This is the first book to systematically investigate the texts in the Hebrew Bible in which a character expresses a wish to die. Contrary to previous scholarship on these texts that assumed these death wishes were simply a desire to escape suffering, Hanne Løland Levinson employs narrative criticism and conversation analysis, together with diachronic methods, to carefully hear each death-wish text in its literary context. She demonstrates that death wishes embody powerful, multi-faceted rhetorical strategies. Grouping the death-wish texts into four main rhetorical strategies of negotiation, expression of despair and anger, longing to undo one's existence, and wishing for a different reality, Løland Levinson portrays the complex reasons why characters in the Hebrew Bible wish for death. She concludes that the death wishes navigate the tension between longing for death and fighting for survival - a tension that many live with also today as they attempt to claim agency and autonomy in life.

Winner, 2023 Scott Award for Best Book on the Hebrew Bible, Canadian Society of Biblical Studies

‘A very welcome addition to biblical studies, Hanne Løland Levinson’s The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible addresses a well-known motif that has never been given full and proper study. This fresh and insightful study avoids the pitfall of taking death wishes at face value and instead recognizes their rhetorical functions: death wish as a negotiation strategy; death wishes expressed in despair or anger; wishing away one’s birth; and death wishes as wishful thinking. The book is very well constructed and executed; the writing is lovely. It also contributes to the contemporary social conversation about the end of life, especially in noting how the expression of a death wish may not communicate a simple wish for one’s death, but a desire for help or an expression of deep pain or traumatic loss. Thoughtful; and most highly recommended.’

Mark S. Smith - Princeton Theological Seminary

‘The book is a highly readable discussion of a fascinating topic, and full of precise and nuanced insights into the texts.’

Marian Kelsey Source: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

'Levinson has clearly demonstrated the rhetorical goals of utterances about death, and this remains an important contribution … an important and worthwhile study.'

David G. Firth Source: Society of Biblical Literature

'… an important and worthwhile study.’

David G. Firth Source: Review of Biblical Literature

‘[This] is a gem of a book. Despite its weighty subject, it provides easy reading on a relatable topic that helps us better understand why biblical characters express the desire to die and why we continue to use similar expressions in contemporary life to communicate despair, frustration, and anger, but also as a rhetorical strategy that works to change our circumstances. … Despite its morbid topic, Hanne Løland Levinson offers a fascinating, accessible, and even enjoyable analysis of biblical death-wish texts.’

Amy Kalmanofsky Source: AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies

‘This study is the result of Hanne Løland Levinson’s intense, and personal, work on texts that daringly express human’s lament and prayer when experiencing distress and challenges. … The work fits well into the current debates around biblical characters’ emotions. The analytical approach avoids hasty psychological speculations about the characters’ feelings. Using detailed assessments of how conversations can be interpreted and a range of methods, the complexity of such expressive conversations is highlighted.’

Martina Weingärtner Source: Theologische Literaturzeitung (ThLZ)