**7.** *Pesah.* **: An Apotropaic Ritual**

The most famous of all festival offerings is the *pesah.* , which has an elaborate ritual with clear apotropaic connotations. A number of scholars have suggested that this began as a way of protecting the flock, before the shepherd moves them to spring pastures. Yet, the ritual is very much focused on the house. For this reason, other scholars have suggested it originates as an offering not to YHWH but to the family, ancestor deity (Zevit, pp. 280–81).

A third group of scholars have suggested that it has its origins in an apotropaic ritual to protect babies, similar to the Akkadian lullabies to protect newborns from being snatched by Lamashtu (Propp [1999] 2010, pp. 434–39; W. Farber 1989, pp. 34–39; 1990). This would connect the ritual with the story behind the ritual, which becomes so central to it, that it saved the Israelite firstborns.

I suggest a related possibility, that this was a family ritual to protect the house in lieu of the sacrifice of the firstborn. To clarify, let us return to the law in Exodus 22:28, which commands the offering of the firstborn son to YHWH. Although some interpret this to mean dedicating the son to serve at an altar, others understand this to be a requirement for child sacrifice. This is the only biblical law collection that requires child sacrifice (Levenson 1993, pp. 3–17). The binding of Isaac story (Gen 22), which originally ended with the son being sacrificed (Yoreh 2010, pp. 65–78), may be the only other biblical text that looks on this favorably. Although Leviticus 27:28–29 does allow for human sacrifice, this is not a requirement, and probably refers to a slave.<sup>35</sup>

Other texts are quite negative about it, such as Psalm 106:37–38, which speaks of this as worship of demons, or the passages in Kings (2 Kgs 23:10) and Jeremiah (7:31–32, 19:11–14) that describe the Tophet, where children were sacrificed (Stavrakopoulou 2012–2013). Nevertheless, all of these texts take it for granted that Israelites sacrifice their children, and the reference to a Tophet points to a ritual shared with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, for which we have archaeological evidence (Vainstub 2010). Whereas Jeremiah claims that this practice has not been sanctioned by YHWH at all, Ezekiel claims that child sacrifice was indeed commanded by God, but only as an expression of his anger towards his people:

Jer 32:35 and they built the shrines of Baal which are in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, where they offered up their sons and daughters to Molech—when I had never commanded, or even thought *of commanding*, that they should do such an abominable thing, and so bring guilt on Judah.

Ezek 20:25 Moreover, I gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live: 20:26 When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts—that I might render them desolate, that they might know that I am YHWH.

In keeping with the negative attitude of the prophets, the later law collections adjust the requirement for child sacrifice, taking one of two approaches. One interpretation is that the child is to be donated to serve at the local altar. The story of Samuel's youth is an example of this. It is also the assumption of the Priestly author in the book of Numbers, who argues that the law became defunct when YHWH commanded the Levites be exchanged for the firstborn in a giant redemption ritual:

Num 3:40 YHWH said to Moses: Record every first-born male of the Israelite people from the age of one month up, and make a list of their names; 3:41 and take the Levites for Me, YHWH, in place of every first-born among the Israelite people ...

<sup>35</sup> The story of Jephthah's daughter (Judg 11:39) is about child sacrifice as well, but the narrator does not appear to look upon this with favor.

The other approach was to require that the firstborn son be redeemed. This is then integrated into the general laws of firstborn offerings:

Exod 13:12 you shall set apart for YHWH every first issue of the womb: every male firstling that your cattle drop shall be YHWH's. 13:13 But every firstling ass you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. And you must redeem every first-born male among your children.

This alternative conception of firstborn offerings is then incorporated into the Ritual Decalogue, in the section dealing with festivals, as is the *Pesah.* offering. I suggest that both the redemption ritual and the *Pesah.* offering are ways of dealing with the cancellation of child sacrifice. The redemption ritual has an obvious connection, since the money is in place of the offering, but the *Pesah.* , which may have its origin in one of the other reasons surveyed above, has a subtler connection as an apotropaic ritual protecting the house. The blood of the animal victim "fools" the destroyer, coming to kill the son, and the consumption of the animal victim by the entire household bonds them together in safety. Certainly, the staying power of the *pesah. seder* ritual as the ultimate expression of Jewish family solidarity has stood the ritual-anthropological test of time.
