Some concluding thoughts about Ibn Caspi's theory of testing the false prophet

Summary: Wrap-up from this post and then this post. It might pay to skim those two posts first.

Post: Here are some concluding thoughts.

The prophecy of Yonah came up in the course of discussing what allows us to determine a false vs. true prophet. Yonah had delivered this prophecy to the people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:4): עוֹד אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, וְנִינְוֵה נֶהְפָּכֶת, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". Yet they repented, and the prophecy did not come to pass. This was a public negative prophecy. If so, how can we make this work with the rules of determining a false prophet described in parashat Shofetim?

An insight I think I might have heard a year or two from my father. The prophecy was indeed fulfilled. There is ambiguity in the word נֶהְפָּכֶת, and the people themselves overturned the city. They went from bad to good, and took extreme measures to develop and express their contrition. So, the prophecy could have been fulfilled by either act of God or act of man.

Somewhat related to this, there are several Biblical texts which must go into a developed theory of how one determines a false prophet. The pasuk in Shofetim, for certain. But, also the prophecy to Yirmeyahu in the potter's house (and the parallel in Yechezkel) about Hashem 'repenting' of delivered prophecy. Also, the competing prophecies of Yirmeyahu and Chananiah ben Azzur, and Hashem's needing to reassure Yaakov before he met with his brother, even though he had received previous assurance. And, of course, the prophecy of Yonah. One can explain each of these pesukim in different ways, but one must account for each of them.

The Rambam accounted for each of these in his introduction to his perush hamishnayos as well as in Mishneh Torah, in the laws of determining a false prophet. Namely, private prophecy can be taken back, and public negative prophecy can be taken back, and so testing a prophet is only based on public positive prophecy. (Now go to each source and see how his theory satisfies each constraint imposed by a separate pasuk.) But his interpretations are not necessarily binding. We saw another Rishon, Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi, account for each of these pesukim in another, legitimate, manner. Namely, that one can only test a prophet where the positive or negative prophecy contains an explicit condition, and the condition is fulfilled. (See the second post.) And I, as well, suggested ways in which this can work out, such as that this refers to neutral signs and wonders appointed by the prophet to establish himself as a prophet, prior to any prophecy of weal or woe. (See the first post.)

What do I think of Ibn Caspi's approach? Well, he started all this by rejecting the Rambam for not fitting into the plain text of the pasuk in Shofetim. That is, the pasuk never mentioned that there was a distinction between positive and negative prophecy which failed to come true. As such, this is a deviation from peshat and a possible bal tosif. But then, he imposes his own distinction which is not explicitly mentioned in the pasuk. If we are already imposing distinctions, why not revert to the Rambam's distinction? After all, if the pasuk just means test the prophet to see if it does not materialize, in cases where it is possible to test him -- and a specific philosophical approach combined with constraints imposed by interpretations of other pesukim defines where it is possible to test him -- then say as well that it is obviously impossible to test him based on negative prophecy, since we know that Hashem can retract it, and indeed, the most obvious purpose of the prophecy is to issue a threat in order to inspire teshuva.

Ibn Caspi would have an answer ready, that his constraint is more readable into the pasuk. He would be right, since the pasuk says וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה הַדָּבָר וְלֹא יָבֹא, and we cannot know for certain by prophecy with 'absolute' wording that it did not come to pass, because perhaps there was an implied condition. But there is still some measure of forcing into the words of the pasuk, and I believe that we could do the same with the Rambam's interpretation.

Ibn Caspi is not only constrained by peshat considerations of the local and remote pesukim, but by his philosophical theological beliefs as well. Even though Hashem speaks about 'repenting', ונחמתי, in Yirmeyahu 18:8, this cannot mean actual reconsideration, since Hashem knows everything in advance and is unchanging. It must be a change from the receiving end, which is falsely perceived by humans, with their limited perception, as change. And thus is born this distinction between conditional and absolutely worded prophecy, in which absolutely worded prophecy is often actually just implicitly conditional, and so when it is 'retracted' it is just a change of circumstance and an imposition of the implicit condition. Don't accept this philosophical approach to God, and suddenly this unstated caveat is not so obvious in the pasul.

I can see and appreciate Ibn Caspi's distinction. Yet I could have also imagined a distinction in ability to test a false prophet in the opposite direction. With an explicit condition, perhaps the people privately repented sufficiently. Or if it a condition which certainly perceptible, then indeed the prophet can be tested. But the pasuk was speaking about absolutely worded prophecy, in which case we should take him at his word and assume he is a false prophet if it fails to materialize.

This would possibly clash with other textual evidence, such as the repentance of Nineveh. But then, one just needs to use one's sechel. The people all accepted the prophecy as true, and directly addressed Hashem for mercy. When the public reaction was like this, then it is obviously assumed by the people that Hashem can and does retract, in His mercy. In other words, there is a ready teretz for him which is not a stretch at all, given the people's response and assumptions up to that point. This is not the same as a blustering false prophet, who boldly makes predictions, and the predictions just don't come true. Don't start taking all sorts of kvetches, and give him the benefit of the doubt, because of some misdirected sense of dan lekaf zechut, but rather, as the pasuk tells us, בְּזָדוֹן דִּבְּרוֹ הַנָּבִיא, לֹא תָגוּר מִמֶּנּוּ, you shall not fear him.

What do I think about the foreign psukim, outside of parashat Shofetim? In terms of Yirmeyahu in the house of the potter, nothing indicates to me that this was public or even private prophecy. It can just be Hashem's initial 'intention', from which He withdrew. (Except of course Ibn Caspi would say Hashem is unchanging. So say that this was Hashem's attitude towards the person, according to the scales of justice if imposed at that precise time.) In terms of Yirmeyahu vs. Chananiah, I am not sure that we are speaking of judging a prophet in accordance with the laws of Shofetim at all! Rather, Yirmeyahu is speaking rational words to the false prophet and to the hamon am, that Chananiah's positive prophecy is so out of the ordinary (compared with the words of most other prophets) that only time will tell, and they should treat Chananiah's prophecy with a healthy dose skepticism until it actually materializes. Note that Yirmeyahu does not speak of knowing that the prophet was false, but rather the reverse, knowing that the prophet was speaking the truth. And so, neither Yirmeyahu nor Chaninia was being 'tested' in this sense.

In terms of Yonah, it is quite possibly allegory. But if we take it historically, then I don't think anyone ever raised the possibility of Yonah being a false prophet. Yonah complains, sure, in the last perek -- אָנָּה ה הֲלוֹא-זֶה דְבָרִי עַד-הֱיוֹתִי עַל-אַדְמָתִי--עַל-כֵּן קִדַּמְתִּי, לִבְרֹחַ תַּרְשִׁישָׁה: כִּי יָדַעְתִּי, כִּי אַתָּה אֵל-חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם, אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב-חֶסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל-הָרָעָה. That does not mean that Yonah's reluctance was that people would consider him a false prophet. Rather, I would understand it as that he was reluctant because he thought it was pointless, since the evildoers were not going to be punished anyway. (Chazal understand it as a reluctance because of the negative comparison to Klal Yisrael, who did not do teshuva in response to such negative prophecies.) Sure, if someone were interested in trying him as a false prophet, they could bring him to Beis Din. But no one was interested in this, and applying a little bit of seichel, in terms of the plausibility of Hashem's retraction, given the circumstances, would likely go a long was in an actual court case.

(And ignoring the halacha, the pasuk in Shofetim never actually said to execute him, just not to fear / heed him. And וּמֵת הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא need not be human imposition of the death penalty. The 'proof' might be in the contest between Yirmeyahu and Chaninah, where subsequently, Yirmeyahu predicts for the false prophet Chanania a death at the hands of Heaven within a year. And that prophecy comes true.)

Moshe, and Yonah's, reluctance

Summary: A cute vort from Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz, reinterpreting the kal vachomer.

Post: In parshat Vaera, Moshe makes a kal vachomer:

12. But Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, "Behold, the children of Israel did not hearken to me. How then will Pharaoh hearken to me, seeing that I am of closed lips?"

יב. וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה לִפְנֵי ה לֵאמֹר הֵן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֵלַי וְאֵיךְ יִשְׁמָעֵנִי פַרְעֹה וַאֲנִי עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם:

and Rashi cites the midrash that this is one of ten kal vachomers in Tanach. See my analysis here. As I discuss in that post, a famous question on this kal vachomer is that there is a rebuttal, a pircha, to the kal vachomer. The Taz suggests a resolution such that the kal vachomer stands, and I suggest that it is a kal vachomer despite the pircha.

But Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz takes a different, creative approach:

 וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה לִפְנֵי ה לֵאמֹר הֵן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֵלַי וְאֵיךְ יִשְׁמָעֵנִי פַרְעֹה  -- "Behold, they ask upon this kal vachomer, that the Bnei Yisrael did not hearken to him because of shortness of spirit {see above, pasuk 9}, so how is there a proof that Pharaoh won't listen to him. And it seems {rather} that the intent of Moshe was for the benefit of Israel, just as Yonah did regarding Ninveh, that he fled, for the reason that is the pagans turned from their evil path while Israel did not return to Hashem, there would be, forfend, anger upon Israel. And so was the matter by Pharaoh -- since Israel did not hearken to me, if Pharaoh will listen to me, there would be, forfend, anger upon Israel. And therefore he refused the agency."

It would seem, therefore, that he parses the pasuk against Rashi and the midrash as הֵן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֵלַי, behold, the children of Israel don't listen to me;  וְאֵיךְ יִשְׁמָעֵנִי פַרְעֹה, and so how could I set it up that Pharaoh might listen to me.

A beautiful vort; of course, Rashi is the better peshat in the pasuk.

My thoughts about Yonah refusing his shlichus can be read here, in "Yonah's rebellion and Yonah as metaphor."

Elsewhere, Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz fixes up the kal vachomer by explaining that in מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה, the avoda kasha refers to the negative influence of avoda zara. And this would naturally impact Pharaoh, an actual idolater, to a greater extent. So I think he is not dead-set against reading it as a kal vachomer. He is just open to exploring this issue in all sorts of creative ways.

Did Malbim on Yonah predict the undersea river?

Let us first learn the pasuk, and peshat in Malbim, and then see what people are claiming the Malbim has said:

In Yonah 2:4:

ד  וַתַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי מְצוּלָה בִּלְבַב יַמִּים, וְנָהָר יְסֹבְבֵנִי; כָּל-מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ, עָלַי עָבָרוּ.

4 For Thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all Thy waves and Thy billows passed over me.

Malbim:
השלחת אותי מצולה בלבב ימים -- שהוא מה שהשליכו אותו מן האניה אל הים

וְנָהָר יְסֹבְבֵנִי -- שם נהר בא אל המים המשוכים ומובדל מן הים שהמים שבו עומדים ונקוים אבל אז שהסערה שהתחוללה בים היה מן התהום שמי הים עצמו התרגשו ונשאו דכים למטה נקרא נהר כי אז לא עמדו המים רק נמשכו בעיגול סביב עצמם ויסבבוהו סביב סביב, ואז

כָּל-מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ, עָלַי עָבָרוּ -- שלא צף על הגלים כמעשה דרבי עקיבא רק נפל בעומק הים מקום שהמים שוטפים למטה והגלים עברו עליו מלמעלה

This does not seem to me to be a description of a true undersea river. Rather, there is the tehom -- typically understood as the true, special, watery depths. These caused the storm and tempest. He was tossed out of the boat into the water, and then, a whirlpool dragged him down to the bottom -- נמשכו בעיגול סביב עצמם ויסבבוהו סביב סביב. It is called a river, according to Malbim, because it is moving water, as opposed to the yam which is standing water. But it is only called nahar because it moves, not because it looked and behaved exactly like a river.

Now, Rabbi Yair Hoffman, on Matav:

There is a remarkable Malbim on the book of Yonah 2:4. The Malbim discusses how Yonah was caught in a river under the sea - where the waters of the river were separate from the ocean waters. Until this month - this was generally thought to be a physical impossibility.

Below, however, we find an article written by Richard Gray - the science editor of the British newspaper the telegraph. The results are striking. The reader is urged to see the Malbim with his or her own eyes. The term utilized by the Malbim - “Levav Yamim” clearly means sea bed.

Yes, the "river" was separate from the yam, by its nature and source. But Malbim never said it was an actual river at the bottom, and therefore had to explain why the term "river" makes sense -- moving water, dragging him down in a whirlpool. And levav yamim does not seem to mean sea bed. He treats it as a separate step, that this is to the sea itself, the top of the sea, for he went from the ship into levav yamim. Only as a separate step was he drawn from the levav yamim to below, via the whirlpool. And the idea

This does not correspond with the newly discovered phenomena at all. Well, there is the idea of separate flow. It seems to me to be a misreading of the Malbim, from someone excited to sea this "prophetic" Malbim fulfilled. As the article ends:

The Malbim, Rav Meir Leibish Ben Yechiel Michel Weiser passed away in 1879. The motif of his commentary was to prove the Divine origin of the Torah - as a counter measure to the rise of the Reform movement. The fact is that the commentary of the Malbim is filled with such gems.

Whirlpools, meanwhile, are well-known phenomena.

Update: See also Yeranen Yaakov's take on it.

What was Yonah's message?

Sefer Yonah begins:

א וַיְהִי, דְּבַר-ה', אֶל-יוֹנָה בֶן-אֲמִתַּי, לֵאמֹר.	1 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying:
ב קוּם לֵךְ אֶל-נִינְוֵה, הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה--וּקְרָא עָלֶיהָ: כִּי-עָלְתָה רָעָתָם, לְפָנָי.	2 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me.'

What was the message Yonah was to call upon it? The pasuk does not seem to describe it. And so says Rashi, that he should call upon it Hashem's keriah.

Metzudat David makes it even more clear, that He did not spell out just yet what to proclaim upon it. And a bit later, he works this fact into the narrative. Yonah fled outside of Eretz Yisrael, where prophecy does not reach. This way, he would avoid the possibility of receiving another message from Hashem, which would spell out the particular prophecy.

Radak also maintains that it is not written here just what the prophecy was to be. Though it seems that Radak does think that the prophecy was spelled out at this point to Yonah. We just have to deduce from the words that Yonah eventually says just what the prophecy was. And indeed, this certainly seems true later on in Yonah, where Hashem again tells him to prophesy and he does, but with words not spelled out earlier in the text. Thus, in perek 3:

ב קוּם לֵךְ אֶל-נִינְוֵה, הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה; וּקְרָא אֵלֶיהָ אֶת-הַקְּרִיאָה, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי דֹּבֵר אֵלֶיךָ.	2 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and make unto it the proclamation that I bid thee.'
ג וַיָּקָם יוֹנָה, וַיֵּלֶךְ אֶל-נִינְוֵה--כִּדְבַר ה'; וְנִינְוֵה, הָיְתָה עִיר-גְּדוֹלָה לֵאלֹהִים--מַהֲלַךְ, שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים.	3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey.
ד וַיָּחֶל יוֹנָה לָבוֹא בָעִיר, מַהֲלַךְ יוֹם אֶחָד; וַיִּקְרָא, וַיֹּאמַר, עוֹד אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, וְנִינְוֵה נֶהְפָּכֶת.	4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he proclaimed, and said: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'

Here, the pasuk just refers to "the proclamation that I bid thee". And we deduce just what the proclamation was that Hashem commanded by looking two pesukim later. And this the meforshim note. And indeed, by saying הקריאה, Rashi is certainly looking ahead to this ambiguous pasuk in perek 3 and stating that whether it says את הקריאה or not, it means the same thing, and both ambiguous pesukim should be resolved via Yonah 3:4.

I look at the second pasuk in Yonah and I see a pasuk ripe for ambiguous parsing. "Ki" can either mean "because" or "that". Rashi et al. adopt the former, such that he merely it to proclaim something upon it, and such that the second half of the pasuk is the reason for that unspecified proclamation.

However, if we read "Ki" as "that", then we could have the following translation instead:

א וַיְהִי, דְּבַר-ה', אֶל-יוֹנָה בֶן-אֲמִתַּי, לֵאמֹר.	1 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying:
ב קוּם לֵךְ אֶל-נִינְוֵה, הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה--וּקְרָא עָלֶיהָ: כִּי-עָלְתָה רָעָתָם, לְפָנָי.	2 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim upon it, that their wickedness is come up before Me.'

Thus, the second half of the pasuk is the content. We see later that the proclamation is for the overturning of Ninveh, וְנִינְוֵה נֶהְפָּכֶת.

To me, this calls to mind parshat Vayera, and the overturning of Sodom. Just as in Ninveh, their wickedness came before Hashem, we see regarding Sodom that:

כ וַיֹּאמֶר ה', זַעֲקַת סְדֹם וַעֲמֹרָה כִּי-רָבָּה; וְחַטָּאתָם--כִּי כָבְדָה, מְאֹד.	20 And the LORD said: 'Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous.
כא אֵרְדָה-נָּא וְאֶרְאֶה, הַכְּצַעֲקָתָהּ הַבָּאָה אֵלַי עָשׂוּ כָּלָה; וְאִם-לֹא, אֵדָעָה.	21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know.'

and in the next perek, regarding the destruction that results:

כה וַיַּהֲפֹךְ אֶת-הֶעָרִים הָאֵל, וְאֵת כָּל-הַכִּכָּר, וְאֵת כָּל-יֹשְׁבֵי הֶעָרִים, וְצֶמַח הָאֲדָמָה.

25 and He overthrow those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Thus, the message was Divine recognition of the wickedness of Ninveh, and associated with it, an overturning of the city. And so, while Yonah 3:2 gives us solid basis to interpreting it as an unspecified prophecy, I believe there is much merit to the alternative parse I proposed.

Yonah And The Goldfish

In Daf Yomi Nedarim daf 51b, we just encountered an interesting gemara. It reads as follows:

It was taught: R. Simeon b. Eleazar said: [If he vows] '[Konam. If I taste] fish [day],' he is forbidden large ones but permitted small ones '[Konam] if I taste dagah,' he is forbidden small ones, but permitted large ones. '[Konam,] if I taste dag [and] dagah,' he is forbidden both large and small ones. R. Papa said to Abaye: How do we know that '[Konam, If I taste] dag' implies large ones only? because it is written, Now the Lord had prepared a great fish [dag] to swallow up Jonah? But is it not written, Then Jonah prayed onto the Lord his God out of the fish's [dagah] belly? This is no difficulty: perhaps he was vomited forth by the large fish and swallowed again by a smaller one. But [what of the verse] And the fish [dagah] that was in the river died? did only the small fish die, not the large? — Hence dagah implies both large and small, but in vows human speech is followed.

The nature of Rav Pappa's prooftext is interesting, and should be investigated. But first we shall consider the gemara's question and answer. Rav Pappa's prooftext is Yonah 2:1, which reads:

א וַיְמַן ה דָּג גָּדוֹל, לִבְלֹעַ אֶת-יוֹנָה; וַיְהִי יוֹנָה בִּמְעֵי הַדָּג, שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה לֵילוֹת.

1 And the LORD prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

and specifically, the first part of the pasuk mentioning the dag -- וַיְמַן ה דָּג גָּדוֹל, לִבְלֹעַ אֶת-יוֹנָה, but the second part of the verse is not explicitly cited, even though it mentions dag.

The gemara counters that the next verse reads:

ב וַיִּתְפַּלֵּל יוֹנָה, אֶל-ה אֱלֹהָיו, מִמְּעֵי, הַדָּגָה.

2 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly.

and thus that he was in a daga, such that dag as large fish is not exclusive.

The gemara's response is that "This is no difficulty: perhaps he was vomited forth by the large fish and swallowed again by a smaller one."

There are three difficulties with the gemara's response here. Firstly, it is far-fetched to claim that he was vomited and reswallowed by another fish. Secondly, at the very end of the perek, we see:

יא וַיֹּאמֶר ה, לַדָּג; וַיָּקֵא אֶת-יוֹנָה, אֶל-הַיַּבָּשָׁה. {פ}

11 And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

which means that the fish that vomited him upon dry land was a dag and not a daga. OK, you could once again say that there was a further vomiting out and reswallowing, but this is getting more and more forced. But the third, and most difficult problem is how they define a big fish vs. a big fish.

The brayta, after all, is discussing one who takes a vow not to eat dag, or not to eat daga. Small fish are small fish one would eat. Think herring, or goldfish. Large fish are large fish. Think carp, or think larger fish than that.

By definition, any fish capable of swallowing a man whole is a large fish. So it does not make any sense to say that a large fish first swallowed Yonah, then vomited him out, and then a small fish swallowed him. That "small" fish would have to be large enough to swallow Yonah, and thus would be a large fish. One is forced to say, if one wishes to salvage this answer of the gemara, that the terms are being used in a relative sense. But that does not really work well with the setup of the gemara.

Rather, one need not wait until the disproof from the fish of the Nile dying in the plague of blood for a disproof. The first is quite sufficient, and the setma digmara is perhaps overanalyzing Rav Pappa's proof.

Indeed, as with the conclusion of the gemara, it all goes after lashon benei adam. However, the impression one gets from the conclusion is that Rav Pappa's proof is rejected entirely. This need not be so. Rather, we may read it just as we did earlier in the gemara, where there was an argument about whether bishul encompasses tzli, with an accompanying prooftext from II Divrei Hayamim, where they "cooked" the Pesach, where clearly it meant they roasted it. As the gemara noted there, the basis for the dispute was not whether one follows Biblical or human speech patterns, but rather the verse was a mere asmachta, a hinting support, but not a real basis. We might say a similar thing for Rav Pappa's proof.

Indeed, Rav Pappa's proof is not as ambitious as it seems to have been taken. If we read him closely, he is only bringing a prooftext that dag means a large fish. He says nothing about the meaning / implication of daga. True, they are set up in the brayta as opposite one another, but all Rav Pappa said to Abaye was that he had a proof that dag meant large fish. And especially as it was an asmachta bealma, counterproofs from daga are not relevant.

When discussing this with my father-in-law and with my brother-in-law, both of course knew the pasuk by heart, but both independently came up with a suggestion as to the nature of Rav Pappa's proof. And that was that the pasuk states:

א וַיְמַן ה דָּג גָּדוֹל, לִבְלֹעַ אֶת-יוֹנָה; וַיְהִי יוֹנָה בִּמְעֵי הַדָּג, שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה לֵילוֹת.

1 And the LORD prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

And the pasuk specifically chose the adjective גָּדוֹל to associate with the noun דָּג. Thus, a support that dag is associated with the large variety. Of course, one can counter that the fact that it was necessary to place the adjective there shows that dag need not refer to large fish, but at any rate, this is likely the basis of Rav Pappa's derasha. And it need not even bother us, if the rules of derash do not allow for this objection, or especially if it was intended as an asmachta bealma. Meanwhile, while the next pasuk does indeed refer to daga, it does not say it is a dagah gedolah. If so, there is no basis for objection. There is often such a chasm between the words of the Amoraim and the words of the setama digmara.

This idea of transfer from large fish to smaller fish is not unique to this possibly rejected explanation in the setama digmara. It also occurs, in different form, in Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer. Instead of focusing on large vs. small fish, it looks as the masculine vs. feminine and interprets it as male fish followed by female fish. Now if this was really from Rabbi Eliezer, then we have pre-Talmudic precedent to bolster the otherwise somewhat forced interpretation. But if it is actually, as dated, a post-Talmudic work, then perhaps this midrash was inspired, in part, by this back-and-forth in our gemara. (But perhaps this idea is mentioned in other midrashim as well? It is at the least inspired by the shift in the words in the pasuk.)

The gemara, and Rav Pappa's proof aside, what are we to make of this shift in language from dag to daga? We might say it is no big deal, and a switch from one to another should not be considered, from a peshat perspective. Alternatively, we might make something of it. Note that we could make a nice transition from the first pasuk of perek 2 to the last pasuk of perek 2:

א וַיְמַן ה דָּג גָּדוֹל, לִבְלֹעַ אֶת-יוֹנָה; וַיְהִי יוֹנָה בִּמְעֵי הַדָּג, שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה לֵילוֹת.

1 And the LORD prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

יא וַיֹּאמֶר ה, לַדָּג; וַיָּקֵא אֶת-יוֹנָה, אֶל-הַיַּבָּשָׁה. {פ}

11 And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. {P}

If we omit everything in between, then even without Yonah's prayers, it was Hashem's plan all along to spare Yonah. Note that in both pasuk 1 and in pasuk 11 the fish is referred to using masculine singular, dag. In pasuk 1, twice, and in pasuk 11, once.

Meanwhile, the middle section reads like a perek of Tehillim. And like many perakim in Tehillim, there is a tenuous, or absent, connection between the designation of mizmor and the situation in which it was authored on the one hand, and the actual content on the other.

This certainly seems to hold true here. Sure, there are aspects that connote being swallowed by a fish, but not exactly. We have מִבֶּטֶן שְׁאוֹל which has mibeten, but Sheol is not exact. Pasuk 4 certainly holds true: וַתַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי מְצוּלָה בִּלְבַב יַמִּים, וְנָהָר יְסֹבְבֵנִי; כָּל-מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ, עָלַי עָבָרוּ. And so does pasuk 6: אֲפָפוּנִי מַיִם עַד-נֶפֶשׁ, תְּהוֹם יְסֹבְבֵנִי; סוּף, חָבוּשׁ לְרֹאשִׁי. But pasuk 7, not so much: לְקִצְבֵי הָרִים יָרַדְתִּי, הָאָרֶץ בְּרִחֶיהָ בַעֲדִי לְעוֹלָם; וַתַּעַל מִשַּׁחַת חַיַּי, ה אֱלֹהָי. What is the pit? And if it is metaphorical, how do we know the rest is not also metaphorical, just like it is in a number of other perakim which occur in Tehillim? More problematic are the pasukim that suggest he has already been saved. שָׁמַעְתָּ קוֹלִי in pasuk 3 and וַתַּעַל מִשַּׁחַת חַיַּי in pasuk 7. There is midrash, in Talmud Yerushalmi 5:1, that explains that Yonah was the son of the widow of Tzorfat whom Yonah brought back to like, and this deals handily with interpreting these pesukim as Yonah already having been saved. Alternatively, it hooks in quite well with the midrash that there was transference from one fish to the other.

Or alternatively, this is the style of such Biblical poetic prayers. Regardless, this is a poem / prayer attributed to Yonah in such a situation. And so, we might suggest, the author inserted this second (earlier?) source in the narrative, together with the poem's attribution. And that attribution had the slightly different designation for the fish, namely daga, which was of course not modified.

parshat Behaalotecha: Why the repetition in Isha Kushit Lakach?

Just as in the preceding devar torah, this is readily apparent, but still necessary and useful to point out.

The beginning of the narrative involving Miriam and leprosy is Bemidbar 12:1:

א וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה, עַל-אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח: כִּי-אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית, לָקָח.

1 And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.

If it already states that he had taken a Cushite woman -- עַל-אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח -- then, why bother stating immediately thereafter that he had married a Cushite woman -- כִּי-אִשָּׁה
כֻשִׁית, לָקָח

Rashi actually asks the question -- or rather cites the Q and A from Tanchuma Tzav:

for he had married a Cushite woman What does this [apparently superfluous clause] mean to say? You find a woman who is beautiful in appearance, but unpleasant in deed; [or a woman who is pleasant] in deed, but not of beautiful appearance. This one, however, was pleasant in every respect. [Therefore, she was called Cushite, as above.] - [Tanchuma Tzav 13]

Yet there is in fact a rather simple, peshat based account for the repetition of כִּי-אִשָּׁה
כֻשִׁית לָקָח. Let us look to sefer Yonah.

Yonah 1:10:

י וַיִּירְאוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים יִרְאָה גְדוֹלָה, וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ: כִּי-יָדְעוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים, כִּי-מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה הוּא בֹרֵחַ--כִּי הִגִּיד, לָהֶם.

10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him: 'What is this that thou hast done?' For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Note the כִּי הִגִּיד לָהֶם. Nowhere in the sefer up to this point did we have Yonah explicitly tell them that he had fled from the presence of Hashem, yet the men knew. Why? The pasuk fills us in to the otherwise unknown, and until now, not relevant, information.

Similarly here in parshat Behaalotecha. All of a sudden we here complaints about Moshe's Kushite wife that he had married. But what is this of a Kushite wife. So the pasuk clarifies that he indeed took a wife from the Kushite nation.

That is, on a peshat level, we do not assume a closed-canon approach, and when we some previously unknown character or event is mentioned, sometimes it is deemed necessary to state -- "Oh yeah, Moshe had married this Kushite woman, so this heretofore unknown event was the cause for Miriam's complaint."

Why does Rashi -- or rather, Tanchuma, not give this answer? Recall that this operates on the level of derash, and so the principle of omnisignificance applies. Therefore, the repetition has weighty meaning in its own right. Futhermore, midrash often operates on the the principle of the closed-canon, and therefore this is not some new, heretofore unknown Kushite woman, but rather is Tzipporah. (As is evident from the answer, and the surrounding Rashis/midrashim.) Thus, the Torah is not explaining some otherwise unknown person. (Perhaps it would still be explaining a heretofore unknown event - reading lakach as divorce, we are told here thgat he divorced Tzipporah - which is where the first part of the answer comes in.) Therefore, the repetition of this fact has some midrashic significance.

Yonah's Rebellion and Yonah as Metaphor

A. Yonah's Rebellion
Another blogger (sorry - can't find her post at the moment - someone please comment or email me so I can link) related that when her sons came home from school, having learned the story of Yonah in school in preparation for Yom Kippur. When she asked why Yonah ran away instead of delivering his prophecy, they repeated what they were taught -- that Yonah did not want to deliver the prophecy because when the gentiles repented, it would look bad for the Jews. She was upset -- "What are we teaching our children?" she cried out. She seemed to be upset for two reasons: firstly, if Hashem tells you to do something, you do it, and your own calculations of the best course of action do not matter; and secondly, what kind of message does this teach in terms of dealing with, and having regard for other people, namely gentiles. She was offended by this midrash or interpretation and wanted to see if was indeed brought down in a midrash or perush.

I'm going to play the game, but then rise above it.

Indeed, this midrash or interpretation does exist - it could be found in Rashi, in Mahari Qara`, in Radak, etc., who state that Yonah knew that upon receiving his prophecy of destruction, they would repent, and Hashem would spare them. Hashem would then be angry at the Jews who did not repent even though He sent them prophets calling upon them to repent.

This midrash is derived from a specific interpretation of the end of the third perek and the beginning of the third, in which Yonah states why he did not go:

Yonah 3:10:

י וַיַּרְא הָאֱלֹקִים אֶת-מַעֲשֵׂיהֶם, כִּי-שָׁבוּ מִדַּרְכָּם הָרָעָה; וַיִּנָּחֶם הָאֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת-לָהֶם--וְלֹא עָשָׂה.

10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which He said He would do unto them; and He did it not.

Yonah 4:1-2:

א וַיֵּרַע אֶל-יוֹנָה, רָעָה גְדוֹלָה; וַיִּחַר, לוֹ.	1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
ב וַיִּתְפַּלֵּל אֶל-ה וַיֹּאמַר, אָנָּה ה הֲלוֹא-זֶה דְבָרִי עַד-הֱיוֹתִי עַל-אַדְמָתִי--עַל-כֵּן קִדַּמְתִּי, לִבְרֹחַ תַּרְשִׁישָׁה: כִּי יָדַעְתִּי, כִּי אַתָּה אֵל-חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם, אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב-חֶסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל-הָרָעָה.	2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said: 'I pray Thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.
ג וְעַתָּה ה, קַח-נָא אֶת-נַפְשִׁי מִמֶּנִּי: כִּי טוֹב מוֹתִי, מֵחַיָּי	3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.'

These pesukim seem to suggest that Yonah fled rather than deliver the prophecy because he was afraid they would repent and not perish.

Now, in terms of the objections, firstly, we see Hashem was ready to punish Yonah, and he repented. We see in the fourth perek that Hashem attempts to show Yonah he was wrong, and how all creatures, from the humans down to the innocent animals are deserving of Mercy and should not be wantonly destroyed. Just giving Yonah's motivations -- indeed, ones that seem to jump right out of the text -- is not to assert that Yonah was right in doing what he did.

That should suffice to answer her objections.

B. Political Correctness, Academic Freedom, And Intellectual Integrity
However, to digress and rant -- even if they were trying to assert that his was the right course of action, the fact that a Jewish housewife may get offended by the message should not prevent them from advancing this peshat or derash. It is founded on pesukim and legitimate principles of textual analysis. Baruch Hashem that Chazal, and the classical merforshim, were not restricted by politically-correct filter, either self-imposed or imposed from the outside, or else a good deal of great Jewish literature and scholarship would have been lost.

When I began a Yoreh Deah shiur at YU, one of my fellow students brought a tape recorder, and asked if he could tape record the shiurim for the purpose of chazara. But the Rabbi did not agree, since he felt he could be freer to express himself, and would feel less self-conscious, if he knew he was not on tape. Now, he did not say anything offensive at all over the course of the year, but I think he was absolutely correct in his decision, though of course the lack of tapes of his shiur will be a loss for posterity. Other Rabbis who did agree to be tape recorded were negatively affected by their decision, even as the presence of their shiurim on the YU website is a great boon to Jews worldwide.

For example, Rav Schachter's shiur discussing women reading the ketuba under the chuppa - his statement about monkeys and parrots being able to read the ketuba was an halachic statement about the act of reading the ketuba being an act of creating hefsek, being on par if not less than what is termed a maaseh kof, the act of a monkey, in the halachic literature (discussed for example in terms of netilat yadayim). He had previously in shiur, to my recollection, in terms of other topics, discussed the status of maaseh kof in terms of speech - you need something that produces the sounds without any of the intention - and came up with example of the act of a parrot. His shiur was geared towards students who would understand what he meant, and would see that there was nothing to be offended by. Instead, it was summarized by someone and then read by ignoramuses, who knew nothing and decided to be offended, and called for him to apologize - something picked up and reported upon by ignoramuses who were also journalists.

For example, Rav Schachter's shiur in which he talked about the concept of "the chosen people," and based part of his talk on a distinction made in Pirkei Avot between all humanity, wich was created in the image of God, and the Jewish people, who are called "children to the Omnipresent," and to mark this distinction, used the clear metaphor of "divine DNA." What this distinction was, which seemed to be a calling to be extra-nice and merciful, I will not go into here. Steven I. Weiss, in a post on Protocols, at first misunderstood what he was hearing, and thought that Rav Schachter was saying that gentiles were not created in the image of God, but then, to his credit, corrected himself quickly when people explained what Rav Schachter was truly saying. But of course the "scandal" was reported upon by the Jewish week, together with quotes of how this represented the shift to the right of Orthodoxy. A subsequent opinion piece in the paper, which called upon Jews to accept the legitimacy of idolatry in the name of pluralism (which I fisked here), and basing itself on the report of the remarks rather than on hearing the speech itself, claimed:

Just recently, we’ve read of disturbing positions taken by religious authorities in our community. A prominent rosh yeshiva said that Jews are spiritually superior to other people because Jews and non-Jews “have different genes, DNA, and instincts.”

and later

and statements that proclaim the superiority of Jews over non-Jews will be denounced as contrary to the Torah’s statement in Genesis that all human beings are created in the image of God.

which are complete misunderstandings of what Rav Schachter said.

For example, Rabbi Tendler's shiur in Niddah which contained a quote about the metzitza befeh issue.

For example, the article in a scholarly publication of YU that mentioned that historically, there was an opinion that the Biblical command of lo tirtzach does not apply to gentiles. (Note that a similar opinion was mentioned in a shiur I attended, that the specific command in the 10 Commandments of lo tirtzach does not apply to gentiles, but it would be forbidden for other reasons.) This was not a fatwa calling for death to gentiles, but rather a scholarly article discussing the various opinions about a complex halachic subject, and mentioning an interesting one. This is legitimate scholarship, and the manufacturing of a scandal by journalists interesting in a juicy story just served to help to squash academic freedom.

For an example outside YU, Harvard President Lawrence Summers' remarks that besides social factors and discrimination, there could be some genetic factors at play for the dearth of females at the top levels in the hard maths and sciences, and there are some reasons to think that they are. (To briefly and crudely flesh one such reason out, while of course there are dumb, average, above average, and brilliant males and females, a look at the distribution for each shows that the majority of females tend towards the middle, while a larger portion of males are at the extremes -- either really smart or really dumb. Since real super-duper-genius is often required in these fields, especially at the top, and there are more males in this category, the males would be represented at a greater level than their percentage in the population, and this is not necessarily a result of discrimination.) The politically correct reaction to his remarks resulted in many an apology from Summers, and the granting of large sums of money to ensure no gender bias. But this was legitimate scholarship, supressed by the forces of political correctness.

In summary, we should not judge scholarship based on whether someone will be offended - we should judge it on its merits, or risk quashing academic freedom and intellectual integrity.

C. Yonah As Metaphor
And now back to Yonah. In fact, I believe this midrashic explanation is sublime, but in order to explain why, we need to take a step back.

Yonah reads as a kind of morality play¹, and as a metaphor.

The theme of the book of Yonah is teshuva, repentence, a good reason it is read on Yom Kippur. Yonah rebels against God, then does teshuva. The sailors, who worship other gods, when experiencing God's salvation, repent and follow God. The city of Ninveh, which has sinned, is warned by Yonah of its imminent destruction, and they repent and are spared.

Further, we do not find reference to Yonah ben Amitai the prophet elsewhere in Tanach, and this book does not state during which kings' reigns Yonah prophesied. (A midrash makes him a disciple of Elisha, and thus of Elisha's time, and perhaps in another post I will explore this.) To get really annoying, Yonah is the son of Amitai because rather than being an actual person, he represents a "greater truth," that of the message of the book.

Taking Yonah as an actual person and prophet, the role of the book stays the same. Why is this particular prophecy, and this particular sequence of events (and no others), recorded for posterity?

As with any book in the canon, the intended audience of the book is the Jewish people. This is a call upon them to do teshuva, giving three examples of people who did teshuva - Yonah the individual, the sailors as a somewhat larger group, and finally an entire city. The Israelites should see these positive examples and be inspired to do teshuva.

In fact, there are examples of public movements to repentence - one salient example being the reform in the day of Yoshiyahu. However, the impression one gets from most of Neviim - those prophetic works deemed important to pass on to future generations, contains calls for repentence and the Israelites not responding. The constrast is one of Goofus and Gallant. (If you are unfamiliar with the reference, please follow this link before proceeding.)

Now, on to Yonah's rebellion. Why did he rebel? One can argue from within the confines of the narrative. In this regard, the verses at the end of perek 3 and at the start of perek 4, mentioned above, will be particularly influential. Yonah seems to state that he did not go to deliver the prophecy because he knew the people of Ninveh would repend and God, being All-Merciful, would spare them. This still does not answer the particulars of why he rebelled. One could interpret these verses in various ways. A few random possibilities:

• Yonah hated gentiles and wanted them to be killed.
• Yonah hated sinners and wanted them to be killed.
• Yonah's feeling of fairness and justice was that sinners should get what is coming to them, and if he did what God wanted, these people would be spared.
• Yonah was afraid that when the promised destruction did not come, the people would consider him a false prophet, which would either cause a loss of prestige or else a lynching.

Those answers are ones which exist within the confines of the narrative. However, let us break free of this constraints and operate on a meta-textual level.

Once again, why did Yonah refuse to deliver the prophecy?

The answer is that the book is about teshuva, and Yonah as an individual must sin if he is to repent. There is only one sin that is particular to a true prophet of God, that of supressing prophecy. And so, Yonah must sin to teach us about repentence at the individual level.

That Yonah gives an explicit reason in a later chapter is unimportant - foremost because that is internal to the narrative, but also because the purpose of the fourth chapter is to teach another lesson - the value of life and thus God's acceptance of the repentance. Yonah role here in chapter 4 is different - to provide a foil for the message of the legitimacy of Hashem's mercy. Yonah is wrong that repentance should not save, and he advances this position in order to be shown wrong. His initial rebellion is reread in this light. Do not cite the end of the book to shed light on the beginning, for different slices of the overall message of teshuva are presented at different points.

The midrash, as I stated above, is sublime. It operates on the meta-textual level and, at the same time, within the confines of the book. Chazal realize that the purpose of the book is to advance the message of teshuva, and that the exemplars in this book, the people of Ninveh in particular, but in fact every penitent in this book, serves as a Gallant to the Goofus of the Israelites. And everybody detests Gallant. :)

Thus, if Yonah must rebel, give him a good reason to rebel. Yonah has a meta-textual realization, that he is starring in a morality play, one that will cast the behavior of the Israelites in a bad light. Why not have him rebel against this role he is cast, for he dislikes this role of implicitly criticizing the Israelites by causing the people of Ninveh to do teshuva. Even better, we can read this meta-textual reason into the confines of the narrative and text, and into the reason Yonah explicitly gives. For Yonah states that he was reluctant to go because he knew that the people of Ninveh would repent and God would spare them.

What now of the offense taken to this sublime midrash? One problem was how this is presented as a valid reason to rebel against God. From within the narrative/textual constraint, I previously argues that an explanation of motivations does not equal justification. Now, on the meta-textual level, we can say better -- the rebellion against God is an act within the contrainsts of the text and narrative, but the midrash is one that recognizes, on a meta-textual level, the role of the book as a call to teshuva and implicit criticism of Israel. The midrash is commenting on the nature of the book. The other objection, about the poor gentile residents of Ninveh, is also beside the point, for the people of Ninveh are beside the point, for they reside within the constrainsts of the book, and the lesson the midrash teaches is meta-textual, about the nature of the book.

---

Footnotes:
1: I'm not using this term exactly right, but it's the best term approximation I can come up with at the moment.

Shir HaShirim 1:1 and Yonah

In Yonah 1:7, as the ship tosses in the storm, the sailors cast lots to determine who is at fault:

ז וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל-רֵעֵהוּ, לְכוּ וְנַפִּילָה גוֹרָלוֹת, וְנֵדְעָה, בְּשֶׁלְּמִי הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת לָנוּ; וַיַּפִּלוּ, גּוֹרָלוֹת, וַיִּפֹּל הַגּוֹרָל, עַל-יוֹנָה.

7 And they said every one to his fellow: 'Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.' So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

Here we have a contraction and coalescence of be asher le mi. The asher contracts to she, and joins with the le, though placing a strong dagesh in the lamed. (We see this in the word shel.) See also בְשֶׁלִּי in pasuk 12. Yet even though asher becomes she, it can still exist independently. Thus, in pasuk 8, we see:

ח וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו--הַגִּידָה-נָּא לָנוּ, בַּאֲשֶׁר לְמִי-הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת לָנוּ: מַה-מְּלַאכְתְּךָ, וּמֵאַיִן תָּבוֹא--מָה אַרְצֶךָ, וְאֵי-מִזֶּה עַם אָתָּה.

8 Then said they unto him: 'Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us: what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?'

This phrase is the same as the word above, except that asher does not become she, but remains independent. Elsewhere we also see asher standing independently - for example, כַּאֲשֶׁר in pasuk 14. Just because asher becomes she in one place does not mean that it cannot remain asher in another place.

This should be obvious, and I apologize for belaboring the point. But now let us turn to the application.

Shir HaShirim 1:1 begins the sefer:

א שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים, אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה.

1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's.

This is a superscription to the book, assigning authorship. Scholars like to often claim that superscriptions are added later than the rest of the book. This is relevant here because most modern academic Biblical scholars deny Solomonic authorship of the book. Some will say that there are multiple songs in the book, one of which dates to Solomon's time, and could have been written by him or some poet for him, but that other songs in the book are of later authorship and of other locations in Israel. (I won't go into all of their reasons here.) Others would deny a connection to King Solomon entirely. The superscription, then, written at a later (post-Exilic) time, would be mistaken, possibly as a result of extending authorship from the one song to the entire book, or influenced to a few scattered references to King Solomon or "the king" in the book.

One prominent piece of evidence brought that the superscription is a later addition is a linguistic one. The first pasuk uses the full word asher - אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה. Meanwhile, in the remainder of the 8 perek book, we have occasional use of the word, but always contracted. Thus, (as Gordis notes at the beginning of his commentary - page 78)
1:6 - שֶׁלִּי
1:7-שַׁלָּמָה
5:8 - שֶׁחוֹלַת
6:5 - שֶׁהֵם, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ
6:6 - שֶׁכֻּלָּם;
etc.

But, as the pesukim in Yonah show, one need not be restricted to just one form. You can write asher and write she or sha elsewhere.

However, that is not in truth what the Biblical scholars are arguing. Rather, it is that we do not find the form asher anywhere else in the book. That is, the author of Shir HaShirim restricts himself to the contracted form, yet we find the full form in the superscription. This would seem to suggest separate authorship of the superscription.

In answer to this, I first wonder if the number of examples of the contracted form occurs frequently enough in the book to make this assertion confidentally. Perhaps had more songs been included, or had the book been 8 chapters longer, the form asher might have occurred.

Secondly, especially since many scholars assert authorship of the songs by many different authors in many different time periods, would they really say that in none of those time periods, the full form asher would not have been preferred? The claim of consistency of the short form she seems somewhat predicated on single authorship and thus consistent style, so how can one then turn around and say that there were multiple authors from multiple places, with presumably different styles?

Thirdly, this linguistic evidence appears to ignore the basic fact that the book is one of Song. Song has meter, and requires balance in terms of things such as number of words. Biblical poetry is also short - it eschews long-winded grammatical construction. The fact that the word asher, when it crops up, is made short and appended to the word, does not seem to me to be a linguistic feature of how they spoke and wrote in general, but rather a fitting to the requirements of the specific form and the keeping the meter in the specific verse. Meanwhile, the superscription, even if written by King Solomon, would still be a superscription, and not poetry, and the change of genre seems sufficient to explain the change in style. Alternatively, and more so, perhaps the keeping of the full asher is due to musical/lyrical considerations. Shir HaShirim / Asher LiShlomo makes a nice division, with two words in each subdivision. SheLiShlomo or ShelShlomo would not sound as right.

Fourthly, this ignores the fact that some of the shortenings of asher to she or sha can be explicitly seen to exist for lyrical reasons. Thus, for example, 1:6:

ו אַל-תִּרְאוּנִי שֶׁאֲנִי שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת, שֶׁשְּׁזָפַתְנִי הַשָּׁמֶשׁ; בְּנֵי אִמִּי נִחֲרוּ-בִי, שָׂמֻנִי נֹטֵרָה אֶת-הַכְּרָמִים--כַּרְמִי שֶׁלִּי, לֹא נָטָרְתִּי.

6 Look not upon me, that I am swarthy, that the sun hath tanned me; my mother's sons were incensed against me, they made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.'

The alliteration of sh sounds is stressed even more by the she's leading the word, instead of being placed in the midst of a separate word.

The strange word שַׁלָּמָה in the verse 1:7:

ז הַגִּידָה לִּי, שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי, אֵיכָה תִרְעֶה, אֵיכָה תַּרְבִּיץ בַּצָּהֳרָיִם; שַׁלָּמָה אֶהְיֶה כְּעֹטְיָה, עַל עֶדְרֵי חֲבֵרֶיךָ.

7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that veileth herself beside the flocks of thy companions?

is clearly (to me at least) influenced by a desire for Biblical parallelism. The word שַׁלָּמָה is meant to evoke the name שְׁלֹמֹה. Now, compare with verse 1:5:

ה שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה, בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם; כְּאָהֳלֵי קֵדָר, כִּירִיעוֹת שְׁלֹמֹה.

5 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

Thus, in verse 1:5 we have Shlomo, and more specifically the curtains of Shlomo. In verse 1:7, we have:

ז הַגִּידָה לִּי, שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי, אֵיכָה תִרְעֶה, אֵיכָה תַּרְבִּיץ בַּצָּהֳרָיִם; שַׁלָּמָה אֶהְיֶה כְּעֹטְיָה, עַל עֶדְרֵי חֲבֵרֶיךָ.

7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that veileth herself beside the flocks of thy companions?

Thus, Shlomo parallels שַׁלָּמָה, and כְּעֹטְיָה, like one veiled, parallels כִּירִיעוֹת, like the curtains.

The use of sha is absolutely necessary because of other considerations, and asher would simply not suffice. One should not draw any conclusions from its use.

Another example: 6:6:

ו שִׁנַּיִךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָרְחֵלִים, שֶׁעָלוּ מִן-הָרַחְצָה: שֶׁכֻּלָּם, מַתְאִימוֹת, וְשַׁכֻּלָה, אֵין בָּהֶם.

6 Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes, which are come up from the washing; whereof all are paired, and none faileth among them.

The word שֶׁכֻּלָּם, "that all of them," is required to anticipate וְשַׁכֻּלָה, "and faileth." Use of she later in the pasuk can influence the adoption of she earlier in the pasuk, in שֶׁעָלו.

{Update, copied from my later post here:

However, that would not really account for she in the previous verse:

א הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי, הִנָּךְ יָפָה--עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים, מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ; שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מֵהַר גִּלְעָד.

1 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that trail down from mount Gilead.

In fact, beside the shekkullam/shakkula sound parallelism, there is additionally a larger pattern of alliteration (like the one I mentioned in verse 1:6). Thus, looking at the alliteration pattern in the two verses:

עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים, מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ	הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי, הִנָּךְ יָפָה
שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מֵהַר גִּלְעָד	שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים
שֶׁעָלוּ מִן-הָרַחְצָה.	שִׁנַּיִךְ כְּעֵדֶר הַקְּצוּבוֹת
וְשַׁכֻּלָה, אֵין בָּהֶם	שֶׁכֻּלָּם, מַתְאִימוֹת

In each case a shin or sin in the first half is matched by a shin in the second half.
}

Thus, she or sha can be required for meter, for alliterative purposes, or to construct word-play and parallels. This should perhaps cause some reconsideration in terms of assuming that the consistent use of she exists because asher would not be used, and to date a pasuk on such linguistic grounds.