72 Benjamin D. Sommer
text that allows the supercharging of meaning to occur.) (3) Th e Bible is
a hypertext, in which verses in one book are linked to verses in another.
When we read Numbers 11:26 in light of its distant twin, Ezekiel 38:17, the
additional meaning of both verses becomes clear: the two prophets Ezekiel
mentions were Eldad and Medad from the book of Numbers, and what
they uttered in Numbers was the same prophecy found in Ezekiel. (4) A
textual oddity (the word “years,” which does not fi t into the syntax of Eze-
kiel 38:17) stands out in one of these verses; when examined thoughtfully
and with a mind toward connections with verses elsewhere in scripture,
this word yields a meaning that links the verses together and releases some
of the meaning supercharged into these verses.
It should be noted that our midrash is based entirely on the parallel be-
tween these two verses, yet nowhere does our midrash actually quote the
verse from Ezekiel. Having mentioned Gog and Magog, the midrash as-
sumes we know that they are discussed in Ezekiel 38, and it further as-
sumes we will be able to identify which verse in that prophetic text poses
a question (“What is the word ‘years’ doing here?”); fi nally, it assumes that
we understand why the answer to that question provides insight into our
text from Numbers. Th is midrash makes sense only to someone deeply
familiar with the text of the Hebrew Bible (or to someone who pauses to
look up the biblical source of the terms “Gog” and “Magog,” who carefully
reads the chapter from Ezekiel where they appear, who notices the syn-
tactic problem in verse 17 there, and who thinks it through carefully). To
someone who does not have this familiarity with scripture or who does
not take the time to think through these texts and the issues they raise, the
midrashic explanation must seem completely arbitrary.
What of the other explanation — that Eldad and Medad predicted the
death of Moses and the ascent of Joshua to lead the people into the Prom-
ised Land? In this case, the role of hypertext (characteristic 3) is not crucial,
but the supercharged nature of the text (characteristic 1) is. Th e midrash
draws our attention to a few words within Numbers 11:28 itself: “And Joshua
answered.” Th e signifi cant words, however, appear in the remainder of the
verse, which the midrash does not quote, assuming that we know the rest
(either by heart or because we take the trouble to look it up). Th e verse in
full reads, “Joshua the son of Nun, who had served Moses since his youth,
said, ‘My lord, stop them!’ ” Why does this verse emphasize that Joshua had
served Moses and had done so since his youth? Aft er all, earlier biblical
references to Joshua had already informed the reader of Joshua’s role, so
the mention of this information here must have special signifi cance. And