Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah

Book excerpt: Simeon Chavel identifies a distinct story-type in the Torah, the "oracular novella," its contours and poetics, historical background, and use. A very short story of human quandary resolved by divine law, the oracular novella depicts an incident or set of circumstances in Israel, oracular inquiry by Moses, and instruction by Yahweh. The Torah has four such stories, all in the Priestly source, about cursing Yahweh (Lev 24:10-23), Pesa? deferral (Num 9:1-14), woodgathering on the Sabbath (Num 15:32-36), and inheritance by daughters (Num 27:1-11). All four dramatize themes in the divine speeches and divinely directed activities preceding them. But each utilizes the legal climax distinctly, has a separate compositional history, and affected other biblical texts differently. Ancient sources show the oracular novellas to adapt a form of priestly activity for historiography. Together they illuminate the Priestly History deeply troping divine will as law, and highlight Judean priests cherishing oracular inquiry as the nexus of divine and human society.