SOURCE: "Themes of the Pentateuchal Narratives" in The Pentateuch: A Study in Salvation History, Herder and Herder, 1964, pp. 22-100.

[In this essay, Suelzer examines the themes that structure what he takes to be an essentially unified Torah.]

Introduction

The partition of the Pentateuch into the individual books of Moses was a practical measure undertaken to render the massive work more manageable and intelligible. The essential unity of the work as a whole however was not impaired, for no matter what additions and redactions the Pentateuch underwent it ever retained a basic constant in the light of which disparate traditions were eliminated, adapted or transformed. That normative was the Hebrews' vital experience of Yahweh effecting his will for all men and for Israel in particular; hence the traditions chosen by the sacred writers for preservation in the Pentateuch are all aspects of the dominant thesis: Yahweh's salvific deeds and Israel's response. Some scattered traditions reflect isolated elements of the theme; others, like facets having similar angles of reflection, converge their light on a particular phase, reinforcing and clarifying a single aspect of the leitmotif. No single treatment can hope to display all the facets of the Pentateuch; therefore in our selection of materials we will follow the sacred writers and stress the themes they hold paramount in Israel's account of her salvation history.

What are the salient motifs in the salvation history? The Pentateuchal materials are grouped around major traditions which include theologized reflections about Yahweh in his relation to Israel: Yahweh, creator of the world, effected his plan for man's salvation by calling apart the patriarchs and promising them land and posterity. Later he rescued the children of the patriarchs from Egyptian slavery, guided them through hardships in the desert, climaxed his deeds by a personal alliance at Sinai and at last brought his people to the land he had pledged to their fathers. The motifs here so tersely recapitulated developed from slender beginnings; in the process of growth they absorbed and reshaped the most diverse materials until the basic themes blossomed into a work of gigantic theological proportions. The exact process of this growth is one of the key problems in Pentateuchal studies.

Strictly speaking the primitive history (Gn 1-11) is an introduction to the salvation history, not one of its themes. In this study however it is treated with the other motifs because it provides a background—the theological realities and the Semitic world—against which the salvation drama unfolds with added depth and clarity. The drama begins with the choice of Abraham and the promise of land¹ and progeny to him and his descendants. The stories of the fathers bring out the sovereignty of the divine will; with equal freedom Yahweh employs or rejects human instruments and for the most part accomplishes his designs by what seem to be the ordinary ways of Providence. But in the Exodus Yahweh's action is of a different sort altogether; here he is a God of obvious power: "Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?" (Dt 4:34). The vivid memory of delivery from bondage was the germinal cell from which grew Israel's fuller realization of Yahweh as pre-eminently her God.

In return for the divine goodness which had wrought her deliverance from Egypt Israel showed surly ingratitude. The stories of the desert wandering with their alternate themes of divine solicitude and human caviling sharpen the contrast between the largesse of Yahweh and the niggardly response of Israel to her God. Yet at Sinai—his will to save unchanged by his children's ingratitude—Yahweh concluded a covenant with Israel, thus binding himself irrevocably to his people. The covenant will be treated more fully in the discussion of Hebrew law; for the present it will suffice to place the Sinai revelation in its proper context and to relate it to the other themes of salvation history.

The traditions included in the themes are far more than cherished memories of the past. They bear the revelation of the Lord and, although rooted in the temporal order, they have validity for all generations and present to Israel of every age a renewed challenge of total response to the divine election. The sacred writers generally develop a given theme within defined limits of a book, e.g. the promises to the patriarchs in Gn 12-50. Within a particular theme however numerous isolated traditions may occur, e.g. Gn 14; these have been omitted or referred to only in passing in order to strengthen the impact of the theme in question. Where a key motif treated in one section is enhanced by echoes elsewhere in the Pentateuch (e.g. Dt's frequent mention of the promises made to the patriarchs), these references have been incorporated into the treatment of the main theme.

The primitive history

The primitive history of Gn 1-11 stands at the head of the Pentateuch as a background for the greatly expanded traditions of the patriarchs, the Exodus and Sinai, in which are recapitulated Yahweh's merciful designs. As the traditions of salvation history burgeoned, the sacred writers felt the need to trace the antecedents of Israel's election by describing Yahweh's relation to the world from its creation until the time of Abraham. Living as she did in an atmosphere permeated by myths about cosmic and human origins Israel at an early age must have formed her own cosmogony relating the creation of the world to Yahweh. However, creation accounts in written form appear only late in Israel's history. Apparently long theological reflection was required to correlate the traditions of origins with her prime interest: the portrayal of Yahweh's action in history. Properly speaking there is no Hebrew doctrine of creation, for nowhere is creation treated for itself; the creation account is only an introduction to the saving plan initiated by the call of Abraham. Creation was seen as an historical event opening the course of human existence, a fact stressed in the careful chronology of the Priestly writer.

It may seem that Gn 1-11 has already received its due meed of attention in dogmatic and apologetic writings. The chapters of the primitive history have played a vital part in the development and exposition of such doctrines as creation, grace, original justice, concupiscence and original sin. Catholic apologetes, furthermore, must consider the relation of the biblical recital of human origins to modern scientific theories. The day has passed when apologetes can be flustered by supposed conflicts between the Bible and biological evolution; but there is still a legitimate need to examine contemporary hypotheses of cosmic and human origins in the light of Church teaching, which is based in part on the biblical accounts. Our present concern however is not with such a use of biblical materials. It frequently happens that when the Bible is used for doctrinal, moral or apologetic content inherent in a later stage of revelation the sacred accounts are not permitted to yield their true and complete message; they are not considered in and for themselves but only in relation to some other interest or concern. Our study, untrammeled by direct dogmatic or apologetic preoccupations, will let the narratives relate for themselves the significance the events described in Gn 1-II held for the sacred writer—and hence for Israel as a whole.

Creation

The different cycles of tradition present in the Pentateuch are immediately obvious in the double creation accounts: the Priestly narrative of Gn 1:1-2,4a and the Yahwist version of 2:4b-25. The Priestly writer conceives creation as development from chaos to cosmos; he emphasizes the intial tōhûāwsbōhû, the formlessness and utter lack of distinction; and in an orderly framework of seven days he describes the constitution and adornment of the world in which man appears as the climax. The first words of Gn seem to be a summary of the story to follow: the visible world owes its origin to God. Although creation out of nothing is not explicit in the Priestly narrative it might be implied. It is also true that the verb bara' is reserved for the divine activity, and no reference to the material used ever accompanies it. For the Yahwist, creation is progress from the desert to the sown: "There was not yet any field shrub on the earth nor had the plants of the field sprung up, for the Lord God had sent no rain on the earth and there was no man to till the soil" (2:5). From the very beginning of the Yahwist report man is the center of attention and the process of creation is complete only when "the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it" (2:15).

Both writers emphasize that the world and all it contains are the work of Yahweh; but the Priestly writer stresses Yahweh's effortless and transcendent creation by a mere word ("God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" [Gn 1:3]). Even where the Priestly writer uses the phrase "God made," as in Gn 1:16, it is preceded by the divine creative word, as if to say that all things were effected by the power of his word. The Yahwist on the contrary conceives Yahweh as a potter fashioning man from clay and then breathing into his nostrils the breath of life (2:7). The sole reference to the creation of woman in the Priestly narrative is the brief text: "Male and female he created them" (1:27). The Yahwist however regards the creation of woman as the definite climax of his story in ch 2. He views woman as the equal of man because she is of the same nature and is given by Yahweh to be man's helpmate, not his chattel. If the report in Gn 2:7 of the creation of Adam is not a literal description of how the first man came to be, it would also seem that the account of the creation of Eve is not to be taken literally, but rather as an analogy illustrating the writer's thoughts on the nature of woman and her relation to man.

Gn 1-2 contains some elements common to ancient pagan mythologies and these common elements raise the question: what is the relationship between creation myths of the ancient Near East and the story of creation in Gn? Critics of an earlier time dismissed the biblical narratives as Hebrew modifications of older creation myths; nowadays the question cannot be answered so simply. Since certain parallels to Gn are found in Enuma elish, a dramatic recital of the struggle between cosmic order and chaos, a brief summary of the Akkadian epic will reveal points of resemblance and contrast. In the strife among the gods (begotten by the primordial Apsu and Tiamat, fresh and salt waters respectively) Marduk cuts in two the defeated Tiamat and uses her body to form the heavens and the earth. Then the victorious Marduk discloses his plan:

Blood I will mass and cause bones to be.
I will establish a savage, "man" shall be his
  name.
Verily, savage-man I will create.
He will be charged with the service of the
  gods
That they might be at ease
(6:5-8).

The god Kingu who had incited Tiamat to rebellion is selected:

They bound him, holding him before Ea.
They imposed on him his guilt and severed
  his blood (vessels).
Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.
He imposed the service and let free the gods
(6:31-34).

The Enuma elish obviously has rough parallels with the Gn creation account; doubtless Tiamat is related etymologically to the abyss (t^ehôm) of Gn 1:2 and the formation of man from the blood of a god recognizes godlike characteristics in man, characteristics which Gn attributes to his being made in the image and likeness of God. The tenor of the biblical narrative is so distinctive however and the method and purpose of the creation it describes so different that a real dependence of Gn on Babylonian mythology is inconceivable. The gross polytheism of the Enuma elish and its atmosphere of struggle between hostile forces are totally absent from Gn, where Yahweh as sole creator accomplishes his works effortlessly by omnipotent decrees.² No suggestion of creation from nothing is found in the pagan myths because the "creation" is always achieved with pre-existent materials—the body of Tiamat or the blood of Kingu. In contrast to the idea that man was created for the service of the gods both the Yahwist and Priestly traditions portray Adam as the object of Yahweh's personal concern. He is surrounded with every good, blessed and made fruitful; by his dominion over the earth he is even permitted to share the divine creativity.

It is clear then that the resemblance of Gn 1-2 to older creation myths is limited chiefly to conceptualization. Although the sacred writer was inspired he did not necessarily receive his materials by revelation. In fact revelation, either primitive or direct, should be excluded as the source of the creation story. (This exclusion does not however extend to the role of revelation in the formation of the story.) As he fashioned his story of the primeval world the author may have employed literary forms well known to his audience, just as a modern author writes in the familiar genre of the novel or play to convey his thought. In using ancient literary forms the biblical writer deliberately freed them from their mythological dimensions and concepts. Thus the Priestly writer's casual description of the sun and moon as two great lights and his stress upon their limited function (Gn 1:14-19) are possibly a polemic directed against the worship of these luminaries as depicted in the mythic materials. The Priestly description is more subtle but perhaps no less effective than Dt's direct prohibition: "And when you look up to the heavens and behold the sun or moon or any star among the heavenly hosts, do not be led astray into adoring them or serving them" (Dt 4:19). Again, the organization of old materials into a seven-day framework lifts the story from the realm of myth into the temporal order and presents creation as a definite historic act.

This appeal to resemblances in literary form is not intended to oversimplify the relation between Gn and myth, for, as the Biblical Commission noted in its reply to Cardinal Suhard, the question of genres in the primeval history is obscure and complex; "one can, therefore, neither deny nor affirm their historicity without unduly attributing to them the canons of a literary style within which it is impossible to classify them."³ It is evident however that the creation accounts are not meant as a literal description of events as they actually transpired but as analogies which the sacred writer used to express the burden of his thought: Yahweh alone created all that exists, arranged it in a suitable order and climaxed his work by the creation of man and woman in his own image.

Temptation and fall

One theological concern of the Priestly writer is to demonstrate that all of Yahweh's creation is good; seven times he repeats the refrain "God saw that it was good."

Given the transcendent perfection of Yahweh the creator it is unthinkable that his works can be anything but perfect. Nevertheless the world has degenerated from its pristine goodness. Having described cosmic and human origins in his introduction to salvation history the sacred author must now explain how deterioration in man and in the world came about. Why must man painfully wrest a living from the earth he was meant to dominate; why does a woman bear her children in travail and sorrow; why do death and decay await man at the end? Where does sin come from? In answering these questions the Yahwist rejects the notion that a primal principle of evil exists in the world. Evil is an intrusion; originally it had no place in the goodness of Yahweh's creation. Here too the story of how sin, suffering and death entered the world need not be a literal report of what actually happened. Sin and its consequences are the burden of the message; the vehicle of the message could well be familiar genres appealing to the imagination as well as to the mind.

The Yahwist conceives all suffering and death as the result of man's disobedience to Yahweh's decree not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gn 2:17). Gn 2:9 also speaks of the tree of life, which is not mentioned again until 3:22. The two trees perhaps represent a double tradition in the Yahwist narrative. (The dirge over the king of Tyre in Ez 28:11-19 is based on still another tradition of the paradise story, one in which there is no mention of woman.) The temptation and fall are recorded with great psychological insight. The serpent offers a casual opening gambit: "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?"' (3:1). The woman exaggerates the divine prohibition; the serpent pursues the issue until "the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for the knowledge it would give. She took of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband and he ate" (3:6-7).

Although an exact determination of their sin is impossible the context of the story gives some clues to its nature. The serpent assures Eve that eating from the forbidden tree will bring knowledge, not death: "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gn 3:5). Then after the fall Yahweh says: "Indeed! the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (3:22). What does it mean, to know good and evil? The Hebrew idiom used in 3:5 and 3:22 can be interpreted as totality of knowledge. The context suggests another meaning: by disobedience Adam and Eve tried to attain familiarity with mysteries beyond their human status; they set themselves as arbiters of the moral order, thus usurping Yahweh's prerogatives. Thomas Aquinas notes that man sinned by coveting the likeness of God as regards good and evil, so that with his own native powers he might decide good and evil for himself (S th, II, II, 163, a. 1). Neither of these interpretations however sheds light on the nature of the transgression.

A third connotation identifies knowledge of good and evil with some kind of sexual experience. Certainly normal intercourse between the sexes cannot be meant, although some scholars have so interpreted the texts.⁴ The tenor of the narrative of the creation of Adam and Eve indicates that the union of the sexes is planned and blessed by Yahweh (see Gn 1:27ff; 2:21ff). Nevertheless, in the face of the excesses of Canaanite fertility cults with their exaltation of the female principle, the sacred writer could have conceived the primal sin as a perversion of lawful sexual activity. The relation between vv 5 and 7 in ch 3 strengthens the possibility of this interpretation. The serpent's promise: "Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God" is echoed and expanded in v 7: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they realized that they were naked" (see also 3:11). At first glance an interpretation of the sin as a sexual offense may seem improbable because the knowledge acquired is supposed to make Adam and Eve like God, who in Hebrew thought is never associated with sexual activity. The difficulty disappears with the realization that fertility cults had as one of their objectives communion with divinity. Further the serpent was used as a sexual symbol in the ancient Near East, and it is possible that the author of the biblical narratives was so employing it. The identity of the serpent is never fully clarified; he represents man's enemy, also Yahweh's foe, but he remains a creature nonetheless.

The aftermath of the transgression is portrayed with equal psychological accuracy. Adam gives Yahweh the faltering explanation: "The woman you placed at my side gave me fruit from the tree and I ate" (Gn 3:12); then Eve in turn excuses herself: "The serpent deceived me and I ate" (3:13). Punishment is inevitable; yet before he decrees it Yahweh addresses a curse to the serpent:

Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals, and among all the beasts of the field; on your belly you shall crawl, dust shall you eat, all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel (3:14-15).

The phrase "you and the woman" applies literally to the serpent and Eve; "her seed" is the descendants of Adam and Eve. The seed of the serpent is less easily determined; it is probably a literary expression of resistance to God by all created forces of evil. The picture in v 15b ("He shall crush [šûf] your head and you shall lie in wait for [šûf] his heel") is one of perpetual struggle between the seed of Eve and that of the serpent. Within the context of the Yahwist's sin-deliverance theme however the words indicate more than a continuing, indecisive conflict and one can assume ultimate victory for mankind. In addition Gn 3:14-15 is from first to last a curse addressed to the serpent; this fact also permits an interpretation of final defeat for the tempter of mankind.⁵

The punishments meted out by Yahweh touch Adam and Eve in the activities most proper to them. Man's easy dominion over the earth is now at an end; henceforth he will eat its fruit only in sweat and toil. As for woman not only will pain and distress accompany her childbearing, but her longing for man will serve to increase the humiliation of her subjection to him. For man and woman alike the term of life's labors is a return to the dust from which they were drawn. Once the sanctions have been declared there is no return for Adam and Eve to their former relationship with Yahweh; the irreversibility of their new status is stressed vividly in their expulsion from the garden: "He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the Cherubim, and the flaming sword, which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gn 3:24).

Certainly it is legitimate and even necessary to analyze the paradise story for a greater knowledge of the author's intent; but little is gained by an attempt to delineate details meticulously. Particulars like the location of the garden of Eden or the identity of the four rivers of paradise (Gn 2:10-14) are uncertain, for these are only accessories of the author's portrayal of how life's disorders stem from the original transgression of the first man and woman.

The progress of sin

Once introduced into the world sin with its consequences advances steadily, and the documentation of the relentless encroachment of evil on Yahweh's creation fills the remaining chapters of the primitive history; thus the progressive human deterioration can be called the principal theme of chs 4-11. The first instance is the murder of Abel, a story which raises almost as many questions as it answers. Is this tribal or personal history? Why was Cain's sacrifice rejected and how did he know that God did not favor him? What was the mark given Cain and what purpose did it serve? Originally the story may have been a tribal history, for Cain was popularly regarded as the eponymous ancestor of the Kenites, people with the same ancestry as Israel but outside the covenant. Furthermore, since the story supposes a rather advanced agricultural civilization and a formal cult, it is not likely that sons of the first man and woman figured in the original version. The story may echo the conflict between two types of civilization—pastoral and agricultural. A similar motif may be the foundation of the struggles between Jacob and Esau in Gn 25-28.

As Yahweh once questioned Adam and his wife so now he addresses Cain: "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground" (Gn 4:10). Punishment follows swiftly: "When you till the soil, it shall not give its fruit to you; a fugitive and a wanderer shall you be on the earth" (4:12). The token which Yahweh placed on Cain is sometimes regarded as a sign of disgrace; from the context however it appears to be a protective mark, perhaps against blood vengeance exacted for fratricide.

Cosmic degeneration is further illustrated in the puzzling narrative of marriages between the sons of God and the daughters of men (Gn 6:1-4). Attempts to render the account more specific by identifying the sons and daughters have not been very successful. At most it is arbitrary to identify the sons of God with the Sethites and the daughters of men with the Kenites. Undoubtedly the sacred writer used mythological stories about the marriage of titans to human women to exemplify the ruthless advance of wickedness throughout the world.

Rebellion, violence, bloodshed—such is the record of mankind from Adam to Noe. As a summary judgment on preceding events and as a prelude to the ensuing story of the Flood the Yahwist reports the Lord's decision: "I will wipe from the earth man whom I have created—man and beast, crawling creature and bird of the air as well—for I regret that I made them" (Gn 6:7).⁶ The Flood narrative is interwoven from Yahwist and Priestly traditions, each preserved almost intact with little attempt to suppress discrepancies which arose from the combination of traditions; for example the number of animals in Gn 7:2-3 differs from the number in 6:19-20. The cataclysm described by the Priestly writer is greater in every way; it covers the entire earth and lasts more than a year. Human corruption and Yahweh's judgment on it occupy all the Priestly writer's attention and he is oblivious to the details the Yahwist lingers over. The Priestly author devotes a single brusque verse to reporting the bird sent from the ark (8:7); the Yahwist speaks of several birds and dwells upon the event for seven verses (8:6, 8-12). On occasion however the author of the Priestly account is very detailed; he records the exact measurements of the ark and calculates times and seasons with great care. Behind these minutiae is his conviction of Yahweh's personal activity, which he tries to portray with due theological objectivity.

Modern discoveries of ancient literary materials offer evidence that the story of the Flood in the Bible is but one among many legends of catastrophic inundations. The narrative most resembling the biblical traditions appears in the so-called Flood Tablet (11) of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an Akkadian work composed around 2000. The epic was discovered in the library of Ashurbanipal (seventh century) in 1853. Besides the texts in Akkadian other fragmentary recensions testify to the popularity of the work. First published in 1873 when rationalist criticism of the Bible was approaching its zenith, the Babylonian flood story was hailed as the direct model of the biblical narrative; a discrediting of the historicity of the account in Gn soon followed. Specific parallels do exist, but one cannot speak of literary dependence. The stories in both the biblical and the Babylonian texts are based on the same heritage, i.e. memories of one or more severe floods, floods made even more catastrophic by popular tradition. This complex of flood traditions may have been brought from Mesopotamia by the ancestors of the Hebrews, but the biblical story nonetheless has a totally different orientation; it is the vehicle of a religious and moral message quite foreign to the Babylonian version.

A summary of the story in Gilgamesh will highlight the chief resemblances and contrasts to the biblical account. A council of the gods decides to destroy the city of Shurrupak. The god Ea warns Utnapishtim, instructing him to build a ship and to take aboard his family and kin as well as the seed of all living things. During the storm and the ensuing flood the frightened gods "cowered like dogs crouched against the outer wall" (11:115). On the seventh day the tempest ceases and the boat comes to rest on Mount Nisir. After another seven days Utnapishtim sends out a dove and then a swallow, both of which return to him; next he sends a raven, which "eats, circles, caws, and turns not round" (11:154). Leaving his boat Utnapishtim offers sacrifice to the gods, who smelled the savor and "crowded like flies about the sacrifice" (11:161). Utna-pishtim and his wife are admitted to the assembly of the gods and given a home at the mouth of the rivers.

The biblical Flood story is distinguished from the Babylonian accounts in its presentation of the all-holy Yahweh's righteous judgment on the moral transgressions of his creatures: "The end of all creatures of flesh is in my mind; the earth is full of violence because of them. I will destroy them with the earth" (Gn 6:13). Gilgamesh does not mention any moral causes of the disaster; indeed the action of the gods may be arbitrary and capricious. If Utnapishtim escapes it is not because of his justice but simply because Ea chooses to save him. Like the creation narrative of Gn the biblical story of the Flood may borrow the trappings of myth, but the soul and substance of the biblical accounts owe nothing to mythological concepts.

When Noe returns to dry land his act of sacrifice brings the favor of Yahweh to himself and to all men: "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth; I will never again destroy every living creature, as I have done" (Gn 8:21). In this soliloquy Yahweh's reason for sparing man (the evil inclinations of man's heart) is the same as that which prompted his decision to punish man in Gn 6:5ff. The Priestly writer tells of no sacrifice (for in his traditions cultic sacrifice arose in Mosaic times), but he significantly records the blessing given at the new beginning of the world. This benediction, a deliberate evocation of the blessing bestowed upon the first man (see 1:28-29), reinstates mankind to the divine favor with the promises of fertility and a certain dominion over the earth. Not content with blessing Noe Yahweh also makes an alliance with him—the first of the covenants treated by the Priestly writer (9:8-17). The passage is a theological construct enabling the writer to dwell upon his concept of the relation between Yahweh and his people. As a pledge that he will never again destroy all flesh by a flood Yahweh retires his bow of war, placing it in the sky as a perpetual reminder to Noe and his descendants.

The genealogies

At four points in the primitive history genealogies have been inserted: Gn 4:17ff; 5:lff; 1: 1ff; and 11:10ff. The first two sketch the decendants of Adam as far as Noe; the others the descendants of Noe until Abraham. The Yahwist table in 4:17ff lists the progeny of Adam through Cain but it evinces much greater interest in reporting the progress of civilization than it does in recording genealogical data. The Kenite genealogy is certainly different from the story of Cain and Abel in ch 4, in which Cain is described as a vagabond, not the builder of a city. The genealogy evidently is unaware of the Flood, for it names the sons of Lamech as ancestors of shepherds, musicians and artisans. The parallel Priestly account (5:Iff) follows a strict chronological pattern in tracing Adam's line through Seth: "When Seth was one hundred and five years old, he became the father of Enos. Seth lived eight hundred and seven years after the birth of Enos, and had other sons and daughters. The whole lifetime of Seth was nine hundred and twelve years; then he died" (5:6-8). The key to the Priestly writer's use of numbers is still unknown; thus all attempts to set up an actual historical chronology according to his lists have been futile. The esoteric use of numbers is characteristic of the Semites, as evidenced in the fantastic numbers of the Babylonian King Lists. Similar chronological precision characterizes the Semite genealogy in 11: 1Off.

It is sometimes assumed that the Priestly writer's interest in genealogies is merely a pedantic preoccupation with records. Quite the contrary: his concerns are doctrinal or theological and his tables are an effort to arrange the ages of the world and of man theologically. Just as his chronological framework for the creation narrative placed the events he described within the temporal order, so his careful genealogical records deliberately emphasize Yahweh as the Lord of history who deals with his people in definite and irrevocable temporal actions. Even the precision of the chronology, artificial though it may be, is theologically pertinent. The ancients from Adam to Noe have a life span of seven hundred to one thousand years; from Noe to Abraham, two hundred to six hundred years; the patriarchs, one hundred to two hundred years. The Priestly writer does not explain the diminution, but in view of his remarks in Gn 6:11-13 ("The earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and it was filled with violence") the decreasing life span can be considered a subtle commentary on the loss of human vigor as corruption becomes rampant.

The broadened scene of the Table of Nations (Gn 1O: 1ff) illustrates the fulfillment of Yahweh's blessing of Noe: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (9:1). Here the Priestly writer has organized nations and peoples as descendants of the three sons of Noe: Sem, Ham and Japheth. Ethnic and linguistic relationships do not dictate the grouping, nor are there genuine political ties between the members of a division. Geographic and historical associations seem to explain the alignment; thus the descendants of Japheth compose the northern Peoples of the Sea; Ham's descendants are the men of the southern countries (to which Canaan is joined for historical reasons); and the progeny of Sem are the eastern peoples closely associated with the Hebrews.

It is noteworthy that Israel is not mentioned in the Table of Nations, her derivation from Arphachsad being developed only in Gn 1:1 Off. From this fact it is evident that the writer is not concerned to exalt Israel or to contrast her with nations outside the covenant, but rather to testify that the total historical situation (of which Israel forms only a small part) is the creation of Yahweh. The author's ultimate concern of course is to pursue the line of Sem through Arphachsad to Abraham, and he does so in 11:10-32. But if he is thus to narrow his field to a single line why does he elaborate the Table of Nations? His procedure shows that the Priestly writer was aware of the mystery of divine election and wanted to make it theologically vivid by contrasting Israel with the other people who were equally the creation of Yahweh, but who were not the object of special predilection.

The conclusion of primitive history

The recital of man's irreversible deterioration reaches its terminus in the story of the Tower of Babel, which concludes the prehistory. The narrative speaks of two distinct constructions: the building of a city and of a lofty tower or ziggurat. The reference to Babel at the conclusion of the story suggests that the tower—like the 270-foot ziggurat of Etemenanki dedicated to Marduk, protector of Babylon—was a shrine to a heathen deity. The writer does not specify the nature of man's offense. That the building involved rebellion against Yahweh is not stated directly, but the Hebrew connotation of the word "Babel" indicates that such defection is implied. Pride is likewise implicit in the builders' exhortaton: "Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered all over the earth" (Gn 11:4), as well as in Yahweh's decision to curb their presumptuous aspirations: "This is the beginning of what they will do. Hereafter they will not be restrained from anything which they determine to do" (11:6).

Interrupting the work in progress Yahweh confused (balal) the builders' speech and scattered them over the earth. Two etiologies, perhaps the original point of the earlier traditions, are thus still retained: the origin of various languages and a popular etymology of Babel, which actually means gate of God. The etiologies however are only incidental to the dominant interest: the portrayal of man's arrogant attempt to usurp divine prerogatives. The bold anthropomorphism of Yahweh's concern over the tower and his investigation of the work are not reminiscent of a mythic struggle between titans and the gods; in fact there is no extant extrabiblical parallel to this story. The picture furnishes an ironic contrast between puny human efforts and the calm, majestic action of Yahweh. Men lay their solicitous plans: "Let us make bricks and bake them.… Let us build.… Let us make a name …;" but Yahweh with a single decision brings all their plans to nought: "Let us go down, and there confuse their language" (Gn 11:3-7).

The gloomy scene of mankind confounded at the Tower of Babel closes the primitive history. The dismal conclusion departs from the pattern in the preceding accounts whereby sin made ever more devastating progress in the world which God had created good. Adam's initial deviation from the divine will incurred dire sanctions but the harsh situation was mitigated by Yahweh's fatherly solicitude: "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them" (Gn 3:21). Likewise the Lord punished the murderer Cain, yet at the same time afforded him a protective mark as he wandered restless through the earth (4:15). Then after the Flood Yahweh renewed the blessing first bestowed upon Adam: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (9:1).

Despite so many fresh starts men repeated the wretched pattern of rebellion and violence until finally the Lord confused their speech and scattered them over the earth (Gn 11:7-8). The story marks a point of no return in man's relations to God. Cut off from the Lord, men find themselves separated from their brethren as well. On this note the story ends; no compassionate utterance of the Lord, no promise of rescue intrudes a vestige of hope. The sacred writer has completed his account of man's progressive perversion and he is at the end also of his assurances that the Lord, despite man's wickness, has not cast off his creatures utterly. The dry statements of the genealogy which follows (11:10-32) underline the bleakness of affairs for which no happy denouement seems possible.

The patriarchal history

Precisely at this point, the nadir of man's relations to God, the salvation history introduces a new approach of God to man in the choice of Abraham as the father of a chosen people. Like a seed the salvific plan lies hidden within the catalogue of Sem's descendants: "There was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Aran" (Gn 11:27); but who could suspect that this laconic report is prelude to the grandeur to be unfolded in the promises?

The rise of Israel as a people rests historically on the union of her tribes in the worship of Yahweh, a fact upon which all later Hebrew history is built. Paradoxically however our understanding of how Israel evolved into an historical reality is based on pretribal traditions whose contents, though admittedly of decisive importance, presuppose the subsequent history of Israel. The primitive cultic credo of Dt 26:5ff summarizes one of these traditions: "My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien. But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous." Other similar traditions, expanded and unified, compose the patriarchal history of Gn. In their earliest forms these traditions were oral, localized reminiscences of family forebears or etiologies of names and customs which were amalgamated after a protracted process of modification that cannot now be traced in detail. In their definitive version in the Pentateuch the patriarchal adventures have been incorporated into a broad theme recording how Israel's ancestors under divine guidance migrated from northwest Mesopotamia, entered the land of Canaan and there lived as resident strangers while awaiting the possession of the land promised them by divine favor. The memory she preserved of her beginnings testifies that the Lord of the world marked Israel as the vehicle through which all peoples of the earth would be blessed.

That this testimony exists is itself an historical fact and hence part of the history of Israel. But the degree to which the traditions witnessed by the testimony can be used to reconstruct historical events is debatable. True, the historicity of the patriarchal accounts is not a direct concern of the critic in his task of showing how the traditions were linked to Israel's consciousness of her relation to Yahweh; nonetheless the biblicist must inevitably come to grips with the problem of the relationship between history as presented in the patriarchal narratives and the religion in whose service the traditions are employed. This encounter is necessary because the reconstruction of the history and faith of early Israel affects the interpretation of later Israelite history and of the Old Testament as a whole.

The first problem concerning the historicity of the patriarchal traditions stems from the lack of contemporary records of the period. Working on the principle that ancient narratives are primarily sources for the period in which they were written, not for the times they report, many proponents of the documentary theory refused to acknowledge the historical worth of traditions referring to remote ages. Reinforced by the theory of evolutionary religious development their view quickly reduced patriarchal religion to a projection of later Yahwism; and to explain the presence of the patriarchs in the traditions they had recourse to theories more ingenious than satisfying. Critics like Wellhausen failed to realize that the writing of a tradition marks the end of an era, not the beginning. Although the dates assigned to a document may be accurate they give no clue to the age of the traditions described in the document.

As we have already noted, archeological discoveries have altered the harsh view prevalent in the last century, and thousands of texts contemporaneous with the period of Israel's beginnings have supplied a frame of reference for the historical evaluation of biblical traditions. In no instance has the new evidence submitted "proof of a single event in the patriarchal stories; yet by furnishing many parallels and by corroboration of countless details it has shown that the narratives must be taken seriously as an exact portrait of institutions and customs in the patriarchal period, and hence that they reflect a valid memory of the past.⁷ Despite the presumption of authenticity thus attached to the patriarchal traditions not all scholars concede that the biblical narratives are reliable sources of history. Martin Noth, possibly the most influential of these critics, agrees that the Pentateuch as a coalescence of sacred traditions does contain historical information, but he denies that the Books of Moses can be accepted as a coherent historical narrative. Just how far the Pentateuch can be taken as a source for Israelite history is a problem to be solved only by an examination of each separate unit of tradition, i.e. by a construction of a history of the traditions. Noth values the contribution made by extrabiblical remains to Israel's history, and he does not completely dismiss the worth of archeological discoveries; but he insists that their witness is after all indirect and therefore incapable of establishing the historical accuracy of the narratives. His negative evaluation of the historical elements in Israelite traditions leaves unanswered the question of Israel's origin and offers no adequate explanation of her faith.

Gerhard von Rad shares Noth's views to some extent but his work is distinguished by decidedly theological interests. Whereas Noth stresses the impossibility of determining historical content von Rad emphasizes the irrelevancy of such determination. An historical kernel is found, to be sure, in many of the stories but the genuine historical concern is always Yahweh's dealings with his people. Accordingly, says von Rad, the faith of the Hebrews must be explained in terms of what Israel thought of her relation to Yahweh, not by the results of modern studies on Israel's actual bearing to her neighbors or by historical facts.

While agreeing with Noth that history properly so called is not available in the Pentateuchal records, critics like William F. Albright and John Bright are more sanguine in their appraisal of the patriarchal narratives as dependable sources for Israelite history. If the writing of Israelite history is not be be completely nihilistic, they assert, one must examine the traditions against the world of their day, and in this light draw whatever conclusions the evidence allows. In the reconstruction of Hebrew history the distinction between the empiric methodology of Albright and the tradition-history of Noth is becoming ever more acute.⁸

The promises

One of the earliest and most perduring of the traditions comprising the heritage of Israel is that of the promises made to the patriarchs. Events at. Babel indicated that the relationship between Yahweh and his creatures was at an end; must man now continue to live severed from the Lord? The onset of salvation history with the call of Abraham answers the question:

Leave your country, your kinsfolk, and your
  father's house,
for the land which I will show you;
I will make a great nation of you.
I will bless you and make your name great,
so that you shall be a blessing.
I will bless them that bless you,
and curse them that curse you.
In you shall all the nations of the earth be
  blessed
(Gn 12:1-3).

The command of leaving home and family is attached to two promises: a new land and a great posterity. Today numerous progeny is still regarded as a great blessing, a special mark of divine favor among peoples of the East; and to nomads and seminomads sown land with its abundance of food and its stable life is an inestimable good. The double theme of land and children here introduced for the first time echoes again and again throughout the pages of Gn. Although individual traditions emphasize now the one, now the other aspect the two ideas are rarely separated in passages which directly report the conference of the divine pledges. In only two instances is the promise of posterity given apart from the promise of the land in Gn: the promise of a child to Sara (18:10) and the promise of descendants to Isaac (26:24). Seven times the assurances of Gn 12:1-3 are repeated to Abraham: 12:7; 13:14-17; 15:5-7, 18; 17:4-8; 18:10; and 22:17-18. The promises are renewed for Isaac in 26:2-5 and again in 26:24. At various times Jacob also receives a reiteration of Yahweh's intent to give him land and posterity: 28:13-15; 35:9-12; and 46:3-4. Besides these direct reports of the bestowal and renewal of the promises there are frequent indirect references to one or both of them: 24:7; 28:3-4; 32:13; 48:4; and 50:24.

The promise as covenant

In calling Abraham, Yahweh seemingly narrowed the field of his redemptive operations. The blessing of Noe carried an injunction to multiply and fill the earth (Gn 9:1); the promise to Abraham particularizes the blessing: it is Abraham's progeny which will become a great nation. "In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" admits of several interpretations. A possible translation is: "May you be blessed as Abraham was," a grammatically more exact rendering than the usual translation which appears in the Septuagint and which has been canonized by use in Acts 3:25 and Gal 3:8. So considered the benediction pronounced on Abraham will pass into proverb as the epitome of all a nation can hope for and his blessing will be a model for every benediction they invoke upon themselves. But besides having this reflexive meaning the verb can also be construed passively; hence it is through Abraham that all nations will participate in the divine blessings; through Abraham as mediator Yahweh's plan of salvation will be effected throughout the world. The first of the promises is somewhat vague: the territory pledged to Abraham is referred to only as "the land which I will show you." Moreover, except for the notation "Now Sarai was barren" in the genealogy (Gn 11:30), no hint is given of the difficulties which will impede the fulfillment of the promise of progeny.

The most solemn enunciations of the promises occur in Gn 15 and 17 where Yahweh binds himself by covenant to their fulfillment. In the account of Gn 12:lff Abraham's response to God's pronouncements was evident only in the obedience he rendered, but in ch 15 his more immediate reactions are noted. As it now stands the chapter is a skillful blend of two traditions, roughly delineated by the sections 1-6 (E) and 7-18 (J). The promises of vv 1-6 center in the progeny, those of vv 7-18, the land. When the puzzled Abraham remonstrates: "To me you have given no descendants; the slave born in my house will be my heir," Yahweh reassures him: "He shall not be your heir; your heir shall be one of your own flesh" (15:3-4). Again Abraham queries: "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it [the land]?" (15:8). Yahweh replies with directions for the covenantal ceremonies described in vv 9-11 and 17. The rites of cutting the victims in two and of the transporting of the smoking oven and fiery torch through the lane between the halves are very mysterious, although they may be cultic actions familiar to the hearers. Aside from his preparation of the victims Abraham is passive: "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep; and terror came upon him, a great darkness" (15:12). Nor is the relation of Yahweh to the phenomenon elaborated. In any event the gist of the narrative conveys Yahweh's solemn commitment to his pledge: "To your posterity I will give this land" (15:18).

The Priestly writer also has an account of a covenant with Abraham, an account vastly different however from the more primitive narrative of ch 15. The characteristic promises are imbedded in a heavy, verbose, theological passage which pays scant attention to the patriarch's reactions except to note that "Abram fell prostrate" (Gn 17:3). The repetitions throughout Yahweh's speech indicate that several Priestly traditions have been joined; the total effect is somewhat ponderous and makes of Abraham a mere lay figure against which to arrange theological considerations. Heretofore Yahweh had exacted nothing from Abraham beyond faith and obedience to the command to leave his home, but in the covenant of ch 17 he imposed the obligation of circumcision for the patriarch and his descendants. The fully developed legislative details on the ceremony of circumcision suggest a late period for this passage. Although circumcision was no doubt practiced in early times it was not a distinctively Israelite custom nor was it legislated in the principal biblical corpora. The Priestly writer himself does not refer to it outside Gn 17 except in Ex 12:44 and Lv 12:3. Other references to circumcision do not speak of it as a rite imposed by divine command. Only after the Exile did circumcision become the distinctive sign of allegiance to Yahweh and the covenant. To gain authority and prestige for the postexilic observance the Priestly writer in ch 17 sought to establish circumcision as a primitive obligation imposed by Yahweh as a token of the covenant.

The usual terminology for covenant making, karat b^erît, to cut a covenant, is not employed by the Priestly writer; he uses instead qum b^erît, to establish a covenant (17:7) or natan b^erît, to give a covenant (17:2). The deliberate change of vocabulary is significant. The ordinary term was used in covenants initiated by the free will of both participants; Yahweh's covenant however involves no exchange between equals. Rather it is a gratuitous bestowal of divine favor quite beyond the power of man to achieve for himself. If the covenant exists at all it is only because Yahweh has chosen to establish it, not because man has entered into negotiations for it.

Obstacles to the promise

Once he is aware of the divine will in his regard Abraham sets out to fulfill it. Considering the close ties between tribal members the command to leave country and kinsfolk is no small thing. So intent is the sacred writer upon the promises however that he shows no interest in the patriarch's migration from Haran to Canaan. Suddenly Abraham appears in Sichem (Gn 12:6), where the promise of land is further specified by Yahweh's declaration: "To your descendants I will give this land" (12:7). But even as Abraham pitches his tent near Bethel and thinks, perhaps, that he is at journey's end there comes the first indication that the twofold pledge will not be readily attained. Because of famine Abraham is forced to move south to Egypt; there he jeopardizes the future mother of the promised child by pretending Sara is his sister and letting her be taken into the royal harem. Since marriage was not basically monogamous a man could have intercourse with women of his own household, such as slaves or prisoners. Adultery strictly so called however was always severely punished; hence if Abraham was known as the husband of Sara he would in all probability have been killed before Sara was taken by Pharao. Yahweh will not permit Abraham's careless and cowardly behavior to void his promise; rather "the Lord struck Pharao and his household with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife" (12:17). Pharao had acted in good faith, yet he was punished. The statement reflects the biblical theory which judges primarily on the basis of the act itself and pays little heed to the agent's conscious intention or state of soul. On discovering the true situation Pharao rebuked Abraham and summarily dismissed him.

Twice the same motif of threat to the child of promise recurs: once involving Abraham and Sara at Gerara (Gn 20:1-18 [E]) and a second time concerning Isaac and Rebecca at Gerara (26:6-11 [J]). The facts in both these accounts closely resemble those of Gn 12:10-16, but there are differences in tone and emphasis between the three versions. The story of Isaac and Rebecca is the simplest and perhaps the earliest of the three; subsequently the narrative was developed, given a new setting and assigned different characters. As the Elohist handles the story (20:1-18) the dominant motif of threat to the mother of the promised child has been glossed over by preoccupation with the question of guilt. The writer is at pains to justify Abimelech (20:4-6) and to exonerate Abraham by noting that Sara is really his half sister. (Marriage with a half sister was permitted according to 2 Sm 13:13. The later legislation of Lv 18:9, 11 and Dt 27:22 forbade it.) The vindication of Abimelech is readily appreciated but the defense of Abraham creates a certain tension: why should the man who regards God's promise so cheaply be made intercessor for the innocent king? (Gn 20:7, 17). The incident may reflect a later tradition of Abraham as intercessor (see also 19:29); at the same time it underscores that Yahweh is beholden to no one and bestows his favors where he will. The Yahwist on the contrary prunes away all superfluous details, even those in which the reader, at least the modern reader, is vitally interested. What leads Pharao, for instance, to connect the plagues with the presence of Sara in his harem? The reader also looks, but vainly, for some moral reflection on the disagreeable situation. The events are simply allowed to speak for themselves.

Yahweh's power has protected Abraham's wife, but to what avail? Sara is barren. Abraham's lament: "I am childless.… To me you have given no descendants" (Gn 15:2-3) continues the ever-present theme: how is the promise of posterity to be kept? Sara herself took a hand in promoting the divine plan by human contrivance (ch 16). Following a custom evidenced in the Nuzu tablets she bade Abraham: "Go in to my maid; perhaps I shall get children through her" (16:2). Abraham's feelings in the matter are not revealed. Did he too think to advance God's designs by human means? When the slave maid Agar conceived by Abraham she viewed her mistress with contempt and thus gave Sara the legal right to humiliate her. (The Code of Hammurabi has a similar provision.) The humiliation imposed by Sara caused the pregnant Agar to flee southward to the desert; there an angel of the Lord appeared to her, assured her a great posterity and bade her return to Sara (16:9-10).

The controversial figure of the angel of the Lord, mal'akh YHWH, is here introduced for the first time. In its most probable derivation mal 'akh signifies messenger, though translated through the Greek as angel. The actions and words of the messenger frequently suggest however that the mal 'akh YHWH is to be identified with the Lord himself. In the present story for example vv 7, 9 and 10 specify that the mal'akh YHWH spoke to Agar; yet in v 13 (which is the point of the narrative etiologically considered) Agar "named the Lord, who spoke to her: 'You are the God of vision;' for she said, 'Have I really seen God and remained alive after my vision?"' The same discrepancy occurs in the variant of the Agar story, Gn 21:17-18. Similar use of the term is found throughout the patriarchal history: 22:11 (the sacrifice of Isaac); 31:11-13 (Jacob recounting his labors for Laban); and 48:16 (Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons). The phrase is also employed elsewhere in the Pentateuch, especially in Ex and Nm. The same puzzling ambivalence between Yahweh and his angel is also found in Gn 18 and 32:22-31, although in these places the particular phrase mal'akh YHWH is not used.

Such consistent dichotomy must be deliberate. One explanation is that the angel is an addition to primitive traditions in which Yahweh himself was the agent; the insertion of the messenger was the result of theological reflection which, through reverence for the divine transcendence, blurred the immediacy of man's relation to God by intruding a mediating figure who still spoke the direct words of Yahweh. Other critics hold that the messenger was the original figure in these passages. By analyses of texts and comparisons with usage in Babylonian and Egyptian literature they would prove that Yahwism, having reduced the original role of the messenger or vizier of God, inserted the direct action of Yahweh into passages where the messengers appear.

The Elohist version of the Agar story places the event after the birth of Ishmael and Isaac. This presentation of the double tradition as two separate occurrences, one before and one after the birth of Ishmael, has created chronological difficulties since the stories were inserted into the Priestly traditions without any consistent effort to harmonize them. According to Gn 16:16 and 21:5 Ishmael must have been nearly seventeen years old at the time of the second expulsion. The discord was not lost upon the ancient scribes, who evidently manipulated the text (e.g. v 14) to tone down the jarring effect.

The two accounts display marked differences in spirit and emphasis. The Yahwist does not seek to enlist the reader's sympathy in any particular direction. He carefully avoids revealing his own views and furnishes no clue to Abraham's feelings beyond the simple statement: "Abram listened to Sarai.… 'The maid is in your power; do to her what seems good to you"' (Gn 16:3-6). Agar's adventure in the desert is related with such paucity of detail that one is scarcely aware of her suffering. How different the Elohist narrative is. Sympathy for Agar is first aroused by Sara's petty complaints about her (21:9-10). That sympathy is increased as the details of the expulsion unfold: the wandering, the thirst, the mother's pain at the prospect of the child's death (21:14-16). Abraham's feelings are also spelled out: "The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son" (21:12); and the writer carefully excuses him from any blame in the heartless action. It may also be noted that the Yahwist stresses the etiology of Beer-lahai-roi (16:13-14); whereas the Elohist only mentions the well with no reference to its name.

Both stories however stress Ishmael's future as the father of a mighty nation; far from minimizing the pledges given Abraham for the child of promise, the blessings accorded Ishmael are a foil to the still more lavish gifts reserved for Isaac. The angel depicts Ishmael as a fitting ancestor for the proud Bedouin: "He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; he shall dwell apart, opposing all his kinsmen" (Gn 16:12). This description may have formed part of an early tradition about the Ishmaelites; later it was added to the more fully developed Abraham cycle. Legends about Ishmael's later life are preserved in 21:21 and 25:9, 12-18.

The tribal history and the etiology in the Agar narrative should not obscure the central point: Yahweh's plans do not require human prudence and ingenuity for their advancement, nor do human estimations of what is right and fitting sway the Lord in his unhampered distribution of divine favors. The Priestly writer reinforces the element of gratuity as he relates how Abraham implores Yahweh: "Oh, that Ishmael may live in your favor!" (Gn 17:18), to which the Lord answers: "No, but Sara your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as a perpetual covenant for his descendants after him" (17:19). And again: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will bless him, … but my covenant I will establish with Isaac" (17:20). The promises do not preclude divine favors to other nations—the Ishmaelites too are the object of blessing—but the promises Yahweh has reserved for the people peculiarly his own.

Advance of the promise

Clearly it is not through Ishmael that Yahweh will make of Abraham a great nation. But the manifestation of the divine will in Ishmael's regard makes no positive contribution to the accomplishment of the promise, for Sara is now both barren and old; how can a child come from her? The Yahwist answers by posing a query: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Gn 18:14). Heretofore the promises had spoken in general terms of descendants and posterity, or in poetic fashion of progeny like the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea shore. Now Yahweh moves to the concrete fulfillment of the promise in terms of a particular child, Abraham's son to be born of Sara within a year. While visiting the patriarch and his wife, Yahweh makes the astounding announcement: "I will surely return to you at this time next year … and Sara your wife shall have a son" (18:10). How Abraham received this statement is not recorded but the realistic Sara, listening inside the tent door, greeted the announcement with laughter. Her mirth was soon stifled by the visitor's uncanny question: "Why did Sara laugh? … Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (18:13-14). With keen insight the narrator describes Sara's confusion: "But Sara denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh'; for she was afraid" (18:15). The scene closes with Yahweh's firm and categoric utterance: "You did laugh" (18:15).

Finally, after long years marked by gracious renewal of the promises, by careless disregard of Yahweh's pledges or by faltering efforts to achieve them by human expedients, the birth of the child is announced in very simple terms: "The Lord looked after Sara as he had said; the Lord did to Sara as he had promised" (Gn 21:1-2). All the anxious hopes of Gn 12-21 come to their fulfillment in the birth of Isaac.⁹ The arrival of the child however is not simply a happy ending to the isolated recital of trials and tests imposed on Abraham; it is an event which carries the salvation history forward into a new phase directed to the achievement of Yahweh's more comprehensive designs. The birth of Isaac is a stage, not the final goal of Yahweh's plan.

Accordingly it is no surprise that soon the inscrutable ways of Yahweh are again operative in a manner which seems to threaten the very gifts he had bestowed: Abraham is commanded to travel to the district of Moria (traditionally regarded as the site of the city of Jerusalem) and there sacrifice his beloved son, all the dearer because he was so long awaited (Gn 22). What greater renunciation can be asked of a father than the death of his son? But the command to sacrifice the promised child also imposes an excruciating test on Abraham's faith in the Lord through whose favor Isaac had been given. The patriarch had not importuned Yahweh for his gifts; the promises were not so much objects of Abraham's desires as free pledges from the Lord. Quite unexpectedly the words had burst upon his startled ear: "I will make a great nation of you" (12:2). And Abraham had believed. All the more shocking then is Yahweh's seeming determination to bring to ruin what he had proposed so gratuitously. Before his birth Isaac had been the object of divine predilection and solicitude. Will Yahweh now make void his promise? The Elohist lingers over the aspects calculated to bring out the heart-rending nature of the demand: "Take your only son Isaac whom you love and go into the district of Moria, and there offer him as a holocaust on the hill which I shall point out to you" (22:2). Abraham's inner emotions are depicted with marked restraint but the graphic particulars of his actions provide an appropriate background for his somber thoughts which, though unexpressed, pulse through the scene. The structure of vv 7 and 8 is particularly effective, with the slow question and answer set to the rhythm of the travelers' footsteps as they inexorably approach the moment of sacrifice.

Although the sacrifice of Isaac may have been a cultic saga justifying the substitution of animal for human sacrifice, such a concept is quite foreign to the narrative as it is preserved in the Pentateuch. The material was in constant flux up to the time of its final redaction and is therefore open to many meanings. The etiological emphasis of the earlier traditions was lost as other elements assumed greater importance, so that the name Yahweh-yireh (the Lord sees or the Lord provides) is a minor note, not being the name of a prominent cultic center. The structure of the pericope tones down the horror of child sacrifice and by concentrating on Abraham's actions points to the test of his obedience as the essence of the story. Earlier his trust and faith had been tried by delay in the fulfillment of the promise; at Moria his faith was scrutinized even more searchingly as Yahweh, in seeming contradiction to all previous assurances, demanded the sacrifice of Isaac. To crown Abraham's obedience Yahweh repeats and expands the promises: like the stars of heaven will his progeny be and his descendants will possess the gates of their enemies (Gn 22:17). When the promises were first revealed, and before Abraham could prove his obedience, Yahweh had declared: "In you shall all nations of the earth be blessed" (12:3). Now that the patriarch has passed through the fire of obedience this assurance resounds more significantly: "In your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed me" (22:18).

The promise of the land

Posterity and land of his own—these are Abraham's portion from the Lord. The traditions of Gn 12-22 are so centered in future offspring however that the promise of land remains in the background. Indirectly the subject was broached early in the cycle by a story contrasting the behavior of Abraham and Lot as they prepared to separate from one another (Gn 13).¹⁰ Availing himself of Abraham's magnanimity Lot took the fertile, well-watered section of the land, "like the Lord's garden, or like Egypt" (13:10); nonetheless Abraham's is the better portion, for he let Yahweh choose for him. Lot's territory lay on the left, Abraham's on the right. Such a designation was an immediate clue to the Hebrew listener, who proverbially regarded the right as the favorable side and the left as the unlucky one. The writer inserts an additional subtle reminder of the disastrous consequences of Lot's supposedly felicitous choice: "Now the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinned exceedingly against the Lord" (13:13). Abraham's generosity and trust bring a renewal of the promise, this time elaborated and dramatically expressed: "Raise your eyes, and from where you are now look to the north and the south and the east and the west. All the land which you see I will give to you and your posterity forever" (13:14-15).

Failure to attain permanent possession of the territory apportioned to him posed no less a trial to Abraham's faith than did obstacles to the birth of the promised child. Despite years of residence in Canaan no portion of the land was his own; always he had dwelt as a ger, a resident stranger. Was he to die without entering into the possession assured him by Yahweh? The Priestly writer answers this question by relating Abraham's purchase of burial ground for his beloved Sara (Gn 23). Why should the writer who is generally satisfied to condense and abbreviate narrative sections here expatiate on Abraham's purchase of the field of Machphela? The reason is that the purchase, even though a mere business transaction, actually marks the initial step in the acquisition of the promised land and hence has a vital connection with the faith of Abraham—and of Israel. At first Abraham bargains only for the cave at the end of the field, but he ends by purchasing the entire piece of land. The Priestly narrator does not indicate the significance of the transaction; nonetheless his emphasis upon the transfer of the land and its location leaves no doubt that the full import of the deed is clear to him:

Thus Ephron's field in Machphela, facing Mamre, that is, the field, the cave and all the trees in the entire field, became the property of Abraham in the presence of all the Hethites, his fellow citizens. After this Abraham buried his wife Sara in the cave of the field at Machphela, facing Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Chanaan. Thus the field with its cave passed from the Hethites to Abraham for use as a burial ground (Gn 23: 17-20).

We have already noted that there is close correspondence between customs described in the patriarchal narratives and those known from extrabiblical sources. Abraham's purchase of Machphela is a case in point, for a Hittite law imposes feudal dues upon the man in whose name an entire piece of property is held. The provision clarifies Abraham's insistence on buying the cave alone and the Hittites' insistence on selling him the whole field. The intimate knowledge of the subtleties of Hittite law and custom, which fell into disuse about 1200, attests the antiquity of the tradition behind the story.¹¹

Machphela was not the resting place for Sara alone; when Abraham was gathered to his kinsmen he was laid beside his wife (Gn 25:10). Isaac too, although he lived as a stranger in Canaan, was buried in Machphela, the one portion of land he possessed. Jacob's final request of Joseph is for burial with his fathers "in the cave which is in the field of Ephron, the Hethite, the cave in the field of Machphela, facing Mamre in the land of Chanaan" (49:29-30). Thus in Machphela the patriarchs owned some small part of the promised land and at least in death they entered into their possession.¹²

The promise in the life of Isaac

After the climactic birth and sacrifice of Isaac the biblical narrative levels off to a more leisurely, less dramatic phase as it records the advance of the promises in the lives of Isaac and Jacob. How tenaciously Abraham clung to the assurance that Canaan would belong to his descendants is evident in the plans he makes for Isaac's marriage. Although desirous that his son should marry one of his own kindred Abraham insists that Isaac must not return to the former home in northwest Mesopotamia: Aram Naharaim, the land of the two rivers. Solemnly he admonishes his servant:

Never take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house, from the land of my kindred, who spoke to me and swore to me, 'I will give this land to your descendants,' will send his angel ahead of you and you will obtain a wife for my son there. If the woman does not wish to follow you, you will be released from this oath; but do not take my son back there (Gn 24:6-8).

The chronicle of the servant's efforts at matchmaking shows a texture different from that of the preceding narratives; it is more unified in structure and more secular in tone. Eliezer's discharge of his commission is related in a manner perhaps too repetitive for modern tastes, for example in Gn 24:34-49 when all the events of 24:1-23 are leisurely reviewed in the message to Laban and his family. Such treatment needs no justification other than the literary tastes of the writer and his readers; in addition a savoring of the details helps illustrate how Yahweh has providentially brought the mission to a successful completion, as both Eliezer and Laban point out (vv 27, 48, 50).

Once the marriage has been arranged and Rebecca has consented to accompany Eliezer back to Canaan the continuation of Abraham's line seems assured. The story then moves along brusquely with a minimum of detail: "So the servant took Rebecca and departed.… The servant told Isaac all that he had done. Isaac led Rebecca into the tent and took her to wife" (Gn 24:61, 66-67). A disconcertirig genealogy has been inserted at this point—disconcerting because the recital of Abraham's children by another wife, Cetura, detracts from the uniqueness of the promised child and weakens the theme of promise and fulfillment. The list cannot be explained by the Priestly writer's penchant for genealogies since Gn 25:1-6 is usually attributed to the Yahwist.

The contrasts between the patriarchs raise the question: what was the original relationship of the patriarchs to one another? Gn 12-50 describes Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as father, son and grandson, but perhaps this relationship is a supplement to primitive traditions. It is generally agreed that the narratives grew from local legends of family ancestors; the localization of the Abraham-Isaac stories in southern Palestine and those of Jacob in central Palestine and the land east of the Jordan tends to verify this assumption. Quite possibly then the persons described as father, son and grandson originally had no connection with one another. As stories from one region began to circulate in other sections there was an inevitable revision of details and reassignment of roles. Certain aspects of the traditions were dropped; still others were developed or duplicated; and some figures emerged at the expense of other characters. In contrast to Abraham and Jacob, the patriarch Isaac is a shadowy figure; indeed whatever color glows in his life is reflected through Abraham or Jacob. Although on two different occasions Yahweh renews the original pledges (Gn 26:2-5 and 23-25) the absence of conflict and opposition lessens interest in the promises. A passing reference to the barrenness of Rebecca (25:21) does revive the problem of how the promise is to be fulfilled, but the difficulty immediately fades away when Rebecca conceives in answer to Isaac's prayer. And since Rebecca's danger in the royal harem at Gerara (26:6-11) occurs after the birth of Esau and Jacob, the incident creates no problem for the attainment of the promise and hence rouses less concern than it did in the other versions. Not until the conflict between Esau and Jacob, first over the birthright and then over the blessing, does the subject of the promise come alive once again and suggest fresh problems.

The promise in the life of Jacob

In the Jacob chronicle the sacred writer stresses yet another aspect of the relation between the divine promises and human activity: can Yahweh's plans evolve despite man's machinations; can Yahweh incorporate into his designs faulty—that is, guilty—human acts? When Sara tried to secure offspring for Abraham through Agar (Gn 16:1 ff) Yahweh rejected her help, but his action on this occasion does not tell the whole story. On the one hand Yahweh can dispense with human activity in achieving his goal (thesis of the Abraham cycle); on the other he may, if he so chooses, utilize man's help, turning to his own ends even human malice (thesis of the Jacob cycle).

To develop his topic the sacred writer has made use of popular traditions for his own purposes. Recollections of a wily, calculating ancestor were a source of delight to the clever man's descendants, the more so if the persons outwitted were themselves forebears of the descendants' enemies. Thus Esau through additions to the primitive traditions is portrayed in contemptuous terms as the father of the hated Edomites. He is described as red (admônî) and hairy (sē'ār)—references to the location of Edom ('edôm) in the south (sē'îr). The play on words is repeated in Gn 25:30. Early versions of the story possibly played up the opposition between hunting and pastoral life. Esau is shown as a nomadic hunter, "a man of the open country;" Jacob is "a settled man who stayed among the tents" (25:27). While retaining their robust secular character the adventures of the nimble-witted Jacob were diverted to support the premise that Yahweh can write straight with crooked lines. So subtly is the point made that it can be easily missed by the reader, distracted by his effort to justify what is at best questionable behavior on the part of Jacob, Rebecca, et al.

Born grasping his brother's heel, even at birth Jacob merited his name of supplanter (Gn 25:23-26). Later he took advantage of Esau's carelessness and greed to get for himself the elder's birthright (25:29-34). These events are preludes to his calculated usurpation of the firstborn's blessing, whereby the promises were diverted to Jacob (Gn 27). The multiplicity of details builds up suspense until the moment when Isaac, convinced that Esau was standing before him, imparted his final benediction. To the Hebrews a blessing was an ontological reality having an existence in some way independent of the one conferring it; once given it could not be revoked.¹³ Knowing this, Esau cried out in anguish "He took my birthright (b^ekōrâh) and now he has taken my blessing (b^erākâh)" (27:36). Now Isaac has exhausted his blessing with the bestowal of fertility and dominion upon Jacob: "God give you dew from heaven, and fruitfulness of the earth, abundance of grain and wine. Let nations serve you, peoples bow down to you. Be master of your brothers; may your mother's sons bow down to you" (27:28-29). Moved by Esau's pleading Isaac can only repeat to him a formula which, despite its external resemblance to the blessing accorded Jacob, stresses that the full force of the paternal benediction has been expended on the younger son: "Without the fruitfulness of the earth shall your dwelling be; without the dew of heaven above" (27:39).

The trickery of Rebecca and her son has constantly scandalized exegetes. Augustine was not the last to worry about the guilt of the bearer of the promise; his uneasy decision that the deceit of Jacob and Rebecca constituted "non mendacium, sed mysterium" has been echoed in subsequent efforts to palliate their action. Surely there is a mystery but it is not the lie; the true mystery is the inscrutable ways of the Lord, who directs even the wickedness of his creatures to his own ends. Jacob, not Esau, was to be the beneficiary of the divine promises first made to Abraham: such was Yahweh's decree. All things are in his hands and so completely is he master of the situation that he can accomplish his designs even through the perverted ways of men.

Jacob is now the man of the promise; to him accordingly the pledges are renewed. Since Esau bore a grudge—not unnaturally—because of the stolen blessing, Jacob fled to his uncle Laban in Aram Naharaim. Resting one night enroute Jacob was granted a dream and a theophany (Gn 28:10-22), perhaps two distinct experiences, which the narrator combined with indifferent success. Yahweh revealed himself as "the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac" (28:13) and in language reminiscent of the promises to Abraham renewed the guarantee that a numerous posterity would own the land on which Jacob lay.

The initial manifestation of the Lord's favor is followed by Jacob's twenty-year sojourn in Aram Naharaim, during which time little is heard of the promises. The battle of wits between the shrewd patriarch and his grasping father-in-law, the rivalry between Rachel and Lia, the growth of Jacob's family—all these are secular both in subject and in treatment. The relation of the material to the theme of the promise appears nebulous until one remembers that these are the family traditions of the Israelite tribes among whom the patriarchal promises were so abundantly fulfilled. An appreciative audience never tired of hearing the family sagas of how Jacob the supplanter was tricked into marrying the wrong girl (Gn 29:16-30); how he retaliated and became rich at Laban's expense (30:25-43); finally how he fled from Laban back to Canaan (Gn 31). In the account of Jacob's sons and their names, listeners could indulge their love of ingenious etymologies. (Preoccupation with names is a common Semitic characteristic. Etiologies occur about sixty times in Gn, Ex and Nm, chiefly in the Yawhist source. The Priestly writer rarely uses them and they are not even found in Lv and Dt. Some of the etiologies are entirely profane; some are cultic; others are theologized inventions which formerly had nothing to do with the salvation history.) Occasionally, it is true, there are reminders that it is Yahweh who guides and prospers the bearer of the promise (30:28; 31:7); and later portions of the cycle—the flight from Laban, the meeting with Esau and the return to Canaan—are more directly linked with Yahweh's protection of the man to whom he has tendered the promise. For the most part however the thread of salvation history is in some measure eclipsed by the profane spirit of the narrative.

Despite the blessings of prosperity and progeny Jacob is eager to return to the land promised him in the Bethel theophany. Several motives underlie his decision to go back; the most significant is Yahweh's command: "Rise now, leave this land, and return to the land of your kin" (Gn 31:13). Having obtained the consent of Rachel and Lia, Jacob sets out with his household for Canaan, once more outwitting his father-in-law. Laban's pursuit, his blustering accusations and his futile search for the household gods¹⁴ paint a humorous picture of a clever man who has met his match. But there is more than amusement in the scene; Yahweh's protective power shines through the episode, especially when he warns Laban to do Jacob no harm (31:24). Jacob too, in defending his conduct, pays homage to the favors of the Lord: "If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the God whom Isaac fears had not favored me, even now you would have sent me away empty-handed" (31:42). Wisely Laban declines to contest the divine will; he concludes a covenant with Jacob and returns home.

As Jacob advances toward Canaan he makes characteristically shrewd preparations for his encounter with Esau. Between the initial embassy (Gn 32:4-21) and the actual meeting (Gn 33) Jacob had an uncanny experience: "Someone ['iš wrestled with him until dawn" (32:25). The motifs of struggle with a divinity and of a wrestling which must cease at dawn have parallels in ancient myths and demonic tales; here they have been strangely incorporated into a story of Jacob's contending with Yahweh, climaxed by a blessing and the change of his name to Israel, "because you have contended with God and men, and have triumphed" (32:30). It is difficult to harmonize all the elements of the narrative. The assailant is obviously the more powerful (he cripples Jacob by touching his thigh); yet he pleads with Jacob to release him. In his reply Jacob recognizes the superiority of his adversary: "I will not let you go till you bless me" (32:27). The divine nature of the visitation is further witnessed by the name: "Jacob named the place Phanuel, saying, 'I have seen a heavenly being ['elohîm] face to face, yet my life has been spared"' (32:31). At best the passage is mysterious and there is little prospect of working out all its irregularities; nevertheless the essential points of blessing and change of name are clear.

In the other patriarchal narratives Yahweh's manifestations to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were accompanied by reiterated pledges of land and posterity; such renewal of the promises is totally lacking in the story of Jacob's wrestling. The blessing and the change of the patriarch's name however are equivalent to assurances of Yahweh's favor, and subsequently they are associated with the Priestly version of the promises in Gn 35:9-15—albeit a pale reflection of the enigmatic encounter at Phanuel. When Jacob first left Canaan, Yahweh had renewed the promises and assured him of personal protection (see 28:10-22); now as Jacob returns to the land apportioned to him Yahweh again meets him and by the mysterious action at Phanuel changes the worldly-wise, crafty patriarch and raises him to new dignity—"strong against God."

Jacob's arrival in Canaan, the goal of his journey and the goal of the promise, is reported succinctly: "Jacob came safely to the city of Sichem, in the land of Chanaan.… For the price of one hundred pieces of money he bought the plot of ground on which he had pitched his tent, from the sons of Hemor, the father of Sichem" (Gn 33:18-19). The casual mention of Sichem betrays little hint of the prominent role this cultic center may have played in the development of the patriarchal cycles, since this sanctuary was the center of the later Israelite amphictyony.

The life of Jacob as an old man naturally did not include adventures like those of his youth. The figure of Jacob fades into the background of the Joseph story; he has little active part in Gn 37-50; but he shows traces of his old spirit in Gn 48:14-20 when he manipulates the blessings of Ephraim and Manasses. After the story of Dina (Gn 34) there are no broadly developed narratives to serve as a conclusion to the Jacob saga, only a few sparse traditions like the pilgrimage from Sichem to Bethel (Gn 35:1-8). The preparations for the pilgrimage include cultic observances more characteristic of later Yahwism than of the patriarchal religion: "Do away with the strange gods you have among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments."

Passages like the above referring to patriarchal worship raise the question: what precisely was the religion of the patriarchs? There is no doubt that the final redaction of the Pentateuch identifies the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with Yahweh, who operates throughout the whole course of Hebrew history. So much is clear. It is less certain however that the Pentateuchal picture represents the actual historical situation:

Patriarchal religion is incorporated into the integrated theological pattern of Genesis-Kings. This pattern is viewed as being rooted in history, and patriarchal religion is presented in Genesis as the historical record of Yahweh's earliest dealings with the ancestors of Israel. The dilemma confronts us: is this identification factual, or is it due to later theological rewriting of the earlier documents?"¹⁵

The attempt to resolve the dilemma usually begins with a consideration of the divine epithets appearing in the patriarchal history: the generic term 'el or 'elōhîm, thought by some to be a proper name; 'el šadday, God the Almighty, the favorite term of the Priestly writer, 'el 'elyôn, the Most High God; 'el 'olam, Everlasting God; and the proper name YHWH, Lord. The origin and meaning of these titles, as well as their relation to pre-Israelite gods, is currently the subject of extensive investigation.

The complex problem of patriarchal religion is sometimes reduced to the query: were the patriarchs polytheists or monotheists? The biblical evidence does not yield a univocal answer. According to Jos 24:2 Abraham's immediate ancestors were polytheists: "In times past your fathers down to Thare dwelt beyond the river … and served other gods." The household gods mentioned in Gn 31:19 show that Laban has many gods, but this fact tells nothing about the religion of Jacob. The covenant between Jacob and Laban seems to indicate Jacob's monotheism: "The God of Abraham and the gods of Nahor judge between us" (Gn 31:53). Since 'elohîm is used for both "God" and "gods" however the passage gives no clear statement of monotheism or of polytheism. Jacob's word: "Do away with the strange gods you have among you" (Gn 35:2) again shows that those persons surrounding Jacob were polytheists, but it tells nothing about Jacob himself.

That there was growth in the revelation and knowledge of God among the Israelites is a tenet of the Priestly writer (see Ex 6:2-3). The Yahwist however assumes that Yahweh was known and worshipped from earliest times (see Gn 4:26b).

The story of Joseph

In tone and structure the Joseph story (Gn 37-50) is a forceful contrast to the cycles which precede it. The theme of the promise so conspicuous in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is scarcely touched on; consequently the relation of Joseph's history to salvation history is not immediately clear. Like the Jacob saga the story of Joseph displays Yahweh's subtle conversion of evil into good. Moreover the narrative as a whole documents the divine action which protects the children of the promise—Joseph and his brothers—in every vicissitude. The long biblical narrative develops without apparent divine intervention and without any advance in Yahweh's revelation; yet each stage of the composition reinforces the central theme of divine Providence epitomized in Joseph's pronouncement: "You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good, to do as he has done today, namely to save the lives of many people" (50:20; see also 45:5-8).

If the story lacks the promises which are the leitmotif of the patriarchal narratives up to this point, how does the composition advance the salvation history? By explaining how Joseph's family came to Egypt the history of Joseph bridges the gap between the themes of the patriarchal promises and the Exodus from Egypt. The saga is more than a literary synthesis however; it is salvation history, for the silent guidance of the Lord is one of his saving deeds no less than are his more vivid interventions in history. Joseph's dying words orientate the narrative to both patriarchal promises and to the Exodus: "I am about to die, but God will certainly come to you and lead you up from this land to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Gn 50:24; see also 46:3-4). As the cultic formula in Dt 26:5 notes, memories of a sojourn in Egypt were among the earliest traditions of Israel: "My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien." The event so briefly noted in the credo was later elaborated, perhaps within the house of Joseph, as a panegyric for a tribal ancestor. Moreover the shadow of Jacob hovers in the background as a constant reminder of the theme of the promises. Thus for example the vision at Bersabee (46:1-4) is a deliberate tie-in with the earlier theophanies at Bethel and Phanuel; the blessing the ancient patriarch pronounces on Joseph and his sons (48:15-16, 19-20) suggests the terms of the promises; and the so-called blessings of Jacob (49:1-27) anticipate the days when settlement in the promised land is a reality. These texts which link the story to salvation history are generally acknowledged to be for the most part later additions to the traditions.

The literary structure of the Joseph saga

In addition to its contribution to the main theme of salvation history the story of Joseph commands attention on artistic grounds. Showing no interest in etiology or in separate traditions tied to persons and places, the narrative is a carefully plotted unit resembling a novella. Accurate psychological perception, both in character delineation and in motivation, gives an appeal not found in the other patriarchal stories. The brothers' hatred for Joseph (Gn 37:5-11), their deferential behavior in the presence of the polished Egyptian official (42:6-17) and the gradual revelation of their change of heart (44:18ff) are credible and convincing. Moreover the judicious use of motifs enhances the unity of the work as a whole. Joseph's pretentious dreams for example motivate his brothers' hatred and prepare for the later dream interpretations which bring Joseph into favor with Pharao (Gn 40-41). Then the motif disappears, only to be evoked once again at the conclusion of the story when "his brothers came to him in person and prostrated themselves before him, saying 'We are your slasves"' (50:18).

The story of Joseph is obviously related by a non-Egyptian for non-Egyptians, but no less obvious is the fact that those who formed the traditions used Egyptian materials and techniques. The opinion long prevailed that the Egyptianisms in the narrative are a superficial coloration, dependent on shallow and confused knowledge of life in the Nile delta and that, in fact, much of what is related about Joseph is pure fiction. Recent studies have shown however that the story has roots in a deep and comprehensive knowledge of Egyptian life and may perhaps go back to Moses himself. On the other hand the literary technique and the artistry of Gn 37-50 cause the composition of these chapters to be associated with the story of Davidic succession (2 Sm 6-3 Kgs 2) in the early days of kingship.¹⁶ The emphasis of the Davidic-Solomonic age upon humanism led in court circles to the creation of a wisdom literature geared to the education and training of young court officials. The figure of Joseph could be that of an ideal courtier exemplifying in word and act the pattern of conduct extolled in wisdom writing. The history of Joseph, like other wisdom literature, is singularly free from theological pronouncements; only at the very end does Joseph tell of the divine plan which has been operative all the while: "You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good" (Gn 50:20). This sentiment is in the best tradition of wisdom writing, which is fond of showing the contrast between human and divine modes of action:

In his mind a man plans his course,
But the Lord directs his steps.

Many are the plans in a man's heart,
But it is the decision of the Lord that endures
(Pv 16: 9; 19:21).

Only among a people supremely convinced that Yahweh acts in the temporal order could the patriarchal narratives grow to the proportions shown in Gn 12-50. The primitive core of the conviction is doubtless founded on the real activity of the Lord in the Exodus and at Sinai. If deliverance from Egypt and the subsequent convenant with Yahweh occurred in time and marked an advance toward divinely appointed ends, then the period before these events must likewise be orientated to future goals. Hence the era before the Exodus and Sinai is not sheer empty time but a period of initial revelation of divine goals, a time of gradual progress toward their attainment. Progeny and land were the two great promises given in the first disclosure of Yahweh's plan. In the patriarchal history the traditions dwell principally on the first of these promises, i.e. how the childless Abraham, despite obstacles of every kind, secured a numerous posterity flourishing in the land of Egypt. The fullfillment of the first promise is itself a pledge that Yahweh will be no less faithful in accomplishing the second; but its attainment must be in Yahweh's time and in his own way.

Themes of the Exodus

The narrative of the divine action in favor of the patriarchs constitutes a prelude to the tradition which Israel perpetually maintained as the most glorious example of Yahweh's work in her behalf: deliverance from Egypt and guidance to the promised land. The tremendous impact of the Exodus tradition on the religion and history of Israel is undeniable; it is the first of Yahweh's mighty deeds, the cell from which all Israelite theology developed. To this work of the Lord Israel attributed her whole existence and her exceptional place in the circle of nations. Memories of rescue from "that iron foundry, Egypt" (Dt 4:20) recur constantly within the traditions of the Pentateuch and beyond it. Wherever Yahweh's powerful acts are recalled, whether in the narratives or in the legislative sections, there the Exodus is brought first to mind, frequently by the hymnic epithet "Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," as in Ex 20:2. The narratives in the Deuteronomic histories usually recall deliverance from Egypt as a sign of Yahweh's continued help in the present and future: "For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt" (Jos 2:10). Sometimes they invoke the Exodus as a motive for gratitude and obedience, as in 1 Sm 10:18. In the prophetic admonitions it is Yahweh himself who reminds the people how they were rescued: "I brought you up from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery I released you" (Mi 6:4); and "When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son" (Os 11:1). In the psalms the escape from Egypt is frequently proposed as a motive for praise (see Pss 78:12ff; 135:8-9). The motif of miraculous delivery from slavery continues to exert its influence in Christian times; it figures prominently in the typology of the Fathers and in the prayer life of the Church. A favorite theme of patristic typology is the correlation of events of the Exodus with the rites of Christian initiation.

Israelite cult evoked the Exodus theme by deliberately aligning the primitive Passover feast with deliverance from Egypt. Three times Dt gives this orientation:

Observe the month of Abib by keeping the Passover of the Lord, your God, since it was in the month of Abib that he brought you by night out of Egypt.… For seven days you shall eat with it only unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, that you may remember as long as you live the day of your departure from the land of Egypt; for in frightened haste you left the land of Egypt.… In the evening at sunset, on the anniversary of your departure from Egypt, you shall sacrifice the Passover (16:1, 3, 6).

Exodus and Passover are similarly associated in the festal legislation of Ex 12:23 and 34:18. (Lv 23:43 however links the Exodus with the Feast of Tabernacles.) The parenesis woven into the social legislation also recalls the hard days in Egypt as a motive for kindly treatment of slaves and resident strangers: "For remember that you too were once slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord, your God, ransomed you" (Dt 15:15); and "So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt" (10:19).

Among the earliest texts commemorating deliverance from Egypt are the so-called cultic credos of Dt 6 and 26, both of which associate the Exodus with the tradition of acquisition of the land:

We were once slaves of Pharao in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and wrought before our eyes signs and wonders, great and dire, against Egypt and against Pharao and his whole house. He brought us from there to lead us into the land he promised on oath to our fathers, and to give it to us (6: 21-23).

My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien. But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous. When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders; and bringing us into this country, he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey (26: 5-9).

Although Deuteronomic phraseology permeates the two passages the rhythmic and alliterative pattern indicates their great age. If the credos circulated orally for a long period of time before being written down (and this seems to be the case), their use would assume a rendition of salvation history which became quasi-canonical at a very early age. The stylized structure of the cultic confessions does not permit elaboration of the Exodus events, but the salient features of Egyptian oppression and divine rescue appear even in these abbreviated accounts.

Themes of oppression and deliverance

The basic facts mentioned succinctly in the cultic credos are rounded out in Ex 1-15, where separate traditions have been combined to display many aspects of Yahweh's activity in favor of Israel. So strong is the conviction that the Lord had marvelously rescued his people, so forcefully does the theme of deliverance pervade the Old Testament writings that it is necessary to posit an extraordinary historical event occasioning the conviction. The event itself however remains veiled. The persons involved, the date, the circumstances—these are matters which cannot at present be accurately determined. 3 Kgs 6:1 places the Exodus four hundred and eighty years before the fourth year of Solomon's reign, i.e. about 1438. There are reasons to question this date: the artificiality of the chronology (twelve generations reckoned at forty years each) and the archeological evidence unfavorable to so early a date.

The consensus of modern critics is that the Pharao of the oppression was Seti I (1302-1290) and that the long-lived Rameses II (1290-1224) was the Pharao of the Exodus. Some scholars however identify Rameses II as the Pharao of the oppression and his successor, Merneptah (1224-1214), as the Pharao of the Exodus. Although critics generally agree that the oppression and the Exodus fall within the nineteenth dynasty, probably between 1302 and 1214, others hold that a double exodus occurred, the first about 1400 and the second about 1250. In any event the tradition of deliverance became the property of all Israel, but this does not mean that all the tribes took part in the historical Exodus. One can only say that the people of the Exodus were elements from which the tribes of united Israel were subsequently formed.

The cultic credos refer briefly to the hard lot of the Hebrews in Egypt: "We were once slaves of Pharao in Egypt" (Dt 6:21); and "the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us" (26:6). With greater detail Ex 1 elaborates the theme of persecution by a description of successively more oppressive measures which the Pharao "who knew nothing of Joseph" employed against the Hebrews: forced labor, enslavement, inhuman killing of newborn males. In the enumeration of miseries separate traditions have been combined into larger units without our modern attention to proportion and emphasis; the story of the death of the newborn Hebrew males for instance has retained the names of the midwives, Sephra and Phua, but does not identify the Pharao (Ex 1:15).

Harried and bereft, the Israelites had no happy prospects either for themselves or for their posterity. At this point Moses appears. Although he dominates four books of the Pentateuch there is little that can be said about him with certainty. All traditions are unanimous however in according him the preeminent role as organizer of his people, as legislator and as the founder of Yahwism.¹⁷ Born during the oppression, Moses was providentially saved and reared, according to a non-Pentateuchal tradition, "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). Forced to flee Egypt (Ex 2:11-16) he took refuge in Madian in southern Arabia, south of Edom and east of the Gulf of Aqaba. Moses' relation to the Madianites (or more precisely to one of their tribes, the Kenites; see Jgs 4:11) has assumed new importance upon the adoption by some scholars of the Kenite theory of Yahwism. Since it was in Madian that Yahweh first appeared to Moses it has been suggested that Yahweh was the local god of the Kenites and that Moses adopted the worship of the place. Proponents of the hypothesis find additional support in Ex 18; Moses' father-in-law, the Kenite priest Jethro, offers sacrifice in Moses' presence and states: "Blessed be the Lord … who has rescued his people from the hands of Pharao and the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is a deity great beyond any other" (18:10-11).

In Madian Yahweh revealed himself and laid upon Moses the task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt. The portentous commission, so pregnant with vital consequences for all Hebrew history, is enhanced by the episode of the burning bush. From the midst of the fire Yahweh identified himself as "the God of your father, … the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob" (Ex 3:6). This Kenite theory of Yahwism (a favorite thesis with H. H. Rowley) has not found general acceptance.

As always in the salvation history Yahweh takes the initiative and commissions Moses to deliver the Hebrews. And, as always, human weakness is unable to take Yahweh at his word. Moses protests: "Who am I … ?" (Ex 3:11); "But suppose …" (4:1); "If you please, …" (4:13). But the divine will brooks no opposition. A second tradition of Moses' appointment is preserved in the Priestly writing of 6:2-7:13. The repetition of substantially the same account indicates the great significance Israel attached to this event (especially as regards the revelation of the divine name), but the retention of the second narrative is occasioned by another reason. By inserting the events of 6:2-7:13 after the similar JE narrative of 3:1ff and after the story of Moses' first encounter with Pharao (5: 1ff), the redactor has presented the Priestly version of Moses' appointment as a confirmation of the original commission and as a summons to continued negotiations with Pharao.

The commission of Moses also gives the Priestly writer the opportunity to recount the revelation of the name "Yahweh." According to Yahwist traditions this divine name was known almost from the beginning; the conclusion of the Kenite genealogy reads: "At that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord" (Gn 4: 26b; see also 13:4, where Abraham calls upon the name of the Lord). It is in keeping with the universalist theology of the Yahwist that he should trace the worship of Yahweh to the origins of the world. The Elohist tradition on the other hand indicates that the name was not known until Moses' question brought its disclosure (Ex 3:13-14). What the Elohist implies the Priestly author makes explicit: "God also said to Moses, 'I am the Lord. As God the Almighty I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but my name, Lord, I did not make known to them"' (Ex 6:2-3). The Priestly writer is here emphasizing the special character of Hebrew religion by linking revelation of the divine name with the events which led to the constitution of Yahwism.

The etymology of the word "Yahweh" has not been resolved to universal satisfaction; even if it could be, the etymology arrived at by modern philology would not necessarily be that of the sacred writer. A widely accepted view is that the name is a third-person form from the root HYH (earlier ^*HWY and *HWH) meaning to fall, to become or to come into existence; thus the form yahweh means "he causes to be what comes into existence." Originally the name may have had a longer litanic phrasing, such as Yahweh s āb'ôt—"he who creates the hosts of Israel."

Yahweh revealed to Moses his name: "'Ehyeh 'ašer 'ehyeh"—"I am who I am." Then he said: "This is what you shall tell the Israelites: 'I AM sent me to you"' (Ex 3:14). This translation has led to the interpretation common among Catholic philosophers and theologians that the proper name of God is Being. It is highly improbable however that the Semitic writer entertained such abstractions as being-as-such or asseity. The interpretation is based moreover on the Septuagint's mistranslation of the Hebrew form, which was doubtless a causative.

Some critics contend that Yahweh's answer is equivalent to a refusal to tell his name.¹⁸ Among the ancients knowledge of a person's name was supposed to give power over the person. Moses' question then is not prompted by ignorance of the divine title but by a desire to know its essential meaning. Yahweh's answer indicates that God is not to be comprehended by the creature. Such a reading is justified by adducing biblical parallels in which the reduplication of the verb shows nuances of indetermination as in 1 Sm 23:13. Yahweh answers Moses: "I am who I am," i.e. "I will not tell you who I am."

But the meaning of the divine name cannot be based on etymology and syntax alone. The context must also be considered, and the context suggests that God is really telling his name, not refusing to disclose it. Since the Priestly writer is very insistent that the divine name was revealed only at the time of Moses the true meaning of the name seems peculiarly associated with the events of the Exodus, and perhaps with the Sinai covenant which followed. Even the Yahwist, who assumes the name was known from earliest times, links to the Sinai covenant a special proclamation of God's name: "He [Yahweh] answered, 'I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name, "Lord;" I who show favors to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will"' (Ex 33:19); and again: "Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, 'Lord"' (34:5). In the final analysis however it seems impossible at present to determine the exact significance of the divine name for the Mosaic age. Given the context of Exodus and Sinai, the name refers to God as dynamically present to his people for the accomplishment of their salvation.

The contest with Pharao

The pace of the narrative accelerates as it depicts the struggle between Yahweh and Pharao, who repeatedly refuses permission for a festal celebration in the desert and imposes still heavier burdens upon the Hebrews (Ex 5:6-13). The royal obduracy is answered by the wondrous signs Yahweh had promised in chs 3, 4 and 7. The plague stories are secondary traditions developed and unified to translate into concrete terms Israel's realization of Yahweh as her champion against the forces that would enslave and crush her. The stories of the plagues in Ex 7:14-11:10 are mainly from the Yahwist and Priestly traditions, with occasional additions from the Elohist. The Priestly tradition emphasizes, as might be expected, the part of Aaron in the performance of the wonders; with his staff he produces the first three plagues and in each case confounds the magicians. The staff of Moses is also important (see 4:1-5, 17:15-17; 9:23; 10:13). The Elohist, though, stresses the hand of Moses in the accomplishment of the marvels (see 9:22; 10:12, 21; 14:21).

Each encounter between Moses and Pharao brings to nought the occult devices of the royal magicians, until finally the latter admit "the finger of God," thus vindicating the power at work in Moses and Aaron (8:14-15). The suspense of the narrative mounts as the king himself shows signs of weakening. The Israelites may leave if they pray for him (8:24); only the men may leave (10:11); the children may leave but the flocks and herds must remain (10:24). In a sense however each of the plague stories ends in an impasse; despite successive, undeniable manifestations of Yahweh's supreme mastery Pharao obstinately refuses to let the Hebrews depart—and then the whole situation is repeated in the account of the next plague. The motif of Pharao's obstinacy, referred to more than a dozen times in the plague narratives, further exemplifies Yahweh's sovereign control: "But the Lord made Pharao obstinate, and he would not listen to them" (9:12; see also 7:3; 10:1; 11:10). A creature's obduracy cannot shatter the divine plans, for Pharao no less than Moses is an instrument of Yahweh, and the power of the Lord is only magnified by all that men can do to thwart it.

The unified plague stories were put at the service of the Passover narrative, which is their climax; and the entire complex—plagues and Passover—was consciously employed to illustrate the salvific power which found supreme expression in the Exodus. It appears that the plagues are natural phenomena to be expected in Egypt; yet the disasters are certainly not described as natural phenomena but as prodigious deeds of Yahweh working through his servants Moses and Aaron. The stories may be rooted in folklore, but in a folklore utilized to extol Yahweh's free disposition of man and natural forces, to answer Pharao's insolent query: "Who is the Lord, that I should heed his plea to let Israel go?" (Ex 5:2).

Modern philosophy of nature does not recognize the divine action in ordinary physical events. Plagues, whether they are called natural phenomena or even extraordinary natural phenomena, do not belong in the realm of the marvelous. Among the Hebrews however the consciousness of Yahweh's activity in the universe was so keen that even natural phenomena were esteemed wonderful and mysterious: every work of the Lord is marvelous. This Hebrew concept is admirably shown in the happenings of the Exodus; what is remarkable about the plagues is not so much the phenomena themselves as the fact that Yahweh used these events to accomplish the rescue of his people. And although the modern critic must try to ascertain what natural forces were at work in the biblical stories of the plagues, the attempt to reduce the afflictions to a series of specific, integrated events has not as yet been successful.

As the affliction touching the Egyptians most cruelly the death of the firstborn properly climaxes the series of punishments sent against Pharao and his people. The life setting and attendant circumstances are unknown; the terse account of the fulfilled threat simply reports: "At midnight the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao on the throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as the firstborn of the animals" (Ex 12:29). The killing of the firstborn impressed itself deeply upon Hebrew thought: first, because of its natural significance as the climax of the plagues; second, because of its association with the Feast of Passover, the meaning of which was greatly modified by the new orientation.

According to Ex 12-21 the Passover was probably a feast celebrated by the Hebrews while they were still in Egypt, although its precise significance is not known. The feast may have been one kept by nomads before moving to new grounds. In this case it would logically be associated by the Hebrews with their final break with Egypt, and the Passover sacrifice would be directed against the evil powers represented by Egypt. The account of these evils might naturally include the plagues. The Priestly writer links the old nomadic shepherd feast with the escape from Egypt and decrees its celebration as a perpetual ordinance: "When your children ask you: 'What does this rite of yours mean?' you shall reply, 'This is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the house of the Israelites in Egypt; when he struck down the Egyptians, he spared our houses"' (Ex 12:27). The ritual directions likewise connect the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, perhaps originally a separate celebration. The sacred writer attributes the origin of this feast to the commemoration of the hasty departure from Egypt when the Hebrews carried only unleavened bread with them (see 12:34, 39).

The Exodus proper

The event of the Exodus itself is difficult to follow not only because details are lacking but also because conflicting traditions have been retained. The manner of the Hebrews' departure is reported in different ways. The principal tradition affirms that Pharao granted permission to leave after the death of his first-born son, but traces of another tradition suggest that the departure was unknown to him: "When it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled, Pharao and his servants changed their minds about them" (Ex 14:5). The story of the despoliation of the Egyptians (3:21-22; 11:2-3; 12:33-36) is not easily reconciled with the main tradition. That the Egyptians should urge the Hebrews to leave is understandable; that they should be well disposed and grant them silver, gold and clothing is less readily comprehensible. In addition the chronological relationship between the events is very obscure. The Passover ritual following the threat of the tenth plague implies that the three happenings—death of the firstborn, Passover and escape from Egypt—transpired in a single night (see 12:11, 31, 50-51); but variant traditions have been kept. In Ex 12:21-23 the Hebrews are told not to depart until morning; according to 12:30ff their flight evidently took place during the night. The Passover directions (12:Iff) indicate that the people are prepared for the flight which follows but other passages show that their departure was unexpected (see 12:33-36, 39).

What route the Israelites followed when they made good their escape is likewise not certain. Rameses, a city in the eastern part of the Nile delta, is named as their point of departure (Ex 12:37), and the tradition specifies that the people were not led "by way of the Philistines' land," i.e. directly along the shores of the Mediterranean, but rather "toward the Red Sea by way of the desert road" (13:17, 18). Despite these and other indications (Nm 33) their exact itinerary is not known, although new identifications of place names are continually being made. Finally there is no way of ascertaining the number of Israelites taking part in the Exodus. Ex 12:37 says 600,000 men but this total is far too high. A group of this size would imply a total population of nearly three million. The departure of such a horde—plus flocks and herds—is an utter impossibility. Moreover the country through which they marched could not conceivably sustain them. It is useless to conjecture what the original figure may have been.

The stirring display of Yahweh's protection during the plagues leads up to the supreme feat of the Exodus: the passage of the Hebrews through the Red Sea, more correctly translated as Reed Sea (yâm sûf). Very probably it is the Papyrus Sea or Marsh Sea located in the northeastern Nile delta, a southern extension of the present Menzahleh Lake in the Mediterranean. The entire region is near the modern Suez Canal. Here again the actual event is obscure because two variant traditions have been preserved. One tradition relates how Moses is told to take his staff and with outstretched hand to split the sea in two (Ex 14:16); another recounts how the Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind and transformed it into dry land (14:21). The fate of the Egyptians is variously described. Yahweh with a glance throws their forces into panic and clogs the chariot wheels so that they could not easily drive (14:24-25). In a variant tradition Yahweh commnands Moses: "Stretch our your hand over the sea, that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and their charioteers" (14:26). And in v 27 it is related that "the Egyptians were fleeing head on toward the sea, when the Lord hurled them into its midst." The divine protection is also described in parallel traditions. The Elohist version tells that the angel of Yahweh, who had been leading the camp of Israel, moved to the rear (14:19a). In the Yahwist tradition the divine presence is represented by a column of cloud coming between the Egyptians and the Israelites (14:19b-20). These discrepancies do not touch the main issue since the historical facts of the situation are not of supreme moment. What matters—and this could not be uttered with greater clarity—is that "the Lord saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians" (14:30), a fact which Israel recognized in Miriam's chant: "Sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea" (15:21b).

The wandering in the desert

The theme of desert wandering connects the motifs of the Exodus with those of the conquest of the promised land. At one time the stories composing the history of the desert sojourn were undoubtedly independent narratives with a life setting now beyond recovery. In some cases the stories are quite old, although they assumed their position in the sacred traditions only at a later date. The wonder wrought at the Red Sea was a striking augury of Yahweh's solicitude for his people all the days of their wandering, days when he carried Israel "as a man carries his child" (Dt 1:31). He furnished them water (Ex 15:22ff; 17:1ff); he sent manna for their food (16:4-36; Nm 11:6-9); and he condescended to their desire for meat by giving them quail (Ex 16:12-13; Nm 11:31-34). Dt gives equally impressive evidence of the divine protection: "The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years" (Dt 8:4; see also 29:5). During the early days in the desert Yahweh helped the Israelites defeat the Amalecites, Bedouin marauders of Sinai and southern Palestine (Ex 17:8-16), and throughout their wanderings he continued to support them in battle (Ex 21). Not content with satisfying their physical needs and with defeating their foes Yahweh preceded the Israelites in a pillar of cloud by day and a column of fire by night (Ex 13:21-22; Dt 1:33). A variant tradition recalls how the angel of the Lord was sent as a guide (Ex 14:19; Nm 20:16).

And what was the response of the Hebrews? The absorbing recital of the plagues and the negotiations between Moses and Pharao left scant opportunity for noting the reaction of the Hebrews. At the start of Moses' mission it was stated: "The people believed, and when they had heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their affliction, they bowed down in worship" (Ex 4:31). Even in Egypt however some among them opposed Moses, for when they saw the Egyptians in pursuit they bitterly reminded him: "Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Did we not tell you this in Egypt when we said, 'Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians"' (14:11-12). Later, awed by the exercise of divine power against Egypt at the Red Sea, "they feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses" (14:31). But scarcely were they out of Egypt when they began that steady stream of complaints which brand their years in the desert both before and after Sinai. Salvation history records not only Yahweh's deeds but also the interplay of human and divine activity—Yahweh's offer of grace and man's response. The murmurings in the desert document Israel's ungrateful response to all that Yahweh had effected in her behalf. Perhaps the stories are not a part of the original traditions of salvation history. But the narratives of the murmurings are so deeply imbedded in the traditions that they may be regarded as a very early theological concept of the mystery of proffered salvation and its rejection.

Thus after only three days' journey from the Red Sea the Hebrews grumbled because of the bitter waters of Mara (Ex 15:22-25). Again at Raphidim they quarreled with Moses: "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?" (17:3; see also Nm 20:4). In both cases Yahweh listens to Moses' appeal and grants water to the maundering Israelites. The contrast between human petulance and divine condescension, between man's selfishness and Yahweh's generosity effectively reveals the utter gratuity of salvation. Doubtless these stories were at one time popular etiologies of the place name Mara (bitter), Massa (testing) and Meriba (quarrel); one need not think that the narratives pretend to catalogue actual day-to-day events of the desert sojourn. Rather they have been amalgamated with the other traditions in order to point up the relation between Yahweh and his people more vividly and completely. Another etiological tale provides the foundation of Nm 11:1-3. When the people complained, "the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.… Hence that place was called Thabera, because there the fire of the Lord burned among them."

Once more, longing for the hearty fare of Egypt, the Hebrews received the Lord's promise: "I will now rain down bread from heaven for you" (Ex 16:4). The story of the manna has been elaborated beyond the theme of murmuring but there is little doubt that its original core belongs to the narratives of the Israelite complaints. The meticulous directions concerning the manna, e.g. Moses' instructions to place an urn of manna in front of the Commandments (Ex 16:32-34), are a result of later reworking. The Deuteronomist sees a new lesson in the manna: "He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3). Ex 16 mentions briefly the quail sent by the Lord (vv 8, 12, 13); a more forceful story in Nm 11 tells that this meat-food was given them after the complaint: "Would that we had meat for food" (Nm 11:18). Their greed brought swift punishment: "While the meat was still between their teeth, before it could be consumed, the Lord's wrath flared up against the people, and he struck them with a very great plague. So that place was named Cibroth-Hatthaava, because it was there that the greedy people were buried" (Nm 11:33-34).

Later these rebellious murmurings brought equally strict sanctions from Yahweh. After the death of Aaron the complaints of the Israelites were punished by the stings of saraph serpents. (The serpent pericope seems a latecomer to the traditions of desert murmuring. As 4 Kgs 18:4 indicates, its point of origin was very likely the bronze serpent idol which until the time of Hesekia was honored as a cultic symbol dating from the time of Moses. The story may have arisen to legitimatize the popular cult.) Only when the Israelites acknowledged their guilt and begged Moses' intercession did the Lord remove the affliction. Again, struck with fear at the scouts' report of a land defended by fierce inhabitants in fortified towns, the people reviled Moses, who nonetheless interceded for them (Nm 14:1-38; Dt 1:26-40). The Lord answered:

I pardon them as you have asked. Yet, by my life and the Lord's glory that fills the whole earth, of all the men who have seen my glory and the signs I have worked in Egypt and in the desert, and who nevertheless have put me to the test ten times already and have failed to heed my voice, not one shall see the land which I promised on oath to their fathers (Nm 14: 20-22).

Most frequently the murmurings are directed against Moses (or Moses and Aaron) as Yahweh's representative, and usually there is nothing personal in the Israelites' charges. In two stories however the complaints are obviously dictated by personal resentment. The murmurings of Miriam and Aaron (Nm 12:1-15) are based on rancor over Moses' marriage to a Chusite woman and on jealousy of the favors Moses had received from Yahweh.

Later Core, Dathan and Abiram rebel against Moses' domination (Nm 16 and 17). The pericopes include two distinct rebellions: the religious uprising of Core (Nm 16:1-11, 16-24; Nm 17) and the revolt of the Rubenites Dathan and Abiram (Nm 16:13-15, 25-34; Dt 11:6). A desire to extol the Aaronite priesthood was probably one reason for the development of the Core narrative.

Even the conduct of Moses was not free from reproach. At Cades when they struck the rock to secure water for the Hebrews, Moses and Aaron incurred Yahweh's displeasure because they failed to manifest his sanctity to Israel (Nm 20:2ff). As a punishment they were not allowed to enter the land of promise. Ultimately it remains mysterious why the performance of the brothers on this occasion should prompt Yahweh to forbid them entry into Palestine.

Grumbling and murmuring led the Israelites to overt rebellion against the Lord in the worship of the golden calf (Ex 32) and in the sacrifices made to Baal Phogor (Nm 25). The ingratitude and stubborn resistance which characterized their response to divine favors earned for them Yahweh's epithet "stiff-necked people" (Ex 32:9; Dt 9:13). Although the memory of rebellious Israel in the desert is not lost for later writers (see Os 9:10; 11:1-2), it is interesting to note how this period is idealized in the prophetic books. Jeremia recalls: "I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride, following me in the desert in a land unsown" (2:2); and Osee looks for a return of that blissful time: "So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.… She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt" (2:16-17b). Israel by the time of the prophets had repeatedly spurned the divine overtures and had accumulated a sorry record of failures. Yahweh's lasting covenant guaranteed opportunity for a fresh start and a zealous response in each and every age; yet the prophets thought nostalgically of the pristine desert milieu as the ideal circumstance for worthy response to the invitation of the Lord.

The Sinai theme

Conscious of election by Yahweh, Israel recognized herself as his special possession, dearer to him than all other peoples of the earth. That election—present germinally in the promises to the patriarchs and singularly indicated by the Exodus with its subsequent protection in the desert—Yahweh ratified at Sinai by a covenant not with a single individual (as he had made with Noe and Abraham), but with all Israel. By the terms of the alliance Yahweh became in a special manner the God of the Israelites and they became his people. In the persons of her ancestors Israel for many generations had realized Yahweh's predilection and had responded to it; never before Sinai however were the full implications of both election and response brought home to her so forcibly. Like the Exodus materials the Sinai tradition has its roots in history, but the Pentateuchal records yield no meticulous reports of events in orderly sequence. Although it is impossible to correlate the variant traditions satisfactorily the central message is strong and clear: at Sinai Yahweh revealed himself to Israel, inaugurated a unique covenantal relationship with his people and, by disclosing his moral will, provided the means to guarantee continued life within the covenant's bonds. Since the covenantal nature of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel will be discussed later it will here suffice to examine the Sinai theophany in general and to show its role in the formation of Israel's concept of salvation history.

The tradition of divine revelation at Sinai is vital to Yahwism. Not community of blood, or of land or of government but alliance with the Lord united the "crowd of mixed ancestry" (Ex 12:38) which fled Egypt. The course of early Israelite history, in which the sense of religious solidarity is bound up with the Sinai tradition, shows that the covenantal union established on the mountain of God is an original element in all sources, and it testifies to the factual character of the divine revelation. The evidence of later Yahwism also witnesses the primacy of the covenantal theme: the prophets reproach Israel for her great sin—betrayal of her election, rejection of the gifts and leadership of Yahweh. Surprisingly enough however the Sinai tradition long maintained its independence of other Pentateuchal traditions. The ancient cultic credos of Dt 6 and 26 pass immediately from the Exodus to entrance into the promised land, with no mention of the divine encounter at Sinai. The omission is the more striking because Dt 6:21ff purports to explain the meaning of the ordinances, statutes and decrees enjoined by the Lord—legislation bestowed at the time the covenant was initiated. Outside the Pentateuch the association of Sinai with other elements of salvation history became popular only in postexilic days; Ps 106 and the prayer of Nehemia (Neh 9:6ff) contain the first instances of the Sinai material joined to the other traditions of salvation history.

The dearth of references to the covenant in early texts and the relatively late association of the Sinai material to companion themes have occasioned the opinion that the Sinai tradition arose much later than the primitive traditions of the Exodus and the conquest of the promised land. Following Wellhausen many critics viewed the Sinai pericope as an interruption of the events at Cades, the account of which is broken off at the end of Ex 18 and resumed in Nm 10-14. Whatever Israel received in the way of law, according to Wellhausen, she received at Mara: "It was here that the Lord, in making rules and regulations for them, put them to the test" (Ex 15:25b). Therefore the critics regarded the ancient significance of Sinai as independent of any covenant or imposition of law. The late incorporation of so important a concept as the Sinai covenant into the Pentateuchal traditions does pose a problem, but to argue that because the Sinai tradition is absent from the earliest texts it therefore did not exist is to reconstruct the history and religion of Israel by literary criticism exclusively. After all, the only legitimate and safe starting point for an examination of Israel's relation to Yahweh is the evidence of the Old Testament taken as a whole: the worship of Yahweh was based on the covenantal agreement the Lord himself had established for Israel at Sinai. And the force and influence of the Sinai tradition are such that the theme must be accounted an independent primitive tradition in Israel.

Why the traditions of the covenant circulated independently and were not united with other themes in the preliterary stages of the Pentateuch is difficult to ascertain.¹⁹ Perhaps it was because the revelation at Sinai was unique among Yahweh's saving acts. Israel's experience at Sinai differed from all her previous experiences of Yahweh because it was an encounter binding her to his declared moral will. To a degree therefore it is understandable why the events of Sinai would not readily be combined with other recollections of Yahweh's mighty deeds; the very uniqueness of the revelation kept it a thing apart. Sinai is primarily an encounter with Yahweh; therefore its traditions are kept separate from the cultic commemoration of Yahweh's salvific acts.

The Pentateuchal traditions of Sinai

The experiences of Israel at Sinai are recorded in Ex 19-24 (with supplementary matter in Ex 32-34) and, more briefly, in Dt 4:9-15; 5:1-5. Of the accounts in Ex almost four chapters are devoted to law (the Decalogue, Ex 20:2-17; and the Code of the Covenant, Ex 20:22-23:19), leaving a scant sixty verses to report the divine meeting so crucial to Yahwism. Because different traditions have been juxtaposed in these verses it is almost impossible to determine the sequence of events. Critics hold that both the Yahwist and the Elohist are represented in the Sinai narrative but there is little agreement on the sections to be assigned to each. Moreover some portions of the narrative, such as Ex 19:3-9 and 23:20-33, are almost certainly later additions. While the Israelites camped in the desert near the mountain of God²⁰ Yahweh bade Moses prepare the people for a theophany on the third day; all were to sanctify themselves and carefully avoid the sacred mountain as forbidden territory (see Ex 19:12-13). Then "on the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast.… The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently" (Ex 19:16, 18b). Dt further states that the mountain was ablaze with fire (4:11; 5:23-26).

The phenomena accompanying the theophany are those of a storm and a violent volcanic eruption. The unusual combination has caused some critics to seek earnestly for geographic and climatic conditions which will account for the phenomena in their least details; they forget that the essential note of the theophany is the divine activity manifested in physical phenomena, which the sacred writer may have constructed so as best to convey the principal idea. Because a storm was linked with the event through which Israel was initiated into the covenant so vital to her religion, the storm theophany became the chief model for the depiction of subsequent divine manifestations—e.g. in the psalms.

The traditions vary in reporting what, if anything, the people saw in addition to the signs and wonders accompanying Yahweh's revelation. Ex 19:11 notes: "On the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people" (see also Ex 19:17); and Dt 5:4 recalls: "The Lord spoke to you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire." But in other passages the Hebrews only hear the words addressed by Yahweh to Moses or to themselves: "Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice" (Dt 4:12; also Ex 19:19). Throughout the narrative Moses mediates between Yahweh and the people. Moses alone is permitted to approach God upon the holy mountain (see Ex 19:12ff; 24:2). Through him Yahweh gave directions to the people: "Thus shall you speak to the Israelites.…" (Ex 20:22); and through Moses the people respond to Yahweh: "We will do everything that the Lord has told us" (Ex 24:3).

The awesome phenomena occurring on Mount Sinai are but accouterments to the essence of the theophany: the revelation of Yahweh's will to establish a personal alliance with Israel. Unfortunately the texts provide scanty information on the exact nature of the covenant revealed by Yahweh. The stress upon law in Ex 19-24 by reason of the insertion of the Decalogue and the Code of the Covenant into the Sinai context suggests that the chief element in the Sinai encounter is the disclosure of divine moral law for Israel. At times the covenant (b^erît) is even equated with law: "And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments" (Ex 34:28; see also Dt 4:13). Elsewhere however there are indications that the covenantal agreement is distinct from the commands which accompany it: "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his" (Ex 24:8; see also 34:27).

The traditions of covenant ratification appear in Ex 24:2-11. According to one tradition—vv 1-2, 9-11—Moses and the seventy elders ascended the holy mountain and there, after seeing the God of Israel, partook of a sacred meal. Although ratification is not mentioned in the verses it could be that the sacred banquet, by symbolizing community of life and interests among the participants, was regarded as a seal of the relationship established. There is no question of Yahweh participating in the meal. But the banquet in his presence is nevertheless a symbol of the communion established with Yahweh through the covenant. The second tradition (vv 3-8) tells of solemn sacrifices at the foot of Mount Sinai in confirmation of the people's promise to heed all that the Lord had told them. In this pericope the ceremony of ratification is quite clear. After sprinkling blood upon the altar Moses read the Israelites the Book of the Covenant. Then he sprinkled blood upon the people, saying: "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his" (Ex 24:8). Christ's explicit reference to these ceremonies at Sinai shows the continuing centrality of the covenant in Christianity. On the eve of his passion, which was to inaugurate a new dispensation, Jesus instituted the sacrament of his body and blood with the words: "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is being shed for many" (Mk 14:24).

The Sinai block proper (Ex 19-24) is supplemented by chs 32-34, which contain additional pericopes loosely related to the core of Yahweh's revelation on Sinai. Israel's worship of the golden calf is the center of interest in these chapters. More than once did Israel turn from Yahweh and spurn his covenant. In the episode of the golden calf the sacred writer has recapitulated this continual series of rejections. A supplement to the Sinai tradition, the story of the golden calf is doubtless a polemic against the calf worship introduced by Jeroboam I in Dan and Bethel (3 Kgs 12:28b). Discrepancies and a certain unevenness indicate that the tradition suffered many accretions. From the proclamation: "Tomorrow is a feast of the Lord" it would appear that the calf was not intended as an idol but as a throne for the invisible Yahweh. The association of the bull with Semitic fertility cults however made the use of this figure dangerous to Yahwism. Linked chronologically to the events of Sinai the story heightens Israel's wickedness in spurning the God who had so recently admitted her to special favors. The narrative serves still another purpose. Moses' breaking of the stone tablets in wrath over his people's conduct necessitated a second conference of commandments by Yahweh. Thus the redactor had an opportunity to utilize the Ritual Decalogue (Ex 34:14-26), which could not be fitted in the traditions of Ex 19-24.

According to Ex 19:1 the Hebrews arrived at the Sinai desert three months after their departure from Egypt. Here they remained after the great theophany until "the second year, on the twentieth day of the second month" (Nm 10:11), when they moved on into the desert of Pharan toward the plains of Moab. Preliminary successes over Sehon, Arad, Og and the Madianites (Nm 21 and 31) are portents of the successful conquest of the promised land. Nevertheless the spirit of revolt among the people occasioned a severe sentence from the Lord:

Forty days you spent in scouting the land; forty years shall you suffer for your crimes: one year for each day. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me. l, the Lord, have sworn to do this to all this wicked community that conspired against me: here in the desert they shall die to the last man (Nm 14:34-35).

Since the conquest of Palestine did not actually follow upon the immediate conclusion of the Exodus the traditions had to explain the delay in the fulfillment of the promise. The murmurings in the desert and during the delay in entering Canaan were regarded as cause and effect. (Dt 7:22 deals with the problem by noting: "He will dislodge these nations before you little by little. You cannot exterminate them all at once, lest the wild beasts become too numerous for you.") Consequently the Israelites are delayed forty years in the plains of Moab until the time decreed by Yahweh for their passage across the Jordan. In this land east of the river the exhortations of Dt have their setting. On the eve of entering into possession of their heritage the people hear a résumé of the deeds of the Lord—deeds which should prompt their grateful response:

Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong, and now the Lord, your God, has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky (Dt. 10:22).

For love of your fathers he chose their descendants and personally led you out of Egypt by his great power, driving out of your way nations greater and mightier than you, so as to bring you in and to make their land your heritage, as it is today (Dt 4:37-38).

The Lord, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb; not with our fathers did he make this covenant, but with us, all of us who are alive here today (Dt 5:2-3).

The divine mercies elaborated in the Pentateuch prompt loving compliance with the divine will. However, no matter how impressive the deeds of Yahweh are, Israel remains free to reject the claim they make on her. The choice is her own:

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the Lord swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Dt 30:19-20).

Notes

¹ The tradition of conquest of the land is sometimes treated as a separate theme, especially by those critics who work with the Hexateuch, since this division includes Jos, in which the promise of the land is fulfilled. For our present purposes the tradition of the promised land will be treated with the promise made to the patriarchs.

² Elsewhere in the Bible however there are faint allusions to a struggle between Yahweh and the forces of chaos:

You rule over the surging of the sea;
you still the swelling of its waves.
You have crushed Rahab with a mortal blow;
with your strong arm you have scattered your
  enemies
(Ps 89:10-11).

See also Is 51:9; Jb 7:12; 9:13; 25:12; Ps 104:7-9. These texts imply a continuing creativity and a continuous act of divine omnipotence holding in check the forces of chaos.

³ AAS 40 (1948) 47 and RSS, ed Conrad Louis (7th ed, St. Meinrad, Ind. 1962) 152. Re Gn 1-3 read the decree of the Biblical Commission on the historical character of Gn 1-3 (AAS 1 [1909] 567-69 and RSS, 122-24) in the light of the reply made to Cardinal Suhard, ibid, 150-53.

⁴ Joseph Coppens, "L'interpretation sexuelle du pech6 du Paradis," ETL 24 (1948) 395-439, endeavors to show that the western Fathers generally regard the transgression of Adam and Eve as sexual, some of them even holding that their sin was the normal use of sex.

Robert Gordis, "The Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Old Testament and in the Qumran Scrolls," JBL 76 (1957) 123-38, asserts that sexual consciousness is the only meaning of knowledge of good and evil which fits all the biblical passages where the term occurs.

⁵ Although the same verb is used in both members of v 15b, some critics seek to substantiate a judgment of final victory for man by the relative positions of the man and the serpent: standing above the serpent, man is able to deal a mortal blow on the head, whereas the serpent can only attack his adversary on the heel. Given the physical structure of both man and the serpent however it is difficult to see how any other position is possible. Other critics offer a syntactic justification for their judgment by translating the connective in a concessive sense: "He will attack your head, while you will be able only to snap at his heel."

The messianic import of this Protoevangelium need not concern us here. The application of the text "He shall crush your head, etc." to Mary is a time-honored interpretation which found its way into the Vulgate text, where a feminine subject pronoun, ipsa, was substituted for the masculine form.

⁶ R. A. F. MacKenzie, "The Divine Soliloquies," CBQ 17 (1955) 277-86, points out that Yahweh's soliloquies—his thinking aloud how he will deal with man—form a kind of literary genre of their own. See also Gn 2:18; 3:22; 6:3; 8:21ff; 11:6ff; and 18:17-19.

⁷ There is an ample bibliography of extrabiblical parallels to usages found in the patriarchal narratives: Roger O'Callaghan, "Historical Parallels to Patriarchal Social Customs," CBQ 6 (1944) 391-405; H. H. Rowley, From Joseph to Joshua: Biblical Traditions in the Light of Archaeology (London 1950); ibid, "Recent Discoveries and the Patriarchal Age," BJRylL 32 (1949-50) 44-79; and Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, tr John McHugh (New York 1961).

⁸ Von Rad's attitude to history is well illustrated in his Old Testament Theology: The Theology of Israel's Historical Traditions, vol I, tr D. M. G. Stalker (New York 1962). Noth's methodology is best exemplified in The History of Israel, tr P. R. Ackroyd (rev ed, New York 1960); and Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (Struttgart 1948). For a different approach see John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia 1959).

For criticism of Noth, et al see John Bright, Early Israel in Recent History Writing (Studies in Biblical Theology 19; London 1956); and G. Ernest Wright, "Archaeology and Old Testament Studies," JBL 77 (1958) 39-55; ibid, "History and the Patriarchs," ExpT 71 (1959-60) 292-96; and von Rad's reply to Wright, ExpT 72 (1960-61) 213-16.

⁹ Sara explains Isaac's name in two ways: "God has given me cause for laughter, and whoever hears of it will laugh (śahaq) with me" (Gn 21:6). The notion of laughter associated with Isaac occurs in all three traditions. The Yahwist narrative of the prophecy of Isaac's birth makes much of Sara's laughter on that occasion; see 18:12-15. The word sahaq is used in the Elohist's description of Isaac playing with Ishmael (21:9) and again in the Yahwist account of Isaac fondling Rebecca (26:8). The word also occurs in the Priestly tradition. When Abraham heard the promise of his son's birth he fell prostrate and laughed (17:17). Besides the popular etymology which derives the name of Isaac from śahaq, there is obviously some further association which remains unknown.

¹⁰ Wherever Lot appears he serves as a foil for the more imposing figure of his uncle. Abraham's superiority to his nephew is evident in ch 14; the patriarch frees Lot from the harassment of the four kings. Lot's proposal to give his daughters to the Sodomites (Gn 19:6-9) is one more example of his ineffectiveness. He is not a bad man—he even evokes sympathy at times—but his fearful and temporizing actions contrast unfavorably with those of Abraham. Completely ineffectual against the Sodomites, unable to impress his intended sons-in-law (19:14), he hesitates in the dread moment of God's judgment upon Sodom and has to be led from the doomed city (19:16).

¹¹ Manfred Lehmann, "Abraham's Purchase of Machphela and Hittite Law," BASOR 129 (1953) 15-18.

¹² The importance of the basic tradition concerning the promise of land can scarcely be exaggerated. The patriarchal history is organically related to it and the originally independent themes of the primitive history and Sinai have been correlated with it. The promised land is the great theme of Dt, where it is mentioned an average of about three times in each chapter, except in the legislative core of chs 12-26. The motif of possession of the land is part of the larger theme of inheritance throughout the Bible; see F. Dreyfus, "La thème de l'heritage dans l'Ancien Testament," RScPhTh 42 (1958) 3-49.

¹³ Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture tr Mrs. Auslaug Møller and Annie Fausbøll (2 vol, London 1926 and 1940) II, 182-212, has perhaps the best treatment of the Hebrew blessing. The frequent mention of eating to gain strength for the act of blessing (see Gn 27:4, 10, 31) stresses the idea that benediction is much more than an expression of pious wishes; it is a "creation" of the one who blesses and as such it engages all his vital forces.

¹⁴ Stealing the wooden household god—t^erāfîm—was perhaps more than a spiteful trick on Laban, for the Nuzu tablets reveal that possession of the household gods gave title to the family property.

If Rachel told the truth about her condition (Gn 31:35) then the idols would be defiled by one in her state of impurity (see Lv 15:19)—a neat satire against gods of wood and stone.

¹⁵ John J. Dougherty, "The Origins of Hebrew Religion: A Study in Method," CBQ 17 (1955) 258.

¹⁶ Gerhard von Rad, "Josephsgeschichte and altere Chokma," Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (Munich 1958) 272-73. This book is scheduled to appear in English in early 1965 under the title Collected Old Testament Studies; see bibliography.

¹⁷ The classic documentary theory which ruled against Mosaic authorship inevitably led to the rejection of Moses as he appears in the Pentateuch. With no disinterested contemporary reports to guide them, critics employing exclusively literary criticism could only conclude the impossibility of knowing the historical Moses. Recent scholars have returned to a more moderate position; they generally agree that to deny the historical reality of the person of Moses is to render inexplicable the course of Israel's history, her devotion to the law and her fidelity to Yahwism. Having denied the historicity of Moses as he appears in the Pentateuch, critics have been compelled to acknowledge him as an historical figure on the basis of the judgment of subsequent history.

¹⁸ A. M. Dubarle, "La signification du nom de Iahweh," RScPhTh 35 (1951) 3-21.

¹⁹ See von Rad's explanation of a cultic origin for the Sinai tradition, "Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch," Gesammelte Studien, 20-27. For criticism of von Rad see Artur Weiser, Introduction to the Old Testament, tr from 4th ed by Dorothea Brandon (London 1961) 83-99; and W. Beyerlin, Herkunft und Geschichte der ältesten Sinaitradition (Tübingen 1961).

²⁰ The sacred mountain (called Sinai by the Yahwist and Priestly writers, Horeb by the Elohist and Deuteronomist) is commonly located in the south of the Sinai peninsula. On the evidence of Ex 3 and Ex 18 however some scholars place it in the land of Madian, i.e. southwestern Arabia. The mention of Horeb in the theophany to Moses (Ex 3:1ff) may be an addition, and it is possible that Ex 18 (which does not actually name the mountain) may be misplaced in the narrative. To locate the mountain in Arabia intensifies the difficulty of reconstructing the itinerary of the Exodus.

Abbreviations

AAS:

Acta Apostolicae Sedis

AASO:

Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research

AER:

The American Ecclesiastical Review

ANET:

Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed James B. Pritchard

ASS:

Acta Sanctae Sedis

BA:

The Biblical Archaeologist

BASOR:

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

Bib:

Biblica

BJRylL:

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

BZAW:

Beihefte zur Wissenschaft für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBQ:

The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CSEL:

Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum

DAFC:

Dictionnaire apologetique de lafoi catholique

DowR:

The Downside Review

ETL:

Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses

ExpT:

The Expository Times

HAT:

Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (Göttingen)

HSAT:

Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments (Bonn)

HUCA:

Hebrew Union College Annual

Interpr:

Interpretation

IsrEJ:

The Israel Exploration Journal

JBL:

The Journal of Biblical Literature

JBR:

The Journal of Bible and Religion

JNES:

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JR:

The Journal of Religion

JSemS:

The Journal of Semitic Studies

LXX:

Septuagint

MT:

Masoretic text

NRT:

Nouvelle revue théologique

PL:

Patrologia latina, Migne

RB:

Revue biblique

RGG³:

Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3d ed

RScPhTh:

Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques

RSS:

Rome and the Study of Scripture, ed Conrad Louis

S:

Samaritan Pentateuch

Scr:

Scripture

SZ:

Stimmen der Zeit

TS:

Theological Studies

VD:

Verbum Domini

VDBS:

Dictionnaire de la Bible: Supplément (Vigouroux)

VT:

Vetus Testamentum

VTS:

Vetus Testamentum: Supplementum

ZAW:

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft