Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

B. Chan:
 
A good, detailed discussion of the “hand” portion of Genesis 16: 12 can be 
found at  pp. 69-71 of R. Christopher Heard, “Dynamics of Diselection:  
Ambiguity in Genesis 12-36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah” 
(2001), 
Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta.  You yourself may be more 
interested in the fairly extensive grammatical analysis at pp. 69-70.  But 
let me 
type up here the interesting conclusions drawn at p. 70:
 
“The messenger’s speech [at Genesis 16: 12 regarding ‘hand’] thus 
presents readers with the challenge of deciding whether to impute an 
adversarial or 
cooperative sense to the statement about Ishmael’s hand.  Without a verb to 
govern ‘hand’, ‘hand’ followed by b can go either way.  …[T]he messenger’
s ambiguous syntax cannot foreclose the possibility of a reading that 
implies mutual assistance rather than mutual hostility (cf. Mothes).  
Yahweh’s 
messenger may be telling Hagar that Ishmael’s life will be lived in ‘
hand-to-hand’ combat with others, or ‘hand in hand’ with others rather than 
‘under’
 another’s hand, as Hagar’s life has recently been lived (cf. Fewell, 
1998: 184-85, including n. 5).  Again, the predictive cast of the messenger’s 
speech may lead readers to defer any resolution of this ambiguity until more 
is learned about Ishmael’s life later in the narrative.”
 
To that I would add my own comments:
 
1.  The ambiguity of the reference to ‘hand’ is deliberate.
 
2.  The ultra-negative standard interpretation of the analogy says much 
more about analysts’ negative views of Ishmael than about the view of the 
early 
Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives toward Ishmael.
 
3.  The story makes sense precisely because Hagar can realistically take 
the optimistic view of the divine messenger’s ambiguous prediction.  Perhaps “
Ishmael’s life will be lived…‘hand in hand’ with others rather than ‘under
’ another’s hand, as Hagar’s life has recently been lived”.
 
A huge problem with English translations of the Patriarchal narratives is 
that they rip away much of the inherent ambiguity in the original Hebrew text 
and substitute their own animus against characters they don’t like, such as 
Ishmael.  Thus Ishmael is routinely seen as abusing Isaac at Isaac’s 
weaning party, when the text says nothing of the sort.
 
If you are doing a translation, then I would hope you would do one of the 
following:  (i) either preserve the ambiguity of the Hebrew in your 
translation (the ideal approach), or (ii) if that is not possible or 
practicable, 
then put in a brief footnote that indicates that the passage is ambiguous and 
could be analyzed differently.
 
It’s true that the firstborn son is always portrayed in the Patriarchal 
narratives as getting the shaft and properly so.  But although it would have 
been easy for the text to portray those firstborn sons as evil or at least 
lacking in talent, the text never does that.  Each of Ishmael and Esau is 
portrayed more positively than ordinarily supposed, in basically a neutral 
light. 
 Yes, Isaac and Jacob are portrayed as being without question the proper 
Patriarchal successors, but neither Ishmael nor Esau (nor Reuben) is 
portrayed 
as being evil or lacking in talent.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois