The Effective Simile in Biblical Literature

Abstract

PROF. S. N. KRAMER HAS WRITTEN ABOUT SUMERIAN SIMILES from a literary point of view,' an interest to which G. Buccellati has already paid appropriate tribute.' It is my intention to investigate certain biblical similes, and their counterparts in Mesopotamian literature, not so much as part of literary production as of speech, that is, speech intended to produce an effect in the world beyond ordinary discourse. If it were not certain to invite misunderstanding, especially on the biblical side, the paper might have been called Similes and Magic. Magical texts and treaties in Akkadian and Hittite abound in similes. At least two types of similes must be distinguished in the magical texts and in the lists of curses in simile form. The first involves manipulation of an object. Thus the benevolent witch-doctor in the Maqlfi series, intending to rid a victim of a blackmagic spell, makes images of tallow, copper, dough, asphalt, clay, or wax.3 These figures are identified with the sorcerer or sorceress who has laid the spell on the victim.4 Then they are burned as the magician recites the spell, containing a simile: As these figures melt, dissolve, and run down, so may sorcerer and sorceress melt, dissolve, and run down!5 A parallel is Sefire I A 36-37 This GNB' and [... .] (are) Mati'el; it is his person. Just as this wax is burned by fire, so may Mati'[el be burned by fi]re!6 Note here the explicit identification of Mati'el with the wax, and that the identification precedes the simile. Similarly, in the Akkadian treaty between Ashurnirari V of Assyria and Mati'ilu: This head is not the head of a lamb, it is the head of Mati'ilu, it is the head of his sons, his officials, and the people of his land. If Mati'ilu sins against this treaty, so may, just as the head of this spring lamb is torn off, and its knuckle placed in its mouth, . . ., the head of Mati'ilu be torn off, and his sons . . . , etc.7 The simile follows, and depends on, a magical identification which is posited. Its intention is perfectly clear. We do not know in all cases of similes in magical texts and curses whether actual objects were manipulated. Clearly, this sort of simile, accompanying a rite, is not meant to decorate the discourse, or to arouse or give vent to emotions, or to point out a resemblance between two different objects. The spell is meant above all to work, to be effective, to accomplish something in the practical world. The language of the spell is not in the ordinary sense communication, but effective objective action. Furthermore, these similes involve first of all an explicit or implicit identification of two different objects, and comparison comes in only in the second place: what is done to the one object is to have similar effect on the other. Moreover, the relation between the two objects is not so much perceived as it is posited. In many cases in magical texts or treaty-curses, we are not told any concrete rite accompanied the simile, and it seems practically certain that none did. For example take these similes from an Akkadian Fire Incantation (Section II, lines 11-15):8 Depart like a snake from your hole (?) Like a partridge (?) from your lair. Do not turn back to your prey. ' S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Similes: A Panoramic View of Man's Oldest Literary Images, JAOS 89 (1969), 1-10. 2 Giorgio Buccellati, Towards a Formal Typology of Akkadian Similes, in Cuneiform Studies in Honor of Samuel Noah Kramer. Ed. by B. L. Eichler et al. 1976, 59-70. 3 Gerhard Meier, Die assyrische Beschworungssammlung Maqlt2 [AfO Beiheft 2]. 1937, passim. 4This is especially clear in 1 31-33 and III 17-21. 5I I 146-47; similar expressions occur elsewhere in the series. 6 The translation is that of Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [Biblica et Orientalia, 19]. 1967, 15. 7 Translated by Erica Reiner, in The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. by James B. Pritchard. 1969, 532-3 (96-97). Hereafter cited as A NET3. 8 W. G. Lambert, Fire Incantations, AfO 23 (1970), 40.