camel, which is neither represented nor named in the monuments before
the Greek period.[1] This, Müller supposes, was due to a religious
scruple; but, of course, the difficulty remains of thinking that a
religiously unclean animal should have been bred in Egypt, or have
been gifted by Pharaoh to Abram. The order also—slaves between
he-asses and she-asses—is strange; the explanation (Ho. Gu.) that
the slaves were intermediate in value between these animals is jejune,
and is, besides, contradicted by 2435 3043. It is possible that (
Hebrew characters)
has been added at the end by a glossator; but see 2435 3043, and cf.
[E] below.
17. The story reaches its climax. Yahwe interposes at the extreme moment to save Sarai and avert calamity from the patriarchal house. It is noteworthy that Yahwe's intervention is here purely providential: in 203ff. it takes the form of a personal communication, while in the attenuated version of 266ff. it has become superfluous and is omitted.—smote with great plagues] severe bodily maladies; cf. 2017, Ex. 111, Ps. 3911 etc. How Pharaoh discovered the cause of his sickness we are left to conjecture; Jos. (Ant. i. 164 f.) pretty nearly exhausts the possibilities of the case when he mentions sacrifice, inquiry at the priests, and interrogation of Sarai. Gu. is probably right in suggesting that something has been omitted between 17 and 18.—18, 19. To the vigorous expostulation of the Pharaoh, Abram is unable to reply. The narrator evidently feels that morally the heathen king is in the right; and the zest with which the story was related was not quite so unalloyed by ethical reflexions as Gu. (151) would have us believe. The idea of God, however, is imperfectly moralised; Yahwe's providence puts in the wrong the man who is justified at the bar of human conscience; He is not here the absolutely righteous Being proclaimed by the prophets (Am. 32).—20. Pharaoh gave men charge concerning
before (Hebrew characters).—17. (Hebrew characters)] The Pi. only of smiting with disease: 2 Ki. 155,
2 Ch. 2620 (Pu. Ps. 735).—(Hebrew characters)] G + (Greek characters).—(Hebrew characters)] possibly a
gloss from 2017f. (KS. al.); see on 29.—19. (Hebrew characters)] 'so that I took'; Dri.
T. § 74 (Greek characters), § 116, Obs. 2.—(Hebrew characters)] G + (Hebrew characters).—20. [E]G add at the end (Hebrew characters),
as in MT of 131: the phrase is interpolated in both places.
- ↑ Cf. Ex. 93 (J); and see Sayce, EHH, 169 (the notice unhistorical); Erman, LAE, 493. Ebers' statement as to the name is corrected by Müller, AE, 142, EB, i. 634.
