Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 2:36 PM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>  Karl:
>
>
>
> So there’s no way that Jacob would tell Esau that Esau should go on ahead, 
> and that Jacob would see Esau a little later south of the Dead Sea.  No, 
> Jacob’s reference to Seir must be to historical Seir/Shar/Jazer, in 
> southern Gilead.
>
>
You are reading into the text what is not there, namely motives, then coming
to a conclusion based on your mind reading.


>   Esau and everyone else know that Jacob is headed for Canaan, and would 
> never take his huge, exhausted flock
>
>
Why do you add what is not in the text, in this case “exhausted”? From the
text of Genesis, Jacob was a careful shepherd whose flocks were healthy, not
exhausted. And in order to keep them healthy, he refused to push them.


>  through the entire Transjordan to a locale south of the Dead Sea before 
> entering beloved Canaan.
>
>
I think the evidence is that Jacob was already in Canaan when he met Esau.


>   That’s one logical route for Jacob to take, so it was a reasonable story 
> for Jacob to tell Esau.
>
>
What you or I think may be ‘reasonable’ may be completely different than
what Jacob almost four millennia ago considered reasonable. Therefore we
need to see what he actually said and did, and not insert our own reasoning
to lead ourselves astray.

>
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
Karl W. Randolph.