Susannah Rees

susannah.rees@kcl.ac.uk

Abstract

The verb ba’ash (lit. “to stink”) is used repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible to describe unwanted groups or individuals (Gen 34:30; Exod 5:21; 1 Sam 13:4; 1 Sam 27:12; 2 Sam 10:6; 1 Chr 19:6). However, there is an overwhelming tendency in English translations and commentaries to translate bet-aleph-shin in a figurative sense as “obnoxious” (NIV, NKJV), “odious” (NASB, ASV) or even “despised” (ISV). This paper answers the call to modern exegetes to read “not only with our eyes but with the other senses alert.”[1] and proposes that by re-centring on and reading through smell, new exegetical possibilities are opened to us. Drawing on recent work on the verb ba’ash and anthropological research on the discourse surrounding smell or perceived social odours of migrants and immigrants, this article will demonstrate that stench and bad odour are employed as a form of metaphorical discourse in these texts to construct a narrative in which immigrants are viewed like bad smells: foreign, pervasive and unwanted.

Keywords

Migration, senses, smell, ba’ash

Introduction

Scent is difficult to control, define and describe.[2] In the deodorised modern West, it is sometimes perceived as a less tangible and perhaps even illusory sense. As such, smell is an underappreciated and often overlooked sense which is perceived as secondary to sight and hearing; few people consciously appreciate the importance of the information provided by their sense of smell.[3] This devaluation and denigration of smell are deep-rooted in Western, intellectual traditions.[4] It is not an exaggeration to say that “in spite of its importance to our emotional and sensory lives, smell is probably the most undervalued sense in the modern West.”[5]

Undoubtedly influenced by this cultural intellectual heritage, the subordination of scent to sight and hearing is repeatedly re-iterated in the field of biblical studies. Numerous studies explicitly or tacitly assume a hierarchy of the senses in which smell, as well as taste and touch, are subordinate to sight and hearing.[6] Yael Avrahami argues, in her otherwise impressive and comprehensive study of the sensory perception in the Hebrew Bible, that scent has largely been consigned to the footnotes of biblical studies because of “the small number of biblical verses that mention smell, scents, or any other words linked to olfaction.”[7] Yet, the sensory deficit lies not with the text, but rather with its modern readers and interpreters. Scent, particularly as it pertains to the Hebrew Bible, has been neglected not because these references do not exist but rather because they are overlooked.[8] This is, in part, due to an aversion to literal translations of olfactory language amongst modern, Western exegetes. An example of this “olfactory avoidance syndrome” is demonstrated by the tendency to render the verb rayakh(“to smell”) as “delight” (Isa 11:3; Amos 5:21).[9] This reluctance to use explicit, olfactory language forces the text of the Hebrew Bible into a modern epistemological framework which relegates smell to the bottom of the pentasensory hierarchy.

Nevertheless, there has been a call to those working in biblical studies to read “not only with our eyes but with the other senses alert.”[10] This re-evaluation and criticism of the privileging of certain senses over others is mirrored in both anthropological and sociological literature.[11] By integrating these insights from distinct disciplines, we begin to scent the possibility of a fresh but rich approach to the text of the Hebrew Bible. Uniquely, smells are both the object and the act; a means of knowing and simultaneously acting. Moreover, by re-centring on and reading through other senses, such as smell, new exegetical possibilities are opened up to us.

Building on the work of Deborah Green and Yael Avrahami, I will begin with a brief, analysis of the Hebrew root ba’ashand its previous interpretations in order to demonstrate its semantic valence and its sphere of referents, particularly as it relates to ethnic othering.[12] As cognitive linguistics shows us, language, including metaphorical expressions, Is understood by simulating in our minds what it would be like to experience the object of discussion.[13] As such, I will argue that ba’ashis used as an olfactory metaphor to express ideas about shame and Otherness. I will then provide a brief overview of scholarship on sensory citizenship and the way in which public discourse surrounding smells is used to construct racialised boundaries. I will demonstrate that the metaphorical stench texts share considerable overlap with the narrative concerning exclusionary smells.

Interpreting ba’ash

There are 20 attestations of the verb ba’ashin the Hebrew Bible.[14] It often appears alongside other roots such as tsakhan, raqab, and maqaqwhich all share a basic meaning “to rot” or “to stink.”[15] The root is also the basis of a related noun, be’osh, which is used three times in the Hebrew Bible.[16] The verb and the related noun are frequently used in a literal sense to refer to stinking objects, particularly animals that are dead or dying. It is used of dead fish (Exod 7:18, 21; Isa 50:2); dead frogs (Exod 8:10); mouldy bread (Exod 16:20, 24); festering wounds (Ps 38:6); dead flies in rotting perfume (Eccl 10:1) and decomposing corpses (Isa 34:3; Amos 4:10).[17]

In addition to this literal usage, there are also a significant number of texts where the verb ba’ash is used metaphorically of people or groups who have met with displeasure (Gen 34:30; Exod 5:21; 1 Sam 13:4; 1 Sam 27:12; 2 Sam 10:6; 16:21; 1 Chr 19:6; Prov 13:5; Isa 30:5). I refer to this group of texts which employ ba’ash in a metaphorical sense as “metaphorical stench texts” throughout this article. In Genesis 34:30, Jacob admonishes Simeon and Levi for their behaviour after the episode involving Dinah and the Shechemites by telling them: “you have brought trouble on me by causing me to stink  among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and among the Perizzites.” Similarly, after Pharaoh increases the workload of the enslaved Israelites in Egypt, the Israelites say to Moses and Aaron: “the Lord look upon you and judge! You have made us stink in the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (Exod 5:21). In Proverbs, we find the aphorism that: “the righteous hates false words but the wicked stinks and acts shamefully” (Prov 13:5). There is also a possible occurrence in Isa 30:5 where emissaries who have travelled to Egypt to form an alliance are described as stinking, although the qere emends this.[18]

The other metaphorical instances occur in 1 and 2 Samuel. For instance, after Saul and Jonathan have led successful military attacks against the Philistines: “all Israel heard that Saul had struck the prefect of the Philistines, and also that Israel stank to the Philistines” (1 Sam 13:4). In the accounts of the conflict between David and Hannun, the king of the Ammonites, we are told that after abusing the emissaries sent by David “the people of Ammon realised they stank to David” (2 Sam 10:6).[19] Whilst David was working as a mercenary for Achish, David “made himself an utter stench to his people in Israel” (1 Sam 27:12). When Ahithophel and Absalom plot against David, Ahithophel assures Absalom that all Israel will hear about Absalom sleeping with his father’s concubine and “that you have made yourself stink to your father” (2 Sam 16:21).

The verb ba’ashis variously translated as “stink; make odious; cause to be despised; behave despicably”,[20] and “to turn rancid; become hated; make oneself odious.”[21] However, as with so much of the olfactory language in the Hebrew Bible, there is a marked tendency in English translations to paraphrase the verb in order to avoid using the literal term “to stink.” For instance, the occurrence of the verb in Gen 34:30 is translated as “obnoxious” (NIV, NKJV), “odious” (NASB, ASV, NRSV, JPS) or even “despised” (ISV).

This evident discomfort is also tangible in scholarly discussions of the metaphorical stench texts and there are two interrelated strands of scholarship which attempt to de-odourise them. On the one hand, taking Isaiah 30:5 and Proverbs 13:5 as a starting point, it has been proposed that there is frequent confusion between the second radical in bavash, a common verb meaning “to be ashamed”, and ba’ash.[22] This is by no means a novel observation, the Masoretes have introduced a ketiv/qere in Isaiah 30:5 so that the text is pointed to read hevish, a Hiphil form of the verb bavash. Meanwhile, 1QIsaa reads instead klh b’sh and numerous different pointings have been suggested so that the text has variously been read “be utterly humiliated” or “everyone will be ashamed” or even “burn” (lit. with fire).[23] Similar arguments have been proposed for emending the text of Prov 13:5: yav’ish stands in parallel with yakhpir (lit. “to be ashamed”) from the verb khapar and elsewhere in Proverbs khapar stands in parallel with bavash(Prov 19:26).[24] Moreover, the versions all seem to translate Proverbs 13:5 as to “shame.”[25] This argument has been expanded to apply to other metaphorical stench texts (1 Sam 13:4; 2 Sam 10:6; 1 Chr 19:6; 2 Sam 16:21; Gen 34:30; Exod 5:11; 1 Sam 27:12) and it has been proposed that there is a division of the root ba’ashwhich reflects a second meaning: “to be ashamed.”[26] According to this line of thinking, it is with this sense that the verb ba’ash is used in the metaphorical stench texts as a secondary development.

In the second approach, the passages in the books of Samuel tend to receive a greater emphasis. This line of reasoning rests primarily on the observation that each of the uses of ba’ashin Samuel “epitomises an act of political change, mostly by insubordination.”[27] Israel rebelling against the Philistines (1 Sam 13:4); David’s ostensible betrayal of Israel by working for Achish (1 Sam 27:12); the Ammonites breaking their treaty with Israel by abusing David’s emissaries (2 Sam 10:6; 1 Chr 19:6) and Absalom undermining his father’s authority by sleeping with his concubine (2 Sam 16:21). As a result, it is suggested that the verb ba’ashas it is used in the metaphorical stench texts means “to provoke, challenge.”[28] Indeed, drawing particularly on 2 Samuel 10:6; 1 Chronicles 19:6, Saul Olyan goes so far as to argue that the Niphal of ba’ashserves as a technical term for a covenant violation.[29]

However, these explanations of the use of ba’ash arguably reflect a symptom of olfactory avoidance syndrome. Whilst there is likely slippage between the highly interrelated concepts of shame and bad odour which has been heightened by verbal ambiguity, to completely deodorise these texts denies the complexity and multivalence of language which consequently impoverishes the text. A number of other roots could have been used to express shame (bavash, khapar, etc.) or rejection (ma’as) or the breaking of a vow or covenant (parar). By using ba’ash, the author(s) draw on a wealth of olfactory imagery and sensations. As cognitive linguistics shows us, people perform embodied simulations when they interpret metaphorical language.[30] Thus when the biblical authors speak about the abstract concept of the stench of shame or moral or political iniquity, it is likely understood in the mind of the reader by simulating what it would be like to experience a bad odour.

Moreover, as recent research by Green and Avrahami has shown, shame and insubordination are inextricably related to concepts of moral and political stench.[31] When understood and read alongside literal texts about stench (Exod 7:18, 21; 8:10; 16:20, 24; Isa 34:3; 50:2; Amos 4:10; Ps 38:6; Eccl 10:1), we can see that the metaphor of stench for those who meet with displeasure is used to imply “that they are in some way odious, bad, decaying, even dead to the rest of the population.”[32] This operates in both moral and political spheres. As Avrahami has explored, there is a deep-seated association between good and bad smells and moral qualities in the Hebrew Bible and individuals can be judged on the basis of this (Isa 11:2–3; Jer 48:11).[33] This is perhaps unsurprising given that, as Anthony Synnott puts it: “What smells good, is good. Conversely, what smells bad, is bad […]. Aromas are converted from physical sensations to symbolic evaluations.”[34] As a result, these bad smells come to act as a sign of social stigmatisation. Both Avrahami and Green note that it is frequently those who are either residing outside of the community or have been expelled who are described as stinking. Avrahami argues that this symbolic stench serves as a means to justify a sociological hierarchy.[35] Similarly, for Green, the use of stench metaphors “conveys that these people engender disgust among the majority, ruling class, or leadership. In this sense, the idea of ‘stinking’ has a political connotation.”[36]

Whilst it undeniably has both moral and political connotations, it cannot be insignificant that the term is repeatedly used to describe ethnic or racial othering.[37] Although Avrahami and Green are right to identify the power imbalance and exclusionary force of the use of stench metaphors, it is also highly pertinent that ba’ash is used repeatedly of a minority living within a native, majority (Exod 5:21; Gen 34:30; 1 Sam 27:12) as well as in relation to small groups of foreign emissaries sent into other kingdoms (Isa 30:5; 2 Sam 10:16; 1 Chr 19:6). The relevance of this observation is heightened when it is brought into dialogue with explorations of the use and abuse of stench metaphors in a modern context.

The Stench of the Other

Since Alain Corbin’s observation on the role that odour played in marking social identity and difference,[38] anthropologists and cultural historians have explored the numerous ways in which scent acts as one of the ways of reading the racial other.[39] Work on sensory citizenship has demonstrated the way in which we literally perceive (see, touch, smell etc.) others, can create a viscerally strong sense of unity and difference.[40] Sensory models are frequently used as a basis from which to legitimate claims of belonging and exclusion and smell, in particular, acts as an index of alterity across historical and cultural contexts.[41] The hegemonic majority tend to deem their own odour as neutral or pleasant. For instance, Westerners are sometimes surprised that they are perceived as foul-smelling by members of other cultures and races. Edmund Carpenter records an illuminating exchange which occurred during his anthropological fieldwork among the Inuit:

One day when Kowanerk [an Inuit woman] and I were alone, she looked up from the boot she was mending to ask, without preamble, “Do we smell?”

 “Yes.”

“Does the odor offend you?”

“Yes.”

She sewed in silence for a while, then said, “You smell and it’s offensive to us. We wondered if we smelled and if it offended you.”[42]

Meanwhile, offensive odour is frequently attributed to a group which is treated with animosity or deemed as deviant, non-conforming or at variance from the prevailing culture. This can be as a result of racial basis but it is also a prominent feature in gender, class and age-based othering discourse. One such example is the prevailing, cross-culturally popular concept of “old person odour” which is usually deemed to be unpleasant and can be a source of age discrimination.[43] Similarly, in relation to class, George Orwell famously observed, that the secret of Western class distinctions could be “summed up in four frightful words…The lower classes smell.”[44] Additionally, women, particularly women who are deemed to deviate from the socially expected conventions of their gender, are also frequently associated with bad odour and the use of perfumes to mask a perceived corrupting moral stench. Sex workers, in particular, are subjected to numerous tropes surrounding scent which are “recycled in most societies throughout various epochs, such tropes have had an unusually long life.”[45]

Deeply embedded within this rhetoric is the notion that groups who fail to regulate their bodies according to the prevailing cultural norms are both symbolically polluted and polluting. The olfactory idioms evoking disgust highlight the deeply interconnected relationship between perceived literal smells and so-called moral and political stench. Thus, the role of smell, both the literal and the metaphorical stench attributed to those who transgress cultural norms and established social codes, is, therefore, an indisputably important social phenomenon. Perhaps the most insidious manifestation of this is the stereotype of the stinking immigrant.

The Stereotype of the Stinking Immigrant

It might, not unreasonably, be argued that the notion of a “smelly immigrant” is an ignorant stereotype; a racial slur unworthy of serious critical study. Certainly, the narrative that stinking immigrants must be fumigated and deodorised in order to assimilate into the neutral smelling, native majority is deeply problematic. Nevertheless, it is a pervasive and insidious narrative of difference and marginality which has been perpetuated and underwrites patterns of avoidance and exclusion.

For example, Aihwa Ong’s research on the resettlement of Cambodian refugees notes the use of a guidebook, “Facts of Life in the United States,” endorsed by both the US Congress and Department of State, which instructs refugees that they must wash, use deodorant and put on clean clothes every day because “Americans are very sensitive to body odors.”[46] The booklet also covers topics such as dental hygiene and the importance of ventilating homes so that strong cooking smells do not offend neighbours.[47] More recently, Madhavi Mallapragada surveys some of the online rhetoric surrounding “stindians” and the narratives which are perpetuated linking Indian bodies with so-called smelly Indian food.[48] Given the prevalence of the stereotype of the “smelly immigrant” it is perhaps unsurprising that personal smells are a source of great anxiety for minority communities. Martin Manalansan’s study of Asian American communities in New York highlights the tension within Asian American communities between the importance of cooking as social reproduction and a means of cultural community and the desire to assimilate and avoid being marked by food smells as “immigrant” in order to preserve cultural capital.[49] Manalansan demonstrates the concern amongst many Asian American people, and particularly women, to maintain boundaries and contain “private” aromas within their homes.[50] As such, the role of smell in constructing and maintaining racialised boundaries cannot be dismissed or overlooked.

Research shows that smells are rarely good or bad in themselves. The notion that the perception of smells is in some way objectively determined by the molecular structure of an odorant is belied by recent scientific research which shows that verbal context strongly influences the perception of an odour.[51] For example, participants presented with a mixture of isovaleric and butyric acid labelled either “parmesan cheese” or “vomit” reacted to the same stimulus in entirely different ways and demonstrated opposing perceptual and behavioural responses depending on how the stimulus was labelled.[52] Similarly, subjects who are told an olfactory stimulus is a natural, healthy extract will demonstrate adaption to the smell whereas those who are told the same stimuli is hazardous show apparent sensitisation.[53] The narrative constructed around smell and socially perceived smells is perhaps more important than the smell itself.

David Howes and Marc Lalonde contend that the symbolic importance of smell and/or taste increases when social boundaries are perceived as being threatened.[54] We can see this played out across the international stage with numerous politicians and public figures seeking to secure their own political credit by endorsing the narrative of the stinking immigrant. For example, Jacques Chirac, former president of France, made an infamous speech in which he claimed that French workers are driven to distraction by the “noise and odour” of immigrants whilst the once Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard required, migrants to take an English test “regardless of their skin colour, body shape, body odour and all that sort of thing.”[55]

This narrative of the othering stench of the immigrant arguably functions not only on a literal level but also as a metaphorical representation of the perception of immigrant and migrant minority groups” place within their host society. There is an immediacy and a penetrating quality to smells which exist in the air we breathe; we cannot help but inhale or exhale odours. As such, smells are seen to intrude into otherwise stable, fixed locations. As Mallapragada argues in relation to the stereotype of the stindian, smell functions as a metaphor for the immigrant body. Just as the unwanted, overwhelming and pervasive smell of curry intrudes into the American workplace so too the immigrants themselves are seen as unwanted, intrusive, lingering and an unpleasant intrusion into the American labour force.[56] Thus smell is both the object and the act; literal and metaphorical.

Re-interpreting Ba’ash

Having analysed in detail previous approaches, interpretations, and translations of the metaphorical stench texts, we can observe many features of the exclusionary discourse around the stereotype of the stinking immigrant both as a means of constructing racialised boundaries and as a metaphor for unwanted migrants within the Biblical material.

Occurrences of ba’ash and descriptions of metaphorical stench are often othering and frequently occur along racial or ethnic boundaries. This coheres with the role of scent and socially perceived smells in defining and circumscribing the Other. For instance, the descriptions of the stench of an ethnic Other in the accounts of the abuse of David’s emissaries to the Ammonites (2 Sam 10:6; 1 Chr 19:6). Similarly, the animosity of the relationship between the Israelites and the Philistines is frequently expressed through othering olfactory discourse in 1 Samuel. Saul’s attack on the garrison of the Philistines causes Israel to be perceived as a stench to the Philistines (1 Sam 13:4). Along similar lines, David is said to make himself a stench to Israel as a result of his attacks on behalf of Achish (1 Sam 27:12). These instances represent both a literal, physical assault and an assault on the senses. Those who make unwanted incursions and intrusion via military conquest share many of the qualities of pervasive bad smells. Given the descriptions of the stench of death and decaying corpses elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (Isa 34:3; Amos 4:10), there is also likely a literal element intended by the description of the stench of the attacker and the trail of destruction they leave.

We also find a discussion of the stinking immigrant in the Hebrew Bible. After a distinctly unsuccessful attempt at integration via intermarriage (Gen 34:9–10, 16, 21), Jacob admonishes Simeon and Levi for their violent attack on the city of Shechem. As a result of their actions, the family now stink to the larger, resident population of the land (Gen 34:30). It is only after the deceitful actions of Dinah’s brothers that the family of Jacob come to be viewed as unwelcome. In describing them as a “stench” to the inhabitants of the land along with the repeated emphasis on the family’s migrant status,[57] the biblical authors draw upon the metaphor of unwanted migrants as undesirable and pervasive like bad smells. It is also possible that David’s stench to Israel (1 Sam 27:12) may also be a metaphorical representation of his assimilation into Gath as an immigrant. In both cases, there are also obvious parallels between the emotive moral reaction to the deceit of Dinah’s brothers felt by the inhabitants of the land and David’s betrayal of Israel to the instinctive disgust felt when smelling a bad odour.

As noted above, there is often a concern among modern migrant and minority groups with attempts to contain “private” aromas within the confines of their own homes. Smell management techniques are employed in order to preserve cultural capital and to blend in as seamlessly as possible with the majority group. This is a concern which is perhaps also hinted at in Exodus 5 when the demands of Moses and Aaron draw the attention of Pharaoh to the Israelites. Their anxious contemporaries rebuke Moses and Aaron: “you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants” (Exod 5:21).[58] This not only reflects the socially stigmatising nature of bad odours and the bodily discomforts of slave labour and an existence as a racial minority beneath their Egyptian masters but also implies concerns with assimilation or at least the ability to pass unchallenged amongst the hegemonic majority. Moreover, the rebuke in Exodus 5:21 is laced with irony as it is Egypt which comes to literally stink with the consequences of the plagues (Exod 7:18, 21; 8:10), a reminder that there is no such thing as a “neutral” smelling majority.

The concern with smells and in particular with stench highlights the ways in which sensory citizenship operates within the Hebrew Bible. Those who are perceived to stink are othered and therefore also frequently considered to be outside the sphere of ethical or moral consideration. Moreover, bad smells act as a metaphorical representation of an unwanted presence whether that is as a migrant, a slave, or a military invader.

Conclusions

The implication of the use of olfactory imagery in the metaphorical stench texts is perhaps as manifold as the functions of scent. In the words of Anthony Synnott:

Odour is many things: a boundary-marker, a status symbol, a distance-maintainer, an impression management technique, a schoolboy’s joke or protest, and a danger-signal—but it is above all a statement of who one is. Odours define the individual and the group, as do sight, sound and the other senses; and smell, like them, mediates social interaction.[59]

By using the metaphor of stench, the biblical authors are drawing on a body of scent metaphors which capture a diverse range of meanings including the use of smell to delineate racialised boundaries. The history of smell and racial and ethnic othering has a long and festering past. Indeed, “in the irrational world of racist politics, foreigners would always stink and possess the potential to contaminate.”[60] Through dialogue with anthropological and sociological research on the perceived social odours of migrants and immigrants, we can begin to unpack the multi-layered meanings and nuances of the text and explore the ways in which concepts of shame and insubordination are deeply interconnected with the sense of smell and bad odours. These texts draw on the conceptual metaphor of stench to express disgust at the pervasive and unwanted ethnic and racial Other. Although there is undeniable slippage between the concepts of bad odour, shame and political insubordination which is heightened by verbal ambiguity, we should not be desensitised to the sensory metaphor through which these concepts are expressed and the rich interpretative possibilities that the conceptual metaphor engenders.

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———. Scents and Scent-Sibilities: Smell and Everyday Life Experiences. Newcastle  upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009.

Mallapragada, Madhavi. “Curry as Code: Food, Race, and Technology.” Pages 261–75  in Global Asian American Popular Cultures. Edited by Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren. New York: New York University Press, 2016. doi:10.18574/9781479803712-019.

Manalansan, Martin F. “Immigrant Lives and the Politics of Olfaction in the Global City.” Pages 41–52 in The Smell Culture Reader. Edited by Jim Drobnick. Oxford: Berg, 2006.

Meshorer, Yaakov. “The Ear of Yahweh on a Yehud Coin.” Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 25 (1996): 434–37. jstor.org/stable/23629666.

Miller, William Ian. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Mitro, Susanna et al. “The Smell of  Age: Perception and Discrimination of Body Odors of Different Ages.” PLOS ONE 7 (2012). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038110.

Moein, Shima T. et al.  “Smell Dysfunction: A  Biomarker for COVID‐19.” International Forum of Allergy Rhinology 10 (2020): 944–50. doi:10.1002/alr.22587.

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Olyan, Saul M. “Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its  Environment.” JBL 115 (1996): 201–18. doi:10.2307/3266852.

Ong, Aihwa. “Making the Biopolitical Subject: Cambodian Immigrants, Refugee  Medicine and Cultural Citizenship in California.” Social Science & Medicine 40 (1995): 1243–57. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)00230-Q.

Ong, Aihwa. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. University of  California Press, 2003.

Orwell, George. The Road to Wigan Pier. London: Victor Gollancz, 1937.

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Reinarz, Jonathan. Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell. Studies in Sensory  History. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014.

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Smith, Mark M. How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses. Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Southwood, Katherine. “‘This Man Has Come into My House’: Hospitality in Genesis 19.” Biblical Interpretation 26 (2018): 469–484. doi:10.1163/15685152-02645P03. 

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Tan, Qian Hui. “Scent-Orship and Scent-Iments on the Scent-Ual: The Relational Geographies of Smoke/Smell between Smokers and Non-Smokers in  Singapore.” The Senses and Society 11 (2016): 177–98. doi:10.1080/17458927.2016.1190069.

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Tsevat, Matitiahu. “Marriage and Monarchical Legitimacy in Ugarit and Israel.” Journal of Semitic Studies 3 (1958): 237–43. doi:10.1093/jss/3.3.237.

Tullett, William. “Grease and Sweat: Race and Smell in Eighteenth-Century English  Culture.” Cultural and Social History 13 (2016): 307–22. doi:10.1080/14780038.2016.1202008.

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[1] Saul Levin, “The More Savory Offering: A Key to the Problem of Gen 4:3–5,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979): 85, doi:10.2307/3265913.

[2] On the limited lexicon for smells in European languages see Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism, trans. Alice L. Morton, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 115–16; William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 67.

[3] A 2014 study demonstrated that people with anosmia were three times more likely to experience a hazardous event than those who had no smell loss because they were unable to identify warning odours such as smoke, gas and spoiled food. See discussion in, Sanne Boesveldt et al., “Anosmia—A Clinical Review,” CS 42 (2017): 513–23, doi:10.1093/chemse/bjx025.The clinical implications of anosmia are, at the time of writing, particularly pressing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that one of the key symptoms of the disease is decreased smell function with many patients suffering from anosmia, loss of smell was only added to the UK’s official list of symptoms in May 2020. For studies on the prevalence of smell disfunction  in cases of COVID-19 see, Athanasia Printza et al. ” The Role of Self-Reported Smell and Taste Disorders in Suspected COVID‑19,” European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology 277 (2020): 2625–30, doi:10.1007/s00405-020-06069-6; Marlene M. Speth et al., “Olfactory Dysfunction and Sinonasal Symptomatology in COVID-19: Prevalence, Severity, Timing, and Associated Characteristics,” Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery 163 (2020): 114–20, doi:10.1177/0194599820929185. For UK guidance at the time see, “COVID-19: investigation and initial clinical management of possible cases”, UK Health Security Agency, 22 May 2020, tinyurl.com/mrxfahwa.

[4] The French Enlightenment thinker Étienne Bonnot de Condillac claimed that “of all the senses it [smell] is the one which appears to contribute least to the cognitions of the human mind”. Immanuel Kant deemed the sense of smell to be “dispensable”. Meanwhile, Charles Darwin saw scent as a vestigial sense; a quirk of evolution that is “of extremely slight service” to humankind Darwin notes however that the sense of smell is more developed in ‘savages”. It is both interesting and uncomfortable to observe the tendency amongst those who subscribe to a hierarchy of senses to associate a particular emphasis on and development of the “lower” senses with marginalised groups such as women, children, people of colour and the working classes who are all perceived as distanced from the rationality of white men. See Étienne Bonnot Condillac, Condillac’s Treatise on the Sensations, trans. M.G.S. Carr, (London: Favil, 1930), xxxi; Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. R.B. Louden, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 50–51; Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 24.

[5] Constance Classen, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003), 3, doi:10.4324/9780203428887.

[6] There is, however, an ongoing debate as to whether sight or hearing is the dominant sense in biblical epistemology. For those advocating for the primacy of hearing see Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, (London: SCM Press, 1960), 206; Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, (London: SCM Press, 1974), 75; Yaakov Meshorer, “The Ear of Yahweh on a Yehud Coin” EIAHGS 25 (1996), 435, jstor.org/stable/23629666. For those advocating for the primacy of sight see Michael Carasik, Theologies of the Mind in Biblical Israel, (New York: P. Lang, 2006), 219; Yael Avrahami, The Senses of Scripture: Sensory Perception in the Hebrew Bible (New York: T & T Clark, 2012), 279, doi:10.5040/9781472550965.

[7] Avrahami, The Senses of Scripture, 103.

[8] Indeed, Gen 27:27 informs us that it is possible to know someone by their smell and that scent can pervade clothing (Gen 27:27; Songs 4:11). An individual’s smell can even be an indicator of social position and wellbeing (Jer 48:11; Hos 14:7; Ps 45:9; Songs 7:9; Est 2:23).

[9] See translations in NRSV, NIV, NLT, ESV, NKJV. The KJV differs slightly opting for “make him quick of understanding” (Isa 11:3). For further examples and analysis of the “olfactory avoidance syndrome” see Ian D. Ritchie, “The Nose Knows: Bodily Knowing in Isaiah 11.3,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 25 (2000): 66–71, doi:10.1177/030908920002508704; Yael Avrahami, “Foul Grapes: Figurative Smells and the Message of the Song of the Vineyard (Isa 5:1–7),” Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017): 347 n. 32, doi:10.1163/15685330-12341285.

[10] Levin, “More Savory Offering”: 85. In relation to scent, this call has been answered decisively by Deborah Green in her incredibly insightful monograph on scent in biblical and rabbinic texts; Dominika Kurek-Chomycz in her PhD thesis on the olfactory metaphor in Pauline texts; and Susan Ashbrook Harvey in her exploration of the role of scent in developing religious epistemology in early Christianity; as well as this volume itself. See, Deborah A. Green, The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), doi:10.1515/9780271066233; Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, “Making Scents of Revelation: The Significance of Cultic Scents in Ancient Judaism as the Backdrop of Saint Paul’s Olfactory Metaphor in 2 Cor 2:14–17” (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2008); Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006).

[11] Alain Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1986); Constance Classen, Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures (London: Routledge, 1993); Classen, Howes, and Synnott, Aroma; Jonathan Reinarz, Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell, (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014).

[12] Green, Aroma of Righteousness, 94–100; Avrahami, “Foul Grapes.”

[13] Benjamin K Bergen, Louder than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2012), 13–17. For explicit treatment of embodied simulation as it relates to metaphoric expressions, see pp. 206–9.

[14] Gen 34:30; Exod 5:21; 7:18, 21; 8:10; Exo 16:20, 24; 1 Sam 13:4; 27:12; 2 Sam 10:6; 16:21; Isa 50:2; 1 Chr 19:6; Ps 38:6; Eccl 10:1.

[15] See Prov 12:4; Ps 38:6; Joel 2:20.

[16] Isa 34:3; Joel 2:20; Amos 4:10.

[17] Joel 2:20 is an ambiguous and challenging text in which “the northerner” is driven into the western sea and “his stench” rises. There are numerous suggestions as to the identity of the northern including a hostile army, an eschatological power, or a host of locusts. It is peculiar that the stench of a body, human or animal, can rise out of the sea. For an overview of these arguments see C. van Leeuwen, “The “Northern One” in the Composition of Joel 2,19–27,” in The Scriptures and the Scrolls: Studies in Honour of A.S. van der Woude on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. F. Garcia Martínez, A. Hilhorst, and C.J. Labuschagne (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 85–99, doi:10.1163/9789004275737_009.

[18] See below for further discussion of this textual emendation. In terms of the social context of the oracle, commentators differ as to whether this diplomatic expedition was made as part of the overtures during the Ashdod revolt (714–12 BCE) or during the events leading up to the invasion by Sennacherib in 701 BCE. Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 225.

[19] Cf.1 Chr 19:6 which substitutes the Niphal form used in 2 Sam 10:6 for a Hithpael. Note also the change of preposition.

[20] DCH 2, s.v. “כאש I”

[21] HALOT I, s.v. “כאש I”

[22] Peter R Ackroyd, “A Note on the Hebrew Roots באשׁ and בושׁ,” Journal of Theological Studies 43 (1942): 160–61, jstor.org/stable/23957193.

[23] For an overview of different interpretations see J.A. Emerton, “A Textual Problem in Isaiah XXX. 5,” Journal of Theological Studies 32 (1981): 127, doi:10.1093/jts/XXXII.1.125; J.A. Emerton, “A Further Note on Isaiah XXX. 5,” Journal of Theological Studies 33 (1982): 161, doi:10.1093/jts/XXXIII.1.161-a.

[24] Roland E Murphy and Bruce M Metzger, Proverbs, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 94; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 562–63. By contrast, Waltke prefers “stink” see, Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, (Grand Rapid: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), 555.

[25] For an overview of the text-critical evidence see, Michael V Fox, Proverbs: An Eclectic Edition with Introduction and Textual Commentary (Atlanta, Georgia: SBL Press, 2015), 207.

[26] Peter R Ackroyd, “The Hebrew Root באשׁ.” Journal of Theological Studies 2 (1951): 35, jstor.org/stable/23955929.

[27] Matitiahu Tsevat, “Marriage and Monarchical Legitimacy in Ugarit and Israel,” Journal of Semitic Studies 3 (1958): 243. doi:10.1093/jss/3.3.237.

[28] Tsevat, “Marriage and Monarchical Legitimacy,” 243.

[29] Saul M Olyan, “Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment,” Journal of Biblical Literature 115 (1996): 213 n. 39.

[30] Bergen, Louder than Words, 206–9.

[31] Green, The Aroma of Righteousness, 94–100; Avrahami, “Foul Grapes.”

[32] Green, The Aroma of Righteousness, 95.

[33] Avrahami, “Foul Grapes”, 349.

[34] Anthony Synnott, “A Sociology of Smell,” Canadian Review of Sociology 28 (1991): 437, 444, doi:10.1111/j.1755-618X.1991.tb00164.x.

[35] Avrahami, “Foul Grapes,” 350.

[36] Green, The Aroma of Righteousness, 95.

[37] Of all of the metaphorical uses of ba’ash, the only time the verb is not used inter-ethnically is when Absalom’s intended actions make him stink to his father (2 Sam 16:21) and in the aphorism in (Prov 13:5).

[38] Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, 210.

[39] Kelvin E.Y. Low, “Ruminations on Smell as a Sociocultural Phenomenon,” Current Sociology 53 (2005): 397–417, doi:10.1177/0011392105051333; Martin F. Manalansan, “Immigrant Lives and the Politics of Olfaction in the Global City,” in The Smell Culture Reader, ed. Jim Drobnick, (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 41–52; Mark M. Smith, How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); William Tullett, “Grease and Sweat: Race and Smell in Eighteenth-Century English Culture,” Cultural and Social History 13 (2016): 307–22, doi:10.1080/14780038.2016.1202008; Susannah Callow, “Odour and Ethnicity: Americans and Japanese in the Second World War,” in Modern Conflict and the Senses, ed. Nicholas J Saunders and Paul Cornish (London: Routledge, 2017), 157–70.

[40] Susanna Trnka, Christine Dureau, and Julie Park, “Introduction: Senses and Citizenships,” in Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life, ed. Susanna Trnka, Christine Dureau, and Julie Park, (New York: Routledge, 2013), doi:10.4324/9780203374658-8.

[41] Walter E. A. van Beek, “The Dirty Smith: Smell as a Social Frontier Among the Kapsiki/Higi of North Cameroon and North-Eastern Nigeria,” Africa 62 (1992): 38, doi:10.2307/1160063; Yadira Perez Hazel, ‘Sensing Difference: Whiteness, National Identity, and Belonging in the Dominican Republic,” Transforming Anthropology 22 (2014): 78–91, doi:10.1111/traa.12033.; Pablo Holwitt, ‘Strange Food, Strange Smells: Vegetarianism and Sensorial Citizenship in Mumbai’s Redeveloped Enclaves,” Contemporary South Asia 25 (2017): 333–46, doi:10.1080/09584935.2017.1369935.; Aihwa Ong and A Ong, Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).; Qian Hui Tan, “Scent-Orship and Scent-Iments on the Scent-Ual: The Relational Geographies of Smoke/Smell between Smokers and Non-Smokers in Singapore,” The Senses and Society 11 (2016): 177–98, doi:10.1080/17458927.2016.1190069.

[42] Edmund Carpenter et al., Eskimo Realities (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), 134.

[43] Susanna Mitro et al., “The Smell of Age: Perception and Discrimination of Body Odors of Different Ages,” PLoS One 7 (2012), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038110. In a non-Western context, see the work on the Suya people who deem old men and women to smell pungent, women are referred to as “our rotten-smelling property” but post-pubescent males are deemed to have no smell. Anthony Seeger, Nature and Society in Central Brazil: The Suya Indians of Mato Grosso, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 107–13.

[44] George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), 157. For further examples see, Kelvin E.Y. Low, Scents and Scent-Sibilities: Smell and Everyday Life Experiences (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), 95–101. For studies on smell and class differentiation outside of a Western, industrialised setting see Uri Almagor, “The Cycle and Stagnation of Smells: Pastoralists-Fishermen Relationships in an East African Society,” Res: Anthropology and Ethics 13 (1987): 106–21, doi:10.1086/RESv13n1ms20166765.

[45] Reinarz, Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell, 121. See also Britta Ager, “Magic Perfumes and Deadly Herbs: The Scent of Witches’ Magic in Classical Literature,” Preternature 8 (2019): 1–34, doi:10.5325/preternature.8.1.0001.

[46] Cited in Aihwa Ong, “Making the Biopolitical Subject: Cambodian Immigrants, Refugee Medicine and Cultural Citizenship in California,” Social Science & Medicine 40 (1995): 1245, doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)00230-Q.

[47] Aihwa Ong, “Making the Biopolitical Subject,” 1245–6.

[48] “Stindian” is slang for “stinky Indian”. See, Madhavi Mallapragada, “Curry as Code: Food, Race, and Technology,” in Global Asian American Popular Cultures, ed. Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren (New York: New York University Press, 2016), 263–65, doi:10.18574/9781479803712-019.

[49] Manalansan, “Immigrant Lives.”

[50] Manalansan, “Immigrant Lives,” 45–8.

[51] See Wen Li et al., “Learning to Smell the Roses: Experience-Dependent Neural Plasticity in Human Piriform and Orbitofrontal Cortices,” Neuron 52 (2006): 1097–1108, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2006.10.026; Fabian Grabenhorst et al., “How Pleasant and Unpleasant Stimuli Combine in Different Brain Regions: Odor Mixtures,” Journal of Neuroscience 27 (2007): 13532, doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3337-07.2007; Rachel S Herz, “The Effect of Verbal Context on Olfactory Perception,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 132 (2003): 595–606, doi:10.1037/0096-3445.132.4.595.

[52] Herz, “The Effect,” 595.

[53] Pamela Dalton, “Odor Perception and Beliefs about Risk,” Chemical Senses 21 (1996): 447–58, doi:10.1093/chemse/21.4.447.

[54] David Howes and Marc Lalonde, “The History of Sensibilities: Of the Standard of Taste in Mid-Eighteenth Century England and the Circulation of Smells in Post-Revolutionary France,” Dialectical Anthropology 16 (1991): 126, doi:10.1007/BF00250241.

[55] Italics are my own. For discussion of the political ramifications of the stereotype of the stinking immigrant see, Emmanuel S. de Guzman, “The Scent of Marginality: Odorizing Difference in Migratory Relations,” in Intercultural Church: Bridge of Solidarity in the Migration Context (Borderless Press, 2015), 27–29.

[56] Mallapragada, “Curry as Code”

[57] See the discussion of the epithets as marking out the groups in the narrative as those “of the land” and those who migrated into the land in Katherine Southwood, “’This Man Has Come into My House’: Hospitality in Genesis 19,” Biblical Interpretation 26 (2018): 480, doi:10.1163/15685152-02645P03.

[58] For a discussion of the synaesthetic qualities of this expression and other examples of synaesthesia in the Hebrew Bible see Avrahami, The Senses of Scripture, 60–62.

[59] Synnott, “A Sociology of Smell,” 438.

[60] Reinarz, Past Scents, 111.