Abstract
It was the rabbis’ challenge to expound YHWH’s biblical meaning. And so they did, by grounding that meaning in a broader hermeneutical approach to Scripture, as well as by articulating its halachic-legal significance. This chapter analyzes the rabbinic hermeneutical decision to identify the name YHWH with the divine measure of mercy (midat ha-rachamim, commonly yet erroneously translated as “attribute of mercy”). Here I trace the meticulous rabbinic effort to set YHWH aside as a privileged name for the divine, above all other biblical and rabbinic appellations. By securing YHWH’s special status, the descriptive choice to identify it with the measure of mercy became an assertion of God’s very nature. Examining the notion of mercy in rabbinic literature, the chapter argues that for the rabbis, God’s nature was understood in dialogical rather than metaphysical terms, and closely linked to divine concern and personhood. The midrash, I argue, fixed YHWH’s meaning as “He who can be addressed and would respond compassionately”.
This chapter is an expanded version of an article co-authored with Moshe Halbertal and published previously in Hebrew.
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- 1.
This literary corpus deals extensively with issues pertaining to blessing and addresses the name of God in various ways in that context. Yet other than a single, rather cryptic mention in the Letter of Aristeas (25–26), the name YHWH receives no specific terminological or interpretive treatment. Nevertheless, cf. Orlov, Slavonic pseudepigrapha, 3–40.
- 2.
In “God and His Qualities”, Liebes traces the Hellenistic context crucial to understanding the origins of this identification and maps its avenues of influence.
- 3.
This view is comprehensively discussed further on. For a comprehensive research review on the subject, see Segal & Dahl, “Philo and the Rabbis”, footnotes 4, 6, 8, 9. Comparing the rabbinical view with that of Philo’s raises a historical question: which of them represents an earlier idea, and did the two sides form their views as a response or polemical debate with the other. Also, the dualistic structure of the measures of judgment and mercy invites a fascinating discussion of Zoroastrian or Gnostic influences, possibly even in the context of dualistic tendencies that appear in Second Temple literature. This chapter is not intended to contribute another such historical conjecture. Rather, it is aimed at examining the phenomenon itself: the meaning of the relationship between the concept of mercy and the name YHWH, and how this ties into the underlying rabbinical understanding of religious language.
- 4.
Out of all the tannaitic sources, the conflation of YHWH with the measure of mercy appears explicitly in this homily alone (Sifre on Deuteronomy 26:24. Cf. Hammer edition, p. 49), which is attributed to D’vei Rabbi Akiva. Yet it is difficult to claim that Rabbi Akiva’s school of thought adhered to the identification of YHWH with mercy. First, sources related to this school also tie the measure of mercy to the name Eli or “my Lord” (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 16:2: “the word Eli means only the measure of mercy”). Second, this school treats the Tetragrammaton not only as the signifier of the measure of mercy but also as the generic nomenclature for all of God’s attributes (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 15:1).
- 5.
See Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 226–230 for further discussion of this transition.
- 6.
Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Tractate Shirata, 174–175.
- 7.
Ibid., pp. 188–189. This tradition recognizes the identification of YHWH with the measure of mercy and tries to balance this with the description of God as “a man of war”. As evidence, the verse from Exod. 34 is quoted as in the homily in the Sifre on Deuteronomy.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 185 and the equivalent in Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 15:2. This division is partially in keeping with Philo’s approach of identifying the beneficent power with Elohim and the judging power with Adonai, as in both we find the general name El identified with the measure of mercy.
- 9.
Some even read a substitution of YHWH with Adonai in the Bible itself. See Segal, “El, Elohim”, 18–19.
- 10.
Genesis Rabbah 33:3 (Freedman & Simon edition, vol. 1, 262).
- 11.
See Weiss, Otiyot she-nivre’u, 155–165.
- 12.
Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Jethro 11; Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 20:21; Sifre Zuta 6:27; Mishnah Sotah 7:6.
- 13.
Tosefta Berakhot 6:22; Tosefta Taanit 1:11; Mishnah Yoma 3:8; ibid., 4:2; ibid., 6:2; Sifra Acharei Mot 2:4.
- 14.
In the Bible: “when he blasphemeth the Name, shall be put to death” (Lev. 24:16); in the Priestly blessing: “So shall they put My name upon the children of Israel” (Num. 6:27); and “in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned” (Exod. 20:24). In the Bible, the Divine Name is mentioned in relation to both blessings and curses, that is, in an arguably magical context. Regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, see fn. 43, 44.
- 15.
Scholarly opinions vary as to when the name YHWH ceased to be pronounced and the substitute Adonai, or the Greek, kurios, took over completely. Seventh-century BCE papyri from Elephantine transliterate the Name into Greek as either yhh or yhw, rendering the actual pronunciation to be Yaho or Yahu [Dupont-Sommer, “Yaho”, 175–191]. By the second century BCE, Dead Sea scribes already treated the name YHWH with extra care, either using a different font (square Hebrew) to distinguish the Name in their writing, or substituting the Name and using declinations of the more general El in its stead. The same phenomenon occurs in several Dead Sea Greek manuscripts translated from Hebrew: all these (7Q1, 4Q119 Rahlfs 801, 4Q122 Rahlfs 819, 7Q2 Rahlfs) unequivocally contain the name YHWH in the original Hebrew, rather than the substitute kurios. Furthermore, one scroll, 4Q120 frag.20, contains the transliteration of IAO for the name YHWH. It brought E. Tov to assert that “this text in in fact the earliest attested stage in the history of the LXX translation, when the name of God was represented by its transliteration, just like any other personal name in the LXX” [Tov, “Greek Biblical Texts” 112–113]. A contemporary exemplar of Ben-Sira, on the other hand, uses Adonai and El Elyon, refraining from use of both Elohim and YHWH [Hayward, “El Elyon”, 180–198]. In all likelihood, therefore, and as reflected by the tannaitic sources mentioned earlier, the name YHWH ceased to be pronounced through a long and gradual transition process. I concur here with Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 62: “Although Patrick Skehan proposed to set these different ways of handling the Tetragrammaton into chronological order (IAO, Hebrew square script, paleo-Hebrew script, kurios) … it may be better to hold that different conventions were held by different groups—perhaps at the same time”.
- 16.
Tosefta Berakhot 3:22.
- 17.
Tosefta Makkot 5:9, Neusner edition, 266.
- 18.
Mishnah Sotah 1:4. Cf. the baraita quoted in Bavli Shabbat 120b: “If one had a sacred name of God written on his skin he may neither wash it in water lest it be erased, nor may he smear it with oil, nor may he stand in a place of filth because it is disrespectful of God’s name. If an obligatory immersion happened to present itself, he wraps a reed over God’s name and then descends and immerses. Rabbi Yosei says: Actually, he descends and immerses in his usual manner, even if it is not a mitzva immersion, provided that he does not rub the spot and erase the Name.”
- 19.
Mishnah Makkot 3:6; Sifra Kedoshim 3:6.
- 20.
See Bohak, Jewish Magic 306; Bonner, Magical Amulets, amulets 254, 264, 361. On the hypothesis that the formula ʼIαβω is a corruption of YHWH, see Margaliot, Sepher ha-Razim, 7; Preisendanz, Papyri Magicae, vol. 2, 56, line 2 and line 6. See, also, Weiss, Otiyot she-nivre’u, 149–154.
- 21.
Urbach, The Sages, 101–102.; Liberman, Greek in Palestine, 91.
- 22.
Exod. 20:6; Lev. 24:10–16.
- 23.
Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:8.
- 24.
Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Tractate Nezikin, 5.
- 25.
Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:2.
- 26.
Mishnah Ta’anit 3:9.
- 27.
Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:5; Sifra Emor 14:14; Cf. Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1. This view of YHWH’s potency also highlights the innovation of identifying the Name with mercy.
- 28.
Leviticus Rabbah 32 (Freedman & Simon edition, vol. 4, 412); Ecclesiastics Rabbah 3:11:3.
- 29.
See Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, 11:12, 211: “‘And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him’ (Exod. 13:19). … Who made it known to Moses where Joseph is buried? People say it was Serah, daughter of Asher, who was still alive in that generation and told Moses, ‘Moses, Joseph is buried in the Nile river’. Thereupon Moses went and stood by the Nile river, calling out: Joseph, Joseph, the time has come when the holy one is redeeming His children. The Presence [Shekhinah] is awaiting you. Israel are awaiting you. The clouds of glory are awaiting you. If you make yourself visible, well and good. If not, we shall be innocent of violation of the oath you made our forebears swear. Immediately at these words, Joseph’s coffin floated up to the surface of the river. According to another account however, Moses took a shard, wrote God’s ineffable Name upon it, and threw the shard into the river. At once Joseph’s coffin floated up to the surface.” Cf. Ibid., 19:6, 328.
- 30.
Deuteronomy Rabbah, 10:10. Freedman & Simon edition, vol. 7, p 185.
- 31.
See Harari, Jewish Magic, 89–90, 364–365.
- 32.
Sifra Kedoshim 2:6. Neusner edition, vol. 3, 103–104.
- 33.
Sifre Zuta Nasso 6:27.
- 34.
See, also Mishnah Zebahim 4:6; Cf. Sifra, Dibbura di-Nedava, 14.
- 35.
Sifre on Numbers, 143. Cf. Sifra, Dibbura di-Nedava 2; Mehkilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 12.
- 36.
For a detailed discussion of the relation between the measures of mercy and judgment and the service of sacrifice, see Baer, “Service of Sacrifice”, 145–150. See also Hippolytus, Refutation of Heresies, book 5, 9f, 16, on the Gnostic sect named the Peratas: “Cain whose sacrifice was not accepted by the god of this world; but he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel, for the lord of this world delights in blood”. An implied parallel may be found in the Gospel of Judas, 21, and thanks to Dr. Eduard Iricinshi for pointing me to this source.
- 37.
See, for example, Marcion’s claims against the Old Testament’s divinity, in Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 2, I, 27. Note though that no direct discussion of the name YHWH remains in the name of Marcion. On Marcion’s positions regarding the biblical God, see Moll, Arch-Heretic, 57, 75, 80–85. Cf. Quispel, Gnostica, 68–70.
- 38.
For the equation of YHWH transliterated as IAO with the offspring of Ialadabaoth, see Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 1, 5, 30. For the identification of YHWH transliterated as Yave see Nag Hammadi, II.1, 24.
- 39.
Against the gnostic claims, one can find a systematic apologetic effort by church fathers to present the biblical god as merciful. See Crouzel, Origen, 184–185.
- 40.
For this reason, the term “the Name as it is written” is equivalent to the “Articulated Name”. See Mishnah Tamid 7:2 and Sifre on Numbers 39:25.
- 41.
As opposed to the term “name” preceded by an indefinite article, which does not necessarily refer to God but to any kind of name, including God’s. For example: “It is, therefore, written ‘in My name’—any name that I have” (Sifra, Kedoshim 2:6).
- 42.
Mishnah Tamid (7:2).
- 43.
There is no solid evidence in tannaitic literature that this “kinui” is Adonai. Amoraic literature, however, notes this in several places. For example, Babylonian Talmud, Kidushin 71a: “thus said the Holy One, praised be He: ‘Not as My name is written shall it be pronounced. It is written yod, he [YHWH], but is pronounced alef, dalet [Adonai]’”; Cf. Babylonian, Pesachim 50a: “Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said: The World-to-Come is not like this world. In this world, God’s name that is written with the letters yod and he and is read as Adonai, which begins with the letters alef and dalet. God’s name is not pronounced in the same way as it is written. However, in the World-to-Come it will all be one, as God’s name will be both read with the letters yod and he and written with the letters yod and he.”
- 44.
See, for example, Community Rule, XI, 15. The following chapter elaborates upon the relationship between the Name and is substitute [kinui] among the rabbis, including comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- 45.
In the Tosefta, Berakhot, extending the sanctity of YHWH to Adonai is rejected and criticized (Berakhot 6:20): “[A person] who begins [his blessings] with yod heh and ends [his blessings] with yod he is a wise person. [A person who begins his blessings] with alef lamed (i.e. El or Elohim), but ends with yod he is an average person. [A person who begins his blessings] with yod he but ends with alef lamed is a boor [ignorant]. [A person who begins] with alef lamed (i.e. El or Elohim), and ends with alef lamed follows a heterodox way.” See Liberman, Tosefta ki-Feshuta, Berakhot, 122.
- 46.
The word “kinui” is used in tannaitic literature to denote distance or circumvention—for example, in substitutes for oaths, or in Mekhilta homilies concerning “clean language” (Tractate Shirata, 6).
- 47.
Another example is Mishnah Shevuot 4:13: “‘I make you swear’, ‘I command you’, ‘I forbid you’, these are liable‘.By the heavens and the earth’, these are exempt. With alef, dalet, with yod, he, with Shaddai, with Sabaoth, with the Gracious and Merciful One, with Slow to Anger and Abundantly Kind, and with all kinuyim, these are liable.”
- 48.
Urbach, The Sages, 160–163.
- 49.
Orlov, Slavonic pseudepigrapha, 38–39.
- 50.
S. Naeh explains in “Poterion” that the measure of mercy as conveyed by several Aramaic translations is close in meaning to love. Therefore, when God shows mercy, there is random element to His action. This position is not expressed in rabbinic literature.
- 51.
See Pirkey Avot 2:13; Tosefta Bava Kamma 9:11; Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 3:6; ibid. 3:14; Sifre on Numbers 77:134; Sifre Zuta 12; Sifre on Deuteronomy 29; ibid. 326.
- 52.
See Spinoza, Ethics, Part III, “Definitions of the Emotions”, prop. XXXVII. Spinoza differentiates anger from revenge in that revenge aims to injure the other as much as he has injured me, while anger does not depend on my having suffering first, and satisfying it is not limited to ensuring that the other suffers as much as I do.
- 53.
This view is commensurate with the view of mercy in Seneca, De Clementia, vol. 2, chapters 3, 1–2. Seneca (ibid.) sees mercy as “a restraining of the mind from vengeance when it is in its power to avenge itself”, or it is “gentleness shown by a powerful man in fixing the punishment of a weaker one”.
- 54.
Apofasis (αʼπόφασις) in Greek: verdict, court ruling.
- 55.
Midrash Tanhuma, Tazri’a 11.
- 56.
This source can also be read as a debate, not over including mercy in legal rulings, but over the question which arguments are relevant when the law is silent. In this reading, Rabbi Tarfon proposes that considerations of charity apply when the law remains unclear. Rabbi Akiva’s comment that there is no room for mercy in the law is rhetorical rather than a formal argument. I thank Professor Lorberbaum for introducing this possibility.
- 57.
Genesis Rabbah 49:9, Friedman & Simon, 1939, 429–430. For a comprehensive discussion of this homily, see Naeh, “Poterion”.
- 58.
The following makes it clear why mercy is what makes the creation of humanity possible to begin with: “Rabbi Berekhiah said: When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create Adam, He saw righteous and wicked arising from him. Said he: if I create him, wicked men will spring out of him. If I do not create him, how are the righteous to spring from him? What then did the Lord do? He removed the way of the wicked out of His sight, and associated with the measure of Mercy” (ibid. 8:3, Freedman & Simon edition, vol. 1, 57). Mercy is, therefore, an essential part of judgment and, in this case, not in regard to one defendant or another but to the human condition as a whole.
- 59.
Devarim Rabbah 2:1, Freedman & Simon edition, vol. 7, 30.
- 60.
For a detailed discussion of the Tannaitic term, see Elitzur, “Midah”, 19–30.
- 61.
As arises from Mishnah Beizah 3:8: “One may say to his fellow [on a holiday], ‘Fill this vessel [midah] for me’, but it may not be of a specific measure. Rabbi Yehudah says: if it is a measuring vessel, one may not fill it. It happened that Abba Sha’ul ben Batnit would fill his measuring vessels [midot] on the eves of holidays and give them to customers on the festival.” The same meaning applies to the idiom “with the measure that a man measures, so is he measured”, which appears in the Mishnah and in halakhic homilies (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Tractate Beshalach; Sifre on Numbers 106; Mishnah Sotah 1:7; Tosefta Sotah 3:1; ibid. 4:1). The literal (peshat) meaning of this expression is tied to the context of daily trade. A merchant using a dishonest measuring vessel is warned that this same instrument will serve to measure his reward or barter. Therefore, cheating on quantities with customers will be rewarded by lesser payment.
- 62.
Sifre on Numbers 106:5: “For You subdue with mercy the attribute of judgment, viz. (Michah 7:18) ‘Who is a God like You, forgiving transgression and passing by offense’, (19) ‘He will return and be merciful to us, He will subdue our transgressions’, (20) ‘You will give truth to Ya’akov’”. The possibility that the paired measures of mercy and judgment are a development of an earlier pair, the measure of goodness and the measure of transgression, has received close scholarly attention. Aside from the existing discussion, it is worth noting that whatever the influence the earlier pair had on the later pair, there is a significant conceptual difference between them. The expression “measure of good” or “goodness” relates to a person’s reward for good deeds, and the saying “greater is the measure of good than that of punishment” (Tosefta Sotah 4:1) contain a promise that the reward for a good deed is consistently greater than the debt incurred by sin. Yet, as discussed earlier, mercy is not a reward for positive action but rather the suspension or mitigation of punishment, even when the sin is acknowledged. Therefore, even if the expression “measure of mercy” developed out of the “measure of goodness”, the two are not synonymous. Rather, the development shifted the binary from reward versus punishment to the issue of actually carrying out the punishment or not. See Urbach, The Sages, 448–461; Marmorstein, “Philo and the Names”, 297–299. As Urbach aptly remarks (450): “although it is stated that the attribute of good exceeds that of retribution, yet the proof adduced for this fact shows this surplus is also comprised within the confines of justice”.
- 63.
Philo, The Special Laws I, 307, Loeb edition vol. 7, 277–299.
- 64.
One of Philo’s important sources of inspiration is the fact that in Genesis 1, the name Elohim is used when denoting God the creator. Philo holds that the creation is a manifestation of God’s basic benevolence and kindness: “the power to which Moses gives the name ‘God’, since by it the universe was established and ordered. It urges him to flee for refuge to the creative power, knowing that to one who has grasped the fact that the whole world was brought into being a vast good accrues, even the knowledge of its Maker, which straightway wins the thing created to love Him to whom it owes its being.” On Flight and Finding, 97, Loeb edition vol. 5, 63.
- 65.
Scholarship has primarily focused on the historical interrelation between Philo’s identification of God’s beneficence with the name commonly translated as Elohim in the Septuagint and his identification of the power leading and judging the world with the name that usually serves as the substitute for YHWH. For an earlier discussion on this matter, see Fraenkel, Über Den Einfluß, and Marmorstein, “Philo and the Names”. For a comprehensive literature review, see Segal, “Philo and the Rabbis”, footnotes 4, 6, 8, 9, and Segal, Two Powers, 33–57, 152–153.
- 66.
Philo, On the Change of Names 15–17; On the Unchangeableness of God 74–78; ibid., 109; Questions and Answers on Genesis IV, 2, 3.
- 67.
On Abraham, 119–121, Leob edition, vol. 5, 63.
- 68.
On the Change of Names, 15: “δια` τω˜ν υʽπηκόων δυνάμεων, καθ' α῝ς και‵ κύριος και‵ θεός', and also: 'τω˜ν περι‵ αυʼτo` δυνάμεων'”.
- 69.
The many sources are consistent. See, for example: The Special Laws I, 307; On the Cherubim, 27–30; The Decalogue, 176–177; Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 57; ibid., II, 16; ibid., 51; ibid., 75; ibid., III, 39; ibid., IV, 87; Allegorical Interpretation I, 95; ibid., III, 73; On Husbandry, 85–87; On the Confusion of Tongues, 137.
- 70.
Moses I, 75, Loeb edition, vol. VI, 315.
- 71.
Exodus Rabbah 3:6: “I am called according to My deeds. Sometimes I am called ‘El Shaddai’, ‘Sabaoth’, ‘Elohim’, ‘YHWH’. When I judge the creations, I am called ‘Elohim’ [Judge].” When I am waging war against the wicked, I am called “Sabaoth” [Lord of Hosts]. When I suspend [punishment] for a man’s sins, I am called “El Shaddai” (Almighty God). When I am merciful toward My world, I am called “YHWH”. This collection of homilies demonstrates that rabbinical discourse over the meaning of Ehyeh asher ehyeh was not metaphysically oriented.
- 72.
See Urbach, The Sages, 453: “Whilst in the original text the readers saw the Specific Name as it was spelled, and even when they did not read it according to its spelling they knew that the spelling was of primary importance, the Hellenistic reader was confronted by the word κύριος in its accepted sense”. While Urbach rightly notes that Philo’s identification relies on the Septuagint’s κύριος rather than YHWH, he overlooks the important fact that Philo acknowledged the four-letter name represents absolute existence.
- 73.
See, also, Wolfson, Philo, vol. 2, 120–122, fn. 60.
- 74.
The context in which Philo situates the discussion of the four-letter name is not a coincidental one, for this is where the Bible itself deals with the name “as it is written”. The Name “as it is pronounced” cannot replace the Name itself in this specific case. Whereas the Septuagint insists here too on using “Lord” instead of YHWH, Philo asserts: “Above the turban is the golden plate on which the graven shapes of four letters, indicating, as we are told, the name of the Self-Existent, are impressed, meaning that it is impossible for anything that is to subsist without invocation of Him; for it is His goodness and gracious power which join and compact all things”, Moses II, 132, Loeb edition vol. VI, 513. Cf. Letter of Aristeas, 25–26.
- 75.
It is worth noting that while Philo’s God is defined as Supreme Being existence, He is not locked within the mysteries of His being. He creates His world with bountifulness that emanates from His powers, much like an overflowing river. This view is clearly expressed in the following quote from Moses II, 132: “for it is His goodness and gracious power which join and compact all things”. Yet identifying the basic goodness of God’s bounty, which is ontological, is quite different from the rabbinical link between YHWH and mercy. This link is forged not as an ontological conception but rather by understanding the relationship between God and His creations as intersubjective, and seeing God Himself as a compassionate subject.
- 76.
See Pelikan, Christian Tradition, 80, for a broad, although inexhaustive, list of patristic references. See Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 89–122, for further discussion on the topic.
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Ben-Sasson, H. (2019). Compassionate Presence: YHWH and the Measure of Mercy. In: Understanding YHWH. Jewish Thought and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32312-7_3
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