Nothing but a continuation of the previous chapter, and of the J story. Honestly these chapters are a model for what coherent, continuous, consistent biblical writing looks like. And they highlight the incoherence of other passages.
The argument that sometimes pops up, that those of us engaged in literary-historical criticism are simply misunderstanding how ancient literature worked, or judging it through a modern lens, crashes against the rocks of passages like this (and there are plenty of them).
Consistency of narrative claim, of basic plot - who, what, when, where, why, how - isn’t some modern literary concept. We know this because passages like this exist, that display all the consistency we moderns expect from a text.
And we know it because ancient readers - the rabbis, for sure, but even biblical authors themselves - recognized the inconsistencies and contradictions and tried to account for them. They did so with different arguments and priors, to be sure, but they saw the problems too.
Plot consistency isn’t a modern literary phenomenon. It’s literally the basic foundation of how humans experience time and space. We occupy one place at a time, and events happen to us in logical and chronological sequence. That’s not a literary construct. It’s life.
This extended narrative also reveals how deftly biblical authors could portray emotional depth, of which there’s plenty here, from the brothers to Jacob to Joseph. This is actually good writing (which isn’t always true of the Bible).
Scholars who read this lengthy, intricate, emotionally resonant narrative and immediately think “it must be a later text” are engaging in the most common form of orientalism. To assume that the ancient Hebrew authors couldn’t write like this is to reveal one’s cultural biases.
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Here is the moment that Joseph has been waiting for since Gen 37: the moment when Judah in particular proves himself to have changed, to value others above himself, to be willing to take the place of the brother bound for slavery.
It’s also the third time that we’ve gone through the whole sequence of events: first when Joseph originally meets his brothers, then when they tell Jacob about it, and now when Judah tells Joseph about when they told Jacob about it. It’s repetitive just like Gen 24, but longer.
As repetitious as it is (and sort of boring to read), it does serve the purpose of ensuring that all of these chapters are an inseparable unit. (See yesterday’s diatribe.) One new bit: Judah reports Jacob as mentioning how he believes Joseph to have died: torn by a beast (44:28).
All J, every last word. Herewith a selection of distinctively J features, with commentary on a few ostensibly sticky points.
The famine is in Canaan, not just Egypt. This picks up and reinforces the second of the two threads from the end of the previous chapter, in which the whole world is coming to Egypt for food. The word for rations here is שבר, which, as noun and verb, is only in the J story here.
Jacob’s holding back of Benjamin is naturally tied to the previous loss of Benjamin’s brother, Joseph; the story of Jacob mourning the loss of Joseph is, of course, from J in Gen 37.
Poor Jacob - you take advantage of your dying father’s poor eyesight on his deathbed just once, and now you have to work seven years just to have someone do a body switch on you when you can’t see? FULL CIRCLE, DUDE.
Really the only notable thing here compositionally (aside from the open question of which source anything in here really belongs to) is that the two notices about the handmaids pretty clearly don’t belong, at least not where they are.
They’re patently background information, but presented as if they’re part of the main narrative line (with the wayyiqtol); NRSV puts them in parentheses, JPS makes them pluperfect. Both are recognizing that they are disruptive as written.
Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing - and why not? Jacob has been nothing but awful to him. The other place the word for “hated” here shows up in J? Joseph’s brothers hoping Joseph doesn’t hate them for what they did (Gen 50:15).
Which is to say, this isn’t really hate like “hold a grudge against,” as the JPS takes it, which implies some lack of charity on the part of the subject. At least in J, it’s used for righteous anger. As for Esau’s desire to kill Jacob, we don’t know if he’s just venting. Maybe.
I will say that the narrator is keeping things a little loose here: Esau makes the threat talking to himself, בלבו, “in his heart,” but someone somehow overhears it and tells Rebekah. Who and how is elided by the use of the passive, “Rebekah was told.” Lazy writing, methinks.
It’s lack of hospitality. Not homosexuality - lack of hospitality. The story isn’t about sexual preference. It’s not a prooftext for the Bible or God being anti-gay. It’s lack of hospitality. Not homosexuality. It’s not about that. Okay?
Why will Lot be spared the fate of the rest of Sodom? Not because he’s related to Abraham - that doesn’t come up in this chapter at all. It’s because he, alone of everyone in the city - literally everyone, according to 19:4 - was hospitable to the passing visitors.
There’s no indication that the messengers even know who’s taken them in. They spare him because he was kind to them, because he tried to protect them, even at risk to his own life. The story doesn’t require Abraham to justify Lot’s rescue. It’s his hospitality that does it.
Starting a series of running notes on the #Pentateuch. Not a full commentary, just thoughts, mostly on issues of composition and translation of the #Bible.
Hope it's useful/interesting, and hoping for engagement: add'l insights from scholars, questions from anyone.
My favorite example of the truism that translation is interpretation: the first three words of the Bible. Believe in creation ex nihilo? "In the beginning God created." Don't believe that? "When God began to create."
Which one is correct? Neither is decisively right, though the grammar leans slightly against the famous KJV wording. Elsewhere בראשית is in construct with the following word (Jer 26:1, e.g.); if here too, then it's "In the beginning of God's creating."