{"id":81939,"date":"2020-10-24T22:51:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-24T19:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=81939"},"modified":"2020-10-24T22:51:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-24T19:51:50","slug":"once-upon-a-time-in-canaan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/once-upon-a-time-in-canaan\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon A Time In Canaan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thousands of years ago, in the land of Israel, an extended family gathered together to wait out a fierce storm coming in from the sea. A child tugged on his father\u2019s cloak and whispered: \u201cI\u2019m scared. I heard the neighbors singing to the storm god, something like \u2018he shatters the cedars.\u2019 Do you know it? Maybe if we sang, too, the storm would be over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNO!\u201d declared grandmother. \u201cWe are Israelites and all of our prayers are to \u2018Y\u2011HVH (\u201cthe Eternal\u201d) who sits enthroned, King forever.\u2019 Even the divine beings to whom the neighbors sing, \u2018ascribe to the Eternal glory and strength.\u2019 Come sit by me. I do understand your fear. When I was your age and frightened by a storm, my grandfather, who was born in the desert, would tell me that his grandmother, who left Egypt as a little girl, said that storms reminded her of the revelation at Sinai, where \u2018the Eternal kindled flames of fire, convulsed the wilderness of Kadesh, and all the people bowed down to the Eternal\u2019s majestic holiness.\u2019 You know that we can\u2019t violate that eternal covenant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, grandma,\u201d stammered the boy, \u201cI know but I\u2019m scared. Maybe just this once\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sensing a crisis in the making, father quickly suggested, \u201cWe can sing a similar hymn to our God. After all, the Eternal controls the winds, the rain, the sea and all the powers of nature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGreat idea,\u201d mother said. \u201cI\u2019ll start and everyone repeat after me. We\u2019ll mention the Eternal by God\u2019s proper name eighteen times, so there can be no doubt about which God we worship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And so they began, hesitantly at first but gradually gathering confidence, borrowing common metaphors for expressing divine power, but always attributing them to Y\u2011HVH.<\/span><\/p>\n

When they reached the final verse and prayed with their whole hearts:<\/span><\/p>\n

May Y\u2011HVH grant strength to God\u2019s people; may the Eternal bestow on God\u2019s people wellbeing (or \u201cpeace\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

The child thought that maybe, just maybe, that winds were weakening and the storm, subsiding.<\/span><\/p>\n

The language in Psalm 29, is similar to hymns the Canaanites addressed to the gods they worshipped, and scholars debate whether it is a direct rewriting of a specific text or \u201cmerely\u201d incorporates phrases that were common in the region. Beyond the historical or philological importance of the question, I\u2019m not sure it matters religiously. The point is that the sole and unique God of Israel is not part of nature, but is above nature and has all of the powers that other peoples attributed to the various gods of their pantheons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Once Upon A Time In Canaan","main_caption":"I\u2019m scared. I heard the neighbors singing to the storm god\u2026 Maybe if we sang, too, the storm would be over?\u201d","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81940,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81939\/revisions\/81940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}