Genesis 17

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 28

   וַיֵּרָא is the niphal of רָאָה "see," "was seen," where the KJV and RSV have "appeared." The plain passive keeps the one verb that runs from Hagar's "Have I seen … the one seeing me?" (16:13) through this verse and 18:1 to the mountain where "Adonai shall be seen" (22:14), and to Exod 6:3, "I was seen by Abraham, by Isaac and by Jacob as El Shaddai."

2. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the Almighty God" (KJV) / "God Almighty" (RSV)

   Rulings 9, 18, 46

   שַׁדַּי has no agreed etymology. (a) שַׁד "breast": Jacob's blessing joins "Shaddai" to "blessings of breasts (שָׁדַיִם) and womb" (49:25), and the name comes with a promise of fruitfulness each time it is spoken (28:3; 35:11; 48:3–4), as here (vv. 2, 6). (b) Akkadian šadû "mountain," "El of the mountain." (c) שֶׁ־דַּי "who is enough": Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion have ἱκανός "sufficient," and Genesis Rabbah 46:3 and b. Ḥagigah 12a explain "I am the one who said to my world, Enough!" (d) שָׁדַד "destroy," the pun of Isa 13:6 and Joel 1:15, "like destruction from Shaddai it comes." The LXX has "I am your God" here and παντοκράτωρ "all-ruler" in Job; the Vulgate's omnipotens follows the Greek, and the KJV's "Almighty" follows the Vulgate. El compounds are names (9); the WPRB keeps "El Shaddai," not "Almighty," which would decide the etymology. Exod 6:3 names this as the name the fathers knew.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 20

   "Walk about" is the hithpael of הָלַךְ, the verb of Enoch and Noah, who walked about "with the elohim" (5:22, 24; 6:9). Abraham walks "before" (24:40; 48:15). Genesis Rabbah 30:10 contrasts them: Noah needed support, Abraham walked ahead in his own light. תָּמִים is "whole," the word of Noah (6:9). Genesis Rabbah 46:4 joins it to what follows: the foreskin is a blemish, and Abraham is made whole by its removal.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "many nations" (KJV) / "a multitude of nations" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 24

   הָמוֹן is from הָמָה "roar, be in tumult": the noise of a crowd and the crowd itself (1 Sam 14:16; "the roar of many peoples, like the roaring of the seas," Isa 17:12; "the roar of the rain," 1 Kgs 18:41). "Throng" keeps the crowd and its press; the word carries the pun of v. 5.

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18, 24

   אַבְרָהָם is heard as אַב הֲמוֹן "father of a throng." The explanation is by sound, not grammar: Abram, "the father is exalted," gains one letter, ה, and the second half of "Abraham" is not the word הָמוֹן. English cannot carry the pun while keeping both glosses (17). b. Berakhot 13a counts it a transgression to call Abraham "Abram" after this verse; Neh 9:7 recalls the renaming. Genesis Rabbah 12:9 hears in the added ה the letter by which the world was made (reading בְּהִבָּרְאָם, 2:4, as בְּאַבְרָהָם). Names table.

   See the table

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "a father of many nations have I made thee" (KJV, RSV "made you")

   Ruling 2

   נָתַן with a second object is "make into": "a prophet to the nations I gave you" (Jer 1:5), and again vv. 6 and 20. The home gloss holds, with "for" in v. 6 and 20 marking the role; "make" is עָשָׂה's (20).

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 107, 113

   "To be to you for Elohim" is the covenant formula, here spoken for the first time: "I will be to them for Elohim, and they shall be to me for a people" (Jer 31:33; Exod 6:7; Lev 26:12). The לְ is one of role, so "be … for," not "become" (113). Elohim refers to the speaker, and the capital is printed (107); so in v. 8.

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "an everlasting possession" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 39

   אֲחֻזָּה is from אָחַז "grasp, hold": land held. The first piece of Canaan Abraham holds is a grave, "a tenure of a burial place" (23:4, 9, 20). "Possession" would take the English of יָרַשׁ "possess" (15:7), and "holding" is מֶשֶׁק's (15:2). "Tenure," land held, keeps the grip of the root.

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 10

   הִמּוֹל is a niphal infinitive absolute standing as a command; it is printed as a to-infinitive, which does not impose a person or a tense (10). The covenant of circumcision is recalled at Lev 12:3, Acts 7:8 and Rom 4:9–12, and turned inward at Deut 10:16; 30:6 and Jer 4:4, "circumcise the foreskin of your heart."

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "bought with money" (KJV) / "bought with your money" (RSV)

    Ruling 2

    מִקְנָה is from קָנָה "acquire" (core gloss; 4:1; 14:19). A person bought is called an acquisition, and the same root gives מִקְנֶה "livestock" (4:20). "Silver," not "money," keeps the metal (39).

11. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "stranger" (KJV) / "foreigner" (RSV)

    Ruling 2

    נֵכָר is an abstract noun, "foreignness, what is foreign"; "son of foreignness" names a member of the class, as "son of a hundred years" names an age. So Exod 12:43, "no son of foreignness shall eat of it"; Isa 56:3, 6, the sons of foreignness who join themselves to Adonai; Ezek 44:7, 9, "sons of foreignness, foreskinned of heart and foreskinned of flesh." "Sojourner" is גֵּר's.

12. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the uncircumcised man child" (KJV) / "any uncircumcised male" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    עָרֵל is not a negative of מוּל "circumcise" but the adjective of עָרְלָה "foreskin," "having a foreskin." Fruit trees are "foreskinned" for their first three years (Lev 19:23); ears (Jer 6:10), lips (Exod 6:12, 30) and hearts (Jer 9:25; Ezek 44:7) are foreskinned. "Uncircumcised" would make the word the negative of the next verb; "foreskinned" keeps it with its noun.

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "that soul shall be cut off from his people" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 8

    כָּרַת in the niphal is the penalty of being cut off (Exod 12:15, 19; 31:14; Lev 7:20–27); m. Keritot 1:1 lists thirty-six offences that carry it. Whether it means early death, death at the hand of Elohim, or exclusion is disputed (b. Moʿed Qaṭan 28a). The male who is not cut in the flesh is himself cut off, and the covenant itself was "cut" in 15:18. נֶפֶשׁ is feminine, so "her" (8). The plural "peoples" is the kin, as in "gathered to his peoples" (25:8, 17).

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    שָׂרַי and שָׂרָה are both "princess," feminine of שַׂר "officer" (12:15; "princesses," Judg 5:29; 1 Kgs 11:3). Unlike Abraham's, the new name is given no reason. Genesis Rabbah 47:1: Sarai was princess for herself, Sarah for the whole world. y. Sanhedrin 2:6 has the yod taken from Sarai complain before Elohim until it was given to Hoshea, who became Joshua (Num 13:16). Names table.

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 54, 74

    The Masoretic text has "her" both times. The LXX reads the second as the son: εὐλογήσω αὐτόν, καὶ ἔσται εἰς ἔθνη, "I will bless him, and he shall become nations." The Masoretic text is printed. Kings are promised from Sarah as from Abraham (v. 6), and again to Jacob (35:11).

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    יִצְחָק is "he laughs," and וַיִּצְחָק "and he laughed" in v. 17 is the name with the conjunction. The laughter runs on: Sarah's (18:12–15), the birth (21:6, "Elohim has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh for me"), Ishmael "laughing" (21:9), Isaac "laughing" with Rebekah (26:8). Targum Onkelos renders Abraham's laughter "and he rejoiced," and Rashi distinguishes it from Sarah's: his was joy, hers mockery, so only hers is rebuked (18:13). The text uses one verb for both. Paul: "he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, as good as dead, being about a hundred years old" (Rom 4:19). Names table.

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 92, 107, 9

    הָאֱלֹהִים has the article, which with no agreement would be "the elohim" (92). Here the clause has the singular "before your face," and the referent is the one who has been speaking (vv. 15–16), so the capital is printed (9, 107) and the article kept. The WPRB has "God."

18. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed" (KJV) / "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40

    אֲבָל is affirmative in the older books, "indeed, truly" ("indeed we are guilty," 42:21; "truly she has no son," 2 Kgs 4:14; 2 Sam 14:5), and adversative in the later, "however, but" (Dan 10:7, 21; Ezra 10:13). Here it answers Abraham's wish for Ishmael. The LXX has Ἰδού "look." "Indeed" keeps the affirmation, and in English it can also open a correction, which holds the RSV's "No, but."

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    שְׁמַעְתִּיךָ "I have heard you" answers the name: Ishmael is "El hears" (16:11).

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    נָשִׂיא is from נָשָׂא "lift," one lifted up: the head of a tribe or clan. The twelve are named at 25:13–16, "twelve chieftains by their nations," a twelve beside Israel's (35:22–26). The Hittites call Abraham "a chieftain of Elohim" (23:6); Num 1–7 has the chieftains of the tribes. "Prince" (KJV, RSV) suggests a king's son.

21. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "at this set time" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 122

    מוֹעֵד is from יָעַד "appoint": the agreed time, place or meeting, "appointment" in every use (1:14; Exod 27:21, "the tent of appointment"). Here it is the set time of the birth. Rashi, from Lot's unleavened bread (19:3), dates the visit of 18:1 to Passover, and b. Rosh Hashanah 11a has Isaac born at Passover. "Appointment" keeps the appointing, the set time and the meeting. The word returns at 18:14 and 21:2, "at the appointment of which Elohim had spoken."

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 39

    בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה, "on the bone of this day," is the very day (7:13; Exod 12:17, 41, 51; Deut 32:48). The phrase marks the days that count: the entry into the box, the exodus, the death of Moses, and here the circumcision.