Surf The Site
Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
21:1 VA YHVH PAKAD ET SARAH KA ASHER AMAR VA YA'AS YHVH LE SARAH KA ASHER DIBER
Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
21:1 VA YHVH PAKAD ET SARAH KA ASHER AMAR VA YA'AS YHVH LE SARAH KA ASHER DIBER
וַיהוָה פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה לְשָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר
KJ (King James translation): And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
BN (BibleNet translation): And YHVH commanded Sarah as he had said, and YHVH did to Sarah as he had spoken.
Immediately the wombs of Avi-Melech's wife and maidservants are re-opened because of Sarah, and Yitschak is born; in this priestly re-editing of the stories anyway. What we do now know is that the festival in question was indeed Passover - for when is it that the womb of Nature opens after being barren, if not the spring when the winter ends? Presumably the Rites of Asherah were celebrated with gay abandon by the hierodules and hierophants, the surrogates for Av-Raham (the sun-god) and Sarah (the moon-goddess) crowned or anointed as May King and May Queen (the Jews moved this to Purim later on, to coincide with the Persian spring rites, but before the Exile it was still Passover), and very soon afterwards all the midwives in the area began packing their workbags and organising schedules.
YHVH now, not Elohim.
PAKAD: Much to investigate here, though you wouldn't know it from the English, which makes perfectly good sense at a superficial reading. First, why is it VA YHVH PAKAD, and not VA YIPHKOD YHVH, which is the normal narrative technique? Then, what does PAKAD actually mean, given that it does not mean "remember", even though that is how it is translated in several versions; King James prefers "visited"; New International chooses "was gracious to Sarah". Gesenius, who is the great expert on the comparative languages of the ancient Middle East, gives almost two full columns to the root, but begins, immediately after writing down the Yehudit, by writing "as I suppose" in parenthesis, to make clear that he doesn't really know on this occasion either. "Punishment" and other types of aggressive behaviour, feature in several of its Biblical uses, but so do "search", "inspect" and "explore". Jeremiah 23:2 uses it for taking care of the flock, and Numbers frequently appoints people to senior positions using the verb (eg Numbers 4:27), as does modern Ivrit, which uses the word TAPHKID - תַּפְקִיד - for such positions. What becomes apparent is that the word changed its meaning over the centuries, as words often do; so perhaps our best bet is to go to the Book of Ezra and see if it was used in any particular way in his time; that, after all, was when the version of the Torah that we are reading was penned. And there it is, in just the second verse of his book, "charged", which is to say "commanded":
PAKAD: Much to investigate here, though you wouldn't know it from the English, which makes perfectly good sense at a superficial reading. First, why is it VA YHVH PAKAD, and not VA YIPHKOD YHVH, which is the normal narrative technique? Then, what does PAKAD actually mean, given that it does not mean "remember", even though that is how it is translated in several versions; King James prefers "visited"; New International chooses "was gracious to Sarah". Gesenius, who is the great expert on the comparative languages of the ancient Middle East, gives almost two full columns to the root, but begins, immediately after writing down the Yehudit, by writing "as I suppose" in parenthesis, to make clear that he doesn't really know on this occasion either. "Punishment" and other types of aggressive behaviour, feature in several of its Biblical uses, but so do "search", "inspect" and "explore". Jeremiah 23:2 uses it for taking care of the flock, and Numbers frequently appoints people to senior positions using the verb (eg Numbers 4:27), as does modern Ivrit, which uses the word TAPHKID - תַּפְקִיד - for such positions. What becomes apparent is that the word changed its meaning over the centuries, as words often do; so perhaps our best bet is to go to the Book of Ezra and see if it was used in any particular way in his time; that, after all, was when the version of the Torah that we are reading was penned. And there it is, in just the second verse of his book, "charged", which is to say "commanded":
כֹּ֣ה אָמַ֗ר כֹּ֚רֶשׁ מֶ֣לֶךְ פָּרַ֔ס כֹּ֚ל מַמְלְכ֣וֹת הָאָ֔רֶץ נָ֣תַן לִ֔י יְהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם וְהֽוּא פָקַ֤ד עָלַי֙ לִבְנֽוֹת ל֣וֹ בַ֔יִת בִּירוּשָׁלִַ֖ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר בִּֽיהוּדָֽה
“Thus said King Cyrus of Persia: YHVH, the Lord of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the Earth, and has charged me with building him a house in Yeru-Shala'im, which is in Yehudah.
21:2 VA TAHAR VA TELED SARAH LE AV-RAHAM BEN LI ZEKUNAV LA MO'ED ASHER DIBER OTO ELOHIM
וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד שָׂרָה לְאַבְרָהָם בֵּן לִזְקֻנָיו לַמּוֹעֵד אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֹתוֹ אֱלֹהִים
KJ: For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
BN: And Sarah conceived, and bore Av-Raham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which Elohim had spoken to him.
Elohim promised, but YHVH did the deed. And what an awful lot has happened in the nine months from annunciation to confinement! The entire destruction and rebirth of the world, seen through the lens of the Cities of the Plain, or winter, as you prefer.
Once again we are told that the birth was timed to coincide with an appointed time; but now we know the mo'ed and can confirm that we are in the realms that would become Christianity later on: conception at the Rites of Asherah (Ishtar and Easter are the same word; in mediaeval times Easter was spelled Oester, clarifying the egg) which took place at the Spring Equinox (Passover, Purim), and the birth, at Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice (Michelmas originally, with Christ's birth on January 6th, but late mediaeval Christianity preferred the Sol Invictus, and moved it from the last of the Twele Days to the first)? All of which leaves us wondering if Sarah knew she was pregnant when Av-Raham gave her to Avi-Melech, or was Avi-Melech surrogating for the sun-god as May King to her May Queen.
21:3 VA YIKRA AV-RAHAM ET SHEM BENO HA NOLAD LO ASHER YALDAH LO SARAH YITSCHAK
וַיִּקְרָא אַבְרָהָם אֶת שֶׁם בְּנוֹ הַנּוֹלַד לוֹ אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה לּוֹ שָׂרָה יִצְחָק
KJ: And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
BN: And Av-Raham called the name of his son that was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Yitschak.
The precision here seems to suggest that he had other sons by other wives, of which we obviously know about Yishma-El; but the hint is to the very many that he will father with Keturah later.
But what is really intriguing about this verse is its massive over-emphasis on whose son Yitschak is, as though there is a need to prove beyond any doubt that the boy was Av-Raham's; and the issue is not about whether it was Sarah's, or only about its being Sarah's at a secondary level - read again my note above about Avi-Melech and the spring rites.
These verses, and they are manifold, challenge Rashi's "liberated servant" theory (see my note to Genesis 16:3), and argue that the boy's identity clearly comes from the father, but that the tribal status is a consequence of inheritance, in this case by ultimogeniture, and not of maternity. Thus Yishma-El remains a Beney Yisra-El, by dint of being Av-Raham's son, but becomes an Edomite by dint of leaving the tribe and marrying into a new one; there is no sense of Yishma-El being an Edomite through Hagar - au contraire, if he had his mother's identity, he would be an Egyptian. But in the modern argument about "who is a Jew", this does not get used; the Rashi has become dogma and doctrine. Why not? Because it too clearly confirms the patrilocal over the matrilocal.
These verses, and they are manifold, challenge Rashi's "liberated servant" theory (see my note to Genesis 16:3), and argue that the boy's identity clearly comes from the father, but that the tribal status is a consequence of inheritance, in this case by ultimogeniture, and not of maternity. Thus Yishma-El remains a Beney Yisra-El, by dint of being Av-Raham's son, but becomes an Edomite by dint of leaving the tribe and marrying into a new one; there is no sense of Yishma-El being an Edomite through Hagar - au contraire, if he had his mother's identity, he would be an Egyptian. But in the modern argument about "who is a Jew", this does not get used; the Rashi has become dogma and doctrine. Why not? Because it too clearly confirms the patrilocal over the matrilocal.
Go back to the two annunciation stories; one said that Sarah would name him Yitschak, the other that it would be Av-Raham who did the naming. Here it is clearly Av-Raham. (Does that also add weight to the patrilocal?)
21:4 VA YAMAL AV-RAHAM ET YITSCHAK BENO BEN SHEMONAT YAMIM KA ASHER TSIVAH OTO ELOHIM
וַיָּמָל אַבְרָהָם אֶת יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ בֶּן שְׁמֹנַת יָמִים כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה אֹתוֹ אֱלֹהִים
KJ: And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him.
BN: And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as Elohim had instructed him.
Inception of the 8th day rite of circumcision; which is different from the first occasion of circumcision (Genesis 17:23 ff). The god who requires it is Elohim, not YHVH.
End of fourth fragment. Why doesn't the chapter end here in the Christian translations, rather than four verses ago?
21:5 VE AV-RAHAM BEN ME'AT SHANAH BE HIVALED LO ET YITSCHAK BENO
וְאַבְרָהָם בֶּן מְאַת שָׁנָה בְּהִוָּלֶד לוֹ אֵת יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ
KJ: And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
BN: And Av-Raham was a hundred years old when his son Yitschak was born to him.
Why the significance of the number 100, that it gets repeated so often, to make sure we don't fail to note it? Because this is the mo'ed that has been so frequently mentioned; a 100th birthday present; which is to say, just as No'ach's restart of the world took place on his 600th birthday (Genesis 7:6 and 9:28), so this restart of the world takes place on Abe's hundredth: new millennia, new epochs, always an eschatological significance when these random-number events take place (in 2000, when the CE millennium occurred, it was predicted that every computer in the world would crash at midnight, and no doubt some did). What needs to be pointed out though, is that Ezra's Redactor is using the decimal system, which had become the standard among the Yehudim in his day; and yet the No'ach story, and several others that we will encounter along the way, were still told with the Babylonian sexigesimal system - if that had been used for this tale, Av-Raham would have been 600, not 100.
And yet again the by now completely unnecessary statement that Yitschak was his son. We have to assume that this contentious issue of Jewish identity was already significant, albeit as Yehudaite identity, in Ezra's time - and given the historical cirumstances, that is not at all surprising. And indeed, we can find proof of it, right there in the book of Ezra's colleague Nechem-Yah, who brought thousands back with him from Bavel to rebuild the walls of Yeru-Shala'im, but later complained (Nehemiah 13) that the Sabbath laws were being breached, that "men of Yehudah... had married women from Ashdod, Amon and Mo-Av" (v23), and about this "terrible wickedness" of "being unfaithful to our god by marrying foreign women" (v27).
21:6 VA TOMER SARAH TSECHOK ASAH LI ELOHIM KOL HA SHOME'A YITSCHAK LI
וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרָה צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹהִים כָּל הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִצְחַק לִי
KJ: And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
BN: And Sarah said: "Elohim has made a laughing-stock of me; every one who hears will laugh at my expense."
This is now the third time this reason for his name has been given, and each time slightly differently. Sarah's statement is not credible, because no one ever laughs when older women have babies; rather the cries are of "miracle", especially when the woman has apparently been unable to conceive. So it would be today, and so surely it was in those days; and likely even more so, given the strength of the fertility cult. The point about the repetition of this false explanation is that, once again, we have ancient stories of the gods and goddesses being shorn of their paganism, transformed into linear history, and used to provide a national identity in the extraordinarily complex demographic circumstances of the return from exile to a land now largely inhabited by deracinated foreigners. So it was necessary to provide new explanations of the names of people and places that fitted the new identity, and thereby helped to establish it; on the principle that, even if no one fully believes it at the time, within three generations they almost certainly will, and then it will become tradition, which is never questioned or modified. In fact, we are dealing with Yah-Tschok, the ancient laughing-god, who like all the other patriarchs has been retrieved from non-Beney Yisra-El mythology and transmuted into a human patriarch of a single tribal line - though actually his function, as we shall see shortly, was to play Vishnu to his father's Brahma: the role of "sustainer". All genealogies are false in this great work, but most particularly this one.
21:7 VA TOMER MI MILEL LE AV-RAHAM HEYNIYKAH VANIM SARAH KI YALADETI VEN LI ZEKUNAV
וַתֹּאמֶר מִי מִלֵּל לְאַבְרָהָם הֵינִיקָה בָנִים שָׂרָה כִּי יָלַדְתִּי בֵן לִזְקֻנָיו
KJ: And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.
BN: And she said, "Who would have said to Av-Raham, that Sarah should give children suck? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age?"
Plenty of men father children in their old age, and most are capable of doing so; the significant event here is that Sarah was able to at her age. However, as noted many times before in this commentary, when you worship a fertility god and goddess, in the form of a husband-wife team who are also brother-sister, every woman needs to be barren, every man infertile, until the proper rites and ceremonies have been conducted, and pregnancy and birth confirm the power of the gods. All fertility is ultimately miraculous.
21:8 VA YIGDAL HA YELED VA YIGAMEL VA YA'AS AV-RAHAM MISHTEH GADOL BE YOM HIGAMEL ET YITSCHAK
וַיִּגְדַּל הַיֶּלֶד וַיִּגָּמַל וַיַּעַשׂ אַבְרָהָם מִשְׁתֶּה גָדוֹל בְּיוֹם הִגָּמֵל אֶת יִצְחָק
KJ: And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
BN: And the child grew, and was weaned. And Av-Raham made a great feast on the day that Yitschak was weaned.
Interesting that "to wean" comes from the root GAMAL (גמל) = "a camel". Interesting that Hagar's expulsion will follow the end of weaning; as though she were herself the wet-nurse. (2 Maccabbees 7:27 has weaning continue for fully 3 years). Hertz observes that a weaning-feast is still commonplace in the Middle East today. It is a sadness that we have lost this from the Jewish rites of passage. When did that happen, and why? Presumably at the time that the goddess was finally expunged, and the religion became doctrinally patriarchal; one cannot imagine the Shechinah breast-feeding!
21:9 VA TER'E SARAH ET BEN HAGAR HA MITSRIT ASHER YALDAH LE AV-RAHAM METSACHEK
וַתֵּרֶא שָׂרָה אֶת בֶּן הָגָר הַמִּצְרִית אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה לְאַבְרָהָם מְצַחֵק
KJ: And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.
BN: And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Av-Raham, teasing.
METSACHEK (מצחק): wilfully mis-translated by some as "making sport"; or shall I be kind and allow it merely to be another evasion? The root-word is "laughter" once again, in the Pi'el or "intensive" form now, rather than the Pu'al or active, in the same way that KATAV in the Pu'al means "to write" but MEKATEV in the Pi'el means "to scribble"; so YITSCHAK in the Pu'al means "to laugh" but METSACHEK in the Pi'el means to "scoff" or "deride". In the previous verse Sarah said that people would laugh at her, and the Pu'al was used because the text needed to make a pun on the boy's name; but properly she should have used METSACHEK (LO'EG was also available, except that it doesn't make a pun on the name). So now Av-Raham, Sarah and Yishma-El have all laughed about her giving birth so old, but Yishma-El's laughter is not amused laughter, but mockery. What is the myth? I spoke of a laughing-god a moment ago, and you no doubt laughed or scoffed at the idea. However, note that Jove was a laughing god, whence the modern word "jovial"; Indian versions of Buddha likewise. And the etymology links Jove (pronounced Yovey in Yehudit ) and Jehovah (in Yehudit the not-pronounced Yahvey or YHVH) very closely.
21:10 VA TOMER LE AV-RAHAM GARESH HA AMAH HA ZOT VE ET BENAH KI LO YIYRASH BEN HA AMAH HA ZOT IM BENI IM YITSCHAK
וַתֹּאמֶר לְאַבְרָהָם גָּרֵשׁ הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת וְאֶת בְּנָהּ כִּי לֹא יִירַשׁ בֶּן הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת עִם בְּנִי עִם יִצְחָק
KJ: Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
BN (a): So she said to Av-Raham, "Get rid of this bondwoman and her son. No son of a bondwoman is going to inherit with my son, with my Yitschak."
BN (b): So she said to Av-Raham, "Get rid of this bondwoman and her son. No son of a bondwoman who laughs at my Yitschak is going to inherit with him as well."
BN (b): So she said to Av-Raham, "Get rid of this bondwoman and her son. No son of a bondwoman who laughs at my Yitschak is going to inherit with him as well."
Two renditions by me on this occasion, because IM YITSCHAK can equally be translated as "with Yitschak" or as "if he is going to laugh"; in other words, we can read this as a conflict over tribal rights and inheritances, or we can read this as Sarah having a temper-tantrum. Which is it?
To take the tribal first. Hagar is effectively Av-Raham's wife, and Yishma-El his firstborn son; yet Sarah can order their expulsion. Her argument of joint inheritance is also of note. What happened to the laws of ultimo and primo geniture?
But she talks of Yishma-El as Hagar's son and Yitschak as hers, where previously they were both clearly denoted as Av-Raham's (Genesis 16:2).
The word AMAH is also highly significant, as it defines Hagar’s precise status. Previously (Genesis 16)she was described as a SHIPH'CHAH, meaning "handmaiden"; AMAH is generally understood to be synonymous, but in such situations two words will always denote differences in status; a lady-in-waiting is different from a chambermaid, as the hostess who takes you to your table is not the same as the waitress who takes your order. We need to do the etymology of this more closely - I am leaving that ask to others. Many translations use "slave" for one but not the other, but even this is not certain, and here the translation as "bondwoman" offers yet another possibility. What we can say is that SHIPH'CHAH is rather more polite than AMAH, and if not in the word itself, than in the tone in which the latter is being used here.
So does Sarah want Hagar removed because of Yishma-El's mockery, or because of the inheritance? Go back to the point where Av-Raham talks to the god about the matter; then go forward to him sending Eli-Ezer to Padan Aram to find a wife for Yitschak. And look at what happens to Yishma-El when he marries. Throughout these early tales there is a sense of non-Yisra-Eli men going to join their wives' tribes - or perhaps of Yisra-Eli men becoming non-Yisra-Eli when and because they have gone to join their wives' tribes, but of Yisra-Eli men remaining in the tribe by bringing their wives to their homes, and this regardless of whether the wife is from the tribe originally (Sarah, Rivkah, Le'ah, Rachel) or not (Hagar initially, Bilhah, Zilpah); and in the same way the children belong neither to the man nor the woman, but to the clan, the tribe, in which the parents have settled. Thence the concepts of endogamy (marrying in) and exogamy (marrying out), which were so crucial to Nechem-Yah (see my note to verse 5, above).
This too helps us understand why the Rabbis won't use this text to endorse patrilocal inheritance, and why they took the opportunity to get rid of patrilocal inheritance altogether. Historically, however, it would appear that, although the child belonged to the father, not the mother, the father usually joined the wife's tribe when he married her, and so equity was achieved. But amongst the Beney Yisra-El, as we shall see, the wife joined the husband's tribe, and the son was his (except in the case of slaves, as Rashi rightly observes). This makes patrilocal versus matrilocal not simply a matter of post-rape convenience (which was the pretext for the change of halachah in mediaeval times), but a fundamental issue of racial purity. And god knows there is no race on Earth more concerned about racial purity than the Jews!
Then look further forward, to Ya'akov and Esav. Rivkah takes Ya'akov's side, assisting him in stealing the inheritance from Esav. We are told that they were twins, but the archaeological and etymological evidence disputes that. Is it possible there was a Hagar-Sarah dispute there too?
21:11 VA YERA HA DEVAR ME'OD BE EYNEY AV-RAHAM AL ODOT BENO
וַיֵּרַע הַדָּבָר מְאֹד בְּעֵינֵי אַבְרָהָם עַל אוֹדֹת בְּנוֹ
KJ: And this was very grievous in Av-Raham's sight, on account of his son.
BN: And this was most egregious in Av-Raham's eyes, because of his son.
21:12 VA YOMER ELOHIM EL AV-RAHAM AL YERA BE EYNEYCHA AL HA NA'AR VE AL AMATECHA KOL ASHER TOMAR ELEYCHA SARAH SHEMA BE KOLAH KI VE YITSCHAK YIKAR'E LECHA ZARA
KJ: And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל אַבְרָהָם אַל יֵרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עַל הַנַּעַר וְעַל אֲמָתֶךָ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר תֹּאמַר אֵלֶיךָ שָׂרָה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלָהּ כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע
KJ: And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
BN: And Elohim said to Av-Raham, "Let this not be egregious in your eyes because of the lad, and because of your bondwoman; whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice; for through Yitschak your posterity will be made...
Do we read this as: Sarah's authority confirmed from on high; Sarah's offspring more important than Av-Raham's; or the Redactor intruding to assert the Beney Yisra-Eli way of doing this over the other peoples of the area; or?
Why AL-YERA and not AL-TIRA?
NA'AR: The "lad" in question is Yishma-El, yet the second half of the sentence refers to Yitschak. It would make more sense if Elohim said: "Let it not...for in Yishma-El too shall seed be called to you." Hagar already received this promise chapters ago. It would be logical for Av-Raham to have it confirmed now. Then he could comfortably let Yishma-El go, knowing that his tribe was increased – than which there never was a greater virtue among the Biblical Jews and Arabs.
21:13 VE GAM ET BEN HA AMAH LE GO'I ASIMENU KI ZARACHA HU
וְגַם אֶת בֶּן הָאָמָה לְגוֹי אֲשִׂימֶנּוּ כִּי זַרְעֲךָ הוּא
KJ: And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
BN:: "But I will also make the son of the bondwoman into a nation, because he is your seed."
So my point was made a verse too early, and was thrown off-course by thinking Elohim had finished speaking.
21:14 VA YASHKEM AV-RAHAM BA BOKER VA YIKACH LECHEM VE CHEMAT MAYIM VA YITEN EL HAGAR SAM AL SHICHMAH VE ET HA YELED VA YESHALCHE'HA VA TELECH VA TET'A BE MIDBAR BE'ER SHAVA
וַיַּשְׁכֵּם אַבְרָהָם בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּקַּח לֶחֶם וְחֵמַת מַיִם וַיִּתֵּן אֶל הָגָר שָׂם עַל שִׁכְמָהּ וְאֶת הַיֶּלֶד וַיְשַׁלְּחֶהָ וַתֵּלֶךְ וַתֵּתַע בְּמִדְבַּר בְּאֵר שָׁבַע
KJ: And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
BN: So Av-Raham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a flagon of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and strayed into the wilderness of Be'er Shava.
Not Be'er Lechi Ro'i on this occasion, but Be'er Sheva (see my notes to Genesis 16:7-14). And did she not go of her own accord, without this kindness from Av-Raham? As so often, two variant versions of the same tale; either way, she is connected to important watering places in the Negev, as she will be in the Qur'an with the Zamzam well. Is she then an equivalent of Mir-Yam (Miriam), Mosheh's sister, who is also identified with water (her song at the Red Sea, the multiple stopping places in the wilderness...)?
Hagar, of course, could also be read as Ha-Ger = "the stranger" - except that of course she would have to be the feminine form, Ha-Gerah - which she is, in the Arabic - Hajira. The Qur'anic version of these events is worth exploring anyway, especially when we consider that, in establishing al-Lah as the One and Only god of Mecca, it was his daughters, including al-Lat, who were the principal losers, and of course the establishment of Mecca in the first place, with all its key shrines, is rooted in Av-Raham, Yishma-El and Hagar.
CHEMAT MAYIM: A bottle! Made of glass? In Biblical times? If it were a bottle, it would say BAKBUK anyway. A leather flagon, rather more likely.
BE'ER SHAVA: Rather than Be'er Sheva, for no reason that I can explain - and it is only that in the Masoretic pointing, undetectable in the original Yehudit. The alteration will recur several times in this and the following chapter.
CHEMAT MAYIM: A bottle! Made of glass? In Biblical times? If it were a bottle, it would say BAKBUK anyway. A leather flagon, rather more likely.
BE'ER SHAVA: Rather than Be'er Sheva, for no reason that I can explain - and it is only that in the Masoretic pointing, undetectable in the original Yehudit. The alteration will recur several times in this and the following chapter.
21:15 VA YICHLU HA MAYIM MIN HA CHEMET VA TASHLECH ET HA YELED TACHAT ACHAD HA SIYCHIM
21:31 AL KEN KARA LA MAKOM HA HU BE'ER SHAVA KI SHAM NISHBE'U SHENEYHEM
וַיִּכְלוּ הַמַּיִם מִן הַחֵמֶת וַתַּשְׁלֵךְ אֶת הַיֶּלֶד תַּחַת אַחַד הַשִּׂיחִם
KJ: And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.
21:26 VA YOMER AVI-MELECH LO YAD'ATI MI ASAH ET HA DEVAR HA ZEH VE GAM ATAH LO HIGADETA LI VE GAM ANOCHI LO SHAMA'TI BILTI HA YOM
BN: And the water in the flagon was used up, and she put the child down under one of the shrubs.
KJ: And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
KJ: And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
BN: And he lived in the desert of Pa'ran; and his mother found him a wife in the land of Mitsrayim.
PA'RAN (פארן): The name Pa'ran has not previously been mentioned in this story. It means "abounding in foliage" or "abounding in caverns", and is regularly used as an alternative name for Sinai. Mentioned in Numbers 10:12; 13:3 and 13:26; Deuteronomy 1:1; 1 Samuel 25:1; 1 Kings 11:18. Chavakuk (Habakkuk) 3:3 calls it HAR PA'RAN (הר פארן); and Deuteronomy 33:2 HAREY PA'RAN (הרי פארן). Several of these are significant because they place Pa'ran very definitely on the eastern side of the Jordan, in the Nefud desert, and even further south into the Hejaz in the Chavakuk, thereby helping us with the "problem" of the three Hagar-Yishma-El versions: Be'er Lechi Ro'i in Genesis 16, Be'er Sheva in this chapter, and Zamzam in the Qu'ran. Clearly this was a myth that travelled, and could be located wherever it was believed and told, just as King Arthur can equally be found in Glastonbury in Somerset, Tintagel in Cornwall, or Cornouaille in Britanny, and Robin Hood of Sherwood forest can turn up in the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night's Dream, but be King Bran in the Welsh Mabinogion and Bran the Blessed, the ancestor of King Arthur, when Christianity looked for ways - akin to Ezra's redaction of the Tanach - to absorb and subsume pre-Christian myths and legends.
An Egyptian wife for Yishma-El suggests obvious Egyptian links for the tribe beyond and before this time, and we have been told that Hagar was herself Egytian, so this is logical. The previous version of their expulsion takes them back toward Egypt as well – though the Qur'an makes a Midyanite legend of it, having them cross the Hejaz, with Av-Raham at one stage, or Ibrahim in that version, to found Mecca and establish the Ka'aba etc.
Interesting that the Yishma-Elites will later be involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of Yoseph; probably just further evidence of the nomadic and mercantile nature of these tribes.
Again note that so many of the Beney Yisra-El stories seem to have been Edomite stories that they took over; and Yishma-El becomes Edom later on. Being Edomite also makes the Hejaz connection much more logical than the Egyptian.
Pey break; end of fragment five.
End of that story, start of the PHICHOL/AVI-MELECH tale, which should be read as the continuation of the previous from the end of chapter 20, rather than a new tale, as here; the Hagar-Yishma-El providing an interruption.
21:22 VA YEHI BA ET HA HI VA YOMER AVI-MELECH U PHICHOL SAR TSEVA'O EL AV-RAHAM LEMOR ELOHIM IMCHA BE CHOL ASHER ATAH OSEH
KJ: And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest:
BN: And it happened at that time that Avi-Melech, with Phichol the captain of his host, spoke to Av-Raham saying, "Elohim is with you in everything you do...
PHICHOL SAR TSEVA'O (פיכל שר צבאו): a particular individual named, or some kind of official spokesman? The root is PEY (פה) = "a mouth" and KOL (כל) = "everyone" or "everything", thus making the name mean "spokesman", in which case it should be hyphenated as PHI-CHOL. Note SAR (שר) = "prince", the masculine form of Sarah (שרה) = "princess"; though the word is also used today to mean "minister of state".
[As a completely irrelevant side-note, the Septuagint, writing SARAH in the Greek, renders it as Σaρρa; I merely wonder if American rock stars are that knowledgeable.]
21:23 VE ATAH HISHAV'AH LI VE'LOHIM HENAH IM TISHKOR LI U LE NIYNI U LE NECHDI KA CHESED ASHER ASIYTI IMCHA TA'ASEH IMADI VE IM HA ARETS ASHER GARTAH BAH
KJ: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.
BN: "Now therefore swear to me here by Elohim that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son; but according to the kindness that I have shown you, so you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have been living."
Yet he has already dealt falsely over the matter of Sarah being his sister not his wife. Why is he asking this oath now? It is in fact much more than an oath, it is a treaty, with future generations included. As noted above, it really needs to be moved, placed contiguous with the end of the previous Avi-Melech story, to which it makes a logical continuation; and can we also assume, from the wording there, that not only is this a treaty confirming peaceful cohabitation, but that it would also have involved the placing of boundary-stones, as we will witness Lavan and Ya'akov doing in Genesis 31:43 ff, clear legal definitions of tribal territories.
Let us rejoin the stories: The truth about Sarah has been revealed; Avi-Melech has given Av-Raham a fortune to go away; this now adds the reciprocity of the treaty: I am giving you a fortune, you give me your promise. Where we were left wondering why he gave Av-Raham so much wealth, now we understand that a treaty is being made, and Av-Raham with his large and well-armed tribe, already well-known for its part in the War of the Five Kings, looking for a place to settle down, agrees not to take his tribe and simply conquer Avi-Melech's territory. (And why would he anyway, if he has been promised the whole of Kena'an, and this is dry desert land!)
NIYNI (ניני) - from the root NUN (נונ) = "progeny" or "offspring"; on the only three occasions when it is used in the Tanach (here, Job 18:19 and Isaiah 14:22) it is coupled with NECHDI (נכדי), from the root NACHAD (נכד) which also means "progeny" or "offspring", though principally it means "nephew"; which suggests that the phrase was an idiom, something like "kith and kin" in English. However, idioms do not usually come into existence without some explicable background, and the logic here is that one's progeny was counted in nephews on those occasions when there was no son. And yet - if we go back to the Lot stories, Lot was Av-Raham's nephew but not counted as his heir, even before the birth of Yishma-El, let alone that of Yitschak. The words here seem to add another tier of explanation to their separation in Genesis 13; was there perhaps an oath or treaty there as well, defining boundaries, Lot now wealthy enough that he could make his own way in the world, renouncing any claim to be Av-Raham's legal heir?
CHESED: What "kindness" has Avi-Melech done him, if it does not connect back to the treaty? The damages money for Sarah?
21:24 VA YOMER AV-RAHAM ANOCHI ISHAV'E'A
KJ: And Abraham said, I will swear.
BN: And Av-Raham said, "I will swear."
ISHAV'E'A (אשבע): from the root SHAVA = "an oath", whence the verb used here, LISHBO'A = "to swear an oath". It also gives the root of the number 7 (שבע), presumably because one swore by the name of one's god, and to the Beney Yisra-El the god of the Number 7 (7th day = Shabbat etc) was the highest form of swearing. Don't forget that we have just left Hagar at a well called Be'er Sheva (באר שבע), the Well of the Oath. Given that we have identified Hagar as water-goddess, can we now understand why her presence at Be'er Sheva, despite its chronological problemicity, was essential at this point of the Avi-Melech tale, just as al-Lat was essential, renamed Lot, at that point. It might be interesting to put all this together in a revised narrative that attempted to reconstruct the original, the aboriginal tale.
21:25 VE HOCHI'ACH AV-RAHAM ET AVI-MELECH AL ODOT BE'ER HA MAYIM ASHER GAZLU AVDEY AVI-MELECH
KJ: And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.
BN: But Av-Raham complained to Avi-Melech about the water-well which Avi-Melech's servants had violently seized.
"Cast" sounds like she abandoned him, the way Oedipus was exposed on the mountain, or Chinese girl-babies undet the one child per family rule. The next verse adds rather more compassion, and sorrow. But we also need to remember that the boy is thirteen years old, not an infant in a crèche. Did the writer get confused with Yitschak, who is a babe at this point?
21:16 VA TELECH VA TESHEV LAH MI NEGED HA RECHEK KI METACHAVEY KESHET KI AMRAH AL ER'EH BE MOT HA YALED VA TESHEV MI NEGED VA TISA ET KOLAH VA TEVCH
21:16 VA TELECH VA TESHEV LAH MI NEGED HA RECHEK KI METACHAVEY KESHET KI AMRAH AL ER'EH BE MOT HA YALED VA TESHEV MI NEGED VA TISA ET KOLAH VA TEVCH
וַתֵּלֶךְ וַתֵּשֶׁב לָהּ מִנֶּגֶד הַרְחֵק כִּמְטַחֲוֵי קֶשֶׁת כִּי אָמְרָה אַל אֶרְאֶה בְּמוֹת הַיָּלֶד וַתֵּשֶׁב מִנֶּגֶד וַתִּשָּׂא אֶת קֹלָהּ וַתֵּבְ
KJ: And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.
BN: And she went away, and sat down facing him a good way off, about a bowshot away; for she said, "Let me not look upon the death of the child." And she sat facing him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
He is always "the boy" never "her son".
This would make more sense if it was attached to the earlier version, where Yishma-El was considerably younger; at 13 he could fend for himself and is unlikely to die, given how close to other Bedou tribes, and several villages, they are. And besides, she has been told by her god that the boy will father multitudes; in which case, he can't die; she ought to know that; o ye of little faith!
21:17 VA YISHM'A ELOHIM ET KOL HA NA'AR VA YIKRA MAL'ACH ELOHIM EL HAGAR MIN HA SHAMAYIM VA YOMER LAH MAH LACH HAGAR AL TIR'I KI SHAMA ELOHIM EL KOL HA NA'AR BA ASHER HU SHAM
וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶת קוֹל הַנַּעַר וַיִּקְרָא מַלְאַךְ אֱלֹהִים אֶל הָגָר מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַה לָּךְ הָגָר אַל תִּירְאִי כִּי שָׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶל קוֹל הַנַּעַר בַּאֲשֶׁר הוּא שָׁם
KJ: And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
BN: And Elohim heard the boy's voice; and an angel of Elohim called to Hagar from the heavens, and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Have no fear, Elohim has heard the boy's voice and knows where he is...
VA YISHM'A ELOHIM: We were not told that Yishma-El was crying too; and frankly it is disappointing to hear that a 13-year-old, especially in those days where 13 meant initiated, capable of handling circumcision without an anaesthetic even if not the full anguish of Bar Mitzvah, meant a man, meant old enough to marry and father children; his responsibility to go find water; his responsibility to take care of his mother; yet he allows her to "cast" him under a shrub, and he just sits there wailing. Not plausible? Not acceptable? But also a factor of the confusion of two stories; because this is perfectly acceptable if he is still a baby.
Again Elohim does not deign to speak to her, but speaks through an angel instead. And he hears the boy's cries, not hers. Is this another attempt to explain his name: Yishma-El = El will hear?
And why does the angel not chastise her for being of little faith. "And he said, Hagar, do you not remember the covenant..."; but of course, the protagonists do not know what we know, which is technically called "dramatic irony"; they only appear in each of the stories, and cannot be aware of the details of the other story.
21:18 KUMI SE'I ET HA NA'AR VE HACHAZIYKI ET YADECH BO KI LE GOY GADOL ASIMENU
קוּמִי שְׂאִי אֶת הַנַּעַר וְהַחֲזִיקִי אֶת יָדֵךְ בּוֹ כִּי לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל אֲשִׂימֶנּוּ
KJ: Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.
BN: "Get up. Lift the boy up, and hold him tightly by the hand; for I will make him into a great nation."
21:19 VA YIPHKACH ELOHIM ET EYNEYHA VA TER'E BE'ER MAYIM VA TELECH VA TEMAL'E ET HA CHEMET MAYIM VA TASHK ET HA NA'AR
וַיִּפְקַח אֱלֹהִים אֶת עֵינֶיהָ וַתֵּרֶא בְּאֵר מָיִם וַתֵּלֶךְ וַתְּמַלֵּא אֶת הַחֵמֶת מַיִם וַתַּשְׁקְ אֶת הַנָּעַר
KJ: And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
BN: And Elohim opened her eyes, and she saw a water-well; and she went, and filled the flagon with water, and gave it to the boy to drink.
VA YIPHKACH (ויפקח): in other words all this is a vision in sleep; and in any other religion the water would have been a miracle. But again note the link to water.
Is all this in fact the aetiological myth of the discovery of this important desert well, and the story tagged on to Hagar and Sarah, where it doesn't really belong? Either way it makes of Hagar a water goddess or priestess (the discovery of the Zamzam well in the Qur'an adds weight to this - the story there is almost identical: the abandonment by Ibrahim, the search for water, the emptying of their provisions; then Hagar leaves the infant Ishmail under a shrub, climbs to the summit of al-Safa, then to the summit of al-Marwah, and back again, seven times, able to keep her eye on Ishmail all the time, looking for water; when the angel Jibril comes to see that they are alright, his wing touches the ground and the Zamzam well springs into life. Moslems making the Hajj to Mecca today will include the Sa'i as part of their rituals, imitating the peregrination back and forth between the two hilltops before making the sevenfold circumambulation of the Ka'aba itself).
Given the fact that Yitschak - Yitschak, not Yishma-El - remains linked to this well throughout his life, and does little else but maintain his father's wells, there may be some significance here too.
21:20 VA YEHI ELOHIM ET HA NA'AR VA YIGDAL VA YESHEV BA MIDBAR VA YEHI ROVEH KASHAT
וַיְהִי אֱלֹהִים אֶת הַנַּעַר וַיִּגְדָּל וַיֵּשֶׁב בַּמִּדְבָּר וַיְהִי רֹבֶה קַשָּׁת
KJ: And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.
BN: And Elohim looked after the lad, and he grew up; and he lived in the desert, and became an archer.
ROVEH KASHAT: Thus explaining the prefigurative allusion to "bowshot" in verse 16 above. But still, why an archer - were the Yishma-Elites famous for this? Clearly the line infers that the tribe were Bedou from the region for a long time to come; then when did they reach Se'ir and become Edomites? The archer is linked to Sagittarius, and to King David in his Orphic role, among others. It would be worth undertaking a comparison of the 12 tribes of Yishma-El versus the 12 of Ya'akov, by name, and try to work out which in each list matches the other in terms of the 12 constellations that they denote. What will be discovered is that Yoseph is connected with archery, the one son not in the final tribal list; even though he is not officially the progenitor of that list, this makes him equivalent to Yishma-El – and strange, that it is Yishma-El who is the only other character in the entire Torah whose fate is associated, not with visions but with dreams.
Wonderful the way in Biblical stories time just passes. A detailed account of a mini-crisis, then suddenly it's a decade later. Or is this simply the editor realising he has made an error, making Yishma-El a baby when he was already thirteen years old, and this the attempt to cover it up.
Greek Artemis, Eros and Apollo are associated with archery, as are Roman Diana and Cupid; it comes into mediaeval legend in diluted form, with Robin Hood and Robin Goodfellow both reflecting residual Arthurian legends that were themselves Av-Rahamic in origin (and the Av-Rahamic probably Nimrodic before then). The earliest known sources are Babylonian Marduk, and the whole panoply of Indian gods including Karna, Arjuna, Rama, Abhimanyu, and Siva; Persian Arash was also an archer. Ar Thur simply means "the king" in Nordic; the Yehudit/Kena'anite would be "Moloch"; and Herakles, who is another version of this myth (the twelve labours, one in each month; which is to say one to represent each of the 12 constellations of the heavens, the constellations being the angels who revolve around the sun by day and the moon by night, who is Avinu Malkeynu, "our father the king", and the Shechinah or divine radiance or holy ghost or whatever other diminution of her role by our now exclusively patriarchal civilisation), is also represented as an archer.
The point being: the tales of Av-Raham and Sarah are simply a Beney Yisra-Eli version, monotheised and masculinised, of the older sun-god and moon-goddess myths, rites, ceremonies, the third part of which is always the eternally recurring birth and death of their first-born/second-born son (all of which is why Christianity should be regarded as a much older religion than Judaism; in the rebirth of Tammuz, Christianity gives a new name to a cult known from archaeological evidence to be at least 35,000 years old.) The Lot stories pick up the moon pieces, as does Hagar, but ultimately Lot and Hagar are the next generation in the pantheon.
21:21 VA YESHEV BE MIDBAR PA'RAN VA TIKACH LO IMO ISHAH ME ERETS MITSRAYIM
21:21 VA YESHEV BE MIDBAR PA'RAN VA TIKACH LO IMO ISHAH ME ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּמִדְבַּר פָּארָן וַתִּקַּח לוֹ אִמּוֹ אִשָּׁה מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ: And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
BN: And he lived in the desert of Pa'ran; and his mother found him a wife in the land of Mitsrayim.
PA'RAN (פארן): The name Pa'ran has not previously been mentioned in this story. It means "abounding in foliage" or "abounding in caverns", and is regularly used as an alternative name for Sinai. Mentioned in Numbers 10:12; 13:3 and 13:26; Deuteronomy 1:1; 1 Samuel 25:1; 1 Kings 11:18. Chavakuk (Habakkuk) 3:3 calls it HAR PA'RAN (הר פארן); and Deuteronomy 33:2 HAREY PA'RAN (הרי פארן). Several of these are significant because they place Pa'ran very definitely on the eastern side of the Jordan, in the Nefud desert, and even further south into the Hejaz in the Chavakuk, thereby helping us with the "problem" of the three Hagar-Yishma-El versions: Be'er Lechi Ro'i in Genesis 16, Be'er Sheva in this chapter, and Zamzam in the Qu'ran. Clearly this was a myth that travelled, and could be located wherever it was believed and told, just as King Arthur can equally be found in Glastonbury in Somerset, Tintagel in Cornwall, or Cornouaille in Britanny, and Robin Hood of Sherwood forest can turn up in the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night's Dream, but be King Bran in the Welsh Mabinogion and Bran the Blessed, the ancestor of King Arthur, when Christianity looked for ways - akin to Ezra's redaction of the Tanach - to absorb and subsume pre-Christian myths and legends.
An Egyptian wife for Yishma-El suggests obvious Egyptian links for the tribe beyond and before this time, and we have been told that Hagar was herself Egytian, so this is logical. The previous version of their expulsion takes them back toward Egypt as well – though the Qur'an makes a Midyanite legend of it, having them cross the Hejaz, with Av-Raham at one stage, or Ibrahim in that version, to found Mecca and establish the Ka'aba etc.
Interesting that the Yishma-Elites will later be involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of Yoseph; probably just further evidence of the nomadic and mercantile nature of these tribes.
Again note that so many of the Beney Yisra-El stories seem to have been Edomite stories that they took over; and Yishma-El becomes Edom later on. Being Edomite also makes the Hejaz connection much more logical than the Egyptian.
Pey break; end of fragment five.
✡
End of that story, start of the PHICHOL/AVI-MELECH tale, which should be read as the continuation of the previous from the end of chapter 20, rather than a new tale, as here; the Hagar-Yishma-El providing an interruption.
21:22 VA YEHI BA ET HA HI VA YOMER AVI-MELECH U PHICHOL SAR TSEVA'O EL AV-RAHAM LEMOR ELOHIM IMCHA BE CHOL ASHER ATAH OSEH
וַיְהִי בָּעֵת הַהִוא וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ וּפִיכֹל שַׂר צְבָאוֹ אֶל אַבְרָהָם לֵאמֹר אֱלֹהִים עִמְּךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁ
KJ: And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest:
BN: And it happened at that time that Avi-Melech, with Phichol the captain of his host, spoke to Av-Raham saying, "Elohim is with you in everything you do...
PHICHOL SAR TSEVA'O (פיכל שר צבאו): a particular individual named, or some kind of official spokesman? The root is PEY (פה) = "a mouth" and KOL (כל) = "everyone" or "everything", thus making the name mean "spokesman", in which case it should be hyphenated as PHI-CHOL. Note SAR (שר) = "prince", the masculine form of Sarah (שרה) = "princess"; though the word is also used today to mean "minister of state".
[As a completely irrelevant side-note, the Septuagint, writing SARAH in the Greek, renders it as Σaρρa; I merely wonder if American rock stars are that knowledgeable.]
21:23 VE ATAH HISHAV'AH LI VE'LOHIM HENAH IM TISHKOR LI U LE NIYNI U LE NECHDI KA CHESED ASHER ASIYTI IMCHA TA'ASEH IMADI VE IM HA ARETS ASHER GARTAH BAH
וְעַתָּה הִשָּׁבְעָה לִּי בֵאלֹהִים הֵנָּה אִם תִּשְׁקֹר לִי וּלְנִינִי וּלְנֶכְדִּי כַּחֶסֶד אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי עִמְּךָ תַּעֲשֶׂה עִמָּדִי וְעִם הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר גַּרְתָּה בָּהּ
KJ: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.
BN: "Now therefore swear to me here by Elohim that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son; but according to the kindness that I have shown you, so you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have been living."
Yet he has already dealt falsely over the matter of Sarah being his sister not his wife. Why is he asking this oath now? It is in fact much more than an oath, it is a treaty, with future generations included. As noted above, it really needs to be moved, placed contiguous with the end of the previous Avi-Melech story, to which it makes a logical continuation; and can we also assume, from the wording there, that not only is this a treaty confirming peaceful cohabitation, but that it would also have involved the placing of boundary-stones, as we will witness Lavan and Ya'akov doing in Genesis 31:43 ff, clear legal definitions of tribal territories.
Let us rejoin the stories: The truth about Sarah has been revealed; Avi-Melech has given Av-Raham a fortune to go away; this now adds the reciprocity of the treaty: I am giving you a fortune, you give me your promise. Where we were left wondering why he gave Av-Raham so much wealth, now we understand that a treaty is being made, and Av-Raham with his large and well-armed tribe, already well-known for its part in the War of the Five Kings, looking for a place to settle down, agrees not to take his tribe and simply conquer Avi-Melech's territory. (And why would he anyway, if he has been promised the whole of Kena'an, and this is dry desert land!)
NIYNI (ניני) - from the root NUN (נונ) = "progeny" or "offspring"; on the only three occasions when it is used in the Tanach (here, Job 18:19 and Isaiah 14:22) it is coupled with NECHDI (נכדי), from the root NACHAD (נכד) which also means "progeny" or "offspring", though principally it means "nephew"; which suggests that the phrase was an idiom, something like "kith and kin" in English. However, idioms do not usually come into existence without some explicable background, and the logic here is that one's progeny was counted in nephews on those occasions when there was no son. And yet - if we go back to the Lot stories, Lot was Av-Raham's nephew but not counted as his heir, even before the birth of Yishma-El, let alone that of Yitschak. The words here seem to add another tier of explanation to their separation in Genesis 13; was there perhaps an oath or treaty there as well, defining boundaries, Lot now wealthy enough that he could make his own way in the world, renouncing any claim to be Av-Raham's legal heir?
CHESED: What "kindness" has Avi-Melech done him, if it does not connect back to the treaty? The damages money for Sarah?
21:24 VA YOMER AV-RAHAM ANOCHI ISHAV'E'A
וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָהָם אָנֹכִי אִשָּׁבֵעַ
KJ: And Abraham said, I will swear.
BN: And Av-Raham said, "I will swear."
ISHAV'E'A (אשבע): from the root SHAVA = "an oath", whence the verb used here, LISHBO'A = "to swear an oath". It also gives the root of the number 7 (שבע), presumably because one swore by the name of one's god, and to the Beney Yisra-El the god of the Number 7 (7th day = Shabbat etc) was the highest form of swearing. Don't forget that we have just left Hagar at a well called Be'er Sheva (באר שבע), the Well of the Oath. Given that we have identified Hagar as water-goddess, can we now understand why her presence at Be'er Sheva, despite its chronological problemicity, was essential at this point of the Avi-Melech tale, just as al-Lat was essential, renamed Lot, at that point. It might be interesting to put all this together in a revised narrative that attempted to reconstruct the original, the aboriginal tale.
21:25 VE HOCHI'ACH AV-RAHAM ET AVI-MELECH AL ODOT BE'ER HA MAYIM ASHER GAZLU AVDEY AVI-MELECH
וְהוֹכִחַ אַבְרָהָם אֶת אֲבִימֶלֶךְ עַל אֹדוֹת בְּאֵר הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר גָּזְלוּ עַבְדֵי אֲבִימֶלֶךְ
KJ: And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.
BN: But Av-Raham complained to Avi-Melech about the water-well which Avi-Melech's servants had violently seized.
Still more wells and water-tales. But which well? And when? At the time of the treaty, or some time afterwards? Some text is missing here. And we have only just heard about Hagar and a well. Is this then Hagar's well by any chance, and there is some connection between this tale and the one that precedes it and which appeared to end all of a sudden? We cannot know.
And what now is the nature of their relationship? Vassal lord and tenant farmer? Two warlords occupying adjacent land? We know from the preceding verses that Av-Raham and Avi-Melech have signed some sort of treaty over the land; this affair of the well is a breach of that treaty.
21:26 VA YOMER AVI-MELECH LO YAD'ATI MI ASAH ET HA DEVAR HA ZEH VE GAM ATAH LO HIGADETA LI VE GAM ANOCHI LO SHAMA'TI BILTI HA YOM
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ לֹא יָדַעְתִּי מִי עָשָׂה אֶת הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה וְגַם אַתָּה לֹא הִגַּדְתָּ לִּי וְגַם אָנֹכִי לֹא שָׁמַעְתִּי בִּלְתִּי הַיּוֹם
KJ: And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.
BN: And Avi-Melech said: "I have no idea who might have done this thing; nor did you tell me, nor had I heard of it, until to-day."
Which makes him as perplexed by this tale as we are. But clearly, Av-Raham having settled between Kadesh and Shur, in Avi-Melech's demesne (see Genesis 20:1 and 20:15), it is not only religious differences that have caused conflict between two peoples; and in the Yitschak tales that follow, there will be nothing to his life but these conflicts over wells.
Having said which, the continuum of the narrative, separating these two Avi-Melech stories, appears to have Av-Raham now living in Mamre/Chevron; or, at least, he may well be living between Kadesh and Shur, but Sarah is most definitely at Mamre/Chevron. So we have further evidence that this tale is mis-placed and needs to go alongside the previous.
21:27 VA YIKACH AV-RAHAM TSON U VAKAR VA YITEN LA AVI-MELECH VA YICHRETU SHENEYHEM BERIT
וַיִּקַּח אַבְרָהָם צֹאן וּבָקָר וַיִּתֵּן לַאֲבִימֶלֶךְ וַיִּכְרְתוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם בְּרִית
KJ: And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.
BN: Then Av-Raham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Avi-Melech; and the two of them made a covenant.
Again we have to question the narrative order. Did these incidents come at the very start, leading to the giving of Sarah, which led to the discovery about Sarah, which led to Avi-Melech giving Av-Raham sheep etc as part of a treaty? Or is the incident of the well, and not, or as well as, the incident of Sarah, the incipit of the first treaty? Or is this a second treaty, following the failure of the first? If it is a second, it is problematic, because the sheep and oxen all belonged to Avi-Melech in the first place, so Av-Raham is not giving, but giving back. And where does Hagar the Egyptian fit into this: are we witnessing a swap: sheep for sheep, ox for ox, priestess for priestess? Or are the Rechushim that he is giving intended purely for sacrifice, as a feast to accompany the ratification of the treaty? One has only to look at the next verses to see that this latter must be so.
Actually it would make much more sense if the opening verses of this fragment were to follow now, as the making of the Berit or covenant.
21:28 VA YATSEV AV-RAHAM ET SHEVA KIVSOT HA TSON LEVADHEN
וַיַּצֵּב אַבְרָהָם אֶת שֶׁבַע כִּבְשֹׂת הַצֹּאן לְבַדְּהֶן
KJ: And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
BN: And Av-Raham set seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves.
Note the number! Note the gender! Note the rite! Click here for the full details of the sacrifices.
21:29 VA YOMER AVI-MELECH EL AV-RAHAM MAH HENAH SHEVA KEVASOT HA ELEH ASHER HITSAVTA LEVADANAH
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ אֶל אַבְרָהָם מָה הֵנָּה שֶׁבַע כְּבָשֹׂת הָאֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר הִצַּבְתָּ לְבַדָּנָה
KJ: And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
BN: And Avi-Melech said to Av-Raham, "What is the meaning of these seven ewe-lambs which you have set by themselves?"
Why 7 indeed? Because the Ezraics got it wrong - the place, Be'er Sheva (באר שבע) means "The Well of the Oath", though it can also mean "The Well of the Seven" (see verse 24 above and 31 below for proof). This is indeed Hagar's well. And as to the seven ewe-lambs; here they are called KEVASOT (כבשת) which is the feminine form of the young ram; elsewhere the ewe-lamb is known more famously as RACHEL (רחל), whose sacred number throughout the YA'AKOV story is likewise 7 (seven years waiting for her, seven years married to her...)
The commonest form of sacrifice in Temple times, as we know from the Musaph of Shabbat, was "Shney kevasim beney shanah…" males in this case, where Av-Raham has set aside females; two, where he has set aside seven. But that distinction of two and seven is one we have witnessed before, in the two versions of No'ach, where he took 2 of every unclean and 7 of every clean beast (Genesis 7:2).
Compare this process with the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah: Is it the same Av-Raham? Is he increasing his territory in this way?
21:30 VA YOMER KI ET SHEVA KEVASOT TIKACH MI YADI BA AVUR TIHEYEH LI KI CHAPHARTI ET HA BE'ER HA ZOT
וַיֹּאמֶר כִּי אֶת שֶׁבַע כְּבָשֹׂת תִּקַּח מִיָּדִי בַּעֲבוּר תִּהְיֶה לִּי לְעֵדָה כִּי חָפַרְתִּי אֶת הַבְּאֵר הַזֹּאת
KJ: And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.
BN: And he said, "Because these are the seven ewe-lambs that you will take from my hand, to serve as my witness that I dug this well."
I think the answer lies in word-play: he is making the seven serve for the oath, so that Sheva equals Sheva.
The ewes in a sense are payment for the patent and copyright over the well, and this is a treaty allowing settlement, or at least a caravanserai for nomads. But more important than payment is the ceremony of sacrifice and oath-swearing, not described here, but which would have accompanied the treaty. We saw it earlier with Ephron and after the War of the Five Kings.
The ewes in a sense are payment for the patent and copyright over the well, and this is a treaty allowing settlement, or at least a caravanserai for nomads. But more important than payment is the ceremony of sacrifice and oath-swearing, not described here, but which would have accompanied the treaty. We saw it earlier with Ephron and after the War of the Five Kings.
21:31 AL KEN KARA LA MAKOM HA HU BE'ER SHAVA KI SHAM NISHBE'U SHENEYHEM
עַל כֵּן קָרָא לַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא בְּאֵר שָׁבַע כִּי שָׁם נִשְׁבְּעוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם
KJ: Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them.
BN: For which reason the place was called Be'er Shava; because there they both swore an oath.
It will be essential to recall just how close they were geographically to both Mitsrayim and the Pelishtim, when we read on into the Yitschak and Ya'akov stories; because Be'er Sheva becomes the tribal home from now until the descent into Mitsrayim. There is also no doubt that Yishma-El is still living in and around Be'er Sheva too (see 21:14).
And now what has been argued previously about the meaning of Be'er Sheva is borne out by the text.
Although in fact the Redactor has been careful to include both meanings of Sheva, the number seven and the oath, so that you can use the text to endorse it either way.
21:32 VA YICHRETU VERIT BI VE'ER SHAVA VA YAKOM AVI-MELECH U PHICHOL SAR TSEVA'O YA YASHUVU EL ERETS PELISHTIM
וַיִּכְרְתוּ בְרִית בִּבְאֵר שָׁבַע וַיָּקָם אֲבִימֶלֶךְ וּפִיכֹל שַׂר צְבָאוֹ וַיָּשֻׁבוּ אֶל אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים
KJ: Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.
BN: So it was that they made a covenant at Be'er Sheva; and Avi-Melech got up, with Phichol the captain of his host, and they returned to the land of the Pelishtim.
This is surely an error - the Pelishtim did not yet exist; see previous comments on this subject, but also note that he was explicitly described as the king of the Pelishtim in Genesis 20:3. But if he was not of the Pelishtim, then of what people was he? This becomes one of those anachronisms that help us date the text: by the time of Ezra, centuries had passed since the Pelishtim settled around Aza; so the name would have been used as if by default. Avi-Melech was no more of the Pelishtim than Richard the Lion-Heart was an Englishman – he was an Angevin Norman from Poitiers, who only ever set foot in England once in his life, for the day of, and the riot that followed, his coronation, and spoke Norman French, without a single word of Aenglisch; yet would we think of him as anything but English? Given Hagar's origins, and the repetition of the sister-wife story, could he in fact have been Egyptian?
And see my note to Genesis 10:14, which may be the resolver on this occasion.
And see my note to Genesis 10:14, which may be the resolver on this occasion.
Phichol's role in this acccount is entirely negligible. Presumably all negotiations between Av-Raham and Avi-Melech took place between spokespeople, and that Av-Raham had his equivalent of Phichol too.
21:33 VA YITA ESHEL BI VE'ER SHAVA, VA YIKRA SHAM BE SHEM YHVH EL OLAM
וַיִּטַּע אֶשֶׁל בִּבְאֵר שָׁבַע וַיִּקְרָא שָׁם בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה אֵל עוֹלָם
KJ: And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.
BN: And Av-Raham planted a tamarisk tree in Be'er Sheva, and called there on the name of YHVH, the everlasting god.
The planting of trees in the ancient world is never mere story-telling. This is not a Biblical way of saying that Av-Raham had a pretty garden, and liked to prune his roses on a summer's evening à la Voltaire. TAMAR (תמר) = "the date", and dates are amongst the most densely seeded of all fruit trees, and therefore central to the sacred groves of the fertility-goddess in those lands in which they grow; only the pomegranate and the watermelon can be compared for density of seeds, but these latter carry their seeds internally, whereas the date is as prodigious as grape clusters on the outside of the tree itself. Planting the tree is a way of making a place sacred; it describes intended longevity of habitation - you plant for future generations, because the trees take years to become fully fruitful - whence the name of YHVH here (which surely would have been El Shadai in the original) as YHVH EL OLAM. This is an allegorical statement that the treaty is "in perpetuity".
YHVH EL OLAM (יהוה אל עולם): English translations presume this verse refers to Av-Raham, though it is not clear; the god in question YHVH EL OLAM could just as easily be Avi-Melech's god.
But a tamarisk tree, in that part of the country where the date-goddess was worshipped in her date-shrines as the mother-goddess! cf David's daughter Tamar, and Yehudah's daughter-in-law Tamar, both victims of sexual conquest, both tales of the date-goddess rendered "historical".
Note that the story of Hagar and Yishma-El is traditionally the special reading in synagogue for Rosh Ha Shanah, the New Year; why did the Rabbis identify the story with the New Year; they who never did anything without two hundred years of detailed analysis, exegesis and discussion! Clearly my comments about new epochs, millennia and hundredth birthdays are not as unconventional as you may have imagined. The Akeda, which follows and completes this section of the original epic, is read on the second day of New Year.
21:34 VA YAGAR AV-RAHAM BE ERETS PELISHTIM YAMIM RABIM
וַיָּגָר אַבְרָהָם בְּאֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים יָמִים רַבִּים
KJ: And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.
BN: And Av-Raham sojourned in the land of the Pelishtim for many days.
But it was Avi-Melech not Av-Raham who returned to the land of the Pelishtim in verse 32 - and besides, from Avi-Melech to Av-Raham is not that far, at least in the meanings of their names: "My father the king", and "the great father".
Or maybe Av-Raham lived among the Pelishtim for a long time, as David would later – and this gives a kind of retroactive validation to David's time in Tsiklag (1 Samuel 27 ff). David even raided the Beney Yisra-Eli tribes as a mercenary. Is he seeking justification through precedent? And the rape of Tamar was the first cause of the revolt of Av-Shalom? One cannot simply overlook these things.
VA YAGAR also connects linguistically to HAGAR, a word-play that cannot have been accidental, especially as it occurs in the closing line of the tale - I noted at verse 14 that HA GAR comes from the root GAR , meaning "a stranger", but now we need to note that it also yields the verb used here, LAGUR, "to dwell". As if to say, it was previously HAGAR's, but she is gone, has become a stranger, made Hegira (Hejirah in some transliterations) - which by oddity also comes from the same root.
Pey break; end of sixth fragment; end of chapter 21
Surf The Site
Surf The Site
Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
Copyright © 2020 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
No comments:
Post a Comment