{"id":56406,"date":"2019-05-29T23:06:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T20:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=56406"},"modified":"2022-12-21T12:00:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T10:00:39","slug":"family-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/family-reunion\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Reunion?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[620,366,397],"acf":{"old_id":"56406","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"230","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"We\u2019ve come along way from grandpas Moses and Aaron","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our chapter narrates the story of a Levite living on the slopes of Mt. Ephraim whose concubine abandoned him and ran home to her parents in Bethlehem. (The verse euphemistically calls the abandonment <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">zenut<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, harlotry, but if she had actually committed adultery, the husband would have been prohibited to reunite with her.) While the text provides only this information about him, we know enough at this juncture to attempt to identify him more specifically and, thereby, to link this episode to previous ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In chapter 17, we learned that Micah had hired a Levite of Bethlehem to be the priest at his personal temple on Mt. Ephraim. In chapter 18, we learned that the marauding Danites had hired that Levite away from Micah and brought him, and the idol, along to their conquest of Layish=Dan, where it remained \u201call the while that the House of God stood at Shiloh\u201d (18:31). What are the odds that there was another Levite on Mt. Ephraim with links to Bethlehem?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, we even know this Levite\u2019s name: \u201cJonathan son of Gershom son of Me<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">asheh\u201d (18:30). In the Scriptural representation of his name, the letter <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nun<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0is in suspension\u2014to highlight a rabbinic interpretation that eliminates the suspended letter from the text, leaving \u00a0only <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">m-sh-h<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, thereby identifying him as the grandson of none other than Moses himself. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lest we reject that out of hand, recall that in chapters 17 and 18 we called attention to the rabbinic assumption that these events transpired at the beginning of the era of the judges\u2014despite being reported only at the end (a point we plan to address in our retrospective at the end of the book). Consider, additionally, that at a critical moment in the denouement of this episode the people seek divine counsel via a priest whose name is given as \u201cPhineas son of Elazar, son of Aaron\u201d (20:28).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A third generation descendant of Moses reunites with a third generation descendant of Aaron in the selfsame episode. Coincidence?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: Hans Sebald Beham, Moses and Aaron, 1526 \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56407,"id":56407,"title":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron","filename":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/family-reunion\/jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56406,"date":"2019-05-29 20:05:48","modified":"2022-09-20 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Reunion?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"We\u2019ve come along way from grandpas Moses and Aaron","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":56407,"id":56407,"title":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron","filename":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/family-reunion\/jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud19-beham-hans-sebald-moses-aaron","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56406,"date":"2019-05-29 20:05:48","modified":"2022-09-20 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