Torah Reading is Vayelekh (Deuteronomy 31:1-30); Haftorah is a combination of Hosea 14:2-10 and Micah 7:18-20
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — The rabbis clearly invented new ground rules for this fully ‘artistically Hebrew poetic’ haftorah.
They artificially combined sources, from Hosea, active c. 747-722 BCE and Micah active post 721 BCE. Together they are arguably ‘connected’ to passages Ch. 31:27-29 in parsha Vayelekh of Deuteronomy. Those passages ‘predicted’ that the people will wickedly go astray from the Law.|
Deuteronomy, written c. 630 BCE by King Josiah and his court, clearly was written much later, though its setting was retroactive back into Moses’ time. The much later rabbis who chose these haftorah passages to accompany Vayelekh, didn’t seem to mind the anachronism, if they noticed it at all.
Hosea and Micah are considered Minor Prophets, because their recorded writings are brief.
Hosea preached in the Northern Kingdom, against corruption, the rich’s maltreatment of the poor, and practice of idolatry, which he denounced as ‘spirit of harlotry.’ His imagery suggested that his wife, Gomer, was a harlot. This may have been only literary imagery, to indicate Israel’s bridal infidelity to God, at his wife’s expense.
Hosea’s times were prosperous, but turbulent, with threats from Assyria and Egypt. Assyria ultimately conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE, after which Hosea disappears from history along with the ‘ten lost tribes.’
In the case of Micah, his writings were after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and the Assyrians’ attack, then withdrawal, on Jerusalem of the Southern Kingdom in 701 BCE. His famous appeal for peace—‘that nations should ‘beat their swords into plowshares’ (Ch. 4:3) is equivalent to Isaiah I (2:2-4), and possibly the source for Isaiah I. Likely he, of the Southern Kingdom, did not know Hosea, though their lives overlapped in time.
In any case, the rabbis sweated to wed both prophets’ writings into this haftorah.
Here are excerpts, via the translation/interpretations of Emeritus Professor Robert Alter, of the University of California at Berkeley. [1]
Turn back, O Israel, to the LORD your God,
for you have stumbled in your crime.
Take words with you
and turn back to the LORD.
Say to Him, “All crime You shall forgive.
And take what is good,
and we shall offer our speech instead of bulls. [2]
Assyria will not rescue us,
on horses we shall not ride.
And we shall say no more ‘our God’
to our handiwork [3]
as in You alone the orphan is shown pity.”
“I (God) will heal their rebellion,
I will love them freely,
for My wrath has turned back from them. [4]
I will be like dew to Israel,
He shall blossom like the lily
and strike root like Lebanon.
His branches shall go forth
and his glory be like the olive tree,
and his fragrance like Lebanon. [5]…
Ephraim—‘Why more should I deal with idols?
I have answered and I espy Him… [6]
For straight are the ways of the LORD,
and the righteous shall walk on them.
but rebels shall stumble on them. [7]…
Here the text moves to Micah for the mandatory upbeat haftorah ending:
Who is a God like You dismissing crime
and forgiving trespass for the remnant of His estate?
He does not cling forever to His wrath,
for He desires kindness.
Again He shall have mercy on us.
he shall cleanse our crimes.
And you shall fling into the depths of the sea
all our offenses. [8]
I find this a disjointed message, taken from two different sources, written at different times. The rabbis must have desperately sought to create this haftorah message. First it presents a description of sinfulness, followed by the prophets’ arrogant claim of personal access to God for an undeserved forgiveness.
*
NOTES
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, pp. 1238-1240, 1318-1319
[2] Ibid, Alter: As if a speech from God Himself, turn away from animal sacrifice to prayer. This is an early text advocating the substitution of prayer for sacrifice.
[3] As making claim that their human endeavors are of ‘God’ himself.
[4] Israel’s corruption, seen as a disease, will be healed.
[5] a sequence of similes, the emphasis being on the lush vegetation in Lebanon
[6] ‘Ephraim’ is shorthand for the Northern Kingdom-Israel. It is alleged here that she rediscovers God through the prophet’s words.
[7] a metaphor
[8] Ever optimistic, the haftorah confidently expects God’s undeserved forgiveness.
*
Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.