Terracotta and Stone Stele
Woman at the window in Cypro-Phoenician forms. Hathor-related cults on Cyprus produced representations of a goddess in several designs similar to the ivory woman at the window-on a bronze stand (Enkomi, thirteenth century), terracotta and stone stele (top, from Kition, sixth century), masks and model shrines (bottom, from Idalion, sixth century). The Phoenecian ivory motif seems to be a melding of Egyptian and Minoan conventions to portray a goddess well-known on Cyprus. Legend reported by Plutarch calls such a statue in a Salamis sanctuary Aphrodite Parakyptousa, "looking sideways with glances of love" (Plutarch, Erot., cited in Barnett 1957, page 149), but commentators fail to emphasize that the occasion for her appearance at the window was a funeral procession, and her demeanor was cold. Drawings from Caubet 1979, plate VII, numbers 1 and 2, and plate IX, number 3.
One should not be tempted to conclude that iconoclastic biblical authors always used visual allusions negatively. In the “Book of Consolation” (Jeremiah 30–31), the prophet addresses Israel as the deceased northern kingdom whose revival was included in King Josiah’s program. Jeremiah 31:15–22 reverses a typical Jeremianic literary device, the call for a woman to mourn, by offering comfort to the weeping mother of Israel. Phyllis Trible’s treatment of the “uterine metaphor” in this passage combines rhetorical analysis of the poem’s structure with a sensitivity to the feminine connotations; words of a woman and to a woman surround those of a man (1978:50).
Words of a woman: Rachel cries in mourning for her children (verse 15)
Words to a woman: Yahweh consoles her (verses 16–17)
Words of a man: Ephraim confesses (verses 18–19)
Words of a woman: Yahweh contemplates (verse 20)
Words to a woman: Jeremiah commands (verses 21–22)
Trible uses this symmetry to interpret the concluding proclamation in verse 22, that, in her translation, “Yahweh has created a new thing in the land: female surrounds man” (1978:47). She is on the right track, but we can be more literal, and more visual.
Ephraim is not a man but a calf: “Thou hast chastened me, and I was chastened, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored” (Jeremiah 31:18). In Jeremiah 31:20 Yahweh has adopted Rachel’s motherly role, saying:
Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he my darling child?
For as often as I speak against him,
I do remember him still.
Therefore my heart yearns for him,
I will surely have mercy on him.
This comes very close to the lament language of Ugarit, where gods and humans alike mourn a loved one as a cow yearns for her calf, a ewe for her lamb. Is Yahweh understood to be speaking with a human maternal voice, or a bovine one?
Beach, Eleanor Ferris. “The Samaria Ivories, Marzeaḥ, and Biblical Texts.” Biblical Archaeologist: Volume 55 1992 : 132–133. Print.
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