Quotes from Adele Berlin

I will greatly increase your offspring, And they shall be too many to count." 11 The angel of the Lord said to her further, "Behold, you are with child And shall bear a son; You shall call him Ishmael,* For the Lord has paid heed to your suffering. 12 He shall be a wild ass of a man; His hand against everyone, And everyone's hand against him; He shall dwell alongside of all his kinsmen.

15In my own brief span of life, I have seen both these things: sometimes a good man perishes in spite of his goodness, and sometimes a wicked one endures in spite of his wickedness. 16So don't overdo goodness and don't act the wise man to excess, or you may be dumfounded. 17Don't overdo wickedness and don't be a fool, or you may die before your time. 18It is best that you grasp the one without letting go of the other, for one who fears God will do his duty* by both.

there is not one good man on earth who does what is best* and doesn't err.

Arise, O Barak; Take your captives, O son of Abinoam!

17For the Lord your God is *God supreme and Lord supreme,-d the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, 18but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing.—19You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Most blessed of women be Jael, Wife of Heber the Kenite, Most blessed of women in tents. 25 He asked for water, she offered milk; In a princely bowl she brought him curds. 26 Her [left] hand reached for the tent pin, Her right for the workmen's hammer. She struck Sisera, crushed his head, Smashed and pierced his temple. 27 At her feet he sank, lay outstretched, At her feet he sank, lay still; Where he sank, there he lay—destroyed.

7But Er, Judah's first-born, was displeasing to the Lord, and the Lord took his life. 8Then Judah said to Onan, "Join with your brother's wife and do your duty by her as a brother-in-law,* and provide offspring for your brother." 9But Onan, knowing that the seed would not count as his, let it go to waste

was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.

14If you bring a meal offering of first fruits to the Lord, you shall bring new ears parched with fire, grits of the fresh grain, as your meal offering of first fruits. 15You shall add oil to it and lay frankincense on it; it is a meal offering. 16And the priest shall turn a token portion of it into smoke: some of the grits and oil, with all of the frankincense, as an offering by fire to the Lord.

21Finally, don't pay attention to everything that is said, so that you may not hear your slave reviling you; 22for well you remember* the many times that you yourself have reviled others.

28 You are my God and I will praise You; You are my God and I will extol You. 29 Praise the Lord for He is good, His steadfast love is eternal.

Had possession of the land remained central to the covenant during the exile, Israelite religion would have collapsed. By concluding the Torah with Deuteronomy and not Joshua, the fulfillment of the Torah is defined as obedience to the requirements of covenantal law rather than the acquisition of a finite possession.

the original "Israelite" view gradually became "foreign" and unintelligible. The Shema could only be understood as affirming the later "truth" of Jewish monotheism. This authentically Israelite religious language seems to have become so alien that the Hebrew text was "corrected" in several cases to bring it into conformity with later Jewish theology

The story of the conquest and settlement as it now appears in the book of Joshua is a literary, ideological construct, the result of many editions, revisions, and additions, reflecting changing concepts of the fulfillment of the divine promise of the land over a long period of time.

in Sheol there is no retribution and all its inhabitants are equal, without regard to their former status or behavior in life. Raising up from Sheol, a common biblical motif, does not refer to resurrection from death—a later belief as well—but to deliverance from near death (seePs.

22And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God.

13I have given you a land for which you did not labor and towns which you did not build, and you have settled in them; you are enjoying vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. 14"Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve Him with undivided loyalty; put away the gods that your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

26The Lord spoke further to Moses and Aaron, 27"How much longer shall that wicked community keep muttering against Me? Very well, I have heeded the incessant muttering of the Israelites against Me. 28Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'I will do to you just as you have urged Me. 29In this very wilderness shall your carcasses drop.

10Encamped at Gilgal, in the steppes of Jericho, the Israelites offered the passover sacrifice on the fourteenth day of the month, toward evening. 11On the day after the passover offering, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the country, unleavened bread and parched grain. 12On that same day,* when they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna; that year they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.

15For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no shape when the Lord your God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—16not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever:

27But do not neglect the Levite in your community, for he has no hereditary portion as you have. 28*Every third year-a you shall bring out the full tithe of your yield of that year, but leave it within your settlements. 29Then the Levite, who has no hereditary portion as you have, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your settlements shall come and eat their fill, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the enterprises you undertake.