A Table in the Presence of My Enemies: Banqueting and Battling in Ancient Israel

By Matthew Wade Umbarger

Psalm 23, the most beloved of the Psalms, contains a perplexing riddle. What can it possibly mean that God prepares a table in the presence of the psalmist's enemies? Matthew Umbarger proposes that Psalm 23:5 makes the most sense when read according to its cultural context of prebattle covenant banquets. Beginning with ancient Mesopotamian mythology, Umbarger traces a conceptual trajectory of the prebattle banquet motif that reaches its zenith in the apocalyptic banquets of Second Temple Period literature and the eucharistic theology of the early church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9781666761610

Matthew Wade Umbarger

Matthew Wade Umbarger is associate professor of theology in the School of Catholic Studies at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas.

Book preview

A Table in the Presence

of My Enemies

Banqueting and Battling in Ancient Israel

Matthew Wade Umbarger

A TABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES

Banqueting and Battling in Ancient Israel

Lectio Sacra

Copyright © 2024 Matthew Wade Umbarger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-6159-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-6160-3

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-6161-0

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Umbarger, Matthew Wade, author.

Title: A table in the presence of my enemies : banqueting and battling in ancient Israel / Matthew Wade Umbarger.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2024. | Lectio Sacra | Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-6667-6159-7 (paperback). | isbn 978-1-6667-6160-3 (hardcover). | isbn 978-1-6667-6161-0 (ebook).

Subjects: LSCH: Bible. Psalms, XXIII—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Dinners and dining in the Bible. | Christian literature, Early. | Lord’s Supper—History.

Classification: BS1450.23d U5 2024 (print). | BS1450.23d (epub).

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (DRV) are from the Douay-Rheims Bible, which is in the public domain.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (DRV) are taken from the Douay-Rheims Version, which is in the public domain.

Scripture quotations marked (NJPS) are taken from the Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Scripture quotations marked (JB) are taken from the JERUSALEM BIBLE Copyright© 1966, 1967, 1968 by Darton, Longmand & Todd LTD and Doubleday and Co. Inc. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (KNOX) are taken from the KNOX BIBLE, The Holy Bible: A Translation From the Latin Vulgate in the Light of the Hebrew and Greek Originals by Monsignor Ronald Knox. Copyright© 1954 Westminster Diocese.

Scripture quotations designated (NET) are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996, 2019 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. https://netbible.com/.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: Pale Rider and the Mystery of the Missing Verse

1. Schadenfreude or Strategy?

2. Setting the Table

3. Identifying the Ingredients

4. Tales of Feasting and Fighting

5. A Structure of Sacrifice and Slaughter

6. The Femmes Fatales of the Bible

7. Feasting for Freedom: The Passover

8. The Last Course: The Eschatological Banquet

9. Feasting on Vanquished Leviathan

10. Leviathan and Five Loaves of Bread

11. A Table Full of Trophies

12. A Table Prepared Against My Enemies

13. Psalm 23, a Soldier’s Song

Conclusion

Bibliography

Lectio Sacra

The Lectio Sacra series engages the sacred reading of historical biblical texts in a scholarly manner that remains accessible to the nonspecialist, proposing an integrated vision of biblical interpretation. Biblical commentary is only the cottage industry that it is because of the interests of over two billion living people for whom the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are received and read as holy books. The Lectio Sacra series (reading texts as sacred) is, broadly speaking, interested in close historical readings for the sake of the text’s reception in religious tradition. Such readings are likewise focused on influential (or significant but neglected) interpretations of the way in which they illumine those texts and speak to the ongoing life of those who live by and believe them. Indeed, in the eyes of many modern and most ancient readers, reading the sacred page for all its worth calls for explicit attention both to the words on the page and to the text’s reception and instructive value among those who hold it sacred.

Different readers and interpretive traditions will, of course, have different visions of how Scripture and theology fit together. Combined with the array of potential texts, receivers, and theological issues—ancient and contemporary—that can be treated, this makes sacred reading naturally a forum in which diverse interests should have a voice. Accordingly, this series does not impose confessional nor methodological straightjackets on its authors but welcomes diverse perspectives and studies. By engaging relevant questions through biblical texts and their reception in its various volumes, this series will provide a home for a wide range of studies that integrate exegesis and the theological task and so contribute to the world of contemporary biblical and theological scholarship.

Series Editors

John A. Kincaid

Ben C. Blackwell

James B. Prothro

Editorial Board

Jason Byassee, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church

Michael Gorman, St. Mary’s Seminary and University

Jennie Grillo, University of Notre Dame

Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary

Isaac Morales, OP, Providence College

Lucy Peppiatt, Westminster Theological Centre

To Robin

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to a whole gob of people for the support they have offered to me throughout the process of writing and editing this book. First of all, my professors at Ben-Gurion University—Mayer Gruber, Shamir Yonah, and Pau Figueras—all helped me develop the core ideas in their nascent form, first in a master’s thesis and then a doctoral dissertation. More recently, dear friends like Bo Bonner and Amy Baxt have delivered much-needed feedback, especially on the introduction and conclusion. The fellows who meet once a month for The New Moot at The Ladder have done the same.

I am grateful to the Gerber Institute of Catholic Studies at Newman University for providing a fellowship that freed me from some of my teaching load over a semester so that I could give the book more attention. And I also owe thanks to Newman University for a sabbatical during the fall semester of 2021 so I could finally complete what I had started.

Both Fr. Peter Ashton and Matthew Levering spoke deeply needed words of encouragement to me when I was considering abandoning this project. The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life (Prov 10:11).

Most of all, I owe this book to my wife and six children, who have endured countless dinnertime lectures on eschatological banquets and prebattle covenant rituals. Robin has edited at least two complete versions of this book, and has been my sounding board for all of my thoughts since before I had even typed a single word. She is my eshet chayil and the ‘ezer ke-negdi.

Finally, God’s grace has sustained my efforts through these and untold other helps, most of which, I am sure, I am not even aware. He is faithful and worthy of all praise and adoration.

Abbreviations

Ancient Sources

1QM Milḥamah (War Scroll from Qumran Cave 1

1QS Serek Hayaḥad (Community Rule from Qumran Cave 1)

1QSa 1Q28a Rule of the Congregation (Appendix a to 1QS)

BT Babylonian Talmud

Ant Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

J.W. Josephus, Jewish War

m. Mishnah

MT Masoretic text

Sf Sefire Inscriptions

Contemporary Sources

AB Anchor Bible

ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library

ABS Archaeology and Biblical Studies

AHw Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. Wolfram von Soden. 3 vols. Wiesbaden, 1965–1981

ALASP Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas und Mesopotamiens

AnBib Analecta Biblica

ANEP The Ancient Near East in Pictures

ARM Archives Royales de Mari

ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch

AYBRL Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BASOR Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research

BEvT Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie

BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

Bib Biblica

BibInt Biblical Interpretation Series

BibLeb Bibel und Leben

BibOr Biblica et Orientalia

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin

BWA(N)T Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten (und Neuen) Testament

BZAQ Beihefte zur Zeitschurft für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

CBC Cambridge Bible Commentary

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CHANE Culture and History of the Ancient Near East

CTA Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939

CTH Catalogue des textes hittites. Emmanuel Laroche. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971 (https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/CTH/index_en.php/)

CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by Karel van der Toorn et al. 2nd rev. ed. Leiden: Brill, 1999

EA The Amarna Letters

ExpT Expository Times

FOTL Forms of the Old Testament Literature

HALOT Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament

HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament

HdO Handbuch der Orientalistik

HKAT Handkommentar zum Alten Testament

HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament

HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs

HThKNT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament

HTR Harvard Theological Review

HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by George A. Buttrick. 4 vols. New York: Abingdon, 1962

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979–1988

JANES Journal of the Ancient Near East Society

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

JAOSSup Supplement to the Journal of the American Oriental Society

JB The Jerusalem Bible

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JPS Jewish Publication Society

JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

KAI Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften. Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Röllig. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966–1969

KAR Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Edited by Erich Ebeling. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1919–1923

KAT Kommentar zum Alten Testament

KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (Meyer-Kommentar)

KHC Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament

KTU Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. Edited by Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013

KUB Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi. Berlin: Akademie, 1921–

LCL Loeb Classical Library

LW Luther’s Works

NAC New American Commentary

NIB The New Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by Leander E. Keck. 12 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1994–2004

NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary

NovT Novum Testamentum

NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament

NPNF¹ Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1

NPNF² Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NTS New Testament Studies

OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology

OED Oxford English Dictionary

OTE Old Testament Essays

OTL Old Testament Library

OTR Old Testament Readings

PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly

OTS Old Testament Studies

PG Patrologia Graeca. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857–1886

PL Patrologia Latina. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 217 vols. Paris, 1844–1864

PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies

RHA Revue hittite et asianique

RIME The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods

RSV Revised Standard Version

SAACT State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts

SBL Society of Biblical Literature

SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SC Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943–

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

Str-B H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch. 6 vols. Munich, 1922–1961

TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated by John T. Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006

TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries

UCOP University of Cambridge Oriental Publications

UF Ugarit-Forschungen

VT Vetus Testamentum

VTE Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon, by D. J. Wiseman. Iraq 20, part 1, 1958. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1958

VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

WAW Writings of the Ancient World

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WC Westminster Commentaries

WTJ Westminster Theological Journal

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZABR Zeotschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtgeschichte

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Other Abbreviations

obv. obverse

sec. section

ser. series

Q Qumran

v verso

v. verse

vv. verses

Introduction: Pale Rider and the Mystery of the Missing Verse

In a memorable moment early in Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider , young Megan buries her dog, mercilessly killed by one of the principal villain’s henchmen, and prays her own dialogical version of the Twenty-Third Psalm.

The

Lord

is my shepherd, I shall not want.  

But I do want.

he leadeth me beside still waters;

he restoreth my soul. 

But they killed my dog.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil;

But I am afraid.

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff—they comfort me.

But we need a miracle.

Thy lovingkindness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life, 

If you exist.

and I shall dwell in the house of the

Lord

forever. 

But I’d like to get more of this life first.

Apart from her additions to the psalm, Megan recites it incorrectly. She leaves out the green pastures of v. 2 (there are no green pastures in the film, and green is fairly absent from the color palette of the movie). The paths of righteousness of v. 3 are also missing (perhaps evoking the moral ambiguity of the film’s hero). But one entire verse is gone, v. 5.

Is the absence of v. 5 a mistake? Was it cut for time? Or was it just too difficult to compose a paraphrase for Megan from this verse?

Actually, the film vividly depicts v. 5. It doesn’t need to be recited, because it plays itself out in two key scenes.

Pale Rider is framed around two scenes of hospitality, both of which feature a drink. In the first of these, Eastwood’s newly arrived stranger interrupts an argument between Sarah and Hull concerning Hull’s having invited him to dinner in gratitude for rescuing him from some thugs. The stranger emerges from the washroom wearing a clerical collar, and then asks his stupefied hosts for a drink from the bottle on the table. As he tosses his glass back, he says, There’s nothing like a shot of whiskey to whet a man’s appetite. Then he recommends that they enjoy Sarah’s fricassee before it gets cold.

The body of the film that follows narrates the developing tension between the miners of Hull’s camp, who now rally around the Preacher’s inspiring presence, and Coy LaHood, a greedy mining tycoon who has been attempting to run them all off of their claims. Finally, LaHood brings in a corrupt lawman and his six deputies to deal with the Preacher and the camp that he protects. Eventually it is revealed that the marshal is responsible for the six bullet holes that perforate the Preacher’s back.

The final showdown begins when the Preacher is invited to have a cup of coffee in the general store. He tells the proprietors to leave the premises, and proceeds to enjoy the coffee with his back to the entrance. LaHood’s men attempt to sneak up on him and empty their guns at the table where he is seated. Mysteriously, the Preacher is no longer there, and he attacks them from the side. After dispatching LaHood’s men, he takes out Marshal Stockburn’s deputies, and finally Stockburn himself.

These two framing scenes exquisitely portray Ps 23:5. In each of them, a table is prepared for the Preacher in the presence of his enemies, in the last scene quite literally so. And as a final touch, both tables feature a cup, reminding us of the final stich of the verse: my cup overflows.

The film’s exegesis of Ps 23:5 is all the stronger, in fact, because Megan does not recite it as part of her prayer at the beginning of the film. The truth is, I would not have come to appreciate the artistry of these framing scenes and their relationship to Ps 23 if Megan had included v. 5 in her petition. As Benjamin Franklin once said, Well done is better than well said.

¹

Psalm 23:5 in Rooster Cogburn

Another western film uses Ps 23 in a similar fashion. In Rooster Cogburn, Hawk, the villain, is offended by Katherine Hepburn’s character, Eula Goodnight, when she greets his intrusion into her father’s mission to a settlement of American Indians with a bevy of Scripture verses. Hawk proceeds to empty his pistols at Eula’s feet. She calmly responds by reciting Ps 23. When she reaches v. 5, she wheels about and defiantly marches off, completing the last two verses while Hawk discharges his final shots at her heels. That night, Hawk’s men start a fight with the men of the settlement, Reverend Goodnight (Eula’s father) leaves the shelter of their church to protect his flock, and Hawk shoots him dead. Eula encounters Hawk again later in the film, when she has joined federal deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn in his pursuit of the villains. Before the action ensues, screenwriter Martha Hyer lingers over the meal that Eula enjoys with Cogburn and the young Indian in her care, Wolf. Cogburn and Wolf go in search of a turkey with which to surprise Eula, but come back with an owl and an opossum. Eula, in the meantime, has prepared her own prize, a turkey roasting on a spit over their campfire. She recommends that they throw all of their game together into a wilderness stew. While they enjoy their meal, Hawk and his men approach in the darkness, planning an ambush. Eula and her friends truly enjoy a table spread in the presence of their enemies.

Banqueting and Battling in Enuma Elish

The modern western film genre has provided us with two curious examples of interpreting Ps 23:5 in a militant mode. Looking backwards, well before Ps 23 was probably even composed, another tale takes up the same theme of a table spread in opposition to enemies, providing some evidence that this is in fact a cultural archetype. In tablet 3 of Enuma Elish, a banquet is held in order to elect a champion, Marduk, who will meet the monstrous Tiamat in combat. The gods eat and drink, with special attention dedicated to the sweet beer that they guzzle through their straws. When everyone is in a cheerful mood, they invest Marduk with the power of divine fiat, and immediately send him on his way to face Tiâmat. He makes short work of her and crafts the cosmos from her corpse. So we have a cultural trajectory pairing dining with violence that stretches out from a second millennium BCE Babylonian tradition up through the late twentieth century in Pale Rider, with Ps 23:5 emerging as a unique expression of this motif in the heart of this trajectory.

Militant Readings of Ps 23:5 in the Church Fathers

Remarkably perhaps for us modern Westerners, who have grown accustomed to peaceful, pastoral associations with the entirety of Ps 23, a number of the church fathers would likely have applauded the associations of Ps 23:5 with violence in Pale Rider. In both of his translations of the Psalms, Jerome used the word adversum (against) to translate neged, the word translated as in the presence of in the RSV. Jerome’s choice is noteworthy because the Greek text upon which his Gallican psalter was based can be easily understood with the meaning in the presence of.

²

Instead, Jerome gives us parasti in conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me (i.e., Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me [DV]).Truth be told, Jerome’s choice of adversum is, strictly speaking, a more exact rendering of neged than in the presence of.

Augustine understood this Latin text quite literally, and applied it to the benefits of the Eucharist in preparation for spiritual warfare (perhaps in imitation of his mentor Ambrose, who wrote something similar in De Mysteriis 43). But after the rod with which I was disciplined when still young and living in the herd of the pasture, after that rod, when I began to be under the staff, you prepared before me a table, that at that time I should no more be fed milk appropriate for a baby, but being fully grown, take real food and so be made strong against those who trouble me.

³

Augustine, then, believes that the table is meant to nourish the psalmist so that he will have the strength to defend himself against his enemies.

The Latin tradition is not isolated in this treatment of Ps 23:5. The Eastern Church has a similar approach. In his fourth mystagogical lecture, Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the text of the LXX accordingly:

The blessed David is hinting to you the meaning of these rites when he says, You have prepared a table before me, against those who oppress me. What he means is this: Before your coming the devils prepared a table for mankind, a table defiled and polluted, impregnated with diabolical power; but since your coming, Lord, you have prepared a table in my presence. When man says to God, You have prepared a table before me, what else does he refer to but the mystical and spiritual table which God has prepared for us over against, meaning arrayed against and opposed to, the evil spirits? And very aptly: for that table gave communion with devils, while this gives communion with God.

⁴

No doubt Augustine and Cyril made use of allegorical and spiritual interpretations of the biblical text that modern researchers do not typically use in their more scientific approach to the Scriptures. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the two church fathers have interpreted the phrase neged ṣōrĕrāy from Ps 23:5 in a manner that reflects the pre-battle ritual context of the ancient Near East.

⁵

When we look for similar references in the Bible and other Middle Eastern literatures, an interesting picture develops out of a great variety of texts.

When all is considered, Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, the screenwriters for Pale Rider, deserve credit for providing a cinematic exegesis of Ps 23:5 that accords with its ancient, Christian interpretation. The table prepared in the presence of one’s enemies is a prelude to deadly combat.

My Hermeneutical Approach

As preceding paragraphs demonstrate, patristic Bible interpreters since very early in the history of the Christian church have produced a rich body of spiritual exegesis on Ps 23:5. Almost always they have recognized in the table of this verse the eucharistic altar from which Christ feeds his faithful.

As a believing Catholic Christian, I take these spiritual interpretations of the verse as very precious. Consequently, I hold a firm theological conviction that this patristic interpretation is appropriate, and that the divine Author of this verse actually intended for us to see in it a reference to the Blessed Sacrament from the very beginning. In the pages that follow, I hope to show that this spiritual reading of the table prepared in the presence of our enemies is a natural, organic development of what the human author intended. Both the literal and spiritual senses, when properly understood, invite us to the Lord’s table as a necessary, salutary preparation for conflicts to come.

So, as I interpret Ps 23:5, I want to take seriously what historical criticism can offer in understanding the verse’s original sense. Thus, I take care to present the great body of evidence for what I am calling the pre-battle banquet motif in the literature of the ancient Near East and the Bible. Then I want to interpret Ps 23:5 as a particular instance of this motif.

But I also want to consider its theological message—both to its first audience and to the religious communities that inherited it. This is why I do not confine myself to the Old Testament and its cultural cognates, but also include chapters on the New Testament and other literature of the Second Temple period, in spite of the fact that these pieces were composed centuries after Ps 23:5. I am interested in the canonical reception of Ps 23:5, as well as in the later development of the pre-battle banquet motif in which Ps 23 participates.

I acknowledge my debt to canonical criticism, as developed in the writings of Brevard Childs, for my methodology. This approach was endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI in the foreword to the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, where he says that ‘Canonical exegesis’—reading the individual texts of the Bible in the context of the whole—is an essential dimension of exegesis. It does not contradict historical-critical interpretation, but carries it forward in an organic way toward becoming theology in the proper sense.

⁶

One of my motivations, then, is to demonstrate that the church fathers actually derive their spiritual interpretations of Ps 23:5 in accord with its original, primary sense, as referring to a pre-battle banquet. Obviously, none of the church fathers was familiar with the body of ancient Near Eastern literature on which I have conducted my research in this book. But it is possible that their identification of the table in Ps 23:5 with the Eucharist and its spiritual benefits is actually consistent with the reception of pre-Christian traditions that recognized in this a reference to covenant banquets preceding warfare.

Taking the church fathers seriously in this way necessitates a rupture of sorts with mainstream biblical interpretation. In modern and postmodern biblical research, the spiritual sense of the Bible, if tolerated at all, is usually considered apart from the literal sense, as something wholly different, hermetically sealed from the real sense—the primary, literal sense.

Gerhard von Rad, brilliant as he was, provides a good example of this, in his treatment of Jacob’s wrestling match from Gen 32 in his theology of the Old Testament. He suggests that in the original story, lost to us through the meddling of redactors, Jacob’s opponent was perhaps a river demon.

⁷

But the Yahwist has replaced the demon with Yahweh, and consequently, the story received a completely new meaning, and interpretation has, as it were, to start all over again.

⁸

Then, Hosea "read something into the story—Jacob’s deceit and importunity—which was not present in the Jahwist’s understanding of