Boshet in Jeremiah 3:24: Disenfranchisement and the Role of the Goddess in Seventh-century Judah

Abstract

This article attempts to bring together some contemporary discussions in reflecting on a prophetic passage. These are the material-cultural study of peasantry in relation to the running of secondary states, archaeology and iconography of the late monarchic period, and the sociology of official and popular religion. Social studies of Judah under Assyrian domination show how the mechanism of labour coercion was refined under Hezekiah and Manasseh. This brought the peasantry into a position of loss of political and material freedom, but willingly so. Such willing submission may be ascribed to the religious legitimation of power structures in the pervading world view and the position of the king within it. This is no wonder, since sociologists of religion have recognized that there is a reciprocity between popular and official religion, rather than a polarity. Essential to this world view is the goddess, who is closely allied to the king in both inscriptional and iconographic portrayals from Iron IIC. Likewise, in the peasant's domain the role of the goddess is also represented by material remains. In a chant-like penitence liturgy employed as an ironic jibe in Jer. 3:24 a divine figure, Ha-Boshet, is blamed for ‘consuming’ a list of material things dear to peasants: their fathers’ toil, flocks and herds, sons and daughters. If Boshet is a divine title, as some have argued, then its occurrence in this Hebrew chant could be viewed as a denunciation in the same breath of the goddess and the royal administration.