272 EDWARD J. BRIDGE God in some fashion. Furthermore, the thanks expressed can be part of a strategy to motivate God to answer a request. * * * To conclude, the use of self-abasement to express thanks in the Hebrew Bible highlights both the magnanimity of the one being thanked yet avoids the one giving the thanks expressing obligation to the one being thanked. In some cases, the avoidance of ob- ligation is played upon in the wider narrative. When thanks is expressed to God, the obligation side of thanks, however, becomes present. Though the speaker does not expressly obligate himself to God, the contexts show that he has either already obligated himself, or will express obligation, to God. Consequently, rather than being used as avoiding obligation to God, self-abasement functions simply as an expression of highlighting God’s magna- nimity. In some cases, such highlighting of God’s magnanimity is used as a rhetorical strategy to persuade God to answer a request. It is recognized that the frequency of self-abasement as expressing thanks in the Hebrew Bible is relatively small, even though, as noted, self-abasement is a common feature of biblical language. This may mean that other means of expressing thanks may be discerned in the biblical texts. For example, in 1 Sam 25,32-35, David both blesses God and blesses Abigail to God, which allows him to avoid obligation to her, despite accepting her gift, and there- fore her request that her husband Nabal and the men of her house- hold be spared from death for Nabal’s slight of him in vv. 10-11. This difference between avoiding obligation to people yet willingness to be obligated to God matches an observation by Schwartz, who, in a discussion on social relationships as idealised by Josephus, Ben Sira and the rabbis, argues that the Pentateuchal laws tend “to ignore or disapprove of such relationships” along with servitude of one Israelite to another. The only dependency based relationship “embraced” in the laws is that “between God and Israel alone” 42. It would appear from my study that biblical narrative is in keeping with the laws. Self-abasement is the mecha- S. SCHWARTZ, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and 42