Cherem, in the Hebrew Bible, usually refers to total
destruction, particularly God’s commands for the Israelites to destroy
totally the Canaanites in the land of Canaan.
Somewhere in the course of my reading and education in biblical studies, I learned that cherem
means devoting something to God, or a god. We see this a couple of
times in the Hebrew Bible, although, the vast majority of the time, cherem
in the Hebrew Bible means utter destruction. Leviticus 27:28 refers to
Israelites devoting to the LORD men and beasts, and not being allowed
to redeem them. Micah 4:13 refers to consecrating gain to the LORD.
Both passages use the Hebrew verb ch-r-m, from which the word cherem is derived. We may see in Numbers 21:2 a notion that cherem
relates to devoting something to God: Israel vows that, if God will
deliver some Canaanite cities into Israelite hands, the Israelites will
utterly destroy those cities. Why would Israel vow this? Maybe she is
making God a deal: give us those cities, and we will consecrate them to
you.
Outside of Israel, the Moabite Mesha Stele, which probably dates to the ninth century B.C.E., has a concept of cherem
that means consecration to God. In the Mesha Stele, the context is
battle, which is often (but not always) the context of the word cherem in the Hebrew Bible. See here for a list of the Hebrew Bible verses that have ch-r-m.
Understanding the cherem in reference to consecrating
something or someone to God has influenced how some scholars interpret
certain biblical passages. Why, in the Book of Joshua, was Israel
commanded to destroy Jericho utterly and not take any plunder, whereas
she could take plunder from the next city that she conquered, Ai? One
explanation that I read (unfortunately, I forget where) is that she was
offering Jericho to God as firstfruits of her conquest, since Jericho
was the first city that she conquered, and there are laws in the Torah
about offering firstfruits to God (i.e., Numbers 18:12). I one time
read (and, again, I forget where) a biblical scholar who tried to give
King Saul the benefit of a doubt in I Samuel 15. God wanted Saul to
destroy all of the Amalekites and their animals, but Saul instead was
offering the animals to God as sacrifices. This scholar speculated that
Saul, in his own mind, was obeying God’s command. Saul was supposed to
offer the animals to God by destroying them in the cherem, and
Saul was offering the animals to God through sacrifices. Either way,
he is offering the animals to God! I think that this scholar’s point is
that an earlier story was presenting Saul as obedient, and a later
editor tried to change the story to make Saul look disobedient, with
awkward results. In any case, cherem, in this understanding, is offering something or someone to God.
In light of all this, it was interesting to me to see how the first
century C.E. Jewish work Pseudo-Philo addressed the topic of cherem. Essentially, in Pseudo-Philo 26, it radically distinguishes the cherem
from devoting or offering something or someone to God. Kenaz is the
judge, and God wants Kenaz to destroy the Israelites who have been found
to have participated in idolatry, along with the idolatrous objects.
Kenaz asks if he should burn the precious stones or consecrate them to
God, and God tells Kenaz to destroy them, saying, “If God in his own
name takes anything from the things under the ban, what will man do?”
(This is D.J. Harrington’s translation.) The ban here is not
consecrating someone or something to God, but is simply destroying
something.
(I should add that, in its telling of the story in I Samuel 15,
Pseudo-Philo makes King Saul look a lot more sinister. In Pseudo-Philo
58, I do not see anything about Saul offering animals to God, as Saul
does in I Samuel 15, and Saul in Pseudo-Philo 58 spares the Amalekite
king Agag because Agag is offering Saul hidden treasures if Saul spares
his life. Maybe Pseudo-Philo’s understanding of cherem is relevant to this: there is no way that Saul is being obedient to God in offering sacrifices, for cherem
is unrelated to sacrifices. In any case, Samuel in I Samuel 15 rebukes
Saul by saying that obedience is better than sacrifice, and
Pseudo-Philo 58, as far as I can see, takes away any idea that Saul was
sacrificing! Pseudo-Philo depicts Saul as utterly selfish, whereas I
Samuel 15 as least depicts him with some piety.)
Not long ago, I was looking through Jeffrey Tigay’s Jewish
Publication Society commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy. He has an
appendix in that about the cherem. Actually, to be honest, I
was trying to track down those points that I made above about Jericho
and Saul, and I thought that they might be in this commentary, but,
alas, I could not find them. But I did find another point that Tigay
made. According to Tigay, the Book of Deuteronomy itself does not
regard cherem as devoting something or someone to God. Rather,
in the Book of Deuteronomy, God commands the Israelites to destroy
utterly the Canaanites so that the Canaanites will not be a temptation
to them to engage in idolatry or false religion. In Deuteronomy, cherem
is a matter of getting rid of temptation, not devoting someone or
something to God. That appears to be what Pseudo-Philo would suggest
centuries later, only Pseudo-Philo is more explicit in distinguishing
consecrating something to God from the cherem.
As I look at the places where ch-r-m appears in the Hebrew
Bible, I see that viewing the word in reference to consecrating
something or someone to God does not always make sense. Exodus 22:20
says that any Israelite who sacrifices to another god besides the LORD
will be utterly destroyed. That seems to me to relate more to
punishment of sin, than to devoting someone to God. Why would God want
an idolater as a sacrifice?
I did a quick google search of “cherem AND Mishnah” because I was curious about the concept of the cherem in rabbinic literature. The reason is that I vaguely recall cherem
being used in the Mishnah in reference to devoting something to God as
part of a vow or an obligation, meaning that it is not available for
personal use. There may be something to my hunch (see here). At the same time, the concept of cherem within Judaism can have other applications as well: it can refer to excommunicating a person (see here). The term is used in a variety of ways.
I am going to open up the comments to this post, but this is only so
that people can add information or insight, if they want to do so. I
may not publish comments until tomorrow, though.