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Bell & Howell Information and Learning: Foreign text omitted.
AFTER FLEEING SHECHEM Jacob prepares for a return visit to Bethel. As part of the arrangements he gives these instructions to the members of his family: ..., "remove the foreign gods which are amongst you, purify yourselves, and change your clothes" (Gen 35:2). In compliance with this order, as the narrator reports, ..., "they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their possession and the earrings which were in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the terebinth near Shechem" (35:4). Much has been written about this incident, and archaeological evidence has been adduced to illustrate and explain the burial of divine statues in holy places.1 It seems that a small grammatical problem essential to understanding Gen 35:4 has been overlooked, however: What is the antecedent of the possessive pronoun "their" (...) suffixed to "ears" (...)? In other words, whose earrings are buried?
From earliest times, nearly all exegetes have taken the pronoun to refer to the members of Jacob's family.2 The earrings to be buried were those they wore in their own ears. This grammatical analysis has resulted in two explanations for the burial of the earrings. (1) The author of Targum PseudoJonathan and others have suggested that the earrings bore idolatrous pictures or shapes and were themselves objects of worship.3 (2) Some more recent scholars consider the jewelry to be amulets.4 The first interpretation is difficult because in practice there is nothing to distinguish earrings graphically or glyptically representing deities from idols in general so why single such earrings out? It is also difficult to imagine items as small as earrings actually used as cult statues, even though real cult statues need not be life-sized. Moreover, as Othmar Keel points out, it seems that there are no archaeologically attested examples of earrings shaped like idols.5 The second possibility can be rejected because, as Keel has demonstrated, there is no evidence that ... ever means amulet.6 Also, since amulets could be Yahwistic (examples are phylacteries and the famous silver strips from Ketef Hinnom on which the Priestly Blessing is inscribed), they would not necessarily have been found objectionable in se.
Although these explanations cannot be refuted conclusively, another possible interpretation is so...