The Bible apocrypha ’Susanna' or 'Susanna in the bath’ is about a woman who is accused of adultery by two lustful officials or 'elders'. However, they are exposed and convicted of corruption. But it is a parable, and secretly it tells a completely different story.
The Bible is full of parables, mysteries, that have two layers. The exterior, which is the action, and a hidden layer that contains the "real story". In the book ’The King Mystery. Yahweh and the Daughter of Zion.’ It is shown how the Daughter of Zion, who was the land and people of Israel (Jerusalem), is interpreted into a number of different female figures.
To the Book of Daniel there are some apocryphal additions, writings that are not included in all Bibles. Apocrypha means secret or hidden. One of these mystical writings is often called 'Susanna in the bath', or just 'Susanna'.
The writing is commonly referred to as an example of Jewish moral teaching[1], or as ”… a folk-tale in laudation of the famous prophet Daniel …”[2] But the apocrypha is a parable, and it must therefore be interpreted with symbolism so that we can reach the hidden intention. It will be done here.
First, however, we need to have some background for the story. The Kingdom of Israel, which according to the Bible was founded by King David, was divided after the reign of his son King Solomon into a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Judah.
In 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, and only Judah remained. But later problems arose here too. Now the Egyptians and the Babylonians fought each other over the entire land area between them. The kings of Judah desperately tried to navigate politically in shifting, forced alliances with the great powers.
Josiah, was the name of one of the last great kings of Judah. In the eighteenth year of the king's reign, Hilkiah the high priest found a book of the Law in the temple of Yahweh [2 Kings 22.8] which had been hidden and forgotten for many years (he claimed). This led to a reform of worship in the country; now only Yahweh was to be worshipped.
Josiah reigned for 31 years after which Pharaoh Necho killed him in battle. His son Jehoahaz became king after him. But the Egyptian king soon deposed him and made Josiah’s second son, Jehoiakim, king of Judah instead. Jehoiakim reigned for 11 years [2 Kings 23], for three of which he was subject to the king of Babylon.
Three months after King Jehoiakim's death[3], King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured Jerusalem and took the royal family and the country's elite to Babylon. The Babylonian king also stole many of the treasures of the palace and temple and installed Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, as king [2 Kings 24].
Nine years later Zedekiah rebelled. Nebuchadnezzar returned terribly and destroyed the city walls of Jerusalem, razed the temple of Yahweh to the ground, stole everything of value and led several citizens into exile in Babylon [2 Kings 25].
After many years as prisoners in a foreign land, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persians. The Judeans were now allowed to return home to Judah and rebuild the country and the capital Jerusalem. But Judah did not rise again as a kingdom. Instead, the priests of Yahweh took local power, albeit subject to the Persian king.
Now we come to the scripture ’Susanna in the bath’. As mentioned, it is an apocryphal, secret and mystical writing. The action takes place in Babylon after the Judeans had been abducted there. Or does it?
The Apocrypha begins, ”There dwelt a man in Babylon, called Joakim. And he took a wife, whose name was Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah, a very fair woman and one who feared the Lord. Her parents also were righteous and taught their daughter according to the law of Moses. Now Joakim was a great rich man and had a beautiful garden next to his house; and the Jews turned to him for help, because he was more honorable than all others.” [Susanna 1-4].
The scripture is filled with symbolism. Of course, it is a parable. It will be interpreted here:
Joakim is, of course, King Jehoiakim of Judah, whom we have just read about. He married the land and people of Judah, the Daughter of Zion, who here is the beautiful woman Susanna[4]. The name Susanna means lily, which is often associated with innocence and purity[5]. Later in the scripture, she is called Daughter of Judah. [Susanna 57].
It says that Joakim was rich and owned a park near his house. But the “park” and the “house” were located in the Babylonian kingdom. Not in the city of Babylon itself, but in that part of the kingdom that was the land of Judah. The house was the palace of the king of Judah in the park which was Judah. The action actually takes place before the Judeans were sent into exile to Babylon proper.
Susanna was the daughter of Hilkiah, it says. Hilkiah is here, of course, the high priest who found the book of the Law in the temple during the reign of King Josiah. The apocryphal writer thereby tells that she was the epitome of the country and the people.
The scripture then tells us that, ”… two of the elders of the people were appointed to be judges … These spent much time at Joakim's house … Now when the people departed away at noon, Susanna went into her husband's garden to walk. And the two elders saw her … their lust was inflamed toward her.” [Susanna 5-8].
One day Susanna was bathing naked in the park, ”Now when the maids were gone, the two elders rose up and ran to her, saying, 'Behold, the garden doors are shut, so that no man can see us, and we are in love with you; therefore consent to us and lie with us.’” [Susanna 19-20]. When Susanna refused, they accused her of adultery and demanded that she be sentenced to death.
But then the prophet Daniel suddenly appears in the story. He claimed that the men had testified falsely against Susanna, and he demanded that they return to the courtroom. [Susanna 49]. Here Daniel accused the two elders, ”… beauty has deceived you and lust has perverted your heart. Thus have you dealt with the daughters of Israel, and they out of fear consorted with you; but the daughter of Judah would not tolerate your wickedness.” [Susanna 56-57].
Here it is clear that the text is not just about two lustful and corrupt officials in the city of Babylon who lust after another man's wife. For it is not only them that Daniel accuses, but the entire civil service, the elders, and probably also the priests who, by the way, are not mentioned anywhere. They had been responsible for correcting the kings and the people, but they had failed.
By ”the daughters of Israel” [Susanna 57] Daniel did not mean the women of Israel, but the Israelite cities, the people of Israel, which the Assyrians had destroyed many years earlier and carried away to Assyria. The officials' (and here also the priests') lust for power was the reason that Israel was destroyed. Now they also wanted to commit adultery with ”the daughter of Judah” – in the form of the symbolic figure Susanna. She was the Daughter of Zion, who belonged to the king of Judah and the god-king Yahweh.
Daniel, who was also an authority and an “elder” [Susanna 50], did not see himself as an accomplice. He said, ”… ’I am free of the blood of this woman.’” [Susanna 45-46]. Daniel was a prophet, and the prophets in particular had done all they could to direct the kings and the people.
Another prophet, Ezekiel, who was sent into exile in Babylon with the first group of Judeans, speaks of Daniel as if he were already a recognized prophet in his day. [Ezekiel 14.14]. Again: Daniel was a prophet in Judah before the Babylonian exile, and the parable 'Susanna in the Bath' takes place "in reality" (but secretly) in Judah.
However, the Apocrypha was written much later than the time it tells about[6], at a time when there was no local king over Judah. For after the return of the Judeans from Babylon the priests took power, and the kingdom of Judah was not restored.
Previously the king had a central role in the worship of God. He was the son of the god Yahweh, and he was Yahweh's representative on earth. But now he was gone. True, the country was subject in turn to the great foreign kings of Persia, Egypt and Syria, but the priests of Judah were now alone the spiritual leaders of the people. And after the Maccabean Revolt[7], they were also the country's political leaders.
The writer of the apocrypha interpreted the past as he saw it. Namely that it was the priests and officials who had dishonored and destroyed Israel and now also Judah. They had desired and captured the daughter of Zion, the land and the people.
Ezekiel had written that it was precisely the priestly tribe of Levites that had been the cause of the great apostasy from the god Yahweh. [Ezekiel 8.7-13 and Ezekiel 44.10-14]. This despite the fact that he himself was a priest, just like several other prophets in the Bible were[8].
The prophet Daniel represented the true prophets of Israel and Judah who here showed that the priesthood and the elders had no right to the Daughter of Zion. Only Yahweh and his son on earth, the king, had that right. He is mentioned positively, albeit only indirectly in the form of the rich man, Joakim.
The apocrypha 'Susanna in the Bath' is a secret writing with a hidden meaning which only the initiated understood. It was written during the time of priestly rule, and perhaps it was camouflaged as a parable so that the author would not have problems with the priests in particular. It has been dangerous to speak out against those in power; they have not wanted to hear themselves singled out as the very reason why everything had gone wrong.
The priesthood is not mentioned directly in the scripture. It has surely been too dangerous to let priests be the villains in the parable, who wiped their own sins off onto Susanna, the Daughter of Zion, the people. Therefore, the two lustful judges were merely elders. The parable is set in Babylon, probably because it was here that the priests conceived the plan to take over the land and people of Judah now that the king was gone.
In the parable, the prophet Daniel exposed the “officials” in their crime. We have seen that the prophet Ezekiel knew about Daniel. He writes for Yahweh: ”… when a land sins against me by committing a trespass … though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord Yahweh.” [Ezekiel 14.14]. Ezekiel sees the three “men” as witnesses of righteousness. Noah is the ancestor and Job is the personified Judah[9]. Daniel is “the true prophet and judge.” Daniel means ”God is my Judge”[10].
The Bible's Book of Daniel, in which the prophet Daniel plays the main role, was also written much later, in the middle of the second century before Christ. Here, the author has probably taken, as a starting point, the writing 'Susanna in the Bath' and continued to write about Daniel's fantastic experiences in Babylon.