Sex, Hunt, and Traps. Network of Metaphors in Anti-Foreign Polemics in the Hebrew Bible

A metaphor is a conceptual phenomenon in which one concept is understood in terms of another concept. The present study focuses on select metaphors from all three sections of the Hebrew Bible – the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings – in which a wide range of “foreign” liaisons such as apostasy, cultic practices considered non-normative, political liaisons, and international trade and commerce are understood via imagery drawn from the conceptual domains of illicit sex and hunting/entrapment. At the same time, illicit sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are also conceptualized via hunting and trapping imagery. Thus, the conceptual domains of “foreign” liaisons, illicit sex, and hunting/entrapment generate a network of metaphors that underlie a wide range of biblical polemical texts. This study intends to provide an in-depth understanding of how these three conceptual domains interact with each other in select biblical texts in order to portray a variety of “foreign” entities and liaisons as alluring but threatening and fatal. In its analysis of select biblical metaphors, this study uses metaphor theories drawn from the field of Cognitive Linguistics and makes extensive use of insights from extra-biblical Hebrew texts including the Dead Sea scrolls, ancient Bible versions, and medieval Jewish biblical interpretation. This study contributes to three main areas of research. First, it provides a comprehensive description and analysis of various ancient Israelite hunting and trapping methods including detailed illustrations of various trapping devices, something that has been lacking in modern scholarship. It draws on this knowledge to explore why biblical texts repeatedly conceptualize “foreign” women and “foreign” nations and their gods as traps. It investigates why specific types of traps are used for conceptualizing threats posed by different types of “foreign” entities. Second, existing scholarship on the metaphorical use of illicit sex in the Hebrew Bible has focused primarily on why and how biblical authors portray Israel and Jerusalem as zônāh (commonly glossed as “prostitute” or “whore”) based on their betrayal of and apostasy from YHWH, the national deity of Israel. This study attempts to answer the question why many non-Israelite entities are also sometimes described by biblical authors as zônāh. In doing so, it engages in a fresh exploration of the language of “whoring” in the Hebrew Bible. Third, this study argues that in order to fully appreciate and understand how biblical metaphors use illicit sex to understand various “foreign” liaisons, it is also important to understand how illicit sex itself is understood by biblical authors via other concepts, notably via the concept of hunting/entrapment. In other words, this study demonstrates that there is a considerable conceptual overlap between how biblical metaphors conceptualize illicit sexual liaisons between individuals and Israel’s liaisons with various “foreign” entities. It highlights how hunting/trapping imagery plays a vital role in both these conceptualizations and thus generates a network of metaphors.