Various tactics of worship contributed to the maintenance of the state of Judah and its successor communities. This article will survey accounts of politically oriented rituals from the beginnings of the Judahite monarchy to the end of the Hasmonaean kingdom. A focus on Judah and its successor societies can be justified for three reasons. First, the bulk of the biblical evidence has been transmitted from a Judahite perspective. Second, it remains difficult to construct the religion of pre-monarchical Israel. Finally, although the biblical record alludes to liturgical rites conducted in the northern kingdom of Israel, there are few religious texts that can be credibly connected with the north. The discussion proceeds in the following sections:
While ancient kingdoms such as Judah may be described as states (see Westbrook 2000, 28–30), terms such as “official religion” or “state religion” can only be employed with caution. For example, Zevit (2001, 658–664) has dismissed the concept of an official religion during the monarchical period as an anachronism. According to Zevit, during the pre-monarchical period, one of more loose confederations of clans/tribes made the decision to inaugurate a state ruled by a king (e.g., 1 Sam 8:4–5). These early attempts at unification or shared governance helped to create a sort of religious consensus among the political entities that comprised these confederacies. By the end of the so-called “United Monarchy” (if not earlier), there emerged a common recognition that Yhwh was the chief, but by no means, the only deity, and a shared repertoire of cultic actions. The strength of such centripetal social forces should not be overestimated, however. The description just given does not encompass the entire religious life of ancient Israel or its political ramifications (Zevit 2001, 663–664).
Part of the difficulty in using a term such as “official religion,” is that monarchical Judah was characterized by “internal religious pluralism.” This phrase points to the fact that Israelite society was made up of intersecting forms of religious engagement, often distinguished on the basis of family, local, and national concerns (e.g., Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 53; Römer 2015, 106). Each of these units of social organization had characteristic cultic institutions that helped sustain their collective life. While some of their practices of worship were conducive to the absorption of family and clan groupings into the monarchy, they also had the potential to aid them in resisting domination by the state.
As far as the term “state religion” is concerned, ancient Near Eastern states were often conceived as a sort of household on a grand scale (Launderville 2003, 82; Westbrook 2000, 29). Therefore one would expect that some of the cultic tasks typically carried by the head of the family would be paralleled in a monarchical state. That is, the deity considered to be the king’s personal protector would achieve a certain status as the family/nation’s chief (if not only) god, and various kinds of rituals and liturgies would be used to cement the loyalties of the “family” in a variety ways. The result would be the creation of a kind of state religion, with a focus on the king, his god, and the places where he chose to worship.
The question as to whether Judah realized a state religion in the monarchical period depends on assessments of the success of the monarchy in centralizing vital acts of worship in its capital city, Jerusalem. The Bible records two efforts in this regard. One of these is ascribed to Hezekiah in the late 8th century, presumably in anticipation of an attack by Assyria (2 Kgs 18:22). The other is attributed to Josiah c. 622 bce (2 Kings 22–23). While the report about Josiah’s reforms contains data with historiographical significance (Arneth 2001; Uehlinger 2005), the case of Hezekiah is more problematic (cf. Edelman 2008; Herzog 2010). Nevertheless, archaeological evidence such as the distribution of the lmlk-jars and the erection of large-scale fortifications point to policies of centralization during the later Iron II period (Maier and Shai 2016, 325–326). For that reason, the metaphor of “centralization” can be used to characterize a basic impulse of the religious politics of Judah and its successor societies.
Nevertheless, as efforts at centralization were not entirely successful during the monarchical period, especially in the area of religion, it remains debatable whether monarchical Judah manifested a form of state religion. Biblical and archaeological data indicate that, after the death of Hezekiah, the religious life of Judah continued to reflect a traditional plurality of worship practices under the reign of Manasseh (Dever 1994, 160; Gnuse 1997, 179). As for Josiah, his religious reforms probably failed within months of his death (Zevit 2001, 662).
An idealized form of state religion finds its home among the post-exilic literati in Persian-era Yehud, who to some extent projected the idea of centralized worship onto Israel’s history from its beginnings. So, for example, Numbers 2 depicts all of Israel clustered around a sole, central sanctuary in the desert; and Solomon’s prayer of dedication in 1 Kings 8 (exilic or post-exilic in its canonical form) presents centralized worship as the intention of Israelite religion ab initio (Knoppers 1995, 25). However, as the literati were not actually in possession of a politically independent state it seems better to talk of the scriptural ideal as a “national religion,” although it had antecedents in the policies of Judah’s kings. Such a term has biblical precedent, because Israel was called a “nation” (cf. ‘am in Exodus 19 and gôy in Deut 26:5) even when it did not formally constitute itself as a state.
The literati organized and transmitted a scriptural patrimony intended to support their ideological and political claims as the true representatives of a national religion. This included selection and organization of liturgical materials (e.g., instructions for sacrifice and psalms) and historical accounts of Israel’s religious and worship practices to validate their view that Jerusalem was the only legitimate place of sacrifice and the political and religious center of early Jewish polity. This literature attests to various liturgical tactics used to control the domestic cult and the rather amorphous category of local and kin-based groups. In some cases, however, it remains uncertain whether these tactics were actually employed during the monarchical period. For that reason, this essay is less interested in determining the historicity of any particular worship ritual, than in describing its ideological significance.
In his description of the origins of the modern nation-state, Benedict Anderson describes them as “imagined communities” (2006, 5–6). While it would be anachronistic to describe the kingdom of Judah as a “nation state,” it also relied on acts of collective imagination. Worship and liturgical actions played a key role in constituting it and its successor societies as “sacred imagined communities” (Anderson 2006, 41). As employed in both Judah and the ancient Near East, political rituals had a number of characteristics:
Political rituals are capable not only of defining power, but actually of constructing it (Bell 1997, 129). Good examples of ritually mediated power construction in the ancient Near East can be found in ratification ceremonies for treaties and loyalty oaths. The legally binding action of treaty-making was the oath taken in the presence of the god(s). Biblical texts allude to formal political relationships between states (e.g., 1 Sam 11:1–4; 2 Sam 10:19; 1 Kgs 5:26; 2 Kgs 16:7; 17:3–4) and loyalty oaths between Israel and its monarchs (e.g., in 2 Sam 5:3 and 2 Kgs 11:12) that would have been effected by oath-ceremonies. This process can also be seen in ancient Near Eastern texts such as the Succession Treaties of Esarhaddon, which are stamped with seals of the god Aššur. Impressing these treaties with the signature of the god can be connected to the mythological concept of the “tablet of destinies.” Using the god’s seal was transformative, turning mundane stipulations into the destinies of the persons named on the treaty (Lauinger 2013, 109–110).
The treaty metaphors used in constructing Israel’s relationship with Yhwh also produced a sense of common destiny and belonging. Allegiance to a political organization can be created and expressed through symbolism that objectifies relationships between individuals and organizations (Kertzer 1988, 16–17). Common to all biblically based covenants is the assumption that a covenant with Yhwh would result in the key markers of nationhood: self-governance, the administration of law, and territorial control (see Miller 2011, 164). Not all biblical covenants are built on the same model, however. For example, rhetoric in Exodus and Deuteronomy borrows from ANE vassal treaties, while Josh 24:2–28 seems to be built on the model of a land conveyance (Tagger-Cohen 2005, 36–42). The Rule of the Community from Qumran represents a form of covenant that has resemblances to ceremonies of curses and blessings found in Num 6:26 and Deuteronomy 27. At Qumran, both priests and Levites invoked divine consequences for keeping the covenant (blessing) or breaking it (curses), during its annual renewal. Allusions to the Aaronic blessing were used as to reinforce the group’s loyalty to Zadokite-priestly teachings in opposition to other models of community in the Second Temple period (Nizan 2000, 271).
Liturgical practices can serve to mark group members off from non-members (Kertzer 1988, 17–21). This enables them to carve out a distinct identity through both mythical and ritual means. For example, this function is at work in rules against certain mourning rituals and dietary rules (e.g., Deut 14:1–21), and the use of Sabbath observance as a key marker of early Jewish identity in the post-exilic period (e.g., Isa 56:1–8; Neh 10:31).
Political rituals offer significant means for coordinating the actions of different local groupings in favor of a more comprehensive political organization (Kertzer 1988, 21–24). One of the most potent mechanisms for tying groups to a national entity is through the simultaneity of symbolic action. Deuteronomy’s attempt to centralize sacrificial worship at the “place which Yhwh your God will choose” during the pilgrim festivals illustrates this liturgical tactic (16:1–17). Observance of common liturgical times and practices also helped to bind diaspora Jews with their compatriots in Judea. While they were unable to sacrifice, maintaining the festival of Unleavened Bread or fasting on Yom Kippur created a sense of unity between various communities that wanted to identify with the center of early Jewish life in Jerusalem.
In general terms, the creation of a new nation requires a massive effort of symbolic construction, of creating a sense of unity that facilitates identification with a new, abstract entity called the “nation.” Political rituals work to persuade a populace that some group or person has the right to impose their will on others by investing them with the symbols of power (Kertzer 1988, 24–29). National identity is thereby made to be seen as a “natural” social unit (Kertzer 1988, 178–179). This concept is illustrated by the merger of the myths of Zion and a divine covenant with the Davidic dynasty in a number of the royal psalms (see discussion in section 5: Kingship and Cult).
Ritual means can also be used to divest groups of power in favor of the center. This can be seen, for example, in a development that parallels the constitution of the community of Yehud during the time of Ezra-Nehemiah and in the Damascus document. These writings depict household heads coming under the purview of higher forms of social organization (cf. Neh 10:28–39; CD-A 14:3–19a), whose power was communicated ritually in public gatherings (Hempel 2010).
Ritual also has an important role to play in political conflict and change (Kertzer 1988, 29–34). While it is typical to describe political rituals as instruments for communicating and legitimizing existing political systems and power holders, ritual actions can also undermine them (153). In this connection, Berman has pointed out that the treaty traditions of the Pentateuch envisage a type of community of more or less (male) equals in which divine kingship was primary. As such, they implicitly challenged the claims of human monarchies to unconditional divine sanction (Berman 2008, 40–45).
An important form of communication can be found in the class of political rituals called ceremonial displays (Bell 1997, 129). A good example is found in David’s introduction of the ark into Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:12–19). While David’s actions has been interpreted as evidence that there was regular procession of the ark into the temple, the narrative more likely reflects a standard ancient Near Eastern ritual: the introduction of a national god to a new royal city. In particular, there are some close resemblances with Assurbanipal’s return of Marduk to the city of Babylon. The pattern consists of (Miller 2000, 194–195)
By conspicuously introducing the ark into Jerusalem, David would have reinforced the close relationship between the king of Judah and the national god.
Family/household religion fulfilled the functions of strengthening, stabilizing, and preserving the family unit (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 426). Although it has been suggested that the development of a national religion in early Judaism worked to suppress the religion of the family household (e.g., Blenkinsopp 1997, 89–90), it is erroneous to assume influence only went one way. While certain aspects of family religion were repressed, others were incorporated into the national cult. Moreover, during the exile and throughout the diaspora many family rituals became symbolic of national religious identity, including celebration of the Passover, circumcision, Sabbath-observance, and dietary customs (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 427–28).
Archaeological investigation of domestic dwellings in ancient Israel shows a strong relationship between areas that contained cultic vessels and objects involved in food production. This material evidence strengthens the case for claims that women played important roles in the religious life of ancient Israel (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 225). At least in pre-exilic times, some of these cultic activities likely involved propitiation of female deities. Although Deuteronomic thinkers condemned goddess cults as part of their agenda for creating a national religion (e.g., 2 Kgs 21:7; 23:4–7), exponents of family religion resisted this pressure. For example, Jer 7:17–18; 44:15–19 describe what is essentially a female cult directed to a goddess that continued into the exilic era. The political ramifications of these actions were not lost on either the prophet or his opponents. While Jeremiah believed that this kind of religious activity led to Yhwh’s destruction of Jerusalem, according to his challengers, it was neglect of her worship that had brought about national catastrophe (Zevit 2001, 553–555).
Along with opposition to goddess worship, the attempt to control family religion also appears in scriptural polemics against the cult of the dead. While there is little evidence for the veneration of ancestors as divine beings in Israelite society, honoring and remembering the dead were important ritual activities that maintained family identity (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 493–495). The biblical material does not allow for these domestic rites to be constructed in detail; but, the Mesopotamian ritual of kišpu is helpful for reconstructing the family cult of the dead in pre-exilic Israel (Blenkinsopp 1997, 81).
The cult of the dead was closely linked to claims over traditional lands identified as the heritage of the family. However, traditional connections between land and family had become unviable in the late monarchial period and during the exile (van der Toorn 1995, 359). Not surprisingly, therefore, the biblical polemic against cults of the dead emerged especially in the late monarchy and thereafter (e.g., Deut 18:11; Isa 57:9; 65:4). Still, these efforts were not entirely successful. Veneration of the honored dead continued into the post-exilic era, as attested, for example, in Tobit 4:17 and Sir 30:18.
Opposition to the veneration of the dead found expression in liturgical poetry such as Psalm 16. This psalm served in early Jewish liturgies to clarify the individual’s affiliation with the larger group that worshipped Yhwh (Gerstenberger 1988, 92). It uses vocabulary traditionally associated with the inheritance of land to advance the claim that the real inheritance of Israel is with Yhwh himself (vv. 5–6). Although the psalm acknowledges the existence of the “holy ones” (v. 3), if one understands this phrase as a reference to the honored dead, the psalm opposes rituals of libation for them or calling out their names (v. 4)—two ritual activities associated with the care of the dead in family religion (van der Toorn, 1995, 210–211).
More positive attempts to integrate family life fully into the ambit of the national religion appear in birth rituals. Traditional agricultural societies considered birth as a key life passage that had to be addressed by ritual means (Jay 1992, 30–40). The idea that birth entailed cultic impurity was widespread in the ancient world (Milgrom 1991, 1:763–765). On such occasions the family resorted to local and regional shrines where sacrifice could take place. The process is reflected in Leviticus 12, which is associated with rites at Israel’s central shrine in its canonical context. Another birth ritual that was given nationalistic significance was the redemption of the first-born son (e.g., Exod 34:20; Num 18:15–16). According to ancient custom, the family’s first-born male was destined to preside over various family rites, including sacrifice at local shrines (Zevit 2001, 665). This custom is both acknowledged and transformed in biblical law in favor of the tribe of Levi and its exclusive claims to oversee legitimate sacrifice and to preside at Israel’s central (and only) shrine (Num 3:11–13).
Even so, family religion was able to maintain some degree of independence from the domination of the central cult. For example, when the Passover sacrifice was centralized in the Second Temple, lay people retained certain privileges. On the day of the sacrifice, laymen were endowed with priestly privileges that allowed them to preside over the offering of the sacrifice, while the offering itself was consumed in family groupings (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 400).
Family religion also involved ceremonies meant to address sickness and various forms of social distress. Probably these were initially performed following oral traditions by elders and other local ritual experts available to the family. This process is reflected in but also transformed by the lament or complaint psalm traditions preserved in the psalter. I have described how the psalms of lament came under the aegis of the central sanctuary at length in a previous publication (Morrow 2006, 69–72). Nevertheless, this is not the only political process implicated in their composition. Many complaint psalms aim to reconnect the suffering person with a wider support group. In this connection, it is notable that some lament psalms not only address God but also a human audience. The attempt to use both prayer and dialogue to recommend the sufferer as a trustworthy person deserving of help aims reflects the fierce rivalries of village life in which physical and social decline offered opportunities for exploitation by members of the wider group (Suderman 2012: 204–210).
While various accounts exist for the demise of personal complaint prayer as a formal liturgical practice, political considerations should also be invoked. The religious imagination in the post-exilic period was informed by imperial politics, and it became necessary to imagine a more transcendent and less arbitrary deity than the one assumed by the complaint tradition in order to comprehend the challenges of domination by vast foreign powers. In time these theological developments led to an eclipse of individual lament liturgies and development of new forms for addressing personal distress including exorcism (Morrow 2006, 204–205).
The challenge posed by groups above the family level but below the nation differ between the monarchical and post-monarchical era. During the kingdom of Judah, rulers had to deal with groups that claimed the right to refuse to assimilate to the national ideal. In the post-exilic era, however, various groups vied with each other in presenting themselves as the best representative of the national ideal. Paradigmatic in this regard are the sectarians at Qumran. Various efforts to resist the hegemonic claims of Jerusalem in the post-exilic period are described in section 6 on sacrifice.
In many ways, the primary social unit in ancient Israel through to the late monarchy was not the family, but the extended set of kinship relationships designated by modern terms such as “clan” or “tribe” (van der Toorn 1995, 201–204). The clan played a vital role in family religious life since animal sacrifice normally took place outside the domestic sphere (Albertz and Schmitt 2012, 480–482). Some celebrations were dictated by the calendar (e.g., pilgrimage festivals), while some were ad hoc, such as the fulfillment of vows (Zevit 2001, 663).
Recent thinking on pre-exilic political organization emphasizes the importance of clan organizations and local elites in the kingdom of Judah (Maier and Shai 2016, 329–330). Their power was probably communicated by religious institutions and practices that could function independently of the monarchy (e.g., “high places”), many of which must have been in place before the institution of kingship came into being (Zevit 2001, 479). A good example can be found in the clan-based annual ceremony alluded to in 1 Sam 20:6–34. Saul’s anger on hearing that David had left the royal court to attend it was probably kindled by the awareness that such a gathering could serve as an occasion for plotting revolt (Blenkinsopp 1997, 80).
As a political unit, the clan lost much of its political and religious significance by the end of the monarchy (Zevit 2001, 644). However, the clan model does not exhaust the possibilities for creating groups that may oppose a certain model of state organization. Germane in this connection are pre-exilic groups that supported prophetic intermediaries who opposed royal policies. They used fictive kinship language to create economically interdependent social units, cf. “the sons of the prophets” in 2 Kings 4 (Blenkinsopp 1997, 91). In the stories of Elijah and Elisha they appear as an important base of support for the prophets’ attempts to undermine royal control of the religious life of Israel. Identification of similar groups in Judah rests on less compelling evidence, but the reference to Isaiah’s disciples (Isa 8:16) suggests that analogous prophetic groupings may have played a part in the religion of the southern kingdom.
In general, political rituals related to the monarchy possess functions such as the following:
As noted above, the Israelite monarchy came into being because tribal entities were willing to cede certain tradition prerogatives to the king (Zevit 2001, 616–617). This fact would raise questions about the nature of centralized authority. Was it only constituted by the ritualized consent of the entities who agreed to it (and who were, therefore, free to contest central rule); or did the centrality of the nation and its rulers trump the rights of the tribes? One way ancient Near Eastern monarchs could enhance their prestige was through the (re-)construction of monumental architecture, particularly cult sites (Launderville 2003, 185). Such patronage served to legitimate royal rule (Perdue 1997, 200). The kings of Israel and Judah, not surprisingly, are often described as builders and sponsors of sacrificial cults. From the perspective of biblical literature, the most important element in this kind of royal activity was the establishment of a temple for Yhwh in Jerusalem (1 Kings 6–8; 2 Chronicles 2–5).
A question related to the one posed in the last paragraph emerges from the recognition that a person becomes king through a ritual inaugurated by others. Does the ritual not show, therefore, that the king is dependent on their power to legitimate his rule? The solution to this dilemma is to use words and symbols that indicate the king has really been placed on the throne by the direct appointment of divine forces (Kertzer 1988, 27). In Judah, this was accomplished through the merger of dynastic claims with the theology of Zion. This synthesis is illustrated in themes of the royal psalms (Balentine 1984, 57):
Approximately 11 psalms can be reliably classified as “royal psalms’: 2; 18; 20; 21; 45; 72; 89; 101; 110; 132; 144 (Starbuck 1999, 66). They comprise a variety of genres, but their common denominator is that they refer to a monarch of Judah (Balentine 1984, 57).
It is difficult to date the royal psalms with precision (Brettler 1989, 24–25). Part of the difficulty is that their canonical forms suggest that they have been appropriated from a variety of traditions to reinforce conceptions of Yhwh’s ideal monarch. In contrast to ancient Near Eastern parallels, the anonymity of the royal psalms is striking (Starbuck 1999, 205–206). Another indication of secondary appropriation is their arrangement in the Psalter. For example, according to Wilson, the placement of Psalms 2 and 89 at the seams of Books 2–3 in the Psalter reflects an exilic or post-exilic agenda that hopes for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy (1986, 92).
Nevertheless, it is possible to discover some features of the ideology of Judah’s monarch in the royal psalms (Starbuck 1999, 205). In this regard, there is an impressive overlap between these poems, the praise of Zion (e.g., Psalms 46; 48; 87), and hymns that proclaim the kingship of Yhwh (e.g., Psalms 47; 93; 95–99). Their convergence of themes shows a concerted attempt to exalt the king and his election by God. While Zion is the seat of the Davidic monarchy, it is also the mythical mountain of God (Ps 48:2; Levenson 1985, 111–114). The hymns celebrating the kingship of Yhwh frequently depict him as sovereign over the nations of the earth (e.g., Pss 47:3; 96:10; 98:9). A similar motif appears in the royal psalms that contain depictions of Yhwh’s domination over the kings’ enemies described as the nations of the world (cf. Pss 2:8. 10; 110:5–6). As they have no historical point of reference (because the kings of Zion never actually dominated “the rulers of the earth”), these psalms are good examples of how Judah’s royal ideology trumped history (Haney 2002, 127–128).
The royal psalms also contain allusions to a number of cultic activities that involved the king. For example, Ps 20:3 depicts the king offering sacrifices as means of interceding for the people. The same psalm was likely also used as a prayer for victory in war (Launderville 2003, 328), cf. Jehoshaphat’s prayer for victory in 2 Chron 20:5–12. Of course, throughout the ancient world the conduct of war was accompanied by cultic rites. In ancient Israel these consisted of various combinations of prayer, sacrifice, and oracular consultation. Oracles, for example, could be obtained prior to going in battle (1 Kgs 22:5–25), during the conflict (1 Sam 30:7–10), or following it (1 Sam 15:17–23).
Liturgically, the oracle of salvation has a prominent place in royal ideology as indicated, for example, in Pss 2:7b–9 (Brettler 1989, 135–136); 110:1–3, 4–9 (Balentine 1984, 59); and 132:14–18 (Starbuck 1999, 124–126). A narrative showing the relationship between a royal prayer and an oracular response is found in 2 Chron 20:5–17. Ancient Near Eastern sources underscore the fact that monarchs had a vested interest not only in obtaining divine communications but also in controlling divinatory practices (Launderville 2003, 196–218). Almost by definition, a false prophecy was one that undermined a monarch’s rule and the ideology that supported him (Nissinen 1996, 193–194).
Another genre of political rituals concerns the enthronement of a new king. Nevertheless, one cannot speak of the coronation ritual in pre-exilic times (Brettler 1989, 125–126). Typical actions seem to have included anointing the new king in the presence of a representative group, seating the king on the throne, a festival meal, a loyalty oath ritual, prophetic oracles, and shouts of acclamation by the people. But this reconstruction is an amalgam of features mentioned in a variety of texts (129–135).
Enthronement motifs have frequently been identified in the royal psalms (e.g., Psalms 2; 72; 110). Of these, the surest example is Psalm 72, which has imagery that corresponds with a number of poems related to royal coronation found in Bronze Age Ugarit and Emar and Iron Age Assyria (Dietrich 1998). Parallels between Psalm 72 and ANE texts pose the question of influence by foreign cultures on the political rituals of Judah. In fact, there are various indications that the royal ideologies of both Assyria and Egypt had some kind of influence on the composition of the royal psalms. For example, Egyptian motifs have frequently been invoked with respect to the motifs of birth and sitting at the god’s right hand in Ps 110:1–3 (Starbuck 1999, 149–153), and there is a striking parallel between the pot-shattering motif in Ps 2:9b and Neo-Assyrian inscriptions (Becking 1990, 77). Nevertheless, these parallels simply show that there were a number of convergences between the royal ideology of Israel and other ancient Near Eastern cultures (see Dietrich 2012, 149–156; Miller 2000, 191). They fall short of indicating that a particular psalm fell under the direct influence of an identifiable text. So, for example, while it has been suggested that Psalm 72 was directly dependent on Esarhaddons’s coronation hymn, this hypothesis should be rejected (Becker 2008, 130–132).
Discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels naturally raises the question of timing. In Babylon, the Akitu festival involved the king in ceremonies designed to ward off the threat of chaos as the new year began (Bidmead 2002). Not surprisingly, many biblical scholars have suggested that during monarchical times there was an annual Fall festival that emphasized Yhwh’s rule over the world and his close connection with the Davidic monarchy. While the existence of such a festival has been questioned (e.g., Römer 2015, 135), the date of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) can be taken as further evidence that an autumnal renewal festival was deeply anchored in the religious life of early Israel. Unfortunately, the ritual activities that the king engaged in cannot be reconstructed from the relevant texts (Miller 2000, 195–197) and the putative relationship of any of the royal psalms to it remains debatable (Brettler 1989, 157–158).
Despite the fact that the ideological intent of the royal psalms was to exalt the king, the same body of literature shows a number of tactics meant to subordinate the Davidic monarchy to divine rule. For example, Psalm 21 depicts the power of Yhwh as superior to royal power while also being its source (Aster 2009, 308–309). Some interesting distributions of vocabulary also establish the superlative nature of divine rule over human kingship. One of the most striking has to do with the adjective “great” (gādōl). While biblical literature knows that foreign kings use the epithet “great king,” this adjective is denied to Zion’s ruler. In contrast, the greatness of God is frequently lauded in the psalms (e.g., Ps 47:2; 48:2; 95:3) (Brettler 1989, 69). Such attempts at diminishing the role of the king in favor of the sovereignty of God may suggest that the ideology of the royal psalms was not entirely unsympathetic to suspicions of human monarchies entertained in other genres of biblical literature (see, e.g., Launderville 2003, 308; Tigay 2003, 248*).
This section is mainly concerned with the politics of sacrifice in the exilic and post-exilic period. It begins by discussing developments in the prayers of collective supplication that relate to the destruction of the sacrificial cult. It then turns to a discussion of rival theologies and places of sacrifice in early Judaism before ending with a description of prominent efforts to find substitutes for participation in sacrifice.
The destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah was an unprecedented national catastrophe, which is frequently represented in the poetry of collective complaint (see Psalms 74; 79; 80; 83; Isa 63:7–64:11; Habakkuk 1; and Lamentations 5). This liturgical material often depicts national distress in terms of a fundamental breakdown of the relationship between God and Israel (Morrow 2006, 93). Alternations between first person singular and plural show that collective complaint prayers were typically led by a representative of the community. In the monarchical period, kings functioned as intercessors for the state by using the complaint form, cf. 2 Sam 24:17; 1 Kgs 8:22–53; 2 Kgs 19:14–19. These functions were taken over by other kinds of community leaders in the Second Temple period (e.g., Macc 2:7–13; 3:50–53).
In contrast to the social context of psalms of individual lament, collective protest prayer could not make its case to an erstwhile support group in order to effect reconciliation and social solidarity. Nevertheless, there was a type of divine witness to articulations of collective distress in the form of prophetic oracles (e.g., Ps 60:6–9) and in prophetic contexts that respond to communal lament. So far as their political effect is concerned, one might imagine that the psalms of collective lament functioned as a kind of implicit plea for members of the group to embrace social solidarity with the whole at a time in which individuals may have been tempted to stand apart from the group or disown their membership within it. This is evident from the way in which collective lament is contextualized by the Second Isaiah. (Morrow 2004).
Liturgies of community complaint were attenuated in two ways in the post-exilic era. First, evidence is lacking to indicate that community complaint was always articulated in response to historical incidents. In this connection, the tradition of balag and eršemma liturgies sung in Mesopotamian temples is suggestive. Though this tradition might have begun with responses to historical tragedies, it migrated into regular temple worship (Gabbay 2016, 145). In the case of Lamentations (which ends with a strong collective complaint prayer), its genre has had a remarkably long life in Jewish liturgy. Lamentation-like poems were being written throughout Second Temple times as the library at Qumran shows (e.g. 4Q 179 and 4Q 439)—a history of composition that anticipated the liturgy of Tisha’ b’Av observed by Jews to the present day. The ritually repeated return to this “literature of destruction” inculcated a shared national consciousness by reinforcing historical memory (Roskies 1988, 3–4).
Second, while some scholars claim that the post-exilic penitential prayer tradition developed out of community lament, it is more likely that they were written as a replacement for and in opposition to the collective protest tradition (Morrow 2012, 139–140). The reasons for this development are complex, but political motivations probably played a part. There may be an analogy to the rabbinic decision to suppress apocalyptic speculation after the Bar Kochba rebellion (see Kraemar 1995, 140). Entertaining protest in community liturgies might have been deemed unhelpful in eras in which foreign domination over Yehud could not be effectively challenged.
Above, I indicated that the royal psalms were used secondarily to nurture hopes for the advent of an ideal monarch (i.e., a “messiah”) in the exilic and post-exilic eras. The post-exilic era also addressed the status of the kings of Judah through its concept of sacrifice. Their common thrust was a subordination of the king to the sacrificial cult. In fact, biblical literature never represents sacrifice as a means for promoting the power of the king (Janzen 2004, 8).
With respect to the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), it is likely that its exilic writers assumed that a Davidic monarchy would be restored after the exile. Their historiography, therefore, intended to set out what the king’s relationship to the sacrificial cult should be. So far as the DtrH was concerned, the king’s sole responsibility was to watch over worship in Jerusalem and ensure that it adhered to the Deuteronomic law code (Janzen 2004, 122–123). To that end, the reader is informed that Yhwh eliminated both the Saulide and Northern Israelite dynasties precisely because of their failure to sacrifice properly (Janzen 2004, 147).
In contrast, the Chronicler(s) promoted a different world view, one in which it actually made little difference whether Yhwh re-established the Davidic monarchy or not. This conception fits a post-exilic scenario in which Persia was the dominant power. According to the Chronicler, the people of Yehud had little choice but to cultivate a quietist worldview, in which the social function of sacrifice was meant to ensure the peace of the community (Janzen 2004, 238–242).
Tellingly, it is Chronicles that records a conflict between king and priest with respect to presiding over the cult (2 Chron 26:16–21). There was ample precedent for this kind of conflict in ancient Near Eastern cultures. They include, for example, efforts to control the cult during the reign of Shu-Sin in the UR III period (Launderville 2003, 142), and power-struggles between Egyptian Pharaohs and the priests of Amun (Shafer et al., 1991, 75–76). In a previous section, I noted that Judahite kings presided over cultic rites; but, this is precisely what is being taken away from them by the Chroniclers. Perhaps this tactic reflects not only the fact that the Jerusalem cult was firmly in the hands of the priesthood during the post-exilic period, but also a further diminishment of the necessity for restoring the Davidic monarchy as a prerequisite for maintaining a legitimate sense of nationhood.
Nevertheless, despite the ideological commitments of both the DtrH and Chronicles, during the post-exilic period there continued to be rivals to the Jerusalem temple. Each was built for political motives. Most obvious in this connection was the temple of the Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim. Relationships between the cult on Mt. Gerizim and Jerusalem were complex and included periods of both toleration and competition over time. Both communities resorted to a common set of scriptures (the Pentateuch) and both derived their priesthoods from Aaron (Knoppers 2013, 190–191). Hence, they shared many liturgical practices while rivaling each other as legitimate centers of early Jewish worship. The Samaritan temple was likely destroyed by John Hyrcanus around 110 bce (Plumber 2016, 86). While his motives remain subject to debate (Plumber 2016, 88), it is noteworthy that the Hasmonaeans came from priestly stock. The destruction of the temple in Samaria would not only have fulfilled the centralization mandate of Deuteronomy 12, it would also have concentrated political, economic, and priestly power in Jerusalem (Knoppers 2013, 214).
Another Jewish temple that functioned during part of the post-exilic era was built for the military colony in Elephantine during the 6th cent. The temple was destroyed on the instigation of the priests of Khnum c. 410. When the temple was rebuilt, however, the Jews of Elephantine appear to have acquiesced to the perspective of Jerusalem. Henceforth, worship would consist of meal and incense offerings, but not animal sacrifice (Frey 1999, 173–180).
A third Jewish temple was established in the second century bce by Onias IV at Leontopolis in Lower Egypt. Its origins are probably related to rivalries between high-priestly families. Possibly, Onias and his followers justified their cultic establishment with reference to the prophecy in Isa 19:18–19, which foretold of a day when an altar to Yhwh would be erected in Egypt. Sacrifice was carried on there, and the cult must have been basically the same as in Jerusalem (Frey 1999, 186–194). Like the temple of Elephantine, it served as a center for a Jewish military colony, although it was probably intended to unite all Jews in the area and perhaps even further afield. However, there are indications that the temple of Onias also came under the influence of Egyptian practices. Women seem to have had exercised priestly functions there, a cultic role with precedents in Egyptian cults (Richardson and Heuchan 1996, 234–136).
Nevertheless, many Jews had to establish an identity without recourse to sacrifice. One solution was to institute new festivals (e.g., Purim) to solidify a threatened identity in the diaspora, as well as fulfilling ritual obligations of various pilgrimage festivals apart from sacrifice. Another was the contribution of the annual temple tax from diaspora communities to Jerusalem. A particularly significant development, however, was the status given to sacred writings that could be read and studied in any place where Jews congregated. After the destruction of the Second Temple, rabbinic Judaism came to regard the study of scripture as tantamount to participation in the sacrificial cult (Kadushin 1972, 223–224); but, there are indications that scriptural study was already developing into a substitute for temple worship while the Second Temple was still standing. One indication of this is the lengthy accounts of sacrifice and tabernacle found in Priestly writings. In the post-exilic era, study of these extensive writings provided a means to create and support Jewish identity. One could substitute attending the temple by reading about it, a strategy that would also appear later in Judaism as illustrated, for example, by the development of the Passover liturgy (Bokser 1984, 84–89).
The politics of scriptural interpretation loomed large in this connection. John Hyrcanus is reported to have executed a large number of Pharisees on the grounds that they opposed his exercise of priestly duties (VanderKam 2001, 28). Underlying this conflict was a struggle about whose scriptural interpretation would become normative. In fact, this authority was wrested out of the hands of the priestly caste by a lay movement of scribes and scholars affiliated with the Pharisees, whose interpretation of biblical law won the support of the people and influenced priestly practice in the temple itself by the first century ce (Mansoor 1972, 364).
Another group clearly interested in developing an identity that did not depend on their physical presence in the Second Temple were the sectarians whose literature was preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Likely, this group originated as a priestly party that regarded the liturgical practices carried on in Jerusalem during Hasmonaean times as unacceptably compromised. Nevertheless, it continued to refer itself to temple ritual and its writings show a keen interest in sacrificial rites and law. Thereby, the Qumran group developed distinctive forms of scriptural commentary and liturgy that validated their religious choices, enabling them able to espouse a way of life based on the cultivation of ritual purity that did not require them to participate in the rites of the Second Temple (Schiffman 1999).