Biblica_1:Layout 1 21-11-2011 12:59 Pagina 342 342 MARK LEUCHTER The language of the poem repeatedly takes up the language of Israel’s kinship networks and the agrarian praxes that defined them. YHWH fights in Israel’s battles against external threats, plants Israel’s seed in the soil, resides alongside Israel in the hill country, and engages in acts of redemption. In deploying these terms, the theme of YHWH’s divine kinship emerges. This is adopted as offi- cial ancestral doctrine when considered alongside the poet’s initial declaration that YHWH is, indeed, an ancestral deity to whom sub- sequent generation must show filial piety (whnmmr)w yb) yhl) in v. 2). Exod 15, then, attempts to incorporate the religion of the family and clan into the wider panoply of the national religious experience 89. The notion of YHWH as a divine kinsman has often been noted as an important dimension of Israel’s religious conception 90. The term is applied to YHWH most prominently in Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah (e.g., Isa 43,14; 63,16) in relation to greater theologies of national redemp- tion 91. Just as YHWH redeemed Israel at the dawn of its existence dur- ing the Exodus, so too does he redeem them alongside the rise of Persia. However, the l)g language is not simply a theological con- struct applied to late exilic or Persian era politics. A recent study by J. Untermann, for instance, addresses the social background of the con- cept 92. Untermann notes, crucially, that the term applies to the blood- redeemer, i.e., a kinsman who defends the integrity and honor of the kinship group against an enemy or oppressive, violent force. Consid- ering the emphasis in Exod 15 on YHWH’s violent championing of Is- rael against external threat — a central tenet of kinship responsibility in the pre-exilic period 93 — the appearance of the l)g language therein (v. 13) is appropriate. 89 So also MILLER, The Divine Warrior, 162-163. 90 See among others P. NISKASEN, “YHWH as Father, Redeemer, and Potter in Isaiah 63:7-64:11”, CBQ 68 (2006) 407; CROSS, From Epic to Canon, 6-7. 91 NISKASEN notes that the term l)g is rarely used for YHWH outside of Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah (“YHWH as Father, Redeemer, and Potter”, 402), but he does cite Psalms 19 and 78 (the latter of which, as we have seen, is certainly pre-exilic) as among the sources beyond the Book of Isaiah where this term is applied. Niskasen does not discuss the function of the term in Exod 15,13. 92 J. UNTERMANN, “The Social-Legal Origin for the Image of God as Redeemer l)wg of Israel”, Pomegranates and Golden Bells. Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (eds. D.P. WRIGHT – D.N. FREEDMAN – A. HURVITZ) (Winona Lake, IN 1995) 399-405. 93 CROSS, From Epic to Canon, 4. It is precisely this expectation of de- fensive allegiance that the poet behind Judg 5 employs in his chiding of tribes