Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

116 D. T. Tsumura / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 113-116
from the upper arms of the sun god in some seals— stretching the meaning of
yad a little.”17
In the light of the above, I would like to suggest a new solution for this crux
interpretum. Though C. H. Gordon accepted my oral suggestion in his article of
1986,18 it has not been noticed by biblical scholars. Here I would like to present
a more detailed discussion of this verse.
Instead of accepting only one possiblity, namely taking qarnayim as meaning
either “horns” like Albright, Hiebert,19 and Haak, symbolizing power, or
“rays,” in association with a solar image like many modern translations and
Shupak, I would see here a play on words involving both of these two meanings
for this term. D. W. Baker has also noticed the possibility of “a deliberate
play on these two meanings, tying in the brilliance of God’s coming with his
mighty power which is yet to be detailed”20 but he did not discuss it further. I
should like to explain the entire tricolon as an example of “Janus parallelism,”21
in which the term qarnayim corresponds to “brightness” (nōgah) in the first
line with the meaning of “rays” and to “his power” (ʿuzzōh) in the third line with
the meaning of “horns”. Thus my proposed translation would be:
The brightness shall be as the light;
he has rays/horns from his hand,
where his power is hidden.
This pattern is exactly the same as that of Song of Songs ii 12, which C. H. Gordon
discussed when dealing with “Janus parallelism” for the first time in 1978.
There, like here, the term zāmîr in the second line has a double function: with
one meaning (“pruning”) it parallels the first line, while with the other meaning
(“singing”) it parallels the third line.22
17) Andersen, p. 298. See, for example, D. Collon, First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient
Near East (London, 1987), p. 167.
18) C. H. Gordon, “ḥby, Possessor of Horns and Tail”, UF 18 (1986), p. 131.
19) Hiebert, God of My Victory, p. 18.
20) D. W. Baker, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah: An Introduction & Commentary (TOTC; Leicester,
1988), p. 71.
21) The term was coined by C. H. Gordon in 1978 and subsequently accepted by a growing number
of scholars. See C. H. Gordon, “New Directions”, BASP 15 (1978), pp. 59-60; G. Rendsburg, „Janus
Parallelism in Gen. 49:26”, JBL 99 (1980), pp. 291-93; D. T. Tsumura, “Janus Parallelism in Nah. 1:8”,
JBL 102 (1983), pp. 109-11; S.B. Noegel, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job. Sheffield, 1996; etc.
22) Gordon, “New Directions”, pp. 59-60.