Mother Earth as a Conceptual

Metaphor in 4 Ezra

KARINA MARTIN HOGAN

Fordham University
New York, NY 10023

THE METAPHORICAL CONCEPT of Mother Earth is a thread that runs through the
first four episodes of 4 Ezra (3:1-10:59). The author uses the three dialogues
between Ezra and Uriel, as well as the dialogue between Ezra and the mourning
woman who turns out to be Zion, to test the validity and helpfulness of this
metaphor. The concept of Mother Earth, which pervades the religious and artistic
expressions of many cultures,1 is for the most part submerged in the Hebrew Bible,
but it emerges with surprising frequency in the Book of Job.2 The affinities between
the dialogues of 4 Ezra and the Book of Job have been observed by a number of
authors,3 but this particular shared theme has not been noticed before. In analyzing

I would like to thank the following for reading earlier drafts of this article and offering invalu-
able suggestions Clare Rothschild, Esther Hamon, Amy Kalmanofsky, Adriane Leveen, and Andrea
Weiss
1
A seminal study is Albrecht Dietench, "Mutter Erde," Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft 8
(1905) 1-50, see, however, the criticisms of Olof Pettersson, Mother Earth An Analysis of the
Mother Earth Concepts according to Albrecht Dieterich (Scripta minora Regiae Societatis Human-
orum Litterarum Lundensis 1965-1966, 3, Lund Gleerup, 1967) See also Erich Neumann, The
Great Mother An Analysis of the Archetype (trans Ralph Manheim, 2nd ed , Princeton Princeton
University Press, 1972) esp chap 13, "The Lady of the Plants " Culture-specific studies include
Pupul Jayakar, The Earth-Mother Legends, Goddesses and Ritual Arts of India (San Francisco
Harper & Row, 1990), and Sam D Gill, Mother Earth An American Story (Chicago University of
Chicago Press, 1987)
2
See Gregory Vail, "From Womb to Tomb Poetic Imagery and the Book of Job" (Ph D diss ,
Catholic University of America, 1993) esp 31-70 on Mother Earth imagery elsewhere in the Bible,
idem, "The Enigma of Job 1,21a," Bib 76 (1995) 325-42, and idem, "'From Whose Womb Did the
Ice Come Forth?' Procreation Images in Job 38 28-29," CBQ 57 (1995) 504-13
3
E g , Michael Knibb, "Apocalyptic and Wisdom m 4 Ezra," JSJ13 (1982) 56-74, here 65-66,

72
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 73

the use of the idea of Mother Earth in 4 Ezra, I will build on the conclusions of my
book Theologies in Conflict in 4 Ezra, in which I argue that neither Ezra's nor
Uriel's positions in the dialogues represent the views of the author.41 will assume
that their use of the metaphorical concept of Mother Earth is not representative of
the author's own thinking; rather, the author is subjecting the views expressed by
both of them to scrutiny. I will show that the metaphor of Mother Earth underlies
both Uriel's analogical arguments (section II) and Ezra's meditations on human
nature in the dialogues (sections III and IV), and that the concept is called into
question both in the dialogues between Ezra and Uriel and in Ezra's subsequent
dialogue with the mourning woman (section V).

I. Theoretical Considerations
I will begin by specifying the sense in which I understand the concept of
Mother Earth to be metaphorical, in the context of 4 Ezra. Most of the occurrences
of this concept in 4 Ezra do not qualify as metaphors in a strict literary sense: they
are not figurative expressions of one idea "in terms which are seen to be suggestive
of another."5 More precisely, they do not occur in sentences in which some of the
words are used metaphorically and others nonmetaphorically, such that it would
be possible to distinguish between the primary (nonmetaphorical) and secondary
(metaphorical) vocabulary in the sentence.6 Given the variety of contexts and forms
in which the Mother Earth concept occurs in 4 Ezra, it may be questioned whether
the author really understands it metaphorically. Perhaps, for the author, Mother

Edith McEwan Humphrey, The Ladies and the Cities: Transformation and Apocalyptic Identity in
Joseph and Aseneth, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and the Shepherd of Hermas (JSPSup 17; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 64; James L. Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to
the Problem of Evil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) 179-80.
4
Karina Martin Hogan, Theologies in Conflict in 4 Ezra: Wisdom, Debate, and Apocalyptic
Solution (JSJSup 130; Leiden: Brill, 2008).
5
Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 15. For
an excellent survey of theories of metaphor and their relevance to biblical studies, see Andrea L.
Weiss, Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel (VTSup
107; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 1-34.
6
See Roger M. White, The Structure of Metaphor: The Way the Language of Metaphor WorL
(Philosophical Theory; Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) 17: "A metaphor contains two different kinds of
vocabulary, a primary vocabulary, consisting of those words that would belong in a straightforward,
non-metaphorical, description of the situation being metaphorically presented, and a secondary
vocabulary that introduces the metaphorical comparison into the sentence." White's definition is a
refinement of Max Black's account of metaphor as consisting of a "focus" (a word or phrase used
metaphorically) and a "frame" (the nonmetaphorical remainder of the sentence) in his landmark
essay from 1954-55 "Metaphor," reprinted in Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (ed. Mark
Johnson; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981) 63-82. See esp. White's chapters on
"bifurcation" and "ambiguity of construal" in Structure of Metaphor, 21-55.
 74 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73, 2011

Earth is an example of what David H. Aaron has called "conceptual ascription,"

which lies between literal statements and metaphors on a continuum of meaning.7
One example that Aaron gives of "conceptual ascription" in the Bible is "God is
our father," which offers a neat parallel to "the earth is our mother." Building on
a point made by Jon D. Levenson, Aaron maintains that the Israelites understood
God to be actually their father both functionally (as creator) and structurally (in
terms of authority).8 Although the categories of functional and structural ascription
could be applied to some statements about the earth made by Ezra and Uriel, I
would argue that the author of 4 Ezra undercuts an "ascriptival" (Aaron's term)
understanding of Mother Earth by drawing attention to the functional and structural
differences between the earth and an actual mother.
Instead, Mother Earth functions in 4 Ezra as an underlying "conceptual
metaphor" that provides coherence among various metaphorical and nonmetaphor
ical statements in the book. In treating the motif of Mother Earth in 4 Ezra as a
"conceptual metaphor," I draw on the cognitive theory of metaphor proposed by
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, refined with respect to the poetic use of
metaphor by Lakoff and Mark Turner, and further developed, in dialogue with cog
nitive science and linguistics, into a theory of "conceptual blending" by Turner
and Gilles Fauconnier.9 The studies of Lakoff, Johnson, and Turner have been crit
icized for emptying the term "metaphor" of its meaning by applying it too broadly,
and that criticism would be justified if they were concerned primarily with
metaphor as a literary trope. 10 Lakoff and Johnson are quite clear, however, that

7
David H. Aaron {Biblical Ambiguities Metaphor, Semantics, and Divine Imagery [Boston
Brill Academic, 2002] 111-12) places "ascription" between "literal" and "weakly figurative" state
ments on a "continuum of meaning" ranging from "absolute clarity" through increasing degrees of
ambiguity to "complete obscurity " Aaron defines two types of conceptual ascription. "Functional
ascription occurs when there is a simple predicational phrase, A is B, where is not ontologically
identical to A, but A fulfills the proper function of Structural ascription occurs . where is not
ontologically identical to A, but A is perceived to have the same structure as B" (p 60)
8
Aaron, Biblical Ambiguities, 62-63, citing Jon D Levenson, The Death and Resurrection
of the Beloved Son The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven-
Yale University Press, 1993) 40-41
9
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1980) Lakoff and Johnson brought their theory of metaphor mto conversation with cognitive
science in Philosophy in the Flesh The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New
York* Basic Books, 1999) For the poetic use of metaphor, see George Lakoff and Mark Turner,
More than Cool Reason A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago. University of Chicago Press,
1989) Turner earned the cognitive theory of metaphor further into the realm of literary criticism
and rhetoric in Death Is the Mother of Beauty Mind, Metaphor, Criticism (Chicago. University of
Chicago Press, 1987), which exammes kinship metaphors m literature. For the theory of "conceptual
blending," see Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, The Way We Think Conceptual Blending and
the Mind's Hidden Complexities (New York Basic, 2002)
10
The most thoroughgoing critique of their approach that I have come across is by Aaron m
Biblical Ambiguities, 101-24
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 75

by "metaphor" they mean "metaphorical concept," that is, the result of any process
of "understanding and experiencing one kind ofthing in terms of another."11 Since
such a cognitive process, like the literary trope known as metaphor, involves both
analogy and semantic anomaly,12 it is reasonable to speak of the result of such a
process as a "metaphorical concept" or a "conceptual metaphor."13
A conceptual theory of metaphor is more useful than a strictly literary
approach to metaphor for illuminating 4 Ezra's use of the concept of Mother Earth,
which undergirds a number of disparate themes and motifs in the book. Especially
helpful is the notion of "metaphorical coherence," which depends on the existence
of common "metaphorical entailments."14 Metaphorical entailments are the spe-
cific implications of a metaphor. For example, the basic conceptual metaphor LIFE
IS A JOURNEY entails that life has a beginning and an end, and a linear progression
along a surface that is conceptualized as a path.15 The less basic metaphor LIFE IS
A PLAY is coherent with LIFE IS A JOURNEY because the two metaphors share certain
entailments (a beginning, an ending, and movement over a surface), even though
LIFE is A PLAY contains other entailments that are not consistent with a journey
(actors, scenes, etc.). Abasie conceptual metaphor is one that is general enough to
be coherent with a variety of more specific metaphors. For example, LIFE IS LIGHT
and LIFE is HEAT are more basic than the three conceptual metaphors A LIFETIME IS
A DAY, A LIFETIME is A YEAR, and LIFE is A FIRE, which are coherent with one another
as "instances of the more general composite metaphor of life as a waxing and wan-
ing cycle of heat and light."16
The other aspect of the Lakoff-Johnson-Turner theory of metaphor that is rel-
evant here is their "grounding hypothesis," which states that the source domains
of basic conceptual metaphors are "semantically autonomous concepts," which

11
Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 6. In modern times, this idea was first articu-
lated clearly by I. A. Richards {The Philosophy of Rhetoric [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936]
94, cited in Weiss, Figurative Language, 12): "The traditional theory . . . made metaphor seem to
be a verbal matter, a shifting and displacement of words, whereas fundamentally it is a borrowing
between and intercourse of thoughts, a transaction between contexts. Thought is metaphoric, and
proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive therefrom." Paul Ricoeur {The Rule
of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language [trans. Robert
Czerny; University of Toronto Romano Series 37; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977] 22-24)
suggests that Aristotle himself may have realized this, although he did not articulate it clearly (he
cites P o e t o 1459 a 3-8).
12
Weiss {Figurative Language, 85), building on the work of Roger White, identifies these as
the two defining characteristics of metaphor.
13
The term "conceptual metaphor" is preferred by Lakoff and Turner in More than Cool Rea-
son; see esp. 50-56.
14
See Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 87-105.
15
1 borrow from Lakoff, Johnson, and Turner the practice of setting conceptual metaphors in
small caps.
16
Lakoff and Turner, More than Cool Reason, 86-89.
 76 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73, 2011

are "grounded in patterns of experience that we routinely live."17 This grounding

of meaning in lived experience, as opposed to an "objective, mind-free reality,"
makes the Lakoff-Johnson-Turner theory of metaphor attractive to many feminist
scholars.18 Examples of "semantically autonomous concepts" from the previous
paragraph are light, heat, a day, a year, fire, and a journey.19 There are multiple
common experiences grounding the concept of Mother Earth, which in 4 Ezra
underlies metaphors in which the source domain is pregnancy and childbirth, others
in which it is mothers in their nurturing capacity, and still others in which it is agri-
culture.
The Fauconnier-Turner theory of conceptual blending, which is an outgrowth
of the Lakoff-Johnson-Turner theory of metaphor, is extremely wide-ranging, but
one of the things that it attempts to explain is how two or more source domains
interact in complex metaphorical expressions.20 Rather than using the terms
"source domain" and "target domain" familiar from the Lakoff-Johnson-Turner
theory,21 the conceptual blending theory posits four "mental spaces": two "input
spaces" that contain the specifics of the two things being compared; a "generic
space" that contains the structure that the two input spaces have in common; and
the "blend," into which both the structure of the generic space and the specifics of
the input spaces are projected.22
In order to illustrate the applicability of the conceptual blending theory to
4 Ezra, I will now turn to textual analysis, taking as an example the book's last
and most explicit use of the Mother Earth metaphor, Ezra's speech consoling the
mourning woman who has just lost her only child. It includes the following verses:
It is most appropriate to mourn now, because we are all mourning, and to be sorrowful,
because we are all sorrowing; you, however, are sorrowing for one son. Now ask the

17
Ibid., 113.
18
See Claudia Camp, "Metaphor in Feminist Biblical Interpretation: Theoretical Perspec-
tives," Semeia 61 (1993) 3-36, esp. 6-13. Most of the essays in that volume of Semeia (entitled
Women, War and Metaphor and edited by Claudia Camp and Carole Fontaine) are influenced in
varying degrees by the Lakoff-Johnson-Turner theory of metaphor. The response by Mieke Bal
("Metaphors He Lives By," Semeia 61 [1993] 185-207, here 189) is critical ofthat theory, arguing
that its "epistemological basis is itself gender-biased" in that it attempts to universalize bodily expe-
rience without regard for gender.
19
Cf. 4 Ezra 4:9-11, where Uriel's argument implies that difficult abstract concepts can be
understood only by analogy to concrete, lived experience.
20
This theory has been applied to biblical metaphor by Pierre J. P. van Hecke, "Conceptual
Blending: A Recent Approach to Metaphor, Illustrated with the Pastoral Metaphor in Hos 4,16," in
Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (ed. P. J. P. van Hecke; BETL 187; Leuven: Leuven University Press,
2005)215-31.
21
The "source" roughly corresponds to the "vehicle" and the "target" to the "tenor" in I. A.
Richards's terminology, but the word "domain" attached to both terms is meant to convey the idea
of a conceptual space containing specific entailments, which are "mapped" from the source onto
the target.
22
See Fauconnier and Turner, Way We Think, 39-73.
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 77

earth, and she will tell you that it is she who ought to mourn over so many who have
come to being upon her. Andfromthe beginning all have been born of her, and others
will come; and behold, all go to perdition, and a multitude of them are destined for
destruction. Who then ought to mourn the more, she who lost so great a multitude, or
23
you who are grieving for one? (10:8-11)
Setting aside the fact (of which Ezra is at this point unaware) that the mourn
ing woman turns out to be Zion, the author generates a hypothetical concept, "the
mourning earth," by having Ezra contrast the woman's loss with that of the earth.
This hypothetical concept is a blend because it emerges from the projection of a
generic space, containing the structures of motherhood and loss of offspring, and
two input spaces, representing the mourning woman and the earth, into a blended
space. The resulting conceptual blend is more than just a superimposition of the
generic space on the two input spaces, since it contains an explicit claim (posed as
a rhetorical question in v. 11) that the earth has more cause to mourn than the
woman. The blend of 4 Ezra 10:8-11 may be diagrammed as follows:

Generic Space

Motherhood
\ Loss of offspring /
\/ \/
/ -^ \
/ \
' \
/ \\
' '/ \\
// \\
Input 1 / \ Input 2
/ \
/ \
/ \
Blend \ / \
/ Mourning \ ' \ / Earth \
/ woman * ^ ^ / \ ^ \
/ 1 '^^^^ jr "". ^ \ All born of \
Only child / ^ - \ / \ ^ ^ \\ her
l y / ^ Mourning Earth -*C M J
\ Grieving fo^V / \ V All goto /
\ uucsuu / ,,^ Lost so great a multitude X Vperdition/

p-- Therefore, ought to /

\ mourn more than /
\ woman who lost /
\ her only child. /

23
All quotationsfrom4 Ezra are Michael E. Stone's translation in Fourth Ezra: A Commen
tary on the Book ofFourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Some have been slightly
adapted to modernize the grammar of direct address to God or to introduce inclusive language.
 78 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73,2011

The simple (or simplistic) blend in these verses is called into question by the
verses that follow (10:12-14), which will be treated in the final section of this arti-
cle. Before returning to Ezra's dialogue with the mourning woman, however, I will
examine how the metaphor of Mother Earth functions in the dialogues between
Ezra and Uriel, treating first Uriel's analogies and then Ezra's speeches concerning
the creation of humankind.

II. Mother Earth in Uriel's Analogies

One of the striking features of the dialogues of 4 Ezra is the angel Uriel's ten-
dency to explain eschatological matters to Ezra by means of analogies to natural
phenomena, especially the phenomena of childbirth and agriculture. The assump-
tion underlying these analogies seems to be that just as the natural order is fixed
by divine providence, so are the events of the end-time; and though the divine plan
for the end-time is beyond the reach of human knowledge, it is possible to infer
something about divine providence by observing and reasoning from the natural
order. The present section analyzes several of Uriel's analogies from the point of
view of the metaphor of Mother Earth and then shows how the author raises ques-
tions about the validity of these analogies in the speeches concerning the "signs"
of the end.
Uriel's first analogy to childbirth comes in the first dialogue, after an extended
metaphor likening the final judgment to the threshing of a harvest (4:28-32). In
response to Ezra's question about whether the "time of the threshing is delayed
for the righteous on account of the sins of those who dwell on earth" (4:39), Uriel
commands him, "Go and ask a woman who is with child if, when her nine months
have been completed, her womb can keep the child within her any longer" (4:40).
After Ezra answers that it cannot, Uriel draws out the analogy: "The underworld
and the treasuries of the souls are like the womb" (4:41), adding, "For just as a
woman who is in travail makes haste to escape the pangs of birth, so also do these
(places) hasten to give back those things that were committed to them from the
beginning" (4:42).
The Mother Earth metaphor provides the necessary background to make this
analogy comprehensible. Uriel's analogy in 4:41-42 focuses on one salient fact
about pregnancy: it has a predetermined ending, which is signaled by "the pangs
of birth."24 Since "the underworld and the treasuries of the souls" were believed
to be located underground, comparing them to the womb implies that the earth is
analogous to a pregnant woman. The predetermined ending of the earth's "preg-
nancy" is the general resurrection that precedes the final judgment, according to

24
Cf. Matt 24:8 par. Mark 13:8, where the messianic woes (equivalent to the "signs" of the
end in 4 Ezra) are called "the beginning of the birth pangs."
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 79

the eschatological scenario outlined by Uriel in the third dialogue: "The earth shall
give back those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who rest in it; and the treas-
uries shall give up the souls that have been committed to them" (7:32).25 It is sig-
nificant that in Uriel's first childbirth analogy, the earth is the expectant mother of
the dead, who will be reborn in the resurrection. The explicit analogy between the
underworld and the womb, which is implicit in the OT in verses such as Gen 3:19;
Job 1:21a; Ps 139:13, 15; and Sir 40:1, entails an analogy between the dead and
the unborn.26
In a less obvious way, the concept of Mother Earth also underlies the extended
agricultural metaphor (4:28-32) that is the immediate context for the first childbirth
analogy. This is not obvious because this passage mixes two conceptual metaphors:
PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND that may produce either good or evil fruit; and PEOPLE
27
ARE PLANTS sown in the ground, awaiting harvest. The first of these metaphors
is expressed most clearly by Uriel in 4:30: "For a grain of evil seed was sown in
Adam's heart from the beginning, and how much fruit of ungodliness it has pro-
duced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes!" The "evil
seed" Uriel refers to is equivalent to the "evil root" that prevents the Torah from
producing fruit in the human heart, according to Ezra in 3:20-22 (and compare the
more optimistic instances of this metaphor in 8:6 and 9:31). The PEOPLE ARE PLANTS
metaphor is implied in the phrase "the time of threshing," which Ezra immediately
recognizes as a metaphor for the final judgment (4:39). It is present also in 4:29,
"If therefore that which has been sown is not reaped, and if the place where the
evil has been sown does not pass away, the field where the good has been sown
will not come." The usual interpretation of this verse, based on 4:26-27, is that it
refers to the passing away of the present world (or age) and the coming of the
world to come, and the reaping refers to the death of human beings.28
The passage employs two inconsistent metaphors, but what makes it compre-

25
In neither 4:41-42 nor 7:32 is it clear whether the earth is going to "give back" bodies as
well as souls, or just souls. The description of what happens to souls after death (7:76-101) does
not say anything about what happens to their bodies; it is the souls that are gathered into "treasuries"
to await the last days (7:101; cf. 7:95).
26
See Nicholas Tromp, Primitive Conceptions ofDeath and the Netherworld in the Old Tes-
tament (BibOr 21; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969) 122-24.
27
Of the two metaphors, PEOPLE ARE PLANTS is by far the more common one; see Lakoff and
Turner, More than Cool Reason, Index of Metaphors. Biblical comparisons of people to plants fre-
quently emphasize the brevity of human life, e.g., Job 14:1-2; Ps 103:15; Isa 40:6-7,24; and so on.
A variation of PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND is found in the parable of the sower and its explanation
(Matt 13:3-9, 18-23 par. Mark 4:3-9, 14-20; Luke 8:5-8, 11-15), in which true disciples are "good
soil."
28
For DEATH is A REAPER, see Lakoff and Turner, More than Cool Reason, 73-80. Stone {Fourth
Ezra, 95) suggests that the terms "place" and "field" in this verse have a double meaning, the second
referent being the human heart (based on 4:30).
 80 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73, 2011

hensible is that both metaphors are coherent with the metaphor of Mother Earth.
The PEOPLE ARE PLANTS metaphor coheres with the Mother Earth metaphor, since
the ground is the matrix in which plants grow. To imagine the earth as birthing and
sustaining human life often means to describe human beings in terms appropriate
29
to plants. PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND also is coherent with the Mother Earth
metaphor, in that people are seen to share a common material nature with the earth
(as in Gen 2:7 and 3:19).
The second childbirth analogy, in the second dialogue, is part of Uriel's
response to Ezra's question to God, "Could you not have created at one time those
who have been and those who are and those who will be, that you might show
your judgment the sooner?" (5:43). Uriel commands Ezra, "Ask a woman's womb,
and say to it, 'If you bear ten children, why one after another?' Request it therefore
to produce ten at one time" (5:46). Once Ezra has acknowledged the absurdity of
this suggestion, Uriel draws out the analogy: "Even so I have made the earth a
womb for those who from time to time come forth on it" (5:48). The Latin version,
"who from time to time are sown upon it," just makes more explicit the underlying
PEOPLE ARE PLANTS metaphor that makes the analogy work. In this analogy, the
earth functions as a womb that sustains the living, rather than containing the dead,
as in Uriel's previous childbirth analogy (4:41-42); each analogy foregrounds a
different aspect of the Mother Earth concept.30
The following verse sheds some light on the assumptions behind Uriel's
analogies: "For as an infant does not bring forth, and a woman who has become
old does not bring forth any longer, so I have organized [Syr: ^\ \ \ rf] the world
which I created" (5:49). Speaking for the Creator, Uriel asserts that a woman's
limited childbearing years are an indication of an organizing principle that governs
the whole created order. The content of this principle is not stated explicitly, but it
is implied in Uriel's third birth analogy, which immediately follows.
Ezra's next question reveals that he has made sense of Uriel's last statement
about the organization of the world via the Mother Earth metaphor: "Is our mother,
of whom you have told me, still young? Or is she now approaching old age?"
(5:50). The referent of "our mother" is surely the earth, going back to 5:48, even
though Uriel has broadened the analogy to include the whole creation (5:49; cf.
5:55). In his response, Uriel suggests that any mother could tell him that children

29
In the Hebrew Bible, the vocabulary of human reproduction and agriculture overlap; e.g.,
57 for both plant seed and human semen (as well as human offspring), "HD for both agricultural
produce and human offspring, and X2P (in both qal and hiphil) used for the "coming forth" of both
plantsfromthe earth and human offspring from the womb. See Vail, "From Womb to Tomb," 42-43.
30
By contrast, Sir 40:1 foregrounds both aspects of the earth's maternity simultaneously, as
do many Greek and Roman sources. See, e.g., Lucretius De Rerum Natura 1.248-64; 2.991-1001;
5.257-260.
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 81

born in later years are smaller than those born in the strength of youth (5:52-53).31
Uriel then implies that it is common knowledge that people today are not as big as
people in the past (5:54-55). The only biblical support for the latter idea is the
belief that there were giants in former times (e.g., Gen 6:4; Num 13:33; Deut 3:11;
Amos 2:9; Bar 3:26). The general idea of the decline of successive races or gen-
erations of humankind is a commonplace of Greek and Roman thought, however,
going back at least as far as Hesiod's WorL and Days?2 Regardless of whether
this particular motif of the declining size of people of successive generations is
due to Greco-Roman influence, it is an expression of pessimism about the present
world that is typical of apocalyptic literature.
On the basis of this third birth analogy, the organizing principle to which Uriel
pointed in 5:49 seems to be that all creation is in a state of gradual decline that
will end in death (i.e., the end of the world). Since this principle could have been
asserted by means of an analogy to the human life cycle in general, it appears that
the author's choice to present it by analogy with a woman's limited and declining
period of fertility was influenced by the metaphor of Mother Earth. By combining
the principle of decline in the world with the Mother Earth metaphor, the author
creates a conceptual blend, asserting that people in his own time are "born of a
creation which already is aging and passing the strength of youth" (5:55).
The principle of an observable decline that points to the impending end of
the present world is asserted explicitly in the passages describing the "signs" of
the end (5:1-12; 6:18-24; and 9:1-5). For our present purposes, the most interesting
part is that which describes an overturning of the normal expectations of human
reproduction and agriculture: "Infants a year old shall speak with their voices, and
women shall give birth to premature children at three and four months, and these
shall live and dance. Unsown places shall suddenly appear sown, and full store-
houses shall suddenly be found to be empty" (6:21-22).33 These "signs" cut both
ways vis--vis Uriel's analogies: on the one hand, they reinforce the principle that
the world is an aging organism, since the breakdown of the natural and social order
in the eschatological woes is comparable to the accelerated failure of bodily sys-
tems that precedes natural death. On the other hand, the reversal of expectations

31
There is no factual basis for this claim. According to Stone {Fourth Ezra, 153), the Baby-
lonian Theodicy (24.260-63) makes the opposite claim: "Thefirst-bornis physically inferior."
32
Lines 109-201. See Arnaldo Momigliano, "The Origins of Universal History," in The Poet
and the Historian: Essays in Literary and Historical Biblical Criticism (ed. Richard Elliott
Freedman; HSS 26; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) 133-54. Amore exact parallel to 4 Ezra 5:54-
55 can be found in Lucretius De Rerum Natura 2.1150-52.
33
Cf. "women shall bring forth monsters" in 5:8. Rebecca Raphael discusses these signs, par-
ticularly "anomalous births," as symptomatic of "cosmic decay" in "Monsters and the Crippled Cos-
mos: Construction of the Other as an Anomalous Body in 4 Ezra," in The "Other" in Second Temple
Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins (ed. Daniel Harlow, Karina Martin Hogan, Matthew
Goff, and Joel Kaminsky; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).
 82 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73, 2011

inherent in many of the signs undercuts the assumption behind Uriel's analogies:
that it is possible to infer something about eschatological events or even about the
world to come based on observation of everyday phenomena of the present world.
Uriel's speech introducing the second set of "signs"which are spoken by a
divine voice, not by Urielepitomizes the tension between Uriel's analogies and
the "signs." Uriel prepares Ezra to hear the divine voice by saying, "And it will be
if the place where you are standing is greatly shaken while (the voice) is speaking
with you, do not be terrified, because the word concerns the end, and the founda-
tions of the earth will understand that the speech concerns them. They will tremble
and be shaken, for they know that their end must be changed" (6:14-16). The words
"their end must be changed," like the examples of eschatological reversals cited
above, indicate discontinuity between the present world and the world to come,
undercutting Uriel's analogies. At the same time, the personification of the earth
as fearful concerning its end is coherent with the metaphor of Mother Earth and
with the principle of the world's mortality. Luzia Sutter Rehmann argues that the
trembling and shaking of the earth in 6:14-16 is a birth image, alluding to the great
trembling that besets some women in the final stage of labor, especially in difficult
births.34
Herein lies a possible resolution to the tension between Uriel's analogies and
the "signs" of the end: if the death of the present world coincides with the birth of
a new creation, then it is possible to conceptualize the world to come as the "child"
of this world, both discontinuous with it and at the same time related to it. In the
eschatological scenario in the dialogues (7:26-44), Uriel explains that only after
the world has been "returned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at
the first beginnings" (7:30), will the general resurrection occur, marking the "birth"
of the world to come. By conceptualizing the general resurrection as a birth
(4:41-42; 7:32), Uriel implies a genetic relationship between the present created
order (which merges with the concept of Mother Earth in 5:48-50) and the world
to come. This implied genetic relationship is a justification for Uriel's analogies
between the phenomena of this world and those of the world to come, but it does
not completely resolve the tension between these analogies and the eschatological
reversal of the natural order.

III. Creation and Mother Earth in Ezra's Speeches

The motherhood of the earth is a recurring theme in Ezra's speeches, and
although his use of the metaphor is not consistent, it is certainly persistent, entering
34
Luzia Sutter Rehmann, Geh, Frage die Gebrerin: Feministisch-befreiungstheologische
Untersuchungen zum Gebrmotiv in der Apokalyptik (Gtersloh: Chr. Kaiser, 1995) 187-88. See
also Claudia D. Bergmann, Childbirth as a Metaphor for Crisis: Evidence from the Ancient Near
East, the Hebrew Bible, andlQHXI, 1-18 (BZAW 382; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2008) 160-61,
191-98.
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 83

into every one of his reflections on the creation of Adamwhich is to say, his
reflections on human nature.35 Probably not coincidentally, the author also assigns
to Ezra a remarkable meditation on God's role in the creation of every human life
(8:4-14), which sheds some light on Ezra's understanding of the source domain of
motherhood or, more precisely, pregnancy, birth, and lactation. This meditation
will be considered in section IV, since it represents a turning point in Ezra's use of
the metaphor of Mother Earth.
Ezra's first allusion to the Mother Earth metaphor, which is easy to miss,
comes at the outset of his first speech in the book. He begins, "O sovereign Lord,
did you not speak at the beginning when you formed the earthand that without
helpand commanded the dust and it gave you Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was
the creation of your hands, and you breathed into him the breath of life and he was
made alive in your presence" (3:4-5). Although these verses emphasize that God
is the sole creator of the earth and the primary creator of Adam (in that God gave
Adam life), they do contain a rather unusual acknowledgment that the dust "gave"
God Adam's "lifeless body." If this were the only mention of the "dust of the earth"
in 4 Ezra, one could conclude that Ezra interprets Gen 2:7 to mean that the earth
provided the raw material for Adam's body, but played no active role in the creation
of humankind. In light of Ezra's later address to the earth concerning the mind's
origin in the dust (7:62-63) and his argument to the mourning woman that "the
earth also has, from the beginning, given her fruit, that is, man, to him who made
her" (10:14), however, this verse should be read as a subtle allusion to the metaphor
of Mother Earth.
In Ezra's review of the six days of creation that opens the third dialogue, he
speaks of God's commanding the earth on the sixth day "to bring forth . . . cattle,
beasts and creeping things" (6:53) and then placing Adam "as ruler" over these
and over the previous works of creation (6:54). The language of the earth's "bring
ing forth" (jn_ i\ in Syriac; the Latin is crearei) living creatures is borrowed from
Gen 1:24 (21) and is also used of the waters in 4 Ezra 6:47 (but not in the cor
responding verse in Genesis, 1:20). If the metaphor of Mother Earth is present
here, it is missing its usual association with humankind. Probably not too much
should be read into this omission, since the author is following Genesis 1 (in which
the earth brings forth animals but not human beings) rather than Gen 2:7, as in
3:4-5.
In 7:62-63, Ezra again alludes to Gen 2:7: "O earth, what have you brought
forth, if the mind is made out of the dust like the other created things! For it would
have been better if the dust itself had not been born, so that the mind might not

35
On the figure of Adam as a focus for reflections on human nature, see John R. Levison,
Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch (JSPSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press,
1988). Ezra generally evokes the metaphor of Mother Earth in the context of allusions to the first
chapters of Genesis.
 84 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73,2011

have been made from it." Here the earth is clearly portrayed as a mother, but what
exactly she has "brought forth" is ambiguous. Although the birth of the dust is
mentioned, it is hard to imagine that Ezra is rebuking the earth for "bringing forth"
the matter of its own surface ( in Gen 2:7). If not the dust, then is it
the mind that the earth has brought forth? This is the beginning of a lament over
the mind (sensus, ^ : 3 ) in which Ezra suggests that the mind is what sets
human beings apart from other animalsto their detriment, since human beings
are aware of their mortality and of what awaits them after death (7:62-69). It seems
likely that the Greek word underlying the extant versions was , but the original
Hebrew was probably 1?, since the mind is here considered to be part of the body,
material ("made out of the dust") and hence presumably perishable (cf. Gen 3:19),
in contrast to the soul (or spirit), which, according to Uriel, leaves the body at
death (7:78).36 In the context of the passage, the "mind" or "heart" is the part of
human beings that makes them uniquely human: mortal creatures that are acutely
aware of their own mortality (7:64). Thus, in 7:62-63, "the mind" may in fact stand
for humankind by metonymy (or more precisely, synecdoche). If so, these verses
are coherent with the metaphor of Mother Earth, in that human beings are seen to
share a common material nature with the earth.
In 7:116, Ezra fully personifies the earth as the mother of Adam: "This is my
first and last word: that it would have been better if the earth had not produced
Adam, or else, when it had produced him, had taught him not to sin." Here, for
the only time in the book, the author includes the metaphorical entailment of moral
instruction or discipline in the source domain of motherhood, rather than simply
pregnancy, childbirth, and physical sustenance. Michael E. Stone offers a plausible
explanation for this anomaly: Ezra is euphemistically blaming the "mother" for
what he really sees as the "father's" (i.e., God's) fault: not hindering people from
sinning (cf. 3:8).37 Two verses later, Ezra seems to shift the blame for human sin
fulness to Adam himself (7:118), but Ezra's dominant point of view in the dia
logues is that the Creator is responsible for the sinfulness of human nature. This is
clearest in 3:20-22, where Ezra implies that God "burdened" Adam and all of his
descendants with the "evil heart" (equivalent to the rabbinic S/ , "evil incli
nation"), which prevents them from keeping the commandments (cf. 7:48). If the
function of teaching Adam (i.e., humankind) not to sin belongs to God, so too does
"producing" Adam; the metaphor entails that one agent is responsible for both
38
functions. Thus, 7:116 is doubly metaphorical: the earth is represented as a
mother in order to make a point about God's parental responsibilities toward
human beings.

36
See Stone's discussion {Fourth Ezra, 123, 232) of the meaning of "mind" in this context.
Cf. 9:36, where the "heart" is said to perish along with the body.
37
Stone, Fourth Ezra, 258.
38
As Stone observes (ibid.).
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 85

IV. Ezra's Meditation on Creation in the Womb

Ezra's meditation on God's involvement in human reproduction (8:4-14)
sheds some light on his view of God's parental role. It also marks a turning point
in Ezra's use of the metaphor of Mother Earth, since after this monologue he begins
to critique the metaphor. This meditation, which is part of a lengthy appeal for
divine mercy (8:4-36) in response to Uriel's declaration, "Many have been created,
but only a few shall be saved" (8:3), differs from the material I have been analyzing
in that the phenomena of human reproduction are the real subject of Ezra's speech,
not the source domain of a metaphor or analogy. Nevertheless, it draws together a
number of themes related to the Mother Earth metaphor.
Ezra begins by exhorting his own soul (or heart) to "drink wisdom" (8:4) by
recalling the brevity of human life (8:5). He then addresses God: " . , . give us seed
for our heart and cultivation of our understanding whence fruit may be produced,
by which every mortal who bears the likeness of a human being may be able to
live" (8:6), evoking the PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND metaphor seen above in
4:28-32 (and 3:20-22). The real argument of the monologue begins in 8:7, "For
you alone exist, and we are a work of your hands, as you have declared."39 Ezra
develops the common idea that God is the creator of every human life in a rather
striking way in the next several verses:
And because you give life to the body which is now fashioned in the womb, and fit
together its members, what you have created is preserved in fire and water, and for
nine months that which you have formed bears your creation which you created in it.
But that which keeps and that which is kept shall both be kept by your keeping. And
when the womb gives up again what has been created in it, you have commanded that
from the members milk should be supplied which is the fruit of the breasts, so that
what has been fashioned may be nourished for a time, and afterward you will guide
him in your mercy. (8:8-11)
In these verses, the author betrays a fascination with the process of pregnancy
and birth that is equaled only by Job lOandPs 139:13-16, and perhaps Wis 7:1-4.
The image of God "fitting together [the fetus's] members" (4 Ezra 8:8, following
the Syriac: )< n ^ \n) implies a level of personal involvement on
God's part that recalls Ps 139:13, ]V22 ^DOn ( "yowove me together in my
mother's womb") or Job 10:11, ^DDDD yvXi 021 ("you wove me together with
bones and sinews"). I am aware of no biblical or early Jewish parallel for the notion

39
Uriel has not "declared" anything about humankind being a work of God's hands, so this
must mean that God has declared it in Scripture; see, e.g., Gen 2:7; Isa 64:8; cf. Ps 8:6; Job 10:8.
The assumption that God is the author of life in the womb is shared by a number of other biblical
texts, e.g., Gen 30:2; Isa 44:2; Jer 1:5.
 86 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73,2011

that "what you have created is preserved in fire and water" (8:8), so this may be a
case of Greek influence. Fire and water could be understood as shorthand for the
four elements out of which both the world and the human body were created,
according to Philo, who was drawing on Plato's Timaeus.40 The idea of the human
body being composed of the same elements as the world is coherent with the
metaphor of Mother Earth.
From the point of view of the metaphor under consideration, it is noteworthy
that Ezra emphasizes that God is the creator not only of the new life but of the
womb itself ("for nine months that which you have formed bears your creation
which you created in it" [8:8]) and is responsible for the preservation of both ("But
that which keeps and that which is kept shall both be kept by your keeping" [8:9]).
By referring to the womb so abstractly, the author suggests that what is true of
"creation in the womb" is true of creation more generally: God is the creator of
every new thing, but also of the world in which new things find their place. Further,
a parallel with the earth is implied by the rather unusual verb used for birth in 8:9:
"when the womb gives up again [iterum reddit; 2 )h HCTL] what has been cre
ated in i t . . . , " which recalls the description of the general resurrection: "the earth
shall give back [reddet] those who are asleep in it" (7:32). Finally, the reference
to breast milk as "the fruit of the breasts" implies an analogy between breastfeeding
an infant and agricultural production as the earth's way of nourishing her "off
spring." Again, Ezra makes God responsible for the nourishment of infants by sug
gesting that the production of milk by the breasts is the result of a divine command
(8.-10-11).41
In the concluding verses of the meditation, Ezra returns to the themes with
which he began: wisdom and mortality. He makes the transition to the theme of
wisdom through a metaphorical repetition of the verb "nourish" (used of breast
feeding in 8:11): "You have nourished him in your righteousness, and instructed
him in your law, and taught him in your wisdom" (8:12). God is the responsible
parent, giving the child a proper moral education, but the end of v. 11 ("and after
ward [i.e., after weaning] you will guide him in your mercy"), combined with the
repetition of the verb "nourish," presents this moral nurturing as a continuation of

40
G H Box, m his commentary on 4 Ezra {APOT, 593), sees here a "clear allusion" to the
pnmal elements and cites Philo Opif 51 The phrase "preserved mfireand water" is especially rem
iniscent of Timaeus 73e, which describes how bone was madefrom"pure and smooth earth," hard
ened by transferring itfromfireto water and back agam several times, until it became impermeable
to both Although it is unlikely that the author of 4 Ezra had direct knowledge of the Timaeus, since
he does not show any familiarity with the Greek philosophical tradition, the theory of the four ele
ments was so widespread in antiquity that he could easily have had secondhand knowledge of it
41
The Qumran Hodayot contain a similar meditation on God's care for the hymnistfromcon
ception through childhood and up to the present, which ends by comparing God to a wet-nurse
1QH 17 29-36
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 87

the process that began with breastfeeding. Hence, the text invites reflection on the
nurturing and educational roles of parents (especially mothers) even as it presents
God as the source of wisdom.42 The meditation ends with an appeal to God for
mercy on humankind in the judgment (recall Uriel's declaration in 8:3 that "many
have been created but few shall be saved") on the basis of God's investment in
their creation: "You take away his life, for he is your creation, and you make him
live, for he is your work. If then you will quickly destroy him who with so great
labor was fashioned by your command, to what purpose was he made?" (8:13-14).
This meditation on human reproduction, which falls near the center of the
book, is the climax of Ezra's appeals in the third dialogue for divine mercy on
humankind, since immediately after it Ezra renews his prayer on behalf of Israel
(8:15-16). He does not abandon his concern for all humankind in the remainder of
the book, but attention gradually shifts to the fate of the' chosen people. From the
point of view of the Mother Earth metaphor, this meditation also marks a turning
point in the book. It focuses the reader's (and Ezra's) attention on the processes of
birth and nurturance that are the source domain of the metaphor, bringing out dif-
ferences as well as similarities between actual mothers and the earth. Ezra's sub-
sequent uses of the metaphor of Mother Earth show an increasing consciousness
of its limitations and the differences that it obscures.

V. Challenging the Metaphor of Mother Earth

Ezra's first challenge to the metaphor comes shortlyafter the end of his prayer
for mercy on Israel (8:20-36). Uriel appears not at all swayed by Ezra's eloquence,
as evidenced by the analogy he employs to reiterate the point (8:3) that precipitated
Ezra's lengthy monologue: "For just as the farmer sows many seeds and plants a
multitude of seedlings, and yet not all that have been sown will live in due season,
and not all the plants will take root; so also those who have been sown in the world
will not all live" (8:41). This agricultural analogy presupposes the Mother Earth
metaphor, in that "those who have been sown in the world" clearly refers to human
beings via the PEOPLE ARE PLANTS metaphor. At the same time, it depends on the
double meaning of the word "live" in 4 Ezra: the first "live" means to thrive in
this world, while the second refers to salvation in the final judgment. Ezra's
response (8:42-45) is his only direct challenge to one of Uriel's analogies, but it is
a vehement one:
I answered and said, "If I have found favor before you, let me speak. For if the farmer's
seed does not come up, because it has not received your rain in due season, or has
been ruined by too much rain, it perishes. But man, who has been formed by your

42
When Ezra wishes in 7:116 that the earth had "taught [Adam] not to sin," he is drawing on
this metaphorical entailment of motherhood, moral education.
 88 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73,2011

hands and resembles your own image, and for whose sake you have formed all
thingshave you also made him like the farmer's seed? No, O Lord who are over us!
But spare your people and have mercy on your inheritance, for you have mercy on
your own creation." (8:42-45)
Ezra calls into question the PEOPLE ARE PLANTS metaphor (and indirectly the Mother
Earth metaphor with which it coheres) by pointing out several differences between
people and plants. The fate of plants (or, more precisely, crops) depends on the
right amount of rainfall at the right time, while human beings, created in God's
image, presumably have more control over their destiny, as Uriel himself has been
arguing (e.g., 7:127-31). Asserting that the rest of creation exists for the sake of
humankind (8:44), Ezra renews his appeal to God for mercy on Israel ("your people
. . . your inheritance" [8:45]), on the grounds that they are God's "own creation,"
collapsing (as he often does) the distinction between humankind and the chosen
people.43
Ezra also calls into question the second agricultural metaphor used by Uriel
in 4:28-32 (and by Ezra in 3:20-22 and 8:6), the PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND
metaphor, which is also coherent with the Mother Earth metaphor. In the mono
logue that opens the fourth episode, Ezra imagines God addressing Israel at Sinai
as follows: "I sow my law in you, and it shall bring forth fruit in you, and you shall
be glorified through it forever" (9:31).44 Alluding to Uriel's remarks about the law
in 7:20-24, Ezra observes that, while the fruit of the law did not perish, because it
was God's, those who received the law "perished because they did not keep what
was sown in them" (7:32-33). Ezra then constructs an elaborate triple analogy to
show that this is the opposite of what common experience leads one to expect:
How could the ground be destroyed and the seed that was sown in it nevertheless
survive? (7:34-37).45 Even though Ezra's argument is contorted, it induces the
reader to think critically about the PEOPLE ARE FERTILE GROUND metaphor, which
might in turn lead some readers to question the related metaphor of Mother Earth.
Ezra's last and most direct challenge to the Mother Earth metaphor is in his
speech "consoling" the woman he meets in the fourth episode, who is mourning
the death of her only child.46 He begins by addressing her in anger: "You most

43
Other examples of Ezra's collapsing this distinction include 3:21-22 and 6:54-55; Uriel
similarly collapses it, for example, in 7:20-24,70-74,127-31. Ezra reasserts the distinction, however,
in 8:15-16.
44
Another example of an imaginary quotation of God, also set at Sinai, is God's command to
Moses in 14:6, "These words you shall publish openly, and these you shall keep secret."
45
1 have argued that this passage is meant to be a parody of Uriel's analogies; see my The
ologies in Conflict, 153-56. In reading the passage as ironic, I follow Egon Brandenburger, Die Ver
borgenheit Gottes im Weltgeschehen: Das literarische und theologische Problem des 4. Esrabuches
( 68; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1981) 63-67.
46
This is consolation in the ancient sense of argument against grief: Ezra tells the woman to
put the loss of her son in perspective by comparing it to the loss of Zion and the loss of the mass of
humanity in the final judgment.
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 89

foolish of women, do you not see our mourning, and what has happened to us?
For Zion, the mother of us all, is in deep grief and great affliction" (10:6-7). The
epithet "the mother of us all" apparently reminds him of the earth, because he
changes the subject to the earth's mourning over the loss of humankind, her chil
dren, and only returns to the subject of Zion's loss in 10:20. The verses in which
Ezra contrasts the woman's loss with that of the earth (10:8-11) are treated above,
in the first section of this article. The challenge to the metaphor immediately fol
lows:
But if you say to me, "My lamentation is not like the earth's sadness, for I have lost
the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth in pain and in sorrow, but it is with the
earth according to the way of the earththe multitude that is now in it goes as it
came"; then I say to you, "As you brought forth in sorrow, so the earth also has from
the beginning given her fruit, that is, humankind, to him who made her." (10:12-14)

Even though Ezra attempts to refute the woman's imagined objection, it is,
after all, he who raises the objection, and the refutation does not really answer the
objection. Ezra, speaking for the woman, brings up an entailment of the source
domain (motherhood), pain in childbirth, which does not normally have an ana
logue in the target domain (the earth).47 Ezra may again be thinking of the opening
chapters of Genesis, since pain is highlighted in the first mention of childbirth in
the Bible, Gen 3:16. On the other hand, pain (and its concomitant, horror) is the
focus of the largest group of childbirth similes and metaphors in the Hebrew Bible,
so mentioning pain in childbirth does not necessarily entail an allusion to Gen
3:16.48 In contrast to the woman's overwhelming grief, to which she can imagine
no relief other than death (10:4, 18), the earth feels neither pain when "the multi
tude that is now in it" comes into the world, nor sorrow when it departs, Ezra
objects on the woman's behalf. The passing of generations is simply "the way of
the earth" (cf. Eccl 1:4, and the expression "go the way of all the earth" for death
in Josh 23:14 and lKgs 2:2).
At the same time that Ezra, speaking for the mourning woman, raises these
objections to the metaphor of Mother Earth, he insists on its validity, even in the
words he ascribes to the woman, calling her child "the fruit of my womb." The

47
1 pointed out above that the trembling of the earth mentioned in 6:16 may be an allusion to
the idea of eschatological birth pangs of the earth, but that is a special case. The normal use of the
Mother Earth metaphor for the cycle of life and death does not include the entailment "birth pangs."
48
On this group of childbirth metaphors and similes, see Bergmann, Childbirth as a Metaphor
for Crisis, 82-163; and Amy Kalmanofsky, "Israel's Baby: The Horror of Childbirth in the Biblical
Prophets," Biblical Interpretation 16 (2008) 60-82. The prophetic metaphors in question emphasize
the process of childbirth rather than the result, with the exception of Isa 42:14, in which God is
compared to a woman in labor. On the unique usage of the simile "like a woman in labor" there, see
Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, "Like Warrior, Like Woman: Destruction and Deliverance in Isaiah 42:
7," CBQ 49 (1987) 560-71; and Sarah J. Dille, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in
Deutero-Isaiah (JSOTSup 398; London: Clark, 2004) 41-73.
 90 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 73,2011

phrase "fruit of [the] womb," so familiar from Luke 1:42 (via the Hail Mary),
depends on the Mother Earth metaphor for its meaning, since it implies an analogy
(made explicit in 10:14) between finit, a product of the earth, and a child, the prod
uct of the womb. 49 Moreover, in refuting the imagined objection, Ezra returns to
the image with which he began his first monologue (3:4-5)the earth, created by
God, "gave" God Adamonly it is generalized to all humankind in 10:14. In gen
eralizing the image, Ezra suppresses the fact that the "Adam" that the earth pro
duced was a "lifeless body" (3:5; literally a dead body: corpus mortuum, rfi-^-ft
?)-) in need of animation by God. Yet God's active and extensive participation
in the creation of every human life was at the forefront of Ezra's mind in his mono
logue in 8:4-14, and in his objection to Uriel's seed analogy in 8:43-45. In Ezra's
dispute with the mourning woman in 10:12-14, which is really a dispute with him
self, he runs up against a limitation inherent in the Mother Earth metaphor: it is
not really compatible with the image of God as a nurturing parent that Ezra also
wants to maintain. In fact, it lends itself to a rather impersonal view of the human
life cycle, in which people are comparable to plants. Ezra tries to gloss that over
by implying that the earth also grieves over her lost "children" "As you brought
forth in sorrow, so the earth also . . . " (10:14)but he stops short of claiming that
the earth actually does feel sorrow at giving her human "fruit" to God. Thus, the
author, by allowing Ezra to speak for a moment from the woman's perspective,
induces the reader to think critically about the conceptual blend of the Mourning
Earth that he set up in 10:8-11, and hence to recognize the limitations of the Mother
Earth metaphor.

VI. Conclusion
The prevalence of both maternal and agricultural imagery in 4 Ezra has been
explained here as the result of the author's fascination with the conceptual
metaphor of Mother Earth. Fascination, for the author of 4 Ezra, does not imply
acceptance; the dialogues between Ezra and Uriel are all about challenging cher
ished beliefs. The concept of Mother Earth is not debated explicitly in the dia
logues, but it does not escape critical examination. Nevertheless, it gives the author
a way to conceptualize the relationship between human beings and the world, and
between this world and the world to come. Human beings are understood to share
a common material substance with the earth, being made from the dust (3:4-5;
7:62-63; cf. 7:116; 10:14), and they are sometimes described as fertile ground that
can produce fruit (3:20-22; 4:30-32; 8:6; 9:31-37). At other times, the dependence
of human beings (among other living things) on the earth for sustenance is

49
This analogy is apparent also in the juxtaposition of "fruit of your womb" with "fruit of
your ground" in Deut 7:13 and 28:4, 11, 18, 53; and cf. Hos 9:16.
 MOTHER EARTH AS A CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN 4 EZRA 91

expressed through metaphors that liken people to plants (4:28-29; 5:45-48; 8:41).
It is this last group of metaphors that is difficult to reconcile with Ezra's belief in
God's personal involvement in the creation of each human life (8:4-14, 44-45).
In a conceptual blend of the two-age doctrine (i.e., the notion that the Most
High created "not one world but two" [7:50]) and the metaphor of Mother Earth,
the present creation is described as a mortal female in decline, nearing the end of
her childbearing years (5:43-55; cf. 6:14-16). This is an apocalyptic adaptation of
the Mother Earth concept. Not entirely consistent with that metaphorical idea, but
coherent with it, the general resurrection that marks the beginning of the world to
come is imagined in 4 Ezra as a birth of souls out of the earth (4:40-42; 7:31-32).
By extension, the world to come may be conceptualized as the child of the present
world, discontinuous with it but related to it. This metaphorical genetic relationship
between the two worlds justifies Uriel's use of analogies to the phenomena of the
present world to explain features of the world to come. The power of birth as a
metaphor for a new creation may explain the author's fascination with the
metaphor of Mother Earth, despite his awareness of its limitations.
 ^ s
Copyright and Use:

As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use
according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as
otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.

No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the
copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling,
reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a
violation of copyright law.

This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission
from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal
typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,
for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.
Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific
work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered
by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the
copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,
or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).

About ATLAS:

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously

published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS
collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association
(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American
Theological Library Association.