Who Indeed?: A Reconsideration of מי יודע in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

The present article takes up the question“Who knows? (מי יודע) in the Hebrew Bible, where it appears no less than ten times. Instead of categorizing the instances according to their perspective on the future, whether open or closed (per the important study published by James L. Crenshaw in 1986), the current investigation posits that מי יודע connotes a lack of human knowledge while at the same time implicating God and God’s full knowledge. “Who knows?” is thus an anthropocentric question that admits of a theological exception. The theological aspects of מי יודע have gone understudied, however. The current essay seeks to rectify this, pursuing each of the ten occurrences with an eye on the neglected theological subject of this rhetorical question, categorizing each into certain and less certain examples.