Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
You wrote:  “And the Hebrew idiom [at Genesis 32: 4] can include going 
beyond where one plans to go, as in this example.” 
 
1.  That Hebrew language issue is the key issue we are exploring here.  Can 
you set forth another passage in the Bible that has a similar construction, 
yet the messengers are being sent 50-100 miles out of the way?  Is that 
possible in Biblical Hebrew?
 
2.  We should also consider travel times.  Presumably Jacob’s messengers 
could travel much faster than Esau’s 400 men.  One wonders how long it would 
take for Esau to muster 400 men (effectively a small army), and then lead all 
those men to where Jacob is on the Jabbok River, in northern Gilead.  By 
contrast, Jacob’s messengers could presumably travel much, much faster than 
Esau’s huge force.
 
Genesis 32: 7, 23, 32 and Genesis 33: 1 tell us that Jacob’s messengers 
breathlessly tell Jacob that Esau is coming with 400 men, and then Esau and 
his 
men appear at dawn the next morning.  It seems unlikely that a troop of 400 
men would travel by night.  Rather, on the very day that the messengers get 
back to Jacob, Esau apparently musters 400 men and leads them all the way 
to near where Jacob is at the Jabbok River.  Only in that way could Esau then 
meet Jacob at dawn the next day.
 
If my geography is right, Esau and his men traveled about 15 miles.  If 
your geography is right, and Esau started out from south of the Dead Sea, 
Esau 
and his men must have traveled over 80 miles, and perhaps closer to 100 
miles.
 
To me, the story only works if Esau is about 15 miles away from Jacob at 
the beginning.  That gives Esau enough time to muster 400 men, travel about 
14 
miles or so the same day, and then be prepared to meet with Jacob at dawn 
the next morning.  The messengers would have gotten back to Jacob much more 
quickly, so that Jacob basically had the better part of a day to plan things 
out.
 
But if Esau is over 80 miles away, the timing does not seem right.  
Certainly Jacob’s messengers could cover that 80 miles much, much faster than 
Esau’
s forces of 400 men.  The text implies that the messengers got back quite 
soon, and then the text tells us that Esau arrived at dawn the next morning.  
The text does not say or imply that the messengers were exhausted from 
having completed a round trip of roughly 200 miles, which would be a huge 
journey in Biblical times.  To me, the story just does not work if Esau is 
100 
long miles south of Penuel on the Jabbok River, with Esau being south of the 
Dead Sea.  By contrast, the story works perfectly if Esau is only 15 miles 
south of Jacob.  Jacob is going to move his huge, exhausted flock very, very 
slowly.  Esau will certainly get wind of what is going on a mere 15 miles to 
his north.  So why not seek to find out what Esau’s attitude toward Jacob is 
going to be, by sending messengers?  I see all these actions as happening 
quickly (except that Jacob’s exhausted flock will need to move extremely 
slowly).  I do not see the Hebrew text as indicating that the messengers took 
an 
incredibly long round-trip journey of some 200 miles or so, or that Esau was 
able to cover an incredible amount of ground with 400 men.  If we go with 
the historical geography, which is what I see the text as portraying at 
Genesis 14: 6 and chapters 32 and 33 of Genesis (but ignoring Genesis 36: 
8-43, 
which I see as being a very late 1st millennium BCE addition to the original 
text), then the whole story makes perfect sense on all levels.
 
3.  On the b-hebrew list, the key question should perhaps be whether 
Genesis 32: 4 can rightly be construed as Jacob sending messengers on a 
roundtrip 
of some 200 miles, way out of the way that Jacob’s flock will be traveling.  
I myself do not know of examples of that Hebrew idiom being used in that 
way.  I am quite sure that such idiom is not used in that way elsewhere in 
the 
Patriarchal narratives.  And consider Genesis 32: 16, which appears just a 
few verses after the verse in question:
 
“These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to 
his servants, ‘Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove’."
 
Isn’t that basically the same idiom, used in a somewhat similar way?  The 
usual connotation in Hebrew is that the people going “before” you are still 
in your “face”, that is, they are going the way that you yourself will soon 
be going, not 100 miles out of the way.  Genesis 32: 20 is similar, and so 
is Genesis 32: 21.  And Genesis 33: 3 and Genesis 33: 14.  Am I 
misunderstanding the Hebrew here?  To me, this is all the same idiom, being 
used in a 
similar way, in the very same story.  I just don’t see how that idiom could 
refer to Jacob sending messengers 100 miles south, south of the Dead Sea, 
when 
Jacob himself is not going to be traveling much farther south than the 
Jabbok River in northern Gilead.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois