The Vocabulary of Desolation: Intertextual Allusions in Daniel 9.25-27 and the Meaning of Ḥārûṣ

Ḥārûṣ

I will first examine the word ḥārûṣ itself before investigating its place in the context of the verse and the passage. The conventional explanation is that the word here is found in a rare usage meaning “trench” or “moat.” ⁴ Collins says that the word ḥārûṣ “was apparently unknown for the versions ⁵ . . . it is now known from the Aramaic Zakir inscription from Hamath (eighth century) ⁶ and from the Qumran Copper Scroll” (1993, 356). ⁷ (The references in notes 5-7 are largely due to Collins.)

These extra-biblical references are far-flung; we should look first at the use of the root ḥrṣ in the Hebrew Bible and especially in the next two verses of Dan 9. The root ḥrṣ appears thirty-one times in the Bible, including eight instances where it is found in nominal forms, and never means “trench” or “moat.” ⁸ Most of the uses of the root are literal or figurative forms of the verb meaning “to cut.” The noun ḥārûṣ can refer to an implement of cutting, parallel to jagged shards (Job 41.22), with many spikes (Isa 41.15), often made of iron (Amos 1.3), and parallel to saws and axes (ḥārîṣ 2 Sam 12.31; 1 Chr 20.3). ⁹ In 1 Sam 17.18, ḥărīṣê are the “cuts” of cheese David brings to his brothers in Saul’s camp (McCarter 1980, 299). In Lev 22.22, the word ḥārûṣ describes a man who is maimed/cut.

In six cases, a ḥārûṣ is a thresher (Isa 28.27); a threshing board is an obsolete farm implement used to separate grains from the rest of the plant. The thresher separates the wheat from the chaff, determining the fate of both, and is a metaphor for judging between the good and the evil. In Joel 4.14, the Valley of heḥārûṣ is a fictional place also called the “Valley of Jehoshaphat” (4.2, 12) or the “Valley of Judgment” (v. 12, with its play on the name “Jehoshaphat”—the LORD judges). It is where God will judge the wicked nations at the end of a time of tribulation; evil will be dealt with on the final Day of Judgment. Note that in the preceding verse (4.13), the warriors of God are commanded to “swing the sickle, for the crop is ripe.” “Cutting” down the evil nations that are “ripe” for destruction may indicate that the translation “Valley of Cutting” (‘emeq heḥārûṣ) suits the context better than the NJPS “Valley of Decision,” as it is parallel to the negative force of the judgment rendered against the enemies in this passage. ¹⁰ In 1 Kgs 20.40, King Ahab states that a prophet has “decreed” (ḥārāṣtā) doom on himself. In Job 14.5, man’s days are ḥărûṣîm “limited and determined.” ¹¹ The last two cases are especially pertinent for our text, where people are living in a time that is limited and prescribed in a negative way. In most of these cases, there are clear negative connotations to the use of the word.

These meanings of the form do relate to “cut,” and since a moat or a trench is produced by “cutting” out soil, a meaning relating to “moat” or “trench” could certainly be related to the meaning “cut.” If ḥārûṣ does mean “trench” or “moat” here, however, it is the only case in the Bible where it does. Besides, as Bevan points out, what does a trench, as in gardening, or a moat for that matter, have to do with Jerusalem? ¹²

I can now turn to the use of the root ḥrṣ in the next two verses, neḥĕreṣet in 9.26 and neḥĕrāṣāh in 9.27 (and neḥĕrāṣāh in Dan 11.36). As von Lengerke pointed out in 1835, ḥrṣ in this very passage is used twice with clearly negative connotations,

wie jene Wiederherstellung zur Zeit Nehemias zwar fest bei Gott beschlossen ist, so auch dass Stadt und Tempel noch einmal verwüstet werden sollen und erst wenn diess Verhängniss sein Ende erreicht hat, kann die Weissagung des Jeremias als erfullt angesehen werden. (von Lengerke 1835, 459) ¹³

Von Lengerke states here that, just as God allowed the destruction of the temple but then the restoration of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah, so also the city and temple will again be devastated when God’s decree has reached its end and the prophecy of Jeremiah can be regarded as fulfilled. Whether it is as a noun, or in the construct or absolute states as found here, the root ḥrṣ means “(ungünstiger) Beschluss,” an unfavorable decision/fate/decree.

Kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh in v. 27 is an unusual phrase but is also found in two important passages in the book of Isaiah:

^22b Destruction is decreed; [killāyôn ḥārûṣ]

Retribution comes like a flood! [šôtēp ṣĕdākāh]

²³ For my Lord GOD of Hosts is carrying out

A decree of destruction [kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh] upon all the land. (Isa 10.22b-23 NJPS)

For I have heard a decree of destruction [kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh]

From my Lord GOD of Hosts

Against all the land. (Isa 28.22b NJPS)

. . .

So, too, black cumin is not threshed with a threshing board [lô’ bĕḥārûṣ] (Isa 28.27a)

It is important to emphasize that both ḥārûṣ and neḥĕrāṣāh are found in Isa 10.22-23 and 28.22, 27, in the same kind of proximity as we find in Dan 9.25-27. In translating neḥĕrāṣāh, note the conjunction wĕ- in kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh in Isa 10.23 and 28.22, indicating that the two are synonyms for destruction, and together emphasize the “inflexibly decreed judgment of destruction.” ¹⁴ Thus both ḥārûṣ and neḥĕrāṣāh are words describing “destruction.” Daniel 9.27 certainly seems to be based on Isa 10.23 and 28.22, and this may serve as a textual foundation for the interpretation of ḥārûṣ in Dan 9.25 as a reference to the “oppression” of Jerusalem in the postexilic period.

Isaiah 28, with its prediction of the kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh “destruction” and ḥārûṣ “threshing” of Jerusalem, immediately leads us into Isa 29, the famous Ariel passage (ignoring the later, arbitrary chapter division) and to the meaning of the phrase following ḥārûṣ in Dan 9.25, ûbĕṣôq hāʿittîm:

^1a Ah, Ariel, Ariel,

City where David encamped! . . .

^2a,bα And I will harass [wĕhăṣîqôtî] Ariel,

And there shall be sorrow and sighing. (Isa 29.1-2 NJPS)

and those who harass [wĕhammĕṣîqîm] her. (end of Isa 29.7 NJPS) ¹⁵

The Ariel passage, with its emphasis on ṣôq, is invoked in Dan 9 to describe the ṣôq hāʿittîm, the decreed, stressful time. The black cumin left after the ḥārûṣ “threshing” in Isa 28 may now represent the Judeans who will survive the terrible postexilic period despite the ḥārûṣ. In Dan 9.25, we may work backwards from the third element in the series of three, ṣôq hāʿittîm, to say that the period after the rebuilding would be a time of desperate straits.

Again, I would couple ḥārûṣ with ṣôq hāʿittîm, not with rĕḥôb that comes before it. The waw means “but,” either before ḥārûṣ or before ṣôq hāʿittîm. In studying the meaning of waw in Biblical Hebrew, Cook thinks that “the conjunction is largely semantically bleached (i.e., has no particular meaning; syntactically it marks the phrase edge boundary). As such, whether it means ‘and’ or ‘but’ or something else in a given instance is largely dependent on how one understands the relationship between the constituents that are syntactically conjoined by the conjunction.” ¹⁶ The question here is: Where is the “phrase edge boundary” in this sequence? I would say that it is marked by the first waw of wĕḥārûṣ that creates the adversative or contrastive relationship between phrases. Steiner (2000, 260) cites what he calls “the careful statement” in BDB, “וְ‎, וּ‎, וָ‎,” 1e: “it [the waw] connects contrasted ideas, where in our idiom the contrast would be expressed explicitly by but; in such cases prominence is usually given to the contrasted idea by its being placed immed. after the conj.” (last phrase my italics). Thus the clause wĕḥārûṣ ûbĕṣôq hāʿittîm may mean “but (under) decree and in the oppression of the times.”

The Masoretes, working over one thousand years after Dan 9 was written, placed their accents so as to reflect רְח֣וֹב וְחָר֔וּץ‎ (rĕḥôb wĕḥārûṣ) as conjoined, but then again, what does this mean? Also, as a consequence, they left an awkward phrase hanging at the end of the verse. The meaning in context is that even though Jerusalem will be rebuilt widely (rĕḥôb) during the sixty-two weeks of years, the times will narrow (ûbĕṣôq hāʿittîm) until the terrible persecution. Wĕḥārûṣ indicates the judgment under which the times will narrow towards the terrible day when the seventy weeks of years will end, the anointed one will vanish, the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed, and an appalling abomination will be placed on the corner of the sacred altar until kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh, the same overarching judgment will destroy the abomination. This extended process of judgment is the central topic of Dan 9.

Wĕḥārûṣ in the context of 9.25-27 and the reinterpretation of Jeremiah 25

I now move from the context of the verse to the context of the passage. Jeremiah 25 and 29 are central to Dan 9 and give us the basis for the reinterpretation of the length of the exile. Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the seventy years of exile. The prophet told the Judeans in the sixth century to support their conquerors and pray for the welfare of the countries in which they lived (Jer 29.5-7). ¹⁷ They should be passive and positive about being dominated by foreign rulers. As Cohen (1987, 28) states, the prophecies of Jeremiah “had an enormous impact on subsequent Jewish thought and practice.” ¹⁸ Seventy may be a conventional number for a human life span, but its near-accuracy in this case may have made it the foundation for later reckonings. Jeremiah’s prediction of the people’s return after seven decades is a positive one and so does not describe further negative times for Jerusalem. The Chronicler thinks that Jeremiah’s prophecy of restoration is fulfilled by Cyrus’s permission to rebuild: “to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years” (2 Chr 36.21, my translation; cf. Lev 26.34-35).

Daniel 9 transforms these explanations of Jeremiah’s positive prophecy about the return to Judea. The author reinterprets the prophecy that the Judeans will spend seventy years of exile in Babylon to mean that there will be seventy “weeks” of years of troubles for the Jewish people. ¹⁹ Daniel 9 presents an elongated, negative view of Jeremiah’s period of subjection to recast the centuries during which foreign kings ruled over Judea. Goldingay is correct in saying that “there is no direct indication in the oracle that the whole postexilic period is seen as a period of wickedness” (1989, 259). Still, the period is seen here from the perspective of a writer living during a time of religious persecution. He describes this violence as the culmination of Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning centuries of foreign rule. The perspective of the book of Daniel is that of the sage Daniel, who is supposedly living in the same century as Jeremiah (i.e., sixth century B.C.E.). It is as if Daniel, living in the early years of Cyrus (Dan 10.1), recognizes that the decree of the Persian king to rebuild will not fulfill Jeremiah’s prediction about the end of the exile; the end of the exile will not be the end of the difficult times, which will now include an additional sixty-two weeks of years (434 years) following the exile and the return to Judea. From the perspective of modern critical scholarship, the author of Dan 9, living in a time of crisis (ca. 167–165 B.C.E.), looks back at centuries under foreign domination in a new and negative way. The period following Cyrus’s magnanimous decree had been seen as quiet centuries under benevolent foreign rulers but now that view of the lives of Judeans and their religious autonomy during those centuries becomes irrelevant in Dan 9’s re-visioning of the past in the light of the Antiochene persecution.

Daniel 9.24, the verse that precedes the one under study here, states that Jerusalem and the temple will be free of the doom of Jeremiah’s prophecy only when the terrible persecution is over. This persecution is the culmination of the punishment for the “transgression,” “sin,” and “iniquity” of the people and it will “seal” the end of Jeremiah’s vision. The author begins our v. 25 by emphasizing: “You must understand” that while the period from Cyrus’s decree to return to Jerusalem until the persecution will be only seven “weeks,” Jerusalem will be rebuilt for the next sixty-two weeks but it will still be a very difficult time. The point of the verse, in its context, is that the sin, transgression, and iniquity have not yet been expiated, so eternal righteousness has not yet been ushered in and the holy of holies has not yet been anointed because the Jeremian prophecy is still in effect. To accentuate the building developments of “square and moat” would be trivial compared to these major themes. This contextual approach would appear to cast doubt on “square and moat” as the correct translation.

The three uses of the root ḥrṣ more likely reflect the situation during the last two of the three periods under the decree:

The author of Dan 9.25 may not have thought that he was “changing” seventy years to seventy weeks of years; he may have thought that this was what God meant in his words to Jeremiah to begin with. He could not change the Jeremian text but he could contribute a Daniel text that would now be seen as originating in the kingdom that came just before Cyrus (Dan 10 is placed in the third year of Cyrus), that of Darius the Mede, a non-historical figure (Dan 9.1). Perhaps an answer to the mystery of the latter is that the author felt the need to place a prophecy that would come into force just before the end of Jeremiah’s seventy years of exile that would end with Cyrus, extending and supplanting Jeremiah’s prediction before its force could end.

Conclusion

The two phrases in Isa 10.22-23, killāyôn ḥārûṣ and kālāh wĕneḥĕrāṣāh, mean “decree of destruction” and “destruction and doom.” Both ḥārûṣ and neḥĕrāṣāh are words describing judgment and destruction, and both are found in Isa 10.22-23 and 28.22, 27, in the same kind of proximity as we find in Dan 9.25-27. The author of Dan 9 appears to have found some of his vocabulary of desolation in Isa 10 and 28 as well as Jer 25. Daniel 9.27 certainly seems to be based on Isa 10.22-23 and 28.22, 27, and this may serve as a textual foundation for the interpretation of ḥārûṣ in Dan 9.25 as a reference to the “oppression” of Jerusalem in the postexilic period. Jerusalem will be rebuilt, but under “a decree of judgment and in oppressed times.”