Literary:Dialogue/0

Dialogue in Torah

Unspecified Audience

There are several verses in which Hashem speaks but His audience is left unspecified:

• Bereshit 1:3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26 – Is Hashem speaking aloud to angels or is Hashem merely thinking (aloud?) to Himself with אמר meaning thought? See commentators to Bereshit 1:26 and more.
• Bereshit 2:18, 3:22, 6:3,7, 11:6
• Bereshit 18:20 – Is Hashem merely thinking (aloud?) to Himself or is He speaking to Avraham or to the angels? This depends on the dispute among the commentators throughout the chapter regarding if "Hashem" refers to God Himself or to one (perhaps the most important) of the angels, and regarding with whom Avraham is conversing. See Avraham's Guests – Angels or Men for discussion.
• Shemot 20:1 – When introducing the Decalogue, the verse states: "וַיְדַבֵּר אֱ-לֹהִים אֵת כָּל הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה לֵאמֹר", without specifying to whom Hashem is speaking.  No where else in Torah does the root "דבר" appear in reference to Hashem without the verse then stating with whom Hashem is conversing. Here the ambiguity makes one question whether Hashem spoke directly to the nation or whether He delivered the Decalogue only to Moshe who was then charged with relaying it to the nation. See The Decalogue: Direct From Hashem or Via Moshe for elaboration and discussion of the theological ramifications of each possibility.

Unstated Multiple Voices

Usually when there is conversation in Tanakh, each speaker is mentioned.  There are times, however, where there might be multiple speakers even though they are not mentioned:¹

• Nechemyah 5:15 – The first few verses of the chapter detail the various complaints of the people, each opening with "וְיֵשׁ אֲשֶׁר אֹמְרִים" (there are those who say). Verse 5 does not contain such an introduction, perhaps implying that it is a continuation of the complaint of verse 4.  It is also possible, however, that in verse 5 multiple voices speak, with each of the previously mentioned groups shouting over the other at same time, without order.  Thus, each clause in the verse might actually be spoken by a different person/group.
• Shemuel I 9:11-13 – These verses describe Shaul's conversation with the women at the well. In response to his questioning if they have seen Shemuel, the women speak at length, leading Midrash Shemuel to suggest that they were enamored by Shaul's good looks and wanted to prolong the conversation. Here, too, it is possible that the verses contain multiple speakers, which each woman saying a different part of the verse in reply to Shaul, vying for his attention. If so, the seemingly endless jabber would make more sense.

¹ See: Ed. Gavriel Gil, דרכי הסיפור במקרא : לפי הרצאותיו של שמריהו טלמון (Jerusalem, 1965) who discusses some of the following examples.