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Document Details : Title: World Without Sun Subtitle: Darkness and the Womb in Psalm 139 and Ancient Israel Author(s): WHITEKETTLE, Richard Journal: Biblica Volume: 106 Issue: 2 Date: 2025 Pages: 180-207 DOI: 10.2143/BIB.106.2.3294730 Abstract : This article argues that the author of Psalm 139 thought of a womb as a dark place, and that, in v. 13, he was thinking of his own mother’s womb as a dark place as he pondered his situation and God’s relationship with him there. This means that there are four texts in the Israelite textual record which reflect the notion that the womb is a dark place: Job 3,16, Ps 58,9 (Eng 8), Ps 139,11-13, and Eccl 6,3-5. Assuming that this was a general Israelite understanding of the womb, the article considers some entailments of this notion, first in Israelite life and thought, and then in the life and thought of an Israelite woman. |
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