Genesis 35

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 9, 2

   לָאֵל הַנִּרְאֶה אֵלֶיךָ "to the El who was seen by you": the article points back to the El of the stairway dream at this place (28:10–22), who said at Harran, "I am the El of Bethel, where you anointed a standing stone, where you vowed to me a vow" (31:13). The vow of 28:20–22 ("this stone… shall be a house of Elohim") is now called in. The niphal of רָאָה is "be seen," as at v. 9. "Bolted" (בָּרַח) is the verb of Jacob's flight at 27:43, and it returns in v. 7.

2. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the strange gods" (KJV) / "the foreign gods" (RSV)

   Rulings 9, 38, 129

   אֱלֹהֵי הַנֵּכָר is plural in reference, gods that are "in your middle" and "in their hand" (v. 4), so the lowercase "elohim" stands (9, 38). נֵכָר is the abstract noun "foreignness" (129a), as in בֶּן־נֵכָר "son of foreignness" (17:12, 27); the construct makes them "elohim of foreignness." The same order, in the same words, is given by Joshua at Shechem (Josh 24:14, 23) and by Samuel at Mizpah (1 Sam 7:3); Judg 10:16 tells it done. What they were the text does not say: Rachel's teraphim (31:19, 34), or, with Rashi, the spoil of Shechem (34:27–29). Purifying oneself and changing cloaks is the preparation for meeting Elohim at Sinai (Exod 19:10, 14), where the people wash their cloaks. The hithpael of טָהֵר is "purify oneself"; "clean" is kept for נָקִי.

3. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "in the day of my distress" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 39, 2

   צָרָה is from צרר, "be narrow, be tight": the strait place, from which Jonah cries (Jonah 2:3, מִצָּרָה לִי) and in which Joseph pleads (42:21, "the strait of his soul"). The concrete word is kept (39). When Esau came with four hundred men, "Jacob feared exceedingly, and it was strait for him" (32:8, וַיֵּצֶר, the verb of this root). "Was with me in the way that I went" gives back the vow of 28:20 as fulfilled: "if Elohim will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going."

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "hid" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 99, 44, 2

   טָמַן is to put a thing away out of sight, most often in the ground: Moses hid the Egyptian in the sand (Exod 2:12); Achan's silver lay in the ground inside his tent (Josh 7:21–22); Jeremiah's loincloth went into a cleft of the rock (Jer 13:4–7); a snare is laid hidden for the feet (Ps 140:6; Job 18:10). The hiding field is fixed as a set (99): סָתַר "hide," חָבָא "take cover," כָּחַד "conceal," and טָמַן is fixed here as "cache," the putting away of something where it will not be found. The hoops of the ears return twice: Aaron makes the calf from them (Exod 32:2–4), and Gideon his ephod (Judg 8:24–27).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 112, 44

   אֵלָה is "terebinth," one family with אֵלוֹן (112). At Shechem Abram built his first altar by "the terebinth of Moreh" (12:6). Joshua later set a great stone "under the terebinth (הָאַלָּה) that was by the sanctuary of Adonai" at Shechem (Josh 24:26), and Abimelech was made king "by the terebinth of the standing stone that is in Shechem" (Judg 9:6).

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the terror of God" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 95, 128, 129, 132

   חִתָּה occurs only here. It is from חָתַת, "be shattered, be dismayed" (Jer 51:56, "their bows are shattered"; Deut 1:21, "do not fear and do not be dismayed"), the root of חַת "dismay" in 9:2, "your fear and your dismay shall be on every living thing of the land." The noun takes "dismay," as one root with חַת (95). "Terror" is פַּחַד's (31:42, 53). Jacob feared that the cities would gather against him after Shechem (34:30); the dismay falls on them instead. The genitive may name a dismay sent by Elohim or a superlative, a very great dismay (compare 1 Sam 14:15, "a trembling of elohim"); English "of" holds both. אֱלֹהִים has no agreeing verb in its clause, and is capitalised by the scene (128d, 129n, 132b), which opens at v. 1 with Elohim speaking to Jacob in the singular.

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 9, 18

   אֵל בֵּית־אֵל is "El Bethel," El of the House of El. The place now takes the name of the El who was seen there, as he had named himself at 31:13, "I am the El of Bethel." The LXX gives the town's name alone (Βαιθηλ), and the Vulgate Domus Dei, "House of God." "Called to the place" keeps קָרָא לְ. The WPRB prints the place-name "El-bethel."

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "God appeared unto him" (KJV) / "God had revealed himself to him" (RSV)

   Rulings 123, 92, 38, 2

   The verb נִגְלוּ is plural. A plural verb outranks reference (123c, which names this verse), so הָאֱלֹהִים prints "the elohim," lowercase, in the WPB and the WPRB (92). The Samaritan Pentateuch has the singular (נגלה), and Onkelos renders a singular. Ibn Ezra takes the plural of the messengers of Elohim who went up and down the stairway at this place (28:12). The same plural stands with הָאֱלֹהִים at 20:13 ("when the elohim made me wander") and with Elohim at 2 Sam 7:23; b. Sanhedrin 38b answers those who argued from such plurals. The niphal of גָּלָה keeps the home gloss "uncover": "Adonai was uncovered to Samuel in Shiloh" (1 Sam 3:21); "the arm of Adonai, on whom has it been uncovered?" (Isa 53:1).

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18, 112

   אַלּוֹן בָּכוּת is "Oak of Weeping" (בָּכָה "weep"); English cannot carry the name and the meaning together, so the meaning is here and in the names table (17). Ruling 112 keeps אַלּוֹן "oak" apart from the terebinth of v. 4. Rebekah's nurse went with her from Harran (24:59), unnamed until her death; how she came to be with Jacob is not told. Genesis Rabbah 81:5 hears in אַלּוֹן the Greek allon, "another": a second weeping, for Rebekah, whose own death the narrative never tells; Rashi follows. מֵינֶקֶת "the one who suckled" is the hiphil participle of יָנַק (24:59; 2 Kgs 11:2), kept as a verb (10). Another Deborah, the prophet, sat under a palm "between Ramah and Bethel" (Judg 4:5). Names in this chapter are in the names table below.

   See the table

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    עוֹד "again": Elohim was seen by Jacob at this place before (28:13–15). The blessing that follows (vv. 10–12) gathers the earlier ones: the new name of 32:29, and the El Shaddai blessing that Isaac gave at 28:3–4.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 17

    The name Israel was given at the Jabbok with its explanation, "for you have striven with Elohim and with men" (32:29). Here Elohim gives it again, at Bethel, without the explanation. Abraham's old name is not used after 17:5; Jacob keeps both, and the narrative goes on using both (vv. 21–22; 37:1–3; 46:2, "Elohim said to Israel… 'Jacob, Jacob'"). b. Berakhot 13a: "Israel shall be your name" means not that "Jacob" is uprooted, but that Israel is the main name. כִּי אִם after a negation is "but."

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 9, 18, 39

    El Shaddai speaks in his own name for the second time (17:1), the name by which Isaac blessed Jacob (28:3). "Bear fruit and be many" is the blessing on the creatures, on the human and on Noah (1:22, 28; 9:1, 7), now spoken to one man in the singular. "A nation and an assembly of nations" takes up 28:3, "you shall become an assembly of peoples," and "kings shall go out from your loins" takes up the promise to Abraham and Sarah (17:6, 16). Edom's kings come first (36:31). חֲלָצַיִם, "loins," is the seat of strength and of begetting: "your son who comes out from your loins" (1 Kgs 8:19); "gird your loins like a man" (Job 38:3).

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 6

    "In the place where he spoke with him" is said in three verses running (vv. 13, 14, 15), and then the place is named. Some modern critics take v. 13b as a copy of v. 14; the Masoretic text is printed as it stands, and the repetition kept (6). מֵעָלָיו "from over him": at 28:13 Adonai stood over him (נִצָּב עָלָיו).

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 88, 95

    מַצֶּבֶת is a second spelling of מַצֵּבָה "standing stone." This verse has both, and so does v. 20; both are printed "standing stone," one word in two spellings (88, 95). "A standing stone of stone" keeps the Hebrew's redundancy. It is the second standing stone at Bethel (28:18, 22; 31:13). The law later forbids setting one up (Deut 16:22).

15. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "he poured a drink offering thereon" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 33, 128

    וַיַּסֵּךְ עָלֶיהָ נֶסֶךְ is a verb with a noun of its own root as object. נָסַךְ is the verb of the libation: wine poured with the sacrifices (Exod 29:40; Num 15:5–10; 28:7), and libations to other gods (Jer 7:18; 44:17–19; Ps 16:4). It is also the verb of casting metal (Isa 40:19; 44:10) and, in Ps 2:6, of installing a king, "I have installed my king on Zion"; the niphal at Prov 8:23 is taken up there. Ruling 128(g) gives נָסַךְ its own word, since "pour" is יָצַק's, the verb of the oil in this same verse and at 28:18. "Libate" and "libation" keep the one root in English. This is the only libation in Genesis. The WPRB has "poured out a drink offering."

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a little way" (KJV) / "some distance" (RSV)

    Rulings 25, 2

    כִּבְרַת הָאָרֶץ occurs only here, at 48:7 (Jacob telling of this same journey) and at 2 Kgs 5:19 (Naaman "went from him a כִּבְרַת of land"). It is a measure of distance whose length is lost. The LXX takes it as a place-name here, "when he drew near to Chabratha" (Χαβραθα), and at 48:7 adds "by the hippodrome of Chabratha." Rashi, after the midrash, hears כְּבָרָה "sieve": the season when the ground is riddled like a sieve. "Tract" names a stretch of land without guessing its length.

17. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Rachel travailed" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 37

    וַתֵּלֶד is the qal of יָלַד, "bore," the home gloss held through the chain of vv. 16–17 and 26 (37). The wayyiqtol tells the birth whole before the verse goes back into the labor; the KJV and RSV "travailed" read it as the onset. Rachel had named her first son with a prayer for a second (30:24).

18. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "she had hard labour" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    וַתְּקַשׁ (piel) and בְהַקְשֹׁתָהּ (hiphil, v. 17) are from קָשָׁה "be hard," whose hiphil with an object is "make hard": Pharaoh's heart (Exod 7:3), the neck (Deut 10:16). Here neither stem has an object: she "had it hard" in her bearing. The intransitive use is a construction of its own, printed "have it hard" (20). Rachel's own words were "Give me sons, or else I am dead" (30:1); she dies bearing the second.

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the midwife" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    הַמְיַלֶּדֶת is the piel participle of יָלַד, the woman who helps another to bear (38:28; Exod 1:15–21). The split of יָלַד (20) names the qal, hiphil, niphal and pual; the piel participle is printed "midwife," a departure from "bear" for a stem the split does not yet name.

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    "This too is a son for you" answers the prayer in Joseph's name, "may Adonai add to me another son" (30:24). The same comfort, "do not fear, for you have borne a son," is spoken to the dying wife of Phinehas, who names her son Ichabod (1 Sam 4:20–21); the scene is told twice in the Bible, and both mothers name the son for their grief.

21. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18, 10

    בֶּן־אוֹנִי can be "son of my sorrow" (אָוֶן; "bread of mourners," לֶחֶם אוֹנִים, Hos 9:4) or "son of my vigor" (אוֹן; Reuben is "the first of my vigor," רֵאשִׁית אוֹנִי, 49:3). The LXX reads the first, "son of my pain" (Υἱὸς ὀδύνης μου), and Rashi follows. The father changes it to בִּנְיָמִין, "son of the right hand" (יָמִין, "right," 118), the hand of strength and favor (48:13–14), or "son of the south," since the right hand is the south to one who faces east; he is the only son born in the land. Texts from Mari name a tribe Binu-yamina, "sons of the right." v. 24 spells the name without the second yod (בִנְיָמִן). English carries neither pun with the names, so both are here (17). "Her soul was going out": the נֶפֶשׁ leaves at death and returns to the child Elijah raises (1 Kgs 17:21–22). "Called to him" keeps קָרָא לְ.

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    אֶפְרָתָה, "toward Ephrath." Ephrath is explained as Bethlehem here and at 48:7, and Ruth 4:11 and Mic 5:1 join the two names ("Bethlehem Ephrathah"). Bethlehem is "house of bread" (לֶחֶם). Another tradition puts Rachel's tomb north of Jerusalem, "in the border of Benjamin, at Zelzah" (1 Sam 10:2), near Ramah, where "Rachel is weeping for her children" (Jer 31:15); Matt 2:18 sets the weeping at Bethlehem.

23. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 95

    קְבוּרָה is the noun of קָבַר "bury": the burial and its place (47:30). "Grave" is kept for קֶבֶר (23:4–20); the noun and the verb are one root (95). "Until this day": the stone is still a landmark in Saul's time (1 Sam 10:2).

24. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    מִגְדַּל־עֵדֶר is "tower of the drove," a watchtower over the flocks. Mic 4:8 addresses Jerusalem in the same words: "and you, tower of the drove, hill of daughter Zion, to you it shall come." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes it the place from which the King Messiah will be revealed at the end of days. מֵהָלְאָה לְ is "farther off than," that is, beyond it. From here the narrator calls Jacob "Israel" three times in two verses.

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 36, 74, 2

    The Masoretic text has a section break in the middle of this verse (pisqa be'emtsa pasuq), after "and Israel heard": the story stops there, and the count of the sons begins. The section mark of this edition stands at the verse's end, where the source data places it (36). The LXX fills the gap: "and it appeared evil before him" (καὶ πονηρὸν ἐφάνη ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ). The Hebrew is printed without it. Jacob's answer waits for his deathbed (49:3–4, "for you went up to your father's bed"), and Reuben's birthright passes to Joseph's sons (1 Chr 5:1). b. Shabbat 55b: "Whoever says Reuben sinned is mistaken": he moved his father's bed out of Bilhah's tent after Rachel's death, and the verse counts it as if he had lain with her. To take a father's concubine is to claim his place (2 Sam 16:21–22; 1 Kgs 2:22). The count of twelve comes after the act, and Reuben is still first in it (v. 23).

26. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    "Who were born to him in Paddan-aram": Benjamin, just born on the way to Ephrath, is counted with the eleven; Ibn Ezra takes the clause of most of them. The verb יֻלַּד is singular with a plural subject.

27. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 91

    Isaac's death is told in the words of Abraham's (25:8): Abraham "old and sated," Isaac "old and sated with days." It is told early. Isaac was sixty at the twins' birth (25:26), so Jacob is a hundred and twenty here. Jacob is a hundred and thirty before Pharaoh (47:9), when Joseph is thirty-nine (41:46, 53; 45:6), so Joseph was sold at seventeen (37:2) when Isaac was a hundred and sixty-eight: Isaac lived through the selling of Joseph by twelve years (Rashi; Seder Olam). Esau and Jacob bury him together, as Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham (25:9).