Arrow
The bow-and-arrow is the long-range weapon of the UPDV's hunting fields, war camps, sign-fields, and storm-theophanies. The same shaft that brings down venison in Genesis flies between Jonathan and David as a covert peace-or-flight code, between Elisha and Joash as Yahweh's arrow of victory, and between Yahweh and his enemies as lightning loosed across the deeps. In the wisdom and lament registers the arrow becomes a figure for the slanderer's tongue, the false witness's word, and the sufferer's pierced reins; in the songs of Moses and David it is the very implement Yahweh prepares against the unturning wicked.
The Archer's Trade
The first archer named in the UPDV is Ishmael. After his desert deliverance, "[the Speech of] God was with the lad, and he grew. And he dwelt in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer" (Ge 21:20). The bow is also the kit Isaac asks of Esau before the venison-meal: "Now therefore take, I pray you, your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt venison for me" (Ge 27:3) — quiver and bow named together as the hunter's standard apparatus. The Transjordan tribes carry that same skill into the muster-roll: "The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skillful in war, were forty and four thousand seven hundred and threescore, who were able to go forth to war" (1Ch 5:18) — bow-skill counted alongside buckler and sword as the qualifications of valiant men.
The Arrow in Battle
War-archery is the most frequent setting. Saul falls to it at Gilboa: "And the battle went intensely against Saul, and the archers, men with the bow, overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers" (1Sa 31:3). Ahab is killed by an unaimed shot — "And a certain man drew his bow at a venture, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armor: therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, Turn your hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am critically wounded" (1Ki 22:34) — and Joram by an aimed one: "And Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot" (2Ki 9:24). David's lament for Saul and Jonathan is committed to the sons of Judah by the title "The Bow": "And he bade them teach the sons of Judah, 'The Bow.' Look, it is written in the Book of Jashar:" (2Sa 1:18). Against besieged Jerusalem the Yahweh-oracle on Sennacherib promises the opposite: "He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it" (2Ki 19:32). For the city of Vision the Isaiah oracle reverses the picture — "All your rulers fled away together, they were bound by the archers; all who were found of you were bound together; they fled far off" (Isa 22:3) — and against Babylon, Jeremiah's war-imperative is direct: "Against [him who] bends let the archer bend his bow, and against [him who] lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and don't spare⁺ her young men; destroy⁺ completely all her host" (Jer 51:3). In Hosea, the failed bow becomes the figure of a faithless people — "they are like a deceitful bow; their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue" (Ho 7:16) — and in the Apocalypse the first rider rides out armed: "And I looked, and saw a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and there was given to him a crown: and he came forth conquering, and to conquer" (Re 6:2).
The Arrow as Sign
Twice the arrow is cut loose from its battle-target and made to carry an oracle. Between Jonathan and David the three-shaft shoot-at-a-mark pretext is set as a covert signal-apparatus that will tell David peace or flight: "And I will shoot three arrows on its side, as though I shot at a mark. And, look, I will send the lad, [saying,] Go, find the arrows. If I say to the lad, Look, the arrows are on this side of you; take them, and come; for there is peace to you and no hurt, as Yahweh lives. But if I say thus to the boy, Look, the arrows are beyond you; go your way; for Yahweh has sent you away" (1Sa 20:20-22). The signal is fulfilled in the field-shoot the next morning: "And he said to his lad, Run, find now the arrows which I shoot. And as the lad ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the lad came to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan cried after the lad, and said, Isn't the arrow beyond you?" (1Sa 20:36-37) — the beyond-you placement releases David to flight, and the parting at the mound seals the covenant between Jonathan's seed and David's (1Sa 20:41-42).
The dying Elisha hands Joash the same sign-apparatus on a wider stage. After Joash weeps over the prophet — "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" (2Ki 13:14) — Elisha turns the bow into a prophetic instrument: "Take a bow and arrows; and he took to himself a bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand on the bow; and he put his hand [on it]. And Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot; and he shot. And he said, Yahweh's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you will strike the Syrians in Aphek, until you have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows; and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Strike on the ground; and he struck three times, and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, and said, You should have struck five or six times: then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it, whereas now you will strike Syria but three times" (2Ki 13:15-19). The window-shot is named the arrow of Yahweh's victory; the ground-strike measures it.
The Arrow as Oracle
Beyond Israel, the arrow can also be the divination-tool of a foreign king. At the road-fork before the Jerusalem campaign, Nebuchadnezzar uses arrows the way he uses talismans and entrails: "For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to tell his fortune: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the talismans, he looked in the liver" (Eze 21:21).
Yahweh's Arrows
The largest figurative register is Yahweh's own arrow-inventory. In the storm-theophany of David's victory-song the arrows are the storm's lightning: "he sent out arrows, and scattered them; Lightning, and discomfited them" (2Sa 22:15) — restated in the psalm version, "And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; Yes, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them" (Ps 18:14). At the Red Sea theophany Asaph hears the same volley: "The clouds poured out water; The skies sent out a sound: Your arrows also went abroad" (Ps 77:17). David petitions for it again at Ps 144:6 — "Cast forth lightning, and scatter them; Send out your arrows, and discomfit them." The same divine archer prepares an arrow-set against the unturning wicked: "He has also prepared for him the instruments of death; He makes his arrows fiery [shafts]" (Ps 7:13). Against the king's enemies the bowstring is aimed face-on: "For you will make them turn their back; You will prepare with your bowstrings against their face" (Ps 21:12); on the messianic king's own thigh the arrows are sharp and vital-targeted: "Your arrows are sharp; The peoples fall under you; [They are] in the heart of the king's enemies" (Ps 45:5).
In Balaam's oracle Israel as nation is the divine archer: "God brings him forth out of Egypt; He has as it were the strength of the wild-ox: He will eat up the nations his adversaries, And will break their bones in pieces, And strike [them] through with his arrows" (Nu 24:8). The Song of Moses turns the arrows back on the unfaithful nation — "I will heap evils on them; I will spend my arrows on them" (De 32:23) — and forward against their enemies: "I will make my arrows drunk with blood, And my sword will devour flesh; With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the longhaired heads of the enemy" (De 32:42). The Ezekiel oracle on besieged Jerusalem fixes the arrow-class as famine: "when I will send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you⁺. And I will increase the famine on you⁺, and will break your⁺ staff of bread" (Eze 5:16).
The Sufferer as Target
The same divine archery is also the sufferer's complaint. Job names it directly: "For the arrows of the Almighty are inside me, The poison of which my spirit drinks up: The terrors of God set themselves in array against me" (Job 6:4). The penitential psalmist echoes it: "For your arrows pierce into me, And your hand presses me intensely" (Ps 38:2). The man-of-affliction in Lamentations is the bow's mark: "He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my reins" (La 3:12-13).
The Wicked's Bow and the Tongue-as-Arrow
Where the divine archer aims at the wicked, the wicked aim at the upright. "For, look, the wicked bend the bow, They prepare their arrow on the string, That they may shoot in darkness at the upright in heart" (Ps 11:2). The trust-psalm answers, "You will not be afraid for the terror by night, Nor for the arrow that flies by day" (Ps 91:5); the imprecation answers, "Let them melt away as water that runs apace: When he aims his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off" (Ps 58:7). In several places the arrow is the figure for hostile speech: "My soul is among lions; I lie among those who are set on fire, Even the sons of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword" (Ps 57:4); "A man who bears false witness against his fellow man Is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow" (Pr 25:18). The pilgrim-psalmist meets the deceitful tongue with the same image — "Sharp arrows of the mighty, With coals of juniper" (Ps 120:4).
The Polished Shaft and the Filled Quiver
Two further images carry the arrow into the registers of vocation and household. Of the Servant Yahweh declares, "and he has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he has hid me: and he has made me a polished shaft; in his quiver he has kept me close" (Is 49:2) — the speaker himself is shaft and weapon, kept hidden in Yahweh's quiver. In the war-horse register Job hears the rattle of that quiver on the charging beast: "The quiver rattles against him, The flashing spear and the javelin" (Job 39:23). And in the household register the sons themselves are the shafts: "Happy is the [noble] man who has his quiver full of them: They will not be put to shame, When they speak with their enemies in the gate" (Ps 127:5).