Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

On Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:15:15 EDT, JimStinehart wrote
> 
>Scholar Gerhard 
von Rad uses the term “community” in explaining TM at Genesis 25: 27:  “The 
adjective (‘tam’) means 
actually belonging to the solidarity of community life with its moral 
regulations, a solidarity that the hunter does not know because he is much 
more 
dependent on himself.”  
“Genesis” (1972), at p. 266. 
In my 
opinion, however, university scholars have been unable to understand the 
characterization of Esau at Genesis 25: 27. 
For example, von Rad says the following at pp. 265-266:  “As they grew up, 
the boys lived 
completely separated from each other, for they personified two ways of life 
typical for Palestine, which at that time was more wooded:  that of the 
hunter and that of the 
shepherd.”  But that is clearly 
not true, because (a) the boys grow up together in the same household, and 
(b) 
even more importantly, after they do indeed separate, Esau is a shepherd of 
sheep and goats!  
“6Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all 
the members of his household, his livestock [MQNH, which can mean “sheep and 
goats”, especially when viewed from an economic perspective], all his beasts 
[BHMH, which can mean “livestock”, and in context here cannot possibly mean 
“wild animals, beasts”], and all his property that he had acquired in the 
land of Canaan.  He went into a land 
away from his brother Jacob. 7For their possessions were too great 
for them to dwell together.”  
Genesis 36: 6-7.  Just as 
Abraham and Lot each has a large flock of sheep 
and goats and they separate (Genesis 13: 5-6), so also do both Esau and Jacob 
have large flocks of sheep and goats. 
In a 
long chapter on Esau’s pluses and minuses, scholar R. Christopher Heard 
incredibly only has the following single sentence regarding Genesis 25: 27:  
“Some readers may suppose that the 
(presumably Israelite) narrator is already trying to slight Esau in the first 
sentence [Genesis 25: 27], with an implicit valorization of Jacob’s settled, 
pastoral-agricultural lifestyle over against an implicit denigration of 
Esau’s 
hunting lifestyle (so, e.g., Dillmann: 197; 
Gunkel: 291;  Kunin: 107, 
113-14;  von Rad: 266;  Skinner: 360-61;  Speiser: 195), though readers who 
perceive an implicit criticism here are by no means bound to agree with 
it.”  “Dynamics of 
Diselection” (2001), at p. 103. 
But as 
noted above, Jacob and Esau will soon enough live the same lifestyle.  
Scholars cannot figure out on what 
precise basis Esau is being compared unfavorably to Jacob 
here. E.A. Speiser, “Genesis” (1962) at p. 195 is no better:  “The over-all 
contrast, then, is 
between the aggressive hunter and the reflective semi-nomad.”  But who is 
“aggressive” in the very 
next lines of text?  
“31Jacob said, ‘Sell me your birthright now.’  32Esau said, ‘I am about to 
die; of what use is a birthright to me?’  
33Jacob said, ‘Swear to me now.’”  Genesis 25: 31-33.  And do Jacob’s actions 
out at Naharim 
in eastern Syria lack aggressiveness?  “31He [Laban] said, ‘What 
shall I give you?’  Jacob said, 
‘You shall not give me anything.  
If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: 
32let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every 
speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled 
among the goats, and they shall be my wages.’  … 
42but for the feebler of the flock he [Jacob] would not lay 
them there.  So the feebler would be 
Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.”  
Genesis 30: 31-32, 42.  Jacob 
does not lack for aggressiveness!  
Scholars cannot figure out the meaning of Genesis 25: 
27. Robert Alter, “Genesis” (1996) at p. 128 is similarly at a 
loss to explain what is going on here:  
“The Hebrew adjective ‘tam’ suggests integrity or even 
innocence.  …There may well be a 
complicating irony in the use of this epithet for Jacob, since his behavior 
is 
very far from simple or innocent in the scene that is about to unfold.”  
Jacob ain’t no innocent, that’s for 
sure!  This unconvincing explanation 
immediately precedes the following unbelievable attempt at explaining the 
next 
line of Biblical text:  “It is 
unclear whether the idiom suggests Esau as a kind of lion bringing home game 
in 
its mouth or rather bringing home game to put in his father’s 
mouth.” Finally, here’s Gordon Wenham, perhaps the #1 Genesis 
scholar in the world, at p. 177.  
“Jacob, unlike his activist outgoing brother, is a self-contained, 
detached personality complete in himself, hence ‘quiet’.”  No, Jacob is not 
“quiet”.  See above.  “‘Who lived in tents’ contrasts him with his wild 
hunting brother and may well suggest he would become a herdsman (cf. 4:20) 
like 
his father and grandfather (cf. 13.5).”  
But Esau as well becomes a herdsman just like Jacob, per Genesis 36: 6-7 
quoted above. None of these various scholarly explanations works, in 
light of the following two key facts: 
(1)  Jacob is every bit as 
aggressive as his older twin brother Esau. 
(2)  Esau ends up being a 
herdsman just like Jacob. Isn’t it clear that the scholarly 
community is clueless as to what is going on at Genesis 25: 27?  What precise 
aspect of Esau’s behavior 
in hunting with a bow is the Hebrew author castigating, and why?  That’s the 
key issue here.  As I have been saying, if we can 
understand Genesis 25: 27, we can understand the bulk of the Patriarchal 
narratives. Jim StinehartEvanston, Illinois

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