[b-hebrew] Was Pharaoh "Touched" or "Plagued" by God at Genesis 12:17?
Yigal Levin
leviny1 at mail.biu.ac.il
Thu Aug 21 18:22:06 EDT 2008
WOW! All this would make a great novel, but it's bad exegesis and even worse
history. Bryant has already commented on the exegetical part. The historical
issues here are way beyond this thread. I suggest that if no-one has
anything new to add, we move on.
Yigal Levin
----- Original Message -----
From: <JimStinehart at aol.com>
To: <b-hebrew at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 5:34 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Was Pharaoh "Touched" or "Plagued" by God at Genesis
12:17?
>
> Yigal Levin:
>
> You wrote: “OK, you've lost me. Please explain, in a message short
> enough
> and in plain enough English for even me to understand, exactly how you
> think
> God "touched" Pharaoh, why, and what that has to do with Jacob's thigh.”
>
> 1. How Did God “Touch” Pharaoh?
>
> When applied to YHWH communicating with a human, NG( refers (in my
> opinion)
> to YHWH applying “a mysterious, harsh divine t-o-u-c-h, that has a
> significant
> meaning”. YHWH probably did not say any words to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was
> waiting to see if Abraham’s prediction would come true that Abraham’s
> deity would
> make some clear communication to Pharaoh, which if it happened would mean
> that
> Pharaoh should promptly return Sarah to Abraham. Moreover, in order to
> make
> this a severe divine test for Abraham, and also for Pharaoh to get the
> diplomatic leverage that Pharaoh wanted to get out of this situation in
> dealing with
> Pharaoh’s own local problems in Egypt (discussed below), the divine
> communication needed to be public.
>
> At Genesis 12: 17, both Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s household get “a mysterious,
> harsh divine t-o-u-c-h, that has a significant meaning”. The text never
> tells
> us the exact nature of this mysterious divine “touch”, but it was
> obviously
> powerful. It alerted everyone in Pharaoh’s household, and hence
> indirectly
> everyone in Egypt, that something important was up.
>
> Pharaoh promptly returned Sarah to Abraham. That had been the original
> plan,
> as long as Abraham’s deity came through with the divine communication,
> which
> happened in spades. Also, as planned, Pharaoh falsely told the people of
> Egypt that Pharaoh had not known Sarah’s marital status at the time
> Pharaoh
> brought her into Pharaoh’s harem. (See #2 below as to “why” this
> procedure was
> used.)
>
> 2. Why Did God “Touch” Pharaoh?
>
> Abraham righteously trusted in YHWH to make sure that nothing untoward
> would
> happen to Sarah in Pharaoh’s harem, and that Sarah would soon be returned
> to
> Abraham. By acting pursuant to his faith in YHWH, Abraham took the first
> step
> in proving himself to YHWH. If YHWH had not come through and “touched”
> Pharaoh, Abraham would never have seen beloved Sarah again, and Abraham
> would never
> have had a proper male heir. So only if Abraham had full faith in YHWH
> would
> Abraham allow Sarah to go into Pharaoh’s harem.
>
> Secondly, Abraham and Sarah had to prove themselves willing to be the
> subjects of unending salacious gossip, involving false accusations that
> Abraham and
> Sarah could never directly disavow. This again was a step toward proving
> Abraham and Sarah worthy of being Patriarch and Matriarch #1. The
> gossip-mongers
> in Egypt naturally gossiped that this monotheist’s wife was a loose woman,
> and
> that this monotheistic man was cowardly and immoral in giving his wife to
> Pharaoh under the pretext of the wife being merely a sister. Although
> each of
> those accusations was untrue, they were part and parcel of Pharaoh’s
> pre-arranged
> cover story. Abraham and Sarah kept their promise (as an integral part of
> this divine test) never to disavow those vile rumors.
>
> Rumors, even though false, often have consequences. Lot’s wife now
> refused
> to have anything to do with Abraham and Sarah upon returning to Canaan.
> Lot’s
> wife insists that Lot split from Abraham, which is the real reason why
> Abraham
> and Lot split up so very very quickly upon their return to Canaan. The
> diplomatic cover story that the parties told outsiders was that Abraham’s
> and Lot’
> s flocks were too large to sojourn together, but we know that is just a
> cover
> story, as the same diplomatic cover story is used by Jacob and Esau at
> Genesis
> 36: 6-7, in a context where we know it is nothing more than diplomatic
> fiction.
>
> Those ugly rumors coming out of Canaan also go a long way toward
> explaining
> Abraham’s very public, and otherwise peculiar, insistence at Genesis 14:
> 22-24
> that Abraham and his 318 armed retainers will not take even a
> “sandal-strap”
> of the booty of Sodom to which they were entitled after rescuing Lot and
> the
> booty. Abraham is effectively rehabilitating his image in Canaan, even as
> Abraham can never openly state that Pharaoh was not telling the truth when
> Pharaoh
> told the Egyptian people that Pharaoh had not known that Sarah was Abraham’s
> wife when Pharaoh took Sarah into Pharaoh’s harem.
>
> Finally, what did Pharaoh get out of this? Why was Pharaoh willing to
> participate in this divine testing of Abraham? Pharaoh wanted the
> Egyptian public
> to see Pharaoh as having a new-found devotion to a type of
> semi-monotheism.
> Pharaoh’s reasons for this were mainly political, not religious. Pharaoh
> feared
> that unless he could use diplomacy to get the too-rich polytheistic cult
> of
> the ram-headed god Amen to voluntarily relinquish some of its vast
> landholdings
> along the Nile River, then Pharaoh’s son and successor (the young Pharaoh
> at
> the end of Genesis) might well launch the first religious war in history,
> for
> the purpose of confiscating Amen’s vast landholdings. That in fact is
> exactly
> what happened, both in secular history and at Genesis 47: 13-26. In an
> unsuccessful attempt to prevent that from happening, the old Pharaoh in
> chapter 12
> of Genesis goes out of his way to publicly favor a monotheist from Canaan
> (Abraham). Pharaoh pays top dollar for the lapis lazuli that Abraham
> brought from
> Ur, Pharaoh takes old Sarah into his harem under the above-described
> circumstances, Pharaoh soon returns Sarah to Abraham, as planned, and
> Pharaoh publicly
> allows monotheistic Abraham to waltz out of Egypt scot-free with all of
> Abraham’s newly-acquired vast wealth. Pharaoh was trying to get the cult
> of Amen
> to realize that the winds were now blowing in the direction of monotheism,
> and
> that the polytheistic cult’s vast landholdings along the Nile River could
> not
> stand. Pharaoh w-a-n-t-s the Amen cult priests to hear that Pharaoh and
> all
> of Pharaoh’s household were duly impressed by an apparent divine
> communication from a monotheistic deity on behalf of a monotheistic man
> (Abraham) from
> Canaan. Pharaoh w-a-n-t-s that buzz to happen, as long as Pharaoh has a
> convenient cover story to purvey to the Egyptian public by which Pharaoh
> can claim,
> without ever being contradicted by Abraham, that Pharaoh supposedly did
> not
> know Sarah’s marital status when Pharaoh brought Sarah into his harem.
> Abraham
> passes Abraham’s divine test, and Pharaoh makes an effective communication
> to
> the Amen cult. (By contrast, Abimelek’s motivation to participate in the
> second round of this type of divine testing of Abraham was to get Abraham
> to utter
> a fertility prayer for childless Abimelek. Genesis 20: 17-18)
>
> 3. What Does YHWH’s “Touching” of Pharaoh Have to Do With Jacob’s Thigh?
>
> Both with Pharaoh, and with Jacob at Genesis 32: 25/26, YHWH communicates
> by
> means of “a mysterious, harsh divine t-o-u-c-h, that has a significant
> meaning”. In Jacob’s case, there is a mysterious being involved, as to
> which we
> are not quite sure if it is a man, a dream, a semi-divine being, a divine
> being
> other than YHWH, or YHWH. Yet despite these ambiguities, it is clear that
> YHWH, acting directly or indirectly, “touches” Jacob’s thigh:
>
> “And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow
> of
> his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled
> with
> him. …And he said: 'Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel;
> for
> thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.'” Genesis
> 32:
> 26, 29
>
> The mysterious divine touching of Jacob’s thigh is an integral part of the
> confirmation that Jacob will henceforth be the namesake of the Israelites,
> as
> Jacob’s name is divinely changed to “Israel”. That it is YHWH who
> effectively
> made this important name change is soon confirmed at Genesis 35: 10-11,
> where
> the reference to “God Almighty” clarifies that YHWH is the ultimate source
> of
> this key name change.
>
> I fear this message has already gotten too long. There is no room here to
> discuss further the famous incident in which Jacob wrestles with that
> mysterious
> being. As I noted before, however, Jacob is a successor monotheistic
> leader
> with a severe limp, as a result of that divine encounter, and historically
> the
> successor of the young Pharaoh at the end of Genesis is the only pharaoh I
> know of who had a severe limp. The author of the Patriarchal narratives
> seems
> to be saying here that having a severe limp should not disqualify a person
> from
> being a monotheistic leader. Everything about the Patriarchal narratives
> is
> thoroughly redolent of the well-documented secular history of the Late
> Bronze
> Age, and nothing in the Patriarchal narratives is redolent of J, E, P or
> D.
>
> 4. Why Does This Matter?
>
> I am trying to get people not to view Pharaoh as being “plagued” in
> chapter
> 12 of Genesis in the way that Egypt, and “the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph”,
> are, properly, terribly divinely plagued by real plagues in the Book of
> Exodus.
> I am also trying to show that Abraham is neither cowardly nor immoral in
> Egypt (or at Gerar).
>
> In the Patriarchal narratives, YHWH operates regarding both Pharaoh and
> Jacob
> by means of “a mysterious, harsh divine t-o-u-c-h, that has a significant
> meaning”. That is why, in my opinion, we see the Hebrew verb NG( at both
> Genesis 12: 17 and Genesis 32: 25/26.
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
>
>
> **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your
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> deal here.
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