Texts in Conversation
Psalm 99 lists Moses, Aaron, and Samuel together as men God answered. Rabbinic tradition in Ecclesiastes Rabbah connects that with the list of judges in 1 Samuel to argue that whoever leads a community now ranks with the celebrated leaders of the past.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Psalm 99:6
Hebrew Bible
5 Praise the Lord our God. Worship before his footstool. He is holy! 6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests; Samuel was one of those who prayed to him. They prayed to the Lord and he answered them. 7 He spoke to them from a pillar of cloud; they obeyed his regulations and the ordinance he gave them.
Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:4
Aggadah
Rabbinic
Rabbi Yoḥanan said: It is written: “The Lord who made Moses and Aaron…” (I Samuel 12:6), and it is written: “The Lord sent Yerubaal, Bedan, Yiftaḥ and Samuel” (I Samuel 12:11). Yerubaal, this is Gideon; Bedan, this is Samson; Yiftaḥ as its plain meaning. And it is written: “Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call His name” (Psalms 99:6) – the verse parallels three of the insignificant people of the world to three of the prominent people of the world,3 to teach you that Yerubaal’s court is as great and significant before the Holy One blessed be He as Moses’s court; Samson’s court is the equivalent of Aaron’s court; and Yiftaḥ’s court is the equivalent of Samuel’s court. This teaches you that anyone who is appointed a leader of the community, even if he is extremely insignificant, he is like the noblest of their noble predecessors,
Date: 700-950 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Ecclesiastes 1:4 constitutes part of a section that speaks of the repetitive motion of life which is indicative of futility. The compiler of Ecclesiastes Rabbah overlooked the contextual meaning of Eccl 1:4 and wrote a discourse on the equal worth of Jewish leaders past and present. The Rabbis transformed the meaning of Eccl 1:4, and used Ps 99:6, which they introduced with the expression “it is also written,” in order to explain the base verse. This severalfold function of the base and the intertextual verses validates the present type of multiform intertextuality: [...] The concern of this passage is to defend the position, status, and reputation of the rabbinic office. The rabbinic message is indicative of its purpose; an appointed leader of a community, irrespective of his ethical status, is on the same level of worthiness with the most celebrated rabbinic authorities of the past. Ecclesiastes 1:4, under the Rabbis’ conspicuous interpretative manipulation, assists in their apologetic effort to highlight the importance of their class. ...”
Kitsos, Michail
"Examples of Intertextuality in Ecclesiastes Rabbah: An Examination of the Book of Psalms in Ecclesiastes Rabbah with Methodological Nuances" in Dell, Katharine Julia, and Will Kynes (eds.) Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually
(pp. 279-280) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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