Textual Ambiguity

To enhance the sounds of the text for their audience, biblical authors plumbed the depths of the Hebrew lexis for alliterative rare words, some of which appear only once in the Bible.

Is it Ahasuerus, Mordechai, or the horse?

After Joseph’s goblet is found in Benjamin’s sack, Judah makes a passionate speech to save Benjamin, in which he claims that if Benjamin leaves his father, “he will die.” Who will die? Why does the Torah phrase this so ambiguously?

Samson’s conception story may be read subversively as the result of a union between a divine being and a mortal woman, making Samson a demi-god with superhuman characteristics. At the same time, the text keeps open the more mundane possibility that his father is Manoah and his powers are simply a gift from God.

Deuteronomy gives broad permission to eat your fill from a neighbor’s vineyard and grain field, so long as you don’t gather in a vessel or cut with an implement. Famously, the disciples of Jesus gather grain on the Sabbath, earning the Pharisees’ wrath not for theft but for violating Shabbat. Commentators debate the reason for this law and whether it has any limits.

The approaches in Lamentations

Deuteronomy’s description of the circumstances of divorce is ambiguous. Thus, the Mishnah (m. Gittin 9:10) records three different opinions on when a man is allowed to divorce his wife. What can we infer from the biblical text?