Biblica_1:Layout 1 21-11-2011 12:59 Pagina 341 341 EISODUS AS EXODUS: THE SONG OF THE SEA himself as the master of the land, Israel’s “seed” is demolished. In the case of Exod 15, it is YHWH who is the master who sees to it that his people are safely and firmly planted. Finally, the language of clan kinship is invoked as part of this ide- ological matrix through the appearance of tl)g in v. 13. The l)g ter- minology is most commonly affixed to a kinsman who is able to guarantee the ongoing ownership of his family estate or clan land holdings, and thus return to his living kin the opportunity to connect with the ancestors buried in the land 85. The central role of this social position is attested in Jer 32,6-15, where the prophet becomes the re- deemer of his cousin’s tract of land, and an identical function of kin- ship can be found in the Jubilee legislation in Lev 25,24-32. Both of these passages derive from relatively late texts, but the content and focus of their discourse is rooted in rather antiquated ideas. The Leviti- cus passage is based on a very ancient practice that a later author deemed authoritative enough to legitimize his legal polemic 86. The same impulse is found in the Jeremiah passage, which relates to a time of great political turbulence but uses the ancient institution of the l)wg as a means of concretizing an oracle of future restoration 87. In both cases, the idea of redemption connects the people to each other, to the land and ultimately to the divine, as YHWH is both the source of prophecy in the Jeremiah passage and the source of the legislation in Leviticus 25 (Lev 25,1). Exod 15 is consistent with the ideas embed- ded within these texts, as it too equates exhortation with a divine source and declares the regal nature of YHWH (Exod 15,2.18) 88. 85 BERGSMA, The Jubilee, 65; VAN DER TOORN, Family Religion, 199-201; STAVRAKOPOULOU, Land of our Fathers, passim. 86 BERGSMA, The Jubilee, 53-78, has made a strong case for the antiquity of the Jubilee tradition, though most scholars view the legislation itself as de- riving from a considerably later period. For the relatively late date of the leg- islation in Leviticus 25 in particular, see B.M. LEVINSON, “The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Con- temporary Pentateuchal Theory”, Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (ed. A. LEMAIRE) (VTS 109; Leiden 2006) 305-322. 87 On the historical context for the origination and application of the Jeremiah passage (a distinction should be maintained between the two), see M. LEUCHTER, The Polemics of Exile in Jeremiah 26-45 (New York – Cambridge 2008) 61-65. 88 Indeed, Lev 25,1 subordinates the entirety of the legislation under the model of a royal decree; see recently G.A. RENDSBURG, “The Two Screens: On Mary Douglas’s Proposal for a Literary Structure in the Book of Leviticus”, JSQ 15 (2008) 181-182, drawing from an earlier suggestion made by Y. Muffs. See also J.L. MILGROM, Leviticus 23–27 (AB; New York 2001) 2151–2152.