Yavneh Yam

 ×•×™×‘א הושעיהו בן שב

י ויקח את בגד עבדך כאשר כלת

את קצרי זה ימם לקח את בגד עבדך

וכל אחי יענו לי הקצרים אתי בחם

  ש   אחי יענו לי אמן נקתי מא

שם                                    

And Hoshayahu son of Shobi came and took the garment of your servant. After I measured the grain over those days, he took the garment of your servant. And all my brothers will answer for me, the ones harvesting with me in the heat of the [sun]. My brothers will answer for me “Amen”. I am innocent from blame.

This is only part of the letter, the complete letter can be read elsewhere.This seems to be a clear case of oppression of the poor, such as Deuteronomy fights against. Follow the link for a discussion of the background of the letter and why the garment was actually taken. 

b. One approach to the repetition is to say that it is a sign of awkwardness in writing and hence, not very pretty (Naveh). This approach says that the repetition is not a good thing, but merely shows that the person giving the complaint is either uneducated or under the influence of too much emotion to write clearly.

            Smelik, on the other hand, presents the repetition in a better light. He says that the repetition shows literary art. He sees five section. In terms of the numbers of the lines given in his article, the first section is the introduction (1), then the initial situation (2-7), then the interference of Hoshaiah (8-13), then the witnesses (14-17), and finally the conclusion (18-23). Inside of each of these sections there are various repetitions, as well repetitions found throughout the whole document. One nice inclusion is the mention of שמע in the beginning and the end of the document. Smelik brings the intriguing suggestion that instead of the emphasis being found in the repetition, it is found in the lines that are not repeated. For example, in the interference of Hoshaiah, everything is repeated except for the fact that he came. The repeated lines are used in the service of persuasion.

            I agree with Smelik that the repetition shows signs of literariness and not clumsiness, as Naveh suggests. However, I am not convinced by Smelik’s argument that the important parts of the letter are the non-repeated parts. As I look at the lines that are not repeated, they seem to be usually backgrounded, such as where he was or that Hoshaiah came, while the important parts are more in repeated areas, such as that Hoshaiah took the garment. The significant exception is the claim by the man that he is innocent.

c. One view is that the garment was taken because he was not doing his work (or at least accused of not doing his work) (Smelik). He finds support in the fact that the man appeals to his fellow workmen in the field as witnesses, and the order that is emphasized earlier that he finished his work before stopping. However, this is not directly supported by what the command says in the Torah. There, if they do not pay their debts, then their garment can be taken, as in Exodus 22:25-27.

            Another view is presented by Dobbs-Allsop, who says that the garment was taken by an abuse of power. The garment should not have been taken, but Hoshaiah decided that he wanted it and he took it. The document then is a plea to a higher authority to get the garment back. This is supported by comparing the document to 2 Samuel 12, where another abuse of power is mentioned. The problem is not whether he had legal right to take the garment or not, but whether it was the ethical thing to do. Another similar passage is found in 2 Samuel, where a wise woman from Tekoa tells David a story. Once again, the question is not if the legal right is there, the question is ethics. This kind of reconstruction could very well describe what is going on in the Yavneh Yam document (or at least, what the writer wants us to think is going on). However, this kind of reconstruction finds more difficulty in all the repetitions in the document: why emphasize his work and so on? On the other hand, it does explain why there is no mention of why he took the garment, as he had the legal right too. He is not appealing to legal rules, but to the way things should be.

            Yet another view is that Hoshaiah simply stole the garment. This is different from the first view only slightly, since there it would appear that the man was actually guilty, while here he was not guilty, and Hoshaiah took his garment anyway. However, this view is unlikely as it would seem that if he stole the garment, then that fact would be mentioned in the document. Instead, it simply says that he took, when he could easily have said that he stole it.

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