List and Narrative in I Samuel 6,17 18a in the Light of Ugaritic Economic Texts

Abstract

The account in I Sam 6 of the offering which the Philistines sent back with the Ark is often said to exhibit confusion in the number and types of objects. However, if the list in v. 17-18a is used as a key, the matter becomes clear. First, this paper shows that lists in Hebrew follow the conventions used in other ANE lists, especially in Ugaritic lists. In particular, the list in v. 17-18a has both biblical and Ugaritic parallels. In both biblical and non-biblical texts, there are lists with the structure of title, item list, narrative summary. In these cases, the narrative summary describes the contents of the list, so her too. v. 18a must refer to the five objects in the list in v. 17. Therefore, the waw at the beginning of v. 18 (and in v. 4) must be an explicative waw, namely. In other words, the five gold lumps are alternatively described as tumors and as mice and each object represents one of the Philistine cities with the villages belonging to it.