Rahab and the Spies, Pieter Jalhea Furnius, 1550 - 1625. Rijks Museum
The אוֹת (ʾOt) of Cain, Rahab, and Shabbat: Stop Looking for Signs!
Cain receives an ʾot from YHWH to protect him after killing his brother. Moses encounters an ʾot at the burning bush. Shabbat is called an ʾot between God and Israel. Rahab demands an ʾot to save her family during Israel’s conquest. And Isaiah offers King Ahaz an ʾot to calm his fear of invasion. But what exactly is an אוֹת (ʾot)?
Published: June 19, 2025
|
Last Updated: September 7, 2026
This article is an abbreviated version of our forthcoming study: Idan Dershowitz and Na’ama Pat-El, “The Forgotten Meaning of אוֹת,” Vetus Testamentum (2025).
Translations of the Hebrew Bible follow the NRSVue, with modifications. All other translations are the authors’.
BDB, s.v. אָוָה; HALOT, s.v. אוֹת.
LXX Josh 2:18 ἰδοὺ ἡμεῖς εἰσπορευόμεθα εἰς μέρος τῆς πόλεως, καὶ θήσεις τὸ σημεῖον, τὸ σπαρτίον τὸ κόκκινον τοῦτο ἐκδήσεις εἰς τὴν θυρίδα, δἰ ἧς κατεβίβασας ἡμᾶς δἰ αὐτῆς, τὸν δὲ πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα σου καὶ τοὺς ἀδελφούς σου καὶ πάντα τὸν οἶκον τοῦ πατρός σου συνάξεις πρὸς σεαυτὴν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν σου.
Irving Binik, “Rahab the Prostitute: A History of Interpretation from Antiquity to the Medieval Period” (MA thesis, McGill University, 2018), 11.
Biblical scholars Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch essentially try to have it both ways by expanding the meaning of “sign” to include a promise:
Lit. a sign of truth, i.e., a sign by which they guaranteed the truth of the kindness for which she asked. This sign consisted in nothing but the solemn oath with which they were to confirm their assurance.
See Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, 10 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1861), paragraph 3176. A solemn oath, however, is not what we would ordinarily describe as a sign.
Minû harrān ša PN minû itta-ša (Gilgamesh X ii 17). See Andrew R. George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin Books, 2019).
10 MA.NA kaspan ana ettī-ka tašaqqal (TCL 20 92:13, CDLI). The spelling ettī instead of ittī reflects the phonology of the Assyrian dialect.
See Dershowitz and Pat-El, “The Forgotten Meaning,” sections 3 and 6.
Cf. v. 22 and 2 Kings 12:9.
See Nyasha Junior, “The Mark of Cain and White Violence,” JBL 139 (2020): 661–673.
See, for example, Michael V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of the Priestly ’ot Etiologies,” RB 81 (1974): 557–596 (esp. 563).
See also, e.g., Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and Ramban.
Indeed, Rashi adds a second interpretation of אוֹת, noting that the word sometimes refers to promises for the future. Thus, that Moses’ mission will succeed will be a sign with respect to another promise: that the Israelites will worship God at Sinai.
Cf. Genesis 9:12, Ezekiel 20:12.
See the discussion in Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Bible with and without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2020), 235–283. Editor’s note: See also Amy-Jill Levine, “The Jewish Origins of the Christmas Story,” TheTorah (2019).
For example, Robert Moberly suggests that אוֹת refers to speech in the story of Cain (Gen 4:15), but he nevertheless construes it as a sign. He concedes that “there is no really good biblical example of a saying as a sign.” See Robert W. L. Moberly, “The Mark of Cain: Revealed at Last?” HTR 100 (2007): 19, et passim.
Dr. Idan Dershowitz completed his undergraduate and graduate training at the Hebrew University, following several years of study at Yeshivat Har Etzion. In 2017, he was elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows. Dershowitz was previously
Prof. Na’ama Pat-El is a professor of Semitic languages at the University of Texas, Austin. She completed her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She is a historical linguist whose research interests
