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Writer’s Diary October 2020
By Mark Morgan | ToESWriting
Was Obed-edom the Gittite an Israelite? The question has been raised with me several times since I wrote a micro-tale about him, so I thought it was worthwhile writing down my thoughts and conclusions.
In the ESV The description “Gittite” is only used of 3 individuals and one group of people:
In the KJV, the word is used for one more group of people:
The ESV translation of this as “those of… Gath” seems to be an interpretation of “Gittite” in the original and a reasonable assumption given the context.
Looking through the list above, it seems reasonable to conclude that Gittites come from the Philistine town of Gath.
Some have asked why David would have Gittites with him and why Gittites would live in Jerusalem. The details in 2 Samuel 15 seem to answer this question: David had gone with his men to Achish, king of Gath (1 Samuel 27:2) to escape King Saul and stayed there for 16 months (1 Samuel 27:7). He left after the Philistines sent him away just before the battle in which Saul was killed. When David left, it appears that 600 Gittites followed him and Ittai was one of those. At the time, they were leaving Jerusalem with David, so presumably they lived in or near Jerusalem. Obed-edom may also have been one of these.
It is also worth noting that the name Ittai is also used for a Benjaminite who was one of David’s mighty men (2 Samuel 23:29) which may suggest that names could be used by both Philistines and Israelites.
Some (including J J Blunt in “Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences” Part 2, Section 8, and H Tennant in “The Man David” Chapter 6, have suggested that “Gittite” could also refer to someone from Gath-rimmon, the name of at least two towns in Israel: one in Dan (Joshua 19:45; 21:24; 1 Chronicles 6:69) and one in Manasseh (Joshua 21:25).
This may be true, but there is no evidence that it is, nor any reason to believe that it would be.
Some say that the ark would not have been left at that house of a foreigner. Obed-edom, they say, was a Levite, in fact, a Kohathite – one of the men who was meant to look after the ark.
Firstly, we need to acknowledge that there is more than one man called Obed-edom in the Bible: 1 Chronicles 16:38 lists two Levites called Obed-edom; one to minister regularly before the ark, and one (the son of Jeduthun) to be a gatekeeper. Two Obed-edoms in one verse is the clearest proof that the name was not unique.
The name “Obed-edom” occurs 20 times in the ESV, so let’s see if we can tell how many people are referred to in those uses.
The Obed-edom we are looking at is referred to in 2 Samuel 6:10, 11 (twice), 12 (twice); 1 Chronicles 13:13, 14 (twice); 15:25.
The other 11 times refer to at least 2 men, but maybe more:
So how many different Obed-edoms are there? It seems impossible to tell with certainty, but the distinctions give some hints.
From this, it seems most likely that there were at least 3 men called Obed-edom and maybe more.
A little bit of background will help to understand our next few steps in this investigation. God gave areas of the land of Canaan to different tribes so that they would live together in family groups, but the tribe of Levi was to be different. They were to be spread throughout Israel with the intention of teaching and explaining God’s law to the people in all tribes (Leviticus 10:8-11; Deuteronomy 17:9-11; 33:8-10). To achieve this, God gave the Levites many towns spread all over Israel: a town here, a town there.
Some of these towns were given specifically to the priests (descendants of Aaron) while some were given to other families of Levites.
Both of the towns called “Gath-rimmon” were given to the Levites, specifically the Kohathites (Joshua 21:20). However, they were not given to the priests since their towns are listed just before in Joshua 21:13-19.
Kohathites were descendants of Levi’s son Kohath and that included Aaron and his descendants, the priests. Thus all priests were Kohathites, but not all Kohathites were priests.
This is of interest because the Kohathites were to carry many of the items of the tabernacle (Numbers 4:15; 7:9; 10:21). However, the ark was a different matter.
So let’s look at examples to see who actually carried the ark before God.
When Israel crossed the Jordan into Canaan, it was the priests who carried the ark (Joshua 3:3, 8). When the people were gathered on Mt Ebal and Mt Gerizim, the priests carried the ark (Joshua 8:33).
Deuteronomy 31:9 also describes the priests as Levites who carried the ark (cf v 25 which only says “Levites”: but of course, all priests were Levites).
It seems reasonable to conclude that it was not just any Kohathites who were to carry the ark: it was to be carried by priests.
When David first arranged for the ark to be taken into Jerusalem, it was carried on a cart. This was wrong, as David acknowledged when he tried again later. At that time he said that none but the Levites were to carry the ark (1 Chronicles 15:2). Does that mean just any Levites? 1 Chronicles 15:11 tells us that David called Zadok and Abiathar the priests and other leaders of the Levites and told them to arrange for the carrying of the ark, noting that it was because they had not done it correctly that God had broken out against them and killed Uzzah (1 Chronicles 15:13). Verses 14-15 tell us that the priests and Levites consecrated themselves and the Levites carried the ark of God with the poles as Moses had commanded.
So who did carry the ark? Was it the priests or some other Levites? It would still be correct to call priests Levites since all the priests were descended from Levi.
From the commands in Numbers and Deuteronomy and the examples in Joshua, I would expect that priests would have been required to carry the ark and that the Levites would have been involved in the praising of God that took place as they walked.
However, we also find one more hint in 1 Kings 2:26. By that time, Solomon was king and Abiathar the priest was being dismissed from his position because he had supported Adonijah in trying take over the kingship. In this verse, Solomon mentions that Abiathar had carried the ark of God before David.
Overall, I would conclude that the intention was for priests to carry the ark. Priests were Levites. They were also Kohathites (who carried most of the other holy items from the tabernacle).
Some make the point that if Obed-edom came from Gath-rimmon which was a Kohathite town, then he could have looked after and even carried the ark, but the details above convince me that only priests could carry the ark. It was the most holy of all the holy items. Other items could be carried by Kohathites, but not the ark.
Whew! A long discursus.
Began exporting the micro-tales for the audiobook of Fiction Favours the Facts – Book 3. Did the first 8 and set the tags appropriately to include acknowledgement of the music.
Tweaked the Shopify theme to show the variations available for products on catalog listings, but made sure it didn’t show it just for books that are only eBooks such as Paul in Snippets since the variations are always the same (PDF/EPUB/MOBI). Tried including the “was” price for items on sale, but it didn’t work well and took too much space, so I removed it.
More work on creating all books as variable products (PDF/EPUB/MOBI/paperback/hardcover/audiobook). Created “Joseph, Rachel’s son” including the audiobook for testing purposes. However, that is not available yet, so leave the existing products as they are until the audio is available also.
Need to decide an order of variations and make it consistent for all products. Best order is:
Any options that are not available are simply omitted. The theme allows the order of variations to be changed at any time.
This morning, I was reading from 2 Chronicles 5 which reports the work Solomon did in building a temple for God. Since David had moved the ark of the covenant into the City of David, Solomon had to move it from the City of David into the temple. In 2 Chronicles 5:4 we are told that the Levites carried the ark, while v5 says it was the Levitical priests who brought it up. Once again, priests are Levites, so the first statement is not wrong, it is just that the second one is more specific. Verse 7 repeats that it was the priests who carried the ark and placed it in the inner sanctuary of the temple.
I also remembered one more example of where the ark was carried when the people entered the land of Canaan. When the people walked around Jericho so many times, it was the priests who carried the ark (Joshua 6:6).
These are two more passages that make it clear that the ark was carried by priests, often at the specific command of God.
They also remind me of just how big the Bible is, and of the fact that I never find all of the passages that I need to consider immediately. It’s a good lesson, but I seem to keep needing to learn it.
More work exporting the micro-tales for the audiobook of Fiction Favours the Facts – Book 3.
Need to increase the spine width of the hardcover books for Volumes 2, 3 and 4. Not sure why, but the card of the spine is wider than the template suggests which seems to base it on the thickness of the book instead. Need to increase width by 1mm.
More work on creating all books as variable products (PDF/EPUB/MOBI/paperback/hardcover/audiobook). The first one is the most complex – Terror on Every Side! Volume 1 – Early Days (2nd Edition) which has 3 eBook types, 2 paperback types, 1 hardcover and 3 audiobook types (2 of which are physical items that need shipping).
Set it up and published it. Also set up Volume 5 and published it.
What happened to Jeremiah and the other people from Judah when they went to Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah in 586 BC? First they went to Tahpanhes (Jeremiah 43-44).
“Tah[a]panhes” is only mentioned in Jeremiah, while “Tehaphnehes” is mentioned once in Ezekiel and seems to be referring to the same place. The references are:
Jeremiah 2:16 “Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head.” This is probably one of the first messages Jeremiah was to proclaim to the people of Jerusalem around 40 years before the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. It mentions the land being laid waste, and “going to Egypt” alongside “going to Assyria” (v18).
Jeremiah 43:7, 8, 9 Refugees went to Egypt, to Tahpanhes and God spoke to Jeremiah there. Mentions Pharaoh as having a palace there which Nebuchadnezzar would strike.
Jeremiah 44:1 1 “The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Judeans who lived in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the land of Pathros,” The land of Pathros is probably the area along the Nile between Memphis and Thebes.
Jeremiah 46:14 “Declare in Egypt, and proclaim in Migdol; proclaim in Memphis and Tahpanhes; Say, ‘Stand ready and be prepared, for the sword shall devour around you.’ ”. Nebuchadnezzar was coming to strike Egypt.
Ezekiel 30:18. “At Tehaphnehes the day shall be dark, when I break there the yoke bars of Egypt, and her proud might shall come to an end in her; she shall be covered by a cloud, and her daughters shall go into captivity. 19 Thus I will execute judgments on Egypt. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
https://bibleatlas.org/tahpanhes.htm
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahpanhes. Also known as Daphnae and now called Tell Defenneh. It was located on Lake Manzala on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, about 26 km (16 miles) from Pelusium (“Sin”). The site is now situated on the Suez Canal. Meaning of the name: uncertain.
According to Herodotus (ii. 154), King Psammetichus (664–610 BC) established a garrison of foreign mercenaries at Daphnae, mostly Carians and Ionian Greeks.
See also: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/tahpanhes/ which includes:
“This invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was for a long time strenuously denied (e.g. as late as 1889 by Kuenen, Historisch-critisch Onderzoek, 265-318); but since the discovery and publication (1878) of fragments of Nebuchadnezzar’s annals in which he affirms his invasion of Egypt in his 37th year (568-567 BC), most scholars have agreed that the predictions of Jeremiah (43:9-13; 44:30) uttered shortly after 586 BC and of Ezekiel (29:19) uttered in 570 BC were fulfilled, “at least in their general sense” (Driver, Authority and Archaeology, 116). Three cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar were found by Arabs probably on or near this site. The excavation of Tahpanhes in 1886 by W. M. Flinders Petrie made it “highly probable that the large oblong platform of brickwork close to the palace fort built at this spot by Psammetichus I, circa 664 BC, and now called Kasr Bint el-Yehudi, `the castle of the Jew’s daughter,’ is identical with the quadrangle `which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes’ in which Jeremiah was commanded to bury the stones as a token that Nebuchadnezzar would spread his pavilion over them when he led his army into Egypt” (ibid., 117). Josephus explicitly mentions that Nebuchadnezzar, when he captured Tahpanhes, carried off a Jewish contingent from that city (Ant., IX, vii). Dr. Petrie found that while a small fort had existed here since the Rameside era (compare Herodotus ii.17), yet the town was practically founded by Psammetichus I, continued prosperous for a century or more, but dwindled to a small village in Ptolemaic times. Many sealings of wine jars stamped with the cartouches of Psammetichus I and Amosis were found in situ. Tahpanhes being the nearest Egyptian town to Palestine, Jeremiah and the other Jewish refugees would naturally flee there (43:7). It is not at all unlikely that Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Egypt was partly due to Egypt’s favorable reception of these refugees.
“The pottery found at Tahpanhes “shows on the whole more evidence of Greeks than Egyptians in the place. …. Especially between 607-587 BC a constant intercourse with the Greek settlers must have been going on and a wider intercourse than even a Greek colony in Palestine would have produced. …. The whole circumstances were such as to give the best possible opportunity for the permeation of Greek words and Greek ideas among the upper classes of the Jewish exiles” (Petrie, Nebesheh and Defenneh, 1888, 50). This was, however, only one of many places where the Greeks and Hebrews met freely in this century (see e.g. Duruy, History of Greece, II, 126-80; Cobern, Daniel, 301-307). A large foreign traffic is shown at Tahpanhes in which no doubt the Jews took part. Discoveries from the 6th century BC included some very finely painted pottery, “full of archaic spirit and beauty,” many amulets and much rich jewelry and bronze and iron weapons, a piece of scale armor, thousands of arrow heads, and three seals of a Syrian type. One of the few inscriptions prays the blessing of Neit upon “all beautiful souls.” There was also dug up a vast number of minute weights evidently used for weighing precious metals, showing that the manufacture of jewelry was carried on here on a large scale. One of the most pathetic and suggestive “finds” from this century, which witnessed the Babylonian captivity, consisted of certain curious figures of captives, carved in limestone, with their legs bent backward from their knees and their ankles and elbows bound together (Petrie, op. cit., chapters ix-xii).”