Genesis 28

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 104, 2

   קְהַל עַמִּים "an assembly of peoples": קָהָל keeps its core gloss "assembly," the word of the gathered people at Sinai (Deut 9:10) and of Israel as a body (Num 16:3). The phrase returns in the blessings that pass this one on: El Shaddai to Jacob at Bethel, "a nation and an assembly of nations shall be from you" (35:11), and Jacob to Joseph, "I will give you for an assembly of peoples" (48:4). Isaac's three verbs repeat the first blessing, "bear fruit and be many" (1:28; 9:1; 17:6, 20), now in the hiphil, "make you bear fruit and make you many." וְהָיִיתָ לִקְהַל is הָיָה with a לְ of result, so "become" (104). The first El Shaddai blessing was spoken to Abraham at 17:1.

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   Mahalath, מָחֲלַת, is called Basemath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth, in Esau's list of wives (36:3), where a Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite also stands at 26:34. The text does not reconcile the two lists. Esau's two Hittite women had been "bitterness of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah" (26:34–35); he answers what he has seen by taking a third woman from Abraham's own line, Ishmael's. The names are in the names table.

   See the table

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 74

   פָּגַע בְּ is "encounter, come upon" (32:2, the messengers of Elohim "encountered" Jacob as he left Laban). With a person and בְּ it is to press or intercede (23:8; Jer 7:16, "do not intercede with me"). b. Berakhot 26b takes it so here: Jacob instituted the evening prayer, since פְּגִיעָה is prayer. "The place" has the article, as the place Abraham saw from afar on the third day (22:3–4), and the word is said six times in vv. 11–19. Genesis Rabbah 68:9 hears in it a name of the Holy One, who is "the Place of the world." The English keeps "place" for every occurrence, so the chain is heard.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "put them for his pillows" (KJV) / "put it under his head" (RSV)

   Rulings 25, 39

   מְרַאֲשֹׁת is a noun of place from רֹאשׁ "head": the place at the head of one lying down. Saul's spear stands stuck in the ground "at his head-place" and David takes it from there (1 Sam 26:7, 11–12, 16). The cake and the jar of water are set "at his head-place" for Elijah (1 Kgs 19:6). In each case the thing is beside the head, not under it. The KJV's "pillows" and the RSV's "under his head" place the stone where the Hebrew does not say. "Head-place" keeps the noun and the root, so the stone at Jacob's head stands beside the stairway whose "head" touches the skies (v. 12) and the stone on whose "head" he pours oil (v. 18). The Hebrew has the plural "from the stones of the place" and no object for "put"; v. 18 says "the stone," so "it" is supplied. b. Hullin 91b and Genesis Rabbah 68:11 build on the plural: the stones quarrelled over which would bear the just man's head, and they became one stone.

5. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "a ladder" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 25, 1

   סֻלָּם occurs only here, so ruling 25 applies. Within the Bible it is read from סָלַל "heap up, cast up a way": "cast up, cast up the highway" (Isa 62:10), a siege-ramp "cast up" (Jer 50:26), and the noun מְסִלָּה "highway" (Num 20:19; Isa 40:3). That is a built way of ascent, not a leaning ladder of rungs. The cognate Akkadian simmiltu is a stair or flight of steps, including the stair of a temple-tower. Babylon's tower had its "head in the skies" (11:4); this stairway, which no one builds, has "its head touching the skies." The LXX κλίμαξ and the Vulgate scala serve for both ladder and stair. "Stairway" is printed, the reading of the root and the cognate; "ladder" is the expected one. The words are directional in the Hebrew, אַרְצָה "landward" and הַשָּׁמָיְמָה "skyward": the stairway stands on the land and reaches up to the skies. Jesus answers Nathanael with this verse: "you shall see the sky opened, and the messengers of God going up and coming down on the son of man" (John 1:51).

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "God" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 9, 38, 107

   אֱלֹהִים in "messengers of Elohim" (v. 12) and "house of Elohim" (vv. 17, 22) has no agreeing verb in its clause. By ruling 38 it would be lowercase, but ruling 107 capitalises it where it refers to a singular divine name in the passage. Here it does: ADONAI stands over Jacob and names himself "ADONAI, Elohim of Abraham your father and Elohim of Isaac" (v. 13), and Jacob says of the same place, "ADONAI is in this place" (v. 16). Jacob's vow then sets the two names side by side, "ADONAI will be to me for Elohim" (v. 21). The capital follows that reference. The construct "messengers of Elohim" returns when Jacob leaves Laban (32:2), and "house of Elohim" is the name the place takes, Bethel, "house of El" (v. 19). Jacob is not a foreigner speaking of an unnamed god, as at 20:11, where 38 keeps the lowercase. The WPRB has "God" in all three.

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "ascending and descending on it" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 41, 46, 93

   בּוֹ "on it" can refer to the stairway or to Jacob, since both nouns are masculine. Genesis Rabbah 68:12 records the dispute: one teacher said they went up and down the ladder, the other said they went up and down on Jacob. In that reading the messengers go up to look at Jacob's likeness engraved on the throne above and come down to see him asleep below. John 1:51 uses the verse with "on the son of man." The syntax ties בּוֹ to the nearest noun, the stairway, where the climbing is. Ruling 41 gives an inanimate referent "it," so "on it" is printed. The other reading has a doctrine resting on it (46), and under 93 a stranger reading that would decide a doctrine yields to the plain construction. The note keeps the reading of Genesis Rabbah and John.

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the LORD stood above it" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 1, 3

   עָלָיו is "over it" (the stairway) or "over him" (Jacob). With the niphal of נָצַב and a person, עַל is to stand by or over someone. The three men were "stationed over him" at Abraham's tent (18:2), and the servant "stationed over the spring" (24:13, 43) stood by it. The collocation with a person decides (3), and "over him" is printed, the stranger of the two readings (1). The RSV margin and the NJPS have "beside him." Adonai then speaks to the man lying on the ground, "the land on which you are lying." The two readings meet in the place: the stairway stands beside the sleeper, and Adonai stands over both.

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "thou shalt spread abroad" (KJV) / "you shall spread abroad" (RSV)

   Rulings 3, 2

   פָּרַץ is to break through or burst out. It names the breach of a wall (Neh 1:3; Isa 5:5) and Perez, "how you have burst a burst for yourself!" (38:29). Of increase it is growth that breaks its bounds. Jacob's "little" livestock "burst into a multitude" (30:30), and the man "burst out exceedingly" (30:43). Israel in Egypt: "the more they afflicted them, so the more they multiplied and so they burst out" (Exod 1:12). The collocation of increase decides (3), and "burst out" is printed, where the KJV and RSV "spread abroad" names only the result. The four directions answer 13:14, where Abram was told to lift his eyes northward, Negevward, eastward and seaward. The last clause repeats 12:3, "all the clans of the ground shall be blessed in you," with "and in your seed" added; at 22:18 and 26:4 the blessing is in the seed alone.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 2

    Each direction has the ending of direction. יָמָּה "seaward" is the west, since the sea lies west of the land, and the Negev, the dry south, stands for the south. The WPRB has "west" and "south."

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 20, 128

    The hiphil of שׁוּב keeps the verb of the qal, "return," with an object (128b; as at 14:16; 20:7; 24:5–8). So the promise and the vow share one word: "I will return you to this ground," and Jacob's "and I return in peace to the house of my father" (v. 21). The promise is answered when Jacob returns to this place (35:1–7).

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 103, 35

    עַד אֲשֶׁר אִם is one compound conjunction, "until": "until the cities lie waste" (Isa 6:11); Num 32:17. The אִם in it is not conditional, so no "if" is printed. The promise has no end-date: Adonai's keeping does not stop when the word is done. The clause says only that he will not forsake Jacob before it is done.

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 74

    אָכֵן declares a thing found true, often against what was assumed. Moses says "Certainly the matter is known" when he learns that his killing was seen (Exod 2:14). The people at Jer 3:23 say "Certainly in vain from the hills." The same word stands at Isa 53:4, "Certainly our sicknesses he bore." It can also turn a sentence, "But you shall die like a human" (Ps 82:7). Jacob thought he had stopped at a place where night overtook him; "certainly" holds the surprise. יֵשׁ "there is" keeps the particle of being, "there is ADONAI in this place," and stands against Jacob's "I, I did not know," the pronoun doubled.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "How dreadful is this place!" (KJV) / "How awesome is this place!" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 10

    נוֹרָא is the niphal participle of יָרֵא "fear," the verb that opens the verse: "And he feared and said, How feared is this place!" The participle names what is to be feared, as Adonai's deeds are "feared" (Exod 34:10) and his name is "great and feared" (Mal 1:14; Ps 99:3). The KJV and RSV give two English roots to the one Hebrew root, so the reader does not hear that the place is feared because Jacob fears it. The home gloss holds both (2).

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 35

    אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם is "this is nothing, except": the negation with אֵין and the exception with כִּי אִם. "None other than" carries both. The verse pairs the two names Jacob gives the place: "house of Elohim," which becomes Bethel (v. 19), and "gate of the skies," the opening at the stairway's head.

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a pillar" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 39

    מַצֵּבָה is from נָצַב "be stationed," the verb of the stairway and of Adonai (vv. 12–13): a stone made to stand. It is the patriarchs' memorial (31:45; 35:14, 20, Rachel's grave), the covenant stone at Sinai (Exod 24:4), and the standing stone of the Canaanite shrines that Israel is told to smash (Exod 23:24; Deut 12:3; 16:22). The text says that the stone (אֶבֶן) was made a standing stone, so both words stay in view. "Standing stone" keeps the root and the material. "Pillar" suggests a built column and is left for עַמּוּד, the pillar of cloud (Exod 13:21). Oil poured on its head is the act of anointing (Exod 29:7; 1 Sam 10:1), done here to a stone. Jacob anoints it again at 35:14, and at 31:13 El says, "I am the El of Bethel, where you anointed a standing stone."

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    Bethel is בֵּית־אֵל "house of El." Jacob had said "this is none other than the house of Elohim" (v. 17), and the name sets it down. English cannot pun on the name, so the meaning stays here (18). Luz, לוּז, is also the almond tree, whose rods Jacob peels at 30:37. Judges 1:23–26 tells how the house of Joseph took Luz and named it Bethel, and how a man from it built another Luz in the land of the Hittites. Abram had built an altar east of Bethel, between Bethel and Ai (12:8; 13:3). The names are in the names table.

    See the table

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 10, 21

    וַיִּדַּר נֶדֶר "vowed a vow" is the verb with its own noun, kept as a pair. This is the first vow in the Bible. It is not an oath (שְׁבוּעָה): Jacob binds himself to a gift if a condition is met, as Hannah does (1 Sam 1:11) and Jephthah (Judg 11:30–31). The condition opens with one אִם "if." Every clause after it is joined by "and," and the English keeps that chain.

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "then shall the LORD be my God" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 1, 46, 113

    Where the vow's condition ends is a crux. (a) The KJV, the RSV and the Vulgate (erit mihi Dominus in Deum) begin the promise at v. 21b: if Elohim does all this, then ADONAI will be my God, and this stone will be a house of Elohim. (b) Rashi keeps v. 21b in the condition: if Elohim is with me … and ADONAI is my God, his name resting on me and my seed, then this stone will be a house of Elohim and I will tithe. The LXX καὶ ἔσται μοι κύριος εἰς θεόν does not decide. The Hebrew joins every clause with ו and marks no turn, so "then," which ruling 35 allows to open a promise, would decide the crux. "And" is printed throughout, and the dash leaves the turn to the reader. The words "will be to me for Elohim" are the covenant formula of 17:7–8, "to be to you for Elohim." The לְ is of function, so הָיָה keeps "be" (113a), and Elohim takes the capital in apposition to the name (107).

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 10, 2

    עַשֵּׂר אֲעַשְּׂרֶנּוּ "tithing, I will tithe it" is the piel of עָשַׂר with its infinitive absolute, kept as at 2:16 ("eating you may eat"). The verb is made from עֶשֶׂר "ten." It names the gift of the tenth that Abram gave to Melchizedek, מַעֲשֵׂר "a tithe" (14:20). The law has the same doubled form: "tithing you shall tithe all the yield of your seed" (Deut 14:22). Jacob's vow turns at its end to "you," the Elohim he has been speaking of.