Indictment of Judah and the Nations (25:1-38) 259
under a divine curse. A vassal treaty of Esarhaddon ( 681-669 B.C.) contains this
malediction:
[Just as bread] and wine enter into the intestines, [so may they (the gods) J
cause this curse to enter into your intestines [(and into) those of your sons]
and your daughters.
(Wiseman l 958a: 71-72, 560-62; ANET^3 539, #72)
and make ... drink it Hebrew wehisqfta is an old second masculine singular,
differing only orthographically from wehisqfta (GKC §44g). The long form is
original (it preserves the standard preexilic spelling with a vowel letter, in
this case he)) and is fairly rare in the OT, but it occurs often enough to show
that it is not exceptional; cf. Cross and Freedman 1952: 65-67. The LXX lacks
the pronoun "it" Coto), which could be due to haplography (homoeoarcton:
)t ... )t). The T and Vg have "it"; Aq has "them" (autous).
- And they shall drink and retch and go mad. Hebrew wesatfl wehitgo'asu
wehitholalu. Here two important questions need to be asked: 1) Will the wine
cause drunkenness simply because it is imbibed in large quantity, or will the
resulting incapacity be due to poison in the wine? and 2) What precisely will
be the effects on those drinking the wine? Will the victims stagger and fall, as
drunkards typically do (Ps 60:5[Eng 60:3]), or will an inner turbulence cause
them to vomit, as drunkards also typically do? BDB took the verb g's in the
Hithpolel to mean "reel to and fro," a meaning it also assigned to the Hithpael
(cf. 46:7-8). The meaning assigned to the Qal was "shake." This suggests a
drunkard staggering about in the present case (AV; RSV; JB; NIV). The Treads
all three verbs: "And they shall drink and be confused and tossed about." More
recently, g's has been shown to mean "heave, retch, vomit" (G. R. Driver
l 950a: 406; Greenfield 1958: 205-7, who cites evidence from Mishnaic He-
brew and compares with Akk gesu, "to belch, cough up"; CAD 5: 64; KB^3 ;
NEB; NJV), which supports LXX's exemountai ("vomit, be sick") and balances
more precisely with "vomit" (qeyu) in v 27. Brangers (1969: 190-91) thinks the
wine has poison in it, which is possible but unnecessary. It is enough that the
wine makes the banquet guests thoroughly drunk, which will leave them help-
less before the sword that does the finishing work (cf. Jdt 13:1-8). McKane
( 1980: 487-92; 1986: 63 5-36) thinks there must be a proof of guilt and therefore
imagines the ordeal ritual for a woman suspected of adultery in Num 5:11-31
as background. Aside from the fact that the adultery ritual of Num 5: 11-31 has
nothing to do with what is described here, at the present banquet table there is
no ordeal taking place to determine innocence or guilt. Yahweh has already
decided the nations' guilt and is simply carrying out sentences of death.
Also, in the Jeremiah passages McKane cites for support, 8: 14; 9: l 4[Eng
9:15]; and 23:15, it is "poisoned water" (me-ro)s), not wine, that is offered as
a drink. The verb hll in the Hithpolel is clear; it means "go mad/act madly"
(BDB; KB^3 hll III). Compare 46:9; 50:38b; and especially 51:7, where the verb
