So May God Do To Me! 95 Israelites pronounce an imprecation on the person who will eat something before sunset and before he will have revenged himself on the Philistines (14,24; cf. 14,39). It appears that Jonathan has, quite innocently, taken some honey. He had not been informed of the imprecation. Saul now says that Jonathan must die, and he confirms this on an oath of self-imprecation: “So may God do (18) and more also! Indeed, Jonathan, you shall surely die!” (14,44). Most remarkably, the people manage to induce Saul to think twice. Referring to God in an oath (hwhy yj “As sure as YHWH is alive”), the people swear that not a hair will fall from Jonathan’s head (14,45). This leads Saul suddenly to downplay the importance of all previous imprecations, including his own self-imprecation (19). All in all, the question becomes increasingly pressing: did those, who uttered the self-imprecations, take the threat of their self-imprecation seriously themselves? Or had these utterances essentially degenerated into some worn-out phrase to underscore the oath, without any awareness on the part of the speaker of its literal meaning? In the cases of Jezebel, Ben-Hadad, and Saul as in the case of the Israelite king who wanted Elisha killed, the phrase hardly seems to function anymore as a genuine threat of self- imprecation. Even the narrators of the stories do not seem to mind the earlier phrasal utterances of self-imprecation. A relevant and illuminating passage, that I have omitted so far, is 1 Sam 25,22. The Masoretic text has David swearing to kill a group of men — members of the Nabal clan. David reinforces his oath using a surprising variant of the imprecatory phrase: ryaça µa πysy hkw dwd ybyal µyhla hç[y hk ryqb ˆytçm rqbh d[ wl rça lkm “So may God do to David’s enemies and more also, if before the morning I will have left of all who belong to him even one alive who urinates against the wall” (20). Evidently, the way in which the imprecation appears in this particular case, does not seem to make sense. The Septuagint has a reading that implies a self-imprecation: Tavde poihvsai oJ Qeo;" tw'/ Daui;d kai; tavde prosqeivh “So will God do to David and more”. It is generally assumed, on good grounds, that the Septuagint reading stems from an earlier Hebrew reading than the Masoretic reading. In early Judaism, the older reading dwdl “to David” was replaced with dwd ybyal “to David’s enemies” (21). As the story continues, David does not keep his promise, because of (18) Some of the Masoretic manuscripts omit yl “to me”. The Septuagint does have moi. (19) For the possibility of undoing an imprecation with a blessing, see also Judg 17,1-2 and the Epic of Gilgamesh, VII, 151-153. (20) S. TALMON – W.W. FIELDS, “The Collocation bwz[w rwx[w ryqb ˆytçm and its Meaning”, ZAW 101 (1989) 85-112, propose the translation: “one who urinates in the upper chamber”. The expression would not refer to men in general, but to “a person, predominantly of royal status, who had the privilege of using, and of relieving himself in, a private upper chamber” (p. 101). (21) See S.R. DRIVER, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (Oxford 21913) 299; C. MCCARTHY, The Tiqqune Sopherim and Other Theological Corrections in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament (OBO 36; Fribourg – Göttingen 1981) 188-189; D. BARTHÉLEMY, Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament (OBO 50/1; Fribourg – Göttingen 1982) I, 213. Unfortunately, the passage does not occur on the ancient fragments from Qumran and other parts of the Judean desert. The Peshitta reads dywd hdb[l “for his servant David”, which is in agreement with the reading of the Septuagint.