Gaudeo quia dedisti – om glæde i israelitisk og tidlig jødisk religion

Abstract

This chapter analyses occurrences of ‘joy’ śimḥâ (שִׂמְחָה) and ‘to rejoice’, cf. the verbal root śāmaḥ (שָׂמַח), in biblical and early Jewish texts to reflect on aspects in the religious-historical development of joy. Based on electronic searches on joy/the root שמח including cognates, I have selected occurrences, relating to religious joy, and grouped them according to the following contexts: wisdom, myth and ritualised actions. The chapter concludes that joy, especially in the context of ritualised actions, first supplements cultic sacrifices, but then, within the development in Israelite-Jewish religion from being oriented toward blessing to focusing on salvation, joy takes over the function of cultic sacrifices to mark a remembrance of or a trust in a god's intervention. Accordingly, joy is transferred to the word-based worship of Yahweh. With this analysis, I add arguments to Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensen's idea of ​​replacing the expression “do ut des” (I give, so that you may give) with the expression “do quia dedisti” (I give because you have given) at least in the Israelite-early Jewish context to describe the function of joy as a matter of expressing gratitude for something perfective, namely, that the god has or will have given.