volume 3, issue 1, 2011, pages 30-47

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64438/sbsHSIS4395
Published online: 2011-06-01
Published in print: 2011-06-30

Abstract: The object of this study is the legislative statute concerning the magic (Ex 22:17), included in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 20:22–23:33). The short, yet difficult verse 17 has been translated and interpreted in different ways, sometimes in order to alleviate the severe sentence, the death penalty, given to the person practicing witchcraft. The first part of the study points out that the object of the prescription, which is grammatically formulated as the feminine participle, is not the woman herself, but the activity in itself. Likewise, the death penalty points to the nature and essentiality of the prohibition of practicing magic. The second part of the contribution, based on Ex 22:17, tries to see the impact that the statute had in the biblical tradition. In the texts of 2 Kgs 9:22 and Nah 3:4 we find a keyword – the verbal root @vk – and the practice of witchcraft is formulated as a cause of Jezebel’s death and of the destruction of the personified city of Nineveh. The intertextual analysis illustrates that these texts are the allusions to the statute concerning witchcraft (Exod 22:17), and at the same time, they present an extended understanding of it.