ABSTRACT

The priestly1 texts of Leviticus and the prophetic writings of Ezekiel are clear: female blood pollutes. However, both the rationale for the pollution and its ramifications differ in the two sources. In this chapter I argue that while Ezekiel’s depiction of female blood may be rooted in priestly ideas, his metaphor of Jerusalem as a menstruant is a significant step beyond the priestly concerns of Leviticus. Specifically, I show how Ezekiel manipulates the “blood language” of the priestly writer in order to isolate one aspect of the priestly purity system, the impurity of female uterine blood. In so doing, the prophetic writer systematically transforms this single link in a long chain of established purity laws into a symbol for the greatest of all biblical evils: apostasy and the betrayal of Yahweh’s covenant. Although considerable debate remains concerning the date of the portions of the Pentateuch ascribed to the priestly writer, there is growing consensus that the biblical Hebrew found therein predates the Hebrew of Ezekiel, a book we can firmly place in the exilic period (between 586/7 and 539 bce).2 Unsurprisingly, given his priestly lineage, Ezekiel draws from priestly ideas and language (Ezekiel 1:3). In her 2002 work, Risa Levitt Kohn offers 97 terms that appear in priestly writing, both P and H,3 and in Ezekiel, and analyzes their relationship to one another.4 Levitt Kohn shows that Ezekiel is not just dependent upon knowledge of priestly material but actually adopts phraseology from his predecessors. To prove this linear development, she demonstrates several literary mechanisms Ezekiel employs when he quotes P and H. One of these mechanisms Levitt Kohn calls “reversals,” in which Ezekiel uses the same expression found in P but in exactly the opposite way.5 For example, the priestly writer utilizes the phrase ~yMi[; lh;q. (assembly of nations; Genesis 28:3; 35:9; 48:4) to convey the great blessing of fertility God bestowed on the Patriarchs. However, in Ezekiel 23:24 and 32:3, the very same phrase is used by the prophet to describe enemy nations seeking to eradicate Israel.6 Levitt Kohn says, “it is virtually impossible to imagine that the Priestly writer would have composed Israelite history by transforming images of Israel’s apostasy and subsequent downfall from Ezekiel into images conveying exceptional covenant and unique relationship between Israel and Yahweh.”7 Rather, Levitt Kohn suggests, it is more likely that Ezekiel

“twisted, poeticized, disarticulated and reconstituted” P “to suit his personal agenda and the current circumstances of his audience.”8 I will now argue that Ezekiel’s depiction of female blood is yet another example of the prophet engaging in this kind of linguistic and ideological manipulation.