Resumptive repetition in Exodus 6, Duke of Sussex Bible, 1350-1374, MS 15252, f.32r. British Library
The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme)
A literary strategy used by pre-modern editors and authors that works in a similar way to the classic cinematographic catch-phrase, “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch.” (With an addendum by Prof. Marc Brettler)
Published December 24, 2013
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Last Updated September 7, 2026
There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, poetry was often marked by leaving spaces between poetic units. Additionally, in some Qumran scrolls, a difference was made between the script used for God’s name (Paleo-Hebrew) and the rest of the writing. For more on this latter trend, see Emanuel Tov, “Further Evidence for the Existence of a Qumran Scribal School,” in: The Dead Sea Scrolls. Fifty Years after their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20-25, eds. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James C. Vanderkam (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1997), 199-216, [204ff]. It is worth noting that many did not expect scribes to produce an exact replica of the text that they were copying.
“God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now maybe men chase women to get the rib back. When God took the rib, he left a big hole there, where there used to be something. And the women have that. Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn’t complete as a man without a woman.”
The locution “author/editor,” popularized by the late biblical scholar Shemaryahu Talmon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, emphasizes that until a certain point, biblical editors also functioned as authors. See, e.g., Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Textual Study of the Bible: A New Outlook,” in Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible: Collected Studies (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 19–84 [26–29]; reprint of, Qumran and the History of the Bible Text, ed. Frank Moore Cross Jr. and Shemaryahu Talmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 321–400. For a discussion of this, and when this stopped being the case, see Emmanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible 3rd Revised and Expanded Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 181–183.
The concept of “resumptive repetition” (or “ repetitive resumption”) was introduced into scholarly discourse in Harold Marcus Wiener, “First Steps in the Study of Glossing” Bibliotheca Sacra 72:288 (Oct 1915): 602-617. Its better known German name was introduced in Curt Kuhl, “Die Wiederaufnahme—ein literarkritisches Prinzip?” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 64 (1952): 1–11.
For more on this section of Judges, see: Marc Zvi Brettler, “Jud 1,1-2,10: From Appendix to Prologue,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 101 (1989): 433-435.
This Midianite – Ishmaelite switch is probably a result of a combination of two sources (E and J), with the word “they” originally referring to the brothers. But source criticism is not the focus of this essay.
Between verses 24 and 36, the Torah recounts the reaction of Reuben to the loss of Joseph and the ruse of the goat’s blood to fool Jacob. Considering this, verse 36 itself functions as a mini-Wiederaufnahme, but, in truth, it brings the story forward more than it repeats v. 28, and is most likely a consequence of the combining of sources here.
The careful reader will note that God already introduced Moses to this name in 3:15. This tension was one of the pillars upon which the documentary hypothesis was built, with the introduction in ch. 3 coming from E and the introduction in ch. 6 coming from P. Conversely, the name YHWH is used by J from the beginning and, in that source’s conception, the Patriarchs always knew God by that name. Gen. 12:7 is a particularly good example of this.
This example is discussed in Bernard M. Levinson’s brief treatment of the phenomenon (he prefers the term “repetitive resumption”) in Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 17–20. Levinson notes another example, from a legal text: Leviticus 23:4 is a Wiederaufnahme to verses 1–2, and frames the introduction of the Shabbat into the cultic calendar there (v. 3). For another such legal example, this time focusing on one small phrase (Exod 21:37, 22:2), see idem, “The Case for Revision and Interpolation Within the Biblical Legal Corpora,” in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation, and Development, ed. Bernard M. Levinson, JSOTsupp 181 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 37–59 [51–52].
The best English treatment of the Wiederaufnahme is Burke O. Long, “Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography,” Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987), 385-399. For some pushback on the use of this concept, see Raymond F. Person, Jr., “A Reassessment of Wiederaufnahme from the Perspective of Conversation Analysis,” Biblische Zeitschrift 43 (1999): 241-248.
