apostrophe, such as when David calls out to Absalom after his death in 2 Sam. 19. But what Jeremiah does is different in one critical way. When David cries out to his son, the speech does not depict a conversation they had had or were having. But Jeremiah describes things he said or heard being said to people and nations that he was able to see in his visions, though the people and nations were not there at the time he described his visions to his audience (via speech or text). This is, therefore, not simply a figure of speech, but a signal of a vision with the spatio-temporal center of the utterance being in the world of the vision.
Although in some passages it is difficult to tell whether it is the Lord or the prophet who is speaking (e.g., Jer. 46.3), there are other passages in which it is clear that the prophet is the one making the address (e.g., Jer. 25.34). In Jeremiah 25, the prophet addresses the leaders of foreign nations (not their messengers as in Jer. 27) who were not present with Jeremiah in the land of Judah. In 25.15, the Lord tells Jeremiah to take ‘this cup of wrath’ from his hand and to make the nations drink from it. Then Jeremiah does as he was instructed, taking the cup and making the nations drink (25.17). This could have only taken place in a vision (Fretheim, 2002: 357; Lundbom, 2004: 257), where the Lord and the prophet were with representations of the nations. In v. 27, the Lord commands Jeremiah to ‘say to the nations, “drink, be drunk, vomit, and fall!”’ and instructs him to make them drink if they try to refuse (v. 28). The Lord speaks for the last time in the chapter in v. 32, and it is the prophet who addresses ‘the whole company of the leaders of all the nations’ in v. 34 (Holladay, 1986: 681).
(n) Jer. 25.34a הֵילִילוּ הָרֹעִים וְזַעֲקוּ וְהִתְפַּלְּשׁוּ אַדִּירֵי הַצֹּאן כִּי־מָלְאוּ יְמֵיכֶם לִטְבוֹחַ ‘Wail, O shepherds! And cry out! Roll (in the dust), O mighty ones of the flock! For your days are full for slaughter!’
The prophet tells them to wail and mourn and gives them the reason – their time for judgment has come (continued in vv. 34b-35). 31 Although it is not explicitly stated in this passage, the setting seems to be the Lord’s throne room, a position from which all the nations can be seen (cf. Watts, 2005: 491). When the prophet directly addresses the leaders of the nations with these words, he does so in the vision. 32 But when he recounts this address to his audience in Judah and Jerusalem, the nations are no longer present as they had been in the vision.
In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet frequently recounts addresses that were directed at other nations or groups of beings (earthly or heavenly) in visions. Twice in Jeremiah 51 (vv. 45, 50), the prophet addresses the exiles in Babylon, telling them to flee and escape the coming destruction, and on one occasion, Jeremiah tells everyone who knows Moab to mourn over their destruction (48.17). 33 Imperatives are often directed at armies, calling upon them to take military action, though it is not always clear whether the armies consist of earthly or heavenly legions (cf. Reimer, 1993: 161-163). 34 Other times the prophet addresses the inhabitants of a city or land that has fallen under judgment (cf. Reimer, 1993: 161-163). 35 Addresses to armies and to judged peoples are the two most frequent and are illustrated below.
Many of the addresses Jeremiah recounts from visions are found in his oracles against the nations (chs. 46-51) (see Reimer, 1993: 161-169). In the first of these chapters, containing oracles against Egypt, the prophet introduces a vision with a quoted address.
(o) Jer. 46.3-4 אִסְרוּ הַסּוּסִים וַעֲלוּ הַפָּרָשִׁים וְהִתְיַצְּבוּ בְּכוֹבָעִים מִרְקוּ הָרְמָחִים לִבְשׁוּ עִרְכוּ מָגֵּן וְצִנָּה וּגְשׁוּ לַמִלְחָמָה׃ הַסִּרְיֹנֹת׃ ‘Arrange shield and buckler! And draw near to the battle! Harness the horses and mount horsemen! Take a stand with helmets! Polish the spears! Put on the armor!’
Although it is not entirely clear who is speaking, the addressees are clearly Egyptian troops, and the following verses (vv. 5-6) describe a vision of their defeat in past time (see Rogland, 2003: 83-85). The quoted address in vv. 3-4 locates the utterance in a vision, and vv. 5-6 describe the results of the battle as seen in the vision.
In the oracle against Moab (ch. 48), the prophet begins with a vision description in vv. 1-6 (cf. Rogland, 2003: 89). He describes Moab in vv. 1-4 as if it were partly or mostly destroyed, employing stative verbs and copular clauses for their current state and using active perfects to express sounds that were made and plans of calamity that were hatched against Heshbon. There is even a vision signal (קול) in v. 3 which describes the sounds of ‘crying from Horonaim, destruction and great brokenness’. In v. 5, the text depicts Moabites on the move, 36 traveling the ascent of Luhith, weeping as they go (cf. Isa. 15.5). This is to be understood as happening before the eyes of the prophet. Jeremiah has seen the land in a state of partial destruction – ‘partial’ because there is more to be destroyed, as is gathered from the rest of the chapter – and has seen Moabites weeping as they travel away from the destruction. Then comes the address in v. 6.
(p) Jer. 48.6 נֻסוּ מַלְּטוּ נַפְשְׁכֶם וְתִהְיֶינָה כַּעֲרוֹעֵר בַּמִּדְבָּר׃ ‘Flee! Escape with your lives, that you might be as a shrub in the desert!’
These imperatives are directed at the Moabites telling them to flee (see also vv. 17 and 28). Has the prophet traveled to Moab to watch them flee and to give this message? No, he gives this address in the vision he has been describing since v. 1. Regardless of the fact that this chapter is quite obviously composite, the temporal and deictic orientation of Jer. 48.1-6 only holds together if interpreted as a description of a vision occurring before the eyes of the prophet.
Conclusions and Implications
In this paper, I have argued that the word קול and masculine, plural imperatives are used to signal vision descriptions by creating a ‘direct referential link’ to the world of the vision (Diessel, 2013: 2407). I have shown that when the temporal and deictic orientations of vision descriptions are understood and when vision descriptions are properly identified, the interpretation of the text is significantly improved. The first improvement concerns the spatio-temporal interpretation of the text. Vision descriptions consistently describe the events of the vision as either past (such as when describing a vision experienced in the prophet’s past) or as ‘present’ before the eyes of the prophet. As a result, this study has shown that vision descriptions do not have the same temporal and deictic orientation(s) as the texts surrounding them. Temporally and deictically, the orientation is in the spatio-temporal setting of the vision, that is, in the time and world of the vision. Furthermore, this study shows that some of the alleged examples of the so-called prophetic perfect are nothing of the kind and offers other, better interpretations of these perfects.
Second, identifying vision descriptions as such opens the door to better understanding of these subunits in their literary contexts. More specifically, the vision descriptions connect the audience more directly to the revelation received by the prophet in order to increase cognitive and especially emotive connection to the words of the prophet. Reducing the prophet’s mediation of the vision revealed to him may have been intended to lend credence to the prophet’s message and foster the acceptance of its signification among the audience.
Finally, one implication of this study is that there is considerably more visionary material in the prophets than has been traditionally recognized. A perusal of the literature reveals that it has been significantly hampered by the failure to recognize vision descriptions outside of vision reports and, more specifically, the uses of קול and plural imperatives as vision signals. This concerns not only the literature on the specific passages involved but also the study of prophetic visions more broadly. Much of the literature on biblical prophetic visions has focused on passages in Amos, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel, as well as a few chapters in 1 Kings (ch. 22), Isaiah (ch. 6), and Jeremiah (chs. 1 and 24) (e.g., Amsler, 1981; Koch, 1989; Behrens, 2002; Long, 1976; Niditch, 1997; Stead, 2012). But the vision descriptions identified in this study through a content- and context-sensitive, language-based approach, as well as those identified by Rogland (2003), occur primarily in Isaiah and Jeremiah, with some examples in the minor prophets. With these additional prophetic visions, a more comprehensive description of the kinds and uses of prophetic visions may be possible.
Footnotes
1.
They are ‘introductory’ in that typically there is no concluding narrative after the vision description (Long, 1976: 356; cf. Amsler, 1981: 359-360).
3.
: pp. 36-37), for example, excluded certain passages that undoubtedly describe visions (e.g., Jer. 4.23-26; 38.21-23) because they do not have all the structural elements which he argued were definitive for the genre. This forced him into the awkward position of claiming that each of these is merely an ‘allusion’ (Anspielung) to a vision and consequently should not be included in a study of true vision reports.
4.
In this paper, I make no attempt to distinguish between visions and dreams.
7.
Reading נִקְרָה.
8.
Some scholars attribute these verses to Jeremiah (e.g., Fishbane, 1971: 151) but others argue that they are a later insertion (e.g., Carroll, 1986: 168). This, however, does not affect the present analysis of these verses as a vision description (cf. Allen, 2008: 69; Scalise, 2014: 54-55).
9.
Because these verses specifically mention that someone ‘saw’ things, some scholars accept this as a vision report (e.g., Long, 1976: 355 n. 9). However, other scholars do not because the description of what was seen is not found in a narrative with the literary structure of the vision reports found in other passages (e.g., Behrens, 2002: 105-137).
10.
11.
This tactic appears in its most dramatic form in the book of Daniel. In the Aramaic portions of Daniel, the prophet draws the reader into his experience of the vision by frequently reminding the reader that he was there watching the events of the vision take place with the formulaic construction חזה הוית ‘I was watching’ (e.g., Dan. 2.31, 34; 4.7, 9; 7.4, 9; also found among the Aramaic texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, e.g., 1QapGen 13.9, 10, 11), and in the Hebrew portions of Daniel there is a functionally similar construction (ואני הייתי מבין ‘and I was considering’, Dan. 8.5).
12.
‘The vision narrative strongly accentuates the moment of the reception of the message, while the oracle puts the emphasis on the moment of its transmission’ (original ‘[L]e récit de vision accentue fortement le moment de la réception du message, tandis que l’oracle met l’accent sur le moment de sa transmission’) (Amsler, 1981: 362). Although Amsler was speaking of ‘vision reports’, the same applies to all vision descriptions, not just those with the typical literary features of vision reports.
13.
In the book of Ezekiel, קול is used to introduce sounds and voices that were heard in visions, but each instance occurs in the context of a vision narrative (e.g., Ezek. 1.24, 25, 28; 3.12, 13; 37.7). Therefore, in these cases, קול does not function as a vision signal.
14.
Others include Jer. 25.36; 48.3; 50.22, 28; 51.54.
15.
Others include Isa. 13.4-5; 40.3, 6; Jer. 4.15, Nah. 3:2-3.
16.
Others include Isa. 52.8 (with an imperfect in an adverbial clause); Jer. 8.16; 30.5; 31.15 (vision continues until v. 26); 50.46.
17.
He stated that for a single verse to describe a vision was ‘admittedly somewhat peculiar’ (Rogland, 2003: 103).
18.
20.
This deictic center may be oriented from the speaker or the addressee (Levinson, 1983: 64; Lyons, 1977: 579).
22.
Whybray makes the important observation that ‘Yahweh’s supremacy is not in any way challenged’ by the members of the council since ‘[t]heir function is to praise him and do his bidding’ (: 53). He noted that in the relevant texts ‘[t]he members of the council never come to life as real personalities’ and that ‘[t]hey have no names, no individual characteristics, [and] no history’ (1971: 46).
23.
This can be contrasted with the deictic center in oracles directly addressing other nations. In these oracles, the deictic center is in the land of the nation addressed. For example, in Ezekiel’s oracle against Seir (ch. 35), the deictic center is in the land of Edom (see esp. Ezek. 35.10).
24.
Cross noted the following: Isa. 35.3-4; 40.1-8; 48.20-21; 57.14; 52.7-10; 62.10-12. Others have identified the imperatives in Isa. 13.2-5 as directed at the heavenly council (e.g., Wildberger, 1997: 18; Watts, 2005: 246), which not being part of Deutero-Isaiah, was beyond the scope of Cross’s study.
25.
Although plural imperatives are not used to signal visions in Ezekiel, the Lord does address his servants with plural imperatives in visions (e.g., Ezek. 9.1, 5, 7).
26.
Jer. 4.5; 5.20; 31.7; 46.14; 48.26; 50.2, 29; 51.27-28.
27.
Cf. Jer. 30.6; Hab. 1.5.
28.
29.
Jer. 5.2 is a continuation of the Lord’s speech.
30.
In a similar manner, the false prophet Hananiah used the perfect to depict what he claimed God had said (את על מלך בבל שׁברתי ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon’, Jer. 28.2). Although it has been claimed that this is a prophetic perfect (e.g., Driver, 1998: §14a; Joosten, 2012: 206; Lundbom, 2004: 332), it seems that Hananiah was falsely claiming to have seen and heard this in a vision of the council of the Lord (cf. Jer. 23.21-22).
31.
He then describes some of the sounds he heard in the vision of their judgment in v. 36, signaled with קול.
32.
This is not to say he did not do so outside the vision at another time. In Jer. 27, the prophet sends messages to the surrounding nations but the message there (submit to the yoke of Babylon) is not the message of chapter 25, so chapters 25 and 27 cannot refer to the same thing. The content of Jer. 25.15-38 is closely connected to the oracles against the nations in 46-51, which include Babylon.
33.
Similarly, the book of Zechariah recounts one address to the trees of Lebanon and Bashan, symbolic of foreign nations, telling them to open their doors for destruction and ‘wail’ (11.1-2). But, since trees are inanimate, this may be apostrophe. Compare, the use of plural imperatives in Ezekiel’s addresses to the ‘mountains of Israel‘ (Ezek. 6.1-6; 36.1-15).
34.
Jer. 46.3-4, 9; 49.14, 28, 31; 50.14-16, 21, 26-27, 29; 51.3, 8, 10-12; cf. 5.10 (Fretheim, 2002: 111).
35.
Jer. 4.6; 48.6, 28; 49.8, 30; 50.8; 51.6.
36.
The situation expressed by the imperfect (יעלה) is apparently an actual present (cf. Rogland, 2003: 89).