Biblical Hebrew says a great deal indeed, despite a very small formal vocabulary. It does so because its terms are word-pictures of specific experiences in actual life. Abstract senses are derived from these by extension. Just as in English, these can be remote indeed from root senses (bridal shower, in a pickle), but this changes nothing essential. Once the fundamental sense of a word is intuited (and verified by following it through its various appearances in the text), one gains an insight not only into the intrinsic sense of the scriptures themselves, but into the mentality and sense of life of the people whose experiences they comprised as well.

Some of the experiences and behaviours taken for granted as normal in this older world come as shocking surprises. Yet these, on reflection, touch something in us which, however inchoately, senses that there is more to what (and how) we might be than the dreary life of the ‘reasonable man,’ sanctioned by court and pulpit, who never becomes upset or displays passion, no matter what the provocation.

Very little of this comes across in English translations, by design. From the beginning, these were done, on the whole, with a view to translating-away or otherwise disguising the blunt impacts they make when forthrightly presented. And the more religion became a state-sanctioned exercise with the creation and molding of public opinion as one of its major functions, the further it retreated into over-refined unreality. By the late nineteenth century, this had reached such extremes that one Archbishop of Canterbury famously remarked in a moment of whimsy that why anyone should have troubled to crucify the Jesus of Protestant Christianity would forever be a mystery to him.

Yet even in English, some idea of the gulf which separates the mentality cultivated around this from the God of the scriptures who warns his faithless wife (in Ezekiel 16: 37-8) that, if she doesn’t mend her ways, he will drag her out into the street, yank her skirts up over her head and give her the hiding of her life while her paramours stand around looking on and laughing at her, is more than apparent.

Letting the cat out of the bag all at once will be unsettling to anyone, however prepared for it through general empathy with the Taken-in-Hand phenomena (plural). Yet it is the easiest way, on balance. This can be done by considering one word alone, “anah.” By the time the root sense of this has been grasped, even in the small number of the many passages in which it appears that we shall consider, the rest of the picture can easily be completed by anyone interested to pursue it, and with the simplest of tools (a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, available cheaply anywhere, and an older Authorized or “King James” Bible). One should note, however, that this is a matter deep as well as broad.

“Anah” has provoked a great deal of embarrassed dissembling. Generally, the lexicographers have made two separate words out of it, and presented both as if their more remotely derivative senses were primary. In Strong's Concordance, it is listed as word numbers 6030 and 6031 (with the parenthetical admission that these may be the same word after all). Various fundamental senses of this (from Strong's and the more elaborate Gesenius Lexicon) are: Heed, pay attention, respond (appropriately and affectionately), afflict(ion), chasten(ing), cry out, answer, humble (self), submit, and (to be very nice about it), “having to do with the matter of intimate relations from which pregnancy is not an anatomically possible outcome.”

These will be easily recognized by anyone with a taken-in-hand orientation and even a passing acquaintance with the topic in scripture as variations on a single theme: a bare(d) bottom – either in and of itself, or as a means to an end. Every one of the above definitions are particular aspects of the fundamental image – extensions of it into specific contexts.

I.e. Paying heed. Is failure to take instructions or admonitions seriously a precipitating factor in correction ? Is better appreciating their importance an outcome of it ?

Responding. Both failure (worse, refusal) to respond in an acceptable manner can certainly trigger correction; responding in an disrespectful manner all but guarantees it.

The connection with, and relevance of Chastening, and Crying Out will need no detailed explanation here.

Answer. An answer is, of course, a Response (see above).

Humble. For one thing, the opposite of pride and arrogance. Also sometimes translated as “Meek.” (Yes, as in “The meek shall inherit the earth,” “Blessed are the humble” and so on). Strange and wonderful it is, the way humility begins to appear as preparations for correction are underway, even before the process of transformation has fairly begun.

Submit. This, paradoxically, both begins and concludes the process.

And the other bit? Several scriptural examples of it will be considered towards the conclusion.

Let us proceed to cases, then.

For a case in point, Proverbs 29:19

A servant will not be corrected by words;
For though (s)he understands, (s)he will not answer

“answer” (above) being anah.

To come to grips with this, note that Hebrew, like English, uses the masculine gender to collectively subsume both sexes, and that ancient society operated on different assumptions than ours. A servant might be a slave (owned outright) or a bondservant, destined to return to freedom after a period of service. But in either case, servants were members of the family, and treated as such. They ate the Passover as members of the family, and were subject to correction likewise.

The key variable here was intimacy. Quarters in houses being small and crowded (to say nothing of tents), privacy was essentially unknown. Relations with servants were intimate ones, characterized (in the main) by reciprocal affection.

In stark contrast to this stood the hireling, with whom any possible intimacy was ruled-out by the arm’s-length, contractual predication of his relationship. The hireling was an outsider; the servant an insider, and this was the matter in a nutshell. A servant could be, and often was, loved and esteemed; a hireling, never (a situation which obtained in Rome, Greece and everywhere else, for that matter). One had dealings with hired help only when this was unavoidable. (In other words, for all practical purposes – especially as maidservants were concerned – matters stood exactly then as they did in 18th and, even, 19th century Britain).

To be specific then, A servant girl (let us say) will not be corrected by words (alone); for though she understand (well enough what it is about her attitude you want her to change), there is not likely to be any meaningful change in her which will answer (above) to your expectations unless (recalling the essential idea-picture) a more vivid impression is effected than words alone can make. And notice, while we are on it, the elegant economy with which the solution (by implication) is contained within the elucidation of the problem.

Can this really have been the case? Absolutely. Consider the matter of Sarai and her handmaid Hagar in Genesis 16. Because of her infertility, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram as her surrogate. Discovering that she is indeed expecting a child by him, Hagar becomes vain, looking down her nose at her mistress. Hagar complains of this to Abram, who tells her (v.6)

Behold, your maid is in your hand (i.e., under your control) – do to her as seems right
to you. So then Sarai dealt harshly with (anah) her, and she fled from her judgement).

Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities, notes that she fled as being “unable to endure the instances [note the plural] of Sarai’s severity towards her.” This was no one-time event, but a protracted process.

This is far from the end of the matter, however. Fleeing into the wilderness, she encounters the Angel of the Lord, who tells her to return to her mistress and submit herself (anah) under Sarai’s hands – as explicit a picture as could be required by anyone as to what was involved: Return, lie back down, uncover yourself and resume where you left off. (Odd – is it not – that “oneself” comes so naturally for that part of us ordinarily kept under wraps?)

Generally overlooked here is the connection here with Hebrews 12:11

No correction is pleasant, but grievous. Nevertheless, it yields, as a consequence,
the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are trained by it

which is exactly the case here. Hagar returns, bares her bottom, and receives Sarai’s correction in a spirit of acceptance. In consequence she bears little Ishmael, the peaceable fruit of her righteousness (right-doing) whose name (the first ever bestowed by an Angel, incidentally) means both “God Hears Man” and “Man Beloved by God.”

At the risk of dallying over this, notice that Hebrews states that the Angel of the Lord in the wilderness was Christ himself. This being so, the stripes he prescribes to her are type-setting examples of “his stripes” (i.e., the stripes which he prescribes as penance), with or through which we are healed, as Hagar was in the type-setting example.

Again, there is nothing far-fetched to such a construal. If proof be required, consider the First Epistle of Clement:

Brothers, the reproof and correction we exercise, one towards another is good and
exceedingly profitable, for it unites us the more closely with the will of God.

It has only been with difficulty that this has been all but erased from the lives of contemporary people, who find themselves a bit adrift without it.

                        *      *      *      *      *      *

But we have not so far touched upon the area of affliction. Affliction, as it figures in scripture, comes under two headings. The key variable is whether the Lord deigns to witness it or not. If not, it is of no more consequence or deep significance than the brawling of drunks in the street. Provided he consents to be cognisant of it, however, affliction has several possible consequences:

1) Superabounding fertility.

2) Greatly increased love, prosperity, or both.

3) Protection from harm.

One can see the first in the paradox of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 1:12)

But the more [the Egyptians] afflicted them, the more [Israel] multiplied and grew.

And, earlier, Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 41:52)

And the name of [his] second [son] he called “Ephraim”: For God has
caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.

Number two is exemplified by Leah (Genesis 29:32)

And Leah conceived [yet again] and bore a son, and she called his name “Reuben”:
for she said, “Surely the LORD has looked upon my affliction; now, on this account,
my husband will love me.

Number three is explained by Jacob to Laban (Genesis 31:42)

Except the God of my father . . . had been with me, you surely would have sent me
away empty. But God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked
thee last night [when you were pursuing me].

All of these, as with Job, are in the nature of “happily ever after” conclusions, after the fact of affliction / humbling. Deuteronomy 8 sums this up –

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty
years in the wilderness, to humble [anah] you – to try you; to see what was in your
heart: whether you would obey his instructions or not . . . You shall consider in your
heart that, as a man corrects his child, so the Lord your God corrects you.

                        *      *      *      *      *      *

Having established, then, that this is not some idle fancy that we are pursuing, spun out of a few ambiguous passages, but a matter of demonstrable fact, rather than pile example upon example (easily enough done), let us turn to the interface of anah with overt sexuality (as in “Alternative therapy”).

Heterosexual intercourse (let us be precise here) “in a manner contrary to nature” (as Aquinas viewed it anyhow) was a universal practice in the ancient world. Having been the only pre-technological form of birth control, this should hardly be surprising. This also is subsumed within the basic anah word picture – human nature being as it is, it would be surprising would be if it weren't. (One thing does, after all, tend to lead to another, and “it isn't for nothing that a heart looks like a bum”).

We can begin here with the Law of the Beautiful Captive in Time of War (in Deuteronomy 21:10) Put succinctly (and as exegesised by Moses Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed): if a soldier on campaign finds a beautiful girl he wants for his own in enemy territory, he must take her (i.e., establish possession of her by penetration in the manner we are considering) in a secluded place (i.e., not make a spectacle of it). (The sense of this cannot possibly be “home to his house,” as an army under such a requirement would simply melt away to nothing within a week). After a month's time spent getting to know one another, if they don't get on, he must let her go free – he may not sell her to another because he has humbled her (anah) – bared her bottom (a necessary preliminary to taking her in the prescribed manner) which, perhaps curiously, gives her rights of her own she would not otherwise have had.

Similarly (and also in Deuteronomy, 22:28-9) if a man humbles a girl who is not betrothed (whether he corrects her, enjoys her, or both) he has thereby married her for life, without any possibility of divorce. I.e., only her lawful head (her father or husband) has the right to use her so¹; having usurped this role, he has thereby made himself her head in a sign, and is thereafter stuck with the consequence of having done so.

For a third example (three will suffice, I expect) there is the Affair of Dinah and Shechem in Genesis 34. Shechem, a prince of that country takes Dinah (the daughter of Jacob) and, as elucidated by Bereshith Rabbah (the oldest intact commentary on Genesis)

laid with her [in the usual manner]
and humbled (anah) her [in a manner contrary to nature]

(scripture does not recount that she objected to this very strenuously – if at all).
______

Footnotes
Although it drives people absolutely frantic, one searches the exhaustive and detailed catalogue of prohibited degrees in Leviticus 18 in vain for any prohibition of father-daughter relations.

Bill Wagner

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