Genesis 21

Notes

1. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the LORD visited Sarah" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 3

   פָּקַד is to turn one's attention to someone and act on what one finds. It is used for good: Sarah here, and Joseph's last word, "Elohim will surely attend to you" (50:24–25), which Moses repeats at the bush (Exod 3:16; 4:31). It is used for ill: "attending to the iniquity of fathers on sons" (Exod 20:5). And it is used by office: the muster of the tribes (Num 1:3, 19), the overseer (39:4–5). The KJV's "visit" served for all of these, and it now means a social call. "Attend to" keeps the attention and the action, for blessing or for reckoning, and it holds through the formula. The verse is built in two parallel halves, "said" and "spoken," "attended to" and "did": the promise of 17:16–21 and 18:10–14 kept. The choice is corpus-wide, and the report raises it.

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 26, 122

   לִזְקֻנָיו is a plural of abstraction, "his old age," printed singular (26), as in "a son of old age" (37:3, Joseph; 44:20, Benjamin). The appointment (מוֹעֵד, 122e) is the one set at 17:21 and 18:14, "at the appointment I will return to you." אֹתוֹ "of" refers back to the appointment: the time Elohim had spoken of.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 81, 14, 102

   Sarah's saying (vv. 6–7, after the verbs of saying) is lined by the translator under ruling 81(b). The Leningrad Codex runs it as prose, but it is two couplets, each turning on verbs of the narrative: "laughter… laugh" and "suckled… borne." The cola follow the main divider of each verse (14): the atnach under אֱלֹהִים in v. 6 and under שָׂרָה in v. 7. Like Lamech's song (4:23–24) and Noah's curse (9:25–27), the lines are a speech of naming and blessing set inside prose.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me" (KJV) / "God has made laughter for me; every one who hears will laugh over me" (RSV)

   Rulings 17, 2, 95

   צְחֹק is "laughter," the noun of צָחַק, and the verb follows it. Isaac's name (יִצְחָק, "he laughs") is spelled out by his mother, and Abraham's laughing (17:17) and her own (18:12–15) are turned around. "Laughter… laugh" keeps both home glosses and the root (17). יִצְחַק־לִי has the preposition לְ, which may be "with me," "at me" or "for me" (on my account). The KJV's "with me" makes the hearers share her joy, and the RSV's "over me" makes them laugh at an old mother; Rashi has "will rejoice for me." "For me" keeps the preposition's plain sense, and in English it holds both the joy and the laugh at her expense, as the Hebrew does. "Made… for me" (עָשָׂה לִי) is "make," the object being made (20).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 15

   מִלֵּל is a rare verb of speaking, mostly in poetry and late Hebrew (Job 8:2; 33:3; Ps 106:2), so it is "utter," apart from "say" and "speak." The perfect in the question is printed "would have uttered": who would ever have said such a thing? "Sons" is the plural of the general case, though she nursed one. הֵינִיקָה is the hiphil of יָנַק "suck," to give suck: "suckle."

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   Weaning came late: the mother of 2 Macc 7:27 says "I nursed you three years," and Hannah keeps Samuel "until she weaned him" before bringing him to Shiloh (1 Sam 1:22–24). A feast for it is attested only here. Isaac would then be two or three, and Ishmael, born when Abraham was eighty-six (16:16), about sixteen. "Became great" is the qal of גָּדַל, the home gloss "be great" (H1431).

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "mocking" (KJV) / "playing with her son Isaac" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 37, 122, 46

   מְצַחֵק is the piel participle of צָחַק, the verb of Isaac's name, in the same form as 19:14, where Lot seemed to his sons-in-law to be "laughing." The chain runs 17:17; 18:12–15; 21:6 and here, and the home gloss holds through it (37). The Hebrew gives no object. The LXX supplies one, παίζοντα μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτῆς, "playing with Isaac her son," and the Vulgate (ludentem cum Isaac filio suo) and the RSV follow. The piel elsewhere is to play or sport: Isaac "playing" with Rebekah, in a way that shows she is his wife (26:8); Potiphar's wife's charge, "to sport with us" (39:14, 17); the people who "rose up to play" before the calf (Exod 32:6); Samson made to "play" before the Philistines (Judg 16:25). Tosefta Sotah 6:6 and Genesis Rabbah 53:11 give the rabbis' readings: idolatry, sexual sin, bloodshed, or a quarrel over the inheritance. Paul reads it as persecution: "as then the one born by flesh persecuted the one born by spirit" (Gal 4:29). The bare "laughing" keeps the pun on Isaac's name, which may be the point: Sarah sees the other son "Isaac-ing." It leaves what he was doing to the reader, as the Hebrew does. The report raises the piel.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 34, 76, 46

   אָמָה is "slave-woman," the acquired and owned side of the split (76). In Gen 16 Hagar was Sarai's שִׁפְחָה, "maid" (16:1–8), and Sarah's change of word here makes her property. Sarah names neither Hagar nor Ishmael: "this slave-woman and her son." "Possess" is יָרַשׁ, the heir taking possession (15:3–4). Paul quotes the verse in Gal 4:30, with "the free woman" for "with my son, with Isaac."

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 4

   כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע, "for in Isaac shall seed be called for you," keeps "seed" (H2233), the word of the promise (12:7; 13:15–16; 15:5, 13, 18). Rom 9:7 and Heb 11:18 quote the line from the LXX (ἐν Ἰσαὰκ κληθήσεταί σοι σπέρμα). In v. 13 the son of the slave-woman is also "your seed": two seeds, and one is "called."

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "putting it on her shoulder, and the child" (KJV) / "putting it on her shoulder, along with the child" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40, 74

    The syntax is loose: "and he gave to Hagar—he put on her shoulder—and the child, and he sent her away." Either the child is a second object of "gave," or the child too was put on her shoulder. The LXX takes the second, καὶ ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸν ὦμον αὐτῆς τὸ παιδίον, "and he put the child on her shoulder." That fits v. 15, where she "threw the child under one of the shrubs," and v. 18, "lift the lad." It does not fit the chronology, by which Ishmael is about sixteen (16:16; 21:5, 8). Rashi says Sarah's eye had made him ill, so that he could not walk. The Hebrew order is printed with the dashes, so both readings stand. "Started early" is the verb made from שְׁכֶם "shoulder": Abraham loads at dawn, and Hagar's is the shoulder he loads. Beersheba is named here before the naming of vv. 31–33; the narrator uses the name the place would have.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 25, 74

    כִּמְטַחֲוֵי קֶשֶׁת is "about the shooters of a bow." The participle of טָחָה occurs only here: a bowshot's distance, near enough to see, far enough not to watch. "Let me not see" (אַל־אֶרְאֶה) is the negative of wish. The LXX gives the weeping to the child: ἀναβοῆσαν δὲ τὸ παιδίον ἔκλαυσεν, "and the child cried out and wept." That reading fits the next verse, "Elohim heard the voice of the lad." The Masoretic text gives Hagar the voice and the tears, and Elohim hears the lad, whose voice the reader has not heard. The Masoretic text is printed.

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    "Elohim heard" (שָׁמַע אֱלֹהִים) says twice in one verse what the lad's name says: יִשְׁמָעֵאל, "El hears," given at 16:11, "for Adonai has heard your affliction." The name is not spoken in the chapter; the verb carries it, and English "heard" carries the sense where the name cannot (17). "What to you, Hagar?" is an idiom of the body, kept (guide §4.12): what is wrong with you? "There where he is" (בַּאֲשֶׁר הוּא־שָׁם) is the place under the shrub. Genesis Rabbah 53:14 and Rashi read it as judgment by the present: he is judged as he is now, not as his descendants will be.

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "became an archer" (KJV) / "became an expert with the bow" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 25, 1

    רֹבֶה is tagged H7235, רָבָה "be many," whose home gloss would print "and he was many, a bowman." The participle is better taken from a second root רָבָה, "shoot": "the archers (רַבִּים) against Babylon" (Jer 50:29), "his archers surround me" (Job 16:13). The Vulgate has factus est iuvenis sagittarius, "he became a young man, an archer," taking the root "grow" for his age. The LXX has τοξότης, "archer." With "archer" for רֹבֶה and "bowman" for קַשָּׁת (from קֶשֶׁת "bow," v. 16), the two nouns stand side by side as in the Hebrew. וַיְהִי without לְ is "and he was" (104, 113a). The report asks for רָבָה II to be split from H7235 (25).

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "God is with thee in all that thou doest" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 38, 107, 46

    אֱלֹהִים עִמְּךָ is a verbless clause, with no verb to agree, and Abimelech, a Philistine king, is the speaker. Ruling 107's capital by reference covers a speaker who is Elohim or Elohim beside the divine name. Neither holds, so ruling 38 prints "elohim," lowercase, here and in the oath of v. 23, "swear to me by elohim." Abimelech has met Elohim in a dream (20:3–7) and may mean that one; he may also mean the divine power any king acknowledges when he swears. The lowercase keeps both. The report raises it with 20:13.

15. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "that thou wilt not deal falsely with me" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 21

    The oath keeps the literal "if," with its curse unspoken (21): "swear to me… if you will deal falsely with me," and then nothing, where the full formula adds "may Elohim do so to me and more" (1 Sam 3:17; 2 Sam 3:35). The KJV and RSV turn it into a promise. שָׁקַר is to deal falsely, to break faith (Lev 19:11; Ps 44:18; 89:34). The positive half follows: "according to the loyalty…" The verb of swearing, שָׁבַע, is the first link of the pun of v. 31.

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 24, 2

    נִין וָנֶכֶד is an alliterating pair for a man's line (Isa 14:22; Job 18:19), like English "kith and kin." The KJV has "my son, nor with my son's son," the RSV "my offspring or with my posterity." "Progeny and posterity" keeps the alliteration (24) and keeps both words apart from "son" (בֵּן) and "offspring" (וָלָד).

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 20, 2

    וְהוֹכִחַ is the hiphil of יָכַח, "set right," the verb of 20:16: there Sarah was "set right," and here Abraham sets Abimelech right, arguing his case. גָּזַל is "seize," to take by force (31:31; Mic 2:2). Wells are a cause of strife in the Negev, and Isaac's servants dig them and lose them again in 26:15–33.

18. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "but to day" (KJV) / "until today" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    בִּלְתִּי without לְ is the negative of exception, "except" (Num 11:6; 32:12). The lexicon fixes it only with לְ, "so as not to" (H1115). The bare form is printed "except," a split by construction that the report asks to declare.

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 20

    The hiphil of נָצַב is "stationed," the active of "be stationed" (H5324): Abraham sets the ewe-lambs to stand apart, as a witness is set (v. 30). The number is the first half of the pun of v. 31: "seven" (שֶׁבַע) ewe-lambs, and the two "swore" (נִשְׁבְּעוּ).

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18, 23, 24

    בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע is "Well of Seven" or "Well of the Oath." שֶׁבַע "seven" and the verb שָׁבַע "swear" (niphal) share their consonants, and an oath was sealed with sevens. The chapter builds the name from both: seven ewe-lambs (vv. 28–30), and the two of them swearing (vv. 23–24, 31). The LXX translates the name Φρέαρ ὁρκισμοῦ, "Well of the Oath," and so loses the seven. English has no pun that keeps "seven" and "swear" with their home glosses (17), and a coined one would put in the text a word the Hebrew lacks, so the name is printed in its familiar form (18) and the pun is here. Isaac names the place again (26:33), from a well called שִׁבְעָה.

21. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 74

    Abimelech's land is called "the land of the Philistines" here, at v. 34 and in 26:1, 8, 14–18. The Philistines settled on the coast of Canaan with the Sea Peoples in the twelfth century BCE, long after any date given for Abraham, so the name is the narrator's, for the land as later readers knew it. The Table of Nations derives them from the Casluhim (10:14).

22. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a grove" (KJV) / "a tamarisk tree" (RSV)

    Rulings 44, 112, 2

    אֵשֶׁל is the tamarisk, a desert tree with deep roots that grows where there is water below. Saul sits under "the tamarisk on the height" at Gibeah (1 Sam 22:6), and his bones are buried "under the tamarisk at Jabesh" (1 Sam 31:13). The KJV's "grove" follows the Vulgate nemus. Genesis Rabbah 54:6 debates orchard against inn, and b. Sotah 10a has Abraham's inn for travellers. The tree joins the great-tree field (44, 112): the terebinths of Moreh and Mamre (12:6; 13:18; 18:1), the oak of Deborah (35:8), and now Abraham's tamarisk. The report asks for it to be added to the set.

23. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the everlasting God" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 9, 18, 2

    אֵל עוֹלָם is a divine name under ruling 9, like El Elyon (14:18–22), El Shaddai (17:1) and El Roi (16:13). It is printed as a name, "El Olam," so עוֹלָם does not take its core gloss "age" here (2). As a phrase it is "El of the age," the El whose time is the long age, which Isa 40:28 takes up: "Elohim of the age, Adonai, creator of the ends of the land." A Canaanite title ʾil ʿlm, "El the eternal," is known from Ugarit, and Abraham calls on the name of Adonai and gives him that title. The WPRB has "the Everlasting God."

24. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "many days" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    רַב is "vast" (H7227), and "vast days" would make the days themselves large. With a plural of time the adjective counts, so "many" is printed, the sense of its root רָבָה "be many." "Sojourned" is the alien's life (גּוּר) that Abraham lives to the end (23:4, "a sojourner and a settler I am with you").