84 A History of Judaism
in much of the Bible not as the Land of Israel but as the Land of Canaan,
and that many of the Jews for whom the Bible provided religious guid-
ance were living outside the land, in communities in Mesopotamia and
Babylon. Also odd is the lack of clarity in biblical texts about the precise
boundaries of this promised land, which vary from the maximal defin-
ition in the passage just cited from Genesis (‘from the river of Egypt to
the great river, the river Euphrates’) to the more modest formula of the
land to be subjected to a census by King David according to II Samuel
(‘from Dan to Beersheba’) and the enumeration in Numbers – starting
at the Dead Sea and defining the border points to the south, west, north
and east before returning to the Dead Sea – of the territory promised to
Moses on the eve of the conquest begun by Joshua.^20
Equally strange was the use by many of these Jews of languages other
than Hebrew, even in prayer. Hebrew was the special language not just
of Jews but also of God, since according to Genesis God had used Heb-
rew words to name the world. Hebrew was the language of the Temple.
But the use of Aramaic in parts of some biblical books, such as the book
of Daniel, and the enthusiasm of Alexandrian Jews for the Greek
Septuagint according to Philo, suggest that Hebrew was not reckoned
essential for communication with the divine.^21
The biblical message for Jews wishing to live righteously was that
holiness, and justice, combined with an obedience to God that was rein-
forced by both love and fear, would lead to prosperity, long life and
many children on the land promised to their fathers. To rejoice in the
festivals divinely ordained was a religious duty: ‘you shall rejoice before
the Lord your God.’ On the other hand, fasting, with temporary absten-
tion from food accompanied by self- affliction of other kinds (from the
avoidance of washing to the wearing of sackcloth and ashes), was both
customary in mourning and practised liturgically at special times of
penance, of which much the most significant was the national fast on
the Day of Atonement: ‘The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Now, the
tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement ... You shall do
no work during that entire day; for it is a day of atonement, to make
atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God.” ’
Crucial for the relationship between God and Israel was this assump-
tion that atonement for sin was possible and would be accepted: ‘As I
live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.’ Despite biblical hints
that children are fated to pay for the sins of their fathers to the third and
fourth generation (see above) or (as in Daniel) that rewards and