chapter 16.

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‎ =8.= ויגוע וימת‎] verse ¹⁷ 35²⁹; see on 6¹⁷.――ושבע‎] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX better ושבע ימים‎, as ‎ 35²⁹.――ויאסף וגו׳‎] so 25¹⁷ 35²⁹ 49²⁹ᐧ ³³, Numbers 20²⁴ᐧ ²⁶ 27¹³ 31², Deuteronomy 32⁵⁰† (all Priestly-Code).――=10.= השדה‎] LXX + καὶ τὸ σπήλαιον.――=11.= לחי ראי‎] see on 24⁶².

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XXV. 12‒18. _The Genealogy and Death of Ishmael_ (Priestly-Code).

With the exception of verse ¹⁸, which is another isolated fragment of Yahwist, the passage is an excerpt from the _Tôledôth_ of the Priestly Code.――The names of the genealogy (¹³⁻¹⁶) represent at once ‘princes’ ‎(נְשֵׁיאִם‎: compare the promise of 17²⁰) and ‘peoples’ (אֻמֹּת‎, ¹⁶); that is to say, they are the assumed eponymous ancestors of 12 tribes which are here treated as forming a political confederacy under the name of Ishmael.

In the geography of Priestly-Code the Ishmaelites occupy a territory intermediate between the Arabian Cushites on the South (10⁷), the Edomites, Moabites, etc., on the West, and the Aramæans on the North (10²² ᶠᐧ); _i.e._, roughly speaking, the Syro-Arabian desert north of Ǧebel Shammar. In Yahwist they extend West to the border of Egypt (verse ¹⁸).――The Ishmaelites have left very little mark in history. From the fact that they are not mentioned in Egyptian or Assyrian records, Meyer infers that their flourishing period was from the 12th to the 9th centuries B.C. (_Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 324). In Old Testament the latest possible traces of Ishmael as a people are in the time of David (compare 2 Samuel 17²⁵, 1 Chronicles 2¹⁷ 27³⁰), though the name occurs sporadically as that of an individual or clan in much later times (Jeremiah 40⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ, 2 Kings 25²³, 1 Chronicles 8³⁸ 9⁴⁴, 2 Chronicles 19¹¹ 23¹, Ezra 10²²). In Genesis 37²⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ, Judges 8²⁴, it is possible that ‘Ishmaelites’ is synonymous with Bedouin in general (see Meyer, 326).

‎ =13.= נְבָיֹת וְקֵדָר‎] are the _Nabayati_ and _Ḳidri_ of Assyrian monuments (Asshurbanipal: _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 215 ff.; compare Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 297, 299; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 151), and possibly the _Nabatæi_ and _Cedrei_ of Pliny, v. 65 (compare vi. 157, etc.). The references do not enable us to locate them with precision, but they must be put somewhere in the desert East of Palestine or Edom. The Nabatæans of a later age (see Schürer, _Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi_³ᐧ ⁴, i. 728 ff.) were naturally identified with נְבָיֹת‎ by Josephus (_Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 220 f.), Jerome (_Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_), Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ [נבט‎], as they still are by Schrader, Schürer, and some others. But since the native name of the Nabatæans was נבטו‎, the identification is doubtful, and is now mostly abandoned. The two tribes are mentioned together in Isaiah 60⁷: נְבָיֹת‎ alone only Genesis 28⁹ 36³; but קֵדָר‎ is alluded to from the time of Jeremiah downwards as a typical nomadic tribe of the Eastern desert. In late Hebrew the name was extended to the Arabs as a whole (so Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ ערב‎).――אַדְבְּאֵל‎ (Ναβδεήλ: see on verse ³)] Perhaps an Arab tribe _Idibi’il_ which Tiglath-pileser IV. (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 21) appointed to watch the Egyptian frontier (not necessarily the border of Egypt proper).――מִבְשָׂם‎] a Simeonite clan (1 Chronicles 4²⁵), otherwise not known.――=14.= מִשְׁמָע‎ follows מבשם‎ in 1 Chronicles 4²⁵. Dillmann compares a _Ǧebel Misma’_ South-east of Kāf, and another near Ḥāyil East of Teima.――דּוּמָה‎] Several places bearing this name are known (Dillmann); but the one that best suits this passage is the Dūmah which Arabic writers place 4 days’ journey North of Teima: viz. _Dūmat el-Ǧendel_, now called _el-Ǧōf_, a great oasis in the South of the Syrian desert and on the border of the _Nefūd_ (Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_ ii. 607; compare Burckhardt, _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land._ 602). It is probably the Δούμαιθα of Ptolemy v. 18 (19). 7, the _Domata_ of Pliny vi. 157.――מַשָּׂא‎] See on 10³⁰, and compare Proverbs 31¹. A tribe _Mas’a_ is named by Tiglath-pileser IV. along with Teima (verse ¹⁵), Saba’, Hayapa (⁴), Idibi’il (¹³), and may be identical with the Μασανοι of Ptolemy v. 18 (19). 2, North-east of Δούμαιθα.――=15.= חֲדַד‎] unknown.――תֵּימָא‎ (Isaiah 21¹⁴, Jeremiah 25²³, Job 6¹⁹) is the modern _Teima_, on the West border of the Neǧd, _circa_ 250 miles South-east of Aḳāba, still an important caravan station on the route from Yemen to Syria, and (as local inscriptions show) in ancient times the seat of a highly developed civilisation: see the descriptions in Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_ i. 285 ff., 549 ff.――יְטוּר‎ and נָפִישׁ‎ are named together in 1 Chronicles 5¹⁹ among the East-Jordanic tribes defeated by the Reubenites in the time of Saul. יטור‎ is no doubt the same people which emerges about 100 B.C. under the name Ἰτουραῖοι, as a body of fierce and predatory mountaineers settled in the Anti-Lebanon (see Schürer, _Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi_, i. 707 ff.).――Of קֵדְמָה‎ nothing is known. Should we read נוֹדָב‎ as 1 Chronicles 5¹⁹ (Ball, Kittel)?――=16.= בְּחַצְרֵיהֶם‎] ‘in their settlements’ or ‘villages’; compare Isaiah 42¹¹ ‘the villages that Kedar doth inhabit.’――וּבְטִירֹתָם‎] טִרָה‎ (Numbers 31¹⁰, Ezekiel 25⁴, Psalms 69²⁶, 1 Chronicles 6³⁹) is apparently a technical term for the circular encampment of a nomadic tribe. According to Doughty (i. 261), the Arabic _dīrah_ denotes the Bedouin circuit, but also, in some cases, their town settlements.――לְאֻמֹּתָם‎] ‘according to their peoples.’ אֻמֶּה‎ is the Arabic _’ummat_, rare in Hebrew (Numbers 25¹⁵, Psalms 117¹†).――=17.= Compare verses ⁷ᐧ ⁸.

Verse ¹⁸ is a stray verse of Yahwist, whose original setting it is impossible to determine. There is much plausibility in Holzinger’s conjecture that it was the conclusion of Yahwist’s lost genealogy of Ishmael (compare 10¹⁹ᐧ ³⁰). Gunkel thinks it was taken from the end of chapter 16: similarly Meyer, who makes ¹¹ᵇ (page 352 above) a connecting link. Dillmann suggests that the first half may have followed 25⁶, the reference being not to the Ishmaelites but to the Ḳeṭureans; and that the second half is a gloss from 16¹². But even ¹⁸ᵃ is not consistent with ¹¹ᵇ, for we have seen that the Ḳeṭureans are found East and South-east of Palestine, and Shûr is certainly not ‘eastward’ from where Abraham dwelt.――If Ḥavîlah has been rightly located on page 202 above, Yahwist fixes the eastern limit of the Ishmaelites in the neighbourhood of the Ǧōf es-Sirhān, while the western limit is the frontier of Egypt (on _Shûr_, see on 16⁷). This description is, of course, inapplicable to Priestly-Code’s Ishmaelites; but it agrees sufficiently with the statement of Elohist (21²¹) that their home was the wilderness of Paran; and it includes Lahai-roi, which was presumably an Ishmaelite sanctuary. Since a reference to Assyria is here out of place, the words בֹּאֲכָה אַשּׁוּרָה‎ must be either deleted as a gloss (Wellhausen, Dillmann, Meyer, al.), or else read בּ׳ אָשׁוּרָה‎; אָשׁוּר‎ being the hypothetical North Arabian tribe supposed to be mentioned in 25³ (so Gunkel; compare Hommel _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 240 f.; König _Fünf Neue Arabische Landschaftsnamen im Alten Testament_ 11 ff.), a view for which there is very little justification.――¹⁸ᵇ is an adaptation of 16¹²ᵇ, but throws no light on that difficult sentence. Perhaps the best commentary is Judges 7¹², where again the verb נָפַל‎ has the sense of ‘settle’ (= שָׁכֵן‎ in 16¹²). Hommel’s restoration עַל־פְּנֵי כֶלַח‎, ‘in front of Kelaḥ’ (a secondary gloss on ‎ אַשּׁוּר‎), is a brilliant example of misplaced ingenuity.

THE HISTORY OF JACOB. CHAPTERS XXV. 19‒XXXVI.

Setting aside chapter 26 (a misplaced appendix to the history of Abraham: see page 363), and chapter 36 (Edomite genealogies), the third division of the Book of Genesis is devoted exclusively to the biography of Jacob. The legends which cluster round the name of this patriarch fall into four main groups (see Gunkel 257 ff.).

A. _Jacob and Esau_:

1. The birth and youth of Esau and Jacob (25¹⁹⁻²⁸). 2. The transference of the birthright (25²⁹⁻³⁴). 3. Jacob procures his father’s blessing by a fraud (27).

B. _Jacob and Laban_:

1. Jacob’s meeting with Rachel (29¹⁻¹⁴). 2. His marriage to Leah and Rachel (29¹⁵⁻³⁰). 3. The births of Jacob’s children (29³¹‒30²⁴). 4. Jacob’s bargain with Laban (30²⁵⁻⁴³). 5. The flight from Laban and the Treaty of Gilead (31¹‒32¹).

C. _Jacob’s return to Canaan_ (loose and fragmentary):

1. Jacob’s measures for appeasing Esau (32⁴⁻²²).¹ 2. The meeting of the brothers (33¹⁻¹⁷).¹ 3. The sack of Shechem (34). 4. The visit to Bethel, etc. (35¹⁻¹⁵). 5. The birth of Benjamin and death of Rachel (35¹⁶⁻²⁰). 6. Reuben’s incest (35²¹ ᶠᐧ).

D. Interspersed amongst these are several _cult-legends_, connected with sanctuaries of which Jacob was the reputed founder.

1. The dream at Bethel (28¹⁰⁻²²)――a transition from A to B. 2. The encounter with angels at Mahanaim――a fragment (32² ᶠᐧ). 3. The wrestling at Peniel (32²³⁻³³). 4. The purchase of a lot at Shechem (33¹⁸⁻²⁰). 5. The second visit to Bethel――partly biographical (see below) (35¹⁻¹⁵).

¹ Gunkel recognises a second series of Jacob-Esau stories in C. 1, 2; but these are entirely different in character from the group A. To all appearance they are conscious literary creations, composed in a biographical interest, and without historical or ethnographic significance.

The section on Jacob exhibits a much more intimate fusion of sources than that on Abraham. The _disjecta membra_ of Priestly-Code’s epitome can, indeed, be distinguished without much difficulty, viz. 25¹⁹ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ²⁶ᵇ 26³⁴ ᶠᐧ 28¹⁻⁹ 29²⁴ᐧ ²⁸ᵇᐧ ²⁹ 30⁴ᵃᐧ ⁹ᵇᐧ ²²ᵃ 31¹⁸ᵃ{βγδ}ᵇ 33¹⁸ᵃ{β} 35⁶ᵃᐧ ⁹ ᶠᐧ ¹¹⁻¹³ᵃᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ²²ᵇ⁻²⁶ᐧ ²⁷⁻²⁹ 36¹. Even here, however, the redactor has allowed himself a freedom which he hardly uses in the earlier portions of Genesis. Not only are there omissions in Priestly-Code’s narrative to be supplied from the other sources, but transposition seems to have been resorted to in order to preserve the sequence of events in Jehovist.――The rest of the material is taken from the composite Jehovist, with the exception of chapter 34, which seems to belong to an older stage of tradition (see page 418). But the component documents are no longer represented by homogeneous sections (like chapters 16. 18 f. [Yahwist], 20. 22 [Elohist]); they are so closely and continuously blended that their separation is always difficult and occasionally impossible, while no lengthy context can be wholly assigned to the one or to the other.――These phenomena are not due to a deliberate change of method on the part of the redactors, but rather to the material with which they had to deal. The Yahwist and Elohist recensions of the life of Jacob were so much alike, and so complete, that they ran easily into a single compound narrative whose strands are naturally often hard to unravel; and of so closely knit a texture that Priestly-Code’s skeleton narrative had to be broken up here and there in order to fit into the connexion.

To trace the growth of so complex a legend as that of Jacob is a tempting but perhaps hopeless undertaking. It may be surmised that the Jacob-Esau (A) and Jacob-Laban (B) stories arose independently and existed separately, the first in the south of Judah, and the second east of the Jordan. The amalgamation of the two cycles gave the idea of Jacob’s flight to Aram and return to Canaan; and into this framework were fitted various cult-legends which had presumably been preserved at the sanctuaries to which they refer. As the story passed from mouth to mouth, it was enriched by romantic incidents like the meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the well, or the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau; and before it came to be written down by Yahwist and Elohist, the history of Jacob as a whole must have assumed a fixed form in Israelite tradition. Its most remarkable feature is the strongly marked biographic motive which lends unity to the narrative, and of which the writers must have been conscious,――the development of Jacob’s character from the unscrupulous roguery of chapters 25, 27 to the moral dignity of 32 ff. Whether tradition saw in him a type of the national character of Israel is more doubtful.

As regards the historicity of the narratives, it has to be observed in the first place that the _ethnographic_ idea is much more prominent in the story of Jacob than in that of any other patriarch. It is obvious that the Jacob-Esau stories of chapters 25, 27 reflect the relations between the nations of Israel and Edom; and similarly at the end of chapter 31, Jacob and Laban appear as representatives of Israelites and Aramæans. It has been supposed that the ethnographic motive, which comes to the surface in these passages, runs through the entire series of narratives (though disguised by the biographic form), and that by means of it we may extract from the legends a kernel of ancient tribal history. Thus, according to Steuernagel, Jacob (or Ya‛ăḳōb-ēl) was a Hebrew tribe which, being overpowered by the Edomites, sought refuge among the Aramæans, and afterwards, reinforced by the absorption of an Aramæan clan (Rachel), returned and settled in Canaan: the events being placed between the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Palestine (_Die Einwanderung der israelitischen Stämme in Kanaan_ 38 ff., 56 ff.: compare Bennett 286). There are indeed few parts of the patriarchal history where this kind of interpretation yields more plausible results; and it is quite possible that the above construction contains elements of truth. At the same time, the method is one that requires to be applied with very great caution. In the first place, it is not certain that Jacob, Esau, and Laban were _originally_ personifications of Israel, Edom, and Aram respectively: they may be real historic individuals; or they may be mythical heroes round whose names a rich growth of legend had gathered before they were identified with particular peoples. In the second place, even if they were personified tribes, the narrative must necessarily contain many features which belong to the personifications, and have no ethnological significance whatever. If, _e.g._, one set of legends describes Israel’s relations with Edom in the south and another its relations with the Aramæans in the east, it was necessary that the ideal ancestor of Israel should be represented as journeying from the one place to the other; but we have no right to conclude that a similar migration was actually performed by the nation of Israel. And there are many incidents even in this group of narratives which cannot naturally be understood of dealings between one tribe and another. As a general rule, the ethnographic interpretation must be confined to those incidents where it is either indicated by the terms of the narrative, or else confirmed by external evidence.

XXV. 19‒34. _The Birth of Esau and Jacob, and the Transference of the Birthright_ (Priestly-Code, Jehovist).

In answer to Isaac’s prayer, Rebekah conceives and bears twin children, Esau and Jacob. In the circumstances of their birth (²¹⁻²⁶), and in their contrasted modes of life (²⁷ᐧ ²⁸), Hebrew legend saw prefigured the national characteristics, the close affinity, and the mutual rivalry of the two peoples, Edom and Israel; while the story of Esau selling his birthright (²⁹⁻³⁴) explains how Israel, the younger nation, obtained the ascendancy over the older, Edom.

_Analysis._――verses ¹⁹ᐧ ²⁰ are taken from Priestly-Code; note ‎ וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת‎, הוֹלִיד‎, הָאֲרַמִּי‎ (_bis_), פַּדַּן אֲרָם‎. To Priestly-Code must also be referred the chronological notice ²⁶ᵇ, which shows that an account of the birth of the twins in that source has been suppressed in favour of Yahwist. There is less reason to suspect a similar omission of the marriage of Isaac before verse ²⁰.――The rest of the passage belongs to the composite work Jehovist. The stylistic criteria (יהוה‎ 21 ²¹ ᵇⁱˢᐧ ²²ᐧ ²³; ‎ עָתַר‎, ²¹ ᵇⁱˢ; לָֽמָּה־זֶּה‎‎, ²²; צָעִיר‎, ²³) and the resemblance of ²⁴⁻²⁶ to 38²⁷ ᶠᶠᐧ point to Yahwist as the leading source of ²¹⁻²⁸; though Elohistic variants may possibly be detected in ²⁵ᐧ ²⁷ (Dillmann, Gunkel, Procksch, al.). Less certainty obtains with regard to ²⁹⁻³⁴, which most critics are content to assign to Yahwist (so Dillmann, Wellhausen, Kuenen, Cornill, Kautzsch-Socin, Holzinger, Driver, al.), while others (_Oxford Hexateuch_, Gunkel, _Students’ Old Testament_. Procksch) assign it to Elohist because of the allusion in 27³⁶. That reason is not decisive, and the linguistic indications are rather in favour of Yahwist (נָא‎, ³⁰; לָֽמָּה־זֶּה‎, ³² [Wellhausen _Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² ‎ 36]; על־כן קרא שמו‎, ³⁰).

=19, 20. Isaac’s marriage.=――Priestly-Code follows Elohist (31²⁰ᐧ ²⁴) in describing Rebekah’s Mesopotamian relatives as _Aramæans_ (compare 28⁵), though perhaps in a different sense. Here it naturally means descendants of ’Ărām, the fifth son of Shem (10²³). That this is a conscious divergence from the tradition of Yahwist is confirmed by 28²: see Budde _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 420 ff.――On _Bĕthû’ēl_, see page 247 above.――_Paddan ’Ărām_] (28²ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁷ 31¹⁸ 33¹⁸ 35⁹ᐧ ²⁶ 46¹⁵ ‎[פַּדָּן‎ alone 48⁷]: LXX Μεσοποταμίας) is Priestly-Code’s equivalent for ’Ăram Nahăraim in Yahwist (24¹⁰); and in all probability denotes the region round Ḥarran (_v.i._).

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‎ =19.= ואלה ת׳ יצחק‎] commonly regarded as the heading of the section (of Genesis or) of Priestly-Code ending with the death of Isaac (35²⁹); but see the notes on pages 40 f., 235 f. The use of the formula is anomalous, inasmuch as the birth of Isaac, already recorded in Priestly-Code, is included in his own genealogy. It looks as if the editor had handled his document somewhat freely, inserting the words יִצְחָק בֶּן־‎ in the original heading תּוֹלְדֹת אַבְרָהָם‎] (compare verse ¹²).――=20.= פדן‎] Syriac (‡ Syriac word), Arabic _faddān_ = ‘yoke of oxen’; hence (in Arabic) a definite measure of land (_jugerum_: compare Lane, 2353 b). A similar sense has been claimed for Assyrian _padanu_ on the authority of II R. 62, 33 a, b (Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 135). On this view ‎ פ׳ ארם‎ would be equivalent to שְׂדֵה אֲרָם‎ = ‘field of Aram’ in Hosea 12¹³. Ordinarily, _padanu_ means ‘way’ (Delitzsch _Assyrisches Handwörterbuch_, 515 f.); hence it has been thought that the word is another designation of Ḥarran (see 11³¹), in the neighbourhood of which a place _Paddānā_ (_vicus prope Ḥarran_: Robert Payne Smith _Thesaurus Syriacus_ 3039) has been known from early Christian times: Nöldeke, however, thinks this may be due to a Christian localisation of the biblical story (_Encyclopædia Biblica_, i. 278). Others less plausibly connect the name with the kingdom of _Patin_, with its centre North of the Lake of Antioch (Winckler _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 38).

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=21‒23. The pre-natal oracle.=――=21.= With the prolonged barrenness of Rebekah, compare the cases of Sarah, and Rachel (29³¹), the mothers of Samson (Judges 13²), Samuel (1 Samuel 1²), and John the Baptist (Luke 1⁷).――_Isaac prayed to Yahwe_] Compare 1 Samuel 1¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ. No miraculous intervention is suggested; and our only regret is that this glimpse of everyday family piety is so tantalisingly meagre.――=22.= During pregnancy the children _crushed one another_] ( _v.i._) in a struggle for priority of birth.

Compare the story of Akrisios and Proitus (Apollodorus _Bibliotheca_ ii. 2. 1 ff.), sons of Abas, king of Argos, who κατὰ γαστρὸς μὲν ἔτι ὄντες ἐστασίαζον πρὸς ἀλλήλους. The sequel presents a certain parallelism to the history of Esau and Jacob, which has a bearing on the question whether there is an element of mythology behind the ethnological interpretation of the biblical narrative (see pages 455 f.). Another parallel is the Polynesian myth of the twins Tangaroa and Rongo (Cheyne _Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_, 356).

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‎ =21.= עתר‎] peculiar to Yahwist in Hexateuch: Exodus 8⁴ᐧ ⁵ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ²⁶ 9²⁸ 10¹⁷ᐧ ¹⁸. In Arabic _‛atr_ and _‛atīrat_ mean animals slain in sacrifice; hence Hebrew הַעְתִּיר‎ (Hiphil may everywhere be read instead of Qal) probably referred originally to sacrifice accompanied by prayer, though no trace of the former idea survives in Hebrew: “Das Gebet ist der Zweck oder die Interpretation des Opfers, die Begriffe liegen nahe bei einander” (Wellhausen 142).

* * * * *

Rebekah, regarding this as a portent, expresses her dismay in words not quite intelligible in the text: _If it_ [is to] _be so, why then am I...?_] _v.i._――_to inquire of Yahwe_] to seek an oracle at the sanctuary.――=23.= The oracle is communicated through an inspired personality, like the Arabic _kāhin_ (Wellhausen _Reste arabischen Heidentums_², 134 ff.), and is rhythmic in form (_ib._ 135).――_two nations_] whose future rivalries are prefigured in the struggle of the infants.――The point of the prophecy is in the last line: _The elder shall serve the younger_ (see on 27²⁹ᐧ ⁴⁰).

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‎ =22.= ויתרצצו‎] LXX ἐσκίρτων (the same word as Luke 1⁴¹ᐧ ⁴⁴), perhaps confusing רוץ‎, ‘run,’ with רצץ‎, ‘break.’ More correctly, Aquila συνεθλάσθησαν; Symmachus διεπάλαιον.――אם כן למה זה אנכי‎] LXX εἰ οὕτως μοι μέλλει γένεσθαι, ἵνα τί μοι τοῦτο; But the זָה‎ merely emphasises the interrogative (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 136 _c_), and the latter part of the sentence seems incomplete: Vulgate _quid necesse fuit concipere?_ Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac phrase). Graetz supplies הָרָה‎; Dillmann, Ball, Kittel חַיָּה‎ (compare 27⁴⁶); Frankenberg (_Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen_, 1901, 697) changes אנכי‎ to אחיה‎, while Gunkel makes it אֻנָּה לִי‎ (Psalms 91¹⁰), with זה‎ as subject.――=23.= לְאֹם‎] a poetic word; in Hexateuch only 27²⁹ (Yahwist).――צעיר‎] ‘the small[er],’ in the sense of ‘younger,’ is characteristic of Yahwist (19³¹ᐧ ³⁴ᐧ ³⁵ᐧ ³⁸ 29²⁶ 43³³, Joshua 6²⁶ [1 Kings 16³⁴]†).

* * * * *

=24‒26. Birth and naming of the twins.=――=24.= Compare 38²⁷⁻³⁰, the only other description of a twin-birth in the Old Testament.――=25.= ‎אַדְמוֹנִי‎――either _tawny_ or _red-haired_――is a play on the name Edom (see on verse ³⁰); similarly, _all over like a mantle of hair_ (שֶׁעָר‎) is a play on Sē‛îr, the country of the Edomites (36⁸). It is singular that the name _‛Ēsāw_ itself (on which _v.i._) finds no express etymology.――=26a.= _with his hand holding Esau’s heel_] (Hosea 12⁴) a last effort (verse ²²) to secure the advantage of being born first. There are no solid grounds for thinking (with Gunkel, Luther [_Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 128], Nowack, al.) that Hosea 12⁴ᵃ ‎(בבטן עָקַב את־אחיו‎) presupposes a different version of the legend, in which Jacob actually wrested the priority from his brother (compare 38²⁸ ᶠᐧ). The clause is meant as an explanation of the name ‘Jacob.’

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‎ =24.= תּוֹמִים‎] properly תְּאֹמִים‎ (so _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_), as 38²⁷.――=25.= אַדְמוֹנִי‎ used again only of David, 1 Samuel 16¹² 17⁴². It is usually explained of the ‘reddish brown’ hue of the skin; but there is much to be said for the view that it means ‘red-haired’ (LXX πυρράκης, Vulgate _rufus_: so Gesenius, Tuch, al.). The incongruity of the word with the name עֵשָׂו‎ creates a suspicion that it may be either a gloss or a variant from a parallel source (Dillmann): for various conjectures see Budde _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 217²; Cheyne _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 1333; Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, i. 344 f.――עֵשָׂו‎ has no Hebrew etymology. The nearest comparison is Arabic _’a‛taʸ_ (so most) = ‘hirsute’ (also ‘stupid’), though that would require as strict Hebrew equivalent ‎ עֵשָׁו‎ (Driver). A connexion with the Phœnician Οὐσωος, brother of _Šamêmrûm_, and a hero of the chase, is probable, though not certain. There is also a goddess _‛Asît_, figured on Egyptian monuments, who has been thought to be a female form of Esau (Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 316 f.).――ויקראו‎] LXX, Peshiṭtå ליקרא‎, as verse ²⁶; but _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ has plural both times. In any case the subject is indefinite.――=26.= יַֽעֲקֹב‎ is a contraction of יעקבאל‎ (compare יִפְתָּח‎, Joshua 15⁴³), Judges 11¹ ᶠᶠᐧ with יִפְתַּח־אֵל‎, Joshua 19¹⁴ᐧ ²⁷; יַבְנֶה‎, 2 Chronicles 26⁶ with יַבְנְאֵל‎, Joshua 15¹¹) which occurs (a) as a _place_ name in central Palestine on the list of Thothmes III. (No 102: _Y‛ḳb’r_);¹ and (b) as a _personal_ name (_Ya‛ḳub-ilu_)² in a Babylonian contract tablet of the age of Ḫammurabi. The most obvious interpretation of names of this type is to take them as verbal sentences, with ’Ēl as subject: ‘God overreaches,’ or ‘follows,’ or ‘rewards,’ according to the sense given to the √ עקב‎ (see Gray, _Studies in Hebrew Proper Names_, 218).³ They may, however, be nominal sentences: ‘Ya‛ḳōb is God’ (see Meyer 282); in which case the meaning of the name יַֽעֲקֹב‎ is pushed a step farther back. The question whether Jacob was originally a tribe, a deity, or an individual man, thus remains unsettled by etymology.――At end of verse, LXX adds Ῥεβέκκα,――an improvement in style.

¹ Meyer _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, vi. 8; _Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 251 f., 281 f.; Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 162 f.; Luther, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xxi. 60 ff.――The name has since been read by Müller in a list of Ramses II., and (defectively written) in one of Ramses III.: see _Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1907, i. 27.――Questioned by Langdon, _The Expository Times_, xxi. (1909), page 90.

² Hommel _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 96, 112. According to Hommel, the contracted form _Yaḳubu_ also occurs in the Tablets (_ib._ 203¹).

³ In Hebrew the verb (a denominative from עָקֵב‎, ‘heel’) is only used with allusion to the story or character of Jacob (27³⁶, Hosea 12⁴, Jeremiah 9³†: in Job 37⁴ the text is doubtful), and expresses the idea of insidiousness or treachery. So ‎ עָקֵב‎ (Psalms 49⁶†), עָקֹב‎ (Jeremiah 17⁹), עָקְבָּה‎ (2 Kings 10¹⁹†). The meanings ‘follow’ and ‘reward’ are found in Arabic (Brown-Driver-Briggs, 784 a).

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=27, 28. Their manner of life.=――=27.= Esau becomes _a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field_] It is hardly necessary to suppose that the phrases are variants from different documents. Though this conception of Esau’s occupation is not consistently maintained (see 33⁹), it has doubtless some ethnographic significance; and game is said to be plentiful in the Edomite country (Buhl, _Edomiter_, 43).――Jacob, on the other hand, chooses the half-nomadic pastoral life which was the patriarchal ideal. אִישׁ תָּם‎, elsewhere ‘an ethically blameless man’ (Job 1⁸ etc.), here describes the _orderly_, well-disposed _man_ (_Scoticè_, ‘douce’), as contrasted with the undisciplined and irregular huntsman.――=28.= A preparation for chapter 27, which perhaps followed immediately on these two verses. Verse ²⁷, however, is also presupposed by♦

♦ Text missing in original book.

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‎ =28.= כִּי צַיִד בְּפִיו‎] A curious phrase, meaning ‘venison was to his taste.’ It would be easier to read (with Ball al.) לְפִיו‎; or an adjective (טוֹב‎?) may have fallen out. LXX, Peshiṭtå appear to have read צֵידוֹ‎.

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=29‒34. Esau parts with the birthright.=――The superiority of Israel to Edom is popularly explained by a typical incident, familiar to the pastoral tribes bordering on the desert, where the wild huntsman would come famishing to the shepherd’s tent to beg for a morsel of food. At such times the ‘man of the field’ is at the mercy of the tent-dweller; and the ordinary Israelite would see nothing immoral in a transaction like this, where the advantage is pressed to the uttermost.――The legend takes no account of the fact that Edom, as a settled state older than Israel, must have been something more than a mere nation of hunters. The contrasted types of civilisation――Jacob the shepherd and Esau the hunter――were firmly fixed in the popular mind; and the supremacy of the former was an obvious corollary.――=29.= Jacob _stewed something_: an intentionally indefinite description, the nature of the dish being reserved as a surprise for verse ³⁴.――=30.= _Let me gulp some of the red――that red there!_] With a slight vocalic change (_v.i._), we may render: _some of that red seasoning_ (strictly ‘obsonium’).――_’Ĕdōm_] a play on the word for ‘red’ (אָדֹם‎). The name is “a memento of the never-to-be-forgotten greed and stupidity of the ancestor” (Gunkel).――=31.= Jacob seizes the opportunity to secure the long-coveted ‘birthright,’ _i.e._ the superior status which properly belonged to the first-born son.

The rare term בְּכֹרָה‎ denotes the advantages and rights usually enjoyed by the eldest son, including such things as (a) natural vigour of body and character (Genesis 49³, Deuteronomy 21¹⁷: ‎ ∥ רֵאשִׁית אוֹן‎), creating a presumption of success in life, (b) a position of honour as head of the family (Genesis 27²⁹ 49⁸), and (c) a double share of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21¹⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ). By a legal fiction this status was conceived as transferable from the actual first-born to another son who had proved himself more worthy of the dignity (1 Chronicles 5¹ ᶠᐧ). When applied to tribes or nations, it expresses superiority in political might or material prosperity; and this is the whole content of the notion in the narrative before us. The idea of _spiritual_ privilege, or a mystic connexion (such as is suggested in Hebrews 12¹⁶ ᶠᐧ) between the birthright and the blessing of chapter 27, is foreign to the spirit of the ancient legends, which owe their origin to ætiological reflexion on the historic relations of Israel and Edom. The passage furnishes no support to the ingenious theory of Jacob’s (_Biblical Archaeology_ 46 ff.), that an older custom of “junior right” is presupposed by the patriarchal tradition.

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‎ =29.= ויזד――נזיד‎] זוּד‎ only here in the literal sense; elsewhere = ‘act presumptuously.’ The derivative נזיד‎ (2 Kings 4³⁸, Haggai 2¹²) with rare prefix _na_ (common in Assyrian).――=30.= הַלְעִיטֵנִי‎ (ἅπαξ λεγόμενον)] a coarse expression suggesting bestial voracity; used in New Hebrew of the feeding of cattle.――האדם האדם‎] The repetition of the same word is awkward, even in an expression of impatient greed. The emendation referred to above consists in reading the first הָֽאֱדֹם‎ after Arabic _’idām_ = ‘seasoning or condiment for bread’ (compare verse ³⁴): so Boysen (cited in Schleusner², i. 969), T. D. Anderson (_ap._ Dillmann). This is better than (Driver al.) to make the change in both places, LXX (τοῦ ἑψέματος τοῦ πυρροῦ τούτου) and Vulgate (_de coctione hac rufa_) seem to differentiate the words.――=31.= כַּיּוֹם‎] = ‘first of all,’ as ³³, 1 Samuel 2¹⁶, 1 Kings 1⁵¹ 22⁵ (Brown-Driver-Briggs, 400 b).

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=32.= Esau’s answer reveals the sensual nature of the man: the remoter good is sacrificed to the passing necessity of the moment, which his ravenous appetite leads him to exaggerate.――הֹלֵךְ לָמוּת‎ does not mean ‘exposed to death sooner or later’ (Abraham Ibn Ezra, Dillmann, al.), but ‘_at the point of death_ now.’――=34.= The climax of the story is Esau’s unconcern even when he discovers that he has bartered the birthright for such a trifle as a dish of lentil soup.――עֲדָשִׁים‎ (2 Samuel 17²⁸, 23¹¹, Ezekiel 4⁹), still a common article of diet in Egypt and Syria, under the name _‛adas_: the colour is said to be ‘a darkish brown’ (_A Dictionary of the Bible_, iii. 95a).――The last clause implies a certain moral justification of the transaction: if Esau was defrauded, he was defrauded of that which he was incapable of appreciating.