sage, Derrida in “Freud and the Scene of Writing” counters the
Egyptian idea with passages from Ezekiel and Numbers. In
chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet is told by
God to eat a scroll covered with “lamentations, dirges, and
woes” (JPS). Ezekiel opens his mouth, swallows the scroll, and
finds it sweet as honey. This sweetness contrasts with the bitter
rebelliousness of the children of Israel. The latter are repeat-
edly described in Ezekiel, chapter 3 , as a beit meri,or house of
rebellion. The book of Ezekiel puns on meri,“rebellion,” and
mar,“bitterness,” when Ezekiel himself, despite the sweetness
of the scroll, finds himself stunned and disheartened by the
bitter prophetic mission imposed on him. Hearing the strident
beating of angels’ wings and the roar of their chariot’s wheels,
Ezekiel reports, “A spirit seized me and carried me away. I went
in bitterness, in the fury of my spirit, while the hand of the
LORDwas strong upon me” (Ezekiel 3 : 14 ). The bitterness that
Ezekiel feels corresponds to the constricted, compulsive char-
acter of his enforced vocation. The Lord opens his mouth,
makes him speak. But the Israelites, a frustrate, resistant tribe,
will probably not listen: so God warns the unhappy Ezekiel.
Numbers, chapter 5 , also devotes itself to bitterness. The
chapter describes the punishment for adulterous women. The
priest is instructed to administer a “curse of adjuration” to
the woman: a gruesome magical treatment that, if she is in
fact guilty of adultery, will render her sterile. The words of the
curse, which contain the name of the Lord, are put down in
writing and then dissolved in a “water of bitterness,” which the
woman must drink.
Derrida brings together the Numbers and the Ezekiel
passages because both propose that writing is a pharmakon:a
magical, ambiguous potion capable of both cursing and bless-
112 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology