the bereaved father. This strain of pathos and subjectivity
is very marked in J in the Joseph narratives.—rent his clothes . . . put on sackcloth] On these customs, the origin
of which is still obscure, see Schw. Leben n. d. Tode, 11 ff.;
Grüneisen, Ahnencultus, 61 ff.; Engert, Ehe- u. Familienrecht,
96 ff.—34b. (
Hebrew characters), chiefly used in reference to the dead, includes
the outward tokens of mourning: Ex. 334, 2 Sa. 142;
cf. Is. 613, Ps. 3514.—35. all his daughters] There was really
only one daughter in the family. A similar indifference to
the prevalent tradition in details is seen in the disparity of
age between Joseph and his brothers (v.3), and the assumption
that Rachel was still alive (10).—go down . . . as a mourner] Jacob will wear the mourner's garb till his death,
so that in the underworld his son may know how deep his
grief had been (Gu.). The shade was believed to appear in
She'ōl in the condition in which it left the world (Schw. 63 f.).—36
(E) resuming 28b. See, further, on 391.
Ch. XXXVIII.—Judah and Tamar (J).
Judah, separating himself from his brethren, marries a
Canaanitish wife, who bears to him three sons, 'Er,'Ônān
and Shēlāh (1-5). 'Er and 'Onan become in succession
the husbands of Tamar (under the levirate law), and die
without issue; and Judah orders Tamar to remain a widow
in her father's house till Shelah should reach manhood (6-11).
Finding herself deceived, Tamar resorts to a desperate
stratagem, by which she procures offspring from Judah
himself (12-26). With the birth of her twin sons, Pereẓ and
Zeraḥ, the narrative closes (27-30).
The story rests on a substratum of tribal history, being in the main a
legendary account of the origin of the principal clans of Judah. To this
historical nucleus we may reckon such facts as these: the isolation of
Judah from the rest of the tribes (see on v.1); the mixed origin of its
leading families; the extinction of the two oldest clans, `Er and 'Onan;
the rivalry of the younger branches, Pereẓ and Zeraḥ, ending in the
(Hebrew characters)] cf. 4428. On inf. abs. Qal used with Pu., see G-K. § 113 w.—35.
(Hebrew characters)] G (Greek characters), adding (Greek characters) before (Hebrew characters).—36. (Hebrew characters)] Rd.
with all Vns. (Hebrew characters) as v.28.
