David Frankel

Why does Moses’ face radiate only after receiving the second tablets of the Decalogue? Did Moses really cover his face before speaking to the people? And why does the story of the veil describe a Tent of Meeting that hasn’t even been constructed? A closer look at the story reveals that some biblical authors found Moses’ radiant face problematic.

Originally, each farmer marked the start of their harvest by bringing the first sheaf to the priest, then working for seven consecutive weeks, culminating in an offering of new grain. Later, when this offering was transformed into the national festival of Shavuot and Shabbat observance became central, the count was anchored in מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת—“the day after Shabbat”—to avoid harvesting on the new day of rest.

Are the scouts punished for speaking badly about the land or for causing the Israelites to rebel?

Ahasuerus grants Haman permission to kill the Jews. Why, then, does Haman delay the attack for almost a year based on a lottery, and why, if the attack was to cover all 127 provinces, does he limit its scope to only one day?

Was the 13th of Adar a day when the Jews successfully defended themselves against their enemies, or was it a day when they could take vengeance against their enemies? Does Mordechai’s edict offset Haman’s edict or replace it?

The sacrifice of firstling animals and redemption of firstborn sons were originally not related to the exodus story. When they were linked to the tenth plague, the narrative was adjusted to have YHWH also slaughter the Egyptian firstling animals.

Abraham tells his servant to go to his hometown to find a wife for Isaac. When the servant returns, he never reports back to him or introduces Rebecca to him. Why does Abraham disappear from the narrative? And, as Rebecca is his great-niece, why not send the servant to her father’s home directly?

Leviticus 16 describes how the scapegoat ritual on Yom Kippur attains atonement for all of Israel’s sins, even acts of rebellion. Numbers 15, however, states that a person who sins unintentionally can bring an offering and be forgiven, but the person who sins intentionally is cut off from the people.

Why do the Israelites try to stone Joshua and Caleb instead of Moses and Aaron? Why do Moses and Aaron remain on their faces throughout Joshua and Caleb’s speech? If the story takes place in Israel’s second year in the wilderness, and they are punished to wander for 40 years, shouldn’t the total duration in the wilderness be 41+ years?

The earliest biblical traditions describe Israel as sojourners who dwelt in the land of Egypt, and focused on YHWH bringing them up to the land of Canaan. The depiction of Israel as slaves in Egypt, whom YHWH brought out with a strong hand, only developed later.

What did the sea see to make it flee? Who caused the mountains to skip like rams?

Joshua circumcises the Israelites only upon their entry to the land.

Abraham and Isaac each dig a well in Beersheba and make a treaty with King Abimelech. Which story came first?

The story of the flowering staff in its current form and context, confirms YHWH’s previous designation of the Aaronides as priests. Originally, however, the story presented YHWH’s selection of the tribe of Levi as his priestly caste.

Moses gives several instructions to the Israelites concerning manna: How it should be gathered, prepared, consumed, and preserved, and what to do with it on Shabbat. The phrasing and details of these instructions are Moses’ creative elaboration of God’s original laconic command.

Deuteronomy has Moses receiving a revelation at Horeb, but only teaching the Israelites its contents decades later in the Land of Moab. This two-step revelatory process, which is presented as two covenants (Deuteronomy 28:69), masks an earlier form of Deuteronomy that had no record of a Horeb revelation.

After the two hundred and fifty tribal leaders, led by Korah, were burnt, God tells Elazar to use the fire-pans to plate the altar to remind Israel that only priests may offer incense (Num 17:5). But is this the original reason for the plating? A redaction-critical analysis shows that the story once had a different purpose in mind.

After Korah’s failed rebellion, God commands Elazar to plate the altar with the bronze firepans of the two hundred and fifty tribal leaders (Numbers 17). But didn’t Bezalel already plate the altar in bronze as God commanded when it was first built (Exodus 27 and 38)?

A fire comes forth from God and devours Nadav and Avihu but God does not actually say anything. It is Moses who infers what God was communicating through this act and even formulates a law based on his understanding of God’s message.

Before circumcision was a mitzvah, it was a cultural marker: Thus Joshua introduces circumcision to Israel at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2-9), Jacob’s sons insist that the Shechemites circumcise before Shechem marries their sister (Genesis 34), and the Israelites scorn the Philistines for being uncircumcised (Judges 14:3).

“YHWH said to Moses: ‘Come up to me on the mountain and stay there so that I might give you the tablets of stone and the teaching and the commandment that I have written to teach them.’”—Exodus 24:12

After commissioning Moses at the burning bush, God commissions Moses again in Midian, and then again on his way to Egypt. In this third commission, God instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Let My son go, that he may worship Me, yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your firstborn son” (Exod 4:22-23). How does this narrative fit into the exodus story?

A new solution to why Canaan (not Ham) was cursed.

Malchuyot is a prayer for the coming of God’s exclusive kingship over Israel. In contrast, the psalm of the shofar (Ps 47) offers an alternative approach, to stop waiting for God’s eschatological intervention and start building rapport with other religious groups, all of whom are the “Am Elohei Avraham,” the retinue of the God of Abraham.

What are the favorable qualities of the land of Israel, and what is God’s relationship to it?

“There is nothing at all, nothing but this manna” (Num 11:6): How the manna tradition overtook the suffering in the wilderness tradition.

A polyphonic approach to reading the Torah

The plague of blood developed as a mythological amplification of an older account in which Moses strikes the Nile to kill the fish and make the water stink.

In the Priestly texts, observing the divine commandments became an end in itself while the unique meaning or purpose of the particular mitzvah took on less significance. Concomitantly, Priestly authors asserted the need for personal atonement through a chatat (sin offering) for even unintentionally violating God’s commandments.

“And the Lord Blessed the Seventh Day and Consecrated It” (Genesis 2:3). Can time be blessed?

The Book of Jonah depicts the animals being dressed in sackcloth and mourning along with the people. Are the Ninevites fools or repentants?

The biblical text is unclear as to why Datan and Abiram are rebelling. A careful look at their words shows that they are complaining about the land they are already living in.

In the 14th century, R. Nissim of Marseilles suggested that God told Moses only the general command for the Tabernacle and the laws in the Torah, and Moses himself wrote the details and attributed them to God as a way of glorifying God. A close look at many passages in Deuteronomy suggests that this was an early conception of Moses’ role in commanding the mitzvot.

Ten observations about the Song of the Sea and what it is really about.

Exodus narrates three distinct conceptions of God’s relationship to Pharaoh’s stubbornness: God was surprised, God knew beforehand, and God was the direct cause.  The final conception reflects the Priestly redaction of the Torah, whose authors were unwilling to leave the destiny of the plagues up to Pharaoh’s own heart.

Originally the sons of Jacob saw the interest Shechem took in marrying their sister as an opportunity to plunder Shechem. A later editor, uncomfortable with this story, blamed the carnage on Simeon and Levi, and added the rape of Dinah as a motivation for their actions.

Maimonides believes that any story in the Bible with angels is a prophetic vision. Nahmanides calls this position “forbidden to believe” and claims they are real occurrences. Must the Torah be historically true or just philosophically?

The scribes who wrote the addendum to the laws of Sukkot (Leviticus 23:42-43) used inner-biblical exegesis to explain the requirement to dwell in booths as a commemoration for the miraculous booths (not clouds) that God created for the Israelites at their first stop on the way to freedom.

A New Reading of Psalm 95

When Balaam and Balak were Independent Characters

If the people are thirsty for lack of water, why complain to Moses that they “have no grain or pomegranates”? Together with other textual anomalies, this narrative discontinuity suggests that interwoven into the water-at-Merivah story is a fragment from a different story: the missing opening verses of the non-Priestly account of the spies.

The exodus story, which is presented as the basis for many of the Torah’s rituals, is a secondary insertion in many of these contexts.

The Torah implores us to remember and teach the exodus, yet surprisingly, some biblical passages seem unaware of this event and describe an alternative tradition: God found Israel in the wilderness.

The Sinai theophany is virtually absent from the Bible outside of the Torah and the very late book of Nehemiah. This absence reflects an alternative tradition that sees Israel’s laws as deriving from multiple small revelations from prophets throughout history. 

The free-will conundrum of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart—a supplementary approach.

Is Moses raised by an Egyptian princess? Does he kill an Egyptian man? Does he run away to Midian and marry the daughter of a Midianite priest? Not according to P, which cleanses Moses of these problematic elements.

Leviticus 16 – ויקרא טז

Exodus versus Deuteronomy

A study of Deuteronomy’s polemical revision of the Exodus 18 judges account.

When Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp, Joshua zealously presses for their incarceration. Moses, however, exclaims that all the people should ideally be prophets.

After Jacob steals the blessing from Esau, the reactions of both Isaac and Rebecca present numerous narrative difficulties. A source-critical reading reveals two distinct portraits of Jacob: one Jacob who is reactive and on the run, and another who is proactive and purposeful.

God creates “the human... male and female” (Genesis 1), seemingly describing the first human couple. But a look at how the other species are created in the same chapter suggests otherwise.