Alliteration and the Sacred: A Study of ‘Be Fertile and Increase’

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible is a richly crafted text, teeming with wonderful examples of narrative artistry, not only of how it arranges words, but how it arranges sounds. If the structure of the narrative can help us interpret possible meanings, then it would seem that the phonetic elements of the text can also assist us in the larger task of interpretation (an underexploited resource for the biblical scholar). This article gives an example of how the rhythmic repetition of sound elements contribute to interpretation through the example of the richly alliterative phrase, peru urbu umil’u. The article examines its occurrences in Genesis. It is found ten times (in several grammatical forms), five in the Primeval History, five in the Patriarchal History. Close readings of these occurrences are used to show how the rhythmic arrangement of sounds contributes to the development of the themes at critical junctures of the narrative. When the phrase ‘be fruitful and multiply’ is found in direct speech by God to a human, the phrase is endowed with a tremendous amount of alliteration; when the phrase is found in human speech there is a great deal less. In this example, then, it would seem alliteration is being used to distinguish human from divine speech. As modern readers, it is very easy for us to forget the oral context in which these stories emerged, that most people heard, rather than read, them. So it seems completely reasonable to suggest that, in this one example, phonetic artistry is being used to make it easier for the listener of the text to understand that he has just heard the voice of God.