of Babel (xi. 1-9), which, starting from a popular etymology of Babel
(“gate of God”), as though from Balbel (“confusion”), tells how
Yahweh feared lest mankind should become too powerful (cf. iii. 22-24),
and seeks to explain the origin of the numerous languages in use.
It is independent of x., which already assumes a confusion of tongues
(vv. 5, 20, 31), the existence of Babel (v. 10), and gives a different
account of the rise of the various races. This incident in the journey
eastwards (xi. 2) is equally independent of the story of the Deluge
and of Noah’s family (see Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 316). The
continuation of the chapter, “the generations of Shem” (xi. 10-27,
see the Shemite genealogy in x. 21 sqq., and contrast the ages with
vi. 3), is in the same stereotyped style as ch. v., and prepares the
way for the history of the patriarchs.
The “generations of Terah” (xi. 27) lead to the introduction of the first great patriarch Abraham (q.v.).[1] There is a twofold account of his migration to Bethel with his nephew Lot; the more statistical form in xi. 31 sq., xii. 4b, 5 belongs to the latest source. The statement that the Canaanite was then in the land (xii. 6, cf. xiii. 7) points to a time long after the Israelite conquest, when readers needed such a reminder (so Hobbes in his Leviathan, 1651). A famine forces him to descend into Egypt, where a story of Sarai (here at least 65 years of age; see xii. 4, xvii. 17) is one of three variants of a similar peculiar incident (cf. xx. 1-17, xxvi. 6-14). The passage is an insertion (xii. 10-xiii. 2; xii. 9, xiii. 3 seq. being harmonistic). The thread is resumed in the account of the separation of the patriarch and his nephew Lot, who divide the land between them. Abraham occupies Canaan, but moves south to Hebron, which, according to Josh. xiv. 15, was formerly known as Kirjath-Arba. Lot dwells in the basin of the Jordan, and his history is continued in the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (xviii.-xix.; Hos. xi. 8, Deut. xxix. 23 speak of Admah and Zeboim). Lot is saved and becomes the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites, who are thus closely related to the descendants of Abraham (note xix. 37, “unto this day”). The great war with Amraphel and Chedorlaomer—the defeat of a world-conquering army by 318 men—with the episode of Melchizedek, noteworthy for the reference to Jerusalem (xiv. 18, cf. Ps. lxxvi. 2), has nothing in common with the context (see Abraham; Melchizedek). It treats as individuals the place-names Mamre and Eshcol (xiv. 13, cf. Num. xiii. 23 seq.), and by mentioning Dan (v. 14) anticipates the events in Josh. xix. 47, Judg. xviii. 29.[2] A cycle of narratives deals with the promise that the barren Sarai (Sarah) should bear a child whose descendants would inhabit the land of Canaan. The importance of the tradition for the history of Israel explains both the prominence given to it (cf. already xii. 7, xiii. 14-17) and their present complicated character (due to repeated revision). The older narratives comprise (a) the promise that Abraham shall have a son of his own flesh (xv.)—the account is composite;[3] (b) the birth of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar, their exile, and Yahweh’s promise (xvi., with a separate framework in vv. 1a. 3, 15 seq.)—before the birth of Isaac; and (c) the promise of a son to Sarai (xviii. 1-15), now combined with the story of Lot and the overthrow of Sodom. The latest source (xvii.) is marked by the solemn covenant between Yahweh and Abraham, the revelation of God Almighty (El-Shaddai, cf. Ex. vi. 3), and the institution of circumcision (otherwise treated in Ex. iv. 26, Josh. v. 2 seq.). The more elevated character of this source as contrasted with xv. and xviii. is as striking as the difference of religious tone in the two accounts of the creation (above). Abraham now travels thence (xx. 1, Hebron, see xviii. 1), and his adventure in the land of Abimelech, king of Gerar (xx.), is a duplicate of xii. (above). It is continued in xxi. 22-34, which has a close parallel in the life of Isaac (xxvi., below). Isaac is born in accordance with the divine promise (xviii. 10 at Hebron); the scene is the south of Palestine. The story of the dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael, and the revelation (xxi. 8-21) cannot be separated from xvi. 4-14, where vv. 9 seq. are intended to harmonize the passages. Although about sixteen years intervene (see xvi. 16; xxi. 5, 8), Ishmael is a young child who has to be carried (xxi. 15), but the Hebrew text of xxi. 14 (not, however, the Septuagint) endeavours to remove the discrepancy.[4] “After these things” comes the offering of Isaac which implicitly annuls the sacrifice of the first-born, a not unfamiliar rite in Palestine as the denunciations prove (cf. Ezek. xvi. 20 seq., xx. 26; Mic. vi. 7; Is. lvii. 5), and thus marks an advance, e.g. upon the story of Jephthah’s daughter (Judg. xi.). The story may be contrasted with the Phoenician account of the sacrifice by Cronos (to be identified with El) of his only son, which practically justified the horrid custom. The detailed account of the purchase of the cave of Machpelah (contrast the brevity of xxxiii. 19) is of great importance for the traditions of the patriarchs, and, like the references to the death of Sarah and Abraham, belongs to the latest source (xxiii., xxv. 7-11a).[5] The idyllic picture of life in xxiv. presupposes that Isaac is sole heir (v. 36); since this is first stated in xxv. 5, it is probable that xxv. 5, 11b (and perhaps vv. 6, 18) are out of place. It is noteworthy that the district is Abraham’s native place (xxiv. 4, 7, 10; contrast the Babylonian home specified in xi. 28, 31; xv. 7). In xxv. 1 sqq. Abraham takes as wife (but concubine, 1 Chron. i. 32 seq.) Keturah (“incense”) and becomes the father of various Arab tribes, e.g. Sheba and Dedan (grandsons of Cush in x. 7).
After “the generations of Ishmael” (xxv. 12 sqq.) the narrative turns to “the generations of Isaac” (xxv. 19 sqq.). The story of the events at the court of Abimelech (xxvi.) finds a parallel in the now disjointed xx., xxi. 22-34; note the new explanation of Beersheba, the reference in xxvi. 1 to the parallel story in xii., the absence of allusion to xx., and the apparent editorial references to xxi. in vv. 15, 18. On the whole, the story of Isaac’s wife at Gerar is briefer and not so elevated as that of Sarah, but the parallel to xxi. 22-34 is more detailed. The birth of Esau and Jacob (xxv. 21-34) introduces the story of Jacob’s craft when Isaac is on the point of death (xxvii.). Jacob flees to Laban at Haran to escape Esau’s hatred (xxvii. 41-45); but, according to the latest source (P), he is charged by Isaac to go to Paddan-Aram, and take a wife there, and his father transfers to him the blessing of Abraham (xxvii. 46-xxviii. 9). On his way to Haran he stops at Bethel (formerly Luz, according to Judg. i. 22-26), where a vision prompts him to accept the God of the place should he return in peace to his father’s home (xxviii. 10-22). He passes to the land of “the children of the east” (xxix. 1), and the scenes which follow are scarcely situated at Haran, the famous and ancient seat of the worship of the moon-god, but in the desert. Here he resides fifteen years or more, and by the daughters of Laban and their handmaidens becomes the “father” of the tribes of Israel. There are numerous traces of composition from different sources, but a satisfactory analysis is impossible.[6] The flight of Jacob and his household (from Paddan-Aram, xxxi. 18 P) leads over “the River” (v. 21, i.e. the Euphrates); though the seven days’ journey of this concourse of men and cattle suggests that he came to Gilead, not from Haran (300 m. distant), but from some nearer locality. This is to be taken with the evidence against Haran already noticed, with the use of the term “children of the east” (xxix. 1; cf. Jer. xlix. 28; Ezek. xxv. 4, 10), and with the details of Laban’s kindred (xxii. 20-24).[7] The arrival at Mahanaim (“[two?] camps”) gives rise to specific allusions to the meaning of the name (xxxii. 1 seq., 7-12, 13-21); cf. also the plays upon Jabbok, Israel and Peniel in xxxii. 22-32. He meets Esau (xxxii. 3-21, xxxiii. 1-16, another reference to Peniel, “face of God,” in v. 10), but they part. Jacob now comes to Shechem “in peace” (cf. the phrase in xxviii. 21), where he buys land and erects an altar (xxxiii. 18-20, cf. Abraham in xii. 6 seq.). There is a remarkable story of the violation of his daughter Dinah by Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite (xxxiv.). It has been heavily revised; note the alternating prominence of Hamor and Shechem, the condemnation of Simeon and Levi for their vengeance (cf. the curse in xlix. 5-7), the destruction of the city Shechem by all the sons of Jacob, and the survival of the Hamorites as a family centuries later (xxxiii. 19, Judg. ix. 28). The narrative continues with Jacob’s journey to Bethel, the death of Deborah (who accompanied Rebekah to Palestine 140 years previously, see xxiv. 59, and the latest source in xxv. 20, xxxv. 28), the death of Rachel (xxxv. 16-20, contrast xxxvii. 10), and ceases abruptly in the middle of a sentence (xxxv. 22, but see xlix. 3-4). The latest source (xxxv. 9-13, 15, 22b-29) gives another account of the origin of the names Israel (cf. xxxii. 28) and Bethel (cf. xxviii. 19), and the genealogy wrongly includes Benjamin among the sons born outside Palestine (vv. 24-26). In narrating Jacob’s leisurely return to Isaac at Hebron, the writers quite ignore the many years which have elapsed since he left his father at the point of death in Beersheba (xxvii. 1, 2, 7, 10, 41).
“The generations of Esau, the same is Edom,” provide much valuable material for the study of Israel’s rival (xxxvi.). The chapter gives yet another account of the separation of Jacob and Esau (with vv. 6-8, cf. Abraham and Lot, xiii. 5 seq.), and describes the latter’s withdrawal to Seir (cf. already xxxii. 3; xxxiii. 14, 16). It includes lists of diverse origin (e.g. vv. 2-5, contrast xxvi. 34, xxviii. 9); various “dukes” (R.V. marg. “chiefs”), or rather
- ↑ As early as 1685 Jean le Clerc observed that Ur of the Chaldees (Chasdim) in xi. 28 anticipates Chesed in xxii. 22, and implied some knowledge of the land of the Chaldaeans (cf. Ezek. i. 3, xi. 24).
- ↑ The Catholic priest Andrew du Maes (1570) already pointed to the names Hebron and Dan as signs of post-Mosaic date.
- ↑ Note the repetitions in vv. 2 and 3; Abraham’s faith, vv. 4-6, and his request, v. 8; contrast the time of day, v. 5 and v. 12, and the dates, v. 13 and v. 16. In vv. 12-15 there is a reference to the bondage in Egypt.
- ↑ These and other chronological embarrassments, now recognized as due to the framework of the post-exilic writer (P), have long been observed—by Spinoza, 1671.
- ↑ Points of resemblance in xxiii. with Babylonian usage have often been exaggerated; comparison “shows noteworthy differences” (T.G. Pinches, The Old Testament, p. 238); see Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, i. 64, Driver, Gen. p. 230, and Addenda.
- ↑ Note, e.g., the sudden introduction of xxix. 15, the curious position of v. 24 (due to P), the double play upon the names Zebulun and Joseph, xxx. 20, 23 seq., the internal intricacies in the agreement, ib. vv. 31-43; the difficulties in the reference to the latter in xxxi. 6 sqq. (especially v. 10).
- ↑ See Ed. Meyer (and B. Luther), Die Israëliten und ihre Nachbarstämme (1906), pp. 238 sqq.; also the shrewd remarks of C.T. Beke, Origines biblicae (1834), pp. 123 sqq.
