Intertextual Explorations in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature by Jeremy Corley Geoffrey David Miller

Author:Jeremy Corley, Geoffrey David Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

5 Mother Zion and Mother Earth in 4 Ezra

The figure of Mother Zion is the focus of the central episode of 4 Ezra (9:26 – 10:59). After Ezra’s opening monologue (9:26 – 37), which recapitulates one of the main themes of the dialogues with the angel Uriel, Ezra encounters a woman who is obviously in mourning. When Ezra questions her, she explains that she was married but barren for thirty years before God gave her a son. However, her treasured only son has just died upon entering his marriage chamber, and so she plans to mourn and fast until she dies (9:43 – 10:4). Her story, which combines barrenness with bereavement, evokes the Mother Zion figure of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Isa 49:21, 54:1). Ezra, however, having no idea with whom he is speaking, responds rather unsympathetically (4 Ezra 10:6 – 15):512

6“You most foolish of women, do you not see our mourning, and what has happened to us?  7For Zion, the mother of us all, is in deep grief and great affliction.  8It is most appropriate to mourn now, because we are all mourning, and to be sorrowful, because we are all sorrowing; you, however, are sorrowing for one son, [but we, the whole world, for our mother].  9Now ask the earth, and she will tell you that it is she who ought to mourn over so many who have come into being upon her.  10And from the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come; and behold, [almost] all go to perdition, and a multitude of them are destined for destruction.  11Who then ought to mourn the more, she who lost so great a multitude, or you who are grieving for one?  12But if you say to me, ‘My lamentation is not like the earth’s sadness, for I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth in pain and in sorrow;  13but it is with the earth according to the way of the earth—the multitude that is now in it goes as it came’;  14then I say to you, ‘As you brought forth in sorrow, so the earth also has from the beginning given her fruit, that is, humankind, to him who made her.’ 15Now, therefore, keep your sorrow to yourself, and bear bravely the troubles that have come upon you.

Ironically, given that the woman is later identified as Zion, Ezra begins by contrasting the woman’s mourning for one son with that of Zion, “the mother of us all” (9:7). In an apparent non sequitur that recalls some of Uriel’s analogies in the dialogues (4:40; 5:46, 51; 8:2), he then instructs her to “ask the earth, and she will tell you that it is she who ought to mourn” (9:9). The connection between Zion and the earth that prevents this transition from actually being a non sequitur is the ambiguous phrase “the mother of us all.” Ezra’s address to the woman effectively blends the metaphorical concept of Mother Earth that had been developed in the dialogues with another metaphorical mother figure that would presumably have been familiar to the author and audience of 4 Ezra, that of Mother Zion.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.