Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DIVINATION

Clay liver model, inscribed with omens and magical formulas for instructing students of divination (1st Dynasty of Babylon, ca. 1830-1550 b.c.e.). Most widely attested in Babylon, models have also been discovered at Alalakh and Hazor (Copyright British Museum)

The art of determining the future or ascertaining divine will. An important aspect of life throughout the ancient Near East, divination was not a mystical practice, but a process based upon empirical observation and cause/effect, practiced by trained specialists. The regularity of the evidence was so certain that particular omens were recorded, the precursor of the Western scientific method.

The various processes held at their core an understanding that the universe is ordered, including the mundane world. It was the gods who were responsible for maintaining this order. Given their powers, this was a routine task, but oddities did occur in nature. These anomalies were understood as allowances by the gods in order to communicate a message to humans (as more direct forms of communication were normally not possible). Thus, when one noticed an anomaly in nature, its cause was to be sought in an unusual event in the mundane human sphere, the rationale for divine contact. The certainty of this connection is celebrated in an Old Babylonian text that joyfully proclaims, “Šamaš . . . it is you who write down the oracles and indicate the divinatory decisions in the entrails of the sheep.”

There was a wide variety of modes of divination, as all aspects of nature were potential mediums for this type of divine communication. The best-attested divination traditions were preserved in the extensive divination literature of 2nd- and 1st-millennia Mesopotamia, a distinct literary genre characterized by a special grammar. The texts are usually organized according to the first two words of the introductory line, the protasis, which consists of the conditional statement (e.g., “If a fetus has an X. . . .”). Many texts originate in observation of specific historical events. For example, a text from Mari found on a clay liver model proclaims, “When my country rebelled against Ibbi-sin [of Ur, ca. 2027-2003 b.c.e.], it is thus that the liver appeared.” Other texts originate in more mundane and not readily explainable circumstances (e.g., “If a man’s chest hair curls upward, then he will become a slave”). Most observations of this type are made as a person presents an animal for the priest to interpret the owner’s destiny. It was assumed after a time that one could find regularity in the messages themselves. As the catalogues for types of divination expanded, a desire for completeness arose. The result was a number of theoretical events which were all but logically impossible (e.g., “If the sheep has seven livers, then the king of the universe will arise”).

The notion of regularity in divine communication led to a number of practices in which one could determine the will of the gods. Rituals were regularly performed in regard to major events, such as lot casting prior to military engagements. Mesopotamians considered omens to be more reliable than more direct forms of divine communication, as evidenced in the library of Zimri-lim, king of Mari (ca. 1775). A number of ecstatic prophetic messages were delivered, generally credited to the god Dagan, which were addressed to the king during his military campaigns. These messages were accompanied by hair and garment samples from the would-be messenger of the god, to be tested by omens to confirm the validity of the message.

Among the more common mediums used in divination were animal fetuses (especially malformed ones), livers, gall bladders, kidneys, lungs, hair patterning, bird flight patterns, meteorites, weather, sleep patterns of humans, dreams, and patterns of animal behavior. The interest in interpreting internal organs of sacrificial animals is traced to two circumstances. First, examples are ubiquitous. Second, they are uncovered during the course of ritual, in which there is a heightened sense of spatial nexus between the divine and human realms.

The practice of divination was nearly universally condemned in the OT. The prime exception is the practice of cleromancy (lot casting), which is an integral activity of the high priest (Num. 27:21). Precisely what the Urim and Thummin of the high priest looked like is not clear, but the function of the objects provided a “yes” or “no” answer (cf. 2 Sam. 5:19). Lots determined the division of the land (e.g., Num. 26:55-56), divine approval of candidates for office (e.g., king, 1 Sam. 10:20-21; priest, 1 Chr. 24:5), and guilt (Num. 5:15-30; Josh. 7:14-15). A form of lot casting by manipulating arrows (belomancy) is attested in 2 Kgs. 13:14-19 involving the Judean king Joash. The same practice is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar in Ezek. 21:21, though there is no record of this practice in Neo-Babylonian literature.

Other tolerated practices (or at least not condemned in the same context) centered upon the usage of particular behaviors as signs of divine approval. In the Gideon narrative the judge asks for signs from Yahweh (Judg. 6:36-40) and then reads the sign associated with drinking water (7:4-7). Jonathan holds that the positioning of the Philistines is a sign reflecting divine approval (1 Sam. 14:8-12).

Oneiromancy, the interpretation of dreams, is tolerated in the OT (Gen. 40:5-8; Dan. 1:17). The narratives attribute interpretation completely to Yahweh, seemingly to the exclusion of the interpreter’s being trained in the discipline of dream interpretation (which was of enormous interest in Egypt as well as Mesopotamia).

All other forms of divination, such as extispicy (examining the entrails of animals), astrology, necromancy (consulting the dead), hydromancy (interpretation of water patterns and interactions with foreign substances), are forbidden in the OT. A number of terms refer to fields which practice various types of divination, but unfortunately there are not enough data to decisively establish semantic boundaries for these titles. Deut. 18:10-11 lists a number of terms which denote pagan religious practitioners, including various types of diviners, that are not allowed to survive after the Israelite possession of Canaan because their continued presence could lead to syncretism. The outlawed status is illustrated in Saul’s encounter with a necromancer, who is initially afraid to engage in her trade with him (1 Sam. 28:3-25). The continued presence of diviners is attested in Isa. 3:1-5, where they are listed among the elite of Jerusalem and Judah (along with judges, elders, prophets, and military leaders) who will be deported after conquest, leading to the breakdown of the social order. This underscores the degree of the revocation of the covenant, as these outlawed sorts are not only tolerated but revered in Judean society.

Otherwise, the preferred mode of divine communication in Israelite society was through ecstatic means, in sharp distinction to the subordination of all ecstatic phenomena to omen confirmation in Mesopotamian literature.

Bibliography. J. Bottero, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago, 1992).

Mark Anthony Phelps

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DIVINATION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)