He-Prophets:
Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets
and their Interpreters/1

Paper read to the Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, Annual Meeting, Boston, November 1999. It is not yet published, and may be cited only with the author's permission. It is intended to form a chapter in my book Play the Man! The Masculine Imperative in the Bible. This paper was posted on the Web on 30 May 2000.

Abstract
What is it about the Hebrew prophets that is masculine? Or rather, what is it about the Hebrew prophets that is not masculine? They are not likely, any more than men of any age, to have thought that being male was in any way a limitation on them as human beings; they are not likely to have even noticed, when they were acting as prophets, that they were being male prophets. No more do their commentators notice that they are male authors reading male authors.
My question is: What is important for these he-prophets, what figures prominently in their books just because they are male? What is it about the essence of prophecy, what is it that is typical of prophecy, that coheres with their masculinity rather than with their humanity or with their awareness of a vocation?
For an answer, I will be looking at their language about size and strength, at their fascination with honour, at their image of the divine as warrior and bully, at their binary thinking. And I will try to identify too in some key modern texts about the prophets strains of co-option by prophetic masculinities.

Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible is a very masculine project./2/ There were female prophets in ancient Israel (five in the Hebrew Bible), but with the exception of Huldah, who gets six verses, and Miriam, who gets one, they hardly contribute to the profile of prophecy as a literary product./3/ So masculine is prophecy in the Hebrew Bible that we do not even notice that virtually every word of it is not written just in Hebrew, in Ivrit, but in that subset of it I call Gavrit, the language of masculinity-and all so faithfully translated into its English equivalent, Masclish.
Masclish, by the way, is the language in which size matters, great is good, beauty is strength, strength beauty (that is all ye need to know), and the key terms are power, honour, holiness./4/ My purpose in this paper is to isolate in the prophets elements that are characteristic of masculinity, asking withal, metacommentatingly, after strains of co-option by prophetic masculinities in texts of our own time.

The Messenger
Prophets are messengers; that is the most commonplace of commonplaces about the prophets./5/

Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD's message, 'I am with you, says the LORD' (Hag. 1:13).
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me' (Isa. 6:8).
Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the LORD's house (Jer. 19:14).
From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day (Jer. 7:25).
You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets (Jer. 25:4).
They made their hearts like adamant lest they should hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets (Zech. 7:12).
'Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes (Mal. 4:5).

It is the implication of the prophetic formula 'Thus saith the Lord', as all the form critics point out. What they do not point out, however, is that messengers in the world of the Bible are males. Women do not travel; their place is in the home./6/
I draw two conclusions already: (a) this central metaphor for the prophetic role is inescapably gendered, and (b) no one notices.

Strength
Strength is not in itself a marker of masculine discourse; women too want strong bones, strong glass in their car windows, strong friendships, and, at the end of a hard day at the office, a good strong drink. But when you find an intense concentration of the language of strength in a text, you may properly form the suspicion that you are in the realm of the masculine,/7/ since strength is the primary quality for men and boys of whatever culture,/8/ and they talk about strength in the Old Testament all the time. Here is a prophetic text that revolves about the language of strength:

Behold, the Lord Yahweh comes as a mighty man (qzj), and his arm (power) rules for him. When he brings out the army of heaven by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might (µynwa), and because he is strong (yma) in power (jk) not one is missing. He gives power (jk) to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength (hmx[). Those who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength (jk), they shall mount up with wings like eagles (Isa 40.10, 26, 29, 31)

This is a prophetic encouragement to its hearers, that is how it sets itself forward; it assumes that you will agree that weakness is bad and that strength is a most desirable quality, in humans as well as in God, that if you do not have enough strength, you can acquire it from God's surplus strength. It affirms that the God of Israel is a God of incomparable power, so enormous that from his perspective its inhabitants are like grasshoppers (40.22), and all the nations as nothing (40.17). This is a good thing about God.
The power of this God of Israel is worshipped by the prophets; here are some examples:

There is none like thee, O Yahweh; thou art great, and thy name is great in might (Jer. 10.6).
I am a great King, says Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men,/9/ and my name is feared among the nations (Mal. 1.14)
Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might (hrwbg), and they shall know that my name is Yahweh (Jer. 16.21)
Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might (Isa. 33.13)
Their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men, is his name (Jer. 50.34)
It is he who made the earth by his power (Jer. 10.12; 51.15)
It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the humans and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me (Jer. 27.5)
Ah, Adonai Yahweh! It is thou who hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for thee (Jer. 32.17)
The accoutrements of power surround this divine figure: he is kitted out with a hard and great and strong sword (Isa. 27.1), his arm is strong (Isa. 51.9; Jer. 21.5) and so is his hand (Isa. 8.11; Jer 32.21; Ezek. 3.14), arm and hand both outstretched in power (Jer. 21.5; 32.21; Ezek. 20.33, 34). It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens (Jer. 10.12).

The realm of the divine is for the prophets the realm of absolute power. It is the world of spirit, and spirit is enormously stronger than the strength of flesh.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men (Zech. 4.6)

meaning that there is a power beyond human might, or this-worldly might. Egyptian horses, for example, are weak just because they are flesh, not spirit (Isa 31.3). Being in the sphere of the divine, living under the aegis of this divine strength, is itself the key to personal strength of one's own. Out of the excess of power held by the deity strength is channelled to humans:

He gives power (jk) to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength (hmx[) (Isa. 40.29)
Yah Yahweh is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation (Isa 12.2).
Yahweh Adonai is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds' feet, he makes me tread upon my high places (Hab. 3.19)
The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men, their God (Zech. 12.5).
This is an ideology of the divine that is not peculiar to the prophets, but it is specific to the language of masculinity.
Naturally, the prophets of such a male God of power inevitably view their office as an exercise of power:
But as for me, I am filled with power (jk), with the spirit of the LORD, with authority (fpvm) and with might (hrwbg); to declare to Jacob his crimes and to Israel his sins (Mic. 3.8 nab).

Or if the prophets imagine an ideal human figure, one upon whom the Spirit of Yahweh may rest, for example, strength cannot be missing from the picture. So upon the ideal ruler there rests the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might (hrwbg), the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh (Isa 11.2). It is a ruler who is humane and religious, with intellectual virtues-but, oh yes, strong. That was not forgotten. Or if it is the Manservant of Yahweh in Isaiah 53 (as we should always translate hwhy db[, since db[ is gendered), he cannot be a success if he is not at the end found dividing spoil with the strong, himself one of them (Isa. 53.12)./10/
Are there for the prophets no values in what might be perceived as 'weakness'? Are there any alternatives to the traditional or hegemonic masculinity? What of patience and calm, of quietness and trust? They are indeed virtues, but they are not ends in themselves. If the prophet says, 'in quietness and in trust shall be your strength' (Isa. 30.15) he means that strength is his ideal, and that quietness and trust are ways of achieving the ideal. It esteems quietness but it honours strength more./11/

Violence
Masculine strength can be used for pacific and salvific purposes, but it is no secret that male strength is typically on display when it is being used aggressively, for fighting with other males and for killing them.
Prophets are on the whole pretty harmless individuals, physically speaking (I mean the 'writing' prophets, not the Elijahs). Their aggression is expressed verbally, and expressed it is. In the prophets, there are more occurrences of words for destroy and break (318) than there are of Jerusalem (248), more for die and death (158) than for spirit (155), more for fire (154) than for holy and holiness and sanctify (146), more for anger, angry and wrath (193) than for voice (174) or soul (158) or prophet (156), 50 % more for evil (66) than for good (40). There are 50 woes (ywh) in the prophets, more cursing (31) than blessing (29).
The speaking, 'writing' prophets themselves will not harm a fly, as far as we can tell, but open a prophetic book at random (as I did) and you will find such sentences as these:

Woe to my worthless shepherd
May the sword smite his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be wholly withered,
his right eye utterly blinded! (Zech. 11.17)
Behold, I am against you, says Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men, and I will burn your chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions (Nah. 2.13).
You are my hammer and weapon of war;
with you I break nations in process;
with you I destroy kingdoms.
with you I break in pieces the horse and his rider;
with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer;
with you I break in pieces man and woman;
with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth;
with you I break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
with you I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock;
with you I break in pieces the farmer and his team;
with you I break in pieces governors and commanders
(Jer. 51.20-23)

Then there is the pornography of the prophets, pornography without eros, the pornography of perverse pleasure, the sadism of verbal violence against women./12/
And there is, supremely, the divine violence, for the divine male is above all the fighter and the killer. 'Yahweh God of Fighting Men' is his favourite title, according to the prophets: 2117 occurrences of Yahweh, 236 of Yahweh Sebaoth (only 23 occurrences outside the prophetic books). Fascinating how the 'divine warrior' has become so frequented a topos in (male) scholarly literature,/13/ how severely objective is the scholarly language of the history of traditions, and how rarely the ethical problem of a killer God comes to the surface (that is the province of pacifists)./14/
Here is a typical notation of the theme:

The understanding of God as a warrior is grounded in the origins of biblical religion. The image of the divine warrior dominates the oldest Israelite poetry, remains a frequent characterization of God throughout the biblical period, and gains a new prominence in the apocalyptic literature of both Jewish and Christian communities./15/

Israel's prophets shared the tribal and royal conception of God as a warrior whose involvement in military engagements determined their outcome and preserved or destroyed nations The fervent concern for justice among Israel's prophets, however, gave a unique emphases to their apprehension of the kinds of warfare in which the divine warrior was engaged. For the prophets, the divine warrior entered military conflicts against any nation characterized by injustice and political hubris. Thus prophetic circles associated the warfare of God with the divine maintenance of justice in the world, a justice which would eventuate ultimately in the abolition of war and the reign of peace./16/

Please note that (1) if the conception of God as warrior is 'grounded in the origins of biblical religion', biblical religion itself might be undermined if it were to be surgically extracted from it, (2) that if it 'dominates' the oldest Israelite poetry (and remember, in biblical scholarship, old = authentic), remains frequent throughout the Bible, and even so manages to gain a 'new prominence' in the (presumptively climactic and supersessive) religion of Christianity, it is to be applauded, (3) once the warfare of God can be connected with the maintenance of justice and the Great Lie of the 'war to end war' can be invoked, only an enemy of peace could find a unkind word to say against it, and (4) caught up into a utopian vision of the 'abolition of war and the reign of peace' the quintessential masculinity of the idealization of violence can be totally ignored./17/

Honour
A fourth area where I would look for male assumptions in the prophets is the matter of honour./18/ It is a key concept in Mediterranean culture, as many recent writers have been pointing out;/19/ some would go as far to to call ancient Israel essentially an 'honour­shame' culture. But it is more correctly defined as a patriarchal culture, the concern with honour being an instanciation of male values. The cultural anthropologists concur: '[H]onor is a value embodied by adult males'; 'Honour is bound up with male ideology'./20/
What is honour? It is a recognition by the group of the status of a male. It is a competitive matter, for a man's honour ranking is relative to those of all the other males in his group. It is constantly open to challenge, and a man with honour always has to be prepared to defend it./21/
Honour is essential for male identity. There is hardly a place in the Hebrew Bible where a woman has honour (though a woman, who normally has zero honour in the male world, can be shamed or dishonoured, i.e. can have negative honour, honour less than zero, for example by being widowed, losing her sons, or not being married/22/)./23/ It is males who need and seek honour, the social esteem awarded to males both human and divine./24/
Without honour, a male is 'shamed'. Defeat in battle is automatically shame for a land's soldiers, its inhabitants and its deities; not being able to produce what is expected of one (crops from a farmer, prophecies from a seer) is a shame. A thief is shamed when he is caught: not that he is subjectively 'ashamed' (he may be), but he is defeated, he has failed, and that is the shame.

To shame horsemen in battle is simply to defeat them (Zech. 10.5)
Enemies of Israel will be put to shame (vwb) and humiliated (µlike), become like nothing and perish (Isa. 41.11).
You will be sated with contempt (wlq) instead of honour [says Yahweh to enemies]. Shame (wlqyq) will come upon your honour (Hab. 2.16).
When Jerusalem is destroyed and the people exiled, they say, We are ruined, we are very much shamed (Jer. 9.19).
Inhabitants of fortified cities are 'shorn of strength' (dyAyrxq, lit. short of hand), dismayed and shamed (vwb) (Isa. 37.27)
Seeking protection from the Pharaoh [who will be overthrown by Yahweh] will turn to shame (tvb) and humiliation (hmlk) (Isa. 30.5).
The sun [which usually has great honour of its own] will be shamed when Yahweh reveals his honour (Isa. 24.23)
If there is no rain, and farmers cannot produce crops, they are shamed and cover their heads (Jer 14.4; cf. Joel 1.11).
Seers and diviners are shamed when they have no message from God (Mic. 3.7)
Jeremiah's persecutors will be greatly shamed (vwb), for they will not succeed (lkc hiph) [in defeating him], and their eternal dishonour (hmlk) will never be forgotten (Jer. 20.11).
The destruction of a city is a shame for its deities: Babylon is taken, Bel is shamed (Jer. 50.2).
A thief is shamed when he is caught (Jer. 2.26).
dwbk, which is 'honour', is sometimes translated 'glory', especially when it is Yahweh's honour, but I will always translate it 'honour', as it must be in Mal. 1.6:
A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says Yahweh, Lord of Fighting Men, to you, O priests, who despise my name.
Among humans, a king has maximum honour, of course:
Yahweh is bringing against them the king of Assyria and all his honour (Isa. 8.7)
The dwellings of the future ideal king will be full of honour (Isa.11.10)
All the kings of the nations lie in honour, each in his own tomb (Isa. 14:18)
But such honour is outranked by that of the divine king, who says:
For my own sake, for my own sake, I act. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my honour to another (Isa. 48.11).
I will send survivors to the nations, to the coastlands afar off, that have not heard my fame or seen my honour; and they shall declare my honour among the nations (Isa. 66:19).

Just to look at Isaiah alone, Yahweh's honour is foregrounded in these places among others:

Yahweh, sitting on his throne, is surrounded by courtiers who cry out, 'The whole earth is full of his honour' (Isa. 6.3)
When he takes his throne on Zion he will 'manifest his honour', to the 'shame' of sun and moon, which will be shown to have lesser honour (Isa. 24.23)
Yahweh's honour is his majesty, his royal dignity (Isa. 35.2)
The honour of Yahweh will be revealed when he brings the exiles back (Isa. 40.5)
He gives his honour to no one else (Isa. 42.8; 48.11)
He created humans for his own honour (Isa. 43.7)
The honour of Yahweh is like a great light: 'Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the honour of Yahweh has risen upon you. Darkness shall cover the earth , but Yahweh will rise upon you and his honour will be seen upon you' (Isa. 60.1-2)

Wherever it appears, the honour of Yahweh is the honour of a male, for that is the only kind of honour there is. Every time we encounter his honour, we must remind ourselves that we are moving in a male sphere, and that the prophet must stress Yahweh's honour because, as one male to another, that is the only way he knows of expressing his own esteem for the deity.

Holiness
Is there no end to the impact of masculinity on the prophets?, you may well ask. You probably already know what I did not before I came to write this paper, that vwdq never occurs in the feminine in the Hebrew Bible. Not only are there no 'holy women', the adjective is not even used with any feminine noun./25/ Women cannot be holy, sanctified or consecrated./26/ The sphere of holiness is exclusively male, and holiness becomes a key term in Masclish.
Holiness is thus a male characteristic, which is what we should have expected anyway, since it is the essence of the male deity. So we should always translate, for example, larcy vwdq 'holy one of Israel' as 'holy male of Israel', of perhaps 'the Holy Israelite Male', just as the hwhy db[ should always be the 'manservant of Yahweh'. When then we read J.J.M. Roberts that 'If there is any one concept central to the whole Book of Isaiah, it is the vision of Yahweh as the Holy One of Israel',/27/ we cannot deny that that there is an inescapably masculine element at the heart of that prophet at least.
What is holy in the prophets?

God himself
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged (Isa. 1:4; and c. 40 other occurrences in the prophets of God as the 'Holy One').

His name
 they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned (Amos 2:7 and 7 other occurrences)

His spirit
But they rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them (Isa. 63:10 and 1 other occurrence)

His words
Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and because of his holy words (Jer. 23:9).

His arm
The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God (Isa. 52:10).

His angels
And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD your God will come, and all the holy ones with him (Zech. 14:5).

His temple and its objects, heaven, portion of land
'We are put to shame, for we have heard reproach; dishonor has covered our face, for aliens have come into the holy places of the LORD's house' (Jer. 51:51 and 37 other occurrences)

His people, their seed
And they shall be called The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD; and you shall be called Sought out, a city not forsaken (Isa. 62:12 and 3 other occurrences).

His city
Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean (Isa. 52:1 and 2 other occurrences).

His mountain
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9 and 15 other occurrences).

His land
And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem (Zech. 2:12).

His feasts
You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel (Isa. 30:29).

His sabbaths
If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly (Isa. 58:13)

A highway
And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not pass over it, and fools shall not err therein (Isa. 35:8).

An inhabitant of Jerusalem
And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem (Isa. 4:3).

In short, nothing female, nothing domestic, nothing from the realm of the moral, nothing outside the sphere of the male God himself and the objects and practices of his cult is holy here.

Women
Yet another indication of a male text is the attitude taken toward women. If in any text women are despised, or feared, or threatened, or blamed, or abused, or trivialized, or stereotyped, or marginalized, or humiliated, or ignored, it is prima facie evidence that it is a male text.

Women are despised in
And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach' (Isa. 4.1)
Not to have a husband is automatically a reproach; here women are represented as making pathetic and ludicrous attempts to avoid shame.

Women are threatened in
The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet; the Lord will smite with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts (Isa. 3.16-17).
Usually in the prophets threats against women are threats of punishment against their men, as for example in the famous cases of Amaziah's wife who is to become a harlot in Bethel because her husband has tangled with Amos (Amos 7.17),/28/ but here, women readers are delighted to find, the women are wholly responsible for their own punishment.

Women are blamed in
In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarfs; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the garments of gauze, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume there will be rottenness; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth; instead of beauty, shame (Isa. 3.18-24).
Women's clothing is clearly very wicked (probably because men are uncontrollably attracted by nose rings and handbags),/29/ and Yahweh will need to personally remove it, item by item, since shaming a woman by stripping her naked is a recognized divine method of punishing her for overdressing./30/ The perversity of the prophet is embarrassingly transparent.

Women are feared in
And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning (Isa. 4.3-4).
If male holiness is only possible when female 'filth' has been washed away (no mention of male 'filth'),/31/ female filth is plainly dangerous and fearful.

Women are stereotyped in
Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isa. 7.14)
Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in travail (Isa. 13.8)
Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in travail; I am bowed down so that I cannot hear, I am dismayed so that I cannot see (Isa. 21.3).
Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs, when she is near her time, so were we because of thee, O LORD (Isa. 26.17).
For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant (Isa. 42.14).
Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?' or to a woman, 'With what are you in travail?' (Isa. 45.10).
You shall suck, you shall be carried upon her hip, and dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you (Isa. 66.12-13).
That is, women function as mothers, little else.

Women are abused in
I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished (Isa. 13.11, 16-17)./32/
That is, while the punishment for a wicked man is to be killed with a sword, the punishment for a wicked woman is to be raped. You would know it is probably not a male text if the wicked women are to be slaughtered and the wicked men are to be raped.

Women are trivialized in
Like fluttering birds, like scattered nestlings, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon (Isa. 16.2).
In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand which the LORD of hosts shakes over them (Isa. 19.16).
Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the vintage will fail, the fruit harvest will not come. Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. Beat upon your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine (Isa. 32.9-12).
They are slight things, easily alarmed, not like Egyptians, who are of course all male. They have no conception of affairs of state, of how serious the political situation is: they are 'at ease' (av)/33/-what, instead of chaining themselves to railings?-and they are 'trusting' (twjfb), just the sort of thing that Isaiah is deeply opposed to (is he? Take a look at 12.2; 14.30; 26.3; 32.17). This couldn't be something that is good if men do it but bad if women do it, could it?/34/

Women are marginalized in
My people - children are their oppressors, and women rule over them (Isa 3.12)./35/
That is to say, women are regarded as so incompetent and defective that to have women ruling a society is a sure sign of social disorder and anarchy.

Women are humiliated in
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you (Isa. 49.15).
Since women have little purpose in existing except to have children, it is rather humiliating to women to suggest that even in their primary function of childcare they have to take second place to the Almighty.
All these examples come from Isaiah, the Fifth Evangelist. I can hardly bear to continue.

Oh, women are ignored everywhere else. Above I have listed all the references to women in Isaiah (real women, not cities or countries personified as women, or ballast variants/36/ to men),/37/ constituting much less than 1% of the book of Isaiah. It isn't much of a recognition of women, but taken together these references mean: women, though fundamentally unclean, are a source of dangerous temptation for men; they are weak, and scream a lot in childbirth. If they are wicked, they will be raped.

Standard-Bearing
Ian Harris has drawn attention to an important social role men play, which he calls 'standard bearing':

Men produce the world by promoting certain social standards that reflect the way they want the world to be Male standard bearers strive to realize ethical standards, produce lasting creations, improve the world, and devote themselves to excellence. Standard bearers reflect concern for higher order needs, not just survival. They derive a sense of worth by fulfilling meaningful social roles and have an unselfish concern for others' well-being. Standard bearers take pride in living up to their moral precepts, so that when they finish their lives they can feel they have been of use./38/

Reading these lines, I imagine I am reading about the prophets. I draw attention to these elements:

The oracles against the foreign nations. The prophets see themselves as global standard-bearers, responsible for assessing the moral standing of nations generally and for denouncing those that do not meet acceptable standards. They are applying the standards of 'international customary law',/39/ norms that would have 'embodied conventions hammered out in response to the pragmatics of routine life'./40/ In more poetic vein, the prophets see their people, in Isaiah's words, as a 'light of the nations' (Isa. 42.6; 49.6), perhaps as setting an ethical standard for other nations.

Prophecy and satire. Like satire, prophecy's objective may be said to be to praise and to blame (more of the latter than the former, I should guess). Thomas Jemielity has drawn attention in this regard to the 'heavily censorious content of the canonical Hebrew prophets'/41/

Prophecy and tradition. The prophets do not regard themselves as lone individuals who have just received a startlingly new word from Yahweh which they must pass on willy-nilly. If that is what Amos alleges, it certainly is not representative of the Hebrew prophets. As Clements puts it, even though the prophets were 'undoubtedly testifying to a particularly immediate consciousness of God', they 'appear to have been well aware that they stood in a prophetic tradition and fulfilled a particular role in the divine ministry to Israel'./42/ They have a vision of themselves as standard-bearers, passing down an ethical and religious tradition from a former generation, one that they trust will survive their own lifetime.

The ethicization of politics. It is of the essence of prophecy that it insists on reading the history of the prophets' own time, of their past and future as well, as a story of right and wrong. They have no space for historical causation, for everything is a moral matter, every historical event is a divine disclosure. A classic case is Amos's:

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, says Yahweh.
And I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain upon one city, and send no rain upon another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; so two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me, says Yahweh.
I smote you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me, says Yahweh.
I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I slew your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me, says Yahweh.
I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me, says Yahweh.
Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! (Amos 4.6-12)

Famine, plague, defeat-all are acts of God, and all are summonses to moral behaviour. This single-minded concentration on the ethical, on ethical excellence to boot, is the mark of the standard-bearer, and proof again of the masculine formation of the prophets.

It is not only the prophets themselves who are standard-bearers; those who study and research, teach and preach the prophets often see themselves as carrying on the standard-bearing role of the prophets. Just one citation, from James Crenshaw, will make the point:

Careful study of the Book of Jeremiah helps us to remain faithful to the prophet's legacy by learning from him to weigh the traditions of the past and to use them in the struggle to forge a better world./43/

Remaining faithful to the prophet is clearly an important ideal for this man, since the modern scholar sees himself as a legatee of the prophet, who will find his own fulfilment in recapitulating the ideals and experiences of the prophet./44/

Masculinity as a Problem
How is the masculinity of the prophetic texts a problem, and for whom is it a problem?/45/
It is a problem for the prophets themselves, for they do not know they speak only in Gavrit. Like M. Jourdain, who had been speaking prose for forty years without knowing it,/46/ the prophets use the language of masculinity pervasively and exclusively, but know nothing of it. Unlike women, who can only ever define themselves over against males, men have long been accustomed to equating maleness with humanity. A woman prophet, a haybn, can only ever know herself as a female counterpart of a aybn, but a male aybn will never think of himself as a masculine haybn. As the linguists say, aybn is an unmarked form, and in the real world it is the unmarked who call the shots.
Whether the masculinity of the prophets is a problem for interpreters of the Bible depends on how they value the Bible. If they regard the Bible as an ancient text like the Gilgamesh epic or the Iliad or the epistles of Seneca, they will not find the masculinity of the prophets a problem, assuming they even notice it. But if they think of the Bible as the Word of God, or as a theological resource, or even merely as a cultural classic, they are bound to have a problem translating Masclish into Human. How can a 'message' that comes in male attire, standing tall and girded with a sword, lifting high its standard yet fearful for its precarious honour, hope to speak to a world that is 53% female (to say nothing of the men in the other 47% who are troubled about traditional masculinity)?
Interpreters of the Bible (until now) have, of course chosen the best way of handling any problem: ignore it./47/

Notes

1. This paper is intended to form part of my planned book, Play the Man! The Masculine Imperative in the Bible. The other chapters already written are on: Moses: Dancing and Shining at Sinai: Playing the Man in Exodus 32-34; David: David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible; Job: Loin-girding and Other Male Activities in the Book of Job; Psalmists: The Book of Psalms, Where Men Are Men: On the Gender of Hebrew Piety; Jesus: Ecce Vir, or, Gendering the Son of Man; Paul: Paul, the Invisible Man.
2. And not just because, as Robert Coote put it in an unforgettable phrase, it 'came in spurts' (Amos among the Prophets: Composition and Theology [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981], p. 1). Masculinity can be defined in psychological terms (as corresponding to the different parental responses to the child's drives towards pleasure), in terms of role theory (as playing out a set of scripted behaviours), as a set of distinctive practices (which develop from men's position in specific social structures), or as a variety of discourses of masculinity present in and offered by the culture to men (who have a certain freedom to adopt one type of masculinity or another). See the helpful analysis by Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell, 'Masculinity, Power and Identity', in Understanding Masculinities (ed. Máirtín Mac an Ghaill; Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996), pp. 97-113.
3. The female prophets are Miriam (Exod. 15.20-21), Deborah, (Judg. 4.4), Huldah (2 Kgs 22.14-20; 2 Chr. 34.22-28), Noadiah (Neh. 6.14), and the unnamed haybn, presumably the wife of Isaiah, in Isa. 8.3.
4. My principal resources on masculinity have been the following. The fundamental texts have been: J.A. Doyle, The Male Experience (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 2nd edn, 1989); Julia T. Wood, Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 77-81; Kenneth Clatterbaugh, Contemporary Perspectives on Masculinity: Men, Women, and Politics in Modern Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990); Judith Arcana, Every Mother's Son: The Rôle of Mothers in the Making of Men (London: The Women's Press, 1983); Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (London: Virago press, 1990); R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Harry Brod (ed.), The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies (London: Routledge, 1992 [original publication, 1987]; Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell, Men in Perspective: Practice, Power and Identity (Hemel Hempstead, Herts.: Prentice­Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995); Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof (eds.), Language and Masculinity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); Máirtín Mac an Ghaill (ed.), Understanding Masculinities (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996); Patrick Fanning and Matthew McKay, Being a Man: A Guide to the New Masculinity (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 1993). Of a psychological cast are: Joseph H. Pleck, The Myth of Masculinity (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1981); Warren Steinberg, Identity Conflict and Transformation (Boston: Shambala Publications, 1993); Liam Hudson and Bernadine Jacot, The Way Men Think: Intellect, Intimacy and the Erotic Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Dana Breen (ed.), The Gender Conundrum: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Femininity and Masculinity (The New Library of Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1993). There are other important dimensions to the study of masculinity of which this essay cannot, of necessity, take account. One is that of change in western masculinity, and of the processes by which the prevailing norms have developed. See, for example, George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Manful Assertions: Masculi-ni-ties in Britain since 1800 (ed. Michael Roper and John Tosh; London: Routledge, 1991); Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America 1800­1940 (ed. J.A. Mangan and James Walvin; Manchester: Manchester Univer-sity Press, 1987); Clyde W. Franklin, II, The Changing Definition of Masculin-ity (New York: Plenum Press, 1984); Michael S. Kimmel, Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987); Roger Horrocks, Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture (New York: St Martin's Press, 1995). Cf. also the reviews introduced by Michael Roper, 'Recent Books on Masculinity', History Workshop 29 (1990), pp. 184-93; and the review forum in Victorian Studies 36 (1993), pp. 207-26; James Eli Adams, 'The Banality of Transgression? Recent Works on Masculinity' (pp. 207-13); Ed Cohen, 'Mar(r)king Men' (pp. 215-210); Mary Poovey, 'Exploring Mas-culinities' (pp. 223-26). Another significant dimension is theorizing masculinity; see espe-ci-ally Peter Middleton, The Inward Gaze: Masculinity and Subjectivity in Modern Cul-ture (London: Routledge, 1992); and Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism (ed. Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden; London: Routledge, 1990). A third dimension is the challenge to the concept of masculinity itself posed by a deconstructive approach to the opposition male/female. See especially Jeff Hearn, Men in the Public Eye: The Construction and Deconstruc-tion of Public Men and Public Patriarchies (London: Rout-ledge, 1992), esp. pp. 1-9. More generally on gender my resources have been: Carol C. Gould, Key Concepts in Critical Theory: Gender (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997); Anne Minas, Gender Basics: Feminist Perspectives on Women and Men (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1993).
5. See, for example, the classic article of James F. Ross, 'The Prophet as Yahweh's Messenger', in Israel's Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (ed. Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter Harrelson [London: SCM Press, 1962), pp. 98-107 (reprinted in Prophecy in Israel: Search for an Identity [ed. David L. Petersen; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 111-21); .Beth Glazier-MacDonald, Malachi. The Divine Messenger (SBLDS, 98; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987); John T. Greene, The Role of the Messenger and Message in the Ancient Near East: Oral and Written Communication in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Scriptures. Communicators and Communiqués in Context (Brown Judaic Studies, 169. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) [CUL, ULL]; Samuel A. Meier, The Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World (Harvard Semitic Monographs, 45; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988) [TCD].
6. While women may journey with their menfolk from Egypt to Canaan, or be carried into exile, or accompany their husband on a trip to Jerusalem, it is hard to find a single case of a travelling woman in the Bible.
7. This fact is not recognized even by the most up-to-date and Foucauldian studies of power in biblical literature; witness, for example, Sandra Hack Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power (Gender, Culture, Theory, 8; The Biblical Semester, 62; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,1999), which does not seem to invoke the concept of the masculine at all. See further, Arthur Brittan, Masculinity and Power (Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1989).
8. Cf. Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell, 'Masculinity, Power and Identity', in Understanding Masculinities (ed. Máirtín Mac an Ghaill; Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996), pp. 97-113 (97): '[A]ny adequate theory of men and masculinity has to have the concept of power at its centre'.
9. I am trying to bring out the masculinity embedded in the traditional term Yahweh Sebaoth (twabx hwhy). No one can be sure what the term means. Is it 'Yahweh of hosts'? It is extremely rare (or perhaps non-existent) for a personal name to be used in the construct (but cf. the place names larcy vwdq wyx 'Zion of the Holy One of Israel' [Isa 60.14], and d[lg vby 'Jabesh Gilead', hdwhy µjl tyb 'Bethlehem of Judah', etc.). Gesenius­Kautzsch­Cowley explain twabx hwhy as due to 'an ellipsis whereby the noun which really governs the genitive, i.e. the appellative idea contained in the proper name, is suppressed' (E. Kautzsch and A.E. Cowley, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910], §125h). This does not mean, however, that a form like twabx ylha hwhy 'Yahweh, God of hosts' (2 Sam. 5.10) is the original, from which twabx hwhy is shortened, for that is 'a secondly expansion of the original twabx hwhy'. Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka, on the other hand, regard twabx hwhy as 'apposition', i.e. 'Yahweh (the) hosts', which can only mean that Yahweh himself is the armies, but they note that it is 'generally assumed that this [twabx hwhy] is an ellipsis for twabx ylha hwhy' (A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew [Subsidia biblica, 14/1-2; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1991], p. 481, §131o). If Yahweh himself is the armies, we might translate 'Yahweh the War-Machine' (as J.C. Exum has suggested to me), but if the sense is 'really' twabx ylha hwhy we might translate by 'Yahweh, God of armies' or some equivalent, preferably foregrounding the fact that armies are groups of males who are trained to kill.
10. Another of Yahweh's servants, one who is mighty and strong, is like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, or a flood of mighty, overflowing waters, casting down the deity's enemies to the earth with violence (Isa 28.2).
11. I made a similar point about Paul's phrase, 'when I am weak, then am I strong' (2 Cor. 12.10) in my 'Paul, the Invisible Man'. I am delighted to discover that Isa. 30.15 is the motto of the Israeli Military College in Haifa and Tel Aviv (my thanks to John F.A. Sawyer for the information); we may be sure that such an institution is not harbouring any namby-pamby construction of masculinity.
12. On the subject, see Angela Bauer, 'Das Buch Jeremia. Wenn kluge Klagefrauen und prophetische Pornographie den Weg ins Exil weisen', in Kompendium feministische Bibelauslegung (ed. Luise Schottroff and Marie-Theres Wacker; Gütersloh: Christian Kaiser, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998), pp. 258-69; Athalya Brenner, 'On "Jeremiah" and the Poetics of (Prophetic?) Pornography', in Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series, 1; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), pp. 178-93; Athalya Brenner, 'Pornoprophetics Revisited: Some Additional Reflections', JSOT 70 (1996), pp. 63-86; Robert P. Carroll, 'Desire under the Terebinths: On Pornographic Representation in the Prophets-A Response', in A Feminist Companion to The Latter Prophets (ed. Athalya Brenner; The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 8; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 275-307; Athalya Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and 'Sexuality' in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 153-74; J. Cheryl Exum, 'The Ethics of Biblical Violence against Women', in The Bible in Ethics (ed. John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and Daniel M. Carroll R.; JSOTSup, 207; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995), pp. 248-71; J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (JSOTSup, 215; Gender, Culture, Theory, 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 101-28; Marla J. Selvidge, 'Reflections on Violence and Pornography: Misogyny in the Apocalypse and Ancient Hebrew Prophecy', in A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament (ed. Athalya Brenner; The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 274-85; T. Drorah Setel, 'Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea', in A Feminist Companion to the Song of Songs (ed. Athalya Brenner; The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), pp. 143-55; and in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (ed. Letty M. Russell; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 86-95; Rut Törnkvist, The Use and Abuse of Female Sexual Imagery in the Book of Hosea: A Feminist Critical Approach to Hos 1­3 (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Women's Studies. A. Women in Religion, 7; Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1998).
13. Cf., for example, Patrick D. Miller, Jr, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs, 5; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973); Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, 'Put on the armour of God': The Divine Warrior from Isaiah to Ephesians (JSNTSup, 140. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997); Marc Brettler, 'Images of YHWH the Warrior in Psalms', Semeia 61 (1993), pp. 135-65; Martin Klingbeil, Yahweh Fighting from Heaven: God as Warrior and as God of Heaven in the Hebrew Psalter and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography (Orbis biblicus et orientalis, 169; Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1999); Tremper Longman III and Daniel G. Reid, God is a Warrior (Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); George Ernest Wright, 'God the Warrior', in The Flowering of Old Testament Theology: A Reader in Twentieth-Century Old Testament Theology, 1930­1990 (ed. Ben C. Ollenburger; Sources for biblical and theological study, 1; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), pp. 100-19.
14. It is sobering to speculate on the connection between the incineration of 130,000 Japanese at Hiroshima and the fetishization of the magnalia Dei in the post-war Biblical Theology movement in the country that dropped the bomb.
15. Theodore Hiebert, 'Warrior, Divine', ADB, VI, pp. 876-80 (876).
16. Hiebert, p. 878.
17. Thomas Römer speaks of the 'disarmament' or 'demilitarization' of the warrior god by Deuteronomistic editing that 'counterbalances' the tradition of Yahweh as a God of conquest (Dieu obscur: Le sexe, la cruauté et la violence dans l'Ancien Testament [Essais bibliques, 27; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1996], pp. 77-96 [87]) but, as the quotation above from Hiebert shows, a picture of a pacific future need not in the least countervail against the image of the warrior God, but may in fact be its ultimate justification.
18. My resources on honour and shame include: R. Atkins, 'Pauline Theology and Shame Affect. Reading a Social Location', Listening 31 (1996), pp. 137-51; Lyn M. Bechtel, 'Shame as a Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel: Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming', JSOT 49 (1991), pp. 47-76; Lyn M. Bechtel, 'The Perception of Shame within the Divine-Human Relationship in Biblical Israel', in Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson (ed. Lewis M. Hopfe, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 79-92; Dianne Bergant, '"My beloved is mine and I am his" (Song 2:16): The Song of Songs and Honor and Shame', Semeia 68 (1994), pp. 23-40; P.J. Botha, 'The Ideology of Shame in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Ecclesiasticus 41:14­42:8', Old Testament Essays 9 (1996), pp. 353-71; Claudia V. Camp, 'Honor, Shame, and the Hermeneutics of Ben Sira's Ms C', in Wisdom, you are my sister. Studies in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (ed. Michael L. Barré;. CBQMS, 29; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1997), pp. 157-71; Claudia V. Camp, 'Honor and Shame in Ben Sira: Anthropological and Theological Reflections', in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research: Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 28-31 July 1996, Soesterberg, Netherlands (ed. Pancratius C. Beentjes; BZAW, 255; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 171-87; Barth L. Campbell, Honor, Shame, and the Rhetoric of 1 Peter SBLDS, 160; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); John K. Chance, 'The Anthropology of Honor and Shame: Culture, Values, and Practice', Semeia 68 (1994), pp. 139-51; Gregory M. Corrigan, 'Paul's Shame for the Gospel', BTB 16 (1986), pp. 23-27; D. Daube, 'Shame Culture in Luke', in Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C.K. Barrett (ed. Morna D. Hooker and Stephen G. Wilson; London: SPCK, 1982), pp. 355-72; David A. deSilva, Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews', JBL 113 (1994), pp. 439-61; David A. deSilva, 'The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture', CBQ 58 (1996), pp. 433-55; David A. deSilva, 'The Noble Contest: Honor, Shame, and the Rhetorical Strategy of 4 Maccabees', JSP 13 (1995), pp. 31-57; David A. deSilva, Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews (SBLDS, 152; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); W. R. Domeris, 'Honour and Shame in the New Testament." Neotestamentica 27 (1993), pp. 283-97; W. R. Domeris, 'Shame and Honour in Proverbs: Wise Women and Foolish Men', Old Testament Essays 8 (1995), pp. 86-102; G. Eddy, Transformed Values of Honor and Shame in Luke 18:1-14, in Proceedings, Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 12 (1992); John H. Elliott, 'Disgraced Yet Graced. The Gospel according to 1 Peter in the Key of Honor and Shame', BTB 25 (1995), pp. 166-78; T. Raymond Hobbs, 'Reflections on Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations', JBL 116 (1997), pp. 501-503; Robert Jewett, 'Honor and Shame in the Argument of Romans', in Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs (ed. Virginia Wiles, Alexandra Brown and Graydon F. Snyder; Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1997), pp. 258-73; Lillian R. Klein, 'Honor and Shame in Esther', in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna (ed. Athalya Brenner; The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 149-75; Paul A. Kruger, 'The Psychology of Shame and Jeremiah 2:36-37', Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 22 (1996), pp. 79-88; Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981); Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, 'Honor and Shame in Luke­Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World', in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (ed. Jerome H. Neyrey; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 25-66; Peter Marshall, 'A Metaphor of Social Shame: THRIAMBEUEIN in 2 Cor. 2:14', Novum Testamentum 25 (1983), pp. 302-17; Victor H. Matthews, 'Honor and Shame in Gender-Related Legal Situations in the Hebrew Bible', in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup, 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 97-112; David M. May, 'Mark 3:20-35 from the Perspective of Shame/Honor', BTB 17 (1987), pp. 83-87; Byron R. McCane, '"Where No One Had Yet Been Laid": The Shame of Jesus' Burial', in Society of Biblical Literature. 1993 Seminar Papers (ed. Eugene H. Lovering; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 473-84; Mark McVann, 'Reading Mark Ritually: Honor­Shame and the Ritual of Baptism', Semeia 67 (1994), pp. 179-98; Halvor Moxnes, 'Honor, Shame, and the Outside World in Paul's Letter to the Romans', in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee (ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, Peder Borgen and Richard Horsley; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 207-18; Halvor Moxnes, 'Honor and Shame', BTB 23 (1993), pp. 167-76); Jerome H. Neyrey, 'Despising the Shame of the Cross: Honor and Shame in the Johannine Passion Narrative', Semeia 68 (1994), pp. 113-37; M. Odell, 'An Exploratory Study of Shame and Dependence in the Bible and Selected Near Eastern Parallels', in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspectives: Scripture in Context IV (ed. K. Lawson Younger, Jr, William W. Hallo, Bernard F. Batto; Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies, 11; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991); Margaret S. Odell, 'The Inversion of Shame and Forgiveness in Ezekiel 16.59-63', JSOT 56 (1992), pp. 101-12; Saul M. Olyan, 'Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and its Environment', JBL 115 (1996), pp. 201-18; Anthony Phillips, 'The Book of Ruth-Deception and Shame', JJS 37 (1986), pp. 1-17; R. Rabichev, 'The Mediterranean Concepts of Honour and Shame as Seen in the Depiction of the Biblical Women', Religion and Theology 3 (1996), pp. 51-63; Ronald A. Simkins, '"Return to Yahweh": Honor and Shame in Joel', Semeia 68 (1994), pp. 41-54; G. Stansell 'Honor and Shame in the David Narratives', in Was ist der Mensch ...? Beiträge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments: Hans Walter Wolff zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. Frank Crüsemann, Christof Hardmeier and Rainer Kessler; Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1992), pp. 94-114; Gary Stansell, 'Honor and Shame in the David Narratives', Semeia 68 (1994), pp. 55-79; Ken Stone, 'Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject-Honor, Object-Shame?', JSOT 67 (1995), pp. 87-107.
19. See J.D. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965); Moses Finley, The World of Odysseus (London: Penguin Books, 1962); A.W. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960); Douglas L. Cairns, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
20. Unni Wikan, 'Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair', Man 19 (1984), pp. 635-52.
21. Cf. Moxnes, 'Honor and Shame', p. 168
22. For widowhood as a shame, cf. Isa. 54.4 (the woman is of course Jerusalem, and not a real woman, but the language would presumably not be possible if a real widow did not suffer shame just for being a widow). For some unclear reason Jerusalem as a woman also has 'shame' (tvb) lingering on from her youth (Jeremiah too has disgrace from his youth, Jer. 31.19). A mother of seven sons is shamed (vwb) and disgraced (rpj) when all her sons are killed in battle (Jer.15.9). Israel as a woman is shamed by determining to go after her lovers (Hos. 2.7 [5]). The daughter of Egypt (i.e. Egypt itself) is to be shamed by being given into the power of a nation from the north (Jer. 46.24).
23. The only texts about women's honour are these: (1) Exod. 20.12 and Deut. 5.16 call upon sons to honour their father and mother. But it must be a different kind of honour for the mother than for the father; for the father's honour is a public one, attributed and assigned in a sphere in which mothers do not move. Or it may be that text means that one should honour one's father and not dishonour one's mother. (2) Isa. 66.11, where Jerusalem as a mother is said to have glory. Those who mourn for her will suck and be satisfied with her breasts of consolation; they should drain them out and delight themselves 'in the fullness of her glory' (hdwbk zyzm). If it turns out that women can have honour or glory, namely full breasts, this is nothing like the honour that men possess. Cf. also the idea that a woman's long hair is her honour (1 Cor 11.15).
24. Certain objects also can be honoured or have honour, e.g. a forest and orchards (Isa. 10.18), Kedar (Isa 21.16), Lebanon (Isa. 35.2), chariots (Isa 22.18), the temple (Hag. 2.3, 7, 9), Ephraim (Hos. 9.11). Are they all within the male realm, one wonders.
25. If you want to say 'holy city' in Hebrew, you must say 'city of holiness' (vdq ry[), as in Neh. 11.1, 18; Isa. 48.2; Dan. 9.24 (the only occurrences).
26. A woman (Bathsheba) is once said to 'sanctify' herself (vdq hithp.) 'from her uncleanness' by bathing (2 Sam. 11.4), but it is self-evident that this ritual makes her clean, not holy. What can be sanctified, consecrated (vdq) are, for example, priests (Exod. 19.22), the sabbath (Gen. 2.3), male firstborn (Exod. 13.2), the altar (Exod. 29.27), the temple (2 Chron. 36.14), the people of Israel, meaning the males (Exod. 19.10; Josh. 3.5), war (Jer. 6.4)-all of them objects in the public realm, which is to say, the world of males.
27. J.J.M. Roberts, 'Isaiah in Old Testament Theology', in Interpreting the Prophets, pp. 62-74 (63).
28. Cf. Job's wife whom he curses to suffer a similar fate should he allow himself to be seduced by another woman (Job 31.10).
29. Not so, says Hans Wildberger (Isaiah 1­12, p. 147), quoting Budde: 'It is definitely not correct to say that Isaiah is indignant about clothing customs as such since one presumes that Isaiah would certainly have been able to find all these effects in his wife's wardrobe' [and we must presume that the prophet could hardly have waxed indignant about his own wife's trinkets, even though the image of the prophet poking about in his wife's wardrobe might raise an eyebrow]. No, this is not an authentic Isaian passage, since 'it is most unlikely that he would have put in the time and effort to assemble such a list' [for why would a real man, a prophet with high affairs of state on his mind (cf. p. 148), waste his time with trivia like women's clothing?]. 'In and of itself', of course, 'beautiful clothes, with the accompanying decorative touches, could give expression to the naïve, natural joy of an Oriental wife who wanted to adorn herself' [such adornment being, any man will tell you, childlike and naïve]. But that is not the issue here; what is under judgment is not the clothing but the lifestyle of the Jerusalem women which is 'a symptom of the drive to be important'-and readers will know how unbecoming such a drive is in a woman. That lifestyle 'reveals a haughtiness in which one is so wrapped up in human affairs that there is no time left to bow down before God' (p. 156)-for obviously these women who are 'jingling with their foot bracelets' are not on their way to a prayer-meeting. The prophet and his commentator are of a common mind that women cannot be both pious and glamorous; they really disapprove of female adornment, don't they?-which is to say, they fear it. No less judgmental a commentator is Otto Kaiser (Isaiah 1­12: A Commentary [London: SCM Press, 1972; German original, 2nd edition, 1963]), who writes: '[T]he hollow world of the women of Jerusalem, concerned only with finery, bodily adornment and the enticement of men, is destined by God's decree to certain ruin' (p. 47; presumably the men of Jerusalem had no time at all for dressing up as priests, princes and warriors, and were completely averse to the enticement of women). The prophet is, of course, 'not attacking female beauty culture as such, but the pride of those who practise it' (p. 48, though, to tell the truth, the prophet seems incapable of such a subtle distinction). 'It is evidence of Isaiah's acute perception of the inner relationship between the attitude of women and the future of the nation, that he pays them this observant attention. The men must pay for the desires of the women The more extravagant they are, the more they lead the men on into illegal profiteeering In various ways they are undermining the internal unity and health of the people of the covenant' (p. 48; was it not ever thus, the women blamed for the sins of the men?). And before we leave the subject, let us make sure we have sufficiently patronized and condemned these 'particularly sophisticated' women with their 'deeply cut-away clothes leaving both breasts free' (p. 49): while on the one hand these adornments 'reflect the whole delight of oriental women in bright colours and pretty clothes' (patronization), 'the accumulation points to the immoderate desire of these women for finery' (condemnation) (p. 50). Strange, that last point, since Kaiser is at pains to point out (quoting Dillmann, and echoing Wildberger also), that 'One must not imagine each individual woman wore all these together or actually at the same time' (p. 50), so that the 'accumulation' of finery that was so bad for the nation's health was not something any particular woman was guilty of (which is to say, that no woman should have been blamed for), but only a fault of women collectively. And that means, does it not, that the prophet, and the commentator, is castigating women, women as such, women collectively-and why should he, and he, do that, do you think? Consider also where in Jerusalem this collectivity of fashions, which are not to be found in the wardrobe of any one actual woman, could be seen: only on the market stalls, presumably, presided over entirely by women traders who have dispensed entirely with the services of male smiths and drapers and merchants. One sincerely hopes that no Israelite man ever made a living out of the supply of these hollow and doomed accoutrements.
30. In Isa. 61.10, it is acceptable for a bride to adorn herself with jewels, but precisely in the context of the bridegroom decking himself with a garland; this is sexuality constrained and channelled, and therefore not dangerous. In 62.5 the bride is the object of the bridegroom's joy, and that too is acceptable, for the same reason.
31. hax is sometimes 'excrement', but the fact that it is specifically the hax of the women suggests strongly that it is female impurity.
32. There is also abuse of the woman who personifies Babylon in 47.1-15, but I am not dealing with metaphorical women here.
33. Moab is 'at ease' in Jer. 48.11 and Kedar in 49.1, but that does not seem to be a moral fault; Amos 6.1, however, is a 'woe' against those that are 'at ease' in Zion, and in Zech. 1.15 Yahweh is very angry with the nations that are 'at ease' because 'they furthered the disaster' of Jerusalem. So being at ease is culpable if it means not taking effective action; it is hard what kind of public action the women of Jerusalem are supposed to have been able to take.
34. Babylon, pictured as a woman, is also in trouble for 'trust' in 47.8: 'Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely (jfb), who say in your heart, "I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children"'.
35. BHS and some commentators read µycig'nO 'oppressors' (so too NJB) instead of µyvin 'women'.
36. See Wilfred G.E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques (JSOTSup, 26; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), p. 344; I have commented on the phenomenon in my 'The Parallelism of Greater Precision: Notes from Isaiah 40 for a Theory of Hebrew Poetry', in New Directions in Hebrew Poetry (ed. Elaine R. Follis; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement, 40; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), pp. 77-100 (reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967­1998, I (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 314-36.
37. I did not include Isa. 24.2.
38. Ian M. Harris, Messages Men Hear: Constructing Masculinities (London: Taylor & Francis, 1995), pp. 55-56.
39. Cf. J. Barton, Amos's Oracles against the Nations: A Study of Amos 1.3­2.5 (SOTSMS, 6; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)
40. John H. Hayes, Amos, the Eighth-Century Prophet: His Times and his Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), p. 58.
41. Thomas Jemielity, Satire and the Hebrew Prophets (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), p. 15.
42. R.E. Clements, Prophecy and Tradition (Growing Points in Theology; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), p. 39.
43. James L. Crenshaw, 'A Living Tradition: The Book of Jeremiah in Current Research', in Interpreting the Prophets (ed. James Luther Mays and Paul Achtemeier; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 100-12 (100; cf. p. 112). Of course, from a male point of view we cannot remain faithful to the prophet unless we know exactly which are and which are not authentic words of his, i.e. where legitimacy lies. Thus it is not surprising (though it is deeply saddening) that Crenshaw identifies the 'fundamental issue' in current Jeremiah research as the question, 'How can we recognize authentic materials of Jeremiah when the book contains distinctive literary styles?' (pp. 100-101).
44. As a second example I offer the closing words from the preface to Hans Wildberger's Isaiah 1­12: A Commentary (trans. Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991 [German original, 1980]), p. viii: '[H]ope remains that the message of the prophet and the words of the many interpreters and interpolators within the book itself will begin to speak once again in a new way to our own age. The central theme of Isaiah's proclamation is as timely today as it was in the time of the prophet: If you do not believe, then you will not remain.' Nothing very unusual about such a 'hope', and the author might well have been surprised to find it categorized as an example of male standard-bearing. It is the very idea that the commentator is transmitting the words of the prophet to another age that casts him as a standard-bearer. Interesting also, incidentally, is Wildberger's choice of this text (Isa. 7.9) as the 'timely' message of Isaiah when 'faith' or 'belief' is so scarce in Isaiah (28.16 seems to be the only other use of ma in such a sense). It couldn't be anything to do with Lutheran theology, could it?
45. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz is also worried about masculinity (God's Phallus: And Other Problems for Men and Monotheism [Boston: Beacon Press, 1994], but his concern is different from mine. He finds 'the sexual body of a father God troubling for the conception of masculinity', 'render[ing] the meaning of masculinity unstable' (pp. 1-2). I am more concerned with the effect of the masculinity of the prophets upon their writings and their readers.
46. M. Jourdain appears in Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. He is astonished to find that he has been speaking prose for forty years without realizing it (il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien).
47. There are, for example, no references to 'male' or 'masc*' in 700 references to books and articles on prophecy in the Aktinos database (http://iktinos.swim.org/da-ba/index.html).