The Promise to the Patriarchs, 2013 - Joel S. Baden

The Promise to the Patriarchs

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z JO J O EL S . BA DE N

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3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Oxford University Press 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baden, Joel S., 1977– The promise to the patriarchs / Joel S. Baden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 978–0–19–989824–4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T. Pentateuch—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Abraham (Biblical patriarch) 3. Covenants—Biblical teaching. 4. God—Promises—Biblical teaching. I. Title. BS1225.52.B334 2013 222 .106—dc23 2012030144 ′

ISBN 978–0–19–989824–4

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

For Zara and Iris


Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction

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1. The Promise in Its Canonical Setting

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2. The Promise as Secondary

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3. Restoring the Promise

57

4. The Promise According to the Sources

101

5. Returning the Promise to Its Canonical Setting

127

Conclusion

158

Notes

163

Bibliography

203

Index of Scholars Cited

213

Index of Biblical Citations

217


Acknowledgments

�� projects of a certain length, this book would not have been possible without the help of numerous friends and colleagues. As always, my colleagues at Yale Divinity School have been the perfect models of collegial support, creating and sustaining an environment for teaching, research, and writing that could hardly be improved on. I am particularly thankful to my new Yale colleague Hindy Najman, who has been both generous with her time and support and a source of much valuable intellectual stimulation. I continue to be grateful to my coauthor and friend, Professor Candida Moss, whose work ethic is impressive, whose successes are thoroughly deserved, and who nevertheless has the time to be a constant source of support during the writing process. Over the course of this book’s gestation from a conference paper to an article (never written) and eventually to a monograph, many people have provided input that has made its way into the book, including the anonymous readers at OUP. Two colleagues stand out as particularly worthy of mention. First, Baruch Schwartz, whose teachings—not merely the conclusions, but far more importantly the means of reaching them—are always on my mind. Second, my student Liane Marquis, who let me try out with her most of this book, both orally and in writing; whose keen eye spared me many a foolish mistake; and whose equally keen mind contributed to, and at times changed for the better, my own ideas. To both I am grateful. At times this book required long days and long evenings of work, and I am thankful to Gillian for never begrudging me the time I felt I needed. This book is dedicated to my daughters, Zara and Iris. The unmitigated happiness they bring me every single day is worth more than all the promises any deity could ever make.




Introduction “I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great; you, be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse him that curses you, and all the families of the earth will bless themselves by you” (�� 12:2– 3).�

�� resonates as few other biblical texts do. As the divine word, pronounced to individuals but definitive for an entire nation, as the fundamental expression of God’s care for his people, it speaks to readers in all times and places and situations. Abraham may have passed from the stage of history long ago, but anyone who considers himself a descendant of Abraham, be it through genealogy or faith, may be party to the promise and the blessings it entails. � The flexibility and centrality of the promise for Judeo-Christian thought are evident in the many texts and traditions that take up the promise and reconfigure it for different ends. For the classical rabbis, the promise was bound up with the notion that Abraham knew and studied the Torah all his life, even before it was given to Moses � —thus on a very practical level aligning the rabbis themselves, who devoted their own lives to the study of Torah, with the promise. Similarly we find in the rabbinic literature a link expressed between the patriarchal promise and the sacrificial system, that is, the practice of fulfilling the commandments of the Torah� —again bringing those who practice Judaism in all of its ritual and legal details in line with the promise and its benefits. Thus for the rabbis, the patriarchs were worthy of receiving the promise because of their behavior (which was modeled on that of the rabbis themselves, of course); those who participate in the same behaviors are thus laying claim to the promise as well.� Of course, for Judaism the patriarchal promise is the basic expression of the notion of the Jews as God’s chosen people: to be

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Jewish is to stand in direct descent from Abraham, whom God chose from all humanity to be the recipient of divine blessing and favor. � In the New Testament, Jesus is positioned as the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise, thereby dramatically expanding the temporal and conceptual limits of the promise as it is presented in the Hebrew Bible. The notion that “all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your descendants” is taken quite literally: “When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:26).� Famously, Paul uses the promise to justify the value of faith over obedience to the law: “It depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham” (Rom 4:16).� Just as the rabbis positioned obedience to the law as an emulation of Abraham’s promiseworthy behavior, so Paul explicitly and understandably does the same with faith. And just as lineal descent from Abraham makes one party to the promise in Judaism, so Paul changes the terms to center on Jesus: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29).� In short, the patriarchal promise is a means of marking identity. It is available to all who claim to walk in God’s ways, however that may be defined. It speaks to both the practices of the individual and membership in a community: one may be party to the promise either by emulating the individual patriarch or by association with the community that claims to be the inheritor of the promise. The promise is at once ongoing and already fulfilled: one may continually aspire to be worthy of the promise while simultaneously believing that God has already bestowed its blessings. The promise is a blank theological slate, on which can be inscribed whatever is of significance to the author. It is a means of projecting one’s own values onto the most elemental statement of God’s relationship with humanity, shaping the mythical past in the mold of the present. Part of the process of making a biblical passage or concept relevant in another time, however, is loosing its literary moorings, setting it free from its original historical or narrative context. In this way the promise may be redefined to suit the interpreter’s needs; one need not have had the same experiences as Abraham to participate in the Abrahamic promise. The patriarch himself is abstracted: conceived of as a man of devout practice or as a man of perfect faith. So too the nation that inherits the promise is not necessarily the people who were taken out of Egypt and led through the wilderness, at least not literally; it is a community of right believers. Most

Introduction

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interpretations of the promise tell us much about the beliefs and values of the interpreters, but not very much about the promise itself. The early interpreters who latched on to the promise chose well, of course. By laying claim to the promise, they could be seen as laying claim to the entirety of the Pentateuch, the fundamental text of the Hebrew Bible. For the promise is the refrain that echoes throughout the Pentateuch. It is present in every one of the five books; in Genesis alone it appears in chapters 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 32, 35, 46, 48, and 50. The promise asserts itself at the highest narrative moments: the call of Abraham, the sacrifice of Isaac, the descent to Egypt, the death of Joseph, the call of Moses, the sin of the golden calf, the condemnation of the Exodus generation to wander in the wilderness, the death of Moses. No other concept in the Pentateuch is treated as extensively or as regularly. The Pentateuch cannot be fully understood without taking the promise into account—but the promise cannot be fully understood apart from its setting in the Pentateuch. This book, then, is an attempt to examine the patriarchal promise as it functions in the Pentateuch. What precisely does the promise entail? How does it shape our reading of the whole? What message is conveyed by it? What theological concepts are encoded within it? Why is it formulated as it is? These questions will be examined from multiple angles—both canonical and literary-historical—in an attempt to extract as much meaning from the promise as possible. Each approach has its benefits and its limitations, and it is part of the contention of this book that they are in fact complementary: what one approach lacks, the other provides. Far too often—indeed, almost universally—canonical and literary-historical interpretations of the Pentateuch have been kept at arm’s length from one another, or have even been positioned as overtly antagonistic. Canonical readings are said to ignore the history of the text; literary-historical readings ignore its present form. Canonical readings are dependent on the subjectivity of the reader; literary-historical readings are held hostage by the subjective notion of the author. Canonical readings invent meaning; literary-historical readings destroy meaning. While there is no denying that the two approaches are interested in different questions—for the canonical approach, how can the text be explained as it is, and for the literary-historical approach, how can we explain how the text came to be as it is—both are, in fact, invested in the meaning of the text. And neither has, nor needs to claim, exclusive rights to that meaning. Different questions illuminate different aspects of the text—and the text cannot be viewed in its full light without both.

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The analysis of the patriarchal promise begins with an overview of its role in the final form of the Pentateuch—which is, after all, the text that lies before us to be interpreted. There are many different ways to interpret the canonical text. Some involve close literary or theological readings of a particular passage or sets of passages; the approach of this book is considerably broader. The Pentateuch, for all its various theological statements, is fundamentally a narrative, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Stories are told for a reason, to communicate something that requires expression in narrative form. The full scope of the story cannot be comprehended by reference to only one part of it; if we could discern the meaning of the text from only its beginning, what need would there be for the rest? The purpose of the first chapter, then, is to articulate the shape of the pentateuchal story, and to show how that shape defines and is profoundly defined by the patriarchal promise. At the same time that it allows us to grasp the pentateuchal narrative in its totality, however, it is this canonical reading that highlights some of the narrative inconsistencies in the Pentateuch: the very contradictions, doublets, and other problems that led to the rise of the literary-historical program. If the aim of the literary-historical approach is to explain how the text came to be as it is, to identify those literary pieces that must be kept apart and those that must be kept together, then the literary-historical investigation of the promise is to identify which promise texts are to be considered authorially distinct and which are to be viewed as authorially linked. The means by which such judgments are arrived at have changed and developed over the century and a half since the rise of the source-critical theory. Thus various schools of thought have emerged regarding the composition of the Pentateuch, and the patriarchal promise, each with its own methodological presumptions and conclusions. Despite this variety, some elements of the literary-historical analysis of the promise have remained relatively constant over the years. Scholarly consensus, however, does not necessarily mean that the discussion is closed. Often a conclusion reached by faulty means becomes entrenched, either from the force of a scholar’s personality or because the conclusion itself is of use for later, perhaps quite different, arguments. It is therefore important to interrogate even the long-held conclusions of scholarship, in order to identify the methodological mistakes of previous generations. It is this task that chapter two takes up with attention to the scholarly consensus regarding the identification of many of the promise texts in the Pentateuch as secondary additions.

Introduction

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Recognition of the methodological flaws in previous analyses does not, of course, suggest that the basic question is simply to be dismissed. The identification of methodological problems is useful precisely because it allows those problems to be corrected, and thus the question to be reopened from a fresh perspective. Negative argumentation—why previous suggestions should be discarded—must be accompanied by its positive counterpart: how the text may be read with a different methodological approach. It is not always the case that faulty methodology leads to an incorrect conclusion; penicillin, after all, was discovered quite by accident in an old petri dish. To reopen the question of the promise texts thus requires going back to first principles: reading the promise passages without the framework of any overarching pentateuchal theory, simply taking the texts on their own terms. (This is one way, of course, that canonical reading can and should inform literary-historical approaches: as a reminder that the basic material on which any analysis is based is the text as we have it.) Whether and how the promise texts are integrated into their narrative settings, and whether and how the various promise texts require either separation from or connection with each other, are questions that require no a priori theory of pentateuchal composition. It is with these questions that chapter three is concerned. Although the questions asked may be isolated from broader pentateuchal theories, the answers that emerge from those questions can and do have an impact on the larger question of how the Pentateuch was composed. At the risk of giving away the game too soon, the answers arrived at in chapter three support the attribution of virtually every promise text to the pentateuchal documents J, E, and P—though it will be stated here and again in the chapter itself that this conclusion was in no way predetermined, but emerged from the explicitly nondocumentary analysis. (A brief note to the reader: chapters two and three are relatively technical, as the content of their arguments requires. For the reader who is uninterested in the minutiae of pentateuchal theory and method—and who is willing to trust my conclusions regarding the alignment of the promise texts with the documentary sources—it is possible to skip chapters two and three without losing the main thread of the discussion.) The attribution of a passage to its source is not the end of the literary-historical process. The result of dividing the Pentateuch is not to merely produce a fractured text, but to better appreciate the various voices preserved in the text. Each voice is an invaluable record of one particular perspective, one piece of the broader religious community that was

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ancient Israel. These perspectives are defined only by the texts that can be identified with them; as such, every passage plays an important role in more closely defining the source to which it is ascribed. Given the prominence of the promise throughout the Pentateuch, it is perhaps unsurprising that the promise passages are particularly invested with meaning for their respective sources. As the most explicit theological statements of God’s relationship with Israel, the promise texts regularly give expression to ideas that are only implicit elsewhere. Often, the promise serves as the nexus for a broad constellation of densely linked concepts. Just as the promise is necessary for understanding the canonical Pentateuch, so too it is central to its source contexts. Chapter four details the way in which the promise serves to encode the unique narrative, thematic, and theological claims of each source. With the description of the function of the patriarchal promise from both the canonical and the literary-historical perspectives, and the promise thus seen from multiple angles, at different depths, one might consider the work done. Yet it hardly seems enough to simply present the results of the two approaches. The question remains—particularly for the reader interested in making meaning out of the text as we have it—how can one bring these two perspectives into line? How do the interpretive conclusions reached by the literary-historical approach affect the way one reads the canonical text? In chapter five, an attempt will be made to lay out a new path for the productive combination of literary-historical and finalform readings. Such a combination has been prevented in most scholarship to this point by the antagonism, real or imagined, between the two approaches. Or perhaps it has simply been the result of a lack of interest on the part of each side to engage with the questions and conclusions of the other. Studies of the theology of the canonical Pentateuch have long existed, as have studies of the theologies of the individual pentateuchal sources. What I am proposing in this book is a source-critically informed canonical theology of the Pentateuch, centered in this case on the patriarchal promise. It is hoped that, at the very least, the program laid out in chapter five may demonstrate that the literary-historical approach need not be the enemy of canonical interpretation. The two can be mutually informative and constructive, and can result in a more deeply understood Pentateuch.

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The Promise in Its Canonical Setting �� reader interested in the theological meaning of the Pentateuch, the patriarchal promise is central to the shaping and interpretation of the canonical text. From the moment that Abraham emerges on the scene in the beginning of Genesis to the death of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy, the patriarchal promise is the guiding force behind the entire pentateuchal narrative. The promise constitutes the first words God says to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3 and the last words that God says to Moses in Deut 34:4. At virtually every key moment in the story, the promise is explicitly mentioned or implicitly alluded to: at the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, at the call of Moses in Exodus 3 and 6, at the episode of the golden calf in Exodus 32, at the departure from Sinai/Horeb in Numbers 10, at the condemnation of the generation of the Exodus to wander the wilderness in Numbers 14, at the beginning of Moses’s farewell speech in Deuteronomy 1, and numerous other times in the narrative as well. It appears also as a seminal aspect of the legal corpora in the Pentateuch: in Leviticus 26, at the conclusion of the laws given at Sinai/Horeb, and in Deuteronomy 29, at the conclusion of the laws given in the plains of Moab. And yet, despite its undisputed importance, the precise definition of the patriarchal promise has remained a point of some confusion. Frequently it is understood as two separate promises, one of progeny and one of land. And often, further divisions are made, with the result that several distinct promises are postulated: of individual progeny, of a large community of descendants, of land, of blessing, of divine guidance and presence.� How we understand the patriarchal promise has a significant impact on how we understand the Pentateuch as a whole. In this chapter, then, I will attempt to define clearly the patriarchal promise, giving it a concise form that distinguishes it from other biblical promises, and examine how the promise is worked out over the course of the pentateuchal narrative.

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The Twofold Promise In the first attestation of the patriarchal promise, in Gen 12:1–3, Yahweh makes three self-willing statements in regard to Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great” (Gen 12:2). These are not separate promises, but are rather a single promise expressed in three distinct ways. The first and fundamental statement is that God will make Abraham into a great nation. This statement appears relatively abstract. A great nation, after all, can have numerous meanings, especially to the modern eye: great in size, great in power, great in faith, great in influence; nation may refer to a political unit, to an ethnic group, even to a community of belief. Yet the Hebrew word for “nation” here, g ôy , connotes specifically the political aspect of nationhood, in contrast to the kinship term ‘ām , “people.”� This political term is used not only here in Gen 12:2, but throughout the promise texts: in Gen 17:4–6, 16, 20; 18:17; 21:13, 18; 35:11; 46:3. We also find the manifestly political term “king” used in the promises, in Gen 17:6, 16, and 35:11. Nowhere in the promise texts are the patriarchs told that they will become a people, an ‘ām ; rather, twice (Gen we find the promise to be “an assembly of peoples,” a qəhal ‘amm îm 28:3; 48:4). In other words, they will become an entity that encompasses more than one kin group—that is, a g ôy , a nation. Indeed, the promise to become an ‘ām , a kin group, would be somewhat banal: everyone belongs to an ‘ām , by virtue of having been born into one. � It is the creation of a nation out of a people that is worthy of the divine promise, especially in light of Yahweh’s command to Abraham to separate himself from the nation of his ancestors—and note that it is not primarily Abraham’s kin group that he is instructed to leave in Gen 12:1, but the physical location of his birth, his land. � To become a nation thus entails more than simply being part of a kin group. Nationhood in the political sense has two requirements: a dedicated territory and a populace to inhabit it. A land without people is a desolation; a people without land is unthinkable. Even if there were no further elaboration, Yahweh’s promise to make Abraham into a great nation would involve the two aspects of land and progeny. And in fact the promise texts make it very clear that these two aspects are, indeed, the core of the patriarchal promise. In Gen 13:14–17; 15:5, 18–21; 17:6–8; 22:17; 26:3–4; 28:3–4, 13–14; 35:11–12; 48:3–4—in almost every one of the promise texts, and certainly in all of the most significant ones—God explicitly promises both progeny and land. This is what it means to become a great nation. �

The Promise in Its Canonical Setting

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There are, of course, promise texts that mention only one aspect of the promise, be it land alone, as in Gen 12:7; 24:7; 50:24, or progeny alone, as in Gen 16:10; 26:24; 32:13. The presence of such passages has led many to posit that we are dealing with two originally independent promises, which were combined only at a later stage in the development of the promise tradition (on which see chapter 2 below). Yet from the canonical perspective, no such claim can be made. The first promise to each of the patriarchs—to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3, to Isaac in Gen 26:2–5, to Jacob in Gen 28:3–4 (or 28:13–15)—is always the full promise, either implicitly (Gen 12:1–3) or quite explicitly (Gen 26:2–5; 28:3–4). Every repetition of or reference to the promise thereafter can be only a reinforcement or a reminder, not a redefinition. It is not possible that, having given the full promise of land and progeny, God would then restrict the promise to only one of its aspects; rather, in these cases only one aspect is being reemphasized, and in every case, as we will see in the following chapters, for good contextual narrative reasons. There is no point at which the promise can be construed as anything other than the full promise of nationhood. It is this nationhood that constitutes the essence of Yahweh’s blessing, the second statement of Gen 12:2. As with the notion of nationhood, modern readers are perhaps inclined to interpret the term “blessing” in an abstract sense. Yet here too the biblical usage suggests that blessing has a material referent. When individuals are blessed in the Pentateuch—either by another human or by God—the blessing entails some material gain. � In the first category, humans blessing other humans: we may consider the blessing of Rebekah by her family in Gen 24:60, that she should have many offspring and that those offspring should defeat their enemies; the blessing of Jacob by Isaac in Genesis 27, that he should be granted abundant produce and power over other peoples; and the blessing of Joseph’s sons by Jacob in Gen 48:15–16, that they should be numerous. More to the point are the numerous times that God blesses humans: beginning in Genesis 1, with the blessing of fertility; in Gen 24:35, when Abraham’s servant says that God has blessed his master such that he has become rich; Laban’s statements in Gen 30:27 and 30 that both he and Jacob have become wealthy because of Yahweh’s blessing; Yahweh’s blessing of all the possessions of Joseph’s Egyptian master in Gen 39:5; God’s blessing of the Israelites in Deut 2:7, such that they lacked no provisions in the wilderness; the divine blessing of abundant crops and livestock in Deut 7:13; the blessing of wealth in Deut 15:6, and so on. Blessing entails material gain in all of these cases, and so too in the promise to the patriarchs,

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where the announcement of blessing is always followed by its definition as land and progeny: in Gen 17:16, 20; 22:17; 26:3–4, 24; 28:3–4; 48:3–4. � As with land and progeny, some have claimed that blessing too should be considered an independent promise. Yet as we have just seen, there is no abstract notion of blessing in the Pentateuch; thus an undefined promise of “blessing” is difficult to imagine. � The blessing is, in the promise formulation, identical to land and progeny, to nationhood. This is not to say that there are not moments of divine blessing in the Pentateuch that have referents outside of the promise—God does bless individuals, including the patriarchs, with wealth, as in the examples of Gen 24:35; 30:27, 30; 39:5, cited above, and other passages as well. These, however, are not fulfillments of the promise, or of the notion of blessing associated with it. They are blessings, but they do not contribute to the long-term goal of nationhood. Nor is wealth ever one of the elements mentioned in the full promise texts. The blessing of material gain in the context of the promise is the blessing of land and progeny. The third divine statement in Gen 12:2 is “I will make your name great.” Though in some contexts this may imply little more than fame— such as in the case of the builders of the Tower of Babel, who want to make a name for themselves (Gen 11:4)—here too there may be a more tangible meaning at play (in addition to that of fame, which is also clearly present). In the largely preliterate world from which the Hebrew Bible emerged, one’s name lived on beyond one’s death in two basic ways. The first was by a continuity of lineage tracing itself back from individual to individual. Such can be seen, for instance, in genealogies such as those of Genesis 10 or Numbers 26, in which nations or clans are explained as having descended from an ancestor after whom they were named, with the older generations representing larger ethnic units and the younger generations representing subgroupings thereof. In the most elemental sense, this is basic filial duty: it is the responsibility of one’s offspring to keep one’s name alive after one’s death; consider, for example, the actions of Absalom, who erects a pillar to himself precisely because he has no offspring who will carry on his name after he has died: “I have no son to keep my name alive” (2 Sam 18:18). In broader terms, this use of the name is represented by the designation of the Israelites as bənê yiś rā ’ē l, “the children of Israel.” The second way one’s name lived on was in the identification of a particular land with its putative original possessor. This too is applicable to the land of Israel, of course, but also to the surrounding territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, which are associated with


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pseudo-historical individuals. Even within the land of Israel, of course, the lands of the twelve tribes are linked to the twelve sons of Jacob, with the numerous subdivisions of those tribes according to the descendants of Jacob’s sons through the generations. This conception of the name, as linked to land, is at the heart of the plea of Zelophehad’s daughters, that in the absence of any sons they should inherit their father’s land: “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!” (Num 27:4). Thus the divine statement “I will make your name great” continues the notion embodied in the basic promise, “I will make of you a great nation,” and continued in “I will bless you”: all three connote nothing other than the promise of progeny and land. This, then, is the patriarchal promise: progeny and land. Which is not to say, of course, that God does not make other promises in the Pentateuch, even to the patriarchs. Formally, there is no distinction between a divine promise and a divine statement of future action: whatever God says he will do is indelible and is to be fulfilled in the immediate or distant future. What we term the patriarchal promise, then, is but one among many divine promises. It is, however, the only one that has transgenerational import, that is repeated from generation to generation, that is referred to repeatedly even after its original recipients are long dead. In this way it is fundamentally distinct from two classes of divine statements that are sometimes associated with it, namely, the promise of individual offspring and the promise of divine guidance. These latter promises are inextricably embedded in their precise narrative contexts. The promise of individual offspring can be given only to an individual, in a narrative that has established that individual’s lack of a child; once it is fulfilled, it is completed—but it does not lead inexorably to the notion of a nation’s worth of progeny as does the patriarchal promise proper. Abraham and Sarah are promised a son in Gen 18:10, but the promise proper is not mentioned (the reference to the promise in 18:17–19 belongs to the Sodom story). Certainly Abraham and Sarah need to have a son for the promise of progeny and land to be fulfilled, but the birth of Isaac does not constitute the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise. The promise of divine guidance is given only in specific moments of danger to the patriarch, at the beginning of an arduous or risky journey. � When the journey ends and the patriarch is safe, the promise is fulfilled and is no longer in force. When Yahweh tells Jacob “Return to the land of your fathers, and I will be with you” in Gen 31:3, it is a promise of protection

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on Jacob’s specific journey home, looking ahead to his encounter with Esau in Genesis 32–33 (as Jacob states unequivocally in Gen 32:10–12). Obviously Jacob must survive his journey for the promise proper to be fulfilled, but simply surviving this one time does not signify the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise. The lack of long-term import of these two types of promises can be seen in the total lack of reference back to them after they have been given and fulfilled. Whereas the promise of progeny and land is regularly mentioned generation after generation, no one ever recalls Yahweh’s promise to give Abraham and Sarah a son; no reference is ever made to Yahweh’s promise to accompany Jacob on his journey from Aram to Canaan. Perhaps most notably, both the promise of individual offspring and the promise of divine guidance are found in narrative contexts where they cannot be associated with the patriarchal promise, that is, outside of the Pentateuch altogether. Thus, for a famous example, the announcement of the birth of Samson in Judges 13 is formally nearly identical to the announcements of individual births to the patriarchs in Genesis, but nowhere in the Samson story is the patriarchal promise, or anything like it, mentioned. Similarly, Gideon is promised divine guidance in his battle against Midian in Judg 6:16, but there is no equivalent to the patriarchal promise anywhere in the Gideon story. These examples show that the promises of individual offspring and divine guidance, while genuine divine promises, are not to be equated with the patriarchal promise of progeny and land. Although these two promises play a part in the canonical presentation of the patriarchal promise, as we will see below, they are not coterminous with it or of the same type. They are limited in application and duration; the patriarchal promise, by contrast, shapes and undergirds the entire narrative, including the contextually bound promises of individual offspring and divine guidance. In summary, the patriarchal promise is a single promise in two interdependent parts: progeny and land. The twofold nature of the promise is established implicitly in the first promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3, and is made explicit and given greater depth in its frequent repetitions thereafter. The promise cannot comprise only one of these two parts: both are necessary.�� This makes eminent sense given the state of the individual to whom the promise is first addressed: Abraham, a man who has left behind his land and his kin. For Abraham of all people to be promised that he will become a great nation is a striking statement of God’s power: God will take a man who is the very definition of alone, who has neither


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land nor progeny, and turn him into a nation by giving him both. The canonical Pentateuch is, then, the story of how that remarkable transformation takes place.

The Promise Narrative The patriarchal promise is the basic theological underpinning for the entire pentateuchal narrative. In the stories of the patriarchs themselves in Genesis, this is eminently clear. Although some individual episodes may make theological claims—theodicy in Genesis 18, trusting/fearing God in Genesis 22, divine providence in the Joseph story—only the promise spans the entire arc of the patriarchal cycle and is mentioned over and over again in virtually every context. Similarly, after the patriarchs have passed from the scene in Exodus–Numbers, almost the only aspect of the patriarchal stories that is ever referred to is the promise, and it appears at regular intervals throughout the Exodus and wilderness account. While individual narratives and narrative complexes bear their own distinct themes and concepts, there is no theological idea that stands behind the entire Pentateuch other than the promise. When the patriarchal promise is understood as the fundamental theological principle at work in the Pentateuch, then every story is read through that lens, every episode is freighted with the theological import of the promise. Even as we may read many pentateuchal stories independently of their contexts and find meaning in them, on the level of the canonical Pentateuch the individual episodes have been subsumed under the overarching narrative of the promise and its fulfillment. The vicissitudes in the life of an individual, and later in the life of a nascent people Israel, are not simply episodes in the natural course of human existence. They are, rather, theologically intensified moments in the tug-of-war between steps toward and challenges to the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise. This transformation of narrative from mundane to meaningful is nowhere more apparent than in the varied familial stories in Genesis. �� The patriarchal cycle is full of wonderfully entertaining stories—of marriage, sex, childbirth, sibling rivalry, and more—and no doubt it is the entertainment value of these highly personal narratives that accounted for their transmission and preservation, and indeed for the affection with which they are read today. Yet the force of the patriarchal promise, which stands at the beginning and end of the cycle (Gen 12:1–3; 50:24), invests these lively tales with a resonance that goes beyond their surface value.

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The cycle of a family’s existence, from generation to generation, is common to the human condition, which is why the stories of Genesis have such power: they speak to everyone at all times. When contextualized in the story of the patriarchal promise, however, these events in the life of the family are elevated to a higher plane. They are no longer about human existence alone, or even primarily; they are, rather, about God’s ability to bring to pass what he has promised. �� In the case of the family stories in Genesis, it is the aspect of progeny that is specifically at issue. This is clear enough in some of the most famous elements of the patriarchal cycle. The barrenness of the matriarchs, of course, seems to be the recurring family tragedy (Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31), and it is one that speaks directly to the question of God’s power: how can the progeny aspect of the promise be fulfilled when nature itself seems to be standing in the way? �� The personal tragedy of the matriarchs has enormous consequences, and the healing of the matriarchs has equally great significance, each birth standing not only as a sign of God’s participation in the lives of the individuals but as a reaffi rmation of God’s obligation to the patriarchal promise. Equally obvious in this regard is the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. Canonically, Isaac has been marked as the one of Abraham’s two sons through whom the promise will be continued (Gen 17:21). When Isaac is brought to the brink of death, by Abraham’s own hand, it reads as nothing other than a clear abrogation of the promise, a withdrawal of all that God had pledged to Abraham over and over again. It is thus unsurprising that when the threat has passed, and Isaac has been spared, the promise needs to be stated again (22:15–18): it was practically nullified by God’s own actions. Along the same lines, but perhaps less clearly related to the promise, is the episode in which Abraham passes off Sarah as his sister (Gen 12:10–20). This story contains both a potential threat to Abraham’s own life (12:12–13) and, more importantly, a threat to the future of Abraham’s lineage: if Sarah had remained in Pharaoh’s court, she could bear Abraham no offspring. In this regard, the wealth that Abraham accrues (12:16) reads as a cruel diversion from the underlying issue. It may go well with him because of Sarah (12:13), but the better it goes for him the less likely it becomes that the promise will be fulfilled. It is thus a relief when Yahweh intervenes—it may mark the end of Abraham’s accrual of wealth, but it signals God’s commitment to fulfilling the promise, even in the face of Abraham’s ostensible selfishness.��


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In this group of texts we have three distinct ways in which the promise, specifically the aspect of progeny, is challenged and that challenge overcome. It is noteworthy that the origins of the challenges are distinct in each case: the “natural” phenomenon of barrenness; the divine decision to have Abraham sacrifice Isaac; and the human inclination toward self-preservation. This diversity makes clear that the patriarchal promise is not easily fulfilled—it is assaulted from every direction, and preserved only through God’s intervention.�� In addition to the episodes described above, we may also include those narratives that deal with the issue of marriage—specifically, endogamous marriage (within the patriarchal kin group). Thus the story of Abraham’s servant being sent to fetch a wife for Isaac, in Genesis 24, despite its self-contained nature contributes to the story of the promise, as Abraham makes perfectly clear: “Yahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my house and from my native land, who promised me on oath, ‘I will assign this land to your offspring’”—and here we can only assume that Abraham must have emphasized the word “offspring”—“he will send his messenger before you.” This is no simple wooing mission: Abraham’s servant is responsible for finding the right wife for Isaac to insure the continuity of the patriarchal promise. And, indeed, the servant prays to Yahweh for help in his mission, and that help is granted. The quick success of Abraham’s servant stands in contradistinction to Jacob’s later encounter with the same Aramean family, in Genesis 29–31. Jacob’s arrival in Laban’s household begins with what appears to be a positive indication, as Laban welcomes Jacob warmly (29:13–14). Yet the joy of Jacob’s arrival is quickly turned to frustration as Laban makes him work seven years before he may marry Rachel—and another seven years before he can actually marry Rachel (29:15–28). This frustration is more than just that of Jacob, the individual; each passing year is another year in which the potential fulfillment of the patriarchal promise is delayed. And even when Jacob does leave with his family in tow, Laban pursues him, claiming Jacob’s offspring as his own (31:43). Again, it is only divine intervention that preserves the promise (31:24, 29). The threat of violence presented by Laban against Jacob is, of course, not the only such threat that Jacob encounters. Esau represents a direct threat to the entire promise, first after the deception of Isaac in Genesis 27, when Esau pledges to kill Jacob, and again when Jacob encounters Esau on his return from Aram. In this second instance, the threat to the promise emerges not because Jacob’s life is in danger—after all, Jacob’s

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children have all been born by the time Esau catches up with him—but because Jacob is afraid for the children themselves, as he says: “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike” (Gen 32:12). This fear, which any reasonable individual would experience, is not just Jacob’s own, however; he fears explicitly for the promise that supersedes his individuality, as he continues: “Yet you have said, ‘I will deal bountifully with you and make your offspring as the sands of the sea, which are too numerous to count’” (32:13). Even the story of Dinah in Genesis 34, which seems so independent when read on its own, takes on greater meaning in light of the promise. Not only is the question of endogamous marriage at the center of the story, as it is in the stories of Genesis 24 and 29–31, but most importantly the conclusion of the narrative signals a potential threat to the promise. After Simeon and Levi have slaughtered the inhabitants of Shechem, Jacob responds in fear of retribution: “You have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my men are few in number, so that if they should unite against me and attack me, I and my house will be destroyed” (34:30). From the perspective of the promise, the destruction of Jacob and his house is not an individual or even a family issue: the fate of God’s word hangs in the balance. Not surprisingly, the solution is provided by God: “As they set out, a terror from God fell on the cities round about, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob” (35:5). So too the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38, which, though it seems to stand very much apart in the pentateuchal context, is, as part of the pentateuchal story, fundamentally about a challenge to the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise. For it is not enough that Jacob should have twelve sons—he may have a burgeoning family, but they are not remotely close to being a nation yet. Thus it is of paramount importance that each of Jacob’s sons has numerous children of his own, and that his children have children. And this is the topic of Genesis 38: Judah’s three sons were either unacceptable, unwilling, or unavailable to procreate (38:6–11). Had the situation at the end of 38:11 continued, Judah’s line would have ended. This is one of the rare stories in which the promise is maintained not by God, but by a human, in this case Tamar. It is perhaps no wonder that, in later tradition, she was rewarded by being considered the direct ancestor of David (Ruth 4:18–22). The stories of the patriarchal family can, of course, be read as deeply insightful studies of kinship relations, as commentaries on the universal


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human condition. But these stories are, in the canonical text, invested with their theological import by virtue of their part in the story of the patriarchal promise. The continuation of the family line means more than just one family’s success in the world; it is symbolic of God’s power, and it justifies mankind’s faith in that power. The obstacles to the continuation of the family line are more than just the bumps in the road every family experiences over four generations; they are challenges to the fulfillment of God’s word.�� The promise transforms the story of humanity into the story of God’s relationship with humanity. Despite all of the challenges to the aspect of progeny in the patriarchal promise, it does of course come to pass. The matriarchs are all healed of their barrenness, the patriarchs all survive the threats to their lives, and, by the beginning of the book of Exodus, the Israelites have multiplied just as they were promised. Before turning to Exodus–Numbers, however, it is important to recognize that although the stories of Genesis seem to be centered on the aspect of progeny, as befits their familial nature, the aspect of land is not ignored. It is in the background throughout; indeed, it pervades the entire patriarchal cycle. Despite God’s promise to give the patriarchs the land in which they are dwelling, the family of Abraham has a rather diffi cult time actually settling in even a single location, much less the entirety of the land. Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, the land that Yahweh promised him, is almost immediately aborted by the famine that forces him to go to Egypt (Gen 12:10). Upon his return he settles for a time in Hebron, but soon enough he moves out of the promised land again, to Gerar (20:1). From there he returns to Beersheba, but after his death Isaac is also forced from the land by famine, again finding his way to Gerar (Gen 26:6). After Isaac too returns to Beersheba, Esau’s threat of violence requires Jacob to leave for Aram, this time for twenty years. When he comes back to Canaan, he settles in Shechem, even purchasing a plot of land (33:19)—yet after the events of Genesis 34, he abandons his recently acquired property and heads for Bethel (35:6). The last clear statement of Jacob’s location is “beyond Migdal-Eder” (35:21), before the Joseph story and the dislocation of the entire family to Egypt. The point of rehearsing the travels of the patriarchs is to show that they are never able to actually possess the promised land. Whether by famine, external threat, or simply their own choice, the patriarchs lead an extraordinarily peripatetic existence. They experience the full range of Canaan, from top to bottom, but they are never able to claim it as their own. Indeed, the patriarchal stories are full of encounters with the non-Israelites peoples

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who do lay claim to the land: the Amorites among whom Abraham lives in Gen 14:13; the Hittites in Genesis 23; the Shechemites in Genesis 34. These peoples are not dispossessed; there is no conquest of the land in Genesis that would permit the patriarchs to settle there permanently. The only piece of the promised land to which Abraham’s family can lay any authentic claim in Genesis is the burial plot at Machpelah (Genesis 23), where the patriarchs and matriarchs (with the exception of Rachel) are all buried. This cave is important, to be sure—a burial plot signals continuity of possession across the generations, the essential prerequisite for land ownership. Yet with the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, the burial plot, and the possession of even a little piece of the promised land that it represents, disappears, never to be mentioned again. Even the most minor acquisition of the smallest piece of property in the promised land is obliterated. Indeed, with the enslavement in Egypt, the entire notion that there could be any fulfillment of the promise of land, even a partial fulfillment, during the lives of the patriarchs is shown to be impossible. The nomadic existence led by the patriarchs may have been an indication that the promise of land was never really going to be fulfilled during their lifetimes—as, in fact, Abraham was told directly (Gen 15:13–16). The patriarchal cycle is about the aspect of progeny; the aspect of land lingers only in the background, reminding us every time the family moves to a new location that they continue not to possess the land that had been promised them. All of the wandering of the patriarchal family in Genesis, inside and outside the promised land, comes to a head in the descent to Egypt. Just as the roaming of the patriarchs signified a continuous challenge to the promise of land, the enslavement in Egypt is the forthright proclamation of that challenge. The beginning of Exodus is a well-recognized point of demarcation for the pentateuchal story: it is the border between the patriarchal story and the Exodus-wilderness story, between Israel the family and Israel the people. In that transition lies perhaps the fundamental irony of the pentateuchal story as a whole: the greatest challenge to the promise of land occurs at the same time that the promise of progeny is fulfilled. After all of the familial struggles throughout Genesis, the joy of God’s word coming to pass in the multiplication of Abraham’s descendants is shattered by the enslavement in Egypt. Now it seems possible that all was for naught, that the newly expanded people might never have a land of their own. The irony runs even deeper: it is precisely because the promise of progeny has been fulfilled and the Israelite people are now numerous that Pharaoh searches for ways to constrain and, eventually, destroy them.


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It is little wonder that the Exodus became the dominant story and image of God’s relationship with Israel: the rescue of the Israelites from Egypt represents more than simply a victory over an oppressive enemy. The enslavement of Israel marked a wrenching turn from joy to despair; the Exodus offers the hope that the turn might be reversed. More than hope: a renewed promise to bring the Israelites into a land flowing with milk and honey (Exod 3:8, 17), the land that was promised to the patriarchs (6:8). From the moment that God takes note of the suffering of the Israelites—and, in doing so, remembers the promise to the patriarchs (Exod 2:24)—there is no question that Israel will leave Egypt. All of the exchanges between Moses and Pharaoh, all of the plagues, are nothing but suspense for the sake of effect, as Yahweh says explicitly (Exod 7:3–5). The Exodus is more than a great story of redemption from evil; in the canonical context, it is a demonstration of God’s power to fulfill his own word. The Israelites do not simply walk into Canaan after they leave Egypt, of course, any more than Abraham’s offspring multiplied within the first generation. Just as the promise of progeny faced obstacles before it could be fulfilled, so now the promise of land faces a remarkable sequence of challenges. In the patriarchal stories, the survival of the individual was often at stake; after the people have increased, the individual is no longer the relevant unit, but rather the people as a whole. Thus most of the challenges faced by the Israelites in their attempt to reach the promised land are threats to their survival as a corporate whole. Some of these threats are external, as in the attacks of the Egyptians (Exodus 14), Amalek (Exod 17:8–16), the king of Arad (Num 21:1–3), Sihon, king of the Amorites (Num 21:21–25), and Og, king of Bashan (Num 21:33–35).�� In each of these cases, Israel is saved by divine intervention of one sort or another, as we might expect. Some threats to Israel’s survival are what we might term “natural”; that is, they reflect the conditions of the wilderness: thirst (Exod 15:22–25; 17:1–7; Num 20:2–13) and hunger (Exodus 16). In these episodes too it is God who provides for Israel’s needs. And, often, the threats to Israel’s existence have their origins in Israel itself: in the haste of the people to get to the promised land, in the lack of faith the people show when facing a difficult situation. In these cases, it is God who delivers the punishment that threatens the people, and it is frequently Moses and/or Aaron who prevents God from fully destroying Israel. This can be seen in episodes as famous and important as the golden calf (Exodus 32) and the spies (Numbers 13–14), but also in many smaller episodes in which the Israelites are struck by divine plague (Num 11:33; 17:11; 21:6; 25:9). At least

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one example of each of these categories is accompanied by a statement of Israel’s desire, albeit usually a rhetorical device only, to abandon the journey toward the fulfillment of the promise and return to Egypt (or to simply die in the wilderness): in the case of external threat (Exod 14:11–12); in the case of natural difficulties (Exod 17:3); and in the case of Israel’s own lack of faith (Num 14:2–4). Interestingly, it is only in these latter episodes, of Israel’s infidelity, that the progeny aspect of the promise rears its head again. For the most part, when the survival of the Israelites is in question, what is at stake is the eventual possession of the land. Yet at the episode of the golden calf, and again in the spies story, God himself threatens not only to prevent the Israelites from reaching Canaan, but also to undo the fait accompli of the promise of progeny: “Let me destroy them and make of you a great nation,” Yahweh says to Moses (Exod 32:10); “I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and make of you a nation far more numerous than they” (Num 14:12). Not only is the destruction of the people threatened in these divine statements; God invokes the language of the initial promise to Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation” (Gen 12:2). God is proposing to go back to the beginning, to make Moses into a new Abraham. It is no coincidence that this threat occurs exclusively at the two lowest points of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh. And it is a sign of Moses’s continuing role as Israel’s appointed intermediary with Yahweh that he is willing and able to step into that breach and maintain the promise. Just as in the patriarchal stories, then, the challenges to the fulfillment of the promise in Exodus–Numbers come from multiple directions. Also like the patriarchal stories, the various episodes in Exodus–Numbers can be read and appreciated independently of the overarching pentateuchal narrative. The so-called “murmuring stories,” in which the Israelites complain about sustenance in the wilderness, have both a clear traditional profile and a common theological intent. The battle episodes provide for the reader a sense of pride and superiority in the defeat of the enemy at the hands of the Israelites. The golden calf story is a condemnation of idolatry. The spies story demands faith in God’s protection. Yet all of these episodes, large and small, are framed by the need for God to bring the Israelites into the land, to fulfill the promise made all the way back in Genesis 12. The individual episodes are not meaningless by any stretch of the imagination, but their significance is not fully appreciated unless they are understood as part of the narrative whole. Will the Israelites, at last a numerous people, finally make it to the promised land—that question


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lies in the subtext of every narrative moment from the beginning of Exodus until the end of the Pentateuch. The wilderness through which the Israelites wander is, in this sense, more than just a geographic reality, the literal landscape that stretches between Egypt and Canaan. The wilderness is the embodiment of what it means to be a landless people, of the horror that is the half-fulfilled promise. At the end of the Pentateuch, the promised land is not yet quite in the Israelites’ possession. But it is close, even inevitable, and indeed some land has already been conquered and settled and, effectively, annexed (Numbers 32).�� But the conquest itself, inevitable though it may be, belongs to another part of the story. And perhaps this is as it should be; for with the fulfillment of the promise of land, the promise has reached its conclusion, narratively and theologically. The stories of what happens after the people of Israel settle in the land that was promised to them do not belong to the story of the promise—and the Pentateuch is, from beginning to end, the story of the promise. Keeping the conquest just out of reach ensures that this is the case. What the Pentateuch contains is a collection of episodes, cycles, and narrative complexes that retain some of their individual integrity, but that are elevated by having been subsumed under a far greater theological idea.�� A struggle in childbirth, a confrontation over land rights, a famine—these common, even natural, events become magnified as they threaten the fulfillment of the promise. A complaint about thirst, the sudden appearance of an enemy, a momentary lack of faith—these become full-blown crises. From the minute to the grand, every moment is momentous because it participates in the story of the promise. The pentateuchal narrative can justifiably be called the promise narrative, for the promise is, in a fundamental way, the main character of the Pentateuch. �� Genesis may feature Abraham and Jacob, and Exodus–Deuteronomy may feature Moses, but only the promise is constant throughout. Even though it is frequently only in the background, the promise is present in virtually every scene; even when it does not have any speaking lines, it is controlling the action, or at least our interpretation of it. David Clines has made a strong case for understanding the patriarchal promise as the “theme” of the Pentateuch, with a clear definition of what he understands a “theme” to be—in brief, as an overarching expression of the underlying rationale behind the construction of a literary work.�� I am claiming here that the patriarchal promise is more than a “theme,” but is in fact the plot. It does not stand behind the narrative; it is the narrative.

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The Pentateuch is often described as the story of Israel’s early history, which is to say its growth from a single family to a nation—and that history is nothing other than the story of the patriarchal promise.

The Challenge of the Canonical Promise While the promise serves to unite the disparate episodes in the text and to shape them into a theological unity, the way in which the promise is expressed throughout the Pentateuch, and particularly in Genesis, creates some narrative confusion. In Gen 12:1–3 Abraham is given the initial promise, in a somewhat abstracted form; the full and explicit promise of progeny and land is given in Gen 13:14–17. How is it, then, that almost immediately thereafter Abraham can ask God, “What will you give me?” (Gen 15:2)? 15:2)? The emphasis on Abraham’s Abraham’s trust tr ust in 15:6—“Because 15:6 —“Because he trusted tr usted in Yahweh, Yahweh, he reckoned it to his merit”—seems merit”—se ems entirely at odds with wit h what appears, in the canonical text, full-fledged doubt on Abraham’s part that the promise he was given in Genesis 12–13 might actually come to pass. Canonically, Genesis 15 testifies against itself. And why must God repeat the terms of the promise, as if for the first time (15:5, 18–21)? The same question may be asked of Genesis 17, which again repeats the terms of the promise in full. Here there is the further complication that God makes with Abraham—since God has just made a of the bər î ît t that covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, why must he make another here? Has the covenant of Genesis 15 been somehow abrogated in the intervening chapter? And if the promise of progeny is linked to the change in Abraham’ss name (17:4–5), Abraham’ (17:4 –5), why should this change ch ange happen only now, rather than when the promise of progeny was first given? The sudden introduction of the concept of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14 is equally problematic for similar reasons: if circumcision c ircumcision is a prerequisite for the promise, as it seems clearly to be in this t his passage, then it renders the previous bestowals of the promise, and any steps toward its fulfillment, effectively moot. The repetition repetit ion of of the promise in Genesis 22—now for the fourth time— ti me— adds yet another anot her layer of diffi cu culty, lty, as it seems to suggest su ggest that th at the promise, previously unconditional, was in fact subject to testing. It is especially confusingg in light of Genesis 17, which stated that as long as Abraham and his fusin offspring offspri ng were circumcised, circu mcised, the t he promise would be upheld; upheld; now, now, however, however, the maintenance of the t he promise seems to be dependent on entirely different grounds. Thus T hus over the course of Abraham’ Abra ham’ss life, he receives the promise in full four times, and every time the circumstances of the promise,

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or the covenants and other statements attached to it, seem to undermine the preceding promise texts almost completely. Reading canonically, we would not be surprised if Abraham were utterly confused: the promise, so clear in Genesis 12–13, 12 –13, is systematically systematical ly unrooted, deprived of its its seemingly solid and unchanging nature. Jacob also receives the promise on three separate occasions, and again each time is presented as if it were the first. This Th is is marked most explicitly explicit ly by God’s initial self-introduction in each case: “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac” (Gen 28:13); “I am El Shaddai” (35:11); “I am God, the God of your father” (46:3). (46:3). The first two t wo times, the promise is given at Bethel—and in each case, Jacob reacts to the seemingly remarkable appearance of God by renaming the site (28:19; 35:15). The first time, this is logical enough; the second time, however, it makes little sense. Even as the promise brings the whole pentateuchal narrative into line theologically, it simultaneously raises questions about the narrative homogeneity of the text. Every repetition of the promise to Abraham and Jacob is a source of confusion—not because the promise cannot be referred to multiple times, which it most certainly can and is, but because each time appears to be the first, and because the circumstances circu mstances and even the conditions of the promise keep shifting. Repetition, in the abstract, can serve to reinforce the promise, as it frequently does. The type of repetition we find in Genesis, however, does precisely the opposite, complicating and redefining at each each turn. tu rn. It is not only the narrative elements elements of the promise promise texts—their texts —their timing, ti ming, location, and secondary elements such as covenant or name-changing— that differ diffe r from passage to passage. The literary literar y presentation of the promise varies greatly as well. Some promise texts emphasize the blessing of other nations, as in Gen 12:3; some mention kings, as in Gen 17:6; some instruct the patriarch to look to the cardinal directions, as in 13:14; some use the language of being fruitful and multiplying, as in 35:11; some say “fear not,” as 46:3; and so on. The problem this presents is different in kind from that presented by the narrative elements: it is not so much a logical problem as it is an interpretive one. For when the promise collectively is understood as the underlying theological basis for the entire canonical text, the differences in its expression are deprived of any real import. If the promise in Gen 12:1–3 is the same as that in Genesis 15, and both are identical in theological force to that of Genesis 17, then whatever differences may exist in the literary presentation of the promise in each case cannot bear any major

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interpretive significance. sign ificance. Canonically Canonica lly,, there are not multiple promises, but only one promise. The literary presentation of the promise does not affec t its basic substance—regardless of how it is expressed, every promise is fundamentally funda mentally of progeny progeny and land. The variety var iety of expression ex pression is therefore therefore flattened into a two-dimensional rendering of the promise, which is the only kind that, insofar as it takes into account every promise text, can be successfully applied across the canonical whole. The eliding of distinctions in expression among the promise texts is reinforced by the repeated references to the promise throughout the Pentateuch. For example, in Gen 18:18–19 Yahweh makes reference to the promise when considering considering whether to share with Abraham Abraha m his plans regarding Sodom. There Yahweh Yahweh uses langu language age and themes—“ t hemes—“Abraham Abraham is to become a great and prosperous nation and all the nations of the earth eart h are to bless themselves by him” (18:18)—that (18:18)—that have clear resonances Yet et canonical canon ically ly it cannot be a reference only to Genesis with Gen 12:1–3. �� Y 12, but rather to all of the promises that Abraham has been given, in Genesis 12–13, 15, and 17. Yahweh’s recollection of the promise cannot ignore all of its instantiations instant iations to that point, though the literary l iterary presentation seems to focus uniquely u niquely on the first occurrence occu rrence of the promise. That is to say, the precise expression is rendered inconsequential. A reference to the promise can be a reference only to the baseline abstracted form of the promise, even though each promise text has a particular verbal manifestation.�� Whatever meaning one wants to attach to any particular expression of the promise, one is forced by the repetition and variation in the text to admit that that meaning meani ng is not exclusive exc lusive or comprehensive. comprehensive. The presentation of a single promise text can, of course, be of great interest within its immediate context. Yet the literary literar y form of, say, say, Genesis 17 cannot ca nnot have any significance beyond itself; it cannot be used in any exclusive way to shed light on how the promise shapes other pentateuchal passages, for every promise text has equal claim c laim in that regard. Genesis 17 and Gen 12:1–3 12:1 –3 are equally equal ly relevant for for the interpretation interpret ation of Genesis 24, for example, in terms of the latter’s place in the overarching promise narrative. Alternatively, interpretive worlds could be (and have been) built on a close reading of Gen 12:1–3 as a locus for understanding the entire Pentateuch—but only if one is willing to ignore the equal claims of Genesis 15, 17, and all of the other promise texts. At that t hat point, however, however, the resulting resultin g interpretation is not taking account of the entire canonical text, but only part of it, leaving the exegesis open to charges of subjectivity and selectivity.

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The challenge this situation poses for interpretation should be clear: the interpreter’s ability to derive meaning from the canonical biblical text is, ironically, limited by the need to read canonically. The flattening of the promise texts removes from interpretive consideration any import that the words themselves may carry; as every word in the Bible ought to be of exegetical interest, this is a real concern. For canonical interpretation every promise text must have equal weight; yet to try to realize that equality in interpretation requires finding the commonalities among the various promise texts, and therefore to return once again to the lowest common denominator, denominator, to the fundamentals funda mentals of progeny and land. Readings that th at concentrate concentrate exclusively on the final fina l form of the Pentateuch are undeniably valuable: in this case, such an approach allows for the recrecognition that the whole pentateuchal narrative is given its theological shape by means of the promise: virtually every episode in the lives of the patriarchs patriarc hs and of the people Israel is given increased meaning by virtue vir tue of its relationship to the promise, whether as an obstacle to be overcome or as a step toward fulfillment. Even the law is brought under the umbrella of the promise: obedience to the law will result in the maintenance of the promise (Lev 26:9), while disobedience will mean utter destruction, until the people have learned to obey and God restores the promise in future generations (Lev 26:44–45). The story of Israel in the Pentateuch, from beginning to end, is the story of the patriarchal promise. At the same time, however, the need to consider the entirety of the canonical text brings with it certain drawbacks. The promise texts seem to undermine each other narratively at the same time that any interpretive significance that might be attached to their individual forms of expression becomes flattened by the need nee d to apply the promise across the whole of the text. In short, the canonical Pentateuch does not allow for a clear interpretive path when it comes to the promise, even as the promise lays the foundation for the interpretation of the canonical text. There is, however, a way of reading the text that is very intentional about grappling with precisely the difficu culties lties raised raise d in the canonical canonic al reading, readin g, that is, the narrative nar rative contradictions and the varieties of literary expressio ex pression: n: the literary-historical approach. It is this approach approach that the following chapters will wil l engage—not as a rebuttal to the canonical reading, but as an alternative viewpoint, a treatment of the same material from a different direction, that may be helpful in shedding light on the nature natu re of the literary presentatio presentation n of the promise.��

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The Promise as Secondary �� chapter the centrality of the patriarchal promise to the canonical Pentateuch was briefly outlined. It was also noted that in the final-form reading the narrative disjunctions among the promise texts are a cause for concern, and further that the distinctive verbal formulations of the promise from passage to passage are almost by necessity ignored in a canonical reading. These very issues are fundamental to the way that literary-historical scholarship has proceeded in its analysis of the promise. In the lengthy history of literary-historical scholarship on the patriarchal promise, despite significant differences between the various approaches to the text, two claims, ostensibly contradictory but inextricably linked, have remained constant: that the promise to the patriarchs represents the primary locus of theological meaning in the patriarchal narratives, and that the nonpriestly promise texts—or at least the vast majority of them— are secondary additions to the patriarchal narratives. These two claims have been present in scholarship since the beginning of the documentary theory of the composition of the Pentateuch, and have only grown in importance in the more recent nondocumentary approach. The first, that the promise is theologically central, is scarcely debatable, though the way in which this centrality is understood, especially as it relates to the growth of the traditions underlying the text, varies in light of scholarly attitudes toward the Pentateuch as a whole. The second, that most if not all of the promise texts are secondary additions, is entirely open to debate.

Classical Documentary Scholarship On any reading of the text as a unified whole, the promise to the patriarchs serves as the lens through which the patriarchal narratives, and perhaps the Pentateuch as a whole, are given their meaning. As we have seen, the

The Promise as Secondary

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constant repetition of the promise, given at least once to each patriarch, as well as the regular reminders of the promise within the patriarchal narratives and continuing regularly into Deuteronomy, render the theological centrality of the divine promise unavoidable. From the mid-nineteenth century until the 1970s, the dominant theory in pentateuchal scholarship was the Documentary Hypothesis, which, in light of the manifold contradictions, doublets, and other inconsistencies in the Pentateuch, considered the canonical text to be the combination of four originally independent documents—the Yahwist (J), the Elohist (E), the Priestly source (P), and the Deuteronomist (D). � In classical documentary scholarship, the status of the promise texts as definitive theological statements was relatively understated. For the classical critics, many promise texts—including all of those from P—were considered original parts of the pentateuchal sources, and stood in meaningful positions within their respective narratives. The beginnings of the J and E patriarchal narratives were represented by the promise to Abraham (Gen 12:1–3, 7 in J; Gen 15:5 in E).� The transition from the story of the patriarchs to that of the Exodus was marked by Joseph’s reference to the promise in his deathbed speech to his brothers (Gen 50:24), � as was the transition from the Israelites’ stay at the mountain to their trek through the wilderness toward the promised land by Yahweh’s instructions to Moses to depart from Sinai for Canaan (Exod 33:1).� If only in a structural sense, these prominent promise texts served in the classical documentary theory as signposts along the path of the pentateuchal narrative, tying the whole together under the overarching theme of God’s promise of progeny and land to the Israelite ancestors. At the same time, however, early documentary scholarship, from at least the seminal work of Julius Wellhausen onward, regarded a number of the nonpriestly promise texts as secondary additions. The promise to Abraham in Gen 13:14–17; the promise to Hagar in Gen 16:10; the allusion to the promise to Abraham in Gen 18:18; the promise to Abraham in Gen 22:15–18; the promise to Isaac in Gen 26:3b–5, 24; the promise to Jacob in Gen 28:13–15; the reference to the promise to Jacob in Gen 32:10–13; the promise to Jacob in Gen 46:3–4; the reference to the promise to all three patriarchs in Exod 32:13 and Num 14:16, 22–23—all of these were considered by some, if not all, early pentateuchal critics to be editorial supplements. The basic question to be asked of this analysis is on what grounds the distinction is made between those promises considered original and those considered secondary. For the moment, we will set aside the priestly promise texts, which, as noted above, were all considered original to the

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P document (though we will return to them shortly), and concentrate on the nonpriestly passages. Problems abound. Both Gen 50:24 (E) and Exod 33:1 (J)—which were generally considered original promise texts—refer to the promise as having been addressed to all three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but only the promise to Abraham (in Gen 12:1–3, 7 [J]; 15:5 [E]) was typically deemed “original.” How could the later references refer to a promise to all three patriarchs, if only Abraham received one? One might posit that both J and E did originally contain promises to Isaac and Jacob, but that they were lost in the process of transmitting and compiling the sources. If this were the case, however, then the “original” J and E promises to Isaac and Jacob have, almost miraculously, been replaced by later hands. It would seem far simpler to say that the promises currently in the text, those deemed secondary, are in fact the original J and E promises to Isaac and Jacob. Alternatively, neither J nor E did originally narrate the promise to Isaac and Jacob; rather, they implicitly assumed that the promise given to the first patriarch was passed down to the others. Yet when faced with passages that do explicitly describe the regiving of the promise to each patriarch in turn, this solution seems to be unnecessary and unnecessarily complicated. More important, there was among the classical critics no unifying criterion for the determination of secondary versus original promise passages. Each promise text was evaluated on its own merits, which, though logical in theory, led in practice to a subjective and inconsistent treatment of the passages. We may take as an example Abraham Kuenen’s argument for the secondary status of the promise to Jacob in Gen 28:14. He recognizes that the wording of this verse, especially the phrase “all the families of the earth will bless themselves by you,” is virtually identical to that of the promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3b, which he claims to be original. Nevertheless, Gen 28:14 can be judged secondary because “the same follower of J who notably modified this promise elsewhere (xviii. 17–19), xxii. 15–18; xxvi. 4, may have reproduced it here without alteration.” � Thus, according to Kuenen, when a promise is worded slightly differently from Gen 12:3 (as in Gen 18:17–19; 22:15–18; 26:4), it is secondary; when it is worded the same (as in Gen 28:14), it is also secondary. The methodological flaw here is apparent. Similarly, Wellhausen argues that the promise to Abraham in Gen 13:14–17 is secondary because it is introduced simply by “Yahweh said to Abram after Lot had parted from him.” Wellhausen claims that it was unlike J to introduce Yahweh’s speeches to the patriarchs in such a general manner; J, he claims, always specified a particular location, which would then


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be a revered site from that moment on. As proof, he brings the promise to Abraham in Gen 22:15–18, which he and many others consider secondary and which he claims is similar to Gen 13:14–17 in that it emphasizes the content of the speech rather than its location. � Yet Wellhausen seemingly finds no such difficulty with Gen 12:1–3, which begins even more generally than 13:14–17—“Yahweh said to Abram”—and which certainly emphasizes solely the content of the promise. � Thus for Wellhausen the clear sign of a secondary insertion in one text is passed over silently in another. These examples demonstrate the subjectivity prevalent in some classical arguments for secondary promise texts. In both cases, it should further be noted, there is the assumption that Gen 12:1–3 is original, even though it shares features with other texts that are deemed secondary. Both arguments raise the question as to why, if these features are indicative of secondary texts, Gen 12:1–3 should not be considered secondary as well. One is tempted to believe that Gen 12:1–3 was viewed as original, despite its similarity to other passages considered secondary, primarily because of its traditional importance in Judeo-Christian thought. Many other promise texts could be excised practically without anyone noticing, but the call to Abraham, with its ostensible demonstration of pure faith, must be authentic. Beyond the inconsistent application among the classical critics of the criteria for deeming a passage secondary, however, the criteria themselves were fraught with difficulties. For the most part, these stemmed from methodological problems common to the older documentary school, and can be recognized as microcosms of the systemic flaws in the standard application of the classical theory as a whole. The criteria for attributing promise passages to a secondary layer were basically three: the reference of one promise passage to an earlier one; the ostensible ease with which a passage may be removed from its context; and the perceived deuteronomic style of some promise formulations. We may first examine the question of references. Gen 18:18 contains a clear allusion to the promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3: “Yahweh had said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out . . . ’” (18:17–18). Though the narrative of Genesis 18 was considered by the classical critics to be the work of J, as of course was Gen 12:1–3, this promise reference in 18:18 was labeled as an addition specifically because it refers back to the earlier J passage. Hermann Gunkel in particular makes this explicit: “The secondary character of the verses is also clear in the allusion in v 18 to the promises already made

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to Abraham (12:2, 3), as v 19b also explicitly states, whereas the old legend in 18:1–16 (as is true of the old narratives in general) is entirely free of such allusions to other accounts.”� Though it appears that here Gunkel identifies the individual narrative episodes of Genesis 12 and 18 as compositionally distinct, in fact he attributes both Gen 12:1–3 and 18:1–16 to J; moreover, although he divides J into multiple layers, he attributes both of these passages to the same earliest layer, his Ja.� Why, then, could the same author not have created an explicit link back to an earlier part of his own narrative? Presumably, at least for Gunkel, this was a result of the nature of the ancient Israelite: intellectually undeveloped, subject to a “poverty of comprehension.” �� Given these restrictions on the mental capacity of the ancient Israelite, it is no wonder that authorial techniques such as cross-reference had to be seen as the work of a later stage. Gunkel comes to the same conclusion in regard to two other promise texts that make reference back to earlier portions of the narrative, namely, Gen 26:3b–5 and 26:24. The first of these passages contains the words “fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham,” and “inasmuch as Abraham obeyed me,” in addition to repeating such features from Gen 12:1–3 as “all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your heirs.” Gunkel concludes that this must be an addition “in that it refers back to the Abraham narrative.” �� The second, similarly, says “I am the God of your father Abraham; fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham.” Of this Gunkel claims that “the editor betrays his later time by recalling the Abraham narrative.”�� Given the advances in the last century in our understanding of oral literature and of narrative in general, the argument that cross-references represent an “advanced” stage of authorial technique, foreign to the earliest narrators, is easily dismissed. This argument is especially at odds with the views of the classical critics, who saw in the documentary sources continuous compositions, even if they contained earlier elements. J—or any of the pentateuchal sources—must be, as any author is, considered free to refer backward or forward within his own literary creation if we are to take seriously the notion of the sources as documents. It may also be observed that both Gen 50:24 and Exod 33:1, with their references to the promise given to all three patriarchs, also clearly refer to previous promise texts; yet they were considered original. The ostensible removability of some promises from their narrative contexts served as a further indication of a secondary insertion into the text.


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Wellhausen uses the ease with which text may be excised from its context as a criterion in his judgment that Gen 18:17–19 was a secondary block, noting of these verses that “one does not miss them before the new beginning of 18:20.”�� Similarly, J. Estlin Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby see Jacob’s prayer in Gen 32:10–13 (which ends with a reference to the divine promise) as interrupting the connection between 32:9 and 14. �� This seems a precarious argument.�� First and foremost, it is a judgment that can be applied to a nearly infinite number of verses in the Hebrew Bible; in nearly every narrative (or legal collection) there are verses that could be removed without damaging the basic flow of the narrative. �� (An easy example is the very beginning of Genesis, where Gen 1:2 can be removed without affecting the text at all: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth . . . God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” [Gen 1:1, 3].) A more objective criterion for determining where a connection is truly broken, rather than intentionally delayed, is required to prove that an insertion has taken place.�� Moreover, if the preceding criterion for identifying secondary passages denied the ancient author the right to a standard technique such as cross-reference, this criterion effectively denies him the equally important devices of digression, tangent, provision of background information, or interior monologue, all regular features of prose narration. We are again thrown back onto Gunkel’s unflattering views of the abilities and intellectual facilities of the ancient Israelite. It would be wise to heed the (admittedly somewhat ambivalent) statement of J. A. Emerton: “The fact that it is usually possible to remove the promises without harm to their context does not favour their originality, though it is scarcely sufficient to disprove it.”�� Furthermore, as may be expected, those promise texts considered original by the classical critics are just as easily removed from their context as those considered secondary in part for that very reason. Gen 50:24–25, it can be argued, actually interrupts the narrative of Joseph’s death. Without these verses, the text reads perfectly smoothly: “Joseph lived to see children of the third generation of Ephraim; the children of Machir son of Manasseh were likewise born upon Joseph’s knees. . . . Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffi n in Egypt” (50:23, 26). Gen 21:13 and 18 are readily removed without affecting the surrounding narrative. Even Gen 12:1–3 (along with its fulfillment in 12:4a), at least in the canonical text, stands between the P travel itinerary of 11:31–32 and 12:4b, and as such could easily be removed without damage to the immediate context; the resulting text would read

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“The days of Terah came to 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran” (11:32, 12:4b). �� Again, this procedure can surely be undertaken with a very large number of biblical verses, and as such is virtually unusable as a criterion for secondary attribution. What is crucial to recognize is that none of these ostensibly secondary passages contradict the narrative claims of their contexts; they simply expand on them. The driving rationale for source division in the documentary theory is narrative contradiction, not removability of text. The third and most substantial criterion in the classical approach for the identification of secondary promise passages is the perception of “deuteronomic” affinities, linguistic and thematic. �� The argument here was that if a promise text looks as if it contains language or ideas similar to those of D, it must have been added by a later hand somehow related to the “deuteronomic” school.�� There was significant consensus among the classical critics as to the identification of these “deuteronomic” passages, especially Gen 18:17–19; 26:3b–5; and Exod 32:13. �� The claim that these promise texts are to be understood as “deuteronomic” has persisted in documentary scholarship to the present. �� Yet despite the broad consensus among classical scholars (and classical-minded modern scholars), fundamental logical and methodological flaws require us to rethink the concept of the “deuteronomic” promise passage. The first two of the aforementioned passages, Gen 18:17–19 and 26:3b–5, are labeled “deuteronomic” because they employ what seem to be legalistic language and concepts in describing Abraham’s fidelity to Yahweh: “to keep the way of Yahweh by doing what is just and right” (18:19) and “inasmuch as Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge: my commandments, my laws, and my teachings” (26:5). Obedience to the divinely given laws is indeed a recurring concept in D. Yet it can hardly be taken here as having the same meaning. Even a deuteronomic redactor would have easily recognized that in the narrative to this point no laws have been given to which Abraham could be said to be faithful. �� The import here must be simply adherence to Yahweh’s commands—beginning with Abraham leaving his homeland in Gen 12:4. �� In these passages, the legalistic phrases must have a general meaning—in contradistinction to their usage in D, where they unambiguously refer to the laws of Deuteronomy 12–26. If these are in fact deuteronomic insertions, then it is further remarkable that they should have been placed only in J contexts, and nowhere in E. Moreover, J uses similar language outside of the promise texts to mean the same thing, that is, general obedience to Yahweh: in Exod 15:26 and 16:4, 28,


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the latter of which is particularly clear in its meaning of “instructions” rather than literal “laws.” In short, this phrasing, with this generic meaning, seems to be a feature of J—which contains no law code ��—rather than an anachronistic insertion by a secondary hand. �� The third passage commonly ascribed to a “deuteronomic” editor, Exod 32:13, is so ascribed not because it contains any particularly deuteronomic language—which it does not—but rather because the broader context of which it is a part is paralleled closely in D. The parallels between Exod 32:7–14, in which Yahweh tells Moses about the people’s construction of the golden calf and threatens to destroy them and Moses in turn pleads that Yahweh should spare the people, and Deut 9:12–14, 26–29, in which Moses recalls this moment in his grand historical recollection before the law-giving in the plains of Moab, are indisputable, and some dependence of one passage on the other requires no further justification. The most notable difference between the two passages is the most obvious: in Deuteronomy 9, the dialogue is split into its two parts, God’s threat of destruction before Moses goes down to see the calf, and Moses’s plea on behalf of the people after he has destroyed the idol, while in Exodus 32 both come before Moses descends the mountain. Of the two, the order of events in Deuteronomy 9 is potentially more logical: Moses waits until he has seen the calf for himself and destroyed it before returning to the mountaintop to plead for Yahweh to relent. Yet it is precisely the greater ease with which D reads here that proves its dependence on Exodus 32, rather than vice versa. There are two possibilities for the relationship between the two texts. Either the author of D saw that there was a more logical way to order the events at Horeb than he found in E and made the change accordingly, or a deuteronomic editor—who, like any editor, had the freedom to place his insertions wherever in the preexisting text he chose—decided to consciously present a different, less logical sequence of events when he went to put his deuteronomic stamp on the earlier E material. Of these, the former is by far the more likely. Thus the best way to understand the relationship between Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 9 is to see that the author of D was dependent on the E dialogue, rather than to see that dialogue as a deuteronomic insertion. �� For our purposes, it is also crucial to note that while Moses refers to the patriarchal promise in Exod 32:13, he does not do so in the parallel in Deuteronomy. We would thus have to suppose that a deuteronomic editor not only inserted deuteronomic material into the preexisting account, but that he added the notion of the promise when it was not in the purportedly original D text.

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In fact, basic to almost every variation of the documentary theory is the recognition that the J and E documents preceded that of D; moreover, that D was in fact dependent on the J and E documents. �� Given this, it seems entirely backward to assume that, when there is an affinity between a passage in a J/E context and a passage in D, the dependence should run chronologically in reverse. Moreover, if we recognize that the author of D has reworked and at times considerably amplified the content of the older sources, why should it be assumed that he could not just as easily have reworked and, to be sure, amplified the linguistic and stylistic formulations of his predecessors? In respect to the proposed chronology of the sources, we should rather be labeling those parts of D that look like J/E passages in Genesis–Numbers as “yahwistic” or “elohistic,” rather than calling anything in a J/E context “deuteronomic.” The reason, it seems, that scholarship has gone in the direction it has lies in the acknowledged fact that the deuteronomic corpus is both more easily identifiable and rhetorically stronger than J or E. We typically identify as “deuteronomic” those concepts and formulations to which D has given the strongest and clearest voice, regardless of the accepted opinion (among documentary scholars, at least) that D depended on earlier sources, which may have employed similar concepts and formulations, though admittedly without the same rhetorical force. It may be noted again that the classical critics were less than consistent in assessing the “deuteronomic” nature of the various promise texts. The expression g ōy g ād ôl , “great nation,” in Gen 12:3 is also found in prominent passages in Deuteronomy (4:6; 26:5); the collocation of b-r-k, “blessing,” and q-l-l , “curse,” also in Gen 12:3, is most famous from Deut 11:26–28 (“See, this day I set before you blessing and curse,” etc.); why are these not considered evidence of a deuteronomic hand? An analogous methodological problem, and an important one, arises in the classical approach when various promise passages are linked to Gen 22:15–18. In the case of the deuteronomic insertions, the initial step in scholarship was the recognition that D was written after J and E; the second (and erroneous) step was to assume that everything in the earlier material that looked like D was written under deuteronomic influence. In the case of Gen 22:15–18, the first step was the widespread recognition, on a variety of grounds (to be discussed in the next chapter), that this passage was a secondary insertion in the narrative, and could not have been the work of either J or E. �� The second (and identically erroneous) step was to assume that those promise passages whose wording was similar to that


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of Gen 22:15–18 must also have been additions by the same hand—even though they did not share the conditions that uniquely marked 22:15–18 as secondary. Almost every identification of a promise text as secondary was based, at least in part, on its commonalities with the one firmly established secondary passage, 22:15–18. Thus Wellhausen argued that Gen 13:14–17 are “analogous” to 22:15–18;�� Kilian saw Gen 16:10 and 22:17 as from the same hand;�� Carpenter and Harford-Battersby connected the language of Gen 18:18 to 22:18;�� Dillmann related 26:5 to 22:18; �� Kuenen called 28:13–16 “homogeneous” with 22:15–18; �� Skinner described 32:10–13 as “akin” to 22:15–18;�� Bacon deemed Exod 32:13 secondary because it “quotes” Gen 22:16.�� Again, verbal similarities to an identifiably later passage do not require, or even imply, that a given passage is also secondary. Rather, the default assumption should be that the author of the acknowledged secondary passage knew and based his text on the earlier, original material. �� This is especially so when, as in the case of Gen 22:15–18, the elements that compel scholars to view it as late are entirely absent from every other promise text (on which see the next chapter). Having surveyed the various criteria among classical scholars for deeming nonpriestly promise texts secondary, we may now return briefly to the priestly promise texts. As noted above, classical scholarship universally considered the priestly promise texts to be original parts of the P document. Yet it is striking that the very criteria used to determine secondary passages in the nonpriestly sources are equally present in P, and yet did not seem to have the same force. If explicit reference back to earlier promise texts was a sign of a secondary hand in the nonpriestly sources, then on the same grounds nearly every P promise text should be eliminated. The first P promise is to Abraham, in Genesis 17. The next, Gen 28:3–4, Isaac’s transmission of the blessing to Jacob, says “may he grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring, that you may possess the land where you are sojourning, which God assigned to Abraham” (28:4), explicitly recalling the promise of Gen 17:8: “I assign the land where you are sojourning to you.” The promise to Jacob in Gen 35:11–12 says, “The land that I assigned to Abraham and Isaac I assign to you” (35:12), again referring back to the previous priestly promise texts. We also find in that passage the phrase “be fertile and increase” (35:11), which is, in turn, recalled explicitly in 48:3–4: “El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and he blessed me and said to me, ‘I will make you fertile and numerous.’” In Exod 6:3–4 God tells Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not

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make myself known to them by my name Yahweh. I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.” This is as explicit as references get: it is, in fact, no less than a rehearsal of the previous narrative, both in content and in language. Rather than take these as indications of secondary insertions, however, scholars took these references as proof of the continuity of P. The nonpriestly promise texts deemed secondary can, so it was claimed, be removed from their narrative context without disrupting the flow of the passage. So too for most of the P promise texts. Removing Gen 28:3–4 from its context results in a perfect continuity of command and fulfillment: “‘Up, go to Paddan-Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.’ . . . Isaac sent Jacob off, and he went to Paddan-Aram” (28:2, 5). So too Gen 35:11–12 can be taken as disruptive; when removed, the text reads smoothly: “God said to him, ‘You whose name is Jacob, you shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name.’ Thus he named him Israel. . . . God parted from him at the spot where he had spoken to him” (35:10, 13). Without Jacob’s recollection of the promise in 48:3–4, we have a perfectly coherent passage: “Jacob said to Joseph, ‘Your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, shall be mine” (48:3a, 5a).�� Even Exodus 6 reads beautifully without the reference to the promises in 6:3–4: “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh. . . . I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage” (6:2, 5). As observed above, the ability to remove a passage without disrupting its context is not peculiar to secondary insertions; it is the case for perfectly original passages as well, as these examples demonstrate, for no classical scholar would ever have thought to attribute the priestly promise texts to a later hand. Though there is relatively little overlap between priestly and deuteronomic language, there are some phrases in the priestly promise texts that are also present in Deuteronomy. In Gen 17:7, God tells Abraham that he is establishing his covenant with Abraham and his offspring “to be God to you,” lihy ôt l əkā l ē’ lō hî m; the same language is found in Deut 26:17: “Today you have affirmed Yahweh to be God to you,” lihy ôt l əkā l ē’ lō hî m. In Gen 17:8, God says of Abraham’s descendants, “I will be their God,” w əhāy î t î l āhem l ē’ lō hî m; in Deut 29:12, Moses reminds the people that they are entering the covenant by which they will be established as Yahweh’s people, and Yahweh “will be your God,” w əhû’ yihyeh-l əkā l ē’ lō hî m. In Gen 17:20, God promises that Ishmael will be “a great nation,” g ôy g ād ôl ; in


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Deut 4:7–8, Israel is compared (favorably) to a “great nation,” g ôy g ād ôl , and in the famous “credo” of Deut 26:5–9, we read of Israel’s ancestor that “he went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there, but there he became a great nation [ g ôy g ād ôl ] and very populous” (26:5). No one would argue that these phrases, in the priestly promise texts, are indications of deuteronomic authorship; yet just such phrases, and in equally small proportion to the remainder of the passages, are used as evidence for a secondary hand in the equivalent nonpriestly texts. The evidence of the priestly promise texts stands as a counterweight to the classical analyses of the nonpriestly passages, and highlights again the flawed nature of the arguments used to deem many of those texts secondary. Each of the three common classical rationales for designating promise passages as secondary is thus not only unconvincing on its own merits, it was also subjectively and inconsistently applied. When taken as a group, they point to perhaps the most serious flaw in the classical approach to the entire concept of the secondary promise text. The critics provided a variety of reasons for why they considered the promise texts secondary, but utterly failed to explain why an interpolator would have seen a need to add the passages in the first place. It is not enough to say that a passage “seems” secondary, or doesn’t fit perfectly into its context; in order to attribute a text to a redactor, we should be able to pinpoint, or at least attempt to pinpoint, the reason that an interpolator would have felt the need to make such a change to the text. On this point the classical school was silent.

Tradition-historical Scholarship By on the one hand arguing that the majority of the theologically central patriarchal promise texts were secondary additions to their narrative contexts, and on the other hand failing to provide any motivation for these insertions, classical documentary scholars left a gaping hole in their theory of pentateuchal composition, one which was eventually readily filled by the new nondocumentary approach in the late twentieth century. Before discussing the nondocumentary approach, however, it is important to consider briefly the development of the tradition-historical approach prevalent in the mid-twentieth century, and particularly the views of the two giants of that approach, Gerhard von Rad and Martin Noth. Tradition-historical criticism investigates the preliterary development of the traditions that have made their way into the biblical text: where and in what circumstances the individual episodes may have had their oral origins, and how

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those episodes were brought together into broader themes, which were subsequently adopted and composed in a literary form by the pentateuchal authors. Thus the tradition-historical inquiry regarding the patriarchal promise has to do less with the question of secondary additions and more with the question of how firmly grounded in the preliterary traditions of the patriarchs the concept of the divine promise may have been. Gerhard von Rad maintains the basic source division of his classical predecessors—including seeing some of the promise texts as late additions��—but in light of his tradition-historical approach to the text, with its emphasis on the theological purpose of each element, he gives even more weight to the theological purpose of the promise texts, the Yahwistic ones in particular. For von Rad, the promise is “a genuine element of that pre-Yahwistic patriarchal religion, which assured the semi-nomadic people, driving forward into civilised territory, that they would achieve the goal of their aspirations,” and as such “belongs to the most ancient of the traditions of which the J writer takes cognisance.” �� If the concept of the promise was inherent in and indeed already central to the individual preliterary traditions, however, it was the J author who expanded it into the dominant theme of his combined patriarchal narrative. The Yahwist turned the promise into a theological link connecting not only the disparate patriarchal cultic traditions to each other, but also to the originally unrelated traditions of the Israelite settlement, the Sinaitic covenant, and the primeval history—for the last of which von Rad deems Gen 12:1–3 in particular to be the crucial linking text. �� Martin Noth substantially follows von Rad in his views on the centrality of the promise within the patriarchal traditions. Indeed, in his separation of the Pentateuch into its constituent overarching themes, that related to the patriarchs is entitled “Promise to the Patriarchs.” �� Noth accepts von Rad’s view that the promise was already an integral part of the once-independent oral patriarchal traditions. Though the figure of Jacob, and the promise tradition connected with him, was the first, according to Noth, to be merged with the other pentateuchal themes in the preliterary stage, �� the stories of Isaac and Abraham, added subsequently to the Jacob traditions, each came with its own promise of progeny and land—“the only difference was that the worshipers of their deities lived not in central Palestine, as in the case of the worshipers of Jacob’s God, but on the southern margin of the land.”�� Beyond this, however, Noth theorizes that other tribal groups had similar traditions of patriarchs and promises, traditions which were not incorporated into the pentateuchal framework: “One should take seriously


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the possibility that the theme ‘the promise to the patriarchs’ may have been further developed also among the central Palestinian, the Galilean, and the East Jordanian tribes in connection with various other ‘patriarchal’ figures indigenous among them.” �� For Noth, then, in contrast to von Rad, the prominence of the patriarchal promise is a result less of the work of the Yahwist than of the agglomeration of disparate promise-centered local traditions, either in Noth’s proposed prepentateuchal grand narrative, the somewhat vaguely formulated Grundlage (which, according to Noth, already contained the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and even Joseph themes ��), or perhaps even earlier. Regardless of the mechanism by which these independent patriarchal traditions were collected in the preliterary stage, the centrality of the promise in Genesis was traced back to the centrality of the promise in the earliest localized oral patriarchal traditions. Thus while classical documentary scholarship maintained that at least some of the patriarchal promise texts were original parts of their narrative sources, early tradition-critical scholarship went even a step further, arguing that the very concept of the Israelite patriarchal age as a whole, from its earliest oral days, was inseparable from the notion of the promise. If classical scholarship, by concentrating on the removal of ostensibly secondary promise texts, seemed to downplay the centrality of the promise in the pentateuchal story, tradition-critical scholarship firmly restored the promise to a prominent place in the patriarchal narrative—albeit without challenging the classical view that many of the promise texts in their current literary forms might be secondary. Indeed, some scholars, adapting the basic tradition-critical insights of von Rad and Noth, argued that in fact the promise was the creation of J, and was added to the originally promise-free traditions about the patriarchs by the authors of the pentateuchal documents—thereby giving the promise perhaps an even more central place in the theologies of the sources. �� The clear link established by von Rad and Noth between the promise and the early traditions about the patriarchs was substantially challenged by the study of J. Hoftijzer. �� Hoftijzer combines aspects of literary and tradition-critical investigations in his analysis of the promise. He begins by collecting the promise texts in Genesis into two broad groups, on the basis of linguistic and stylistic similarities: what he calls the “El-Shaddai group,” equivalent to the priestly promise texts, and what he calls the “Genesis 15 group,” comprising the nonpriestly promise texts. �� Having argued that the promise texts in each group were interdependent—that is, that all of the nonpriestly promise texts seem to have come from the

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same hand, and all of the priestly promise texts from another—Hoftijzer then inquires as to whether the promise is an integral part of the narrative traditions in which it is now literarily embedded. �� To an extent, this procedure is similar to the classical argument that certain promise texts may be lifted out of their literary contexts, but Hoftijzer moves this discussion to the level of tradition, rather than text. Thus he argues, for instance, that in Gen 12:1–3 (from the Genesis 15 group) the main tradition expressed in the text is that of the patriarch moving to Canaan from a foreign land—a tradition found elsewhere without any mention of a promise (Gen 11:31–32 and Jos 24:2–3); from this he concludes that the promise tradition has been secondarily appended in Gen 12:1–3.�� Similarly, in Gen 48:3–4 (from the El Shaddai group), the main tradition is that of the adoption by Jacob of Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh; as this tradition occurs elsewhere (in fact in the same chapter of Genesis, though in a nonpriestly narrative) without the concept of the promise, the promise in 48:3–4 must be secondary.�� In fact, in only two cases does Hoftijzer argue that the promise is not a secondary tradition: in Genesis 15 and 17. Each of these texts, he correctly observes, is constructed entirely around the notion of the promise; there is no other tradition in which the promise has been embedded. Further, both of these texts describe the making of a covenant between God and Abraham on the basis of the promise. Thus for Hoftijzer, the central text of the priestly promises is Genesis 17, and the central text of the nonpriestly promises is Genesis 15. From these observations Hoftijzer concludes that the promise is, in both groups, tradition-historically a later development. Thus he thoroughly rejects the traditional primacy of the promise as argued by von Rad and Noth. Yet Hoftijzer goes a step further, and claims that the Genesis 15 group (the nonpriestly promises) is not only tradition-historically but also literarily a secondary stratum in the biblical text: all of these promise texts, with Genesis 15 as the main one, were inserted into a preexisting narrative by a later hand. At the same time, however, Hoftijzer argues that the El-Shaddai group (the priestly promise texts), although sharing the very same tradition-historical features as the Genesis 15 group, was an original part of its literary context; in other words, the tradition-historical integration of the promise and the other patriarchal traditions took place at the preliterary level for the priestly material, but at the literary level for the nonpriestly material.�� In this analysis, then, Hoftijzer goes beyond the classical documentary critics, who saw many, but not all, of the nonpriestly


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promise texts as secondary; for Hoftijzer, all of the nonpriestly promise texts are secondary additions to their narrative contexts, with no exceptions even for passages such as the call of Abraham in Gen 12:1–3. Claus Westermann follows and expands upon Hoftijzer’s conclusions.�� Not content with two broad groups of promise texts, Westermann attempts to separate the promise texts on the basis of what, precisely, was being promised. Thus he determines that the biblical text preserves distinct promise traditions of an individual son, many offspring, land, and blessing.�� Each of these would have constituted a separate tradition, and thus the accumulation of them in the biblical text would be evidence for the tradition-historical growth of the promise tradition as a whole. He claims that the tradition-historically earliest promises were of a single son (the central feature of the narratives in Genesis 16 and 18) and of the land, with the promises of progeny and blessing being later; only at an advanced stage, therefore, were the promises of progeny (both for an individual and for the whole people), land, and blessing combined. �� Westermann still works on the ostensibly preliterary level; yet the manner in which he brings actual biblical texts to serve as his evidence makes the division between preliterary and literary somewhat fuzzy. Between them, Hoftijzer and Westermann succeeded in unmooring the promise both from the patriarchal traditions identified by von Rad and Noth and from its various narrative contexts in the biblical text. The previous models for the status of the patriarchal promise, as fundamental to the sources in which it was transmitted (the classical documentary theory) and/or to the traditions from which those sources were composed (the tradition-historical model), were subsumed by the form-critical distinction between the narratives and the promise drawn by Hoftijzer and Westermann. Because Hoftijzer and especially Westermann were still working ostensibly on the preliterary level, however, the promise was left in something of a state of limbo, neither a part of the preliterary traditions on which the documents were based, nor quite original to the documents themselves.

Contemporary Nondocumentary Scholarship It was Rolf Rendtorff who began the process of reclaiming the centrality of the promise for the understanding of the patriarchal narratives as a whole.�� In order to take into account the conclusions of Hoftijzer and Westermann, however, he had to distance himself entirely from both the

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documentary and tradition-historical approaches. Rather than seeing the nonpriestly promise as an elemental part of the traditions that had been carried over into the combined patriarchal narratives, Rendtorff sees it as the very means by which the narratives—in their written form—were combined in the first place. Once considered to be among the earliest aspects of the patriarchal tradition, the promise is now viewed as the latest. In this way, the promise gains enormous theological significance, as it was not merely a remnant of pre-Yahwistic religion, nor a Yahwistic enhancement thereof, but was conceived and shaped specifically for the purpose of theologically interpreting and connecting the disparate patriarchal traditions. (In this Rendtorff and Noth are quite close. Noth has the promise as one of his major themes for the same reason that Rendtorff views it as redactional: because it ties together and gives meaning to the otherwise relatively loosely connected and theologically vague patriarchal traditions. Noth, however, views this as an essentially preliterary process, not a textually redactional one.) Thus Rendtorff can argue, for example, that the independent Isaac traditions found in Genesis 26 were intentionally framed and interpreted by means of the promise texts in 26:2–5 and 24, which are evidence of a “theological reworking of the collection.” �� On a larger scale, following Westermann, the promise of “blessing for others” found in Gen 12:3 and 22:18 (to Abraham); 26:4 (to Isaac); 28:14 (to Jacob) is viewed as a means of linking together the originally independent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob traditions under an overarching theological concept.�� Rendtorff therefore argues for a supplementary succession of promise-oriented redactional reworkings: some promise texts added to unite one set of traditions with another, other promise texts added to bring a third group of traditions into the fold, and so on. The freeing of the nonpriestly promise texts from any narrative framework and their assignment to entirely distinct redactional processes allows Rendtorff to see “deliberate intention in the placing of the promise elements,” �� with the result that the patriarchal stories can be seen as a unit that “has been reworked in different stages and provided with theological interpretations; and the divine promise addresses dominate both the reworking and the interpretation.”�� Rendtorff’s approach, not only to the promise but to the entire question of the composition of the Pentateuch, has become the standard paradigm for much contemporary nondocumentary scholarship. His discussion of the promise has been adopted and only slightly modified by a number of successors, most notably Erhard Blum and Matthias Köckert. The


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importance of the promise texts for the nondocumentary approach is clear enough from the overwhelming attention given to them in Rendtorff’s work, in which the linking of various promise texts to theological reinterpretations of the patriarchal materials takes up the majority of the discussion.�� Given the centrality of the promise for this model, it is safe to say that were Rendtorff’s analysis significantly challenged or undermined, it would pose a distinct problem for the entire nondocumentary model. As we are concerned here exclusively with the promise, however, we will concentrate on this specific issue, and let the ramifications for the broader question of the composition of the Pentateuch remain for another day. The main problem with the classical model—the lack of an underlying rationale for the insertion of the secondary promise texts—is the one that appears to be most clearly remedied in the nondocumentary approach. When the patriarchal stories came to be viewed as a collection of originally independent literary units, the promise was thought to serve as the theological framework by which those units had been brought together and given meaning. Blum, in his study of the patriarchal narratives, states that “the promises have therefore become above all—and this is indeed not by chance—of central importance as a means of shaping the other traditions of the patriarchal history.”�� Scholars of the nondocumentary approach thus deserve credit for recognizing, as the classical critics tended not to, that secondary insertions in the text require a justification for their presence—in this case, what they suggest is a theological motivation—and cannot simply be deemed “secondary” without any clear reason for their insertion. A difficulty with the nondocumentary approach, however, is the starting point from which analysis of the promise passages proceeds. The promise texts can be seen as giving theological shape to the patriarchal traditions only when one presupposes that those traditions were, in fact, originally independent literary entities. This is the presupposition with which the nondocumentary school works, beginning with Rendtorff: “The Pentateuch as a whole as it lies before us is no longer the point of departure, but rather the concrete individual text, the ‘smallest literary unit.’” �� This claim is justified by a broader one: “the Pentateuch is no longer regarded primarily as a literary product.” �� (Given, however, that the sole form of the biblical narrative we have is that of a text, that is, a purely literary product, the attempt to understand it as “primarily” otherwise produces something of a cognitive dissonance.) The major evidence produced by the nondocumentary school for these smaller literary units is derived from the manner in which the promise

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texts, a priori secondary, seem to bring the patriarchal traditions together. There is thus a case of circular reasoning at work: the promise texts are secondary because they frame the smaller literary units, which are identifiable only when the promise texts have been removed from them. The patriarchal promise, then, is more than a piece of evidence in the nondocumentary model; it is the primary justification thereof. If the promise texts are not secondary (a possibility not even allowed for in an approach that begins from the standpoint of the “smallest literary units”), then it becomes virtually impossible to claim that the patriarchal narratives—in the literary form in which we have them—were originally independent. Of course, the nondocumentary analysis of the secondary status of the promise is largely dependent on those of the classical documentary school; many of the same criteria are used, especially the ease with which a passage may be removed and the ostensibly deuteronomic language (and the objections to these criteria remain relevant). It is no small irony that contemporary scholarship should use the arguments of the classical critics to undermine the very foundations of the classical theory. The nondocumentary model requires more of the promise texts than that they simply be secondary, however. The supplementary-development model of the Pentateuch also requires that each stage of supplementation be marked by a particular theological intent, one that, as we have seen, is indicated primarily by means of the addition of a group of promise texts specifically to provide theological shaping. Thus the promise texts have themselves to be divisible into distinct layers or groups, and therefore some grounds need to be found by which to separate them into layers. As with the classical approach, however, even when we leave aside the overarching conceptual problems with the model we find that the detailed rationales for the layering of the promise texts are highly problematic. The first category of criteria for discerning layers in the promise passages employed by the nondocumentary school is that of small lexical differences between the various promise formulations. A primary example of this is the difference between the use of the niphal and hithpael of the root b-r-k, “bless,” in the statement that “all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by you” and its slight variations. The niphal form, w ənibr əkû, appears in the promise texts of Gen 12:3 and 28:14, while the hithpael, w əhitbār akû, appears in 22:18 and 26:4. This variation is explicitly used as the basis for discerning two distinct compositional layers.�� Yet the variation between the niphal and hithpael of a given root, even in identical narrative settings, is a well-established feature of biblical style. �� We find it,


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for example, in Gen 3:8, 10: “The man and his wife hid ( wayyit ḥabbē’ , hithpael) from Yahweh Elohim” . . . “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid (w ā’ē ḥābē’ , niphal).” Similarly, in Dan 2:1, 3: “Nebuchadnezzar had a dream; his spirit was agitated ( wattitpā’ em , hithpael)” . . . “I had a dream, and my spirit was agitated ( wattippā’ em , niphal).” Unless we are to imagine that in each of these cases the two verses are actually from two different hands, it must be acknowledged that this kind of variation is untenable as a means of differentiating compositional layers. That this argument perhaps puts too much weight on scanty evidence is also clear when Gen 18:18 is added to the picture: “since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth ( hā’āreṣ) are to bless themselves ( w ənibr əkû, niphal) by him.” In this verse, which contains an allusion to the speech of Gen 12:1–3, the niphal form of the verb is used; David Carr assigns the verse, however, to a compositional layer different from that of Gen 12:3 and 28:14, though both of these verses contain the same form. �� He does so on the basis of the word hā’āreṣ, “the land,” found in Gen 22:18 and 26:4, while the synonym hā’ ad ām āh, “the ground,” is used in Gen 12:3 and 28:14. Thus Gen 18:18 is viewed as standing between the two groups of formulations, employing one of the keywords from each. The root assumption here is that a single author could evidently not employ even very slightly different formulations of the promise language. It seems considerably more natural, however, if one does not already assume that the promise texts must be divided into layers, to take Gen 18:18 as an indication that they all belong together, since it bridges any distinctions we might otherwise consider indicative of a division. The observation of Jean-Louis Ska, who though subscribing to the nondocumentary approach in general has a considerably less complex view of the development of the promise passages, is worth noting: “The promise to make Jacob a ‘blessing’ (28:14b) is similar to the promise made to Abraham in 12:3, 18:18, and 22:18 and to Isaac in 26:4. The affinity between these different texts is undeniable despite slight characteristic variations of the Hebrew style.” �� Similarly, emphasis is laid by the nondocumentary school on the distinctions among the promise texts in the simile used to express the great numbers of the patriarchs’ progeny. Gen 13:16 and 28:14 use the expression “like the dust of the earth”; Gen 15:5; 22:17; 26:4; Exod 32:13 use “like the stars of the sky”; and Gen 22:17; 32:13 use “like the sands of the sea.” The manner in which these are grouped varies by scholar: Rendtorff combines the comparisons to dust and sand, as opposed to those to the stars; Blum sees the references to the dust of the earth as forming a group, while

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those to the stars and the sand are considered together.�� The view of these phrases as demarcations of textual layers relies on the notion that they are somehow unique to a particular author—that a given author was restricted to using only one simile for the number of the patriarch’s descendants— rather than being common, even generic, essentially interchangeable expressions of great multitude. An examination of the Hebrew Bible reveals that the use of “dust” to express limitless numbers occurs not only in Gen 13:16 and 28:14, but also in Zech 9:3; Ps 78:27; Job 27:16; 2 Chr 1:9. The comparison to the “sands of the sea” occurs outside of the promise passages in Gen 41:49; Jos 11:4; Judg 7:12; 1 Sam 13:5; 2 Sam 17:11; 1 Kgs 4:20; 5:9; Isa 10:22; 48:19; Jer 15:8; 33:22; Hos 2:10; Hab 1:9; Ps 78:26; 139:18. That to the “stars of the sky” is found in Deut 1:10; 10:22; 28:62; Nah 3:16; Dan 12:3; 1 Chr 27:23, and is also found in Akkadian literature. �� Blum, in assigning the use of the phrase “stars in the sky” in the promise texts to a deuteronomic redactional layer, notes of course the examples from Deuteronomy, but tellingly does not discuss the nondeuteronomic uses thereof.�� It is especially noteworthy that two of these phrases can appear in a single nonpentateuchal source: thus “dust” and “sand” are both found in Psalm 78, while “dust” and “stars” are both found in Chronicles. None of these phrases, it is clear enough, are the creation, or the sole possession, or are even necessarily typical, of a particular literary author, editor, or stratum. They are part of the common stock of Israelite (and non-Israelite) expressions for great numbers, and like all stock expressions, are available for use by any author. They are not a useful indicator of a particular literary stratum, and are certainly not a significant piece of evidence for differentiating layers in the patriarchal promise. �� A third argument against the type of overly detailed lexical analysis advanced by the nondocumentary school is the evidence of the priestly promise texts. The priestly layer in the Pentateuch, at least in the narrative of Genesis and Exodus, is judged by most nondocumentary scholars to be of one piece, and this goes for the promises found therein as well. �� Yet on close inspection, the priestly promise texts display precisely the kind of small verbal differences that have been held up in the nonpriestly promise texts as an indication of multiple layers. There is variation in the wording of God’s promise to make the patriarch fruitful: all the priestly promise texts (Gen 17; 28:3; 35:11; 48:4) contain this notion, and all use the verbs p-r-h, “be fruitful,” and r-b-h, “multiply”; in Gen 17:6, 20, however, we find the added expression m ə’ôd m ə’ôd , “very very.” Following the nondocumentary analysis of the distinctions in formula among the nonpriestly


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references to blessing, this variation ought to be a sign of distinct authorship. Similarly, the phrasing used for God making the patriarch into a great nation differs from passage to passage: in Genesis 17, Abraham is to become g ōy î m, “nations” (17:6); in 28:3 and 48:4 he is to become , “an assembly of peoples”; in 35:11, g ōy ûqəhal g ōy îm . �� This qəhal ‘amm îm seems almost entirely analogous to the aforementioned example of the nonpriestly blessing passages, in which there are two groups with similar wording and one that apparently bridges the distinction between them. Perhaps most striking is the idea in the priestly promise texts that kings will come from Abraham’s descendants, a concept found in Gen 17:6, 16; 35:11, but not at all in the promises of 28:3–4 or 48:3–4. This is precisely the type of data employed by the nondocumentary school in discerning layers in the nonpriestly promise texts, yet here the variations are left to stand.�� The inconsistency in applying these detailed analyses to the promise is evident not only from the substantially different treatment afforded the priestly promise texts, but even within discussions of the nonpriestly passages. Blum revealingly writes of the promise texts outside of Genesis (all of which he assigns to his deuteronomic layer K D): “The promise of land (as an oath) is found, admittedly, to vary linguistically and in terms of content: in particular, in Numbers 11 ’ ad ām āh is mentioned (where otherwise it is hā’āreṣ), and in Deuteronomy 31 the promise refers to Israel (and not the patriarchs). However, corresponding variations can be explained by the process of the formation of the tradition.” �� The most sensible approach to these slight variations in wording among the promise texts is that espoused by Emerton: “There are also differences between some of the promises, and it must be asked whether they tell against the attribution of all of them to the same hand . . . The differences may, however, be explained on the hypothesis that the same writer allowed himself variety in the expression of similar ideas.”�� In a related set of arguments, the nondocumentary school has based its layering of the promise texts on what might be termed a hypercritical approach to the Hebrew language. This essentially amounts to the demand that the Hebrew used in the promise texts be more precise than is typical in biblical usage. Two major examples come readily to hand. The first is that of the oath or swearing language used in some of the promise texts (Gen 22:16–18; 24:7; 26:3b; 50:24; Exod 32:13; 33:1; Num 11:12; 14:16, 23; Deut 31:23; 34:4). The reference to an oath sworn to the patriarch (using some form of the root š -b-‘ ) is considered to be an indication of a particular secondary layer, deriving from a redactor who added the concept of the

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oath to the promise.�� For Blum in particular, this is linked explicitly to the deuteronomic layer, because the oath language is particularly common in the deuteronomic references to the promise. �� In all the promise texts, however, there is only one explicit oath sworn by God, introduced with the standard formula, and it is found in Gen 22:16–18. Every other reference to an oath simply reminds the addressee that God previously swore an oath to the patriarch(s). According to Rendtorff: “The words ‘I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham’ can refer only to 22.16.” �� In the nondocumentary model, then, Gen 22:16–18 and all the subsequent references to the oath are from the same layer.�� The essential issue in this analysis is whether an oath needs to be specifically marked with an oath formula; to put it another way, could the references to a previously given oath to the patriarch refer to anything other than Gen 22:16–18? From a purely technical standpoint, it is clear that a reference to a sworn oath need not refer to a statement formulated in any specific manner. In Deut 29:12 it is implied that God had sworn to the patriarchs ( ka’ aš er niš ba‘ la’ abōteykā, “as he swore to your fathers”) that he would some day establish the Israelites as his chosen people, and be their god—an oath not found anywhere in the text, but which may be a reference to Deut 10:15, in which no explicit oath language is used: “It was to your fathers that Yahweh was drawn in his love for them, so that he chose you, their lineal descendants, from among all peoples.” In Jos 21:42 we read that God fulfilled his oath ( kəkōl ’ aš er-niš ba‘ la’ abōt ām , “just as he had promised to their fathers on oath”) to give the people rest on all sides, potentially a reference to Deut 3:20 (“until Yahweh has granted your kinsmen a haven such as you have”); in Judg 2:15 God is against the Israelites in all that they do ( ka’ aš er niš ba‘ yhwh l āhem , “as Yahweh had sworn to them”), perhaps referring to the curses of Deuteronomy 28; in 1 Sam 20:42 Jonathan reminds David of the oath they have sworn to each other (’ aš er niš ba‘nû, “which we swore”), at best a reference to their (oath-free) dialogue in 20:12–16. In none of these cases is there an explicit prior oath to which the narrative is referring. Rather, what is termed an oath in retrospect was, at the time, no more than a simple statement (when one can even positively be identified). Of special importance is the use of oath language in P, in Exod 6:8; Num 14:30; 32:11. In these passages P refers to God’s oath to the patriarchs to bring them into the land, a clear reference to the priestly promise in Genesis; yet in the priestly promise texts themselves, no technical oath language is ever used. It is thus evident that there is no need for specific


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oath terminology to be employed in order for a statement, particularly one by God, to be considered an oath. �� This conclusion is supported by Isaiah, who recognized Gen 8:21 as a divine oath: “I swore that the waters of Noah would never again pass over the earth” (Isa 54:9), although the text of Genesis says only that God said this to himself. �� In short, the technical language for swearing an oath is simply not a requirement for judging a statement to function as such. The simple verb d-b-r , “speak,” is used to describe the making of a covenant or the act of swearing in biblical usage.�� In Deuteronomy, the phrases ka’ ašer nišba‘ and ka’ ašer dibber are used interchangeably to mean “as he promised/swore.” �� Akkadian usage may also provide support: the words qabû and zakāru, both meaning “to speak,” are also used to mean “promise,” “swear,” and “declare under oath.”�� Given the preponderance of evidence indicating that the description of an oath given does not necessarily have to refer to an explicitly formulated oath earlier in the text, it is diffi cult to support the contention that those promise texts that refer to an oath must (a) be referring only to the oath to Abraham in Gen 22:16–18; and (b) necessarily be from a distinct compositional layer. Rather, it is eminently plausible that a reference to God’s oath to the patriarch could refer to any of the promise texts, with or without an explicit oath formula. Marc Brettler’s statement on Gen 24:7 seems eminently sensible: “Here the verb nš b‘ is used for the first time with the [land promise]. This does not imply that a š bw‘h reinforcing the land grant is alien to all other contexts where it is not stated explicitly or that a š bw‘h is secondary to God’s saying that the land is Abraham’s. Perhaps š bw‘h in this context is a solemn declaration by God and not an oath in the juridical sense.”�� Indeed, if we are to be demanding about the use of language (which is, after all, the hallmark of the nondocumentary approach to the promises), we ought to observe that, other than 24:7 and 26:3b, all of the oath language in the promise passages refers to the oath given to all three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; this indicates that in the mind of the author, at least, the promises given to Isaac and Jacob that do not contain the explicit language of Gen 22:16–18 are equally worthy of being called oaths. If so, then there is no reason at all to discern different layers of promise texts on the basis of oath language. A final point on this topic: every reference to a divine oath to the patriarchs is clearly referring to the promise of land; yet in the sole explicit oath, that in Gen 22:16–18, little (and certainly nothing quotable) is said about assigning the land to the patriarch’s offspring.�� In Gen 24:7, the first reference to a previously

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given oath, the promise referred to is unquestionably that of Gen 12:7, in which no oath language is used. This diffi culty seems insuperable. A second example of hypercritical analysis of the Hebrew in the promise passages is the manner in which Rendtorff approaches the word ûl əzar‘ akā, “and to your offspring.” This word appears in the promises in the phrase “I give it to you and to your offspring”; sometimes this is rendered with the literal word order “to you and to your offspring I give it” (Gen 26:3), and sometimes with the literal order “to you I give it and to your offspring” (Gen 13:15; 28:13). Of the latter cases Rendtorff writes, “That it is a question of an addition here will be readily discernible from the fact that in some cases ‘and to your descendants’ has been inserted only after the verb (28.13; 13.15).” �� Though here Rendtorff is ostensibly describing the formation of the promise only in the abstract sense—that is, he is not proposing that this “addition” can be used to discern actual layers of pentateuchal text—this argument again highlights a problem with the nondocumentary approach: as seen in the previous example of the oath formulation, judgments are made regarding the Hebrew of the promise texts that are not applied, nor are they even applicable, to other biblical texts. In this case, the structure of the Hebrew sentence l əkā ’etnennāh ûl əzar‘ akā, literally “to you I give it and to your offspring,” which Rendtorff sees as a sign of some type of traditional or compositional accretion of concepts, is in fact an entirely unremarkable feature of biblical style. Rendtorff is taking a typical feature of biblical Hebrew and using it to argue for a preliterary development of the promise (problematically, with only the purely literary evidence on which to base his argument), to the exclusion of data from outside the passages he discusses. August Dillmann already provided a partial list of passages in which this type of structure is employed, ranging across the entire biblical corpus. �� One easy example may suffice to demonstrate the case: in Gen 43:18, Joseph’s brothers surmise that their money has been replaced in their bags as a pretext for bringing them back to Egypt and seizing them and their donkeys. They say that Joseph will (following the literal order of the Hebrew) “take us as slaves and our donkeys.” If the placement of a second object after the verb is, as Rendtorff claims, a sign of a later development, then must we consider the possibility that a later hand found it necessary to add the brothers’ donkeys to the text? Should we search for a redactor who was particularly concerned about donkeys? Surely not. As is the case elsewhere, the priestly promise texts provide an important piece of evidence against this type of analysis. The priestly promise texts


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evince the same alternation of wording, but are considered to be from a single hand.�� Note the examples of Gen 17:8 and 35:12: the first reads, “I give to you and to your offspring after you the land in which you sojourn”; the second reads, “To you I give it, and to your offspring after you I give the land.” What is fundamentally at stake here is the question of authorial freedom. To claim that a variation in word order is a sign of diachronic development is to claim that an ancient author was somehow constrained to use the same words, in the same order, whenever he wrote a promise text. Such constraints are not applied to any other biblical authors or texts, nor should they be. Furthermore, by taking the promise texts entirely out of their context, small verbal variations appear far more prominent than they deserve. The question of who the promise addressee is in each of the promise texts is not an abstract issue, to be discussed without any reference to the narrative situation in which the promise text occurs. �� As we will see in the next chapter, the narrative contexts of the promise shape its contents. One of the basic claims of the nondocumentary school is that the nonpriestly patriarchal narratives are tradition-critically and, more importantly, compositionally distinct from the Exodus-wilderness complex.�� In terms of the patriarchal promise, it is obvious that no actual promise is given after the end of Genesis, as the patriarchs, the sole promise recipients, have passed from the story. There are, however, a number of nonpriestly references back to the patriarchal promise, scattered throughout Exodus– Numbers (Exod 32:13; 33:1; Num 11:12; 14:16, 23). �� These references would ostensibly pose a difficulty for the nondocumentary model, as they seem to presume an original connection—on a compositional level—between Genesis and Exodus–Numbers, the very connection that the nondocumentary scholars deny. It is hardly surprising, then, that in the nondocumentary model every one of these post-Genesis references to the nonpriestly patriarchal promise is deemed secondary, part of a late combination of the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness themes: “One can recognize again and again from the different passages throughout the book of Exodus isolated references back to the patriarchal story. There was clearly a layer of reworking which joined the two complexes of tradition together.” �� The first problem with the nondocumentary school’s removal of all the references in Exodus–Numbers to the patriarchal promise is the basis on which they are deemed secondary. Not surprisingly perhaps, virtually the same arguments made by the classical documentary school are repeated by nondocumentary scholars. Thus Ska, for example, in his treatment of the intercessory speeches of Moses in Exod 32:7–14 and Num 14:11b–23a,

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cites both the ease with which these passages can be removed from their contexts and the seemingly deuteronomic language and ideology in these speeches as justification for their secondary status. �� The criticisms of these arguments noted above in relation to the classical model apply equally to the nondocumentary model. Ska also argues that although there are other Mosaic intercessions in the Exodus–Numbers narrative, these two stand out in particular as being “more developed.” This is, however, to read the intercessions in isolation from their contexts. The other nonpriestly episodes in the wilderness that require something like intercession, it should be noted, are essentially complaints: the Israelites feel that they do not have enough to eat (Exodus 16) or drink (Exodus 17), or that Moses is a poor leader (Numbers 16). It is only in the narratives of the golden calf in Exodus 32 and the spies in Numbers 13–14 that the Israelites directly disobey God’s commands, and these happen also to be the two most critical moments in the entirety of the wilderness traditions: the sin following the revelation on the mountain and the failure of will at the intended moment of the conquest of the land. At these moments, if at no others, it is prima facie unsurprising that an author would view the disobedience of the Israelites as requiring a more substantial divine response, and that response, in turn, as demanding a fuller intercession by Moses. To expect in these two instances the same type of divine response and Mosaic intercession as in the narratives of Israelite murmuring would not reflect the basic distinction in importance inherent in these episodes: only when the promise is actually in danger of being broken for good does Moses remind Yahweh of it, and of how bad Yahweh will look and feel if he breaks it. The second problem, as usual, is the evidence of the priestly promise passages outside of Genesis. Just as with the nonpriestly references to the promise, there are only a handful of priestly references to the patriarchal promise in Exodus–Numbers (Exod 2:24; 6:8; Num 14:30)��—even fewer, in fact, than in the nonpriestly narrative. According to the nondocumentary model, the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness traditions are combined in part by the addition of the scattered references in Exodus–Numbers to the nonpriestly patriarchal promise. Thus, on this theory, there is an explanation for why they occur so infrequently—the narratives of the patriarchs and Exodus-wilderness were originally distinct, and the references are mere linkages. P, however, according to one version of the nondocumentary model, did not inherit separate traditions that needed to be linked by means of the promises, but inherited rather the already-combined


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traditions in a single text. �� Thus, for the priestly author, the patriarchs and the Exodus-wilderness were already a single story. Why, then, did P not more consistently reinforce the patriarchal promise in his rendering of the Exodus-wilderness narratives, if it was already an integral part of the story—and especially if, as some nondocumentary scholars argue, the nonpriestly patriarchal promise in Genesis was already before it as the dominant theological motif of the pre-Exodus traditions? Another school of thought among the nondocumentary scholars is that P was in fact the first to combine the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness traditions. �� If, according to this approach, P was trying to bring the two blocks of tradition into a single overarching narrative, then the same question must be put to it: why did P not employ the dominant patriarchal motif as a linking text more often in the Exodus-wilderness material? The natural answer is that the priestly author recognized that the promise of divine activity on behalf of the patriarch was a theme that belonged essentially to the patriarchal stories, and that in the Exodus-wilderness traditions it was not unknown, but rather out of place: beginning with the life of Moses, God no longer needs to promise to take care of the Israelites, for he actually does so, in action, not in words. The events of Exodus–Numbers are the fulfillment of the promise made to the patriarchs; the promise no longer needs to be made or even explicitly referred to, because every divine action on behalf of the Israelites is an implicit reminder of the promise. Tradition-historically, the priestly author had before him patriarchal traditions that contained the notion of the divine promise and Exodus-wilderness traditions that had their own themes (e.g., “the land of milk and honey”). In writing his narratives reflecting these traditions, the priestly author naturally kept the themes where they belonged traditionally, and used the theme from the preceding patriarchal tradition in the narrative of the subsequent Exodus-wilderness tradition only briefly and when appropriate. He had no need to be constantly reminding his audience of earlier themes—they had just heard or read them, and their understanding of the subsequent stories was naturally informed by them. If the priestly author who either knew of or created the combination of the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness traditions could refer to the patriarchs so infrequently after Genesis, then so too could a nonpriestly author. Surely the relative scarcity of postpatriarchal references to the promise in the nonpriestly narrative can hardly be an indication that the two blocks of tradition must have originally been independent.

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A final piece of evidence that speaks against the nondocumentary model for understanding the promise is the variety of results its proponents put forward. Granted, there are innumerable variations in result among the classical documentary scholars as well. They, however, agree on the fundamental aspects of the theory—J, E, D, and P—and disagree, for the most part, only on individual verses and half-verses. Given the centrality of the patriarchal promise to the nondocumentary model, however, it is somewhat more telling that there is little or no agreement either as to which promise texts should be grouped together or as to what redactional layers those groupings represent. Thus, for example, Blum’s earliest redactional layer (Vg�) is founded on the promises of Gen 13:14–17 and 28:13–15, while Ludwig Schmidt thinks that the preexilic layer connecting the Abraham and Jacob traditions was framed by Gen 12:1–3, 7, and 28:13–14; �� Carr, using almost identical arguments, claims for his first layer not only all of the texts cited by Blum and Schmidt but also Gen 16:10; 26:1–3a, 24; 46:3–4. Köckert attributes Gen 12:1–3, 7; 13:14–17; 28:13–14 to an Abraham– Jacob redaction, and Gen 18:18–19; 22:16–18; 26:3–5, 24 to a postdeuteronomic redaction.�� Christoph Levin assigns Gen 12:1–3 to his J (not to be confused with the classical Yahwist by any means), while everything else falls into the rather broadly drawn category of “postredactional additions” (nachendredaktionelle Erg änzungen).��

The Effect of Removing the Promises In both the documentary and the nondocumentary approaches, most if not all of the nonpriestly promise texts are systematically removed from their narrative contexts and considered secondary additions. Because of the divergent claims of each school, however, this removal of the promise has strikingly different effects. For documentary scholarship, the designation of many promise texts as secondary does not affect the underlying division of the text into four sources; it does, however, leave the nonpriestly sources with far fewer explicit theological statements. The bulk of the theology of the sources is therefore shifted from the promise—yet it is unclear where it is imagined to have been relocated. Documentary scholarship’s removal of the promise comes at a heavy theological cost to the underlying sources for which it advocates. Ironically, one of the most serious shortcomings of the nondocumentary model is a direct result of the lacuna in earlier scholarship that it was developed to answer. We have seen above that it is in the nondocumentary school that the notion of the promise as the central theological


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statement of the patriarchal narratives reaches its pinnacle. If classical scholarship recognized this only implicitly, by considering original those passages that stood at the head of their respective sources, the nondocumentary approach brought the promise to the forefront of the process of shaping and interpreting the patriarchal narratives. Yet to give this weight to the patriarchal promise serves largely to highlight the essential lack of theological meaning in the purportedly originally independent patriarchal traditions. Of what importance would the supposed independent story of Abraham and Lot, for example, be for an ancient Israelite without the understanding that their entrance into the new land of Canaan was divinely instructed and that its division and possession stood as an important step in the fulfillment of God’s promise? This is not to deny the possibility that an Abraham–Lot traditional tale, without the promise, may have existed in some form at some point in Israelite history. We are not dealing here, however, with an orally transmitted etiological or cultic tale; the nondocumentary model explicitly defines the Abraham–Lot narrative as a written text, in fact, precisely the written text we may extract from the canonical Pentateuch. The equation of the pentateuchal text with the theoretical local oral tradition is impossible to prove and diffi cult to accept. The text we have is a written one, and we can understand it only through the lens of a culture, or better a segment of a culture, that might produce a written text. Given the nature of literacy in ancient Israel, it seems likely that the written text of the purported Abraham–Lot tradition would have been produced only in a small handful of possible settings, most likely among them the temple or the royal court, that is, the ancient loci of written literature. �� In any scenario, the cultural elements responsible for producing a written document— particularly a literary document, as opposed to the administrative or other types of ephemera that make up the vast majority of epigraphic evidence from ancient Israel—are not the same as those typically understood to be responsible for the oral transmission of local cultic or etiological traditions.�� The interest in preserving and passing on the independent patriarchal traditions does not obviously overlap with the interests of the court or the temple in producing literary works; to put it another way, why would the literate segments of Israelite society simply put into writing, unconnected to any other narrative and entirely without any political or theological framing or direction, a local patriarchal tradition? �� Then again, it is not so easy to imagine that even an oral tradition of Abraham and Lot, the purpose of which would be to establish the Israelite

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possession of the land, would have existed without any concept of the land as promised. It is the modern scholarly sensibility that seeks to understand the past without recourse to any supernatural phenomena; in the ancient world, the deity was at the root of every aspect of life, from the mundane to the grand, from weather to war. The nondocumentary theory posits a pretheological conception of history. Yet there are no parallels in the ancient Near East for such a conception. The involvement of God or the gods in human activity, from the beginning of the world to the present, is a given for everyone from Egypt to Mesopotamia to Ugarit. The assumption of a tradition among the Israelites about their possession of the land that did not integrally involve their national (or even tribal) deity is anachronistic.�� The nondocumentary theory presents a difficulty, then, precisely because it succeeded in drawing attention to the importance of the promise within the patriarchal tradition, thus raising the question of what purpose, in fact, prepromise independent patriarchal narratives—in their written form, presumably as a product of the literate segments of Israelite culture—would have served. In fact, it seems clear that the patriarchal narratives are, at least from the perspective of anyone who would be interested in or capable of preserving them in written form, meaningful only when the promise is an integral part of the story. Both documentary and nondocumentary approaches maintain, to varying degrees, the theological centrality of the promise for the pentateuchal text, even as they recognize that the narrative inconsistencies inherent in the repetitions of the promise are the result of the history of the Pentateuch’s composition. At the same time, they use the variety of literary expression among the promise texts to argue for the removal of some, or even all, of the promise passages from the earliest layers of the text. In this chapter I have tried to show that these and related arguments are flawed. It is not enough, however, to argue against the various scholarly mechanisms for removing the promise texts from their narrative contexts and deeming them secondary. We need not give up on the potential for the literary-historical approach as a means of interpreting the patriarchal promise. What is required at this point is a return to the promise texts themselves and a new effort at situating them in their narrative contexts. It is this task that the next chapter will take up.

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Restoring the Promise �� classical documentary nor the contemporary nondocumentary approaches to the promise, surveyed in the preceding chapter, is methodologically or analytically convincing as it stands, they may provide us with avenues of investigation to help resolve the problem of the patriarchal promise. The first issue is whether, in fact, the promise texts are secondary within their immediate narrative contexts. This question must be approached by asking “how does this promise text work within its context,” rather than “how does this promise text disrupt its context.” If we begin by looking for reasons to remove a passage, we will inevitably find them, as we have seen. If we begin, however, by trying to understand the final form of the text, we may be more likely to discern the connections between a promise text and its context. “The most we can strive for is a reasonable degree of probability, and the method that seems to hold out the best prospects of success is to work backward from the text as we have it rather than forward from its hypothetical origins in ancient traditions in oral or written form.”� The second question pertains to the relationships among the various promise texts. We should ask on the one hand whether a given promise text, even if it belongs in its immediate context, does not contradict or awkwardly reduplicate a preceding promise text when we read canonically. On the other hand we must note any obvious narratological or verbal connections between promise texts that might speak to their belonging to a larger literary whole. For the nondocumentary approach, the precise groupings of promise texts represent an analytical issue: different scholars can claim different groupings of passages without affecting the overall model, as indeed is the case in nondocumentary scholarship. For the documentary approach, however, only one grouping is permissible within the theory: that which conforms to the J and E sources. If the promise texts fall into groups that cross or confound the borders of the sources, the documentary model cannot account for them.

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Our task is therefore to start afresh the examination of the patriarchal promise, without the methodological preconceptions or analytical idiosyncracies of either the documentary or the nondocumentary approaches. We will simply ask whether the promise texts are plausibly original to their immediate contexts, and whether they fall into obvious noncontextual groupings, taking only the standards of biblical narrative as our guide.

The Promise Texts in Their Contexts The Priestly Promise Texts

As we have alread noted, there is virtually no scholarly debate regarding the question of the identification of the priestly promise texts or whether they constituted an original part of the P narrative. Thus it may seem gratuitous even to examine how the priestly promise texts work in their narrative contexts. Yet this is a necessary task, if only to see what kinds of literary connections have been typically deemed acceptable evidence of a single hand. The ways in which the priestly promise texts fit in their contexts may be taken as the standard for how all promise texts fit in their contexts. The priestly promise texts, then, can serve as a baseline for the analysis of the more widely debated nonpriestly promise texts. The first priestly promise text is that of Genesis 17. As Hoftijzer correctly recognized, this chapter is built entirely around the promise; it is a promise text in the truest sense. Yet this does not mean that it is unrelated to the parts of the priestly narrative that stand on either side of it. There are three distinct renderings of the promise in Genesis 17, each introduced by a renewed speech formula, “God said,” and each containing the naming or renaming of the promise recipient: the covenantal promise to Abraham (17:4–8), the promise regarding Sarah (17:15–16), and the promise regarding Ishmael and, more importantly, Isaac (17:19–21). The highlighting of these three distinct parties is integrally related to the larger narrative context of P in which Genesis 17 stands. The episode immediately preceding Genesis 17 in P is Sarah’s giving of Hagar to Abraham and the birth of Ishmael (Gen 16:1, 3, 15–16). Here are present all the main characters, and the driving issues, that come to the fore in Genesis 17. “Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children” (Gen 16:1)—this sentence puts in motion not only the events of Genesis 16, but of Genesis 17 as well. For now, when Abraham receives the extended promise in 17:4–8, according to which God will make him “exceedingly fertile,” such that nations and “kings shall come forth”

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from him, and in which repeated reference is made to Abraham’s offspring, it appears as if the promise will be fulfilled through Ishmael, Abraham’s only son. This perception is corrected by the promise regarding Sarah: “I will bless her, indeed I will give you a son by her” (17:16). This is the undoing of 16:1, and is of course sensible only when the announcement of Sarah’s childlessness has already occurred. The promise that it is through Sarah that the promise will be enacted—“I will bless her so that she shall give rise to nations” (17:16)—throws the status of Ishmael into doubt: once the perceived inheritor of God’s promise, now Hagar’s son stands outside the covenant, in an uncertain position. Thus Abraham’s response, after his disbelieving laughter, is concern for Ishmael: “O that Ishmael might live by your favor!” (17:18). It should be observed that until this point, Ishmael has not been mentioned by name in Genesis 17. Yet he is clearly in the background, until this point, when Abraham makes the interest in Ishmael explicit. Abraham’s request, and the issue of Ishmael’s position raised by the promise to Sarah, is meaningful only if we already know that Ishmael is Abraham’s only son—which we learn from P in Genesis 16. The priestly text that immediately follows Genesis 17 is the announcement of Isaac’s birth and circumcision, in 21:2–5.� Here we have reference to the fulfillment of God’s promise that Sarah would bear a son (21:2), the naming of the child Isaac (21:3), the circumcision of Isaac on the eighth day (21:4), and Abraham being a hundred years old when Isaac is born (21:5). Each one of these elements is directly related to Genesis 17: God’s promise (17:16), Isaac’s name (17:19), the circumcision (17:9–14), and Abraham’s age (17:17). The connections between the two passages are made explicit by the fulfillment formulae: “at the set time of which God had spoken” (21:2) and “as God had commanded him” (21:4). Thus the promise regarding Isaac in 17:19–21 is linked not only to what precedes, the issue of Ishmael’s status, but also to what follows, Isaac’s birth. Indeed, it is only because of the separation of these three passages in the canonical text that we even consider Genesis 17 a separate unit; when the P narrative is read continuously, it is clear that the priestly elements in Genesis 16, 17, and 21 constitute a single story, moving from the birth of Ishmael to the birth of Isaac, with the promise as the necessary central element. The next priestly promise text is Gen 28:3–4, in which Isaac blesses Jacob when sending him off to Paddan-Aram to get married. This blessing—anticipated by the sentence “Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him” in 28:1—is both a wish that Jacob should receive the promise and a reference to the promise previously given to Abraham. These verses are

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syntactically linked to what precedes them by the waw at the beginning of 28:3 and by the fronting of the subject, El Shaddai, setting the actions desired of God in purposeful contrast with those commanded to Jacob in 28:2: “You go to Paddan-Aram . . . As for El Shaddai, may he bless you.” In form, the verses are well suited to their narrative context: as Isaac is sending off his son to a foreign land, the expression of the promise in the form of a parental wish is perfectly appropriate. � The content of the passage is equally appropriate. Isaac is sending off Jacob to get married (28:2); thus the wish that God make Jacob fruitful and numerous, so that he becomes an assembly of peoples (28:3), is very much to the point. The reference to the promise of the land in 28:4 may seem somewhat less relevant, yet again the fact that Jacob is leaving Canaan, the land promised to Abraham’s descendants, renders it meaningful: Isaac’s reference to the promise of land is little else than a wish that his son should return to Canaan. It should also be noted that Isaac wishes for the promise of the land to be given not only to Jacob but also to his offspring— again very much in keeping with the context. Indeed, the issue of the promise as a whole is particularly resonant here, as Jacob is being sent to marry into the right family (his relatives) rather than intermarry with the local Hittite women. Marriage and offspring are not simply standard life events anymore—they are now imbued with far more importance, as the means by which the promise is to be continued in Abraham’s line from generation to generation. Finally, just as the sentence “Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him” in 28:1 integrates the promise that follows, so the clause “Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob” in 28:6 firmly anchors the promise in its narrative context on the other side. The promise that Isaac wishes for Jacob in Gen 28:3–4 is realized, nearly word for word, in 35:11–12. It is important to recognize that the narrative context of 35:11–12 is intimately related to that of 28:3–4. In the earlier passage, Isaac sends Jacob out of Canaan to get married; in the latter, Jacob has just returned from that very journey: “God appeared to Jacob on his arrival from Paddan-Aram and he blessed him” (35:9). � There is little narrative in P between the two promise texts—little more than the description of Jacob fulfilling his father’s instructions by having children, becoming wealthy, and leaving again “to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan” (31:18). � The promise of Gen 35:11–12, then, serves along with 28:3–4 to bracket Jacob’s sojourn in Paddan-Aram. The promise itself is preceded by the change of Jacob’s name to Israel in 35:10; this is distinct from the promise proper, but is crucial to it


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nonetheless. Israel, of course, is not only Jacob’s name but is the name of the nation that will descend from him in the generations to come. This broader meaning comes into play in the first half of the promise, in 35:11: “Be fertile and increase; a nation, an assembly of nations, shall descend from you.” The phrase “be fertile and increase” refers not to Jacob’s immediate descendants, his twelve sons, but rather to future generations—to the expansion from the single family of Abraham to the people Israel.� Of special note is the phrase “a nation, an assembly of nations.” The plural term here, “an assembly of nations,” is typical for the priestly promises (with some variations): Gen 17:4, 5, 6, 16; 28:3. The singular “a nation,” however, stands out—and should be read as responding to the new identification of Jacob as that very nation: Israel. The second half of the promise in 35:12, which deals with the land, is equally appropriate to its context, as Jacob has just returned to Canaan from abroad; he has just set foot once more on the promised ground. The final priestly promise text in Genesis is that of Gen 48:3–4, part of Jacob’s deathbed speech to Joseph (and eventually to his brothers as well, in the continuation of this passage in 49:1a, 29–32). Here Jacob recalls the promise of 35:11–12, but the context in which he does so is important. The main new information imparted to Joseph in Jacob’s speech is in 48:5–6, in which Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own. This adoption reflects the common Israelite tradition that Ephraim and Manasseh were among the twelve tribes; in fact, that they were two of the most prominent in terms of land and power. The adoption of Joseph’s sons, then, looks forward, long past their own generation, to the Israelite nation as it would be established in the promised land. The promise referred to in 48:3–4 thus plays a vital part in establishing the import of the adoption in 48:5–6: it is only because God had promised Jacob he would be fertile and numerous and possess the land that the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh is meaningful. That there is a direct relationship between the promise and the adoption is explicitly marked by the conjunction at the beginning of 48:5: w ə‘ att āh, “now.” This particle serves in Hebrew to mark the shift from a general statement to a specific intended action that follows logically from the general statement. It serves that purpose here beautifully: God promised me progeny and land; w ə‘ att āh, therefore, I am adopting your sons. Without the reference to the promise in 48:3–4, the adoption in 48:5–6 comes suddenly and without explanation or meaning. In Exod 2:23a –25 we find P’s description of the Israelites crying to God because of their enslavement in Egypt and God’s recognition of

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their perilous situation. In 2:24, God’s recognition is explicitly connected with the promise to the patriarchs: “God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” In its narrative context, this reference is perfectly appropriate: the concept of God “remembering” occurs repeatedly in P in moments of potential danger—in the flood narrative (Gen 8:1) and at the destruction of the cities of the plain (Gen 19:29), for example. The verse is, furthermore, structurally integrated with those on either side of it. All three verses in 2:23a –25 have a two-part construction: “The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out / their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God” (2:23a b); “God heard their moaning / God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob” (2:24); “God looked upon the Israelites / God took notice of them” (2:25). The first segment of the first verse describes the physical act of the Israelites, their cry; this physicalization is picked up in the first halves of the other verses: “God heard” and “God looked.” These segments are descriptive of acts; the second segment in each verse describes the result of those acts. In 2:23b, the cry of the Israelites reaches God; in 2:24, God’s hearing the cry leads to him remembering the covenant; in 2:25, God looking upon the Israelites leads to him taking notice of them. Thus the reference to the covenant with the patriarchs in 2:24 is part of a well-designed structure. The more significant reference to the promise occurs in Exod 6:3–5, 8, as part of the priestly call of Moses. This call begins in 6:2 with an introduction: “I am Yahweh.” The assumption of this passage is that Moses, living four hundred years after the patriarchs, does not know the history of his ancestors or the promise made to them. (Indeed, it is on the basis of this assumption that, in 2:23a, the Israelites do not cry out specifically to God—they are merely groaning under their labor, as they do not know Yahweh.) Since Moses knows little or nothing about Yahweh or Yahweh’s relationship with the ancestors, it is eminently sensible that this information should be transmitted to him at this point, and that is precisely what happens: Yahweh explains that the patriarchs knew him as El Shaddai (6:3), and that he had made a covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan (6:4). This information is all necessary for Moses to understand what is happening now: Yahweh has heard the moaning of the Israelites, and has remembered the covenant from long ago (6:5). This last verse is, of course, no more than a recapitulation of what we learned in 2:24, complete with the repetition of the rare word na’ aqāh, “moaning.” In Exod 6:6–7, Yahweh instructs Moses to tell the people of their imminent rescue from Egypt; this is followed, in 6:8, by Yahweh’s statement,


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“I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession.” Again, the reference to the promise serves a necessary literary function here: the people need to know not only that they are being taken out of Egypt, but also where they are going. Freedom from enslavement is only half of the picture; there must be a place in which they can settle in peace. It will be noted that in both 6:4 and 6:8 reference is made only to the land, not to progeny; in comparison with the priestly promise texts from Genesis, this is a new feature. Yet it is one that is sensitive to its context. There is no need to mention the progeny aspect of the promise, as it has long since been fulfilled: “The Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them” (Exod 1:7; see also Gen 47:27). What is at stake in the Exodus is not the growth of the patriarchs into a nation, but rather that nation’s possession of the land. The final priestly reference to the promise comes in Num 14:30, in the midst of the episode of the spies. Yahweh announces that the generation of the Exodus will die in the wilderness: “not one shall enter the land in which I swore to settle you.” In the priestly account (as in the nonpriestly), Yahweh’s original intention was for the Israelites to go directly from the revelation on the mountain to Canaan; this plan, however, is disrupted by the Israelites’ reticence to enter the land after the spies return with their report. There is thus no more suitable moment for the promise of the land to be recalled, especially in a negative context as in Num 14:30. The people are thereby reminded that the land was promised to them, and simultaneously that they have forsaken it. That the priestly promise texts are original to the P narrative has never been in doubt. What we have examined here is the ways in which the promise texts are integrated into that narrative context. With the exception of Genesis 17, as Hoftijzer correctly observed, the priestly promise texts are all attached to a distinct tradition: the sending of Jacob to PaddanAram; the renaming of Jacob; the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh; the cry of the Israelites; the call of Moses; the episode of the spies. Yet there is no doubt that, literarily, these passages constitute an essential part of their narrative contexts. They are integrated lexically, syntactically, structurally, and thematically—though every text does not necessarily work in all these ways equally. Thus we can assert a standard against which to measure the nonpriestly promise texts: if the nonpriestly passages are integrated into their contexts in the same way that the priestly promise texts are, then the same conclusions regarding their originality should be reached.

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The Nonpriestly Promise Texts

The first nonpriestly promise text is Gen 12:1–3. As many have recognized, the promise that Yahweh will make Abraham into a “great nation” (12:2) creates a dramatic tension with the immediately preceding nonpriestly text in Gen 11:30, in which we have learned that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is barren. � This tension gives both depth to Yahweh’s promise, demonstrating that Yahweh’s power is not restricted by the whims of nature, and meaning to the notice of Sarah’s barrenness, as without the promise that her unfortunate state will be overcome there is no need to mention it at all. Gen 12:1–3 are further necessary for what follows, as is evident from the continuation of the narrative in 12:4a, 6. � In 12:4a, we are told that Abraham went, wayy ē lek ’abr ām . Without Yahweh’s instructions in 12:1–3—“go from your land . . . to the land that I will show you,” lek-l əkā m ē’ ar ṣə kā . . . ’el-hā’āre ṣ ’ a š er ’ar’ekkā —we do not know where Abraham is going, nor where he is going from, nor why. The words “as Yahweh had commanded him,” ka’ a š er dibber ’el āyw yhwh, are obviously sensible only in the context of the foregoing speech.� In 12:6, “the land,” hā’āre ṣ, is mentioned, and we know which land is referred to only from the promise speech (the land that Yahweh would show Abraham, 12:1). The promise of the land, however, does not come until 12:7. This separation of promise elements is not a form-critical issue, as Westermann and others would have it �� —this is not a different “type” of promise, nor has it been added at a distance from the others in order to keep it separate from them in any theological or conceptual manner—but it is rather a direct result of the logic of the narrative, according to which Yahweh simply could not have promised Abraham the land when Abraham was still living outside of it. First, Abraham would not have known which land Yahweh was referring to. Indeed, Gen 12:7 may function as the aforementioned indication that Abraham had actually reached the land he was supposed to travel to.�� Second, every promise of land to a patriarch is made in the land itself, such that God can say, “I give this land”—with the demonstrative adjective—“to you / your descendants.” Promise of the possession of an unseen, unknown land is foreign to the patriarchal narratives (as we saw, this was the case in P as well: Jacob receives the promise only when he has returned from Paddan-Aram in Gen 35:11–12). The promise is of the land in which they are dwelling, over which they are traveling, or on which they are sleeping. Thus it is that Yahweh does not promise


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Abraham the land while Abraham is still in his father’s house; Abraham must first get to the land, and only then can he be promised it. That the promise of 12:7 is completely integrated into its context is also not in doubt. In 12:6, Abraham comes to Shechem. Our verse begins with the notice that “Yahweh appeared to Abraham,” wayy ēr ā ’ yhwh ’el-’abr ām , upon which Yahweh promises Abraham the land, and concludes with Abraham building an altar “there”—which can refer only to Shechem from the preceding verse—“to Yahweh who had appeared to him,” layhwh hannir’eh ’ēl āyw . The following verse is dependent upon 12:7, beginning as it does with the deictic pronoun, “he proceeded from there,” wayya‘t ē q miššām . In addition, the geographical order is correct, as Abraham would have gone through Shechem before coming to Bethel, if we assume that he traveled from the north. The same order of travel is found in the nonpriestly narrative of Jacob’s return from Abraham’s ancestral land: he first comes to Shechem (Gen 33:18), and then proceeds to Bethel (Gen 35:1).�� The lengthy promise text of Gen 13:14–17 is focused on the divine grant of the land of Canaan to Abraham. The scope of the promised land is made very clear by Yahweh’s instructions, to look in all directions (13:14) and to walk the land’s length and breadth (13:17), which frame the promise. In its emphasis on the expanse of the land this promise text is completely attuned to its context. Here, after the separation of Lot from Abraham (explicitly noted in the body of the promise text in 13:14), is the first time that Abraham is made aware of precisely which lands are to belong to him and his descendants alone: the land of Canaan (13:12). It is fitting, then, that here, at the first moment that Abraham stands alone on the land that is to be his, the promise text should be exceptionally expansive in its description of the land. We may further observe that without this passage it would appear as if Abraham’s territory came to be his by chance, on the whim of Lot’s decision to dwell in the Jordan plain (13:10–11a). Yahweh’s statement in 13:14–17 makes clear that the divine hand was at work in the otherwise ostensibly random selection of territory. There is thus no compelling reason to remove this promise text on purely narratological grounds; it is, in fact, a very fine moment of reflection on the new order after Abraham has set out on his own. �� The next set of promise texts are found in Gen 15:5 and 18–21. This chapter is one of the two “promise narratives” identified by Hoftijzer; that is, the narrative of the chapter is designed specifically to deliver the promise contained therein, and could have had no existence apart from the promise. Further, the chapter is, as recognized by most scholars today,

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likely a unity, regardless of to whom its authorship is attributed.�� If these two ideas are accepted, then we need not even ask whether the promises of 15:5 and 18–21 are secondary to their context. It is noteworthy that this covenant of 15:18–21 refers only to the land being given to Abraham’s descendants, not to Abraham himself. Though the question of who the recipient of the land is in the promise texts— the patriarch, the patriarchs’ descendants, or both—has been taken as a form-critical issue, particularly by Rendtorff, �� I think we are better served by looking to the narrative context of the promise in order to understand why an author may have chosen to formulate it in a particular way, given the three choices apparently available. Here in Gen 15:18, the land is promised to Abraham’s descendants rather than to Abraham not because of the stage of development of the promise formula in the history of the tradition but for simple narratological reasons: God has just informed Abraham that his descendants will dwell in a foreign land for four generations (15:13, 16), and it would be almost contradictory to follow that with the promise of the land to the patriarch alone—Abraham would know that the grant was essentially temporary. The promise of the land is meaningful only if the land is promised to Abraham’s descendants, that is, those who are to return from their lengthy sojourn abroad. This understanding of the choice of Abraham’s descendants in 15:18 is thrown into relief by the recognition that before God revealed the future to Abraham, the promise was indeed addressed to Abraham alone: “I am Yahweh who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession” (15:7). God first establishes the personal relationship with Abraham, pledging him both offspring (15:5) and land (15:7); these elements are combined and extended into the future (once that future has been revealed) in 15:18–21. In Gen 16:8–11 the angel of Yahweh appears to Hagar and delivers a series of pronouncements, including, in 16:10, the promise to increase her offspring, using terminology similar to that of the patriarchal promise proper: “I shall greatly increase your offspring, and they will be too many to count.” Gen 16:10 has long been seen as a later addition to the text, not so much because of its content, but because of its form. The idea that Ishmael’s descendants will be numerous is not problematic from the standpoint of the patriarchal narratives as a whole, since every relative of a patriarch, whether the recipient of the promise or not, whether portrayed in generally positive terms or not, becomes a nation: Lot becomes the Ammonites and Moabites, Ishmael the Ishmaelites, Esau the Edomites.


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The tradition that those outside the promise lineage also flourished is probably no more than the working out of the interface of, on the one hand, the common tradition that Israel’s neighbors are related to it via the patriarchs and, on the other, the realia that these peoples were all significant nations in their own right. The natural consequence of this interface is that the relatives of the patriarchs must have been blessed with fruitfulness also, though they were not part of the covenantal promise line. �� Scholars have been bothered, however, by the repetition of the formal speech introductions in 16:9, 10, and 11, each of which begins with the identical “the messenger of Yahweh said to her . . . ”�� Though this type of repetition is admittedly uncommon in successive verses, the basic phenomenon at work here is well known: when, in the midst of a single speech, the speaker changes topic, the transition is frequently marked by a repeated wayy ō’ mer , “he said.” �� In these three verses, the messenger of Yahweh touches on three distinct topics: in 16:9, he instructs Hagar to return to Sarah; in 16:10, he tells her that she will have many descendants; in 16:11, he announces that she is pregnant and will bear Ishmael. This same type of repetition is found in the very next chapter, Genesis 17, a unified P narrative: in 17:3–8, God changes Abraham’s name and gives him the standard patriarchal promise; in 17:9–14, he institutes the covenant of circumcision; in 17:15–16, he changes Sarah’s name and gives her a variant of the promise. Each of these topics is introduced with a new wayy ō’ mer , and none marks a redactional insertion or secondary element of any kind.�� Furthermore, the perceived diffi culty in the biblical style here should not lead to the conclusion that it is the result of a secondary addition: why, after all, should a redactor have created a stylistic diffi culty by adding the introductory clause, rather than simply appending his addition directly to the preceding speech?�� It is notable that those scholars who attribute this verse to a secondary hand on the basis of formal criteria are generally unable to provide any underlying rationale for why the verse should have been inserted in the first place, which, as I have suggested above, should be a precondition for deeming a verse secondary. Noth, in calling this verse secondary, admits as much when he describes it as an “expansion of quite general character.”�� Since the content of the verse is comprehensible in its context, and the form, though uncommon, stands firmly in line with typical biblical style, there is no compelling reason to view Gen 16:10 as secondary. The next major reference to the patriarchal promise is in Gen 18:18: “since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the

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nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him.” This verse cannot be removed from the context of the verses immediately before and after it: it is a parenthetical and explanatory remark, syntactically linked with 18:17 by means of the disjunctive phrasing, with the subject fronted (w ə’ abr āhām hāy ô yihyeh), and 18:19 is a subordinate clause dependent on it. It has been argued that 18:19 was a later expansion of 18:17–18. �� This argument, however, is based on the perception that there are two rationales given for Yahweh’s decision to inform Abraham of his decision to destroy Sodom: one in 18:18 (because Abraham is going to be a great nation) and one in 18:19 (because Abraham is going to instruct his descendants in the ways of Yahweh). In fact, however, 18:18 by itself makes little sense as a rationale for consulting with Abraham; the increase of Abraham’s descendants and his stature among the nations are unrelated to Yahweh’s present action. It is only when the increase of Abraham’s descendants is linked with the notion that Abraham is to instruct them in the ways of Yahweh—and that in so doing, presumably, Abraham acts as a model for the non-Israelite nations—that the decision to consult with him about this fundamentally ethically and morally problematic act of destruction is understandable. �� If Moshe Weinfeld is correct that the key phrase in 18:19, ṣəd āqāh ûmiš pāt ̣, “righteousness and justice,” connotes specifically social justice, then the reference to Abraham’s status as a model takes on even greater significance as a counterexample to the distinct lack of social justice exhibited by the inhabitants of Sodom in 19:4–11. �� Gen 18:17–19, in turn, in which Yahweh indicates and explains his resolve to inform Abraham of his intentions regarding Sodom, is a necessary introduction to the dialogue between Yahweh and Abraham in 18:20–32. From his first words in 18:23, “Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?,” Abraham clearly perceives Yahweh’s intentions, which indicates that he had, in fact, been informed of them. Without 18:17–19, there is no reason to think that this would have happened. It has been suggested, however, that both 18:17–19 and the dialogue of 18:22b– 33a are secondary insertions.�� This would leave 18:20–22a as the continuation of 18:16, and would require us to understand that when it says in 18:22a that “the men went toward Sodom” Yahweh is included in their number. The change from Yahweh as the stated subject of 18:20–21 to “the men” in 18:22a, however, if they are in fact to be understood as identical, is jarring, even in the context of a narrative in which the figures are somewhat confused.�� The diffi culty is alleviated, however, by the beginning of the supposed insertion in 18:22b, especially when we take into


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account the “tiqqun sopherim ” here and read it as “but Yahweh remained standing before Abraham.” In fact, the desire to remove 18:17–19, as well as 22b–32a, stems less from any textual difficulties caused by these verses than from the perception among some scholars that the concepts broached here are of a conceptually higher level than one would expect from the original biblical author: they are “didactic,”�� or “moralizing.”�� This type of argumentation is subjective at best, and at worst condescending. When we read the text without preconceptions about the manner in which the ancient author “should” have written, there is no reason to consider 18:17–19 to be secondary. �� In Gen 21:13, 18, we again find the promise of offspring for Hagar. In terms of content, then, we have the same situation as in 16:10: the basic notion that Hagar’s offspring should become a nation is unsurprising and consistent with the rest of the biblical narrative. Even more so than 16:10, however, 21:13, 18 are an integral part of the narrative in which they are found. The basic theme of this narrative is that Sarah wants Hagar expelled from the house, and Abraham is worried for the fate of his first-born son. God’s statement to Abraham that he should obey Sarah because Isaac is his covenantal heir (21:12) is therefore incomplete without the subsequent promise that Ishmael too will be taken care of (21:13). When God speaks directly to Hagar in the wilderness in 21:18, he repeats this promise virtually word for word;�� if 21:13 is recognized as a necessary part of the story, 21:18 is only fitting as its complement. Without the formal difficulties of the parallel in 16:10, with its repeated speech introduction, classical scholars had no difficulties recognizing that 21:13, 18 belonged squarely in their narrative context, and so none marked these verses as secondary. For nondocumentary scholars, however, despite the clear integration of these verses into the story, they have to be redactional additions, because it is unthinkable that Hagar should have originally been seen as the recipient of a promise while the patriarchs were not (since the patriarchal promises were all secondary).�� In addition, we again find that the attempt to apply a form-critical argument regarding the independence of the promises of land and offspring, such as that by Rendtorff,�� neglects the obvious narratological necessities here: Hagar and Ishmael are not, according to any biblical conception, the recipients of the covenantal promise of land—after all, Ishmael is portrayed throughout the Bible as a nomadic people ��—but they are granted the increase of offspring because they belong to Abraham’s family, and this, not any form-critical reason, is why that promise element alone is found in the text here.

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We come now to perhaps one of the most widely recognized additions in the entire Pentateuch: Gen 22:15–18. �� For the most part, scholars have keyed in on the style and substance of these verses, especially insofar as they relate to the other promise texts, as the main evidence for their secondary status. We will deal with these various arguments below. Common to almost every analysis of this passage, however, is the argument that the introduction of the angel’s speech in 22:15—“the messenger of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from heaven”—is, to put it mildly, awkward. We have already seen that the repetition of the speech introduction wayy ō’ mer and the subject of the verb in itself, as in Gen 16:10, does not present a textual difficulty, but that is not what we find here. Rather, here we find an expansion of the preceding formula (in 22:11), with the added element šē nî t, “a second time.” Unlike the phenomenon in 16:10, this has no clear parallels in the biblical corpus. A further important consideration is the etiology that precedes the passage, in 22:14. From a general perspective, etiologies tend to be found at the end of narratives; �� if 22:15–18 is removed, then the story would have Abraham providing the etiological naming of the place (which can be done only while he is there), then returning to Beersheba: in other words, a typical narrative conclusion. In this specific case, the placement of the etiology in relation to the following speech is odd; since Abraham names the place on the basis of the appearance of the divine messenger, one would expect him to do so after the messenger had finished speaking, just before Abraham leaves; as it stands, however, the place is named for the divine revelation before the revelation has been concluded. Thus in this case, as distinct from the ones considered above, the formal markers, which are unique to this text, provide a strong indication that the verses are secondary; as we will see below, this conclusion is born out by analysis of the content and style of the passage. In Gen 24:7, Abraham informs his servant of the promise that Yahweh had previously given him, as a way of guaranteeing that the servant’s mission will be successful: “Yahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, who promised me on oath, ‘I will assign this land to your offspring,’ he will send his angel before you.” Abraham’s statement is narratively necessary as a response to his servant’s question as to what should happen if the woman does not want to go with him: he says that just as Yahweh helped him, so Yahweh will help the servant (which is, of course, how the story turns out). �� The verse is linked lexically and thematically with 24:4, which also mentions “the land of my birth,” and with 24:27, which refers to Yahweh’s guidance


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of Abraham’s servant. Indeed, all of the servant’s references to Yahweh’s help in his errand (24:12–13, 40, 42–44, 48) have 24:7 in mind. Beyond these obvious narrative connections, however, the syntax and substance of the next verse demand that 24:7 be original. Gen 24:8 begins with an adversative clause, w ə’ im-l ō’ , “but if not,” which is directly subordinate to and sensible only in the context of Abraham’s statement in 24:7. A quick survey of Genesis shows that when a clause begins with the negative w ə’ im-l ō’ it is almost always preceded by the positive alternative, in this case represented by 24:7.�� Furthermore, w ə’ im-l ō’ is something of a Leitwort in this chapter, appearing in 24:8, 21, 41, and 49. Given the close connection between 24:7 and 8, and given the use of this phrase throughout the chapter, it seems not only unnecessary but in fact problematic to remove 24:7 as an addition. The specific promise element related in Abraham’s speech is also entirely appropriate to its context: Abraham recalls here only the promise of offspring, because Abraham’s concern is, at this point, entirely for the continuation of his family line through Isaac’s marriage. To see this verse as a form-critical unit over against more complex promises is to ignore entirely the narrative setting. The divine promise of land and offspring to Isaac in Gen 26:3b–5 has been attributed to a redactor both on the basis of the perceived deuteronomic style (discussed in the previous chapter)�� and on the verbal affinities with other promise texts, particularly Gen 22:15–18 (to be discussed below).�� Virtually all commentators who claim that these verses are secondary do so, therefore, on the basis of the style of the passage, rather than on its feasibility within its narrative context. And indeed, from the contextual point of view they could hardly make the claim that they are secondary. Because 26:3b begins with a subordinate clause ( kî ), it seems fairly well linked to the immediately preceding text. Beyond the formal syntactic subordination, however, the explicit promise of 26:3b–5 is also sensible given the immediately preceding word, wa’ abārkekkā, “I will bless you.” In the context of the narrative, it is unclear precisely what this blessing comprises; this is the first time Yahweh has appeared to Isaac, and the patriarch does not necessarily know the details of Yahweh’s plan for him and his offspring. The details of 26:3b–5 provide this information for Isaac. This is typical of blessings elsewhere in Genesis, in both P and non-P: the pronouncement of blessing is given first, and the particulars of what that blessing entails follow.�� Precisely because 26:3b–5 seems to be closely related to what precedes it, some scholars have argued that the insertion begins in fact in 26:2. ��

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Again, most of the arguments for this expanded addition revolve around the style of the passage rather than whether it is disruptive of its context. There is, however, admittedly one interpretive difficulty that is ostensibly resolved by viewing 26:2–5 as an insertion. In 26:1, Isaac, in the face of the famine, goes “to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar.” And in 26:6, after the divine speech, Isaac indeed dwells in Gerar. Why, then, does Yahweh in 26:2 tell Isaac not to go to Egypt? As far as 26:1 indicates, Isaac never intended to go to Egypt; Gerar seems to have been his final destination all along. �� This diffi culty, however, is not really resolved by attributing 26:2–6 to a secondary hand; the question remains: why would anyone, redactor or author, have Yahweh tell Isaac not to go to Egypt, when he apparently had no intention of doing so?�� A possible answer is that in the mind of the Israelite audience, Egypt would have been the expected destination for an Israelite during a time of famine (cf. Gen 12:10, 42:1). Traditionally and perhaps historically, Egypt seems to have been a land of refuge for Israelites who found themselves in potential diffi culty in Canaan: famine in the patriarchal stories, but also political problems in the cases of Jeroboam (1 Kgs 11:40) and the remnant of Judah (Jer 43:4–7). Thus Isaac’s move to Gerar would have been seen as anomalous, or perhaps as a stage on the way to Egypt, despite the counterindications in the text. It is also possible that Yahweh does not know Isaac’s intentions to sojourn in Gerar; Yahweh speaks to Isaac not while the patriarch is in Gerar—since he does not reach Gerar until 26:6, when he is said to dwell there—but when he departs from his home. �� Regardless of how one resolves the question, however, there is no reason to attribute the creation of this issue to a redactor rather than to an author. In fact, 26:2–5 is well integrated into its present context, despite the aforementioned interpretive issue. In 26:3b and again in 26:4, Yahweh tells Jacob that he is assigning “all of these lands,” kol-hā’ ar āṣōt hā’ē l, to Jacob and his offspring. Among all of the promise texts, this use of the plural, “lands,” is unique to this passage. �� Yet it is understandable when read in precisely this context, and only in this context. Three times in 26:1–3 the word “land,” ’ereṣ, is used: in 26:1 to refer to Isaac’s homeland (“there was a famine in the land”), that is, Beer-lahai-roi (25:11b); in 26:2 to refer to the land in which Yahweh wants Isaac to dwell permanently (“dwell in the land that I will point out to you”), that is, Beersheba (26:3); and in 26:3 to refer to the land in which Isaac is to sojourn temporarily (“sojourn in this land, and I will be with you”), that is, Gerar. �� What is crucial here is that, unlike Abraham and Jacob, who spend time in the


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foreign lands of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Aram, Isaac sojourns in a land, Gerar, that will eventually become part of the Israelite territory.�� Thus the promise of “all these lands” in 26:3–4 is explained: Yahweh is informing Isaac that the place he is coming from, the place where he will permanently dwell, and even the place where he will temporarily sojourn are all one day to belong to his descendants. �� Later in this chapter, in 26:24, we find a second divine promise to Isaac, with many of the characteristics of 26:3b–5 (the statements that Yahweh will be with Isaac, that he will bless him, that he will increase his offspring, and that all of these things are related to the obedience of Isaac’s father, Abraham). How one views the first promise, therefore, will significantly impact how one views 26:24. �� Suffice it to say that, even more than 26:(2)3b–5, there is no indication on formal grounds that this verse is a secondary insertion in its context. For most documentary scholars, Gen 28:10–22 was considered a composite text, with both J and E elements, and the promise of 28:13–15 was taken to be an original part of the J narrative.�� Kuenen, unable to discern two distinct strands, attributed the bulk of the narrative to E, which left the promise, which looked Yahwistic to him, without any context, and he therefore saw it as an addition.�� As with many of the promise texts, it has been the content of the passage, particularly its similarities to other promise passages, that has led to it being deemed secondary, rather than how it fits into its context. The presence of the divine messengers in 28:12 makes Yahweh’s appearance in 28:13 unsurprising, and Jacob’s announcement in 28:16 that “surely Yahweh is in this place” certainly suggests strongly that he has actually witnessed Yahweh, rather than just God’s messengers (to whom he seems to be reacting in 28:17). If we read 28:10–22 without reference to any other text, and without any presuppositions about how the Pentateuch was composed, there is virtually no indication that the promise of 28:13–15 should not be original. When we examine the content of the promise, it is clear that it is well integrated into the larger narrative context. This promise is given while Jacob is on the road to Haran, fleeing from the wrath of Esau (27:41–45; 28:10). The reference in 28:13 to “the ground on which you are lying” reflects the travel Jacob is undertaking; he is not at home anymore, which would be “the place where you are dwelling.” Rather, he is wherever he happens to have stopped to rest. Nevertheless, Yahweh tells him, this land too will belong to Jacob and his offspring—which comes as a surprise to Jacob, as he announces in 28:16: “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did

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not know it!” The reason for Jacob’s journey, his fear of Esau, and moreover his reasonable worry that he may never be able to return to Canaan, are at the root of Yahweh’s words in 28:15: “I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land.” Also implicit here is Jacob’s fear of being in a foreign land, potentially unprotected by the god of his fathers. The promise text, then, is specifically tailored to the situation.�� Jacob refers to the promise of offspring in Gen 32:13, part of his larger speech of 32:10–13: “Yet you have said, ‘I will deal bountifully with you and make your offspring as the sands of the sea, which are too numerous to count.”�� The prayer as a whole has been attributed to a secondary hand, but only because it seems stylistically similar to other promise texts that have been deemed secondary. �� Viewed purely within its narrative context, however, Jacob’s speech is eminently sensible: he is afraid of his coming encounter with Esau (32:8), and having taken the necessary precautions as far as he is able, he prays for divine assistance. Within the prayer are not only direct references to the events of the surrounding narrative, but verbal connections as well, in the use of maḥanôt , “camps” (32:11; see 32:8–9) and y ār ē’ , “fearer” (32:12; see 32:8), which is a particularly nice play on Jacob’s fear of meeting Esau over against his fear of (that is, devotion to) Yahweh. Though these connections could in theory be attributed to the work of a particularly careful redactor, this type of literary craftsmanship, with the thematic connections it creates, is more readily attributable to a single author. As for the reference to the promise itself, in 32:13, this too fits entirely within the context of the narrative and the prayer as a whole. Jacob is afraid for two things: his life and that of his family, as he expresses in both his actions of 32:4–8 and his words of 32:9–11; these are precisely the two elements of the promise he refers to in 32:13. No reference to the promise of land or any mention of blessing is present here, for none would be appropriate given Jacob’s situation: he and the promise text are focused on survival. �� In Gen 46:3, the last of the direct nonpriestly patriarchal promise texts, God promises Jacob that he will make him into a great nation in Egypt: “Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation.” Because this promise so directly relates to its context—Jacob’s travel to meet Joseph in Egypt—most classical documentary scholars saw no reason to dispute its originality. �� For the nondocumentary school, this passage (frequently expanded to 46:1b–4), which clearly links the patriarchs and the Exodus, is automatically secondary. �� The divine speech to Jacob


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here is, however, readily understandable as an original part of the story. Not only is it perfectly reasonable for Jacob, a very old man by this time, to be afraid of the travel to Egypt, he also has every right to wonder whether if, by leaving Canaan, he is somehow forefeiting his divine favor; God’s words of 46:3 directly address these worries. On a more technical level, however, the potential transition from 46:1a to 46:5 is a difficult one: “Israel set out with all that he had and came to Beersheba . . . and Jacob left Beersheba.” In a priestly itinerary this would perhaps not be unexpected, but in a nonpriestly narrative context it is thoroughly odd: why even note that Jacob stopped at Beersheba if nothing at all happened there? Further, the use of the verb wayy āqom , “he arose,” in 46:5 may also indicate that something happened to Jacob in Beersheba. When this verb is used elsewhere in Genesis in the context of someone traveling from a place that is not their permanent residence, it always follows an event of some significance.�� The final promise passage in Genesis is Gen 50:24, in which Joseph tells his brothers that they (or their descendants) will be brought up from Egypt to the land that God promised to the three patriarchs. The classical critics found nothing objectionable in this verse, and none considered it secondary. As with 46:3, however, for the nondocumentary school this explicit connection of the patriarchal and Exodus traditions is an a priori sign of redaction, and a particularly late one at that. �� Yet there are intricate connections between this verse and those surrounding it. It is clear that 50:24 and 25 must belong together, as Joseph’s statement in 50:24 that God will take the Israelites out of Egypt becomes the basis for the brothers’ oath in 50:25 that Joseph’s bones will be carried out of Egypt at that time. �� Joseph’s announcement that he is about to die follows logically on the heels of the narrator’s notice that Joseph lived to see the third generation of his offspring in 50:23; the length of Joseph’s life is naturally mentioned only at the moment of his imminent death. Similarly, Joseph’s death in 50:26 follows logically from his statement in 50:24, “I am about to die,” while the embalming of Joseph’s body in 50:26 is a necessary step in the fulfillment of his brothers’ oath to bring his body out of Egypt in the future.�� In the broader context of the Joseph story, the reference to the promise plays an important role: when Joseph dies, the protection offered to his family by virtue of his position in Pharaoh’s court will be removed (as indeed it is); the safety of the Israelites thereby rests once again squarely on God’s attention to the patriarchal promise. The remainder of the nonpriestly promise passages are allusions, frequently very brief, to the promise that God made to the patriarchs: Exod

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32:13; 33:1; Num 11:12; 14:16, 23; Deut 31:23; 34:4. Of these, only one, Exod 32:13, is of any significant length. I have already criticized the arguments that this passage is somehow “deuteronomic.” Here it is worth noting again only that if there were to be a single moment in the Exodus-wilderness narratives at which the promise of offspring, and the promise of land to that offspring, would be appropriately raised by Moses, it is this moment: when, at the mountain of revelation, the Israelites have built a golden calf and God is on the verge of destroying them entirely. The revelation on the mountain is the moment of greatest significance in the entire Pentateuch, and the disobedience is concomitantly the most appalling; God’s intended punishment is the most destructive, and Moses’s intercession by necessity the most convincing. In the other nonpriestly promise references in Exodus and Numbers, the reference is always to the promise of land alone. This has been seen as an indication of a single redactional layer, one concerned only with the land (usually seen as deuteronomic). In response it may simply be pointed out again that, as of Exodus 1, the promise of progeny has been fulfilled, and what remains to be addressed in the narrative is the promise of the land. This accounts not only for those references to the promise in Exodus and Numbers, but also throughout Deuteronomy. We do not have here evidence of a redactional layer concerned only with the land, but rather with a biblical author or authors who actually avoid stereotyped phrasing, remaining entirely cognizant and in control of the historical claims of the narrative at each point in its progress and relating only the appropriate matters at the proper stages. Furthermore, each of the nonpriestly references to the promise of land alone after Genesis comes at a moment when the land is a foregrounded feature of the narrative: when Yahweh instructs Moses to leave the mountain and begin the journey to Canaan (Exod 33:1); when Moses, just after leaving the mountain, is worried that he is not capable by himself of leading all the people to the promised land (Num 11:12); when the Israelites have expressed their doubts about Yahweh’s ability to lead them safely into Canaan (Num 14:16, 23); when Joshua is told that he will lead the Israelites into the land (Deut 31:23); and when Yahweh shows Moses the entirety of the land before Moses’s death (Deut 34:4). As the promise belongs tradition-historically to the patriarchal narratives, it is not at all surprising that when it is mentioned thereafter, it should be at such central moments in the Exodus-wilderness story. In summary, there is no compelling reason to view all, most, or even many of the patriarchal promise texts as secondary. At least insofar as


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the primary question of whether they are somehow obviously secondary within their immediate narrative contexts is concerned, the answer is in the negative. On the contrary, it seems evident that across the board these passages—just like the promise texts in P—are either structurally, verbally, or thematically tied to their contexts, at times so much so that removing them would indeed cause, rather than resolve, significant problems in the text. Not only are the promise texts generally sensible as part of their narratives, but even the exact element of the promise given or referred to seems to be responsive to the narrative environment. �� The significance of this result is twofold. First, it fundamentally challenges both the documentary and the nondocumentary claims that on an individual basis the nonpriestly promise texts are necessarily secondary insertions. Second, it heightens the importance of the issue to be addressed below: how do the promise texts relate to each other? For both documentary and nondocumentary scholarship, the similarities among some of the promise texts have been taken as the basis for seeing them as redactional insertions, primarily when similar promise texts are found to bridge the classical source divisions of J and E. If a promise text in a J context looks to be from a hand similar to one in an E context, then the promise texts would indeed appear to be redactional links, either from the purported “JE” redactor of classical scholarship, or from the redactor who brought together the disparate independent nonpriestly traditions according to nondocumentary scholarship. In the previous chapter I criticized documentary and nondocumentary scholars for their various analyses of the relationships among the patriarchal promise texts. Those criticisms may be generalized under the headings of “overly specific” and “inconsistent.” In what follows, I hope to readdress the question of whether the nonpriestly promise texts fall naturally into any obvious groups. This will be done first and foremost on the basis of the narrative claims of the text: does one promise text contradict or repeat a previously given promise in a way that would present a narrative diffi culty? Does a passage align, in its situating of the promise within the broader patriarchal narrative and in its focus on specific concepts, with some promise passages but not others? My assumption is that the biblical author(s) had great freedom of expression, such that differences (and similarities) purely in wording or style should not be automatically determinative of different (or the same) authors. Only as groups emerge from the narrative considerations of the text may we look to see if there are, in fact, any verbal consistencies within the emergent groups.

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Grouping the Promise Texts The fundamental connection between Gen 12:1–3 and 12:7 has already been illustrated and explained above. The land is promised to Abraham not while he is in his ancestral homeland, but only once he has undertaken the journey to Canaan; as soon as he gets there, he receives the promise of “this land.” The promise of land in Gen 13:14–17, however, seems to be a more detailed version of the promise in Gen 12:7, and one might wonder why it would be necessar y.�� It is clear, however, that according to the narrative this is the first time that Abraham has been in sole possession of what will eventually come to be the promised land. Prior to this, he has been travelling with Lot, and they have been living together on the land; but Lot is not, in the end, party to the promise of land, and it is therefore only after Lot has made his own unfortunate choice of territory, and Abraham has taken the rest, that the full divine promise is truly appropriate. Alexander Rofé argues convincingly that Gen 13:14–17 is a necessary part of the narrative of Abraham settling in the land, begun in Gen 12:1–3: “In [Gen 13:14–17] the promise is integral to the story: it is pronounced after Abraham has conceded a portion of the land to Lot, and comes despite that concession. It confirms the original promise in Gen 12:7, and like the latter, it fits the description of Abraham as traveling through the land: he journeys ‘its length and width’ in order to establish ownership (Gen 12:8–9; 13:3, 18). The promise in the story of Abraham, in Gen 12–13, is thus not editorial, but an original part of the story.” �� When viewed this way, the three ostensibly separate promise passages in Genesis 12–13 make up a complete, well-integrated framework for the beginning of the Abraham cycle. The promise texts in these two chapters are linked to the context in which they are given, in terms of location and narrative logic, and as such are equally closely linked with each other. After the promise texts of Genesis 12–13, which are closely tied to the narrative of Abraham’s journey and settlement in the land, the repetition of many of the same promise elements in Gen 15:5, 18–21 can seem somewhat incongruous. Within the logic of the narrative, however, the promise of Gen 15:5 is at least potentially comprehensible: Abraham was promised many offspring in Gen 13:16, yet he remains childless. Abraham has, one might think, every right to wonder about the promise he was given earlier, as he does in 15:2–3, and the reasonable response from God to Abraham’s question is to repeat in essence the promise of offspring, although in slightly different words, as he does in 15:5. This interpretation,


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however, brings its own set of problems, as we have already had occasion to note in chapter 1. If Abraham’s childlessness is an obstacle to the fulfillment of the promise now, why was it not so when the promise was first given, in 13:16? Nowhere else do the patriarchs question the validity of the promise; the only doubts arise with specific regard to the continuity of Abraham’s line through Sarah, given her age (18:12; see the parallel in P in 17:17). Indeed, the issue raised by Abraham in 15:2–3 is related not to the long-term promise of many offspring, of which Abraham seems to have no knowledge, but rather to the pressing question of his immediate inheritance; Abraham is expressing the fears common to anyone, ancient or modern, without children: who will continue my line after me? God responds to this immediate fear first in 15:4: “None but your very own issue shall be your heir.” Only once Abraham’s question has been addressed does God deliver the more expansive promise of 15:5, which is presented here as the first announcement of the promise to Abraham. The statement of Abraham’s trust in God’s word in 15:6—“Because he put his trust in Yahweh, he reckoned it to his merit”—confirms that this is not a previously given promise being restated. Equally difficult is the promise of land, alluded to in 15:7 and fully set out in 15:18–21, where it is not just a promise, but a fully-fledged covenant. Though the mention of the land in 15:7–8 might be seen as parallel to the question of offspring in 15:5—Abraham wants to be sure that he will actually be given what he has been promised—the covenant in 15:18–21 is, it would seem, unnecessary from the point of view of the nonpriestly narrative as a whole. Abraham has already been promised the land, in very similar language, and, perhaps unlike the question of offspring, he has no reason to doubt the eventual fulfillment of the promise. This covenant adds nothing new, except a lengthy detailing of precisely which lands are meant.�� The revelation of the future enslavement in 15:13–16 and the subsequent formulation of the patriarchal promise in 15:18–21 seem also to be at odds with the prior promise texts in Genesis 12–13. We may therefore at least tentatively discern two separate groups of promises, that of Genesis 12–13, hereafter the “A” group, and that of Gen 15:18–21, hereafter the “B” group. As for Gen 15:5, it could potentially belong to either when taken alone. When read in its context, however, it is more closely linked to what follows in Genesis 15 than to what preceded; if Genesis 15 is indeed a unity, then there is little choice but to read the two promise texts therein as part of the same group. The promise to Hagar in Gen 16:10 neither conflicts with nor necessarily conforms to the promise texts in either the A group or the B group.

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In both Gen 13:16 and 15:5 God has promised Abraham many descendants; 16:10 contains another promise of offspring, here delivered to Hagar on behalf of Ishmael. On the evidence of this verse alone—at least to this point—there are no grounds for assigning it to either group of promise texts (though see below). In Gen 18:18 we find the first allusion to a previously given promise: “Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him.” Yahweh, in deciding to tell Abraham of his decision to destroy Sodom, bases his decision on the fact that Abraham will “surely be a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by him.” The phrase g ōy g ād ōl , “great nation,” alone is not indicative of either group of promise texts. Though it is used in Gen 12:2 and not in Genesis 15, it is a relatively common phrase, and one whose use crosses compositional boundaries.�� It is also clear that the concept expressed by the phrase, that Abraham’s offspring will be many and powerful, is common to both groups of promise texts, however it may be expressed. The second element of Gen 18:18, however, that the nations of the earth will bless themselves by Abraham, is unique to Gen 12:3; neither a similar wording nor even a similar concept is found in Genesis 15. This alone suggests that Gen 18:18 contains a direct recollection of the promise of Genesis 12. This conclusion is reinforced when viewed in combination with the reference to the “great nation”; note that the order of the two elements here is precisely that of Gen 12:2–3: “I will make of you a great nation . . . and all the families of the earth will bless themselves by you.” Not only the language but the very concept of the nations blessing themselves, that is, the idea that somehow Abraham, his actions, and his offspring, will have an effect, as a model and source of envy, on the behavior of the non-Israelite nations, is also found only in the A group, in Genesis 12–13. In Genesis 15, it will be recalled, the non-Israelites referred to are either the nation that will oppress the Israelites (the Egyptians) or those that the Israelites will dispossess (the Canaanites). In the larger narrative of Genesis 12–13, however, the story of the separation of Abraham and Lot and their settlement in two different lands, to be two different peoples, reinforces the blessing of 12:3: Abraham is responsible for those nations around him. It is precisely this element of the promise and blessing of Abraham in Genesis 12–13 that Yahweh focuses on in 18:18–19: not only that Abraham will become a great nation, but that he is intimately connected with other peoples, and should thus be privy to


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the major decision being made about just such a group. Note also that it is not just any other people that is under discussion in Genesis 18, but precisely those people and that land that Abraham is most invested in outside his own: the area where his nephew Lot settled, the first important non-Israelite, non-Abrahamic territory in the narrative of Genesis 12–13. On the basis of both the verbal connections and the thematic/narrative connections, we may conclude that Gen 18:18 is a reminiscence of the promise texts and narrative of Genesis 12–13, to the exclusion of any elements from Genesis 15. Like that in Gen 16:10, the promise to Hagar in 21:13, 18 does not necessarily connect to either the A or B group. Gen 21:18 does, however, seem to conflict with 16:10. In both, God tells Hagar that she (or her son) will have many offspring. In both texts, this is presented as the first time this has been announced to Hagar; 21:18 and 16:10 are thus not plausibly sequential events in a single narrative but rather functionally equivalent accounts of a single occurrence, and it would be surprising to find both in the same narrative. And yet, even though we apparently have here two promise texts that do not belong together and we may be inclined therefore to assume that each belongs to one of the emerging groups of promise texts, because both are so brief and similar in theme there is very little in the verses themselves that is determinative one way or the other. �� Though the next promise text in the canonical sequence is Gen 22:15–18, we will examine this passage at the end of the discussion, because it was the sole passage that, in the previous section, seemed to be demonstrably secondary within its immediate context. In Gen 24:7 we encounter a clear reference to a previously given promise. Like the allusion in 18:18, this one too seems specifically and unequivocally connected with the promise texts of the A group, rather than of the B group. We have not only Abraham’s explicit recollection in the first half of 24:7 of the divine command of 12:1, using the same descriptive phrases in the reverse order (24:7: “from my father’s house and from my birthplace”; 12:1: “from your birthplace and from your father’s house”), we also have a direct, exact, word-for-word quote of the promise of land in 12:7: “Who swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’.” Two items in this passage are worthy of consideration. First, the combined reference to 12:1 and 12:7 confirms the connection between those two passages claimed above. Second is the use of the verb niš ba‘ here. As noted above, Abraham here explicitly describes Yahweh’s words of Gen 12:7 as an oath, though there is no formal oath language used there. ��

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Having reached the conclusion of the Abraham cycle, then, we may stop to assess the evidence gathered to this point. In the acknowledged nonpriestly texts, there appear to be two competing versions of the initial promise to Abraham, in Genesis 12–13 12– 13 and Genesis 15. Both represent, represent, within their narrative nar rative contexts, contexts, the first fi rst time that God gives g ives his promise promise to Abraham. Throughout the rest of the Abraham narrative, the only clearly identifiable promise passages (18:18; 24:7) are references back to the initial promises of Genesis 12–13; there are no explicit references to the promise of Genesis 15. In each of these two groups, then, Abraham is given one promise, promis e, at the beginning beginni ng of his narrative nar rative career; remaining promise texts in the Abraham cycle are referential rather than primary. This is paralleled in the priestly promises also: the only promise given to Abraham is the initial one of Genesis 17. 17. (Though (T hough Genesis 17 appears in the middle of the canonical Abraham cycle, cyc le, in the priestly source there are but but a handful handfu l of verses preceding this chapter. �� Read consecutively as they were originally meant to be, these verses serve simply to establish where Abraham lived in Canaan and of whom his family unit consisted. These items being established, Genesis 17 stands as the first significant block of text in the priestly patriarchal narratives. narratives.)) This T his is, of course, narratologically narratologically sensible: the promise is the divine word—and is even understood as an oath despite the lack of technical oath language— lang uage—as as such, there is no need to repeat repeat it, for having once been pronounced it should remain in force. We may turn, then, to the promise to Isaac in Genesis 26. We can first observe that the promise text of Gen 26:2–5 stands, like those to Abraham in both the A and B groups, at the beginning of the patriarch’s noteworthy hy aspect of the (in this case, brief) brief ) narrative career.�� The second notewort initial promise in 26:2–5 is the location in which it is given. As Abraham is instructed to leave his ancestral homeland in Gen 12:1–3, Isaac too is leaving his homeland; he is en route to Gerar (26:1). �� By contrast, the covenant of Genesis 15, from all appearances, takes place in Abraham’s own territory ter ritory (note the demonstrative pronoun in God’s speech: “T “ To your offspringg I assign this offsprin th is land,” 15:18). 15:18). Within Within the t he promise text itself, we find in 26:3a the divine statement that Yahweh will bless Isaac: “I will bless you.”” The idea that Yahweh will bless the you. t he patriarch has been encountered to this point only in the A group, in Gen 12:2. In Genesis 15 we find only the promise of offspring (15:5) and land (15:7, 18–21); there is no mention of divine blessing. The promise of “all these lands” is followed in 26:3b by the statement that Yahweh will “fulfill the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.” father.” The idea of a divine oath has h as appeared to this point


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only in Gen 24:7, where it referred exclusively to the promise of land to Abraham’ss descendants in Abraham’ i n 12:7. 12: 7. Here, Here, where the reference to a previously prev iously given oath comes directly after the promise of land, it is reasonable to infer that Gen 12:7 is being referred to again. Finally, we may observe the order of the constituent elements of the t he promise: while in Genesis G enesis 15 (and in the priestly promise texts as well) the order of the elements is progeny then land—as land— as makes sense, given that the aspect aspec t of progeny progeny is the first to be fulfilled ful filled—in —in Gen 26:2–5, 26:2– 5, as in Gen 13:1 13:14– 4–17 17,, it is is the land that precedes the progeny. Gen 26:4a begins with the promise of progeny, and the comparison to the stars for number. We have seen that a simile is used in both Gen 13:16 and 15:5, so the mere use of this rhetorical device is not helpful in connecting Genesis 26 with either group of promise texts.�� Since these similes are stock phrases in the biblical corpus, it is not only possible for an author to vary them, variation is perhaps even to be expected. In Gen 26:4b, however, we have the statement that the nations of the earth willl bless themselves by Isaac’s wil Isaac’s offspring. offspri ng. This T his same statement was made to Abraham in Gen 12:3, and recalled by Yahweh in 18:18. �� It is entirely absent from Genesis 15. As established above, the concept of blessing— whether the deity blessing the patriarch, or the nations of the earth blessing themselves by the patriarch—is patriarch —is entirely located within the t he A group group of promise texts, and is not at all represented in the B group. The final fi nal verse of Gen 26:3b–5 26:3b– 5 has posed p osed the t he most diffi cu culties lties for commentators, because it contains what has been considered the most ostensibly deuteronomi deuteronomicc language. lang uage. I have already criticized the t he argument regarding deuteronomic deuteronomic style in the previous chapter c hapter.. Here we may focus more on the content content of this verse, and particula part icularly rly the reason that Yahweh might refer to Abraham’s obedience here. Isaac, at this point in the narrative, finds himself himsel f in a diffi d ifficu cult lt situation: there is a famine fa mine in his h is native land and he finds himself having to flee to a foreign country. The deity has appeared to him and given him both instructions and the promise. Unlike in Gen 12:1–3, however, in which the patriarch had to trust that Yahweh would do as he promised, now, a generation later, Yahweh can point to an example: Abraham, who was in a similar situation (12:10, referred to explicitly in the first words of Gen 26:1: “There was a famine in the land, aside from the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham”), who who received similar promises (12:1–3, (12:1 –3, 7; 13:14– 13:1 4–17), 17), and who not only survived, but thrived with Yahweh’s protection and help (12:16: “He acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and

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camels”). Gen 26:5 provides Isaac with a model both for Isaac’s behavior and for the good things that will result from that behavior. The verse also clearly indicates that Yahweh Yahweh is willin wi llingg to do these things thin gs for Isaac for for the sake of his father Abraham, who was obedient. obed ient. This does not indicate, however, that the promise has suddenly become conditional conditional when it originally origi nally was unconditional; it stretches credulity to claim that had Abraham not been obedient, Yahweh would have still cared for him. Though perhaps not explicitly stated, st ated, it is clear enough that for the patri patriarchs, archs, at the beginning of Israel’s life with Yahweh, obedience was a condition upon which the maintenance of the promises was based. �� The patriarchs, throughout Genesis, never disobey God’s commands. God is disobeyed only after the Exodus, and usually by the entire Israelite people or a substantial portion thereof. By that point, however, as Moses repeatedly points out, God has invested too much in this people p eople to go back back on his promise. In the patriarpatria rchal narratives, however, relatively little has been invested, and the threat of the promise being withdrawn is therefore always a real one. �� The promise of offspring in Gen 26:24 is merely a briefer version of the promise given in 26:2–5. Both begin with Yahweh stating that he will be with Isaac and bless him, both include the promise of increased offspring, using virtually identical language, and both end with a reference to Abraham’s obedience. According to Rendtorff, 26:2–5 and 24 mark, respectively, the beginning and end of the Isaac cycle. �� Yet the narrative of Genesis 26 continues until 26:33, placing the promise in 26:24 only two-thi two -thirds rds of the way through the story, not not at the end.�� Fur Further, ther, it is hard to read Genesis 26 as a larger “cycle” like li ke the Abraham Abraha m and Jacob Jacob stories. As most commentators commentators have observed, Genesis 26 forms a single si ngle continuous story stor y.�� This story begins with Isaac in a foreign land, continues with his entrance into Canaan, Canaan , and comes to to its conclusion with the agreement between betwe en the patriarch and his neighbors regarding fair land use. In short short,, the narrative of Genesis 26 is a very close replica, one generation later, of the narrative of Genesis 12–13. As such, the promise that stands in the middle, in Gen 26:24, does not mark the end of the Isaac cycle, cyc le, but reprerepresents the functional funct ional equivalent of both Gen 12:7 and 13:14– 13:14–17: 17: the patriarch has entered Canaan for the first time since receiving the promise outside the land, as in 12:7 (after which he builds an altar on the spot: 26:25; see 12:8), and the promise is renewed after the patriarch has claimed land for himself alone, without the threat of dispute, as in 13:14–17. �� As with the three promise texts of Genesis 12–13, the two promise texts of Genesis 26 serve respectively to begin the action of the narrative and to signify


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that the unsettled situation at the beginning has now been successfully 13:14– 4–17 17 did not mark the end of the Abraham cycle, resolved.�� Just as Gen 13:1 so Gen 26:24 does not mark the end of the Isaac cycle; as noted above, the chapter continues for another nine verses (which, proportionally, is a significant block of text in the very brief Isaac material preserved in Genesis). If anything, given the example of the Abraham narratives, this set of promise texts marking the arrival and safe settlement of the patriarch in Canaan signals the beginning of a longer cycle, one that, for Isaac at least, we do not have. When we move to the Jacob Jacob story, the promise in Gen 28:13–15 is reminiscent in numerous ways of both Genesis 12–13 and 26:2–5. As in 26:1, the patriarch is in danger, this time from his brother, and again he must leave his homeland. In 12:1–3, the promise came to Abraham before he had ever seen the promised land; in 26:2–5, the promise came to Isaac just after he had left his homeland; in 28:13–15, the promise comes to Jacob just before he leaves the promised land. Again, these changes are conditioned by the context of the narrative. Because the promised land in 26:3 seems to have included inc luded Gerar, Yahweh Yahweh did not have to promise Isaac “this” land while he was still in Canaan proper. Jacob, however, is going far beyond the borders of the promised land, and Yahweh Yahweh therefo t herefore re must give him the patriarchal patriarc hal promise before he has crossed those borders. The promise is given, therefore, not in Beersheba, where Jacob’s family lived, but rather in Bethel, on the t he way out of the land; on the way out, but still stil l in the land, so that t hat Yahweh Yahweh can tru t ruly ly say, say, “the ground on which you are lying lyin g I will give to you and your offspring” (28:13). The promise of offspring in 28:14a—“Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north nort h and to the south”—is strongly reminiscent of Gen 13:1 13:14, 4, 16, with the order reversed;�� the statement of blessing in 28:14b—“All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants”—is nearly identical to that of 12:3b. This combination of elements from both Gen 13:14–17 and 12:1–3 again confirms the intrinsic connection between those two passages in the Abraham story. �� It is also noteworthy that t hat here again, as only in Gen 13:14–17 and 26:2–5, the order of the promise elements is land followed by progeny. The pattern patter n established with Abraham in the t he A group is, it is now clear, clear, repeated with each of the two succeeding generations. The patriarch, at the beginning of his narrative career, on the occasion of a major journey away from his homeland, is given the full promise by Yahweh. This

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promise always includes the land and progeny and a statement regarding the blessing of others by the patriarch—in that order. These promise texts may be divided between the period immediately before the travel and the arrival in the promised land, depending on the demands of the narrative, and the wording may vary, as one would expect, though not by much. Yet the basic narrative premise remains consistent throughout. In Gen 32:13 Jacob recalls Yahweh’s promise to him. The first aspect of the promise he mentions is that Yahweh will “deal kindly,” hê ṭ ēb ’ê ṭ îb , with him; yet this exact sentiment is nowhere to be found in the sole preceding promise to Jacob in 28:13–15 (nor anywhere else in the canonical Jacob cycle). This is neither surprising nor problematic; we may assume that Jacob is simply paraphrasing Yahweh’s words here, a relatively typical feature of biblical narrative style: we may note in this regard that the general verb “deal kindly,” ṭ -w-b (hiphil), is often used to describe the very types of actions that Yahweh promises Jacob in 28:13–15: preservation of life (cf. Gen 12:13; see also 50:20; Exod 18:9); increase of offspring (Exod 1:20; Deut 6:3; 28:63; 30:5); possession of the land (Deut 4:40; 5:16; 6:18). �� In the second half of the verse, Jacob remembers that Yahweh promised to make his offspring “like the sands of the sea, which are too numerous to count,” while in 28:14 Jacob’s offspring are compared to the dust of the earth, and in 15:5 to the stars of heaven. As we have already seen, the content of these similes is interchangeable; their meaning remains consistent. The use of the simile, therefore, does not mark 32:13 as belonging squarely to the A group of promise texts. The verse does, however, belong to a larger context, the prayer of 32:10–13. This prayer begins with Jacob remembering that Yahweh had promised to “deal kindly” with him; the phrase serves, therefore, as something of a bracket for the prayer as a whole. In 32:10 Jacob also recalls that Yahweh had commanded him to “return to your land and to your birthplace.” This is a direct and clear reference to Yahweh’s address to Jacob in 31:3: “Return to the land of your father and to your birthplace,” which in turn distinctly echoes both Gen 12:1 and 24:7. Thus indirectly, but quite firmly, the promise reference in 32:13 belongs to the A group of promise texts so far identified throughout the patriarchal narratives of Genesis. This verse also helps us in an unexpected way to identify with some certainty the previously ambiguous Gen 16:10 and 21:13, 18. When we first encountered those promise texts to or about Hagar and Ishmael, we did not have enough data about the A or B groups of promise texts. Gen 32:13, however, uses a locution, l ō’ -yissā pē r m ēr ō b, “too numerous to count,” that is


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found elsewhere in the Pentateuch only in Gen 16:10.�� Given the rarity of this particular expression, we may at least strongly suggest that Gen 16:10, like 32:13, belongs to the A group of promise texts, and that, as a result, Gen 21:13, 18 belongs either to the B group or is entirely independent. Near the end of the Joseph story, in Gen 46:3–4, as Jacob prepares to go down to Egypt from Beersheba, God appears to him in a dream and promises to make the patriarch into a great nation there; he promises also to bring Jacob back from Egypt. This divine revelation does not fit into the pattern of the A group of promise texts established in the Abraham narrative. On the basis of that pattern, we expect that after the initial promise, in the case of Jacob that given in 28:13–15, there should be only references back to that promise in the rest of the stories about the patriarch (as we have in 32:13), not repetitions of the promise itself. The sudden appearance of a full promise late in the life of the patriarch, then, is somewhat surprising. Even more surprising is that it appears that this is the first time that God has spoken with Jacob, since he feels the need for a formal introduction: “I am God, the God of your father.” �� Some have argued that the instruction to Jacob not to fear going to Egypt in Gen 46:3–4 is intended to be read as a reversal of the command to Isaac in 26:2 not to go down to Egypt. �� Though such a reading is tempting, it does not seem to work as well as has been claimed. In 26:2 Yahweh does not really “prohibit” Isaac from going to Egypt; in fact, as noted above, Isaac was never planning to go to Egypt. In 46:3, God does not “command” Jacob to go to Egypt; Jacob has already begun the journey, and he is going to go to Egypt whether God appears to him or not. All God does in 46:3 is alleviate Jacob’s fears about the journey and the fate of his family; he does not “allow” Jacob to go to Egypt. �� There are, in fact, very few indicators, either formal or verbal, that suggest a connection between 46:3–4 and the A group of promise texts. On the other hand, there may be a few elements of Gen 46:3–4 that connect to the B group. The first is the mechanism of the theophany: in 15:1, Abraham encounters God in a vision; in 46:2, Jacob encounters God in a dream. In none of the promise texts of the A group is there any description of the manner in which the divine–human communication takes place. The second notable feature of 46:3 is the initial clause of God’s speech: “Do not fear.” This is admittedly a relatively common phrase, and in its simple use is not indicative of particular authorship. �� Yet it is certainly suggestive that these are also the first words to Abraham in Gen 15:1. Even more interesting is the appearance of these words at the beginning of the divine

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speech to Hagar in 21:17. As noted above, of the two promises to Hagar, the one in 16:10 seems to fit into the A group of promise texts, while we did not have enough evidence to definitively assign the promises of 21:13, 18 to the B group. Now, however, there is a link, provided by the “do not fear” clause in Gen 15:1; 21:17; and 46:3. This connection is reinforced also by the use of the verb ś -w-m in the phrase “I will make you into a great nation”; among the promise texts, this verb is used in this phrase exclusively in Gen 46:3 and 21:13, 18. We may also note that in Genesis 46, the promise is given after Jacob has made a sacrifice (46:1), while in the A group it is the reverse: the patriarch sacrifices after the promise is given (Gen 12:7–8; 26:24–25). In the B group, however, we have as a parallel to Genesis 46 the extensive promise of Gen 15:18–21 given to Abraham after Abraham has offered the sacrifice between the pieces (15:9–11).�� Perhaps the most striking connection between Gen 46:3–4 and the B group is the theme of Egypt. In Gen 15:13–16, God tells Abraham that his descendants will be enslaved, but that they will also be brought back. As Jacob prepares to descend into Egypt with his entire family, 46:3–4 stands at the decisive juncture for the fulfillment of God’s pronouncement to Abraham. At precisely this fateful moment, then, God appears to Jacob and tells him that though he is going to Egypt, God will indeed bring him back. It is more than likely that here the narrator intends God’s speech to work on both the individual and communal levels: God will accompany Jacob and Israel to Egypt, and he will bring back both Jacob the individual and Israel the community. The divine promise to Jacob in 46:3–4 is therefore a reiteration of the pronouncement to Abraham in 15:13–16.�� As disruptive as Gen 46:3–4 is of the pattern of the A group of promise texts, it is just as structurally satisfying when read as the companion to Genesis 15. The two patriarchal promise texts in the B group come as bookends to the patriarchal experiences in Canaan: Genesis 15 stands at the beginning of the narrative career of the first patriarch, while 46:3–4 comes just at the last moment before the patriarchal family in its entirety leaves Canaan for the lengthy sojourn and enslavement in Egypt. The brief promise to Hagar in between these two bookends conforms entirely to the narrative, thematic, and verbal lines established by the patriarchal promise texts proper. The promise to Hagar comes as she and Ishmael are in the wilderness between Canaan and Egypt. She is frightened for the future of her line, and is reassured by the deity. After being encouraged, she follows the same path that Jacob and his family will take: from the wilderness of Paran into Egypt, where she gets a wife for Ishmael (21:21).


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In the B group of promise texts as a whole, then, the two lines of Abraham are accounted for. The future of his lineage is, of course, the overriding concern for Abraham in Genesis 15; in 21:13, 18 the line of his elder son is promised preservation in the face of the wilderness between Canaan and Egypt; in 46:3–4 the line of his younger son is promised preservation in the face of the wilderness between Canaan and Egypt. With Gen 46:3–4 the direct promise texts come to an end. This is an opportunity, then, to assess the data drawn from the passages under consideration before moving ahead to the postpatriarchal references to the promise. The focus of the preceding discussion has been the attempt to read the promise texts in their narrative context; the overriding question has been whether, when read in the sequence in which we find them in the canonical text, the promise texts fall into natural groupings on the basis of either narratological sense or obvious verbal and thematic links. What emerged from this analysis were two distinct groups of promise texts, designated as the A group and B group. The primary criterion for distinguishing these sets of promise texts was the issue of narratological redundancy: in both Genesis 12–13 and Genesis 15 Abraham appears to receive the divine promise of progeny and land, and in both cases for what appears to be the first time; in both 16:10 and 21:13, 18, Hagar is promised that her offspring will become a significant people. The pattern that emerged within the A group is that over the course of the first significant narrative event in the life of the patriarch, he received the divine promise from Yahweh; in each case, the promise was given as the patriarch was about to embark on or was in the course of a major journey out of his homeland. The pattern of the B group is centered around Egypt: the initial notice that Abraham’s descendants would go there; the promise to Hagar in the wilderness between Canaan and Egypt; and the promise to Jacob on his way to Egypt to begin the process of descent and reemergence proclaimed to Abraham in Genesis 15. These two large-scale narratological patterns are reinforced by the particular verbal and thematic links within each set. The most striking of these is the exclusive use in the A group of the theme of blessing, both that of the deity for the patriarch and that of the other nations in the name of the patriarch. This theme recurs consistently in the A group, but occurs nowhere in the B group. This theme alone is perhaps enough to distinguish the two groups, but there are also smaller verbal links, noted in the course of the preceding discussion, which alone would not be enough from which to draw any conclusions, but which are substantiating evidence for the aforementioned larger narratological and thematic observations.

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The nonpriestly promise texts in Genesis, then, can be divided into two groups as follows: A Group

B Group

Defining narratological feature: promises at the beginning of the patriarch’s narrative career, in conjunction with a major journey

Defining narratological feature: promises at the beginning and end of the patriarchal stories

Defining thematic feature: blessing Defining thematic feature: Egypt Abraham: 12:1–3, 7; 13:14–17 (18:18; 24:7) Abraham: 15:5, 18–21 Hagar: 16:10 Hagar: 21:13, 18 Isaac: 26:3b–5, 24 Jacob: 46:3–4 Jacob: 28:13–15 (32:13)

The best external support for both the method and results achieved in the foregoing analysis comes from the priestly promise texts. According to P, Abraham received the promise once, in Genesis 17. Jacob also received the promise once, in Gen 35:11–12. The latter episode stands in approximately the same relative place in the priestly Jacob narrative that Genesis 17 does in the Abraham narrative. In both, there is some initial material that indicates how the patriarch acquired his family and possessions (Abraham: Gen 11:31–32; 12:4b–5; 13:6, 11b–12b ; Jacob: Gen 28:1–5; 30:43; 35:22b–26; 31:17–18); this is followed by the promise (Abraham: Genesis 17; Jacob: Gen 35:9–13); and the cycle ends, in both cases, with the death of the matriarch and her burial (Sarah: Genesis 23; Rachel: Gen 35:16a, 19). (The genealogy of the older brother, Isaac or Esau, follows the death of the mother in both cycles as well: Isaac: Gen 25:12–17; Esau: Genesis 36.) God’s promise to Jacob in 35:12 refers to “the land that I gave to Abraham and to Isaac,” suggesting that the promise to Abraham in Genesis 17 was repeated to Isaac; on the other hand Isaac blesses Jacob by saying “May he give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and your offspring” (Gen 28:4). This implies that, in the mind of the priestly author if not in his actual narrative, Isaac had received the blessing from Abraham and was now passing it on, just as Jacob, in turn, will pass on the blessing to Joseph in Gen 48:3–4. Narratologically, then, P has a structure similar to that of the A group of non-P promise texts: the patriarch receives the divine promise precisely once, in the first major episode of his narrative. The priestly


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promise texts, however, contain in addition the narrative element of the promise both being given to each patriarch by God and also being passed from father to son. The priestly promise texts also have a significant and distinct thematic element: the concept of kings emerging from the descendants of the patriarch (Gen 17:6, 16; 35:11). This important and unique element is functionally, though obviously not semantically, equivalent to the theme of blessing in the A group or Egypt in the B group; that is, it is a major distinguishing feature of the content of the promise. Like the two nonpriestly groups, however, the priestly promise texts also contain more detailed verbal links, primary among them the root p-r-h, “to be fruitful” (17:6, 20; 28:3; 35:11; 48:4). The most valuable aspect of the comparison of the priestly and nonpriestly groups of promise texts is the resulting methodological recognition that the priestly promise texts are identifiable and identifiably distinct from the nonpriestly promise texts in precisely the same way that the two nonpriestly groups are identifiable and distinct from each other. The very narratological, thematic, and verbal criteria that mark the priestly promise texts as compositionally connected can be used to identify and separate the remaining nonpriestly promise texts. Additionally, the minor verbal variations that do not serve to indicate different layers of authorship in the priestly promise texts (as discussed above) are equally unhelpful in distinguishing layers within the nonpriestly promise texts. After the death of Jacob in Gen 49:33, the remaining promise passages are all references back to the promise by characters living after the patriarchs have passed on. Because of this simple chronological shift, the nature of the references changes. They almost exclusively mention the aspect of land; they become more formulaic and less personal; they refer regularly to the promise as an oath; and they mention all three patriarchs as the recipients of the promise. The first of these changes, as already observed, is a matter of narrative logic: by the beginning of the Exodus narrative, the promise of offspring has been fulfilled (Exod 1:7). The rest of the narrative, from the Exodus through the wilderness to the border of Canaan, is focused on the possession of the land. As in the patriarchal stories, the promise passages are well attuned to their narrative contexts. The other three changes that occur in the promise passages after Genesis, however—their more formulaic nature, the regular description of the promises as oaths, and the mention of all three patriarchs as promise recipients—are not so easily attributed to context. The distinctive shift

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in tone in the postpatriarchal narratives has led the nondocumentary school to pronounce every reference to the promise in Exodus–Numbers secondary, in large part, of course, because it is a significant aspect of the nondocumentary theory that the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness narrative blocks were originally independent.�� To make this argument, Rendtorff begins by inquiring as to “the continuation of the patriarchal story in the book of Exodus.”�� Already he has skewed the discussion, since “the patriarchal story” should not be continued in the book of Exodus, nor could it; the patriarchal story concludes with the death of the last partiarch, or at the very most with the summation in Exod 1:1–7. Rendtorff has set up a straw man: we are required to imagine a Bible in which the patriarchal narratives somehow should have continued into Exodus; yet such a thing is inherently impossible. But by the lack of any such continuation, Rendtorff argues that the two textual blocks must be connected only secondarily. His approach is to put forward an exceedingly implausible idea of what one would “expect” from the text if the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness narratives were a single composition, and when these marks are not found, he declares this to be proof that we have disparate compositions. Thus he notes first that “the promise addresses, as a determining and characteristic element, are not found in the traditions of the book of Exodus.” �� Indeed—but why should they be? The promise is addressed to the patriarchs, and there is no tradition anywhere in Israelite literature that suggests otherwise. The promise ought to stop with the end of the patriarchal stories, and indeed it does. Rendtorff also suggests that because the notice of the increase of the Israelites in Exod 1:7 does not mention the promise of increase in the patriarchal stories, the author of Exod 1:7 is “obviously not aware” of that aspect of the promise. �� Then again, Exod 1:7 is narrative, not direct speech, and, it is crucial to note, the biblical narrator never makes reference to the promise directly; the promise is always mentioned only in the direct speech of the characters of the story. Similarly, Rendtorff expects that in Exod 3:8, when Yahweh tells Moses that the Israelites will leave Egypt for Canaan, there should be a reference to the promise of that land to the patriarchs: “there is not a word which mentions that the patriarchs have already lived a long time in this land and that God has promised it to them and their descendants as a permanent possession.”�� But beside the fact that this, like the preceding claims, is yet another argument from silence, in this passage Yahweh is speaking to Moses, who is living hundreds of years after the patriarchs have died, and who was raised in Pharaoh’s palace as an Egyptian; what


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would he know, in the author’s imagination, of the patriarchal promise? Context matters. Rendtorff’s expectations for what the biblical author should do or not do are not, it seems fair to say, a reasonable basis on which to judge the compositional history of the text. Why, then, does the style of the references to the patriarchal promise become so noticeably terse in the period after the patriarchs? The most straightforward explanation is that implicit in the work of Noth: the promise as a theme is an integral part of the patriarchal traditions, and should not be expected to be as fully realized in the other traditional blocks. The important distinction to be drawn here between Noth and Rendtorff is the distinction between text and tradition. For Noth, the promise belongs to the preliterary patriarchal traditions, and the language of the promise is tied to the stories of the patriarchs; when the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness traditions were combined, the promise language remained a significant part of the patriarchal narratives, because that was its traditional locus. For Rendtorff, the promise and the patriarchs are separate literary creations, written texts; the obvious literary links between the patriarchs and the Exodus-wilderness narratives are thus secondary, and the diminishment of promise language after the patriarchs is a sign of a literary distinction. Support for Noth’s view against that of Rendtorff and the nondocumentary school comes, again, from the priestly promise texts. According to a view prevalent among nondocumentary scholars, it was the priestly redaction that first tied together the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness narratives.�� We should expect, then, to see significantly more connection between the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness narratives in the priestly source than we have in the nonpriestly material. Yet even a cursory glance at the priestly promise texts reveals that this is not so. Quite the contrary: in P, the promise texts after the patriarchal era change in precisely the same ways that the nonpriestly promise texts do. Thus we find references only to the land (again, as expected on the basis of the narrative context); the promise is referred to as an oath (and again, as noted above, P does not use any oath terminology in the patriarchal promises in Genesis); the references are more formulaic; and the passages refer to the land sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This last item is most interesting: in the priestly text in Genesis, only Abraham and Jacob receive the divine promise. Note that in the priestly text Yahweh refers also to the covenant that he made with all three patriarchs (Exod 2:24; 6:3–4). From any point of view, there was but one covenant with a patriarch in P, and that was

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with Abraham in Genesis 17. Yet the author of P feels free to refer to the covenant made with all three patriarchs. This appears to be the result of the use of a common language to refer to the patriarchs in the narratives of the postpatriarchal period. Regardless of the differentiations drawn between the patriarchs in their individual narratives, when looked back on as a group, their experiences are conflated, such that the covenant with one patriarch is seen as the covenant with all three, and the promise to one or two patriarchs is considered as having been given to all three. This is not just a priestly phenomenon, but indeed is best seen in the nonpriestly text of Exod 32:13: “Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, how you swore to them by your self and said to them, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.’” Here Yahweh’s words are quoted back to him, but note that according to Moses these words were spoken to all three patriarchs, rather than just one. Since no author attributes the same divine speech to all three patriarchs, this is a clear case of patriarchal conflation. Although the relatively brief style of the postpatriarchal nonpriestly promise references can at times render a connection with the A or B groups somewhat difficult, there are a few indicators that can help decide to which group at least some of these texts belong. The first of the postpatriarchal promise references comes in Gen 50:24, only a few chapters after the last patriarchal promise. Here Joseph tells his brothers that, although he is about to die, God will bring them out of Egypt back to the promised land. The theme of going to and returning from Egypt is one we have encountered in the promise passages only in the B group, where it is prominent. Indeed, the message Joseph passes on to his brothers here is both a reiteration of God’s words to Abraham in 15:14 and an expansion of God’s promise to Jacob in 46:4. The connections between 50:24 and 46:3–4 are more apparent when we include also 50:25, which is frequently recognized as being chiastically parallel to 50:24. �� Joseph’s request that his bones be brought up from Egypt to be buried in Canaan is strongly reminiscent of God’s promise to Jacob in 46:4 that God himself would bring Jacob up out of Egypt (using the same root, ‘-l-h, “go up,” as does Joseph in 50:25), and that Joseph would close Jacob’s eyes. The two elements of God’s speech in 46:4, the ascent from Egypt and the death of the patriarch, are represented also in Joseph’s speech to his brothers in 50:25. The promise ostensibly quoted in Exod 32:13 is not found anywhere in the extant patriarchal promise texts, at least not literally. The content,


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however, is known to all the promise texts: the increase of the patriarch’s offspring, illustrated with a simile (in this case the stars of the sky), and the giving of the land to the patriarch’s offspring. No aspect of this promise text is helpful in determining to which group it might belong. The same is true of Exod 33:1. Here also we find a quote of a promise, “to your offspring I will give it,” and again this precise wording is not used in any of the patriarchal promise texts in Genesis. Again, however, the basic sense of the promise is universal to the patriarchal promise texts. The remaining nonpriestly promise texts in Numbers (Num 11:12; 14:16, 23), as well as the two in the non-D sections of Deuteronomy (Deut 31:23; 34:4), suffer from the same problem, and are even briefer than those in Exodus, containing no more than a reference to the land that God swore to the patriarchs. As such, there is no way to determine to which group of patriarchal promise texts each belongs. At most we may draw the connection between Exod 33:1 and Deut 34:4, which are verbally identical from the word hā’āreṣ, “the land,” forward, suggesting strongly that they are from the same hand. The inability to determine the provenance of the promise texts in Exodus–Numbers, especially when the promise texts in Genesis, even including that of 50:24, fit squarely and clearly into the two promise groups, may appear to support the nondocumentary claim that Genesis and Exodus–Numbers were not originally connected compositionally. Yet on consideration this conclusion is illusory. As noted above, the brief style of the promise texts in Exodus–Numbers is found also in Gen 50:24, the first of the postpatriarchal promise texts, and the last in the book of Genesis. This promise text is identifiably part of the B group, not because it is stylistically or formally distinct from the Exodus–Numbers promise texts but because it is set in a context that makes very clear to which group it belongs. The promise texts in Exodus–Numbers, though formulated nearly identically with that of Gen 50:24, are simply not set in contexts with such obvious links to earlier promise material. They are, however, squarely part of their own immediate narrative contexts, as demonstrated in the first part of this chapter. It is worth at least mentioning here the promise references in D. �� As has long been recognized, all of the references to the patriarchal promise in D refer only to the aspect of land, and all describe the promise as an oath. These observations have been used to argue for deuteronomic authorship of the promise texts in Exodus–Numbers, since, it is claimed, they exhibit the same features. Yet the arguments brought in the previous

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chapter are pertinent here as well. The majority of scholars acknowledge that D was familiar with and dependent on the nonpriestly narratives and laws, particularly those in Exodus–Numbers. I have already argued above that the change in tone in the nonpriestly promise texts after the death of Jacob is entirely understandable from a narratological perspective; for D those reasons are equally valid, if not even more so. The land, for D, is certainly the only aspect of the promise left to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment is imminent; it is no wonder that the references to the promise come only in the context of the mention of the land, for only the land is relevant. (We may note, however, that the concept of progeny is hardly foreign to D, even if it is not couched in explicit promise language; see Deut 1:10: “Yahweh your God has multiplied you until you are today as numerous as the stars in the sky,” and Deut 10:22: “Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now Yahweh your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”��) The promise is referred to as an oath in D not because this is a particularly deuteronomic style, but because the references to the promise on which D is dependent, that is, those in Exodus–Numbers, use this language, for the reasons given above. Having completed the detailed analysis of the promise texts, we can now state what may have become clear over the course of the preceding discussion: the two groups of promise texts we have identified, the A group and the B group, correspond precisely to the classical J and E sources.�� The crucial aspect of this identification is that it was arrived at independently of the classical source division: the promise texts fall naturally into two groups on entirely internal grounds, without consideration for which source they appear in—that is, we did not use the assumption of a J context to identify a promise text as being from the A group, or an E context to identify a promise text as being from the B group. We are not dealing here with secondary promise texts essentially unconnected to their narrative contexts, as the classical critics would have it, nor can the promise texts be considered redactional, as the nondocumentary school claims. Rather, they are thematically, verbally, and narratologically consistent, well-integrated parts of the sources in which they are found.�� When this identification is made, the analysis of the postpatriarchal promise texts becomes considerably easier. If, in Genesis, the promise texts line up precisely with the classical J and E documents, and if, as a result, we can be more confident in positing the existence of the J and E strands in the Pentateuch, then we can assume that these documents continued, as the classical critics demonstrated, past Genesis and through the end of


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the Pentateuch. We may feel secure in stating, therefore, that despite the lack of decisive evidence for source assignment within the narrow scope of the promise passages in Exodus–Numbers, the narrative contexts in which they are set do belong to the sources to which they have been classically assigned, and the promise texts embedded in those contexts belong there as well. The final step in the analysis of the promise texts is the return to the promise in Gen 22:15–18. It will be remembered that discussion of this promise text was postponed because, unlike any of the other promise passages, the divine messenger’s second speech to Abraham in Genesis 22 appears to be a secondary addition to its narrative context. Our first task, therefore, was to analyze those promise texts that were not secondary, as we have done above. Now, however, we may look more closely at 22:15–18 and ask whether it is equally secondary in terms of form and content. As with the other promise texts, however, the first question to be asked of this passage is whether it conforms to the narratological pattern established in either the J or E promise texts as groups. The setting of this promise is squarely in the land of Canaan, and the timing is near, but not at, the end of the patriarch’s narrative career. �� It is difficult to see, given these elements, how this promise text could be part of the A group, that is, the J narrative. There is also, however, neither the “do not fear” opening typical of the B group, that is, of E, nor is there any connection, either in terms of content or setting, with Egypt, as is the case in the other E promise texts. From a purely logical standpoint, it should be added that the notion inherent in this promise speech, that the promise given previously to Abraham was at risk of being taken away had Abraham not passed this sudden test, is unique to this passage among all the patriarchal promise texts and stands somewhat in opposition to the sense of the preceding promise speeches to Abraham, all of which indicate that, so long as Abraham did nothing wrong, the promise was final. �� Turning then to the details of the passage, the first element of Gen 22:16 to note is the technical language for swearing an oath. We have noted already that, beginning with Gen 24:7, the patriarchal promise is referred to as an oath, though, it should be remembered, only in retrospect; none of the promise texts proper utilize the technical oath formula. This use of the oath language in 22:16 has, not unexpectedly, formed the basis of the claim that all the references to the promise as divine oath are referring back to this passage (and are all of the same layer). �� Yet, as was pointed out above, the promise references that use oath language deal

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almost exclusively with the promise of the land, and it is that promise element that is most noticeably absent from 22:15–18. Thus to connect this passage with the subsequent references to a divine oath is to focus entirely on the use of the verb niš ba‘ and not at all on the content of the oath itself. It is more likely that the author of 22:16, recognizing that the promise is frequently considered an oath in other places, made his inserted promise text all the more solemn by using the formal oath language at the beginning, despite the fact that none of the other promise texts do so. Indeed, as we will see, this sort of emphatic solemnity is typical of 22:15–18 as a whole. The two phrases that follow in 22:16, nə’ um yhwh, “word of Yahweh,” and ya‘an ’ aš er , “because,” are not found in any of the other nonpriestly promise texts and are indeed quite rare in the Pentateuch as a whole. �� They are found in succession, as in 22:16, only in Ezek 5:11; 34:8; Hag 1:9. Both phrases are normally used in heightened speech, whether divine or prophetic; the unusual combination of them here may be a second indication that the author of 22:15–18 made a conscious attempt to imbue this passage with extra authority. Gen 22:17 begins with two consecutive infinitive absolute + imperfect clauses, bār ē k ’ abārekəkā w əharbāh ’arbeh, “I will surely bless you and surely increase [your offspring].” This infinitival construction occurs occasionally in the J promise texts (Gen 16:10; 18:18; 32:13), though not with the verb b-r-k, “bless,” and these two verbs are used in sequence in Gen 26:24. Nowhere in the other promise texts, however, do we find this infinitive absolute construction used twice, and certainly nowhere twice in succession; indeed, two such constructions employed consecutively, with no intervening words, is found only once elsewhere in Genesis–Kings.�� This passage, then, uses the theme of blessing known from the J promise texts and the infinitive absolute construction known also from J, but in a manner never found in J itself. Again it seems as if the author is here piling up expressions in order to give the promise more rhetorical force. The similes used in 22:17—“as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore”—are both known from other promise texts. The comparison to the stars is found, as we have seen, in Gen 15:5; 26:4; Exod 32:13. The comparison to the sand is attested in Gen 32:13. As we have seen throughout, the use of a specific simile is not a mark of a particular author, as these are stock phrases in Israelite literature. As with the infinitive absolute construction discussed above, however, the combination of two such similes in a single promise text is otherwise unattested,


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and again suggests an author who is intentionally combining promise elements in a unique manner. The final clause of Gen 22:17 states that Abraham’s descendants will “possess the gate of their enemies.” The sole parallel to this in the Bible is the blessing given to Rebecca before she leaves with Abraham’s servant in Gen 24:60 (which is not a promise text at all, as it is given to a matriarch by non-Israelites). It is unclear whether the author of 22:15–18 was dependent on the text of 24:60, or whether this was a fixed phrase, common in blessings, that was used by both the authors of 24:60 and 22:17. The first half of Gen 22:18 is the standard J formula for nations blessing themselves by the patriarch: “all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by your descendants.” The second half, however, is clearly taken directly from 26:5: “because you have obeyed my command.” The use of the phrase ‘ēqeb ’ aš er , “because,” in these two passages has led some to claim that they must be from the same hand, and further that they must both be relatively late. This phrase and its variants, however, are found across a wide range of biblical texts, and do not indicate either single authorship or a particular time of writing. �� Given the evidence presented above that suggests that the author of 22:15–18 has gathered and combined elements from the other promise passages, it is considerably more likely that he simply took 22:18 from 26:4–5, rather than that one person wrote both. This is especially the case because 26:3b–5 contains none of the other defining features of 22:15–18 noted above. The conclusion, then, is that Gen 22:15–18 is indeed a secondary insertion. This is initially suggested by its rather ill fit with its immediate narrative context, and borne out in both the narratological setting and stylistic details of the passage. It is unique among the promise texts, even while employing many of the standard elements known from the other promises passages. As was suggested above, it was this uniqueness that led to 22:15–18 being recognized from a very early period as secondary. The methodological problem that ensued from this recognition, however, was that scholars read the other promise texts in light of 22:15–18, rather than the other way around. When 22:15–18 is seen as a template, then every resemblance to it found in another promise text could serve as an indication that that promise text was secondary. The question should not be “what looks like 22:15–18,” but rather, “what does 22:15–18 look like?” When the acknowleged secondary passage is read in this light, it becomes plain that it is unlike any other promise passage, and is simultaneously quite obviously based, virtually in its entirety, on other promise passages.

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In these last two chapters, we have identified the flaws in both the documentary and nondocumentary arguments that the nonpriestly patriarchal promise texts are secondary elements in the narrative; we have demonstrated that the nonpriestly promise texts are integral to their contexts narratologically, structurally, thematically, and verbally; and we have seen that the nonpriestly promise texts can be naturally grouped on the basis of their narrative situations, central themes, and unique expressions— and that these groups line up precisely with the J and E sources of the classical Documentary Hypothesis. It is now our task to take each source independently and inquire as to how the promise texts function to shape the unique theological message of the document. In other words, we can now begin to address the question raised at the end of chapter 1: can a literary-critical analysis of the promise (and the Pentateuch as a whole) maintain the centrality of the promise while accounting more fully for the distinctions among its various literary expressions?

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The Promise According to the Sources �� chapters, I have argued that the promise texts belong squarely to the sources in which they are found; that they are not, as commonly thought, secondary additions, but are rather integral parts of their respective documents. The value in identifying a text as belonging to a particular source is not self-justifying, however; the aim of the source-critical enterprise is not merely to identify what text belongs where for the mere sake of completeness. Because texts are associated with sources on the basis of their continuity and coherence with other biblical passages, no text stands alone. Rather, every passage plays a part in the construction of the whole, narratively but also thematically and theologically. The benefit that derives from identifying a passage as belonging to a certain source is the greater understanding of both the passage itself and of the source to which it is attributed. It is the aim of this chapter, therefore, to explore the ways in which reading the promise texts within their documentary contexts serves this dual purpose: both expanding our understanding of the promise texts themselves and providing more depth and clarity to our understanding of the sources of the Pentateuch.

The Tradition of the Promise As demonstrated in the preceding chapter, each of the pentateuchal sources J, E, and P has a unique presentation of the promise to the patriarchs, with its own key terminology, themes, and narrative settings. These individual features are not surprising, given that these documents were composed independently of each other. Yet despite their distinctive presentations of the promise, all three sources share the most basic elements: that the promise was given to the patriarchs (banal though this observation may seem), and that it contained the paired and interdependent

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notions of progeny and land. These elements constitute the underlying tradition on which each of the sources drew. It is in the individualization of common traditions that authors’ voices are most distinctively heard. As Robert Alter cogently put it, recognition of the traditional base behind a text allows us “to see what is innovative and what is deliberately traditional at each nexus of the artistic creation.” � This is especially so when a tradition is found across all of the sources. When a tradition appears in only one source, for example, the Tower of Babel in J (Gen 11:1–9), it can be diffi cult to discern which elements belong to the tradition and which to the invention of the author. But, as with the promise, the more sources employ a tradition the more able we are to distill it down to its fundamental essence, to recognize what constituted the basic form of the tradition with which the authors worked; and, in turn, we are able to more clearly delineate and define the voices of the authors and their unique perspectives. The preliterary origins of the promise tradition are, as is the case with so much of the Bible’s background, unreconstructible with any degree of certainty. What is clear is that by the time the narratives of Israel’s early history were set down in writing, the promise had become the central motif of the patriarchal cycle. As already noted, it is the only tradition that is held in common across all three patriarchal narratives, and in each source it is a recurring theme. In this way it is very much akin to the so-called murmuring tradition associated with the wilderness period in Exodus–Numbers, another tradition that is found in all three sources, though with distinctive variations in each. What is notable about the promise tradition—and the murmuring tradition as well—is that it is, in its elemental form, unbound to any particular location or episode. The promise of land and progeny was given to the patriarchs—that is all the tradition maintains. Where, when, under what circumstances, and even to which particular patriarch(s), were all potentially open to the discretion of the author. It was only natural that the pentateuchal authors would have associated the promise with a particular episode in the lives of their characters; since each was telling a story, it would be passing strange for a seminal moment like the receiving of the promise to exist without any narrative backdrop. Thus for all three authors, the bestowal of the promise was attached to particular episodes in the lives of the patriarchs. In P, the promise appears in conjunction with the covenant of circumcision in Genesis 17; with Jacob’s departure for Paddan-Aram in Genesis 28; and with Jacob’s return to Canaan and

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the change of his name (themselves two discrete traditions that were combined into one episode) in Genesis 35. In J, the promise is attached to Abraham’s sojourn to and settlement in Canaan in Genesis 12–13; Isaac’s move from Canaan to Gerar in Genesis 26; and Jacob’s move from Canaan to Haran in Genesis 28. And in E, it is joined with the making of the covenant in Genesis 15 and Jacob’s departure for Egypt in Genesis 46. Similarly, the secondary references to the promise in each of the sources are all found in the context of other narrative settings, from Hagar’s flight to Joseph’s death to the episode of the spies. It is for this reason that the promise has repeatedly appeared to numerous scholars as if it were a “secondary” addition to a “primary” tradition: this is why it is possible for some to claim that, for example, the basic story of Abraham’s sojourn from his homeland to Canaan is the authentic early tradition in Genesis 12, to which the promise in verses 1–3 is a later accretion. And to a certain extent, this is not wrong: the plot of Abraham’s life, from his move to Canaan through his death, could well be told without any mention of the promise, and would, in theory, be told with the same events in roughly the same order. Where in that narrative the promise occurred is, in theory, a secondary decision. Yet this is not because the tradition of the promise is itself secondary; it is because the promise tradition could be placed anywhere in the narrative, while obviously traditions such as Abraham’s journey to Canaan could come only at the beginning and his death only at the end. � It is not the relative age of the promise tradition that resulted in its being bound to another narrative; it is, rather, its fundamentally flexible nature. Just as the pentateuchal authors had the freedom to locate the promise almost anywhere in their patriarchal narratives, so too they had the freedom to formulate the wording of the promise and the themes connected with it. The only words that appear in the promise texts across the sources are the variations on the phrase “I give this land to you (and to your descendants).” Aside from this stock element, the authors were free to articulate the promise however they wished, and to frame the promise with themes that expressed their unique historical and theological notions. Thus, as observed in chapter 3, we find in J a focus on the concept of blessing; in E a link with Egypt; and in P references to kingship, to name only some of the most prominent themes. Recognition that the pentateuchal authors had flexibility in deciding where in their narratives the promise texts should be placed, and freedom in deciding how to formulate the wording of the promise and the themes

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related to it, brings to the forefront the issue of the specific renderings of the promise in each source. Because the authors had such freedom, the decisions they made become even more important as a guide to their respective theologies and historical assumptions. Because the promise, for all its lack of specificity, was the central theological statement of the patriarchal narrative, it stands to reason that where, when, and in what situations the promise was introduced serve as significant clues to the authors’ intentions. When these features are combined with the particular themes and language each author used in his presentation of the promise, we can glean more from the promise tradition than might otherwise be apparent. With these issues in mind, therefore, we can turn to the individual expressions of the promise in each of the pentateuchal sources.

The Promise in P The major promise texts of P comprise the following: Genesis 17; 28:3–4; 35:11–12; 48:3–4; Exod 6:3–4, 8. Within these passages a number of elements are unique, or uniquely emphasized. These include the connection with the specifically priestly use of the term bərît ; the phrase “be fruitful and multiply”; the patriarchs as gērîm ; the link between the promise and family matters; the patriarchs’ descendants becoming a multitude of nations; their descendants being kings; and the change of the patriarch’s name. Each of these concepts has its independent function within the larger priestly work, yet at the same time they all work in concert to highlight one of P’s most pressing concerns: the distinction of Israel from the other peoples and the formation of an Israelite national identity. The connection of the promise with the concept of bərît is not exclusive to P, as it appears also in Genesis 15 (E). Yet in P the patriarchal bərît is a framing element, introduced at length in Genesis 17 of course, but referred to again in Exodus 6: “I established my bərît with them to give them the land of Canaan” (6:4). Thus in the first and last major references to the promise in P—which also constitute the lengthiest narrative (that is, nonlegal/prescriptive) dialogues between God and an individual character in the priestly document—the bərît and the promise are linked. � Indeed, they are more than linked—as will soon become clear, and as many others have noted, they are identical. The connection between the promise and the bərît in Genesis 17 and Exodus 6 serves to frame the patriarchal cycle, as Exodus 6 marks the epochal change from the family history of Abraham’s descendants to the national history of the Israelite


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people, a change signified by the revelation of the name Yahweh: it is in Genesis 17 that God first introduces himself to a character using the name El Shaddai (17:1), and in Exodus 6 that that name is mentioned for the final time and ceases to be used (6:3). At the same time, the promise serves to link the eras of the patriarchs and the exodus, by taking Yahweh’s faithful adherence to the patriarchal bərît as the motivating force behind the rescue of the Israelites from Egypt (Exod 2:24; 6:8). In order to understand the intrinsic connection between the bərît and the patriarchal promise in P, it is necessary to recognize the distinctive way in which the author of P uses the term bərît . The word is usually translated “covenant,” implying an agreement between two parties, in which each is reciprocally responsible for a certain set of actions. This is certainly how the word is used in D, where it appears most frequently: the bərît comprises both the obligations of the Israelites to obey the laws and those of Yahweh to bless the Israelites when they enter Canaan. As has long been recognized, D as a whole is structured as a treaty—indeed, it refers to itself explicitly as a bərît (Deut 28:69; 29:8, 11, 13)—in line with the standard ancient Near Eastern treaty forms, and as such it adopts the mutual obligations inherent in treaties between suzerain and vassal. � Yet it would be a mistake to read D’s particular rendering of the bərît as a reciprocal treaty into the other pentateuchal sources, and especially into P. In P, the bərît is not reciprocal, but unilateral: it is a divine grant, without any necessary accompanying human obligation. This is clear in the first priestly bərît , with Noah (and all living things) in Gen 9:8–17. There the content of the bərît is God’s promise never again to destroy the world by means of a flood. Humans (and animals) need do nothing at all in order for this bərît to be maintained.� Accompanying this unilateral bərît is a sign (’ôt ): the rainbow, which will serve to remind God of his obligation every time it rains. � The bərît functions similarly in Genesis 17, though its presentation is a bit more complicated. Here the content of the bərît is God’s promise to multiply Abraham’s offspring and to give them the land (17:4–8). This bərît , however, unlike the one after the flood, appears to come with a condition: circumcision.� Yet upon closer inspection, it is apparent that circumcision is not in fact the reciprocal obligation of the Israelites as in the treaty formulation of D. It is, rather, the sign of the bərît (17:11), equivalent to the rainbow in Genesis 9. As such, it functions as a reminder to God of the bərît .� If it is framed in obligatory terms, this is only natural: the purpose of circumcision is to identify those to whom God has made the bərît promise,

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and thus anyone who is not circumcised will be excluded from the bərît recipients.� Yet it is clear that the bərît and circumcision are not reciprocally linked: though Ishmael is circumcised, God makes certain to note that he is not a recipient of the bərît : Ishmael is to be blessed, certainly, “but my bərît I will maintain with Isaac” (17:21). Adherence to the command of circumcision does not guarantee the receipt of God’s obligations; thus circumcision is not in fact part of a divine–human treaty. It is necessary but not sufficient.�� When it is understood that circumcision is not a treaty obligation but rather the sign of the unilateral bərît , it is also understood that the bərît with Abraham in Genesis 17 is in fact coterminous with the patriarchal promise: an unconditional grant of progeny and land. �� The promise to the patriarchs in P is a bərît , that is, a unilateral obligation decided upon by Yahweh and taken freely upon himself, but it is only one bərît among others in P. As has long been noted, the author of P uses the bərît as a structuring element in the early history of Israel. The first is made with all humanity and animals after the flood (Gen 9:9–17); the second is with Abraham and his descendants (Gen 17:4–8); the third is with Aaron and his priestly lineage (Num 18:19); and the fourth is with the particular priestly family of Phinehas (Num 25:12–13).�� Each bərît thus entails a narrower focus, from all flesh to one priestly family. The second b ərît , that of Genesis 17, with which we are especially concerned here, represents the most dramatic narrowing: from all flesh, including animals, to a single man and his descendants. It is this bərît —that is, it is the patriarchal promise—that serves to separate Abraham’s family, the Israelite people, from the rest of humanity.�� The author of P uses the promise for its own sake, as the defining feature of the patriarchal narrative, but, by equating it with the covenant, simultaneously embeds it in the overarching history of Israel’s selection from among all other peoples. It is no surprise that all three pentateuchal sources should use the root r-b-h (hiphil) in their promises; it is, after all, the standard Hebrew word for “multiply,” and the increase of the patriarchs’ progeny is a fundamental element of the basic promise tradition. In P, however, the expected r-b-h is always accompanied, or even replaced, by p-r-h, “to be fruitful” (Gen 17:6, 20; 28:3; 35:11; 48:4). The collocation of p-r-h and r-b-h, of course, is typical of P and hearkens directly back to Genesis 1: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). This phrase is more than simply a stylistic quirk of P, however, for Genesis 1 is more than simply the description of the creation of the world. Although Genesis 1 is often read as the introduction to P’s particular conception of God and the cosmos—which it certainly is—the account


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of creation also serves a larger goal in P’s overarching presentation of the history of Israel. Many of the seemingly universal elements introduced in Genesis 1 as inherent parts of creation come into play again with particular significance or new meaning for Israel alone. Thus the creation of the astral bodies in Gen 1:14–18 is more than just the etiology of the sun, moon, and stars. They exist, from the beginning, for calendrical reasons: “they shall serve as signs for the set times, the days and the years” (1:14). �� This is their universal function; that is, the priestly author certainly knew that every human culture relied on the sun, moon, and stars in determining the passage of time. When the Israelites receive the festival laws from Yahweh (Numbers 28–29), however, the celestial bodies, in their calendrical role, take on a new importance. Now the “set times” (mô‘ adîm ) that they mark are specifically defined by Yahweh for Israel alone. The universal has become particularized, and theologized. So too with the divisions inherent in the animal kingdom from creation on (Gen 1:20–21, 24–25): these “natural” divisions are no more than a mere categorization until the dietary laws of Leviticus 11, when they are bestowed with a far greater significance—again only for Israel. And so also, of course, with the structure of the seven-day week, and the sanctification of the seventh day (Gen 2:2–3): however this sanctification may have been imagined to exist in other cultures, it is only Israel that is instructed to observe the Sabbath by refraining from work (Exod 31:12–17). �� Genesis 1 functions to create the universal conditions on which Israel’s unique obligations are based. In its description of creation is embedded the future emergence of Israel from among the rest of humanity, and Israel’s unique relationship with the creator deity. The reflection of Genesis 1 in the words “be fruitful and multiply” in the patriarchal promise, it would therefore appear, serves the same purpose. At creation, this is a universal blessing—one given to humans as well as to the animal kingdom. After the flood, it is only Noah and his descendants who receive this blessing (Gen 9:1, 7), not the animals, who are here consigned to be food for humans. In the promises to the patriarchs, the blessing is particularized for Abraham and his descendants among all humans, and takes on a new import.�� Only Abraham’s descendants receive the repetition of this blessing. While all of creation is to be fruitful and multiply of its own accord, God says only of Abraham’s descendants that he himself will make them fruitful and multiply them, using the transitive hiphil form of the verbs. And after the patriarchs have indeed increased, in Gen 47:27 (repeated in the pluperfect in Exod 1:7, where it is intensified), the phrase never again

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appears in P.�� The blessing has served its designed purpose: Israel has become a people. The use of creation language in the priestly promise texts thus reflects the general principle in P that already at the moment of creation God had a special plan in mind for Israel, different from the other families of the world. �� The possession of the land is a central component of the promise tradition. Yet in P we find a unique designation of the land as “the land of your ə sojourning [m gureykā ]” (Gen 17:8; 28:4; see also Exod 6:4). The notion that the patriarchs were gērîm in Canaan is found throughout P (in addition to the preceding references, see too Gen 23:4; 35:27; 36:7; 37:1). In the abstract, this is not particularly surprising, as P (like J and E) clearly states that Abraham and his family moved to Canaan from elsewhere, and were therefore gērîm , resident aliens, in the land. Yet it is noteworthy that P is the only pentateuchal source to describe the Israelites as gērîm in Canaan; in fact, in the nonpriestly texts the patriarchs are described as gērîm only when they are somewhere other than Canaan: in Egypt (Gen 12:10; 15:13; 47:4; Exod 2:22; see also Deut 26:5), in Gerar (Gen 20:1; 21:23, 34; 26:3), and in Aram (Gen 32:5). In one respect, this sharp divide between P and non-P might be taken as an indication that P adheres more strictly to the narrative context in its rendering of the promise tradition, in that it takes into account Abraham’s non-Canaanite origins.�� That said, however, P’s emphasis on the patriarchs as gērîm also serves a greater purpose. In making abundantly clear that Abraham’s family is not native to Canaan, the priestly promise of the land takes on an additional signification of God’s power. The gēr , after all, is an outsider, a foreigner by descent, a second-class citizen. It is, from a sociological perspective, unthinkable that such people might some day come to possess the land in which they are sojourning—such possession is entirely at odds with the very meaning of the word gēr . Yet, in the promises, God states that Israel, the descendants of Abraham, will overcome their status, as, it may be imagined, no other people ever could. This promised transformation is at once an indication of God’s control of history and of Israel’s distinctiveness from all other peoples. Despite the seemingly obvious connection between the promise of progeny and the actual children of the patriarchs, more often than not in the nonpriestly text the two are kept separate. Only in Genesis 15, with Abraham’s query about his inheritance, and in Genesis 24, in the search that culminates in the wooing of Rebekah, is there a direct link between the promise and the immediate patriarchal family.�� In the announcement


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of Isaac’s birth in Gen 18:10–15, in the narrative of his birth in Gen 21:1, 6–7, in the birth of Jacob in Gen 25:21–26, in Jacob’s marriages to Leah and Rachel in Gen 29:15–30, in the births of Jacob’s children in Gen 29:31–30:24—in none of these nonpriestly texts is the promise mentioned or even alluded to. In P, on the other hand, the promise is always linked to the patriarchal family, in what appears to be a very intentional manner. The first priestly promise text, of course, is set in the context of the announcement of Isaac’s birth (Gen 17:15–21). As noted earlier, this context also includes the birth itself (Gen 21:2–5), since in the independent P document this follows directly on the end of the material contained in Genesis 17. The second reference to the promise comes in Isaac’s blessing of Jacob before sending him to Paddan-Aram to get married (Gen 28:1–9).�� The third reference occurs directly upon Jacob’s return from Paddan-Aram, with family in tow (Gen 35:11–12). �� And the final priestly promise text in Genesis is connected with Jacob’s adoption of Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen 48:3–7). In each case, there is a clear family context for the promise. In Genesis 17, the promise serves to distinguish between Abraham’s children: it is Isaac, not Ishmael, who will be party to God’s b ərît , who will receive the full blessing of the patriarchal promise. The promise is thus more closely circumscribed by means of being attached to the birth of Isaac. In Genesis 28 and 35, we have the bookends to Jacob’s journey to Paddan-Aram to take a wife: Isaac’s prayer that El Shaddai will bless Jacob with the promise, and God’s fulfillment of that prayer. At stake in Isaac’s sending away of Jacob is the question of endogamous marriage: the reason Jacob is to go to Paddan-Aram is so that he may marry within the family. Here again the priestly author shows concern for the dilution of the family line: the promise is linked to genealogy. In these two cases, the connection of the promise with narratives of birth and marriage has a restrictive function, narrowing the promise recipients from all of humanity to Abraham’s family, and from there to a particular lineage within that family. In the case of Jacob’s adoption of Joseph’s sons in Genesis 48, however, the promise operates differently, in no small part because, by this point in the story, the promise of progeny in the sense of making Abraham’s family into a people has been fulfilled (Gen 47:27). Now that Israel has increased and become a self-standing people, the focus of P in general, and the promise in particular, shifts from ethnic concerns toward a broader, nationalistic perspective. As noted earlier, the association of the promise with the adoption of Joseph’s sons

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is an attempt to take into account the reality that Ephraim and Manasseh were the largest and most important tribes in Israel. Even while maintaining the immediacy of the narrative present, the promise looks ahead to the future of Israel the nation. The adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh signals for P the connection between Israel’s patriarchal past and its contemporary reality: the definition of Israel the nation as the recipient and fulfillment of the promise. This forward-looking national perspective is present in other aspects of the priestly promises as well. Although every pentateuchal source employs the concept of the patriarchs’ descendants becoming a “nation,” a gôy — indeed, this is, as we have already seen, the very essence of the promise— only in P does God say that they will become “nations,” plural, gôyīm (Gen 17:6, 16; 35:11).�� Similarly, and in the very same verses, only in P does God say that the patriarchs’ descendants will be kings. In Genesis 17, it is tempting to read these statements as referring to the related nations that descend from Abraham: Ishmael, of whom God says explicitly that he will be a great nation (17:20; see the fulfillment in 25:12–16), and Esau, whose descendants are described in the Edomite king list of Genesis 36. �� Yet this reading is undermined by the repetition of God’s words in Genesis 35, to Jacob. Jacob’s children are the twelve tribes—no foreign peoples descend from him to whom the promise of “nations” and “kings” could be referring.�� It must refer, therefore, to the Israelites themselves. Yet the individual tribes can hardly be called independent nations—they are nowhere so termed anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. Nor, of course, does each tribe have its own king. The word for nation, gôy , has a specifically political connotation (as opposed to ‘ām , which is primarily an ethnic designation). �� The easiest way that Jacob’s descendants could be understood as nations, plural, is if the promise refers to the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. �� It is difficult to conceive of another scenario in which Jacob’s descendants become multiple nations: P seems here to be referring to the two kingdoms.�� If this is in fact the referent for the promise of plural nations, then the reference to kings is comprehensible in the same light: P is referring to the future kings of Israel, in both the northern and southern kingdoms. This reading has potentially significant implications for the dating of P, although that is not our concern here. What is interesting in the context of this discussion is how these mentions of nations and kings further P’s agenda. Ironically, by using the plural “nations” to describe Israel, the author of P is more inclusive: when only one nation is mentioned, it


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might be possible to understand it to refer to either the northern or southern kingdom alone. From the perspective of P, Israel and Judah together stand as the fulfillment of God’s promise to the patriarchs. (That they are to be considered a unit, though they are two distinct political bodies, is intimated in the promise to Jacob in Gen 35:11: “A nation, an assembly of nations, shall descend from you”—the single nation, Israel, and its two political embodiments, Israel and Judah, are hereby equated. It may further be noted that in the P spies story the territory investigated is very explicitly the whole of Canaan: “from the wilderness of Zin [in the far south] to Rehob, at Lebo-Hamath [in the far north]” [Num 13:21]; this definition of the promised land makes clear that neither part of the divided kingdom could constitute the fulfillment of the promise. ��) Although Israel and Judah are political entities, gôyīm , just like the other nations surrounding them, they are different. They alone, both corporately and as embodied in their kings, are the living representation of God’s will, vivid demonstrations of God’s power on earth. By using terms that have real-world application, in the two kingdoms, P emphasizes, more than the other sources, the relationship between Israel’s political reality and divine power.�� Not only in an ethnic sense are the Israelite people unique; in Israel’s existence as a national polity it has a special place. In this light we may also note that P alone connects the promise with the change of the patriarchs’ names, from Abram to Abraham (Gen 17:4–5) and from Jacob to Israel (Gen 35:10).�� In the case of Abraham, the name change is directly linked to the concept of a multitude of nations, as discussed above.�� Thus already with Abraham, the priestly author looks forward to the political reality of the two kingdoms. And in the case of Jacob, the name change is transparently focused on the shift from family to nation; indeed, despite announcing the name change in Genesis 35, P never refers to the patriarch as Israel in narrative contexts, using the name only when referring to the Israelites as a people (Gen 46:8; Exod 1:1, and thereafter). It may thus be posited that in P’s formulation of the patriarchal promise, from its wording to its themes to its narrative and traditional associations, there is a consistent focus on the distinctiveness of Israel as a people and as a nation. This focus comports well with the overall agenda of P. At the center of the priestly narrative are the interdependent Exodus and Sinai episodes. The former is fundamentally a demonstration of God’s power and the proof of God’s special relationship with Israel: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall

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know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians” (Exod 6:7). As for the latter, the central premise of the priestly Sinai narrative and legislation speaks to the remarkable status of Israel in the world: though God is the creator of all the world, he chooses to dwell, out of all the nations, in the midst of Israel: “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Exod 25:8). This notion is unique to P: the author who presents the most universalistic depiction of the deity, in Genesis 1, is the same author who has the most personal depiction of God’s relationship with Israel. The distinction of Israel from the rest of the created world is of utmost concern to P, and the patriarchal promise supports and furthers that central concern, highlighting Israel’s special status both as an ethnic group and as a fully-fledged nation.

The Promise in J As we have often had occasion to observe, the essence of the patriarchal promise is the intertwining of the aspects of progeny and land, and both are present in all of the pentateuchal sources’ representations of the promise. In J, however, there is a subtle emphasis on the aspect of the land. As noted in chapter 3, in both P and E when the two aspects of progeny and land are mentioned together the progeny always comes first, while in J when both are mentioned it is the land that is given priority (Gen 13:14– 17; 26:3–4; 28:13–14). The promise of land plays a central role also in the structure of J’s narrative. While the promise proper is always given in the land of Canaan itself with the regular expression “this land,” three times in J Yahweh speaks to a character about the promised land from outside the land itself. The first of these, of course, is Gen 12:1, the very first words of Yahweh to Abraham: “Go . . . to the land that I will show you.” The second occurrence is in Exod 33:1, spoken to Moses just before the Israelites are to leave Sinai: “Set out from here, you and the people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: ‘To your offspring I will give it.’” And the final time comes in God’s final words to Moses in J, in Deut 34:4, as Moses is about to die: “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: ‘To your offspring I will give it.’” Three seminal moments in the history of Israel— Abraham’s sojourn in Canaan, the Israelites’ departure for Canaan from Sinai, and the conclusion of their long journey at the border of Canaan— are marked by the introduction of the promise and explicit references to it (the latter two using virtually identical language). The promise serves


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as a signpost for J, marking off the beginning, middle, and end of Israel’s early history. In a similar manner, the two arrivals in Canaan—that of Abraham and that of Moses and the Israelites—serve as bookends to the narrative, and have their own unique marking in J. In both Gen 13:14 and Deut 34:1–3, �� and only in these passages, we find the notion of a character visually surveying the land. In Gen 13:14, after Abraham has finally split off from Lot, Yahweh instructs Abraham to look at the land in all four cardinal directions.�� In Deut 34:1–3, Yahweh shows Moses the entirety of the land, here described not by cardinal directions but by tribal affi liations and geographical features.�� In their emphasis on the visual, these passages play a part in the larger J source, which is particularly invested in sight as a means of perception. This theme recurs throughout the document, beginning in Genesis 3 with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil: “God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened” (3:4); “The woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom” (3:6); and “The eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked” (3:7). It is found also in the deception of Isaac in Genesis 27, which is predicated on the introductory statement that “Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see” (27:1). Perhaps most notably, the theophanies in Exodus are explicitly visual. First, there is Yahweh’s appearance to Moses in the burning bush: “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Exod 3:6); then the theophany before all Israel at Sinai: “On the third day Yahweh will come down in the sight of all the people” (19:11); also in the theophany to the elders alone: “They saw the God of Israel” (24:10); and, famously, in the individual theophany to Moses on Sinai: “I will take my hand away and you will see my back” (33:23). This is to name only a few of the more prominent passages in which sight plays a significant role in J. Throughout the document, starting from the tree in Eden, sight is equated with knowledge and understanding: to see something is to know it more intimately, to comprehend it more fully. When Abraham and Moses survey the land, they are doing more than simply seeing it; it is the divine promise made concrete, tangible—even if, or perhaps precisely because, neither one will truly possess it himself. Perhaps the most prominent recurring concept unique to the J promise is the idea that other peoples are to bless themselves (or each other) by Abraham and his descendants (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 26:4; 28:14). Scholarly discussion of this phrase—whether it should be taken as reflexive or passive,

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and what it might mean in either case—tends to center on the phrase in isolation. It is our interest here to consider how the concept fits into the larger context of J, and how it contributes to J’s overall presentation. Of all the pentateuchal sources, J goes to the greatest lengths to establish Israel’s genetic relationship with its neighboring nations. Certainly P makes clear that the descendants of Ishmael and Esau—that is, the Arabs and Edomites—are related by blood to the patriarchs (Gen 25:12–16 and Genesis 36, respectively), just as J does (Gen 16:4–14 and 25:21–26, respectively), and that Israel and Aram are kin (Gen 28:2), also as in J (Genesis 24). In addition to these, however, J provides genetic relationships for the Ammonites and Moabites, through Lot (Gen 19:30–38), and for Sheba and Midian (and other lesser-known peoples), through Abraham’s second wife, Keturah (Gen 25:1–4). In short, with the exception of Egypt (for obvious reasons), all of the nations that surround Israel are, according to J, part of the larger Abrahamic family. In addition, J has a recurrent concern with the perception of Israel (in the persons of the patriarchal family) by non-Israelites. In Genesis 26, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, says to Isaac, “We now see plainly that Yahweh has been with you” (26:28). That is, they recognize that Isaac has been blessed by Yahweh (26:3, 12, 24, 29). When Jacob encounters Esau in Genesis 33, he explains the procession of people and gifts that precede him in similar terms: “God has favored me and I have plenty” (33:11). In reverse, there is the concern of Jacob when Simeon and Levi act in a way that might damage the family’s reputation: “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land” (Gen 34:30). Similarly, Joseph is careful to make sure that his brothers do not offend their Egyptian hosts with their shepherding (46:31–34). �� On the whole, then, J is acutely aware of Israel’s place among its neighbors. And—again with the understandable exception of Egypt—J goes to some lengths to set the relations between Israel and its neighbors in positive terms, be it through blood ties or through reciprocal respect. The phrase “all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you” in the promise texts fits into this overarching theme, in its concern for the status of Israel in the eyes of other peoples. The familial ties between Israel and its neighbors also link thematically with the implied blessing, “May you be blessed like Abraham,” insofar as these sorts of blessings are, in J and in the other sources as well, confined to familial situations, mostly fathers blessing sons (see in J, for instance, Genesis 27).�� Kinship stands at the heart of J’s geopolitical view, and at the heart of the blessing formula in the promise as well.


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In addition, it may be noted, as others have, that implied in this phrase about blessing is the idea that the successes of Abraham and his descendants will be so widely known that it may serve as a model for others; this idea is tied directly to the promise in Gen 12:2, “I will make your name great”: Yahweh guarantees to Abraham and his descendants the fame that was sought unsuccessfully by the builders of the Tower of Babel—“Come, let us build a city and a tower with its top in the sky to make a name for ourselves” (11:4). Ironically, of course, it is not possible that the builders of Babel should have made a name for themselves even if they had succeeded, since everyone on earth was in the same place—there was no one else to acknowledge their fame. Once they had been scattered, however, a select group of them—Abraham’s family—could indeed garner fame among the remaining peoples, not by their own hubristic actions, but through Yahweh’s blessing. Thus the author of J ties the blessing of Abraham to the primeval history, at the same time emphasizing the status of Israel in the eyes of other peoples. In Gen 18:19 and 26:5 we find references to Abraham’s obedience and uprightness: “in order that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of Yahweh by doing what is just and right” (18:19); “inasmuch as Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my laws, and my instructions” (26:5). �� As noted earlier, these various terms cannot refer to any actual laws, as none have yet been given. Rather, they describe Abraham’s general behavior as being in line with Yahweh’s will (as Abraham indeed is always fully obedient to Yahweh’s commands). It was also noted above that similar phrases are used elsewhere in J, in Exod 15:26 and 16:28, also to denote not formal law but rather the behavior of the Israelites. Indeed, there is no formal law in J, as there is in each of the other pentateuchal sources. �� What J has, instead, is the story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 3. This story represents a sort of theory of natural law; the understanding of what is acceptable behavior and what is unacceptable is a human trait from the first generation onward. As the serpent astutely notes, to eat from the tree is to become “like divine beings, knowing good and bad” (Gen 3:5). That is to say, “the way of Yahweh” in Gen 18:19 is essentially the knowledge gained by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. What is expressed in the promises, then, is not anticipation of, response to, or adherence to a set of practices specific to the Israelites, as is the case in the other sources, but rather adherence to the universal modes of behavior revealed in Eden.

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For J, Abraham and his descendants are not distinguished from other peoples by their obligation to the imposed divine legislation after the Exodus; they are distinguished by their voluntary commitment to act in accord with the natural law that is equally shared between God and humans. This may be seen to extend also to include the ostensibly uniquely Israelite practice of worshipping Yahweh: after all, J tells us that mankind begins to worship Yahweh in the generation of Enosh (Gen 4:26), and Noah builds an altar to Yahweh (8:20). In J the rationale for the selection of one family among all the others to be Yahweh’s people is fundamentally based on the premise that although all of humanity was supposed to worship Yahweh, they were evidently unable, thereby forcing Yahweh to choose a more restricted group to provide him with the worship he requires. Worship of Yahweh was supposed to be universal; only Abraham and his descendants, however, actually do worship Yahweh. �� This special commitment to Yahweh’s will is to a certain extent the parallel to Yahweh’s blessing of Abraham’s family: they are singled out from the other families of the earth by Yahweh for blessing, but at the same time they are more worthy of the blessing by virtue of their obedience to the divine will. Implied in this is the notion that the other peoples of the earth are not obedient to the same degree, a notion that is more or less confirmed by the narratives about non-Abrahamic peoples in J, in virtually all of which the other peoples act in questionable ways: Pharaoh in Genesis 12, the inhabitants of Sodom in Genesis 18–19, the inhabitants of Gerar in Genesis 26, Laban in Genesis 30, Shechem in Genesis 34. The promise texts that speak of Abraham’s particular obedience to the divine will, therefore, make explicit the uniqueness of the Israelites, and relate also to the aforementioned issue of blessing: Abraham’s family is indeed a model for others to follow. The conjoining of Yahweh’s blessing, in the form of the promise, and Abraham’s obedience creates in J a distinctive sense of reciprocity between God and Israel. Yahweh will act so as to ensure that Abraham’s family is blessed; Abraham’s family will, for their part, act in such a way as to be worthy of that blessing. This reciprocity is stated clearly in Gen 12:2: “I will bless you . . . and you, be a blessing.” There is a partnership between Yahweh and Abraham, the end goal of which is that the rest of the peoples of the world will come to recognize Abraham’s family as particularly blessed, and Yahweh as the source of that blessing. �� Both parties stand to benefit from this joint venture, Abraham materially and Yahweh in reputation.


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Perhaps related to this sense of partnership is the idea that Yahweh works on behalf of the patriarchal family behind the scenes, so to speak. Because it is in Yahweh’s interest that Abraham’s family prosper, chance seems to conspire on their behalf. A substantial number of episodes in J make little or no mention of Yahweh, and certainly report no direct intervention on Yahweh’s part: the wooing of Rebekah in Genesis 24, Jacob and Esau’s barter of the birthright in Genesis 25, Isaac’s stay in Gerar in Genesis 26, Jacob’s deception of Isaac in Genesis 27, Jacob’s stay with Laban in Genesis 29–30, his encounter with Esau in Genesis 32–33, and, most prominently, the entirety of J’s portion of the Joseph story in Genesis 37–50—in none of these does Yahweh play a direct part. The success of the patriarchal family in these narratives frequently hinges on happy coincidences, such as Abraham’s servant going to the very well where Rebekah watered the flock (or Jacob going to the very well where Rachel did the same), or the Ishmaelites happening to pass by just as Joseph’s brothers were about to kill him. Yet the author makes certain to indicate that these ostensible coincidences are nothing of the kind, but are rather the working out of the divine plan. Abraham’s servant recognizes this: “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld his steadfast faithfulness from my master, for I have been guided on my errand by Yahweh” (Gen 24:27). So too, famously, does Joseph: “God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance” (Gen 45:7); “Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people” (Gen 50:20).�� Inherent in the partnership between Yahweh and the patriarchs is the frequently silent but ever-present support provided by the deity in mundane affairs. �� On occasion, however, there is explicit notice that Yahweh is working on behalf of the patriarchs, in the form of the phrase “I am with you” (or variations thereon). The phrase appears first in Genesis 24, when Abraham sends his servant off: “he will send his messenger before you” (24:7); the servant repeats Abraham’s words when he arrives: “Yahweh, whose ways I have followed, will send his messenger with you” (24:40). Clearly implied in the statement of Yahweh’s presence is divine assistance: “I have been guided on my errand by Yahweh” (24:27). So too in the promise to Isaac in Genesis 26: “Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you” (26:3), and “Fear not, for I am with you and I will bless you” (26:24). Even Abimelech and Phicol recognize Yahweh’s presence with Isaac: “We now see plainly that Yahweh has been with you” (26:28).

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Here too the divine presence equates to divine aid—in this case, as with that of Abraham’s servant, specifically in terms of safety in travel to or through a foreign territory. This is explicitly the import of the phrase also in the promise to Jacob in Genesis 28: “Remember, I am with you; I will protect you where you go and will bring you back to this land” (28:15; see also 28:20–21). And indeed, when it is time for Jacob to return, Yahweh tells him again: “Return to the land of your fathers where you were born, and I will be with you” (31:3). Although no direct intervention is attributed to Yahweh in these narratives, his presence is repeatedly affirmed, and stands as the implicit guarantee of divine assistance. It is not simply assistance that is at stake in Yahweh’s presence, however, as becomes clear over the rest of the J narrative. In Exodus 4, when Moses objects to being sent by Yahweh to Pharaoh, it is not divine aid that he doubts, but rather the very success of his mission: he believes that he will be unable to do what is asked of him. To this Yahweh responds, “Now go, and I will be with you as you speak” (4:12), and further, “I will be with you and with [Aaron] as you speak” (4:15). Yahweh’s presence is more than an implicit notice of protection, it is a promise of success in the venture. The theme of Yahweh’s presence is most clearly delineated in the wilderness period, in which the regular element of travel associated with the promise of divine presence is combined with the constant threat to Israel’s survival. The Israelites, when faced with dire thirst, specifically inquire, “Is Yahweh present among us or not?” (Exod 17:7)—expressing, perhaps, their fundamental lack of trust in the behind-the-scenes nature of God’s actions: when faced with an uncertain situation, the people require proof of God’s presence, hence their straightforward question. It is this question that drives the Sinai theophany in J, which is nothing less than the visual proof of Yahweh’s presence before the entire Israelite community (Exod 19:11). At the same time, it is the occasion for Yahweh to threaten divine abandonment: “I will not go in your midst” (Exod 33:3). To Moses, this threat puts the survival and, indeed, the very identity of the community at risk: “How shall it be known that your people have gained your favor unless you go with us, so that we may be distinguished, your people and I, from every people on the face of the earth?” (Exod 33:16; see also 34:9). Finally, the meaning of Yahweh’s presence among the Israelites is fully elucidated at the end of the spies episode in Numbers 14, when the Israelites decide to attempt an invasion of Canaan even after being instructed to turn around and reenter the wilderness: Moses tells them, “You will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned from following Yahweh and


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Yahweh will not be with you” (Num 14:43). When the Israelites fail to heed Moses’s words, they are duly routed in battle. In this passage, then, it is made absolutely clear that Yahweh’s presence is not merely a good, but is a necessity for the survival and success of the Israelite people. Moreover, it is tied to obedience: it is because the Israelites did not follow Yahweh— that is, because they did not “keep the way of Yahweh” (Gen 18:19)—that Yahweh was not with them. Yahweh’s presence in J, in the words “with you” and its variations, is linked to the promise, and in turn to obedience. And, from the other side, when the phrase appears in the context of the J promises in Genesis, it sets the standard for the whole of Israel’s early history according to J.�� Overall, there is in J a striking immediacy to the patriarchal promise. That is, even as it looks ahead to the future of Israel, it is distinctly grounded in the narratives in which it is found. The promise occurs at particular moments when it is of most use, so to speak, to the characters: notably, at the beginning of journeys, when risk is high and divine aid most needed. The giving or repetition of the promise on these occasions serves to reassure the patriarchs in those specific moments, even as they speak of the longer term. The blessing promised by Yahweh is always that of the patriarch alone, not of his offspring as well; the obedience in question is always that of the addressee, not of generations to come. The promise to be “with you” is entirely of the moment. Only in the broadest sense, in the notion that the other families of the earth will bless themselves by the patriarchs, does the promise look beyond its context. This goal is, however, nearly eschatological, in that it represents the fulfillment of the overarching divine plan; it is not achievable within the narrative or within the lives of the author’s contemporary audience. The promise is not without import for that audience, inasmuch as they are to think of themselves as standing in the line of the promise, but the promise never speaks directly to or even much about Israel in the national sense. It is tied to the immediate concerns of the narrative, and is presented in a highly personal manner.

The Promise in E A consistent feature of the promise in E is the introduction of the promise with the phrase “Fear not” (Gen 15:1; 21:17; 46:3). Although this phrase is used sporadically elsewhere in the Pentateuch and beyond, in E it takes on special significance due to the source’s overarching concern with the

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fear of God.�� When Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister in Genesis 20, he explains his actions by saying “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place” (20:11). When God relieves Abraham of the obligation to sacrifice Isaac, he does so with the words “Now I know that you are one who fears God” (Gen 22:12). When the Hebrew midwives disobey Pharaoh’s orders to kill all the newborn Israelite boys, they do so because they fear God (Exod 1:17), and are rewarded for precisely that reason (1:21). Those Israelites who are deemed capable of assisting Moses with the burden of judging the people’s disputes are chosen because they fear God (Exod 18:21). The “fear of God” in these passages means nothing other than correct moral behavior, that is, obedience to God. Most notably, the purpose of the theophany at Horeb is explicitly so that the Israelites will learn to fear God: “God has come only in order to give you this experience in order that the fear of him may be ever with you, so that you do not go astray” (20:17).�� This last example, from the central event of the E narrative, provides a lens through which we may understand E’s concept of the fear of God and the use of “fear not” in the patriarchal promise. For at the same time that Moses tells the Israelites that they are to fear God, he introduces his announcement with the words “Fear not” (20:17). Two types of fear are thus juxtaposed in this one verse: natural human fear—in this case, fear of the extraordinary sights and sounds of the theophany (“the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking” [20:15])—and fear of God, which is understood as obedience and trust. The Israelites are told to set aside their natural human emotion and give themselves over to God. In this light we may understand the midwives of Exodus 1, who overcome their fear of reprisal from Pharaoh and instead trust that God will protect them, and Abraham in Genesis 22, who overcomes the terror of sacrificing his only child and instead trusts that God knows best. This holds for the promise texts as well: Jacob is told to set aside his fears of bringing his family to a foreign land, but to trust that God will care for him and them there, and Hagar is told not to fear the death of her son, but to trust that God will save him and make him into a great nation. And, of course, God tells Abraham in Genesis 15, “Do not fear”—indeed, these are the very first words spoken by God in E. They are without context: although it appears that we are missing the beginning of E, since Gen 15:1 begins with the words “after these things,” that very opening phrase makes clear that God’s words have no immediate narrative referent. They are a general statement: do not fear anything that one might normally fear. Implicit,


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as we have seen, is the desire that Abraham should fear God, should obey God’s instructions and trust that faith in God’s providence leads to reward: protection, wealth, and progeny (15:1–5). �� And, famously, this is just what Abraham does: “Because he trusted in Yahweh, he reckoned it to his merit” (15:6). This opening scene of Genesis 15, the first divine appearance in E, introduces both the promise and one of the fundamental theological arguments of the document as a whole, one that is repeated throughout in various contexts: divine rewards come to those who put aside their mundane fears and instead fear—trust—God. Perhaps the most striking feature unique to the E promise is the repeated reference to Egypt: in the initial covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:13–16�� ) and in the promise to Jacob (Gen 46:3–4). These are the only two true instances of the patriarchal promise in E; though God speaks to the patriarchs elsewhere (Gen 35:1, for example), and though God delivers something very promise-like to others (Gen 21:18, for example), only in these two passages does God give the promise directly to the patriarchs. And in both instances, Egypt plays a central role in the divine discourse. The reference to Egypt in the context of the promise is not a mere quirk of E, however, but rather belongs to a larger set of issues in the E document, some of which are perhaps not readily apparent. Israel’s experience in Egypt is formative and definitive for E in a way that it is not for J and P. All three sources tell of the Israelites complaining in the wilderness that they were better off in Egypt, or that they wish to go back; �� this feature seems to be a staple of the underlying wilderness tradition, which cannot of course be severed from the Exodus tradition proper. In E, however, in the wilderness period the Exodus experience is used as a means of defining Israel for outsiders as well. Upon Jethro’s arrival at the Israelite camp in Exodus 18, Moses immediately tells him the story: “Moses then recounted to his father-in-law everything that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardships that had befallen them on the way, and how the Lord had delivered them” (Exod 18:9). When the Israelites arrive at the border of Edom in Numbers 20, Moses sends the same message: “You know all the hardships that have befallen us; that our ancestors went down to Egypt, that we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and that the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our ancestors. We cried to Yahweh and he heard our plea, and he sent a messenger who led us out of Egypt” (Num 20:14–16). Moses, in both cases, introduces the Israelite people by describing the Exodus experience; this, Moses is saying, is who we are. Such is not the case in either J or P.

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Only in E is the period of Israel’s stay in Egypt explicitly anticipated during the patriarchal era. In J the closest we come is the potential foreshadowing of the Exodus in Gen 12:10–20; in P there is nothing at all. In E God announces in Genesis 15 the entire plot in advance: the descent to Egypt, the length of the stay, and the eventual departure. So too in Genesis 46: both the descent and the departure are stated outright. �� By placing the Exodus at or near the very beginning of the document, before there is any narrative requirement to do so, and moreover in the context of the initial covenant with Abraham and the promise entailed in that covenant, the author of E sets the Exodus as a defining part of Israel’s existence. Who are the Israelite people? They are those who descend from Abraham, who are promised land and progeny, and, equally, who will experience the descent to and emergence from Egypt. The Exodus is a part of Israel’s identity from the very beginning. The promise and the time in Egypt are deeply connected for E: God tells Jacob, “Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation” (Gen 46:3). Only in E is the promise linked to Egypt in this way, such that the fulfillment of the aspect of progeny is almost dependent on the descent to Egypt. Israel’s identity is bound up with the time in Egypt not only in the narratives of the patriarchal period, however, but also in the laws of the Covenant Code (Exod 20:23–23:33). These laws form the basis of Israel’s relationship with the deity and of Israel’s self-definition as a people: “If you will obey me and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples” (Exod 19:5). Embedded in the laws are rationales—not for obedience, but for the existence of the laws in the first place; that is, the rationales provide the basis for the behavior that constitutes Israelite-ness according to E. The laws define the people; the rationales define the laws. And the rationales in the Covenant Code are based on the experience of Egypt: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exod 22:20); “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (23:9); “You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread . . . at the set time in the month of Abib, for in it you went forth from Egypt” (23:15). Notably, the embedding of the Exodus in the laws is a novelty of E. J, as already noted, has no laws; P, for its part, never mentions the Exodus in its ritual legislation. �� The non-E legal texts that do use the Exodus in a manner similar to E are both derived from it: the laws of D, which have been conclusively demonstrated


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to be based on those of E, and the laws of H, which in turn reflect both D and E (and, of course P).�� In E, the Exodus experience thus stands at the inception of Israel as a genealogical entity, with the promise to Abraham in Genesis 15, and at the inauguration of Israel as a community of practice, with the laws of the Covenant Code. As noted above, there are only two true places where the promise is given to the patriarchs in E. They serve as important markers in the narrative: at the beginning of the patriarchal generations, with the first address to Abraham, and effectively at the end of the patriarchal generations, with the reference to Jacob’s death and in light of the clear threat to the fulfillment of the promise that the descent to Egypt presents. The description of the Exodus in both passages highlights a further distinction in the promise between E, J, and P. For P, the promise looks ahead to the national entity, Israel. For J, the promise texts have an immediacy that situates them in their close narrative contexts. In E, on the other hand, the promise emerges from immediate concerns (Abraham’s question about inheritance and Jacob’s reticence about bringing his family to a foreign land), but it is endowed with a broader historical view than the promise in J—yet one not so forward-looking as that in P. The E promise consciously bridges the traditions and narratives of Israel’s early history in a way that those of J and of P do not. To the promise texts proper we may add in this light the speech that Joseph makes to his brothers on his deathbed: “‘I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land that he promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here’” (Gen 50:24–25). Here again the promise and the Exodus are intertwined, and E uses the promise as a mechanism for looking ahead in the narrative. In this case, furthermore, the bridge between the traditions is even more explicit, insofar as the fulfillment of Joseph’s request is narrated almost word for word: “And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, ‘God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you’” (Exod 13:19). It may be further observed that God speaks of the patriarchal promise a third time in E: in Deut 31:23, God says to Joshua, “Be strong and resolute: for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them on oath.” This is admittedly not a patriarchal promise proper, but then again nor can it be, as it occurs well after the patriarchs have died. It is,

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however, reasonably equivalent, insofar as it positively states that Joshua and the Israelites will occupy the promised land. We may note, then, that here again a promise text stands at a structurally important moment in the overarching narrative: the promise was given at the beginning of the patriarchal period, potentially near the very beginning of the E document; at the seam between the patriarchal and Exodus-wilderness periods; and now at the border of the wilderness and conquest periods. �� The three divine statements of the promise serve to structure the entire course of Israel’s history according to E. Finally, we may note that the descriptions of the Exodus in the E promises represent truly rare instances of God vouchsafing a vision of the future. Both Abraham and Jacob are granted knowledge of what is to happen hundreds of years later. In J, the future represented by the nations blessing themselves by the patriarchs is aspirational; in P, the future looked to in the references to kings and a multitude of nations is, to the patriarchs at least, abstract. In E the patriarchs know precisely the course of history: what is going to happen, when, and, to a certain extent, how. There are two close analogues to this sort of foresight. One is internal to E: Joseph’s interpretations of the dreams of Pharaoh’s baker and butler and of Pharaoh himself in Genesis 40–41. In this story we have both the element of dreams as the mode by which the future is revealed (just as in Genesis 15 and 46 the patriarchs experience God’s message by way of a vision, and as elsewhere in E) and the exact knowledge of that future. The second is common to all of the pentateuchal sources: Moses as recipient of divine predictions. In J, E, and P, Moses knows in advance that God will deliver the Israelites from Egypt; in J and P, he knows that the plagues will not convince Pharaoh to let the people go; in E, he knows that the Israelites will despoil the Egyptians; in P, he knows that the Egyptians will be destroyed by the sea; and so on. All of the pentateuchal sources ascribe the receipt of this sort of foreknowledge to Moses. Only in E, however, is this same foreknowledge manifested in anyone other than Moses—namely, in the patriarchs. It is well known that prophecy is among E’s central themes, and that E uniquely describes Abraham as a prophet. It is not usually noted, however, that the knowledge of the Exodus granted to both Abraham and Jacob in E may also stand in this thematic line (even as we must recognize that prophecy in the biblical context comprises far more than the ability to foresee the future, and that quite often foreknowledge is not at all a part of the prophetic picture). Yet the promise is, in fact, on the rather extreme


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end of the prophetic spectrum, even for E: both Joseph and Moses are given advance knowledge of events or processes that are to occur or begin immediately, yet the patriarchs know the course of history much further in advance. We may venture to propose that the confluence of this extreme foresight and the patriarchal promise is not accidental, but rather that the author of E tries by this conjunction to set the stage, as it were, for the emergence of Moses in the period of the Exodus. That is, insofar as promise and Exodus are interwoven in E, prophecy may be another strand tied up with them; the message may be that as the promise is to be fulfilled in the period of the Exodus, so too prophecy will reach its zenith in the person of Moses, who is central to bringing about that fulfillment. Bound up in the E promise, then, are a multitude of issues and themes that pervade and define the E document as a whole: fear of and trust in God; Israel’s identity; the course of history; and prophecy. These overlap and intersect throughout the E source, but first and foremost in the promise, perhaps the only E texts in which all are embedded together. From a common traditional base—that God promised the patriarchs land and progeny—the authors of J, E, and P constructed intricate and comprehensive historical and theological statements. They each took advantage of the freedom permitted them by the unbound promise tradition, locating the promise at different points in their narratives, linking it with different other traditions, and employing different phrases and themes in the expression of the promise. In this chapter I have tried to articulate the ways in which the promise is integrated into its respective sources, how the promise encodes the larger concerns of the documents in which it is found. Reading the promise in the context of its original sources allows us to understand more not only about the promise texts, but about the sources as wholes. The elaborate connections between each set of promise texts and the documents in which they are found serve also to further justify their attribution to the original sources themselves, rather than to secondary layers. For it would be remarkable indeed if promise texts secondarily inserted into J contexts happened by chance to engage with precisely the interests of the J document as a whole, while those inserted into E contexts connected intimately with the interests of E; that this is indeed the case may be considered another piece of evidence for the originality of the promise. Engaging the promise on the level of the individual pentateuchal sources resolves the two major diffi culties with reading on the level of the final form: the narrative contradictions evaporate, and the particular

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literary expressions of the promise texts are not ignored but are rather highlighted and given great significance, even while the centrality of the promise as the leading theological element in the text is preserved. What the literary-historical approach ostensibly lacks, however, is the capacity to speak to the interpretation of the Pentateuch as a whole, which is precisely what the canonical reading provides. In the final chapter, an attempt will be made to bring these two equally important approaches to the Pentateuch into a meaningful dialogue.

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Returning the Promise to Its Canonical Setting �� 4, �� examined the rationales for attributing the various promise texts to their pentateuchal sources, and attempted to understand the function of the promise in each source. The purpose of this chapter is to try to apply the insights gained from the source-critical analysis to the theological reading of the canonical Pentateuch. The step taken in this chapter is one that is rarely found in source-critical studies. Source criticism has long and rightly been seen as a primarily divisive (not to say destructive) process: it takes a single text, the Pentateuch, and renders it into four (or more) individual pieces, and considers the job completed. From a purely historical perspective, this process makes good sense: by isolating the original components of the text, we can reconstruct some part of ancient Israel’s self-conception, even if it is not always possible to link those components with any precision to specific times or places. From a literary-historical perspective, it is also reasonable: the source-critical endeavor originates with the recognition that the Pentateuch is impossible to read as a unified story, given the innumerable contradictions in narrative logic, or as a unified theological statement, given the diversity of theological views present in the text. Indeed, the theology of the Pentateuch has long been a topic almost entirely foreign to source-critical treatments of the text. The classical expression of the Documentary Hypothesis, as exemplified by the work of Julius Wellhausen, was not particularly favorable to the notion of any theology of the final form of the Pentateuch.� The object of source-critical inquiry, from its earliest incarnations, was to explain the various contradictions inherent in the canonical text, contradictions which, to be sure, included the obvious theological inconsistencies from passage to passage: the nature of divine discourse with humans, the location of God’s

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presence among the Israelites, the revelation of the divine name, among many others. Indeed, it was, at least in part, precisely the lack of any unified theology in the canonical Pentateuch that led to the conclusion that there were multiple sources in the text. Although perhaps somewhat obvious, it is also the case that the classical Documentary Hypothesis did not ascribe any particular theological intentionality to the redactors of the Pentateuch. The combination of the sources was often considered a political necessity, driven by historical events: the fall of the northern kingdom in the case of the combination of J and E, and the exile in the case of the combination of JED and P. � The object of the redactors was, at each step, merely to combine the given sources into a single document, thereby preserving their already-authoritative status. What limited passages could be ascribed to the redactors were primarily in the service of this mechanical end; or, in a very few cases, were so attributed because the source division was too difficult, and the redactor was an easy solution. In either case, the redactors’ work had no clear theological profile, nor should it have; the theory aimed not at identifying and describing the theological meaning of the canonical Pentateuch, but at identifying and describing its constituent parts. What Wellhausen’s work illuminated, then, was not the theology of the Pentateuch or its redactors, but rather the historical development of Israelite theology as manifested in the succession of pentateuchal sources. From the almost chthonic religion discerned in J up to the ostensibly decadent ritualization of P, theology was certainly at the forefront of Wellhausen’s analysis. In the pentateuchal documents the trajectory of Israelite faith and practice was preserved, and the value of the source-critical project, as Wellhausen clearly demonstrated and as the generations that followed him confirmed, was grounded in the ability of the scholar to reconstruct the theology of Israel over the course of several hundred seminal years of its history. But the theology or theologies that could be extracted from the Pentateuch were only those of its sources, not of the Pentateuch as a whole. Precisely because the classical Documentary Hypothesis seemed to concentrate only on the theologies present in the Pentateuch’s constituent elements, many of the early anticritical writers zeroed in on the fact that the theory seemed to eliminate any theological meaning for the final form of the text. As one author wrote in 1894, “If the Bible be broken up as the critics are doing, then its organic unity is destroyed, then its spiritual life must leak out, its divine purposes be thwarted, and its divine setting of truth be almost wholly destroyed.” � One year later, the great anti-critical

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author William Henry Green wrote, “The Scripture is no longer reliable in its present form. The inspiration of its writers has been surrendered. We have lost our infallible guide.” � The fundamental question at the heart of these writings is how it can be possible that the Pentateuch, the foundational unit of the Hebrew Bible, can have no unified or unifying theology. This question was, and to a certain extent remains, especially pressing because of the primacy of the Pentateuch for later traditions and beliefs; as Green put it, “All the subsequent revelations of the Bible, and the gospel of Jesus Christ itself, rest upon the foundation of what is contained in the Pentateuch.”� Such arguments were not limited to Christian authors, of course; in the same vein is the now-famous renaming by Solomon Shechter of higher criticism as “higher anti-Semitism”: “we allowed ourselves to be slain by hundreds and thousands rather than become unfaithful to [the Bible.] . . . The Bible is our sole raison d’être, and it is just this which the higher anti-Semitism is seeking to destroy, denying all our claims for the past, and leaving us without hope for the future.” � In the works of somewhat later scholars we can see an effort to accept some critical analysis of the Pentateuch—though not the Documentary Hypothesis—while still preserving its essential unity. Relevant here is the example of Umberto Cassuto, who devoted his efforts to proving “the unity of the Torah—a unity, in truth, that does not exclude . . . a multiplicity and variety of source materials, nor even their reflection in the text before us; but a unity, none the less.” � Similarly, M. H. Segal argues that although there may be some oral or even written materials that pre-date the final composition of the Pentateuch, “the book is clearly the work of a single inspired author and literary artist who composed it with a definite and preconceived plan and with fixed purpose.”� Most recently, one may point to the work of Norman Whybray, who attributes the Pentateuch to a single, sixth-century historian who made ample use of preexisting written sources and oral traditions. � From the perspective of a present-day reader, however, seeking a deeper understanding of the canonical text from whatever vantage point, it has usually been assumed that the division of the text into its sources is of little interpretive value; final-form readings tend to set aside the literary-historical treatment of the material.�� The leading example of this type of scholarship is surely David Clines’s The Theme of the Pentateuch, a book explicitly aimed at discussing the final form of the Pentateuch without concern for its origins. Also of note is Thomas Mann’s The Book of

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the Torah: The Narrative Integrity of the Pentateuch, which fully admits to

the basic tenets of the Documentary Hypothesis, but attempts to read the whole of the Pentateuch as a single unit, with an overarching message: “With this description of the new community of God [in Deut 27:9: “this day you have become the people of Yahweh your God”], the Pentateuch has reached its true end—its telos—its goal and purpose.”�� The divorce of final-form reading and source-critical analysis need not be irrevocable, however. While it is safe to say that some aspects of the historical analysis of the Pentateuch are irrelevant to a final-form reading—the dating of the sources, the identity of their authors, and so on—the existence of the sources may not be. The presence in the canonical text of distinct voices affects any reading of the whole. As demonstrated in chapter 4, each source makes individual claims, narrative and, more importantly for our purposes, theological, that stretch over the entirety of the text. An individual passage—say, the promise to Abraham—does not stand alone, but is deeply interconnected, even in the canonical text, to a series of other passages that share the same broader conception of Israel and its relationship to the deity. Even when reading the final form, one cannot come across the phrase “all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by you” in Gen 12:3 and not associate it with the occurrence of the same phrase in Gen 18:18, and the context of the latter in the story of Yahweh and Abraham’s dispute over the fate of Sodom and the salvation of Lot. One cannot read the prediction in Gen 15:13 that Abraham’s descendants will be g ēr î m in a foreign land without hearing the rationales for the laws in Exod 22:20 and 23:9, “for you were g ēr î m in the land of Egypt.” It is impossible to read “I will make you fruitful” in Gen 17:6 without recalling the blessing of fruitfulness in Gen 1:28. The texts, in both their wording and their ideologies, lead to each other. The connections drawn by source critics as a means of dividing the text into its sources are present for any reader, even one without any source-critical intentions. One of the values of source-critical analyis for canonical reading, then, lies in the closer identification and comprehension of both the divergences and interconnections among the parts of the Pentateuch. In the vast array of narratives, laws, and other material, it is easy to miss some of the finer nuances. Source criticism provides a basis for recognizing more clearly how a given passage may be read in light of the broader picture created by the link with other passages. Even a careful canonical reader may miss the connection between the prediction of the Exodus in Genesis 15 and Moses’s description of the Israelites in Numbers 20, for instance; the source-critical


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identification of both passages as being from a single document helps to highlight the unique way that the author construes the identity of Israel and imbues the passage in Numbers 20 with meaning beyond being a mere rehearsal of the narrative. Just as source criticism does not end with the identification of the texts that make up the Pentateuch, but must also account for how those texts were brought together, so too any attempt to read the final form of the text from a source-critical vantage point must also be concerned with the method of the Pentateuch’s redaction. The shape of an edited text is by definition intentional, and that intentionality, however it may be manifested, is a crucial guide for how the reader is to approach the text. For example, the Deuteronomistic History in the books of Joshua–Kings comprises a wide range of diverse source materials that have been edited so as to frame them with an interpretive model of sin and punishment. Even when that model is foreign to the source materials used by the deuteronomistic editor, as it frequently is, it would be mistaken to read the Deuteronomistic History, in its final form, from any perspective other than that of its editorial framework. Indeed, as we have seen already, this sort of theologically intentional editorial shaping is precisely what is proposed by contemporary nondocumentary scholarship. While even documentary scholars, in the identification of some promise texts as secondary, seem to be allowing for some theological shaping of the Pentateuch, the center of the theory still posits the essentially nontheological combination of two or more sources. The development of the new nondocumentary approach in the late 1970s, however, effectively shifted from the margins to the center the idea that there was some theological shaping of the text. To briefly recapitulate: according to this theory, presented in programmatic fashion by Rolf Rendtorff, fleshed out comprehensively by Erhard Blum, and expanded in a myriad of directions by subsequent scholars, the Pentateuch grew entirely by accretion of redactional layers: early tradents collected and framed a series of small, originally independent, basically etiological texts, bringing them together for the first time under a single theological umbrella; those early collections were subsequently expanded and combined with other such collections, again with a distinct theological motivation; and these new complexes were themselves overlaid again and again, each time adding a new theological view, be it deuteronomic, priestly, or some other. �� In this light, the Pentateuch is not merely a mechanical collection of sources, each with its own theology, but rather is a living and growing text, each stage of which, from the earliest minor collection of traditions to

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the final overarching redactional supplements, has a clear and definable theological profile. As Rendtorff puts it, “What stands out above all in this is that clearly defined theological intentions were at work in the arrangement and interpretation of these larger units.” �� Both in the coordination of previously self-standing textual units and in the insertion of newly composed passages, each redactional layer took preexisting, authoritative texts and refashioned them in its own image.�� As appealing as this theory may be to those who wish to find in the Pentateuch a unifying theological view, there are some complications. Leaving aside the more technical challenges that could be leveled, �� we may ask what we are to make of those purportedly redactional changes that serve no theological purpose at all. Though it is easy to see the theological value in P’s ostensible alteration in the flood story from J’s seven pairs of animals to two animals—since P is very careful not to present any sacrifice having taken place before Sinai—it is much less obvious what meaning we are to attach to the change from the thrice-sent dove to the once-sent raven, or from forty days of flooding to 150. �� What is the theological import of the change of Moses’s father-in-law’s name from one layer to the next, or of the different names for the city where Rebekah’s family lives? Moreover, why does the author of a supposed redactional layer repeat so closely the content of his predecessors, especially in cases where there is no theological advantage to be gained? For instance, in the flood story, J’s sentence recounting the destruction of all life reads, “All existence on earth was blotted out—man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth” (Gen 7:23); why did this not suffice for the purported later priestly redactor, who did little other than say the same thing again: “all flesh that stirred on earth perished— birds, cattle, beasts, and all the things that swarmed upon the earth, and all mankind” (Gen 7:21)? We may also consider the fact that even as we can, according to this approach, discern within the Pentateuch the various layers of its composition, it is the final layer—whatever that may be thought to consist of, as this varies from scholar to scholar—that supposedly has the last word, that was designed to provide the lens through which we are to read the whole. The previous layers, though still present, are mere historical relics, evidence of previous theologies, but not guides for the theological understanding of the final form. An analogy may be drawn to the United States Constitution, which likewise preserves older laws even while altering or even completely reversing them: the Constitutional amendments do not


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literarily replace the laws they amend, but stand beside them in the final form of the text. In the Constitution, then, we have not only the final legal viewpoint, but also evidence for earlier legal views; the Constitution is a layered text. The difference, however, is that the Constitution is structured in such a way that the later layers are readily discernible from the earlier; the amendments stand at the end, and the last of them is the most current (as in the case of the institution and repeal of Prohibition in the eighteenth and twenty-first amendments, respectively). In the Pentateuch, on the other hand, the later layers are structurally indistinguishable from the earlier; there is no guide for the reader that allows him or her to identify what is “current,” so to speak, and what is mere historical remnant of earlier thought. It is thus equally possible to read P’s flood story as a revision of J, or to read J’s flood story as a revision of P. �� More to the point, the canonical text of the Pentateuch does not speak in one discernible voice, be it that of the latest redactional layer or any other. Though it is frequently assumed that the final layers of the Pentateuch are priestly, the priestly material does not dominate to the degree that is often claimed, if at all. It is common to point to Genesis 1 as an indicator of P’s conclusive stamp on the whole, yet even while the Pentateuch begins with P—though given a text that opens with the word bər ēšî t , “in the beginning,” where else could it possibly go?—the Pentateuch does not end with P. Though P does contain structural elements, they do not always structure the final form: the Abraham cycle is initiated not by P, but by the nonpriestly text (Gen 12:1–3); Moses is introduced not by P, but by the nonpriestly text (Exod 2:1–10); and so on. More importantly, although at times P certainly does dominate the text, requiring that we read it through a priestly lens—as, for instance, in Genesis 1—it is also very often the case that the priestly theology is subjugated to or undermined by the nonpriestly material: P’s announcement of the change of Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen 35:10), which occurred already three chapters earlier (Gen 32:29); or P’s dramatic revelation of the divine name to Moses in Exodus 6, preceded as it is by that of Exodus 3; or, of course, P’s grand presentation of the patriarchal promise to Abraham, which is rendered somewhat redundant by the presence of two earlier such promise texts, involving precisely the same aspects of land and progeny. Some P narratives are virtually lost in the sea of nonpriestly text: Jacob’s journey to Aram, for instance, or the Joseph story, or the theophany at Sinai. And then there are the laws: for all of P’s extensive legislation, it is conclusively overshadowed by the existence of Deuteronomy at the end of the Pentateuch—not only as the final

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word for anyone reading the canonical text, but also explicitly as “the laws and the rules that you are to observe in the land that the Lord is giving you to possess” (Deut 12:1), a claim that the priestly laws, for their part, never make. It is hardly imaginable that a priestly editor would allow his laws, the central part of all the priestly writings, to be so utterly undermined. Nor is it conceivable that a priestly editor, holding the long-recognized position that there was no sacrifice before the establishment of the cult in Lev 8:22–24, could allow that fundamental tenet to be otherwise unrecognizable in light of the sacrifices offered before Sinai by, among others, Noah (Gen 8:20–21), Abraham (12:7–8; 13:18; 15:9–17; 22:13), Jacob (28:18; 31:54; 35:7, 14; 46:1), Moses (Exod 18:12; 24:4–8), and Aaron (Exod 32:5–6). As William Gilders has pointedly observed, “the combination of P and non-P ends up subverting and negating P’s very ideological point.” �� What is true of P is true of every source, strand, and layer proposed in pentateuchal criticism: no one viewpoint dominates the others. All are, in one way or another, equally undermined by the others. This alone makes it difficult to accept the notion that the final product is the work of any one of the theologically minded authors whose words are contained in it. �� Indeed, if the Pentateuch is the result of a series of theologically motivated redactional layers, each of which is intended to recast the whole in its own image, it must be said that these redactors did a particularly poor job of getting their messages across. Note that even in the earliest interpretations of the Pentateuch, even those within the Bible itself, no one source or layer is privileged over the others. The famous example of the law regarding the passover sacrifice in 2 Chr 35:13 demonstrates that the contradictory priestly and deuteronomic positions embedded in the canonical Pentateuch were given equally authoritative weight. Jubilees does not distinguish between the various pentateuchal viewpoints, but takes bits and pieces from each, according to its own interpretive needs (and so too other ancient readers such as Philo and Josephus). This is not to say that ancient readers were unaware of the contradictions in the text, of course; both the example of 2 Chronicles and the extensive rabbinic literature make it abundantly clear that the narrative difficulties in the Pentateuch were indeed registered. Yet no ancient reader, indeed no one at all until the rise of critical scholarship, was able to identify any one perspective in the text as interpretively dominant. What is interesting about the new nondocumentary theory is that, despite its fundamental opposition to the classical documentary analysis, it shares with Wellhausen one important basic feature: the notion that


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the text of the Pentateuch preserves evidence of an evolutionary development of Israelite religious thought. Both theories are founded on the core idea that the Pentateuch presents a chronological progression of theological arguments; that we can, by peeling back the layers, both get back to the earliest manifestations of Israelite religion and also see how religious beliefs changed over the centuries. Of course, there are differences in how this sort of evolutionary model manifests itself in the two approaches. For Wellhausen, the pentateuchal laws were representative of actual Israelite practice; for contemporary nondocumentary scholars, there is no such assumption—these texts are more literary and theological than practical. For Wellhausen, the pentateuchal documents were authoritative on the national level, such that all Israelites would have known and respected them; for nondocumentary scholars, it is, certainly more rightly, assumed that the Pentateuch, in any of its written manifestations, would have been known by only a small literate elite subsection of Israelite society. Despite these differences, however, the basic theological arc of the Pentateuch’s growth has remained constant: from original texts that were theologically naïve (in the case of Wellhausen’s J) or practically nontheological (in the case of the smallest etiological units in the nondocumentary approach) to nearly exclusively, almost overbearingly theological, writings (Wellhausen’s P, and contemporary theory’s latest redactional layers, usually also priestly). �� It is precisely this evolutionary scheme, however, that poses a challenge for both the classical documentary model and the contemporary nondocumentary model. For it is unlikely to the point of near impossibility that the culture from which the Pentateuch emerged, ancient Israel, would have had any unified religious conception at any single time. Even in the nondocumentary approach, in which the Pentateuch is the product of only a very small segment of that society, the problem remains. For it assumes that the Pentateuch, from its earliest collections on, passed through a linear sequence of hands, each with a distinctive theological viewpoint, each unwilling to remove any part of the preceding incarnation, each identifiable not only by theology but also by chronology, each representing the state of theological thinking among Israel’s elite at that very moment—and all of this despite the undeniable differences in social location among the various hands at work, from royal or nationalistic to popular or prophetic to exclusivist or priestly. Chronology and theology are, for both Wellhausen and today’s pentateuchal critics, so closely linked as to be virtually identical.

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Yet, while not denying that theological ideas do indeed change over time, and often in easily discernible ways, it must be remembered that if ancient Israel, or even the elite portion thereof, held a single consistent set of theological views at any particular point in time, it would be the sole exemplar of such religious unity in recorded history. From its very inception, Christianity was marked by discord: the contention between Peter and Paul, for example, or more broadly the divergent views held by followers of the Jesus movement that are evident in Paul’s Paul’s attempts to unite them. Islamic unity lasted no longer, longer, fracturing almost instantly upon the death of Muhammed. And it should not be forgotten that Israelite Is raelite religion, even as far back as we can speak of it, did not emerge from a single individual (Abraham notwithstanding), but was always a hodgepodge of elements from Canaanite, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian religions, along with an admixture of a wide range of localized stories, practices, and beliefs. The idea of a monolithic Israelite religion, progressing in lockstep down the centuries, is a myth. It is far more likely that the diversity of theological views present in the canonical Pentateuch is evidence not of o f sequential evolutionary development of religious thought but rather merely of precisely what it looks like: theological diversity in ancient Israel. The idea that there were multiple, contradictory religious conceptions in Israel at the same time is not at all difficult to accept: a ccept: we w e may consider con sider the wide w ide divergences diverg ences between b etween Deutero-Isaiah and Ezekiel, for example, or between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. This is not to mention that the theologies present throughout the Hebrew Bible are essentially elitist; enough archaeological discoveries of local cultic sites, figurines, and other religious paraphernalia have demonstrated that there was a widespread “popular” religion that existed alongside the religion presented as normative in the biblical materials. Indeed, as has long been recognized, the biblical screeds against various nonnormative practices serve only to demonstrate the existence of such, from Baal to the Queen of Heaven. The religion of ancient Israel was always diverse. The various theologies present in the Pentateuch should be seen as evidence of the same phenomenon, especially as they seem to emerge from distinct social settings, all of which existed for the vast majority of Israel’s history: the royal court, prophetic circles, the cult. It is fallacious to assign any of these strands of thought to what might be considered co nsidered a particularly appropriate moment in Israel’s history—for example, P to the post-exilic period because at that time Israel was a hierocracy; after all, the Jerusalem


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Temple existed in the preexilic period also, and there is no n o reason to think that its priests would have been any less internally focused when it came to describing the regulations of the cult in the seventh century than in the fifth.�� Especially when we take into account the considerable evidence that the strands of the Pentateuch underwent extensive internal development—multiple layers within D or P, for example—it becomes clear that each of these schools of thought had its own lengthy history, written and rewritten rewritt en over multiple multi ple generations. gener ations. It is thus th us increasingly incre asingly diffi cult to put these theological views into any chronological chron ological order; all seem to have been part of the religious fabric of ancient Israel across the centuries. In this light, it is worth noting that the absolute dating of the pentateuchal sources is technically not the concern of the documentary theory. The literary evidence points to four sources, and regardless of when any of them was written, that evidence would not change. The relative dating, however—which is another way of saying the literary relationships among the sources—is important. Without an externally derived notion of evolutionary development, there are no grounds for seeing any literary relationship between the three major sources in Genesis–Numbers, J, E, and P. None refers to another, none cites another, none interacts in any discernible way with another. Each is referentially self-enclosed, internally coherent, and almost entirely continuous. At the same time, however, it is clear that D is familiar with and dependent on the J and E sources, so urces, in both narrative and law, law, while H, the latest late st stratum of the P source, s ource, seems to be familiar with and dependent on D and E. �� What is important to recognize about this sort of dependence, however, is that both D and H were written not to supplement their sources, but as alternatives to them. This distinction is not trivial. For supplementation obliterates the independent existence of the underlying text: a supplemented text remains a single text. Consider, for example, exa mple, the th e difficulti culties es of recoveri rec overing ng the ipsissima verba of a prophet amid the various accretions. Critical scholarship may be able to delineate original text from secondary layers, but in the precritical era, for all practical purposes, there could be no such division. The writing of an alternative text, on the other hand, does not destroy the original. It creates not a single text, but two texts, each of which can continue to have a life of its own among the circles that value it. The composition of D did not negate J and E; all three continued to exist, as is evident from the dependence of the Deuteronomistic History on all three (indeed, on all four, including P). �� Thus even though there is evidence of some literary relationship between certain pentateuchal sources, each remained an independent text.

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To say that the documents of the Pentateuch were independent before they were brought together, together, however, however, is not to say that the act of compilation had no theological motivation. Thus before attempting to read the canonical promise from a source-critical perspective, it is necessary to be clear about just what sort of intentionality can be ascribed to the pentateuchal editor. For if the pentateuchal sources were combined in a manner intended to direct the reader toward some particular interpretation, it would be of the utmost importance for any canonical reading. To ignore the message intended by the editor would be to read against the text. We must, therefore, describe how the pentateuchal editor brought the sources together, and what meaning, if any, emerges from that process.

The Combination of the Sources The existence in the Pentateuch of four independent sources requires, at the very minimum, one person to have combined them. No more than that is necessitated in the abstract; in order to claim that there was more than one compiler, therefore, it must be demonstrated that more than one redactional hand is evident in the text. Just as the different pentateuchal authors are identifiable by their authorial distinctions—that is, in how they go about telling their stories—so too different redactors should be identifiable by redactional distinctions, that is, how they undertake the process of combining the sources. If it could be shown that J and E were combined in a manner different from the combination of J and P, for example, then we would have a literary justification for assuming multiple stages of redaction. A close examination of the Pentateuch reveals, however, that this is not the case: there is no difference between the combination of J and E and the combination of J and P, or P and D, or any other set of sources. From the broad picture to the smallest details, from Genesis 1 through Deuteronomy 34, the sources have been put together in precisely the same way throughout the entire text. Without any literary evidence of more than one redactional hand, there is no compelling reason to claim that there was more than one compiler.�� The import of this assessment should be clear: if the sources of the Pentateuch were compiled in a single process, then they all must have existed simultaneously and independently up to the point of their combination into the canonical text. None was culturally subsumed by another; all four, four, it would seem, were preserved in some form and valued by some


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segment of Israelite society. This points again to the notion that ancient Israel maintained, over multiple centuries, a rather wide diversity of religious conceptions, and it is probably safe to say that the texts preserved in the Pentateuch illuminate only a small part of the theological diversity that must have existed in ancient Israel. Because the figure of the compiler emerges only from the recognition of the pentateuchal sources, the minimal description of what the compiler did is nothing more than that he combined his sources into a single narrative. It is not impossible that the compiler had some ideological agenda in mind when undertaking the process of combination, but, as with the notion of multiple redactors, anything beyond the minimum required by the theory must be justified by the literary evidence. Thus in order to claim that the combination of the pentateuchal sources was done from a particular theological perspective it is necessary to show where in the process of redaction that perspective manifests itself. There are effectively three ways that the compiler could have brought his multiple sources together while imposing his own particular viewpoint on the resulting whole. The redactor could have removed those passages that contradicted his perspective, thereby creating a theologically harmonious text. It is manifestly clear that this did not happen in the compilation of the Pentateuch: one the one hand, the canonical text is riddled with contradictions, both narrative and theological; on the other hand, when the sources are read independently independently,, they flow so smoothly that it is difficult to see where the compiler might have made such cuts. �� The compiler could also have added passages that reflected his views, thereby shaping the resulting whole by means of a series of guiding insertions. For this too the evidence is nonexistent: those passages that can decidedly be attributed to the redactor are very minimal, and contain no theologically important messages; they are brief words or phrases that serve only to better connect the disparate sources into a unified plot. �� W Wee may note again the model of the Deuteronomistic Historian in Joshua–Kings, who, as has long been recognized, frames his source texts with patently deuteronomistic speeches and statements, elements that appear regularly throughout the corpus. There are no similar insertions to be found in the Pentateuch—nothing nearly as consistent in theme or frequency.�� Those most commonly cited as such are, of course, the promise texts; yet as I have argued in the previous chapters, these are firmly at home in their respective sources. The third mechanism by which the compiler could c ould have created a new theological meaning in the combination of his sources would have been

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to reorder them, either by the setting of one text before or after another such that priority would be given to the presentation in one source over another, or by placing two texts beside each other such that an entirely new meaning might emerge. A commonly raised example of the former is the placing of Genesis 1 at the beginning of the Pentateuch: it is argued that by doing so the compiler betrayed his propriestly stance. The latter position is exemplified by the claim that the situating of the nonpriestly episode of the golden calf in Exodus 32–34 between the two priestly passages about the construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25–31; 35–40) creates a meaningful sequence of divine command, disobedience, repentance, and covenantal reestablishment.�� Neither of these propositions is supported by the text. We have already seen above that P is not privileged above the other sources. More generally, as noted above, none of the sources is given regular priority over the others: P may begin the Pentateuch, but it does not end it; J is granted the lead position in introducing the story of Abraham; E is prominently featured in its revelation of the divine name in Exodus 3; and D has the last word in all legal matters. And while it is possible to find meaning in the proximity of certain passages, this does not lead to the conclusion that such meaning was intended by the redactor. For the example of Exodus 32–34 given above, for instance, once the redactor had equated Moses’s ascent of the mountain to receive the tablets of the Decalogue in E with Moses’s ascent of the mountain to receive the blueprint for the Tabernacle in P (Exod 31:18), then the entire golden calf narrative, which takes place while Moses is on the mountain, can come nowhere else but after Exodus 25–31; and since Moses’s final descent from the mountain in J and in E must be the same as Moses’s final descent from the mountain in P (Exod 34:29), the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus 35–40 could not come anywhere but after Exodus 32–34. In every case where it appears that two disparate passages create a larger meaningful whole by their sequential placement in the canonical text, it is evident that, according to the narrative assumptions of each source, there could be no other place for the passages to be but beside each other in precisely that order. This last observation leads to the recognition that in order to claim a theological intentionality in the ordering of the pentateuchal sources it is necessary to demonstrate that no other logic could be at work. Yet the Pentateuch, from beginning to end, proceeds in perfect chronological order: what is placed first in the text must come first chronologically, and what is placed next is what must have happened next. At no point


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is the chronology disturbed—indeed, it is quite the reverse: the very few places where the compiler seems to have in fact moved a passage from its original position in its source document, it is demonstrably for the purpose of resolving what would have otherwise been a disturbance in the canonical chronology.�� For example, it has long been recognized that P’s notice of the destruction of the cities in the Dead Sea region originally followed directly on the priestly description of the separation of Abraham and Lot in Gen 13:12; yet in the canonical text, that notice has been moved far later, to Gen 19:29, because that is where J narrates the destruction of Sodom. Since the same place cannot be destroyed twice, the compiler had to delay P’s announcement until it fit into the canonical chronology.�� Given the strict adherence to chronology in the ordering of the sources, it is diffi cult to claim that there was any theological motivation at work: between believing that in the process of ordering the sources chronologically some chance pockets of new interpretive meaning were created and believing that in the process of ordering the sources theologically they miraculously happened to also end up in perfect chronological order, the former is surely the more likely option. The lack of any theological intention in the process of compilation is, ultimately, evident in the lack of any overarching theology in the Pentateuch as a whole; every individual theological claim by one of the pentateuchal sources is undercut by those of the others, such that no single source speaks more loudly, no one perspective is given precedence in the final form. The method of the compiler, then, as it emerges from the literary analysis of the Pentateuch, was to preserve his sources as completely as possible, both in their content and in their original internal order, while striving simultaneously to create a chronologically consistent narrative from beginning to end. With this process in mind, we can turn to considering the impact of the compiler’s method on our interpretation of the final form.

The Theology of the Compiled Text In the abstract, it is undoubtedly tempting to read some meaning into the sequence of the promises—the ordering of the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 17, for example. �� An argument could be made for a marked progression from the more abstract promise of Genesis 12 through the covenant ceremony of Genesis 15 and finally to the explicit bər ît of circumcision in Genesis 17. Yet when the promise texts are recognized as

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part of their respective sources, and when the method of the compiler is taken into account, it becomes all too clear that there is no other order in which these promise texts could have been set. The promise in Genesis 12, from J, is given before Abraham has entered Canaan; indeed, it contains the instruction to settle there, and it must have come first. The promise in Genesis 15, from E, assumes that Abraham has no offspring at all, not even Ishmael: “what can you give me, seeing that I shall die childless” (Gen 15:2); it therefore must come before Genesis 16, in which Ishmael is born. In Genesis 17, on the other hand, Ishmael is already thirteen years old (Gen 17:25), and so must of course come after Genesis 16. As everywhere, the order of the promise texts is entirely contingent on the presuppositions of the narratives in which they are embedded. None of the three could possibly be put in any other canonical location; by their own words they would present insurmountable narrative diffi culties. What this means from a practical interpretive perspective is that—at least for someone considering the composition of the text to be an important factor in its interpretation—it may be unwise to read too much into the canonical sequence of the promise texts, as there was no theological intentionality on the part of the compiler when they were put into their present order. That said, there is some meaning to be derived from the canonical Pentateuch—just not in the ordering of the sources. Rather, the meaning emerges from the even-handed treatment of the sources by the compiler, from the fact that each is allowed to speak its part fully, in its own words and in its own way. The compiler of the Pentateuch took four documents, with all their theological differences and disagreements, and set the entirety of each of them into what became, either by intention or by tradition, the central literary work of the Hebrew Bible. That is to say, the compilation of the Pentateuch is nothing less than a bold statement of theological impartiality. Ancient Israelite society comprised a diversity of theological positions, and that diversity is represented in the text. The Pentateuch is a snapshot—or, better, an extended exposure—of the multiplicity of Israelite perspectives on God and God’s relationship with Israel. From a historical perspective, the existence of the Pentateuch speaks to the abiding importance of these various theologies over much of the span of Israel’s history. The fact that the Pentateuch was taken up into tradition and given the prominence it has testifies to the acceptability of this diversity for its ancient audience. This may not be particularly surprising, as they would have recognized, more readily than we do, the manner in which the diversity in the text mirrored the diversity in


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their own society. It is we who, with our own biases and predispositions, desire to imprint the Pentateuch with a single identifiable theology; this was evidently not of concern for either the compiler of the Pentateuch or for its earliest tradents. Nor, for that matter, is it of concern for contemporary readers of the Bible as a whole: the presence in the canonical Bible of both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, for example, with their fundamentally opposing views on the wisdom tradition, does not require and is not susceptible to any leveling into a unified statement. Both books are taken as exemplars of biblical thought, and they are given equal authority as scripture. So too the sources of the Pentateuch. From the perspective of one searching for theological meaning in the Pentateuch today, recognition of its sources and of the process of its compilation provides a clear lens through which the text may be appreciated— one that does not try to explain away the diversity, but rather revels in it. The theological value of the compilation of the Pentateuch lies in its implicit permission to understand God’s relationship with humanity from multiple perspectives. It speaks against any attempt to define that relationship in one way to the exclusion of others. For all the conflict between its constituent parts, the Pentateuch is fundamentally an irenic document. Its reader is encouraged—or perhaps even required—to take multiple conceptions of the divine into account; not to adjudicate between them and hold up one against the other, but to hold them simultaneously, for all of them have, by virtue of their compilation into a single text, been granted equal authority. In short, if one wants to read the canonical text in light of source-critical analysis, the method of interpretation that the form of the text calls for is not one in which individual passages are interpreted in light of those adjacent to it from a different source, for the placement of the texts is based on thoroughly nontheological rationales. Rather, we should appreciate the broader claims made in each source, across the span of its constituent passages, and read these broad claims alongside one another. Perhaps ironically, recognition of the literary history of the text frees the canonical reader from the need to account for the narrative contradictions and allows instead for concentration on the larger issues presented by the sources. For it was the whole of each source that was deemed worthy of inclusion in the canonical Pentateuch, not just individual passages; surely it was the distinctive overarching perspective in each document that marked it as worthy, rather than the distinctive details of plot. P’s unique presentation of Abraham as receiving the promise after Ishmael is born

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hardly seems motivation enough for its inclusion in the Pentateuch; but the uniquely priestly conceptualization of the promise as the fulfillment of God’s design established at creation, as looking ahead to the future political entity of Israel the nation, as separating Israel from others, and so on—that is a compelling reason to include it. Details of plot are useful, indeed necessary, for separating the sources of the Pentateuch; the broad conceptual distinctions among those sources are useful for the interpretation of the final form of the text. We may draw an analogy: if we can imagine four brightly colored threads that have been randomly twisted together, it is certainly possible, even probable, that in a few spots along the length of the whole the combination of colors will be especially aesthetically pleasing; yet it would be a mistake, knowing that they were intertwined randomly, to assume that the creation of these small areas was the result of any intent to create them. Rather, we should concentrate on how the decision to use those four colored threads resulted in a whole greater than the sum of its parts, on how the entire rope is made beautiful and meaningful by the selection of those particular colors, and on how they interact with each other from beginning to end. This, I posit, is the best way to think about the relationships between the strands of the Pentateuch as well: not in small bits subjectively selected, but in the presence of all four in the final work, and how they play off of and illuminate each other throughout. The fundamental point here is that we are dealing with sources, with lengthy documents that contain developed arguments across their entire lengths. In the early nineteenth century, scholars proposed what came to be known as the Fragmentary Hypothesis: that the Pentateuch was composed of small individual units that had been chronologically ordered by one or more redactors.�� Within such a model, it would be far more reasonable, even necessary, to think solely about the relationships between adjoining textual blocks. Yet the Fragmentary Hypothesis quickly fell into disfavor because it ignored the extensive interconnections between passages of the Pentateuch. To read source-critically is to engage with the length of each source, with the range of passages that it comprises, and with the kinds of claims that can be made and expanded upon and nuanced over the course of an extended, sophisticated text. It is, of course, practically impossible to deal with the full scope of each source in this or any other study of any reasonable length; yet, as was demonstrated in chapter 4, even by looking at only a subset of each source—in this case, the promise to the patriarchs, which as we have seen


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is of fundamental importance for all of the pentateuchal authors—it is possible to gain significant insight into the broader conceptions inherent in the pentateuchal sources. And armed with those insights, it becomes our task then to attempt to read those broader conceptions in a complementary fashion: not prioritizing one over another, but finding those areas in which the views of one source can expand on or give specificity to those of another; can illuminate unexplored aspects of another; can, when read together with its pentateuchal counterparts, provide a more complete picture of Israel’s description of itself and its relationship with its god. The presence in the Pentateuch of multiple divergent stances, on issues of central importance, therefore calls for the reader’s active participation. The reader seeking to make sense of the whole is invited to read the divergences as complementary. This is not to say that all of the various positions taken in the text are to be brought into a single overarching notion with which all would agree, as such would seem to be largely impossible (and any position with which all would agree is likely to be rather obvious, if not in fact banal). Rather, it is to be recognized that no one strand is necessarily comprehensive in its treatment, that when read together the different voices make up a greater whole than any one of them taken individually.

Complementary Reading of the Promise In what follows, I make some suggestions regarding ways in which the promise texts in the Pentateuch, and the range of concepts inherent in them as identified in chapter 4, may be read in a complementary fashion, so that the interplay of the promise among the pentateuchal documents adds to our appreciation and understanding of the final form of the text. It should be stated from the outset that this is in no way a comprehensive project, but is rather more programmatic. Because interpretation, especially of the canonical text, is so much a subjective process, it would be impossible to capture every possible nuance or connection. Rather, in this section I will simply draw out a few possible readings, a sample of what might be done, as a potential model for others seeking to make constructive use of source-critical analysis for canonical interpretation. De�ning Israel

For the priestly author, the separation of Israel from all the other peoples of the earth is of paramount importance. It is anticipated in the act of

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creation in Genesis 1, and formalized in P’s promise texts: through the selection of Abraham and his lineage, through the blessing of fruitfulness and abundance, and through the emphasis on the family. The distinctiveness of Israel is given its clearest expression in the dwelling of Yahweh in its midst, in the Tabernacle. Other nations, especially those not of Abrahamic descent, are of little or no interest to P; even the standard list of the Canaanite nations never appears in P. Israel is defined against all others as God’s chosen people. The E source is also concerned with the definition of Israel, yet goes about describing it differently: for E, Israel in Egypt. This is a people defined by its experience as “other,” as g ē rî m is made clear from the promise of Genesis 15 and those texts connected with it, the rationales of the Covenant Code and the self-description of Israel by Moses to outsiders in Exodus 18 and Numbers 20. Israel is not defined against anyone in E; rather, it is defined by its own historical experience, one that is communicated to others. It is not so much that Israel is uniquely chosen in E, it is that Israel has undergone a unique and formative experience. For J, while the special status of Israel is clear from the selection of Abraham and his descendants, that selection is paired with Israel’s own self-willed obedience to Yahweh’s universal laws. Moreover, Israel’s relationships with other peoples, and its perceived status by those peoples, is a recurring concern for J: the final stage of the divine-Israel partnership expressed in J’s promise texts, beginning with Genesis 12, is that all the other peoples of the earth should take Israel as a model for blessing, and perhaps even for behavior. The Pentateuch thus contains three distinctive concepts of how Israel is to be defined to itself, to others, and for others. From P to E to J we can see a broadening of perspective, a move from interiority to exteriority, from a closed system to an open system. This is not to say that J’s position is preferable to that of P; we are not faced with an either/or choice, but rather with a range of views that are applicable in distinct situations and that can be brought together into a more complete picture. The priestly position implicitly poses the question, “what do we do that makes us Israelites?” Its answer comes in the form of the promise, with its requirements for both circumcision and membership in the Israelite family (Genesis 17), and the legal and ritual obligations that identify a person as Israelite and that, most importantly, guarantee the continued presence of Yahweh in the midst of the community. For E, the question is not “what do we do?” but “who are we?” And for E, the answer is the experience of the Exodus, as anticipated in Genesis 15 and as set in the heart of


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the civil laws. It is an answer not only for the Israelites themselves, but also for any outsider who wants to know what defines the Israelite people. J, for its part, can be seen as the answer to the question, “why are we?”: not only because God chose Israel, but so that Israel could stand as a guide for others, that they too might see what blessings derive from obedience to the divine will. Practical, historical, and ethical considerations are therefore raised by each of the sources in turn. Together, they present a robust depiction of Israel’s self-identification; without any one of them, we would be left with a gap, an unanswered, because unasked, question. As they are read together, they not only complement each other, but they can be seen to implicitly expand each other at the same time. While only E suggests how Israel is to define itself to others, and does so from a historical perspective, it is possible to read P’s practical stance into E’s outward message: Israel is a people who experienced the Exodus and also a people with a prescribed set of rituals. One could even go so far as to see P as counterintuitively expanding on E, opening the possibility of membership in the community to nonnative Israelites: one can be an Israelite not only by having experienced the Exodus, but also by adhering to the rituals, by participating actively in the process of maintaining the divine presence in Israel’s midst. Or the reverse: P’s concern with correct lineage, intended to keep Israel apart, can be made more inclusive by E’s notion of having experienced salvation from unjust oppression and the ethical demands that such salvation requires. J’s broad view of Israel’s interactions with other peoples cannot be narrowed to fit into P’s exclusivist perspective, as that would be akin to prioritizing P over J. Yet both P and E can be read in light of J: just as J suggests that Israel will be a model of behavior according to the divine will, so we might, reading in a complementary fashion, consider adherence to the priestly ritual legislation part of that modeling; so too we might consider that, as E suggests, part of the means by which the divine message is spread involves the recounting of Israel’s past, as a demonstration of the salvific benefits that derive from the obedience central to J. The identity of Israel is a central component of the promise tradition in all three sources, J, E, and P, and in each the concepts established in the promise extend throughout the document. When read not in isolation but in tandem, not as opposing but as complementary, it is possible to find in the Pentateuch a nearly comprehensive treatment of the issue, ranging from internal to external, from practical to historical to ethical, presenting

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the reader both with a variety of answers to discrete questions and with a variety of avenues for reading them all together. Israel’s Obligation

Just as there are three distinct views on Israel’s identity in the promise texts of the Pentateuch, so too there are three identifiably different takes on Israel’s selection as the recipient of the promise and the responsibilities that that selection entails. In P, the promise is styled as a bər ît , which, as we have seen in chapter 4, should be understood not as a covenant in the usual sense of the term, but rather as an unconditional promise. Abraham and his descendants are selected from all the other peoples of the earth, seemingly at random, to be the beneficiaries of God’s blessing. All that is required of them, at least for the time being, is that they belong to the specific lineage designated by God—from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, to the exclusion of Ishmael and Esau—and that they be circumcised as a reminder to God of his unilateral commitment to them. This situation changes only after the Exodus, when God’s rescue of the Israelites from Egypt puts them under further obligation to obey the detailed ritual laws that God prescribes at Sinai. Yet—explicitly according to H, and perhaps implicitly according to P—even lack of obedience to these laws will not result in the abrogation of the promise to the patriarchs, at least not permanently. For J, in contrast, Abraham and his descendants are worthy of the promise and its blessings because unlike the other nations of the world they alone maintain the universal laws established by Yahweh: the knowledge of good and evil, Yahweh’s path. This is both the warrant for their selection and the responsibility that ensues from it. Not only did Abraham obey Yahweh and keep his charge, commandments, laws, and instructions (Gen 26:5), but it was incumbent on him to do so: “I will bless you . . . and you, be a blessing” (Gen 12:2). This responsibility devolves onto future generations as well: “in order that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of Yahweh” (Gen 18:19). And in E, the blessings of the promise to the patriarchs are a reward not only for Israel’s obedience, their “fear of God,” but also for their trust that God will grant them protection, wealth, and progeny—trust expressed by the regular repetition of the phrase “fear not.” In neither E nor J is it at all clear that the promise is unconditional. Certainly for J it seems not to be, as the blessings of the promise are wrapped up in the partnership between Yahweh and


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Abraham, such that neither side can succeed without the other. Even for E, despite its opening words—“Fear not, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward will be very great” (Gen 15:1)—the fulfillment of the promise seems dependent on Israel’s continued trust in and fear of God. Even Abraham, after all, is subject to a horrifying test of his fear, in Genesis 22, while the generation of the Exodus must be given a direct experience of Yahweh in order to confirm their fear. Both sides of E’s fear—obedience and trust— appear to be in need of regular renewal. Read independently, these various conceptions of Israel’s selection and obligation seem at odds, or at least raise questions for the (Israelite) audience: is the promise unconditional and everlasting or not? what must be done to maintain it? are the obligations general or specific? When they are read as complementary, however, the distinctions are elided and the points of contact highlighted and expanded. The unconditionality of the priestly bər ît is tempered by the need for occasional renewal in E and further by J’s obligation on every generation of Abraham’s descendants both to continue to uphold the partnership with Yahweh and to instruct their offspring to do the same. The canonical promise does not permit Israel to let its guard down for an instant. At the same time, the priestly bər ît functions canonically as a safety valve of sorts for Israel: while they must be vigilant—as P itself makes clear in its ritual legislation—they can rest assured that Yahweh will never fully reject them. The blessings of the promise may be withdrawn for a time, but as a nation their status as promise recipient is firm. The two-sided coin of the promise thus demands uninterrupted present obedience and also maintains the security of the future. Additionally, by incorporating the notion of renewal from E, the canonical text allows for the possibility that Israel will have the opportunity to reaffi rm its commitment to God, perhaps even in the very sorts of crises that would naturally lead to doubt as to whether God has indeed abrogated the promise. Thus the opportunity for reaffi rmation blends with the fear of temporary divine withdrawal and the concomitant reassurance that it is indeed only temporary, a reassurance that is put in the clearest terms, at least canonically, by the refrain “fear not.” The ritual laws are presented as an imposition in the wake of the Exodus, both in P and in the canonical narrative; so too are the laws of the Covenant Code, from E. Both of these codes serve to reify the previously abstracted notions of obedience in the nonpriestly sources. When E mentions the fear of God before the laws (Exod 20:17), it clearly implies obedience, yet the precise contours of that obedience are ill defined. Aside

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from the two clear examples of Abraham in Genesis 22, who fulfills God’s commands despite their abhorrent content, and the midwives in Exodus 1, who act on behalf of Israel as a whole, the exact nature of what it means to “fear God” is left somewhat open: Abraham passes Sarah off as his wife because he worries that “there is no fear of God in this place” (Gen 20:11), but we are given no indication as to what particular practices Abraham is worried about. Yet when Israel is given a theophany in order that the fear of God “may ever be with you, so that you do not go astray” (Exod 20:17) and those words are followed by Israel formally accepting the obligations of the laws (Exod 24:3, 7), their meaning is made clear. Similarly, the laws give shape to J’s rather open-ended notion of walking “in the way of Yahweh.” The universal laws to which J refers by this phrase, and the other expressions that connote the same thing, are nowhere explicitly laid out. When the laws of E and P come into force after the Exodus, however, it is made clear what is to be taught when Abraham, and by extension Israel, is to “instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of Yahweh by doing what is just and right” (Gen 18:19). At the same time, the sense of imposition in the legal codes is mitigated by the notion of natural law in J. Israel’s obedience is not only required by Yahweh’s salvation from Egypt, but is taken on voluntarily from Israel’s earliest days down to the present. The legal codes do not negate the natural law, but give it concrete expression. Every generation from Abraham onward accepts the burden of obedience voluntarily, and passes it on to the next. While for both P and E there is a distinct sense of periodization in Israel’s history—the imposition of the laws in the wilderness marks a new beginning, indeed perhaps the true beginning of Israel’s existence as a people—the contribution of J insists on the elision of any divisions of Israel’s past. The Israel that existed when Abraham uniquely worshipped Yahweh is fundamentally unchanged down to the present, despite the laws. Though the practices elaborated in the law codes are a new requirement, the underlying motivation is not. J’s notion of divine–human partnership is not eliminated at Sinai/Horeb; rather, it serves as a lens through which to understand the purpose of the laws. It is by these means that both God and Israel will be exalted. Historical Scope

Because in the canonical text the promise to the patriarchs occurs over and over again, often multiple times even with a single patriarch, it can


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be difficult to discern clearly the differences in historical scope among the promise texts. They all seem to be linked closely to the lives of the patriarchs, and to the various moments in the patriarchs’ lives at which they are delivered. Yet when the promise is read in the context of its independent sources, as in the previous chapter, it becomes apparent that even while the promise is given at a specific time and place in the patriarch’s life it has, through its specific wording and its links to other texts from the same source, a broader context. As we have seen, the precise scope of that context differs significantly from source to source. In J, the promise seems to be particularly of the narrative present: it responds to significant situations in the patriarchs’ lives, and is accompanied by or linked to the J refrain that God will “be with” the patriarch in his time of immediate need. The future nation of Israel is implicit almost exclusively in the readership of the text, but is not directly or indirectly reflected in the promise itself. E, for its part, broadens the historical scope of the promise beyond the patriarchs to the Exodus, and, it may be argued, to Joshua and the conquest as well. Israel’s entire history, according to E, consists of the giving and fulfillment of the promise, and insofar as the readership of E sees itself as standing in that historical current, the promise has resonance beyond its precise literary contexts. As for P, the regular references to the patriarchs’ descendants as “nations” and “kings” seem to have their most natural referent in the divided monarchy. With the introduction of these common but weighty words into the received promise tradition, the author of P makes a powerful connection between the ancient promise to Israel’s ancestors and the contemporary state of Israel as a nation. The political body of Israel is the living fulfillment of God’s promise to the patriarchs. When these distinct notions regarding the historical scope of the promise are recognized from a source-critical vantage point, an entirely new window opens up into the reading of the canonical text. There is no question of contradictions among the sources in this case, as none of the proposed historical scopes is exclusive of any other. Their distinct emphases, however, can be brought into fruitful conversation, such that the canonical text presents the promise with greater depth and force than do any of the sources individually. On the most basic level, the coordination of all three presentations of the promise covers the entire range of Israel’s history: from the present of the patriarchs to whom the promise is given, through the broader narrative of the Exodus and conquest, up to the reader’s present. The promise,

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then, is effective from its initial statement to the present; it speaks equally to every point in Israel’s history. Yet there is more that can be said. E’s depiction of the promise as the structuring feature for Israel’s most important historical events—the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the conquest—is extended by P’s insistence on the fulfillment of the promise in the political state of Israel. We, the intended readership, need not look to the narratives of Israel’s early history to see the promise put into effect, for we too are its living fulfillment. The present thus becomes yet another of Israel’s great moments; the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest, and the present are all put on equal footing. The past is made present, the historical thread unbroken. Even though the giving of the promise proper ceases with the death of Jacob, its force continues unabated through every stage of Israel’s history. As E and P can be read together to create a dramatic sweeping view of the promise working throughout Israel’s past and present, the J promise adds a distinctly personal and immediate aspect. It may be that the nation as a whole stands as the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise, but what of the individual? To this J comes with the answer: the promise is not merely a national statement, but applies to each Israelite, and particularly in his time of need. It is a reassurance that God will care for each person, will be with him. Just as the promise was given to the individuals Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so too the promise functions for every Israelite individual thereafter. In combination with the broader connotations of E and P, the individualistic aspect of J’s promise leads to an equation between the Israelite and Israel: the nation is identified as the sum of its members, and the individual as a necessary and irreducible part of the greater whole. Furthermore, J’s connection of the promise to times of need adds a distinctive element to the E and P promises. The links in E and P to Israel’s triumphant historical moments indicate that those were (and are) the patriarchal promise put into effect. To this J adds, in effect, all of the moments in between: the times of crisis, the struggles, the hardships, both personal and national. The promise is not just about triumph; it is about the difficult road that leads to triumph. It is not merely a post hoc explanation for success; it begins to take effect at the moment of yearning, with the need for help. Indeed, as J makes clear, there is no success without God’s assistance: as both the Tower of Babel story and the episode at the end of Numbers 14 demonstrate, without God’s accompaniment human endeavors are bound to fail, even to lead to distresses greater than those initially felt. The J promise thus gives a personal and clarifying nuance to the history of Israel as expressed in E and P.


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The historical scope of the promise in the three sources is not, therefore, simply a temporal matter, or a parenetic issue. Rather, contained within it are far more substantive theological claims. When these claims are identified by reading each promise within its original source context, and when they are then read as complementary aspects of the canonical promise, the import of the historical scope is significantly broadened. The Divine Plan

It is clear enough in all of the sources, and in the canonical text as well, that both the giving and the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise are a central part, if not in fact the central part, of God’s plan for Israel. Yet precisely how that plan manifests itself differs from source to source. By linking the promise to creation by means of the phrase “be fruitful and multiply,” the priestly author suggests that the patriarchal promise, the selection of Israel from among all other peoples, was embedded in the divine plan from the very beginning. As with so much in P, the course of history, in particular Israel’s history, is plotted out in advance, and what happens is no more than the gradual unfolding of the divine plan. By contrast, in J it seems that the promise is given to Abraham only because the rest of humanity was incapable of obediently following God’s will. In addition, J introduces the notion that even while events progress, seemingly without extraordinary divine intervention, Yahweh is continuously working behind the scenes, as it were, to ensure the successes of his chosen people. And in E we find the unique element of human foreknowledge of events: the patriarchs know the course of the history to come. The divine plan is revealed to them, at least in its broad outlines. A central question for all three sources, then, is: what did the Israelites know and how did they know it? According to E, they knew the divine plan in some detail from the beginning; according to J, they knew only that God would be working on their behalf, even without knowing how that would manifest itself; and according to P, they knew nothing at all—it is we, the readers, who are privy to the connection between Israel’s selection and creation, but Abraham cannot be expected to have heard in the divine promise the resonances with God’s blessing of the first humans. The central question in this regard for the canonical reader, however, is not what the Israelites knew, but what we know, and how we can combine these divergent concepts of the revelation of the divine plan into a productive whole.

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There are three levels of knowledge present in the canonical promise: the past-oriented knowledge that the divine plan was set in motion from creation; the present knowledge that God is working behind the scenes; and the future-oriented knowledge associated with prophecy. To read them all together is to see the workings of the divine plan from multiple angles, even as the plan itself, that is, the fulfillment of the patriarchal promise, remains the same. The temporal aspect of these modes of perception can also lead to the understanding that the divine plan encompasses all time, from creation into the indefinite future; or, taken another way, that the divine plan is essentially timeless. The experienced now is a combination of the present, the past, and the future; time blends together, setting the promise even more clearly at the heart of God’s plan—God, who is the very essence of timelessness. What we understand about the working out of the divine plan in our own present is also impacted by the complementary reading of these three strains of thought. We can trust that whatever happens, it is part of God’s design. We can trust that, though unseen, God continues to affect the present. And we can live with the hope that the future will be revealed, that the divine plan will be made known in some way. The very existence of a divine plan is cause for hope; the different ways of accessing it give that hope particular shape and substance. The canonical combination of the promises also addresses the question of how each individual can gain insight into the divine plan. That is, the variety of options presented in the canonical text speaks to the variety of individual experiences of the deity. For some, God’s intentions are made manifest, through sudden insight or, in some cultures, through authentic prophecy. Yet for the vast majority of people, such direct insight is unattainable; they, however, can rest easy knowing that, despite God’s apparent abstention from intervening in daily life, God is “with them” in the most important sense. Even this innate sensing of God’s presence, however, is certainly not held in common by all. Thus even for those who seem to live without any knowledge or innate sense of God’s will, there is the indirect understanding that God set the basic course of history from the very beginning, and that our lives are part of the continuous working-out of God’s intentions. This aspect of the promise leads inexorably to the ever-present question of free will. If God’s plan was set in motion from creation, if it is made known in advance, if God is continuously working to bring it to pass, then what part do we play? Even as the ultimate fulfillment of the


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promise is essentially never in doubt, however, all three traditions, in their own ways, clearly maintain humanity’s central role. In E, though the patriarchs are granted the knowledge of what is to happen, of God’s eventual salvation of Israel, the path to that end is left open. Israel will return from Egypt, that much is clear; yet how it gets there, and how it gets back, is unknown. It is perhaps not coincidental that it is in E that the human element of the Exodus is emphasized: while in J God says to Moses, “I have come down to rescue [Israel] from the Egyptians” (Exod 3:8), and P says, “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm” (Exod 6:6), in E God tells Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh, and you will free my people, the Israelites, from Egypt” (Exod 3:10). And it is in E that the people are given a choice: they are presented with God’s laws, and they must determine to follow them, as they do: “All the things that Yahweh has commanded we will do!” (Exod 24:3). For J, God’s behind-the-scenes support is guaranteed, but is contingent upon correct behavior. This is evident from the episode at the end of Numbers 14 mentioned above, and may in fact be traced back to the very selection of Abraham in Genesis 12: for it is implied in J that if all of humanity had followed God’s universal laws, then there would have been no need for Abraham and his descendants to be specially chosen; God’s blessings would have devolved on all of humanity equally. It is because of Abraham’s obedience that God is with him and his descendants. This is the basic point of the divine–human partnership in J, after all: that God’s support and protection and blessing are contingent on Abraham’s being “a blessing” (Gen 12:2). P is perhaps most susceptible to the fear that there is no free will, since it is in P that the course of history seems to have been established already at creation. Yet P makes abundantly clear that while the bər ît will not be abrogated, and while God will never permanently abandon his people, Israel must constantly work to maintain the bər î t in the present. P’s God is not averse to punishing Israel when they are disobedient, or to threatening to remove his presence from their midst until they have learned their lesson. More than any of the other sources, in fact, P is absolutely clear that the maintenance of the bər ît and the divine presence is a constant effort; this is practically the sole meaning of the entire corpus of ritual legislation. Thus all three strands, and the canonical whole that their combination creates, are united in the conviction that even while the ultimate fulfillment of the promise is assured, the means of achieving it are firmly in

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Israel’s hands. This is both a comfort and a threat, both an assurance and a responsibility. We can be secure in the knowledge that the divine plan is set, and its future fulfillment certain; yet we must constantly strive to bring it to pass in the present. In the preceding section I have taken four topics of central theological importance to the understanding of the patriarchal promise—the identity of Israel, Israel’s obligation, historical scope, and the divine plan— and explored some of the ways that the diverse treatments of these topics across the pentateuchal sources can be brought together in a complementary reading of the canonical text so as to create a wide range of potential theological readings. The divergent perspectives of the sources can, as I hope to have demonstrated, serve to instill in the reader not necessarily a sense of internal contradiction in the text but rather a sense of wholeness; the fullness of humanity’s experience of the divine cannot be captured by a single author with a single worldview, but rather is brought to light by the combined and even-handed reading of multiple worldviews. The interpreter looking to treat the canonical text need not consider source criticism the enemy, need not treat the documentary theory as innately anti-theological. Commitment to finding meaning in the final form of the text does not require commitment to the authorial unity of the final form. Meaning for the whole can emerge from the acknowledgment and appreciation of the voices that make up that whole.�� As already noted, the suggestions raised above are in no way comprehensive or exclusive; not only are there undoubtedly many other, even entirely opposing, ways to understand each of these issues, but there are surely many other topics that could be discussed in equally fruitful ways. The point here was not to present a complete picture, as such may in fact be impossible, but rather to provide a template for reading the canonical promise in light of its sources. The method of interpretation promoted here is one that takes seriously the form of the canonical text: its combination, without prejudice, of divergent theological positions into a single authoritative whole. The Pentateuch, by its very composite nature, encodes a basic respect for all the different voices that make up a culture, be it the ancient culture from which the text emerged—that is, those who effected this combination and the audience for whom it was intended—or the subsequent cultures of those readers who claim the Pentateuch as a central text of the scriptural canon. To read the Pentateuch with its composite nature in mind is both to closely identify and understand its individual components and to value the fact that all of those voices are equally


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fundamental to the final form. Without each of the pentateuchal sources, there is no Pentateuch; without treating each of the pentateuchal sources as having equal say in the interpretation of the final form, it is impossible to do justice to the intention of the text itself. These complementary readings of the patriarchal promise were surely not intended by any of the original authors, nor, as stated above, is it likely that they were intended by the compiler of the Pentateuch. Yet they legitimately emerge from the interplay of the sources in the canonical text. The compilation of the sources to form the Pentateuch is the textual record of the compilation of ancient Israel’s diverse societal groups, with their unique perspectives, into a unified Israelite people, with a single text at their theological center. As the descendants of that unifying tradition, it is reasonable to propose that our task as interpreters is to constantly recreate the process of combination, bringing to it, of course, our own values (while still being restrained by the claims of the texts themselves). The theology of the Pentateuch is a constructive one. I do not wish to be misunderstood as arguing that the method suggested here is the only authentic or productive way to read the Pentateuch. I want only to make the point that the source-critical analysis of the text need not be destructive of canonical meaning. It can, to the contrary, add significant depth and nuance to our understanding of both the undeniable differences and continuities of thought present in the Pentateuch; and these closer understandings can, in turn, lead the way to a new and fruitful final-form exegesis. Reading sourcecritically—and then applying the insights of source-critical reading to the final form—brings together all of the benefits of both canonical and literary-historical readings while effectively overcoming the interpretive difficulties of each when undertaken on its own.

Conclusion

�� in the introduction, this book has had three main aims: to examine the patriarchal promise in the Pentateuch from a variety of angles, both canonical and literary-historical; to highlight and attempt to overcome some of the methodological diffi culties inherent in the standard documentary and nondocumentary approaches to the promise, and by extension to the entire Pentateuch; and to use the promise as a template for proposing a new method of canonical theological interpretation, one that engages with the literary-historical evidence. From the perspective of the canonical Pentateuch, the patriarchal promise is the guiding force behind the entire narrative. At the moment that Abraham emerges on the scene, Yahweh promises to make him into a great nation, a promise that by necessity involves the inseparably linked aspects of progeny and land. The rest of the Pentateuch is nothing other than the story of how that promise comes to be fulfilled—through the lives of the patriarchs, with all the very human obstacles that must be overcome, until their eventual growth into a numerous people, and through the life of that people Israel as they make their way, haltingly and in the face of nearly constant threats to survival, to the promised land. The story of the promise is not one among many in the Pentateuch. It is the sole story of the Pentateuch. The narrative is filled with individual episodes, to be sure. But each of those episodes is self-contained, raising a problem to be overcome—famine, family conflict, external threat, marriage, thirst—and resolving it reasonably quickly. These episodes are perfectly good stories, but they are not the story. And there are of course larger complexes, most significantly that of the Exodus and the wilderness wandering. But that narrative complex comprises only parts of the books of Exodus and Numbers, and obviously has nothing at all to do with the patriarchal cycles in Genesis. What’s more, even the extended narrative of the Exodus and wilderness wandering is initiated and driven by the promise: “I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Exod 6:8).

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The promise is the only aspect of the Pentateuch that is introduced at the beginning of the narrative and continues through its entire length. It introduces a problem to be overcome—how will God transform one man, Abraham, into a fully-fledged nation—and that problem is not resolved in one episode, or one complex, but only over the course of the Pentateuch as a whole. Once the promise narrative is set in motion, the Pentateuch cannot end until it has been fulfilled, with the expansion of Abraham’s descendants at the transition from Genesis to Exodus, and with the beginning of the conquest of the land at the end of Numbers and Deuteronomy. As the only question that remains open until the end of the Pentateuch, the promise subsumes every individual episode and every larger complex within it. For it means that each episode and complex is not isolated but is rather colored by the additional and overriding concern of the promise. A given episode is not, for instance, just about marriage; it is about marriage and the promise. Not just about external threat, but about external threat and the promise. Moments come and go—the promise remains constant. From a narratological perspective, the Pentateuch as a whole addresses the question of whether the promise will come to be fulfilled. Yet from the perspective of the reader, whether ancient or modern, the answer is already known. Whenever the text was written, and certainly whenever it has been read since, the knowledge of Israel’s existence and its settlement in the land is taken for granted. The audience’s question is therefore not whether the promise will be fulfilled, but how—overcoming what obstacles, and by what means. In other words, the promise is not merely a plot element, but contains the fundamental message of the narrative. That message is God’s power to bring about what he has promised. It is a message that is not bound to any specific historical time or place; it is, in fact, not even bound to the tradition of the promise. Yet the promise expresses it fully, extending it over a diverse range of episodes, from intimate to national, thereby ensuring that it is applicable for everyone in every place and time. What is true of the promise in its canonical setting is equally true for the promise as it is manifested in the individual sources. Indeed, the promise carries even more weight in the context of the pentateuchal documents, as its particular narrative setting and literary expression in each become of great interpretive significance. Ironically perhaps, the history of scholarship, be it documentary or nondocumentary, has obscured in one way or another the intimate and intricate links between the promise

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and the sources to which it is central. Classical documentary scholarship deems a large number of the nonpriestly promise texts to be secondary insertions, on three basic flawed methodological grounds. First, that the references in one promise text to another are a sign of a later hand—an argument that, at least in the context of ostensibly continuous documents, makes little sense. Second, that many promise texts are easily removed without damaging the flow of their literary contexts—a judgment which can be made for virtually every verse in the Pentateuch, and thus holds no real explanatory power. And third, that some promise texts seem to be “deuteronomic” in style—a claim that neither holds up under close scrutiny nor takes into account the possibility that the deuteronomic passages in question may in fact be based on the promise texts, rather than the other way around. Not only are these analyses faulty on their own terms, they have also been applied inconsistently within the nonpriestly corpus, and have not been applied at all to the priestly promise texts for which they should theoretically have worked just as well. Most importantly, perhaps, the classical documentary approach provides no explanation for why these promise texts should have been inserted in the first place. The nondocumentary approach, on the other hand, provides a clear theological rationale for the secondary promise texts, as a means of bringing together originally disparate textual blocks into a theologically unified complex. Yet this approach is founded on the a priori decision that there were in fact originally disparate textual blocks that required secondary redactional linking, a decision that is based on the tradition-historical work particularly of Noth, but that differs radically from Noth in equating preliterary traditions with purely literary units. Further, the nondocumentary approach requires the biblical authors to have been dramatically restricted in their ability to vary their expression of the promise, such that slight differences in word order, binyan, or lexical choice are taken as evidence of distinct hands, rather than as evidence of authorial stylistic freedom. As with the classical approach, so too in nondocumentary scholarship the criteria used to determine layers within the nonpriestly promise texts are not equally applied to the equivalent priestly passages. While it is clear enough that the promise tradition can be separated from the various other traditions with which it has been combined, this is not in itself evidence that the promise is a secondary addition on the literary level. To make such an argument requires demonstrating not simply that a promise text can be removed from its narrative context, but that it needs to be removed. Yet when we take each promise text individually, it

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becomes clear that in fact virtually every promise text is well integrated into its literary context on the lexical, syntactic, structural, and thematic levels, and moreover that removing the promise frequently produces a resulting text that is either syntactically or narratologically problematic. While the close integration of a promise into its context could in theory be taken as the work of a particularly sensitive redactor, such a conclusion is by no means required. If a well-integrated passage is the sign of a secondary hand, then what would a single-authored text look like? The literary indications of a secondary insertion—contradiction, syntactic confusion, distinctiveness of narrative claim or theme or theology—are markedly absent from the promise texts. If the promise texts are deemed secondary, it is not for any literary reason. In order to justify any conclusions regarding the groupings of the nonpriestly promise texts—whether according to the documentary sources or according to redactional layers—the promise texts must be examined on their own, independently of any arguments to be made about their contexts. That is, one cannot attribute a promise text to J because it is situated in a J context, or to a particular redactional layer because certain texts are deemed to have been in need of secondary linking. Groupings of the promise, when taken independently, should proceed on two grounds. First, does one promise text contradict or repeat a previously given promise in a way that would present a narrative difficulty? For example, Genesis 12–13 and Genesis 15 each present the promise as if it were given for the first time. Second, does a passage align, in its situating of the promise within the broader patriarchal narrative and in its focus on specific concepts, with some promise passages but not others? Thus rather than concentrate on the minor details of style, which can be part of a single author’s artistic repertoire, it is more important to focus on those ideas that are unique to certain sets of promise texts, such as blessing, kingship, or references to Egypt. When the nonpriestly promise texts are analyzed from these two perspectives, they fall into two groups, each internally consistent in terms of their narrative claims and their thematic presentations. The two groups align exactly with the classical documents J and E. When the promise texts are then read in light of their documentary contexts, it becomes clear that they contain numerous important links to other parts of their respective sources. Not only do they fit their sources literarily; they can be seen to encode a wide range of thematic and theological concepts unique to the sources in which they are found. Recognition of the deeper interpretive significance of the promise when read in light of the pentateuchal sources opens the way for what may

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be the most controversial argument made above: that the source-critical readings of the promise can be combined with a canonical approach to construct novel theological interpretations of the Pentateuch as a whole. There is no doubt that, in the theoretical sense, the literary-historical and final-form methods are fundamentally separate: one attempts to understand how the text came to be as it is, and the other to make sense of the text as it is. Yet this difference in basic methodological aim does not mean that the two approaches cannot inform each other in productive ways. The source-critical theory reveals more clearly the individual theological conceptions that are preserved, quite intentionally, in the canonical text. Attention to these distinct voices does not entail any disregard for the final form; rather, it takes seriously the shape of the canonical text and the choices made by the figure or figures who brought the canonical text into being. Instead of flattening the canonical Pentateuch so as to fit all of its disparate elements into a uniform and thereby necessarily almost banal interpretation, using source-critical results creates a far rougher and more interesting text, one that in its variety of concepts and nuances better replicates both the world that created the text and the worlds of its readers. When read in this way, the centrality of the patriarchal promise for the canonical Pentateuch is not diminished, but further articulated. The theology of the promise continues to undergird the entire Pentateuch, but more fully—now the promise means far more than just progeny and land, but entails all of the various unique theological concepts encoded in the individual sources and brings them into fruitful conversation. The result is a true pentateuchal theology: not any external notion imposed on the text, but an even-handed appreciation and combination of the full range of notions preserved in the text. If this is a challenging process, well it should be. If it is necessarily subjective to a lesser or greater degree, there can hardly be any objection to that: the Pentateuch, and particularly the patriarchal promise so central to it, has spoken to disparate people across the centuries and around the world. It is not dogmatic; it is ever open to persistent inquiry.

Notes

�� 1. Quotes from the Bible throughout the book are based on the NJPS translation. 2. For the sake of ease, I have everywhere rendered the name as “Abraham,” rather than using the shorter form, “Abram,” found before Gen 17:5; similarly, I always refer to “Sarah,” not “Sarai” (see Gen 17:15). 3. See, e.g., Ber. Rab. 95.3. 4. Ber. Rab. 44.14. 5. On the rabbinic perspective on the patriarchal promise, see A. Goshen-Gottstein, “The Promises to the Patriarchs in Rabbinic Literature,” in Divine Promises to the Fathers in the Three Monotheistic Religions , ed. Alviero Niccacci (Jerusalem: Franciscan, 1995), 60–97. See particularly the following: “The patriarchs are now the ideal representatives of a lifestyle in which we all participate” (89). 6. See, e.g., Benno Jacob, The First Book of the Bible: Genesis , trans. Ernest I. Jacob and Walter Jacob (New York: Ktav, 1974), 84: “God chose Israel as his people for the sake of the fathers.” 7. See also Luke 1:73; Gal 3:16. 8. See also Gal 3:6–29. 9. See also Rom 9:8; Gal 4:28; Eph 2:12–13.

�� 1 1. See, even in canonical treatments of the promise (rather than those attempting explicitly to isolate the constituent earlier elements on which the canonical promise is based, on which see chapter 2 below), David J. A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch , 2nd ed., Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplements 10 (Sheffi eld: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 29; Terence E. Fretheim, The Pentateuch, Interpreting Biblical Texts (Nashville: Abingdom, 1996), 95–99; R. Norman Whybray, Introduction to the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 10.

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Notes on pages 8–11

2 . E. A. Speiser, “‘People’ and ‘Nation’ of Israel,” Israel,” Journa Journall for Biblica Biblicall Literature Lite rature 79 (1960): 157–63; Ronald E. Clements, “ gôy,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 2:426–33. 3. See Clements, “ gôy,” 2:429: “While the extended family of Abraham’s descendants naturally constitutes an ‘am , it requires a territorial acquisition and a political structure struct ure before before they can truly t ruly form a goy among among the other goyim of the world.” 4 . Clines acutely acute ly notes, however, the implicit linking link ing of land and family in Gen 12:1: “What kind of land can it be that will replace ‘your land’ . . . the land of Abram’s family and father’s house, except a land that will become his land and the land of his family-to-be, the t he land where where he himself will wil l become the head of a father’s house?” ( Theme, 31). 5. See Paul R. Williamson, Abraham, Israel, and the Nations: The Patriarchal Promise and Its Covenantal Development in Genesis , Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Testa ment Supplement Suppl ementss 315 (Sheffi eld eld:: Sheffi eld Academ A cademic ic Press, Pre ss, 2000), 2 000), 133–35; Keith N. Grü Grüneberg, Abraham, Blessing, and the Nations: A Philological and Exegetical Study of Genesis 12:3 in Its Narrative Context , Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fü für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 332 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003),, 162–65. 2003) 162– 65. 6. This material gain is often assumed by scholars scholars to be specifical specifically ly that of fertility, as in Genesis 1 (see, e.g., Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11, trans. John J. Scullion; CC [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994], 139–40); yet this assumption is, to my mind, overly restrictive. 7. Note that the book of Isaiah picks up on this clearly: “Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you / For he was one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him numerous” (Isa 51:2). See also Isa 44:3. 8. Thus Clines subsumes “the promise of God’s blessing” under an even broader concept, concept, the t he promise “of “of a relationship with God” ( Theme, 29). This seems to me a relatively modern concept, and not one that would have been comprehended in such abstract terms by an ancient Israelite. Clines further includes under this broader heading “the promise of the covenant,” which, to my mind, simply does not exist; the covenant is not promised as something for the future, it is given in the immediate present, with future implications—implications that are, as we will see below, identical with the patriarchal promise. 9 . Clines attempts to distinguish between a promise of “being with” and a subset of that promise that he terms “guidance” proper ( Theme , 36). This seems to me to be overanalyzing—all of his examples come in the context of movement from one place to another, and all are contextually bound, with no continuing force beyond the journey in question. As noted above, not every divine promise is necessarily to be equated with the patriarchal promise.


1 65

10.. See Clines, Theme, 31, who makes a similar statement (though he sees three 10 elements inherent in the promise, rather than two): “For the . . . elements are unintelligible one without the other.” 11.. In the following discussion, 11 discussion, there is some significant overlap overlap with with the treatment treatment of Clines, Theme, 48–65. Clines, however, is interested there mostly in dividing the Pentateuch into three parts, aligned a ligned with his h is division of the promise promise into three elements: elemen ts: progeny (Genesis), (Genesis), divine–human d ivine–human relatio relationship nship (Exodus–Leviticus), (Exodus–Lev iticus), and land (Numbers–Deuteronom (Numbers–Deuteronomy). y). This division of text and theme t heme allows Clines to find meaning in, for example, the laws in Numbers that are specific to the postconquest period, and are thus about “the land.” For our purposes, however, it is the plot that is in question, not the thematic arrangement of the Pentateuch—an arrangement that is, to my my mind, at least partially artificial. art ificial. 12.. See Brevard S. Childs, Introd 12 Introduction uction to the Old O ld Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia (Philadelphia:: Fortress, 1979), 151: “All the individual stories of the Fathers have now been framed within a bracket of eschatology.” 13.. Closely aligned with the barrenness of the matriarchs 13 matriarchs as an obstacle to to the fulfillment fulfi llment of the promise is the problem problem of the age of the patriarchs and matriarchs. Frequently barrenness is not explicitly mentioned, but rather the impossibility of conception and childbirth at a greatly advanced age, as in Gen 17:17; 18:11–12. This too is a “natural” challenge to be overcome by God’s power. It is important to note that the division d ivision between “natural” and “divine” is emphatiemphatically a modern one, and not a biblical one: in biblical terms, God is clearly responsible, both in the active and reactive sense, for what we term “nature,” be it weather or illness. Yet there is also a distinction made in the Bible between those aspects of nature that are circumstantial and those that are the direct result of divine intervention, and the barrenness bar renness of the matriarchs fits into the former category (while the barrenness of Abimelech’s kingdom in Gen 20:17– 18, by contrast, is an example e xample of the latter). 14.. Note that it is only the first of these episodes that can be easily read 14 read in light of the promise; in the parallel stories of Genesis 20 and 26, Isaac and Jacob have, respectively, already been born (contra Clines, Theme, 48). 15.. See Whybray, Introduction, 55: “It is the uncertainty both about survival and 15 about the birth of an heir, apparently despite the promises which God has made, that constitutes the main drama of the patriarchal history. Time and again these are placed in danger in one way or another, creating a dramatic suspense. Each of these situations is then resolved by God’s intervention, often by what we should call a miracle, only to be succeeded by another.” 16.. See Walter Brueggema 16 Brueggemann, nn, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 45: “The story is told so that the account of the family cannot cannot be narrated apart from the who has promised, willed, and sometimes overt and sometimes hidden hidd en work of God who guaranteed the well-being of the family” (italics origina l).

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17.. We may also include Balak in this list, who wants to wage war again 17 against st Israel but requires that Balaam curse cu rse them first (Num 22:6). 22:6). 18.. The numerous interpretations of the Pentateuch, from a variety of view18 points, that make a significant point of the fact that it does not include the conquest proper proper are, in my opinion, not not taking taki ng full ful l account of the inevitability inev itability with which the conquest and settlement in the land are presented. (Clines, Theme, 107–26, exerts much energy in finding a theological point to the lack of finality finalit y in the conclusion of the Pentateuch before the conquest of of the land, essentially landing on the very open-endedness of the Pentateuch and the promise as a meaningful message about living in a state of existential hope.) The final word on this in the Pentateuch belongs obviously to Deuteronomy, which is emphatic in its claim that the Israelites will certainly possess the land: “Hear O Israel: you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and more populous than you” (Deut 9:1; and see also the many times that th at Deuteronomy Deuteronomy introduces introduces material with w ith the positive statement “when Yahweh your God brings you into the land”—Deut 6:10; 7:1; 11:29, and variations thereon throughout). Readings that present the fulfillment of the promise as being somehow in doubt at the end of t he Pentateuch ignore these definitive statements. 19.. See Childs, Introduction, 151: “In spite of the enormous variety within the 19 individual traditions which the canonical process has retained, the portrayal of the t he patriarchs has been b een refocused about their one role as bearers of Israel’s hope.” 20.. It may be noted that the primeval history of Genesis 1–11 20 1– 11 has gone undiscussed here. The connections between the primeval history and the promise will be drawn out in chapter 4. 21.. Clines, Theme, 19–23. 21 22.. Here and throughout I translate both the niphal and the hithpael forms of 22 “bless” in this context as “bless themselves,” following the basic hithpael meaning, rather than the passive niphal meaning of “be blessed.” I follow many before me in finding the reflexive meaning more probable. The parallel passages in Genesis (18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14) and Jeremiah (4:2) provide the key to understanding the semantics here. Including Gen 12:3, three of these six passages use the niphal of b-r-k (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 28:14), and three the t he hithpael (Gen 22:18; 26:4; Jer 4:2). Since the contex contextt is the same in all a ll cases, it stands to reason that the t he meaning of the phrase should be t he same as well. Though there are numerous examples in the Bible of niphal verbs that take a reflexive meaning, there are virtually no hithpaels that are to be understood as passive; see Joel S. Baden, “Hithpael and Niphal in Biblical Hebrew: Semantic and a nd Morphological Overlap,” Vetus Testame Testamentum ntum 60 60 (2010): 33–44. Thus it seems almost certain that the niphal here should be understood as reflexive.


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23.. The impact this sort of flattening of language has on interpretation 23 interpretation can be seen clearly in Clines’s presentation of the pentateuchal texts that speak to each of his three parts of the promise (progeny, land, and relationship with God): he combines every reference to progeny, for example, under one heading, and proceeds to discuss the promise in these broad terms without any effort to make meaning from the specific verbal instantiations attested under the heading (Clines, Theme, 31–65). 24.. On the lack of methodological antagonism between the two approaches, see 24 Joel S. Baden, “The Tower of Babel: A Case Study in the Competing Methods of Historical and Modern Literary Criticism,” Journa Journall of Biblica Biblicall Literature 128 (2009): 209–24.

�� 2 1 . This remains the dominant dominant theory, it should should be noted, noted, everywhere except continental Europe (on which see below, Contemporary Nondocumentary Scholarship). 2 . Alt Although hough Genesis 15 has always been recognized recogn ized as a source-critic source-c ritically ally diffi di fficult chapter, the majority of classical scholars, though admitting the inherent uncertainty of their analysis, largely agree ag ree that Genesis 15 was a combination combination of J and E, and that t hat the promise in 15:5 15:5 belongs definitively to E. On O n this (and the assignment of Gen 12:1–3 to J), cf. Benjamin W. Bacon, The Genesis of Genesis, rev. ed. (Hartford: Student Publishing Company, 1893), 120, 124–25; August Dillmann, Genesis Critically and Exegetically Expounded (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897), 2:8–15, 53–56; J. Estlin Carpenter and C. Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch According to the Revised Version (New York: York: Longmans, Longma ns, Green, 1900), 2:18–19, 2:18– 19, 22; S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis , 12th ed. ed . (London: Methuen, 1926), 144–45, 144 –45, 174–75; John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis , 2nd ed., International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930), 242–43, 276–77. 276– 77. 3. This passage was generally viewed as belonging to E. Cf. Julius Julius Wellhausen, Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen histor ischen Bü Bücher des Alten Alt en Testaments Testaments

(Berlin:: G. Reimer, 1885. (Berlin 1885. Repr., Berlin: de Gruyter, Gruy ter, 1963), 1963), 60; Abraham Kuenen, An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch , trans. Philip H. Wicksteed (London: MacMillan, 1886), 146; W. E. Addis, The Documents of the Hexateuch , 2 vols. (London: David Nutt, 1892), 1:104–105; Bacon, Genesis, 223; Driver, Genesis, 400; Skinner, Genesis, 536. Carpenter and Harford-Battersb Harfor d-Battersbyy stand virtual vir tually ly alone in attributing the t he verse to J (Hexateuch, 2:79). 4 . Generally acknowledged as J; cf. Benjamin W. Bacon, The Triple Tradition of the Exodus (Hartford: Student Publishing Company, 1894), 151; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:132; A. H. McNeile, The Book of Exodus , 2nd

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.


ed. Westminster Commentaries (London: Methuen, 1917), xxxvii; S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus, Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1918), 357. Kuenen, Hexateuch, 147. Wellhausen, Composition, 23–24. This problem with Wellhausen’s theory was recognized already by Dillmann, Genesis , 2:27. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, trans. Mark E. Biddle, Mercer Library of Biblical Studies (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 201–2. Gunkel, Genesis, 163, 192. Gunkel, Genesis, xxxiii. Cf. also Gunkel’s assessment in “Israelite Literary History,” Water for a Thirsty Land , ed. K. C. Hanson (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 34: “[The ancient listener’s] receptive power was very limited . . . The most ancient Israelite ballad is contained in one or perhaps two long lines—that was all the average listener of the day could grasp at one time.” Gunkel, Genesis, 294. Gunkel, Genesis, 296. Though only Gunkel made explicit that cross-reference is a criterion for a later dating in regard to the patriarchal promises, and it would thus be tempting to read this as a view uniquely his own, a number of classical critics made similar judgments about other parts of the Pentateuch, and, though they did not say so explicitly, it is natural to suppose that they had the same idea in mind when assigning the promises to a secondary stratum. Thus even within the J source, a simple reference such as that found in Gen 26:1b (“beside the first famine which was in the days of Abraham”) was considered secondary precisely because it referred back to an earlier narrative— again, despite the fact that both Gen 12:10–20 and Genesis 26 were attributed to J (cf. Addis, Documents , 1:145; Driver, Genesis, 249; Skinner, Genesis, 363). Erhard Blum correctly dismisses this argument ( Die Komposition der V ätergeschichte, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 57 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1984], 299). Similar rhetorical devices such as foreshadowing and summation were also apparently denied to the ancient Israelite author by a number of older scholars. This is explicitly stated by McNeile on Exod 4:21–23: “The vv. are premature . . . nothing has yet been said of any wonders to be performed before Pharaoh. 21 anticipates the whole story of the first nine plagues, and 22, 23 the story of the last plague” (Exodus, xiv; italics original). See also McNeile on Exod 3:19–20; 11:9–10; 32:30–34 ( Exodus, xiv, xvii, 209); Carpenter and Harford-Battersby on Gen 15:12–15; Exod 3:19–20; 14:31 (Hexateuch, 2:23, 84, 103); Addis on Exod 9:14–16 ( Documents , 1:121); and Driver on Gen 26:15 (Genesis, 252). “Vor dem neuen Ansatz 18,20 entbehrt man sie nicht” (Wellhausen, Composition, 26). A similar argument is brought by Addis ( Documents , 1:25) and Skinner (Genesis, 303).


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14. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:50. So also Skinner (Genesis, 406). 15. See the comment of John Van Seters ( Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992], 296) on the question of Gen 32:10–13: “The fact that one can move from v. 9 to v. 14 and omit the prayer is little justification by itself for regarding it as secondary.” 16. Cf., e.g., Dillmann’s assessment of Gen 2:10–14: “These verses, which are easily taken away without making one feel that anything essential is lost . . . were perhaps first inserted by R or by another hand, or following another source” (Genesis, 1:123). 17. For precisely such an objective criterion, see Joel S. Baden, “A Narrative Pattern and Its Role in Source Criticism,” Hebrew Studies 49 (2008): 41–54. 18. J. A. Emerton, “The Origins of the Promises to the Patriarchs in the Older Sources of the Book of Genesis,” Vetus Testamentum 32 (1982): 14–32 (at 20). Emerton, unfortunately, then proceeds to argue t hat most of the promises are secondary precisely because they can be removed from their contexts. 19. Thus Jean-Louis Ska has recently argued at length that Gen 12:1–4a is a postpriestly insertion (“The Call of Abraham and Israel’s Birth-Certificate [Gen 12:1–4a],” The Exegesis of the Pentateuch [Forschungen zum Alten Testament 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 46–66). 20. I use “deuteronomic” throughout, though scholars are inconsistent in the use of the terms “deuteronomic” and “deuteronomistic,” for both convenience and greater precision: “deuteronomic” refers to the work of D, the source contained entirely in the book of Deuteronomy, and it to D that classical scholars drew their comparisons with the promise texts. 21. For the most part, the promises deemed to be “deuteronomic” were attributed not to a strictly deuteronomic redactor, but rather to R JE (the redactor who purportedly combined the J and E documents before they were compiled with D and P), who, it was argued, had “affi nities” with D. Cf. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby (Hexateuch, 1:174): “In the secondary passages . . . which may with great probability be ascribed to R JE, the language and ideas approximate more and more to those of D.” On R JE, see Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 68 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009). 22. On Gen 18:17–19: Bacon, Genesis, 131 (where he uses the term “didactic,” equated elsewhere with deuteronomic); Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:26 (where it is termed a “moralizing amplification,” again a code for deuteronomic); Skinner, Genesis, 298: “reflecting theological ideas proper to a more advanced stage of thought”; Rudolf Kilian, Die vorpriesterlichen Abrahamsüberlieferungen literarkritisch und traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht , Bonner biblische Beiträge 24 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1966), 105–106; Norbert Lohfink, Die Landverheissung als Eid: Eine Studie zu Gn 15 , Stuttgarter

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Bibelstudien 28 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1967), 18. On Gen 26:3b– 5: Addis, Documents , 1:45; Bacon, Genesis, 153–54; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:38; Dillmann, Genesis, 2:201–202 (who actually considers attributing the passage to R d); Lohfink, Landverheissung , 18. On Exod 32:13: Bacon, Triple Tradition, 135; McNeile, Exodus, xxv, 205; Edgar S. Brightman, The Sources of the Hexateuch (New York: Abingdon, 1918), 53; Lohfink, Landverheissung , 18; Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, trans. Bernhard W. Anderson (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981), 31 n. 113. 23. See, e.g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible , Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 117, 122; and especially Suzanne Boorer, The Promise of the Land as Oath (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 205; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992). 24. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 241: “In Dtr these terms always refer to Deuteronomic Code, but that is hardly possible in the case of Abraham.” 25. Moshe Weinfeld (Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East , 2nd ed. [Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000], 25–44), argues on the basis of ANE parallels that the phrase “just and right,” səd āqā h ûmiš pāt , in Gen 18:19 has the general connotation of “social justice.” 26. The laws of Exod 34:17–26, classically understood as J’s equivalent to the elohistic Decalogue of Exod 20:1–14, have been conclusively demonstrated to be a postredactional insertion into the pentateuchal text. See Shimon Bar-On, “The Festival Calendars in Exodus xxiii 14–19 and xxxiv 18–26,” Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998): 161–95; Erhard Blum, “Das sog. ‘Priviligrecht’ in Exodus 34,11–26: Ein Fixpunkt der Komposition des Exodusbuches?” in Studies in the Book of Exodus , ed. Marc Vervenne, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 126 (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 347–66; Hans-Christoph Schmitt, “Das sogenannte jahwistische Priviligrecht in Ex 34,10–28 als Komposition der spätdeuteronomistischen Endredaktion des Pentateuch,” Abschied vom Jahwisten , ed. Jan Christian Gertz, et al., Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 315 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 157–71. 27. Moshe Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970): 184–203 (at 186 n. 14), has argued that Gen 26:5 does not in fact display any commonalities with the language of D. Weinfeld correctly observes that although the phrase šām ā bəqôl , “obey,” is frequent in deuteronomic literature, it was not necessarily coined by D, a claim clearly proven by the use of the phrase in a wide variety of pentateuchal contexts and sources: Gen 21:12 (E); 27:8, 13, 43 (J); 30:6 (J); Exod 4:1 (J); 5:1 (J); 18:19 (E); 19:5 (E); 23:21,22 (E); Num 14:22 (J); 21:3 (J). Weinfeld also notes that the combination ḥûqî m w ət ôr ôt , “laws and teachings,” is never found in D or Dtr, but that D always uses t ôr āh in the


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singular and usually with the definite article, while the plural formulation is found in E (Exod 18:16, 20); it is, it should be observed, also found in J (Exod 16:28). Whether he is correct or not, the question should have no bearing on the determination that these verses are “deuteronomic.” Given the relative dating of the corpora in question, it is far more prudent to assume t hat the author of D has borrowed from and expanded upon the formulations he found in his source, in this case J. The objections to Weinfeld from Samuel Loewenstamm (“The Divine Grants of Land to the Patriarchs,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 91 [1971]: 509–10) are dependent upon the view, criticized in this chapter below, that formulations similar to those of Deuteronomy should be axiomatically attributed to a deuteronomic author, and are for that reason unconvincing. 28. It should be noted that this argument holds equally well for contemporary scholars who see Exod 32:7–14 as a deuteronomic text (e.g., Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch , Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 189 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990], 73). 29. See Baden, Redaction, 99–195. 30. That this was indeed the initial step is clear from Wellhausen, who analyzes the composition of Genesis 22, and identifies the insertion of 22:15–18, before dealing with the rest of the patriarchal material, including the rest of the promise passages (Composition, 18–19). 31. Wellhausen, Composition, 24. 32. Kilian, Abrahamsüberlieferungen , 94. 33. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 26. 34. Dillmann, Genesis, 2:203. 35. Kuenen, Hexateuch, 247. 36. Skinner, Genesis, 406; see also Carpenter and Harford-Battersby (Hexateuch, 50), who claim that 32:12 depends on 22:17. 37. Bacon, Triple Tradition, 135. 38. We may take, as an example, the laws of Exod 34:17–26: scholars have recognized it as late because it incorporates elements from E, P, and D, but were we to follow the logic employed with the patriarchal promises and Gen 22:15–18, we would have to conclude that all of the passages parallel to Exod 34:17–26 are in fact secondary insertions composed on the basis of these late laws. 39. Assuming that the first word of Gen 48:5, w ə‘ att āh, “now,” would have also been part of the insertion, as a means of connecting the two seemingly unrelated topics. 40. Von Rad agreed that Gen 26:3–4 (and of course 22:15–18) was a late insertion (Genesis, trans. John H. Marks, Old Testament Library [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972], 270– 71). 41. Gerhard von Rad, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays , trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken (New

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York: MacGraw-Hill, 1966), 61. In this he followed Albrecht Alt closely; cf. Albrecht Alt, “Der Gott der Väter,” Beitr ä ge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament , 3. Folge Heft 12 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1929). 42. Von Rad, “Form-Critical Problem,” 50–74. See also Hans Walter Wolff, “The Kerygma of the Yahwist,” in Walter Brueggemann and Hans W. Wolff, The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions , 2nd ed. (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 41–66 (esp. 46–55). 43. Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions , 54. 44 . Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions , 56. This goes back to von Rad’s observation that what he deemed the early Israelite creed in Deut 26:5 “in its most primitive form began simply with Jacob” (“Form-Critical Problem,” 58; cf. also p. 56). 45. Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 102 n. 300. Cf. also p. 58: “Among the southern tribes the stories of Isaac and Abraham were added to the theme of the patriarchs. These stories introduce nothing fundamentally new but provide a very lively variation to the theme ‘promise to the patriarchs.’” 46. Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 102 n. 300. 47. Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions , 39–40. 48. Cf., e.g., Kilian, Abrahamsüberlieferungen; Albert de Pury, Promesse divine et l é gende cultuelle dans le cycle de Jacob: Genèse 28 et les traditions patriarcales , Études Bibliques (Paris: Gabalda, 1975); and, somewhat differently, John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975). 49. J. Hoftijzer, Die Verheissungen an die drei Erzv äter (Leiden: Brill, 1956). 50. Hoftijzer, Verheissungen, 6–9. 51. Hoftijzer, Verheissungen, 14–27. 52. Hoftijzer, Verheissungen, 14. 53. Hoftijzer, Verheissungen, 24–25. 54. For criticism of Hoftijzer’s method on this point, see William McKane, Studies in the Patriarchal Narratives (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1979), 157–58; for a more general rebuttal, see Horst Seebass, “Gehörten Verheissungen zum ältesten Bestand der Väter-Erzählungen?,” Biblica 64 (1983): 189–210. 55. Claus Westermann, The Promises to the Fathers , trans. David E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). 56. See the criticism of this division of the promises in chapter 1. 57. Westermann, Promises, 28. The opposite conclusion is argued by Z. Weisman, “National Consciousness in the Patriarchal Promises,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31 (1985): 55–73 (at 59): the “national” promises are primary, and have undergone “expansion into the promise of an heir who inherits all the national promises made to his father, Abraham.” See also de Pury ( Promesse, 201–202), who argues that the promise of land always has the patriarch’s descendants in mind.


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58. Rolf Rendtorff, The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch , trans. J. J. Scullion, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements 89 (Sheffield: Sheffi eld Academic Press, 1990). 59. Rendtorff, Problem , 75. See also Matthias Köckert, V ätergott und V äterverheissungen: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Albrecht Alt und seinen Erben , Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 142 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 172 n. 45. 60. Rendtorff, Problem , 83. 61. Rendtorff, Problem , 82. 62. Rendtorff, Problem , 83. 63. See also David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), in which the title of the section outlining his “Proto-Genesis Composition” (i.e., the non-P material) is titled “Constructing the Promise” (177). 64. “Die Verheissungen als Gestaltungsmittel sind dann aber vor allem—und dies gewiss nicht von ungefähr—für die weitere Überlieferung der Vätergeschichte von zentraler Bedeutung geworden” (Blum, V ätergeschichte, 462). See also the quotes from Rendtorff above. 65. Rendtorff, Problem , 23. 66. Rendtorff, Problem , 173. 67. Rendtorff, Problem , 77–78; Blum, V ätergeschichte, 364; Carr, Fractures, 155–56, 322–23. 68. See Baden, “Hithpael.” 69. Carr, Fractures, 155; 171–72. See Köckert, V ätergott , 171–73, however, who attributes Gen 18:18–19; 22:16–18; 26:3–5, 24 all to one layer, despite the fact that there is not a single terminological element that is common to all four; rather, for Köckert the connecting feature of these passages is their references to Abraham’s obedience to Yahweh’s word (on which see above). 70. Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch , trans. Pascale Dominique (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 91. See also Van Seters, Prologue, 254–55. 71. Rendtorff, Problem , 62–63; Blum, V ätergeschichte, 290, 364, 367. 72. Chicago Assyrian Dictionary 8:47 (b), 48 (g). 73. Blum, V ätergeschichte, 364. So also Carr, Fractures, 159. 74. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 302: “This lack of precision in quotation does not signify a difference in authorship. Ancients did not feel the same compulsion as do moderns toward exact quotation, even of public documents. And when it is a case of the same author, the variety is simply a matter of literary style.” 75. Where P “originally” ended is a matter of much dispute in the nondocumentary school; for a survey of the issues, see Thomas Römer, “The Exodus Narrative According to the Priestly Document,” in The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debates and Future Directions , ed. Sarah Shectman and

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Joel S. Baden, Abhandlung zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 95 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), which also confirms the view that the original P document comprised all of the priestly promise texts in Genesis–Exodus. 76. One might also note the variation in the verb used to describe the process of Abraham becoming a nation: n-t-n in Gen 17:6, 20; 48:4; h-y-h in Gen 17:16; 28:3; 35:11. 77. See also Van Seters’s statements regarding inconsistent language in D: “If in a corpus as homogeneous in language and outlook as Deuteronomy one finds a variety of formulaic expression, there is no need to deny the same possibility to an author of Genesis” (Prologue, 220). 78. “Die Landverheissung (als Eid) findet sich freilich sprachlich und inhaltlich variiert: Insbesondere ist in Nu 11 von ’ ad ām āh (sonst hā’āres) die Rede, und in Dtn 31 wird die Verheissung auf Israel (und nicht die Väter) bezogen. Doch lassen sich entsprechende Variationen auch sonst in der Traditionsbildung” (Blum, Studien, 81). 79. Emerton, “Origins,” 23–24. One might also look profitably to the extensive corpus of biblical poetry, which is practically defined by its use of linguistical variation— in word order, in synonymous constructions, in similes, even in binyanim . There is no reason to suppose that a writer composing a prose work should be any more limited in his ability to vary his language than would a poet. 80. Rendtorff, Problem , 87–88; Blum, V ätergeschichte, 363–64, 370–71. 81. Lohfink (Landverheissung , 21–22) correctly notes that even though most of the references to the promise of land as an oath are from Deuteronomy, it is impermissible to draw general conclusions on that basis about every other such reference. We may similarly critique the assessment of Hans Henrich Schmid ( Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung [Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1976], 130–31, 141–3), that the themes of progeny and land so prominent in the promises necessarily have their origins in deuteronomic ideology; so too his claim (ibid., 137) that the concept of “blessing” found in some promise texts should be assigned a late date because it is found in some relatively late contexts. 82. Rendtorff, Problem , 96. 83. Josef Scharbert (“Die Landverheissung an die Väter als einfache Zusage, als Eid, und als ‘Bund,’” in Konsequente Traditionsgeschichte, ed. Rüdiger Bartelmus, et al; Orbis biblicus et orientalis 126 [Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1993], 343–6) tries to split the difference by arguing that the oath language originated in E, and was subsequently adopted by D and Dtr (including therein all of the post-Genesis references to the promise as oath listed above). It is not clear, however, why the oath language in Exodus and Numbers should necessarily be deuteronomic, if it is admitted that D learned the phrasing from E. 84. Indeed, virtually every divine statement can be considered an oath in the sense of a binding statement: “For he is not a man that he should recant” (1 Sam


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15:29). See the comments of Marc Brettler: “Sometimes late Hebrew works comprehend what God earlier only spoke as a š əbû‘āh (compare 2 Sam 7:8 to Psalm 89:4 and 132:2)” (“The Promises of the Land of Israel to the Patriarchs in the Pentateuch,” Shenaton 5–6 [1983]: vii–xxiv [at xx n. 53]). 85. The rabbis also recognized that oaths could be made without the technical language, as is clear from their comment on these verses. Cf. b. Shevuot 36a and Rashi on Gen 8:21. 86. Weinfeld, “ , ber ît h,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament , ed. G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, 15 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 2:253–79 (at 257, 260). 87. Jacob Milgrom, “Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy,” Hebrew Union College Annual 47 (1976): 1–17 (at 3–4). It is also worth noting that the typically deuteronomic phrase ka’ aš er niš ba‘ is found only once in Genesis–Numbers (in the late text Exod 13:11), surprising if, as the nondocumentary scholars would have it, there is substantial deuteronomic material in the patriarchal promises. 88. CAD 13:38–39, 41; 21:16–17. 89. Brettler, “Promises,” xx. 90. Cf. Lohfink, Landverheissung , 22. Contra Rendtorff: “The whole of the divine address to Abraham in 22.16 is introduced by a solemn oath formula; this oath is taken up explicitly in 26.3 and the promise described as the fulfilment (‘maintenance’) of the oath. In both cases the promise address comprises the promise of increase—using largely the same terminology—and the promise of blessing for others” (Problem , 78). Yet the syntax of Gen 26:3b–5 makes clear that it is only the land that was “sworn” to Abraham; Rendtorff also neglects the many other passages in which the oath is mentioned alongside the promise of land alone. Blum, V ätergeschichte, 363–82, argues that while the oath language is all part of the K D layer, which includes Gen 22:15–18, all of the oaths of land refer in fact to Genesis 15—which, as he admits, contains no explicit oath language. See the reaction of Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible , trans. James D. Nogalski; Siphrut 3 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 275–6. 91. Rendtorff, Problem , 58. See also Scharbert, “Landverheissung an die V äter,” 340–41. 92. Gen 1:16; 12:17; 28:14; 34:29; 43:15, 18; Exod 34:27; Num 13:23, 26; Deut 7:14; Judg 21:10; 1 Sam 6:11; Jer 27:7; 40:9, et al. (Dillmann, Genesis, 1:123). Though at least some of these passages are debatably secondary (though none convincingly so, in my opinion), as a class these examples demonstrate that this structure was both acceptable and reasonably common in biblical Hebrew. See also Ernest Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 114. 93. As observed by Nicholson, Pentateuch, 115. 94. As also in Köckert, V ätergott , 171–3.

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95. Cf. Rendtorff, Problem , 84–100. See most importantly on this topic Schmid, Genesis , and the two major recent collections of essays from the nondocumentary school: Jan Christian Gertz, Konrad Schmid, and Markus Witte, eds., Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der j üngsten Diskussion, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 315 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), and Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid, eds., A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Research , SBL Symposium Series 34 (Atlanta: SBL, 2006). In response, see Hans-Christoph Schmitt, “Erzvätergeschichte und Exodusgeschichte als konkurrierende Ursprungslegenden Israels—ein Irrweg der Pentateuchforschung,” in Die Erzv äter in der biblischen Tradition , ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn and Henrik Pfeiffer, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 400 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 241–66. 96. This is not even to mention the question of the references to the patriarchal promise in Deuteronomy, which constitute a separate case (to be discussed briefly in chapter 3); it is worth noting, however, that there is a significant movement in nondocumentary scholarship to see the references to the “fathers” in Deuteronomy as referring not to the patriarchs of Genesis, but rather to the generation of the wilderness (see most prominently Thomas Römer, Israels V äter: Untersuchungen zur V äterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition, Orbis biblicus et orientalis 99 [Freiburg: Universitätsverlag,

1990], following an initial suggestion by John Van Seters, “Confessional Reformulation in the Exilic Period,” Vetus Testamentum 22 [1972]: 448–59). According to this argument, the explicit mentions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by name in Deuteronomy are all secondary insertions; furthermore, the idea of the promise of the land originated in Deuteronomy, and was subsequently extended through redactional reworkings back into the preceding books of the Pentateuch. 97. Rendtorff, Problem , 87–88. See also Schmid, Genesis, 66–67, 278–79; Römer, Israels V äter , 561–66. 98. Ska, Introduction, 93–94. On the deuteronomistic nature of these passages, see also Scharbert, “Landverheissung an die Väter,” 344–45. 99. Three other passages that are in ostensibly priestly contexts will be left out of this study. In Num 32:11, we find a reference to the promise—or, more accurately, a reference to a reference to the promise, as this verse is simply a recollection of Yahweh’s words in Num 14:30. The source division of Numbers 32 is complicated, and no certain division has yet been offered; since Wellhausen (Composition, 114), however, many scholars have treated this section of Numbers 32 as a late addition. Whether or not this is correct—though a recent paper by my student Liane Marquis has me thinking that it probably is—the nature of this twice-removed reference to the promise may allow us to set it aside. In Exod 13:5 and 11 we also have references to the promise; both


100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

105.

106.

107.

108.

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of these texts, however, are set in passages that seem to be postredactional compositions (cf. Shimon Gesundheit, “Three Times a Year” , Forschungen zum Alten Testament 82 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 167–222; I thank Prof. Gesundheit for providing me an advance look at the manuscript). Finally, the clear references to the promise in Lev 26:9, 42–45 belong, as has long been recognized, to the later H stratum of the priestly writings. Even were we to include these in our tabulations, however, there would still be fewer post-Genesis P references to the promise than there are in non-P. As in the work of, for example, Erhard Blum. As argued most forcefully by Schmid, Genesis . Ludwig Schmidt, “Väterverheissungen und Pentateuchfrage,” Zeitschrift f ür die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 104 (1992): 1–27. Köckert, V ätergott , 250–55, 264; 171–76. Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 157; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993). It is worth observing also that scholars’ own positions have changed: Blum now assigns Genesis 15; 22:15–18; 26:3b–5, 24; 50:24; Exod 32:13, to a stratum that is postpriestly but predates the final redaction of the Hexateuch (“Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvatern und Exodus: Ein Gesprach mit neueren Endredaktionshypothesen,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten, ed. Jan Christian Gertz, Konrad Schmid, and Markus Witte, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 315 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002], 119–56). On literacy in ancient Israel, cf. Menahem Haran, “On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 , ed. J. A. Emerton; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 40 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 81–95; Ian Young, “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence,” Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998): 239–53, 408–22; Christopher A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age , Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies 11 (Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 127–35. On the social location of Israel’s scribal elite, see Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 82–89. See further Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis , Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 60. On the ways that scribe-authors necessarily transform their oral source material to fit it into broader contexts—rather than simply recording it verbatim— with particular reference to traditional folk material, see van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 114–15. It is worth noting that the same is true of the progeny aspect of the patriarchal promise, and in this case we have good parallels from Ugarit, in the epic tales of Aqhat and Kirta: both stories relate a divine promise of progeny to an

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Notes on pages 57–64 individual and the working out of that promise. These epics, composed by any reckoning hundreds of years before the first biblical text, already contain the ostensibly “late” theological motif of the promise. My thanks to David Wright for this observation.

�� 3 1. Blenkinsopp, Pentateuch, 111. 2. The one verse from P that stands in the canonical text between Genesis 17 and 21:2–5 is 19:29, the destruction of the cities of the plain. This verse has long been recognized as being out of place, moved by the compiler of the Pentateuch from its original position after 13:12ab  because the cities of the plain are not destroyed in the nonpriestly narrative (J) until Genesis 19. So already Bacon, Genesis , 135. 3. The prefix-conjugation verbs in 28:3–4, though unmarked, are all to be understood as jussives, as they constitute the continuation of the volitive sequence initiated with the imperatives in 28:2 (cf. Harry Orlinsky, “On the Cohortative and Jussive after an Imperative or Interjection in Biblical Hebrew,” Jewish Quarterly Review 31 [1940–41]: 371–82; 32 [1941–42]: 191–205, 273–77). 4. The word “again” in this verse in the canonical text is a long-recognized redactional insertion: in the P narrative, God has not appeared to Jacob before Genesis 35, but in the nonpriestly text it has happened repeatedly (28:12–15; 31:3, 10–13; 32:25–30; 35:1). This was observed as long ago as Hermann Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung (Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben, 1853), 56, 203. 5. The description of Jacob’s children is found in the canonical text in 35:22b–26, but it originally stood before 31:17–18; it was moved here because, in the nonpriestly account, Jacob’s last child, Benjamin, was born in Canaan after Jacob’s return from abroad (while in the priestly account, as these verses make clear, all twelve of Jacob’s sons were born in Paddan-Aram). See already H. Holzinger, Genesis , Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament 1 (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1898), 185. 6. That it has this broader meaning is clear not only from the fact that the promise is made to Jacob after he has already had his children, but also from its attestations elsewhere in P; notably in Gen 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Adam’s children are obviously not going to fill the earth, but his descendants, that is, humanity, will. Similarly, Noah receives the same blessing in Gen 9:1, although his three sons have already been born; Abraham receives the blessing in 17:6, though according to P he has only two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. 7. That Gen 11:30 is nonpriestly is widely recognized (though cf. Ska, “Call,” 49 n. 14 and the scholarship cited therein); in particular we may note that the


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statement of Sarah’s barrenness, using the term ‘ aqār āh, is foreign to the priestly author, who never describes any of the matriarchs as barren, but is a recurring theme of the nonpriestly narrative, in which both (and only) Rebekah (Gen 25:21) and Rachel (29:31) are described using the same term. 8. Gen 12:4b–5 is from P. 9. For this reason, those critics who see this promise as secondary include 12:4a as part of the insertion. Cf., e.g., Ska, “ Call.” 10. Westermann, Promises, 123–24. 1 1 . See Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis , Part Two: From Noah to Abraham , trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 328. 12. Carr recognizes that Gen 12:1–4a, 6–8 is a continuous, coherent account (Fractures, 183–84). He also notes correctly that “this text is distinguished by an unusual density of specific linkages to texts both before and after it” (Fractures, 179). Yet Carr somehow takes these two observations to indicate that this text is redactional rather than an authentic part of the composition with which, as he observes, it is so closely linked. If a passage that is in itself coherent, and that is closely linked with the narratives before and after it, is to be considered redactional, it becomes unclear on what basis any passage in the Bible might be accepted as original. Again, one comes to the conclusion that a text such as Gen 12:1–4a, 6–8 is redactional only if one has determined a priori that the patriarchal narratives were originally independent and thus required redaction to bring them together. An intermediate position is taken by Kilian (Abrahamsüberlieferungen , 10–12), who sees Gen 12:1–4a, 6–8 as a coherent promise-centered J reworking of a preexisting Abraham narrative (a “vorjahwistiche Grundschrift”); see also de Pury, Promesse, 60–64. 13. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 260–61. 14. The compositional status of Genesis 15 has long been a matter of serious dispute in scholarship, and a firm consensus has yet to be achieved. Classically, this chapter was divided between J and E, although it was admitted that the precise assignment of verses, and more importantly the question of how the two strands had been combined, was a nearly intractable problem (see chapter 2, note 2). More recently, scholars, predominantly European, have tended to see the chapter as not only a unity, but a very late one, usually postpriest ly (see the bibliography and discussion in Konrad Schmid, “The So-Called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation , ed. Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid; SBL Symposium Series 34 [Atlanta: SBL, 2006], 29–50 [at 38]). For the argument that this chapter derives from a deuteronomic hand, see Blenkinsopp, Pentateuch, 123–24, and Blum, V ätergeschichte, 362–72 (though Blum has since changed his mind and now argues that Genesis 15 is postpriestly [“Verbindung,” 153–54]). Lohfink (Landverheissung ) argued that the majority of the chapter was quite early, and from J. More recent documentary

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scholarship has seen the entire chapter as belonging to E: cf. Menahem Haran, “The Bĕ r ît ‘Covenant’: Its Nature and Ceremonial Background,” in Tehillah le-Moshe, ed. Mordechai Cogan, et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 203–19 (at 206 n. 6). See further below. 15. Rendtorff, Problem , 57–59. For a clear tradition-historical argument that the promise of land is an early theme in the Pentateuchal narrative, see Brettler, “Promises.” 16. It is telling in this regard that the classical documentary scholars universally considered the parallel in 21:13, 18 to be original, though it contains precisely the same promise of offspring to Hagar. See below. 17. Cf. Addis, Documents, 1:24; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:24; Gunkel, Genesis, 183; Skinner, Genesis, 285. 18. See the discussion of this phenomenon in biblical narrative by Bernard Septimus, “Iterated Quotation Formulae in Talmudic Narrative and Exegesis,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel , ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 371–98 (esp. 372– 75). 19. Other examples of this phenomenon are equally compelling: in Genesis alone cf. Gen 1:28–29; 9:1, 8, 12, 17; 9:25–26; 15:2–3; 15:5; 18:17, 20; 19:9; 20:9–10; 21:6– 7; 24:24–25; 27:36; 30:27–28; 41:39, 41; 42:1–2; 47:3–4. 20. Indeed, there are places where two speeches from two different sources have been subsumed under a single wayy ō’ mer introduction; see, e.g., Num 11:16, wayy ō’ mer yhwh ’el-m ōš eh, “Yahweh said to Moses,” which introduces the distinct speeches of 11:16–17 and 11:18–20 (a distinction which is agreed on by both documentary and nondocumentary critics alike). 21. Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 28 n. 86. 22. See especially Carr, Fractures, 159–61; Levin, Jahwist , 170. 23. See Van Seters, Prologue, 259–60. 24. Weinfeld, Social Justice, 25–44; idem, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites , Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 196–97. 25. See especially Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:26–27; and more recently see Karin Schöpflin, “Abrahams Unterredung mit Gott und die schriftgelehrte Stilisierung der Abrahamgestalt in Gen 18, 16b –33,” in Die Erzv äter in der biblischen Tradition, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn and Henrik Pfeiffer, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 400 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 93–113, who argues that the entirety of Gen 18:16b–33 is a very late insertion. 26. The two major transitions between Yahweh and “the men” come in 18:1–2 and 9–10; in the first, Yahweh is introduced but “the men” take over the action, and in the second “the men” give way to Yahweh again. On the distinction, or lack thereof, between Yahweh and his appearance to the human characters of the


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Bible, see James L. Kugel, The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: Free Press, 2003), 5–36. 27. Bacon, Genesis, 131. 28. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:126. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby also recognize, however, that there are no verbal indications that the dialogue between Yahweh and Abraham is secondary. 29. See the discussion of the contextualization of Gen 18:18 in Grüneberg, Abraham , 72–80. 30. The sole discrepancy is the word g ād ôl , “great,” in 21:18, missing in 21:13 in the MT; note however, that it is supplied in the versions, though this is probably a case of levelling rather than an authentic reading. 31. Cf. Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36 , trans. John J. Scullion, Continental Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 341–43; Levin, Jahwist , 178. Blum attributes the entirety of Gen 21:8–21 to his Vg� layer (V ätergeschichte, 311–15). 32. Rendtorff, Problem , 68. 33. Cf. Weisman, “National Consciousness,” 66. 34. The only major scholars to claim that Gen 22:15–18 is original to the narrative of the binding of Isaac are Richard Elliot Friedman, who tentatively and unconvincingly proposes that in the original Elohistic story Isaac was actually sacrificed (The Bible with Sources Revealed [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003], 65), and Van Seters (Prologue, 261–63). Scharbert (“Landverheissung an die Väter,” 343–44) suggests that they are from E, but that they are the E supplement to the originally self-standing narrative of 22:1–15. Konrad Schmid (“Die Rückgabe der Verheissungsgabe: Der ‘heilsgeschichtliche’ Sinn von Gen 22 im Horizont innerbiblische Exegese,” in Gott und Mensch im Dialog , ed. Markus Witte, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 345 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004], 271–300) accepts that 22:15–18 is a secondary addition, but sees the entirety of Genesis 22 as dating to the Persian period. 35. In Genesis, cf., e.g., 2:24; 11:9; 16:13–14; 19:37–38; 21:31; 26:33; 32:3, 31; 33:17. 36. Noth, even in claiming the verse as secondary, saw this narrative connection, describing 24:7 as a “presumably ‘pious’ addition in view of the question of doubt in v. 5” (Pentateuchal Traditions, 29 n. 90). 37. Cf., e.g., Gen 4:7; 18:21; 27:21; 34:17; 37:32. 38. Cf. Addis, Documents , 1:45; Bacon, Genesis, 153–54; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:38; Dillmann, Genesis, 2:201–203; Driver, Genesis , 250; Blum, V ätergeschichte , 362–65; Köckert, V ätergott , 174. 39. Cf. Dillmann, Genesis, 2:201–203; Driver, Genesis, 250; Blum, V ätergeschichte, 362–65; Levin, Jahwist , 205–206; Westermann, Genesis 12–36 , 424–25; de Pury, Promesse, 186 n. 313; Köckert, V ätergott , 171–73. 40. Cf. Gen 1:22, 28; 9:1; 12:2; 14:19; 17:16, 20; 22:17; 24:35, 60; 27:27; 28:3; 35:9. 41. F. Delitzsch, A New Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888– 94), 138–89; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:38; Wellhausen,

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Composition, 29; Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 273 n. 231; Westermann, Promises, 129; Gunkel, Genesis, 294; Kilian, Abrahamsüberlieferungen , 202–209. Blum (V ätergeschichte, 298–99) and Carr ( Fractures, 177–80) argue for two stages of

redaction: first the addition of 26:2–3b , and later the expansion of that addition with 26:3b –5. 42. Though the locative g ər ār āh might be understood as “in the direction of Gerar,” the use of the preposition ’el , “to,” in the phrase “to Abimelech” requires that this be understood as his final destination. When used in combination with the verb h-l-k, “go,” this preposition always indicates the goal of the journey. In the Pentateuch, cf. Gen 12:1; 13:4; 22:2, 3, 19; 24:4, 5, 10, 38; 27:9; 28:5, 9; 30:25; 36:6; 41:55; Exod 7:15; 18:27; 19:10; Num 10:30; 13:26; 16:25; 22:13; 23:13. The most relevant example among these is Gen 22:19: wayy ē lkû yaḥd āw ’el-bə’ē r šāba‘ wayy ēš eb ’abr āhām bib’ēr šāba‘ (“they went together to Beersheba, and Abraham dwelt in Beersheba”), which would represent an almost perfect parallel to the construction of Gen 26:1, 6. 43. Thus Haran (“Bĕ r ît ,” 209 n. 12) suggests that 26:2–5 has been displaced from its original location after 26:23, since he sees it as “authentically connected with Beer-sheba,” rather than with Gerar. This problem is also at the root of those translations that render the first words of 26:2, wayy ē rā ’ ’ēl āyw yhwh, as if pluperfect: Yahweh had appeared to him (so, for example, in the NJB and NJPS translations). 44. If Gen 26:1 intended to describe Isaac’s arrival in Gerar, it would say wayy ābō’ g ər ār āh, “he came to Gerar,” as in Gen 35:6; 37:14; 46:1, et al. 45. Thus Köckert, for example, states that the use of t he plural here is a sign of late authorship; he compares it to examples from Chronicles ( V ätergott , 175 n. 56). Yet this comparison does not take into account at all the context of the passage. Words cannot be separated from their contexts. Quite differently, Scharbert (“Landverheissung an die Väter,” 340) takes the uniqueness of this formulation as evidence for it being part of the earlier tradition of the land promise. 46. The key distinction here is between the verb š -k-n, “dwell,” in 26:2 and g-w-r , “sojourn,” in 26:3; the former connotes permanent residence, the latter a temporary stay. 47. See 1 Chr 4:4, where we should read grr rather than gdr ; cf. Eliezer D. Oren, “Gerar,” Anchor Bible Dictionary , 2:989–91; S. Cohen, “Gerar,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible , 2:381–82. 48. If this reading is correct, it stands as a counterargument to Haran’s claim that this promise text originally belonged after 26:23 and took place in Beersheba. Haran’s argument requires that the two lands mentioned in 26:2 and 3 must be the same, i.e., the territory of Beersheba; yet this raises the question of why the author would use the plural “lands” when only one land, the same as in the other promise texts, is described.


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49. Despite the noted similarities between the two promises in this chapter, documentary scholars for the most part viewed 26:24 as original and 26:3b–5 as secondary. Blum (V ätergeschichte, 301–302, 391), as expected, connects the two promises as part of a single layer. Westermann (Genesis 12–36 , 428) sees 26:24 as relatively late, though earlier than 26:2–5. See the criticisms of these scholars in Van Seters, Prologue, 269–70. 50. Cf. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:42–43; Dillmann, Genesis, 2:226; Driver, Genesis, 265. 51. Hexateuch, 147. 52. Cf. de Pury, Promesse, 175–85 (though he considers Gen 28:14 to be unconnected with its context). 53. Although Gen 31:3 has features in common with other promise texts—Yahweh tells Jacob “I will be with you,” as in 28:15—it is not a promise text proper. It is, more accurately, an instruction: “Return to the land of your fathers where you were born,” and should be compared with texts such as Gen 35:1: “God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and remain there.’” Important here is the recognition, against Westermann and others, that the promise of divine accompaniment is not to be equated with the patriarchal promise; the former is related only to the narrative present, the latter always to the narrative future. 54. Cf. Bacon, Genesis, 173; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:50; Skinner, Genesis, 406; Blum, V ätergeschichte, 365; Carr, Fractures, 168–69; Levin, Jahwist , 248–49; Westermann, Genesis 12–36 , 509. Skinner also argues on the basis of the ease with which the passage may be removed without disturbing its context; see chapter 2. 55. de Pury (Promesse, 95) rejects this interpretation on the grounds that, in his view, the promise of the land was not in fact an important part of the J promises (to which he assigns this text); he is unable, however, to account for the downplaying of the promise of land in J. 56. Addis attributes it to RJE, though without any explanation ( Documents , 1:95); Gunkel objects that “if the statement were authentic, it would stand after v 4” (Genesis, 404). His argument is, as his frequently were, based on his own aesthetic judgment of what the text ought to look like, and is for that reason not compelling. 57. Precisely when this text might have been added is a matter of debate within the nondocumentary school. Levin ( Jahwist , 305; idem, “The Yahwist and the Redactional Link between Genesis and Exodus,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation , ed. Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid, SBL Symposium Series 34 [Atlanta: SBL, 2006], 131–41 [at 134]) and Jan C. Gertz (Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 186 [Göttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 2000], 278–80) argue for a postpriestly date. Blum ( V ätergeschichte , 298), Carr (Fractures, 177–79;

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idem, “What is Required to Identify Pre-Priestly Narrative Connections between Genesis and Exodus? Some General Reflections and Specific Cases,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? ed. Dozeman and Schmid, 159–80 [at 178–79]), Konrad Schmid (“Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten, ed. Jan C. Gertz, Konrad Schmid, and Markus Witte, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 315 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002], 83–118 [at 116]), and Peter Weimar (“Gen 46,2–4* und die Jakobgeschichte: Eine Spurensuche,” Revue Biblique 112 [2005]: 481–510), consider the text to be prepriestly. All, however, agree that it is a secondary insertion. 58. Cf. Gen 21:32; 25:34; 31:17; 32:23. 59. Cf. Erhard Blum, “The Literary Connection between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? ed. Dozeman and Schmid; Schmid, “Josephsgeschichte,” 117; Levin, Jahwist , 315. For a rebuttal to these claims, see Carr, “What is Required?,” 169–72. 60. Many scholars have noted a chiastic construction in Gen 50:24–25 (sometimes expanded to include the first words of 50:26, “Joseph died”); cf. Jan Christian Gertz, “The Transition between the Books of Genesis and Exodus,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? ed. Dozeman and Schmid, 73–87 (at 79; and see the scholarship cited in 79–80 n. 23). Schmid ( Genesis , 214–15) attempts to argue against the chiastic relationship and close connection of 50:24–25 on the grounds that 50:24 raises an issue (the patriarchal promise) that is entirely enclosed within the Pentateuch, while 50:25 looks forward to the burial of Joseph’s bones in Jos 24:32. His argument rests on the assumption that Gen 50:25 and Jos 24:32 belong to the same compositional layer, though there is no a priori reason that the author of Jos 24:32 could not have known of the earlier text of Gen 50:25 and composed his verse on that basis. His argument is, further, dependent on the impossibility of there being any continuation of the pentateuchal sources in Joshua, an impossibility which is by no means proven. The assessment of some scholars that 50:26a is from P (thereby ostensibly proving that the construction of 50:24–26a is post priestly) is based on the faulty, though prevalent, assumption that whenever a biblical character’s age is mentioned, the text is automatically priestly. There is no reason that this should be the case. 61. On the close structural connection of Gen 50:24–26, see Blum, “Literary Connection,” 97. 62. This point was made, ironically, by Rendtorff: “Indeed, it has become quite clear now that the combination of promise elements often has something to do with the function of the promise addresses in a particular narrative context” (Problem , 73). For Rendtorff, this was evidence of a series of textually sensitive redactors; this type of sensitivity, however, is surely more readily attributed to an author. In fact, Rendtorff’s claim sounds in this case more like a forced attempt to explain away the evidence that militates strongly against his theory.


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63. Westermann, for example, states that the passage is a secondary addition to the narrative of Abraham’s separation from Lot ( Genesis 12–36 , 172–73, 178–80). Westermann sees 13:16 as a secondary development within the promise tradition itself, because it deals with the promise of offspring rather than of land. Precisely because 13:16 stands out, and because the particular wording of the promise of offspring found in this verse is unique, Josef Scharbert has argued that it is the original kernel of the promise, a special local tradition that has been preserved (“Die Landverheissung als ‘Urgestein’ der Patriarchen-Tradition,” in M é langes bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Mathias Delcor , ed. André Caquot, et al.; Alter Orient und Altes Testament 215 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985], 359–68 [at 363]). Neither form-critical argument is particularly convincing: though Abraham has been told that Yahweh will make of him a great nation (12:2) and that he will have offspring (12:7), the formulaic promise of many offspring is, like the promise of the land, introduced in full for the first time here. 64. Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch , Biblical Seminar 58 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 104. See also Köckert’s argument for the connection among the promises of Genesis 12–13 ( V ätergott , 252–53). 65. Bacon already noted that there was a narratological problem in the sequence of promises in Gen 13:14–17 and Genesis 15; his solution was to view Gen 13:14–17 as a later addition, on the grounds that Genesis 15 seems not to know of the prior promise of land (Genesis, 122–23). The list of territories, beginning in 15:18b , has long been seen (though without justification) as a late addition to the text. Cf., e.g., Kuenen, Hexateuch, 143; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 1:23; Skinner, Genesis, 283. 66. Cf. Gen 17:20; 21:18; 46:3; Exod 32:10; Num 14:12; Deut 4:6, 7, 8; 26:5. It occurs also twice in Jeremiah: 6:22; 50:41. Though this is precisely the type of data one would expect the nondocumentary school to use to demonstrate that every occurrence of this phrase is from one layer (and, given the distribution, one would expect it to be a deuteronomic layer), note that while Blum assigns some of these verses to his K D, others belong to his Vg �, and obviously Gen 17:20 belongs to P. 67. The main distinguishing feature of 21:13, 18 is the uncommon use of the verb ś -w-m in the phrase “make of him a nation,” l ə g ôy ’ a śî mennû. This occurs only here and in Gen 46:3; elsewhere in the priestly and nonpriestly promises we find the verbs ‘-ś -h (Gen 12:2; Exod 32:10; Num 14:12; Deut 9:14;), n-t-n (Gen 17:20 [P]), and h-y-h (Gen 18:18; 35:11 [P]; Deut 26:5) used for this concept. This use of ś - w-m does not help us to decide to which set of promise texts 21:13, 18 belongs. It is again notable, however, that this difference in wording, precisely the type of difference we would expect to be important for the nondocumentary school in determining layers, is essentially ignored in

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nondocumentary scholarship; while some details of wording are considered probative for grouping and ordering the promise texts, others that conform less well to the desired templates, like this one, go unmentioned. See in particular Rendtorff, Problem , 63–64, who concentrates on the various terms for “nation,” “people,” “assembly,” etc., without even considering the various verbs used to describe how the patriarchs and their offspring are to become a nation. 68. Thus Scharbert (“Landverheissung an die Väter,” 342) suggests that the phrase “who swore to me on oath” is a later insertion; as we have seen, this supposition is unnecessary. 69. Gen 12:4b–5; 13:6, 11b–12a; 16:3, 15–16. 70. Westermann claims that this passage is a “clear example” of a secondary text because “the promise does not appear in the t wo parallels, chapters 12 and 20” (Promises, 124 n. 8). This rationale is possible only on the assumption that the “ancestress in danger” narratives were transmitted independently of the patriarchal narratives, and should thus contain all the same features. If, however, these narratives are read as we are trying to read the promise texts here, that is, in order and as part of the patriarchal story as a whole, it is clear that it would be narratologically both unnecessary and very awkward to have promise given (again) to Abraham in both Genesis 12 and 20. 71. This explains the distinction between the land in which Isaac is to dwell (26:2b) and the land in which he is to sojourn (26:3a). As noted above, “this” land, in which he is to dwell temporarily as a resident alien, is Gerar; the land in which he is to dwell permanently, the land that Yahweh will show him, is Canaan. Attempts to read these two commands as doublets or contradictory do not take into account the context of the narrative here, as Blum correctly notes (V ätergeschichte, 299). It is no difficulty that Isaac is promised the land in a foreign country while Abraham has to wait until he has actually entered Canaan to be promised it. For one thing, it appears, as Blum notes, that Gerar is actually included in the promise of land to Isaac. Beyond this, however, the reason Abraham couldn’t be promised the land is that he could not know which land was meant. Isaac, on the other hand, was raised in Canaan, and so would have known which land was being promised. 72. The structure of the two similes in Gen 15:5 and 26:4 is noticeably different. In Gen 15:5, Abraham is told to count the stars, if he is able; thus his offsprin g will be. In 26:4, Yahweh simply states that he will increase Isaac’s offspring like the stars of the sky. This is much closer in form to the promise of offspring in 13:16, in which Yahweh simply states that he will make Abraham’s offspring like the dust of the earth. I do not consider this determinative, but it does serve as a counterbalance to the similar content of the similes in 15:5 and 26:4; further, it serves as a reminder that in comparing biblical passages there are always two criteria to be recognized: content and form.


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73. Given this list of connections between 26:3b–4 and the promises of Genesis 12–13, it is difficult to see how Carr can claim that the parallels between the two passages are confined only to 26:2–3a, and stop with 26:3b– 5 (Fractures, 155). 74. Cf. Weinfeld, Promise of the Land , 184–85. 75. It is also possible to simply follow Emerton: “it may be doubted whether an ancient writer would have been conscious of any conflict of ideas here” (“Origin,” 24). 76. Rendtorff, Problem , 83; see also Köckert, V ätergott , 172 n. 45. 77. Cf. Emerton, “Origin,” 28. 78. Excluding 26:13–15, 18, 34, which belong to P. 79. Note particularly the use of the root r î b, “dispute,” in both Gen 13:7, 8 and 26:20, 21, 22. 80. See the similar observations of Weisman, “National Consciousness,” 62–63. 81. Emerton correctly states that the different order of cardinal directions in 28:14 and 13:14 is not to be taken as an indication of different authorship (“Origin,” 24). 82. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 299–300. Note also the narrator’s description of Yahweh’s appearance to Jacob: “Yahweh was standing beside [ ‘al ] him,” a relatively uncommon locution, but one that is found prominently in Gen 18:2, at the beginning of another narrative that contains a promise connected to the Genesis 12–13 set. Strangely, Rofé argues precisely the opposite: “The fact that the words of promise in [Gen 28.]13–14 resemble remarkably the promise that had been made to Abraham in Gen 13.14–16 only confirms that those verses are a foreign element” (Introduction, 104). 83. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 302. 84. In the entire Bible it is found only in these two passages and in 1 Kgs 3:8. A similar expression using the verb m-n-h rather than s-p-r is found in 1 Kgs 8:5//2 Chr 5:6. Carr, focusing on the ease with which the prayer of 32:10–13 is removed from its context, and on the ostensible deuteronomic elements of the prayer, ignores this verbal link—again, precisely the type of connection we commonly find at the root of nondocumentary analyses, at least when convenient—and assigns the two passages to different redactional layers ( Fractures, 168–69, 194). 85. A similar introduction is found in Gen 26:24: “I am the God of your father Abraham.” There are two differences, however, between that passage and this. First, I have argued above that 26:24 is part of the same initial promise structure as 26:2–5, just as 13:14–17 is part of the same promise structure as 12:1–3, 7. It is thus not impossible for the deity to make his formal introductions in the second of the two promise passages. Second, a major theme of the promise to Isaac is that he is receiving it for the sake of his father; it is thus narratively sensible for Yahweh to identify himself as the god of Abraham. 86. Blum, V ätergeschichte, 298; Carr, Fractures, 178.

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87. It is therefore misleading to describe Gen 46:3–4 as a “travel command,” as does Carr (Fractures, 177–79; “What Is Required,” 165–66). Moreover, Carr is surely in error when he says that “the promise of Gen 46:1–4 concludes the Genesis series of travel commands and promises, sharing with all of them a focus on ‘going into’ and ‘coming out of’ Egypt” (“What Is Required,” 177)— the first and third of his travel commands, Gen 12:1–2 and 31:3, have nothing at all to do with Egypt. 88. Cf. de Pury, Promesse, 222–33, who presents numerous extrabiblical citations of similar formulae, and Edgar W. Conrad, Fear Not Warrior: A Study of ’al t îr ā ’ Pericopes in the Hebrew Scriptures , Brown Judaic Studies 75 (Chico: Scholars, 1985). Whether or not one agrees with the claim of both de Pury and Conrad that every occurrence of this phrase connotes a martial aspect, these discussions serve to collect the examples of this phrase and demonstrate the range of sources in which it appears. 89. Cf. Weisman, “National Consciousness,” 64–65 (who does not recognize the parallel of Genesis 15). 90. Cf. Van Seters, Prologue, 319. 91. Although he works from a primarily documentary standpoint, even Horst Seebass declares that all of the promise texts from Gen 50:24 on are deuteronomic, largely because they are formulaic and refer to the promise as an oath (“Landverheissung an die Väter,” Evangelische Theologie 37 [1997]: 220–23). 92. Rendtorff, Problem , 84. 93. Rendtorff, Problem , 84. 94. Rendtorff, Problem , 84–85. 95. Rendtorff, Problem , 85. See, however, Nicholson: “In addressing Moses in this passage, God declares that he is ‘the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’, and also refers to Israel as ‘my people’. Such statements seem to presuppose a patriarchal story in which the three patriarchs have already been associated as father, son, and grandson and in which they and their descendants are the people of the God who thus addresses Moses” (Pentateuch, 128). 96. Cf. Schmid, Genesis, and the essays in Gertz, et al., Abschied , and Dozeman and Schmid, Farewell . 97. See the discussion of these verses and the scholarship cited there in Carr, “What is Required?” 169–72. 98. Deut 1:8, 35; 6:10, 18, 23; 7:12; 8:1, 18; 9:5, 27–28; 10:11; 11:9, 21; 19:8; 26:3; 28:11; 29:12; 30:20. 99. It is not the case, as von Rad would have it, that “Deuteronomy, which appeals with great frequency to the promise to the patriarchs, understood it only as a promise of land” (apud Westermann, Promises, 22). 100. Given the fraught nature of scholarship on Genesis 15, the question of its assignment to E is worth briefly engaging here. As noted earlier, the classical

Notes on page 96

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source division of the chapter into two, J and E, has largely been abandoned in both documentary and nondocumentary scholarship, with many claiming that the chapter is a postpriestly unity. A major rationale for this late dating of the chapter seems to be that the reference to the Exodus in 15:13–15 cannot be prepriestly, because according to the nondocumentary school the priestly layer was the first to connect Genesis and Exodus; it cannot be priestly, because Genesis 17 is from P and is a clear doublet; ipso facto, it must be postpriestly. This argumentation has no support in the text itself, which shows virtually no signs, linguistic or otherwise, of a late date. The frequently cited form w əhe’ emin in 15:6, a hiphil weqatal with a clear past tense meaning, is admittedly diffi cult, but a single errant form is by no means sufficient to demonstrate the late date of the chapter. To date a passage on the basis of one form is to say that the oddity is more important than the established norm, for if the chapter were late, then all of the other forms, the usual wayyiqtol s, would be “wrong.” It is more likely that this one errant form is the result of a scribal mistake. It should be noted that two similar forms are found elsewhere in Genesis—w əhôkiaḥ (Gen 21:25) and w əhe ḥəlip (Gen 31:7)—both hiphil, both weqatal s, both with clear past tense meaning, and both in E. T his raises at least the possibility, though no more, that the erroneous change from the wayyiqtol to a weqatal in the occasional hiphil form could have taken place within the process of transmission of the independent E document. It is often claimed that the word r əkuš in 15:14 is an indication that the text cannot be from E, as this word is, according to many, exclusive to P. It should first be recognized that the argument of exclusive language is a problematic one: just because one author uses a word regularly does not mean that others are forbidden from doing so as well, even only once. More to the point, however, this is not the only occurrence of the word r əkuš in a nonpriestly context: it appears in Gen 14:11, 12, 16, 21 (a chapter with its own difficulties, but one that is clearly not priestly) and, most notably, in another clear E context, in Num 16:32. All told, the word appears in six distinct priestly passages (Gen 12:5; 13:6; 31:18; 36:6–7; 46:6; Num 35:3), and in three nonpriestly passages (Genesis 14; 15:14; Num 16:32). This distribution is hardly one-sided enough to prove that the word is exclusively priestly or, taking that claim a step further, that every nonpriestly usage must by necessity be postpriestly, the word evidently being known only from its use in P. All of that being said, it is possible—though not definitive—that 15:14b is in fact part of a secondary addition to the chapter (though one that does not affect the promise). It seems that 15:13a –14a is an insertion into the chapter: whereas 15:13a  , the statement that Abraham’s descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, conforms entirely to E’s presentation of the Israelite experience in Egypt, the notion that the Israelites would be enslaved for four hundred years does not, for there is no enslavement of

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Notes on page 96 the Israelites in E. On the other hand, the idea that the Israelites would be in Egypt for four generations, found in 15:16, is fulfilled in a remarkable manner by the E narrative, and exclusively by E, which alone takes great care to inform us that “Joseph lived to see children of the third generation of Ephraim” (Gen 50:23). For the details on both of these points, see Baden, “Joseph.” Finally, one must reckon with the phenomenon of the divine names in Genesis 15, which has of course long been an ostensible stumbling block to the recognition of the entire chapter as belonging to E. One is tempted to simply dismiss this issue altogether, since the use of the divine name is emphatically not one of the primary criteria used to identify source documents (see Baden, Redaction, 225–27). Yet it must be admitted that the frequent use of yhwh in Genesis 15 is striking, and perhaps demands some closer attention. Of the attestations of yhwh in this chapter, four can be set aside from the beginning: 15:1, 4, 6, and 18. In these cases the name occurs not in direct speech but in the narrator’s voice, and is thus unproblematic: the author of E knew that God’s name was Yahweh; what he claims is that the human characters in his story did not know that name until Exodus 3. The divine name appears elsewhere in the E narrator’s voice (Gen 20:18), and indeed even in P (Gen 17:1). (One might suggest, in fact, that the use of the divine name in 15:1 and 17:1, at least, may be a redactional alteration made by some later scribe who thought it necessary to use God’s proper name in the context of his promise to Abraham, thus linking Genesis 12, 15, and 17—and maybe also 22:15–18.) With those four examples removed from consideration, we are left with three occurrences of yhwh in Genesis 15. Two of these are in Abraham’s voice, and are therefore theoretically difficult: 15:2 and 8. In both of these, however, the word appears as part of a collocation, ’ ad ōnāy yhwh, that is otherwise unattested in Genesis–Numbers. I venture the possibility that yhwh here is a gloss, perhaps a later scribe’s attempt to make sense of Abraham’s use of the common noun “lord” even though the narrator has already said yhwh; since both words had the same traditional pronunciation, this scribe may have assumed (correctly enough) that they were to be equated (only at a later stage would the proper name have been repointed as ’ el ōhî m , as we have it in the MT). Though this is admittedly speculative, the strange phrase ’ ad ōnāy yhwh should at least give us pause when considering the state of the divine names in the chapter. And the final use, in 15:7, comes in God’s own words to Abraham: “I am Yahweh who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans.” Here the name occurs in what we may consider a stock phrase, or at least a deeply significant one, as the language here distinctly echoes that of the seminal E text of the Decalogue: “I am Yahweh who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exod 20:2). (As for the reference to Ur of the Chaldeans in this verse, which some see as based on the priestly text of Gen 11:28, 31, it is possible that this is a redactional insertion


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intended to match the mention of Abraham’s ancestral home in P; it is also possible that the references in P are redactional insertions, for the same purpose. In neither case is it necessary to posit that this reference is an indication that the entirety of Genesis 15 is postpriestly.) To these arguments one may add a variety of positive indications that link Genesis 15 with E on thematic and stylistic grounds: the prophetic address to Abraham in 15:1 (cf. Gen 20:7, 17); the appearance of God in a vision (cf. Gen 20:3; 31:24; 46:2); the description of God as appearing in smoke and fire in 15:17 (cf. Exod 20:18, the only other pentateuchal text in which the word lap pî d appears); and the presence of a formal ceremony to mark the making of a covenant (cf. Exod 24:3–8). 101. It should be noted that this analysis does not require that the sources themselves be singly authored compositions. The Documentary Hypothesis does not preclude the possibility that each of the sources has undergone various stages of development before reaching its final form (see Baden, Composition , 248). It is possible that some verses, entire episodes, or even promise texts may have been added to any given source during the lengthy process of its composition. What is important is that however the source came into being, it was composed with a common set of literary and narrative sensibilities, such that its unity is evident from its internal consistency and coherence. 102. Contra Rendtorff, Problem , 83. 103. See particularly Gen 18:18. 104. Cf. Rendtorff, Problem , 96. 105. The first of these phrases occurs elsewhere only in Num 14:28; 24:3, 4, 15, 16. The second is found only in Deut 1:36, though variants of the phrase are found in both P (Lev 26:43; Num 20:12) and non-P (Num 11:20). 106. 1 Sam 30:8. 107. Cf. Num 14:24; Deut 7:12, 8:20; 2 Sam 12:6, 10; Isa 5:23; Am 4:12.

�� 4 1. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 47. 2. Although it is the case that the promise to Abraham comes at the beginning of his narrative career in all three sources, this is not because there was any common tradition that maintained that this must be the case. It seems more likely that all three authors simply recognized that this was the most sensible place in the Abraham cycle for the promise tradition to make its first appearance, as it would thereby give an overarching shape to the whole (and to the rest of the patriarchal narrative and beyond as well). It should be noted, however, that the sources do not agree on when in Abraham’s life—as opposed to his existence in the story—the promise was first given. According to J, it was

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3.

4.

5.

6. 7.


before he left his home for Canaan; according to E, it was after; and according to P, it was well after, twenty-four years to be precise (Abraham leaves Haran at age 75 according to Gen 12:4b, and is given the promise when he is 99 according to Gen 17:1). Although Exodus 6 constitutes the last significant reference to the bər ît in P, the promise does appear again in H, in the curses and blessings of Leviticus 26, where it seems to be used as an intentional bookend to Exodus 6: just as Israel’s national history begins in Exodus 6 with God remembering the bər ît , so too will it collapse and be renewed with God remembering the bər î t (Lev 26:42; Baruch J. Schwartz, personal communication). See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 59–157. This seems also to be how H views bər î t , as is evident in Leviticus 26, the blessings and curses equivalent to those of D in Deuteronomy 28, where H says “If you follow my laws and observe my commandments . . . I will maintain my covenant with you” (Lev 26:3, 9)—but “if you reject my laws and spurn my rules, so that you do not observe all my commandments, and if you break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you,” etc. (26:15). It has sometimes been understood that the covenant with Noah in Gen 9:8–17 is dependent on obedience to the preceding Noahide laws in 9:3–6. Yet this is a misreading on multiple levels, not least of which is that the entire concept of the Noahide laws is postbiblical, deriving from postbiblical midrash (see James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998], 224–26). The instructions in Gen 9:3–6, which entail the removal of the restriction on humans to eat only vegetation, are not really laws, but are rather a revision of the natural order of humanity’s relationship with the animal kingdom. They are a statement of fact, just as the initial instructions to humankind in Gen 1:29–30 are not laws but a statement of fact: this is what humans and animals eat. Even if one were to take Gen 9:3–6 as something approximating law, however, this passage is formally separated from the covenant that follows in 9:8–17 by the repetition of the speech introduction in 9:8: “God said to Noah and his sons with him.” As has long been recognized, the repetition of the formal speech introduction in the middle of a single speech serves to delineate between distinct topics in the discourse. See Naḥ manides on Gen 9:12. It may be argued that there is another potential obligation in Genesis 17, in God’s first words to Abraham: “Walk in my ways and be blameless” (Gen 17:2). These words are followed directly by the introduction of the bər ît , which might be taken therefore as an implicit result of Abraham’s fulfillment of the commands in 17:2. Yet at no point in the entire chapter thereafter is it suggested that Abraham must behave in any particular way in order to receive the bər ît . It is therefore possible,


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and more likely, that the words of 17:2 are to be taken as a complete thought in and of themselves: “Walk in my ways and (thus) be blameless.” 8. See the seminal article of Michael V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of the Priestly ’ôt Etiologies,” Revue Biblique 81 (1974): 557–96. 9. This seems to be what is meant, at the basic level, by the oft-repeated priestly expression “that person will be cut off from his people,” which appears first in Gen 17:14: not being circumcised will result in not being party to the divine promise, which is essentially how the Israelite people are defined in P. 10. As Fox puts it, “The covenant in Gen., XVII is not conditional—it will not be cancelled because of Israel’s behavior—but it does have a condition, namely that the individual Israelite do his part to aid God in fulfilling his part” (“Sign,” 596). There are two prerequisites for receiving the benefits of the promise in P: one must be Israelite, and one must be circumcised. Those who are circumcised but not Israelite, like Ishmael, do not receive the promise; those who are Israelite but uncircumcised are “cut off.” 1 1 . The unconditionality of the patriarchal promise in P may be highlighted by the regular use of the word “establish,” hē qî m , in P’s bər ît language (Gen 6:18; 9:9, 11; 17:7, 19, 21; Exod 6:4; see similarly the use of “give,” nātan: Gen 17:2; 25:12). The covenant is not “made,” or “cut” (kārat ; Gen 15:18; 21:27, 32; 26:28; 31:44; Exod 23:32; 24:8; 34:10, 12, 15, 27), as it is in the nonpriestly texts, where the covenant (whether between God and humans or between two human parties) is reciprocal. 12. The idea that there are four bər î t s in P is commonly associated with Julius Wellhausen, who, however, identified them as being with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses; at the very least the first of these seems and has usually been correctly deemed a figment of Wellhausen’s imagination, as there is no mention of a bər î t before Noah. Other scholars have adjusted Wellhausen’s claim, finding, e.g., only three bər î t s (Noah, Abraham, and Moses; Gunkel, Genesis, 151), or a different four (Noah, Abraham, Moses, Phinehas; Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection , Hebrew; 3 vols. [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996– 2008], 2:115–18). Like those of Genesis 9 and 17, discussed above, the bər î t s of Numbers 18 and 25 are also unilateral: in Numbers 18, there is no obligation laid on the priests in exchange for their receipt of the perquisites from the sacred donations of the Israelites; in Numbers 25, though the grant of eternal priesthood is bestowed as a result of Phinehas’s actions, there is nothing further that Phinehas’s descendants need do to insure the continuing receipt of the promise. The possibility that Numbers 18 is, in whole or in part, from H (see Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995], 53–54) would, of course, simply mean that P proper contained only three bər î t s, which, unless one is wedded to Wellhausen’s notion of four covenants, is essentially unproblematic. It should

19 4

13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18.


be noted that the Sabbath in Exod 31:13–17 is not a distinct bər î t , but is rather, like circumcision, the sign of the bər î t ; the group addressed in Exodus 31 is the Israelite population, i.e., precisely the same group covered by the promise of Genesis 17. (Although many scholars have argued that Exod 31:13– 17 is from H, or is otherwise later than P, see the recent argument for an original P stratum, including the bər î t , by Jeffrey Stackert, “Compositional Strata in the Priestly Sabbath: Exodus 31:12 –17 and 35:1–3,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures , 2011, http:// www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_162.pdf.) We may conjecture that the new sign of the bər î t in Exodus 31 functions as a supplement to circumcision in Genesis 17, an element added as a result of the changed circumstances of Israel’s relationship with the deity in the aftermath of the Exodus and Sinai. The selection of Abraham in P is, like virtually everything else in the priestly narrative, without any stated rationale. That is, we are never told why God chooses Abraham rather than someone else, just as there is no rationale given for why Moses is chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, or why the Levites are chosen among all the tribes to serve as Tabernacle functionaries; it is simply God’s prerogative to choose whom he will. Here, with others, I take the waw in l ə’ōt ōt ûl əm ô‘ ad îm to be a waw explicativum (GKC §154a�). See Edwin Firmage, “Genesis 1 and the Priestly Agenda,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 82 (1999): 97–114. One may note that the blessing of fertility, when given to humans rather than animals, has a third element in Gen 1:28 and 9:1 and 7: dominion or spreading over the earth. It is thus possible, if not indeed probable, that this universal human blessing regarding the earth is a precursor to the land aspect of the patriarchal promise in P—that is, whereas all of humanity fills the earth, Israel is given a particularized version of that blessing, relating to the land of Canaan alone. My thanks to Liane Marquis for this observation. It does appear in H, in Lev 26:9, where it is said that the promise to make them fruitful and multiply them will be one of the blessings that will devolve from Israel’s obedience. Here again, however, the difference between the P and H uses of the bər î t emerges: for P, the bər î t is unconditional and unwavering, while in Leviticus 26, if Israel obeys, then the bər î t will be maintained, but if Israel disobeys the laws then Yahweh will—temporarily—allow the bər î t to lapse, and bring terrible punishments down on the people; only once the people repent will Yahweh remember the bər î t and restore it (26:42). Even in this threat, however, the essential unconditionality of the promise from P seems to retain its force in H: despite the momentary abrogation of the promise as a punishment for disobedience, Yahweh will always restore the bər î t with his people. See the statement of the rabbis: “The intention to create Israel preceded everything else” (Ber. Rab. 1.4).


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19. Konrad Schmid has noted that in the patriarchal accounts it is only P that refers to the patriarchs as g ē r îm in Canaan, but he takes this as an indication that P is already foreshadowing the Exodus by making the patriarchal family’s stay in Canaan a temporary one (Genesis, 84). Yet the term g ē r is used to indicate a resident alien; it speaks to a person’s origin, rather than his destination. Although some g ēr îm certainly would leave their adopted territory and return to their homeland, the majority of the biblical usages of the term seem to have no endpoint in mind for the g ē r ’s stay. 20. As they speak to a distinct genealogical line, and involve only some aspects of the promise, we may leave aside the references to Ishmael in Genesis 16 and 21. 21. In J, Jacob goes not to Paddan-Aram but to Haran, where Rebekah’s family lives according to J, and he goes not for the purpose of getting married as in P, but merely to escape Esau’s wrath (Gen 27:42–45); that he happens to find his wives there is an unplanned but fortunate consequence of his journey. 22. According to P, all of Jacob’s sons—including Benjamin—were born in Paddan-Aram (Gen 35:22b–26). 23. In Gen 48:19 (E), the language is similar, but not identical: Manasseh is blessed before Ephraim because his offspring will be plentiful enough for multiple nations (m əlo’-hagg ôy ī m) —but not actually multiple nations. 24. So Rashi on Gen 17:6, though he claims that as Ishmael has already been born the statement must refer only to Esau. 25. Williamson (Abraham , 154–70) attempts to read “nations” and “kings” here somewhat metaphorically, and very much in light of Gen 12:3: that these nations will be Abraham’s descendants insofar as Abraham mediates God’s blessing to them. This seems to me a stretch. 26. Speiser, “‘People.’” 27. Although they equate the nations in this passage with the Israelite tribes, the rabbis were close to this reading when they said that the prediction of kings coming from Jacob referred to Jeroboam and Jehu—that is, descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen Rab. 82.4, followed by Rashi on Gen 35:11). 28. Admittedly, there are no explicit references in P to the divided kingdom, but this is hardly an obstacle: the narratives of the Pentateuch, in all of its source documents, take place long before there is any kingdom at all, and in none of the sources is there any explicit mention of the future division of the Israelite people into two parts. Furthermore, as is well known, the author P is particularly careful to keep his text anchored in its narrative historical context. The foremost example of this, of course, is P’s unbending focus on the Tabernacle as the central cultic site (as it was in the wilderness in which the narrative is set), rather than the Temple. 29. Thanks again to Liane Marquis for this observation. 30. Though it is often stated that P has no interest in, or even shows no awareness of, the concept of kingship in Israel (and is thus to be dated to the postexilic

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period when there were no Israelite kings), such a view is, to my mind, unsustainable, if only because of the references to kings in the promise texts. 31. In the nonpriestly narrative of the changing of Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen 32:25–32), there is no mention of or allusion to the tradition of the promise. 32. See on this connection especially Noam Mizrahi, “Abraham’s Name Derivation (Gen 17:5): A Linguistic Phenomenon as a Literary Device,” Tarbiz 71 (2002): 337–52 [in Hebrew]. 33. In Deut 34:1 both P and J are present: the text according to P read “Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, opposite Jericho” (cf. Deut 32:48); according to J, “Moses went up to the summit of Pisgah, and Yahweh showed him the whole land” (cf. Num 21:20). 34. The cardinal directions are mentioned by J also in Gen 28:14, when Yahweh tells Jacob that his descendants will spread out in all directions. 35. In Deut 3:27 we find the instructions to Moses for which Deut 34:1–3 is the fulfillment, in the former passage using the cardinal directions rather than geographical features as in the latter. The D text of Deut 3:27 seems to be derived from the earlier J source in Num 21:20 and Deut 34:1–3. 36. It is possible, even probable, that this is a ruse: Joseph’s brothers are, according to J, farmers (Gen 37:7; note also that in J the patriarchs are referred to as being “in the fields”: Gen 30:15; 34:5, 7); it is in E that the brothers are shepherds (Gen 37:2, 12–17). If it is possible that Genesis 14 is, for the most part, from J, as I think is the case, we may add to the foregoing list Abraham’s insistence that he receive nothing in exchange for his part in defeating the foreign kings, in order that it be clear that everything he has derives from Yahweh (Gen 14:22–24). 37. In P, see Gen 28:1–4, 6; 48:20; 49:28b; in E, see Gen 48:9, 13–16. 38. I have translated the word t ôr ōt āy here as “my instructions,” rather than “my teachings,” as the NJPS translation has it. The meaning of “teachings” is effectively a postbiblical one, grounded in the notion that the entire Torah, both law and narrative, constitutes a single basis for behavior. Nowhere does the word have this meaning in the Bible. 39. Bar-On, “Festival Calendars.” 40. There is an intriguing overlap between this concept of Abraham’s unique obedience to the divine will as manifested in the natural law and the classical statement of the rabbis, that “Abraham obeyed the entire Torah before it was given” (m. Qid. 4:14). 41. On this reading of Gen 12:1–3, see Joel S. Baden, “The Morpho-Syntax of Genesis 12:1–3: Translation and Interpretation,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 72 (2010): 223–37. 42. Although these verses are frequently attributed to E, they are in fact from J, as is clear from Joseph’s initial words in the speech comprising Gen 45:4–13: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt”—a claim that is true only in


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J, in which Joseph is indeed sold to the Ishmaelites (Gen 37:28b), while in E Joseph is stolen by the Midianites (37:28a; see also 40:15). 43. This was recognized famously by Gerhard von Rad: “God’s way of dealing with the ancestors of the race is by unobtrusive guidance” ( Old Testament Theology , Vol. 1: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions , trans. D. M. G. Stalker [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1962], 175). 44. As may be observed from the passages cited in the preceding discussion, the phrase “I am with you” and its variations are found extensively in J from Genesis 24 onward, but never before that; that is, it begins to be used in the first narrative of Isaac (the wooing of Rebekah), but is not used once with regard to Abraham. This remarkable break between Abraham and the other patriarchal and postpatriarchal narratives deserves fuller attention than can be given here. 45. On the fear of God as a primary theme in E, see Hans Walter Wolff, “The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch,” in Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions , 2nd ed. (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 67–82, and Jacques Vermeylen, “Les premières étapes littéraires de la formation du Pentateuque,” in Le Pentateuque en question , ed. Albert de Pury and Thomas Römer, 3rd ed. Le Monde de la Bible 19 (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2002), 149–97 (at 151–60). 46. On the translation of Exod 20:17, see Moshe Greenberg, “ in Exodus 20:20 and the Purpose of the Sinaitic Theophany,” Journal of Biblical Literature 79 (1960): 272–79. 47. The centrality of divine providence in the promise of Genesis 15 may be underscored by the covenant ceremony that accompanies the promise: as Ronald Clements has pointed out (Abraham and David: Genesis 15 and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition, Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series 5 [London: SCM, 1967], 34 n. 45), this is modeled on a treaty ceremony in which both parties would pass between the pieces of the sacrifice, thereby demonstrating their joint allegiance to the treaty and particularly their common acceptance of the curses that would come about as the result of breaking the treaty. It is therefore unusual, and perhaps pointed, that it is only God who passes between the pieces of the sacrifice in Genesis 15—as if to emphasize that this is a unilateral promise, and that God is taking on all of the responsibility inherent in it. 48. It is likely that portions of these verses are not original to E, but are in fact redactional, intended to take into account the later P and J presentations of Israel’s experience in Egypt. The original E text would have comprised Gen 15:13a, 14b–16. See Joel S. Baden, “From Joseph to Moses: The Narratives of Exodus 1–2,” Vetus Testamentum 62 (2012): 133–58 (at 150 n. 51). 49. In J: Exod 14:11–12; 17:3; Num 11:4–6; in P: Exod 16:3; Num 14:3–4; 20:4. 50. In Gen 46:4, God’s statement that “I will surely bring you up again” can have only the Exodus in mind, for in E, unlike J and P, there is no narrative of Jacob’s

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burial in Canaan. If we read this verse in conjunction with the one that precedes it, we may posit that Jacob is being spoken of in t wo distinct ways: in 46:3, he is directly addressed by God as an individual (“Fear not”), and it is claimed that he will become a great nation; in 46:4, then, God’s statement that he will go down to Egypt with Jacob has an individual focus, but the statement that he will bring him back up should be taken to refer to Jacob’s existence as a people. 51. The closest P comes to a reference to the Exodus in its legal sections is in Num 3:13 and 8:17, where the the selection of the Levites to stand in for the first-born of all Israel is linked with the smiting of the first-born in Egypt. 52. On the relationship of D’s laws to the Covenant Code, see Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); on that of H to the other law collections, see Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 52 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). The most obvious text in which the Exodus is used as grounds for legislation is of course Exodus 12; yet in the original P narrative only the instructions for the first Passover in Egypt were given, without any laws regarding future observance of the festival—those laws, in Exod 12:14–20, derive from H. See Joel S. Baden, “Identifying the Original Stratum of P: Theoretical and Practical Considerations,” in The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions , ed. Sarah Shectman and Joel S. Baden, Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 95 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), 13–29. 53. It should be noted that in the latter two cases, the promises occur not only at narrative borders, but at geographical borders as well.

�� 5 1. Wellhausen, Composition, and idem, Prolegomena to the History of Israel , trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Enzies. Repr. (Atlanta: Scholars, 1994). 2. On this historical/literary presumption, see Baden, Redaction, 289–99. 3. Alexander Stewart, “The History of the Southern Kingdom in Relation to the Law of Moses,” in Lex Mosaica or The Law of Moses and the Higher Criticism , ed. Richard Valpy French (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894), 353–406 (at 358). 4. William Henry Green, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895), 172. 5. Green, Higher Criticism , 31. 6. Solomon Shechter, “Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism,” in Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (Cincinnati: Ark, 1915), 35–39 (at 37). 7. Umberto Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), 103.


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8. M. H. Segal, The Pentateuch: Its Composition and Authorship and Other Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 30. 9. R. Norman Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study , Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements 53 (Sheffi eld: Sheffield Academic, 1987). 10. Of course for the purposes of this discussion I am leaving aside the generations of explicitly theological interpretations of the text, from Jubilees to Walter Brueggemann, the w ritings of those who read the text in order to make sense of it for narrower or wider communities of believers, who knew nothing about or intentionally set aside the critical evaluation of the Pentateuch’s composition. It is worth noting, however, the struggles that Gerhard von Rad encountered in attempting to write his Old Testament Theology when he dealt with the Pentateuch: even in trying to participate in the long tradition of theological introductions, von Rad was able to talk almost exclusively about the theologies of the individual sources, so difficult was it for him, as a pentateuchal scholar, to conceive of any overarching meaning to be found in the final form. 11. Thomas W. Mann, The Book of the Torah: The Narrative Integrity of the Pentateuch (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 161. 12. Rendtorff, Problem ; Erhard Blum, V ätergeschichte; idem, Studien. See the two major collections of essays by scholars adhering to this theory: Jan Christian Gertz et al., eds., Abschied vom Jahwisten, and Dozeman and Schmid, Farewell . 13. Rendtorff, Problem , 189. The similarities of this view to that of Brevard Childs should be apparent; it is noteworthy, however, that Childs still worked with a fundamentally source-critical model for the development of the text, and that his canonical criticism dealt in practice less with the intentionality of the combination of the sources and more with the resulting meaning as understood by particular communities of faith. Childs was more sociophenomenological than literary-historical. 14. It is not necessarily the case, of course, that each redactional layer should be thought to have worked over the entire Pentateuch; some are seen to have treated only the patriarchal narratives, for example (cf. Blum, V ätergeschichte), and some very late layers dealt exclusively with one or other of the canonical books (see, e.g., the analysis of Numbers by Reinhard Achenbach, Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch , Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für altoriental-

ische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte 3 [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003], or of Leviticus by Christoph Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus , Forschungen zum Alten Testament II/25 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007]). 15. On which see Baden, Composition, 53–67.

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16. Or, for those who see the nonpriestly flood story as the redactional revision of P’s, vice versa; for this view see, e.g., Blenkinsopp, Pentateuch, 78–87; Jean-Louis Ska, “The Story of the Flood: A Priestly Writer and Some Later Editorial Fragments,” in The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 66 (T übingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 165–83; Albert de Pury, “P g as the Absolute Beginning,” in Les dernières r é dactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Enné ateuque, ed. Thomas Römer and Konrad Schmid, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 203 (Leuven: University Press, 2007), 99–128 (at 114). 17. See above. 18. William K. Gilders, “Sacrifice before Sinai and the Priestly Narratives,” in The Srata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions , ed. Sarah Shectman and Joel S. Baden, Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 95 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), 57–70 (at 69). 19. This was recognized already in the seminal work of Hupfeld, Quellen, 165–66. 20. See, for instance, the analysis of the book of Numbers offered by Achenbach, Vollendung , which identifies the final three layers of the book as “theokratische Bearbeitungen.” 21. On this logical problem, long prevalent in biblical scholarship, see the recent essay of Benjamin D. Sommer, “Dating Pentateuchal texts and the Perils of Pseudo-Historicism,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz; Forschungen zum Alten Testament 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 85–108. 22. On the narrative dependence of D on J and E, see Baden, Redaction; on the legal dependence of D on E, see Levinson, Deuteronomy ; on H’s dependence on D and E, see Stackert, Rewriting . 23. Though the claim that Dtr is dependent on J and E (and even P) is no doubt controversial, I believe it to be warranted on the basis of such texts as Jos 5:12, in which it is recorded that the manna ceased once the Israelites entered Canaan (the explicit fulfillment of P’s statement in Exod 16:35 that the Israelites ate the manna until they entered Canaan); Jos 15:14, in which Caleb’s dispossession of the Anakites Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai is narrated (these Anakites are known by name only from J, in Num 13:22); Jos 24:32, in which we learn that Joshua buried the bones of Joseph, that were brought up from Egypt, in the site that Jacob had purchased from the inhabitants of Shechem for one hundred kesitahs (thus conforming exclusively and explicitly to a series of E texts: Gen 33:18; 48:22; Exod 13:19). This is, of course, far too broad a discussion to enter into here. 24. See Baden, Composition, 217–21.


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25. This is not merely an aesthetic judgment, that the independent sources read “well” literarily. It has, rather, everything to do with the narrative claims of the source: for the vast majority of the pentateuchal sources that emerge from the Documentary Hypothesis, each narrative claim is dependent on, and in turn forms the basis for, other narrative claims that precede and follow it. What makes the sources seem “complete,” then, is that there are so few narrative claims lacking—places where we read the independent document and miss an earlier mention of a person, place, or event that is necessary for understanding the text. 26. See Baden, Redaction, 263–85. 27. On the attempts of classical source-critical scholarship to discern deuteronomic insertions in the Pentateuch, see Baden, Composition, 139–46. 28. See, e.g., Peter J. Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy: The P Redaction of Ex 25–40,” Zeitschrift f ür die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 89 (1977): 375–87 (at 381–84); Childs, Introduction, 175–76. 29. See Joel S. Baden, “The Original Place of the Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16,” Zeitschrift f ür die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 122 (2010): 491–504. 30. As already recognized by Bacon, Genesis, 135. 31. See, e.g., Williamson, Abraham ; Dixon Sutherland, “The Organization of the Abraham Promise Narratives ,” Zeitschrift f ür die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 95 (1983): 337–43. 32. On the Fragmentary Hypothesis, see Baden, Composition, 256–58 n. 12. 33. Similar arguments for the even-handed reading of the pentateuchal sources, and for the theological implications of their compilation into a single text, are made by Benjamin Sommer in “Dialogical Biblical Theology: A Jewish Approach to Reading Scripture Theologically,” in Biblical Theology: Introducing the Conversation, ed. Leo Perdue (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 1–53, 265–85. Sommer applies this argument in his book The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 124–26, where he shows that the same approach suggested here can indeed be fruitfully applied to a central theological issue other than the patriarchal promise.


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Achenbach, Reinhard 199 n. 14, 200 n. 20 Addis, W. E. 167 n. 3, 168 nn. 12–13, 169 n. 22, 180 n. 17, 181 n. 38, 183 n. 56 Alt, Albrecht 171 n. 41 Alter, Robert 102, 191 n. 1 Bacon, Benjamin W. 35, 167 nn. 2–4, 169 n. 22, 171 n. 37, 178 n. 2, 181 nn. 27, 38, 183 n. 54, 185 n. 65, 201 n. 30 Baden, Joel S. 166 n. 22, 167 n. 23, 169 nn. 17, 21, 171 n. 29, 173 n. 68, 177 n. 105, 188 n. 100, 191 n. 101, 196 n. 41, 197 n. 48, 198 nn. 52, 2, 199 n. 15, 200 nn. 22, 24, 201 nn. 26–27, 29, 32 Bar-On, Shimon 170 n. 26, 196 n. 39 Blenkinsopp, Joseph 170 n. 23, 178 n. 1, 179 n. 14, 200 n. 16 Blum, Erhard 42–43, 45–48, 54, 131, 168 n. 12, 170 n. 26, 171 n. 28, 173 nn. 64, 67, 71, 73, 174 nn. 78, 80, 175 n. 90, 177 nn. 100, 104, 179 n. 14, 181 nn. 31, 38–39, 41, 183 nn. 49, 54, 57, 184 nn. 59, 61, 186 n. 71, 187 n. 86, 199 nn. 12, 14 Boorer, Suzanne 170 n. 23 Brettler, Marc 49, 174 n. 84, 175 n. 89, 180 n. 15

Brightman, Edgar S. 169 n. 22 Brueggemann, Walter 165 n. 16 Carpenter, J. Estlin 31, 35, 167 nn. 2–4, 168 n. 12, 169 nn. 14, 21–22, 171 nn. 33, 36, 180 n. 17, 180 n. 25, 171 n. 28, 181 nn. 38, 41, 183 nn. 50, 54 Carr, David 45, 54, 173 nn. 63, 67, 69, 73, 179 n. 12, 180 n. 22, 181 n. 41, 183 nn. 54, 57, 184 n. 59, 187 nn. 84, 86, 188 nn. 87, 97 Cassuto, Umberto 129, 179 n. 11, 198 n. 7 Childs, Brevard S. 165 n. 12, 166 n. 19, 199 n. 13, 201 n. 28 Clements, Ronald E. 164 nn. 2–3, 197 n. 47 Clines, David 21, 129, 163 n. 1, 164 nn. 4, 8– 9, 165 nn. 10–11, 14, 166 nn. 18, 21, 167 n. 23 Cohen, S. 182 n. 47 Conrad, Edgar W. 188 n. 88 Cross, Frank M. 181 n. 41 Delitzsch, F. 181 n. 41 de Pury, Albert 172 nn. 48, 57, 179 n. 12, 181 n. 39, 183 nn. 52, 55, 188 n. 88, 200 n. 16 Dillmann, August 35, 50, 167 n. 2, 168 n. 7, 169 nn. 16, 22, 171 n. 34, 175 n. 92, 181 nn. 38–39, 183 n. 50

21 4


Driver, S. R. 167 nn. 2–4, 168 n. 12, 181 nn. 38–39, 183 n. 50 Emerton, J. A. 31, 47, 169 n. 18, 174 n. 79, 187 nn. 75, 77, 81 Firmage, Edwin 194 n. 15 Fox, Michael V. 193 nn. 8, 10 Fretheim, Terence E. 163 n. 1 Friedman, Richard Elliot 181 n. 34 Gertz, Jan C. 183 n. 57, 184 n. 60 Gesundheit, Shimon 176 n. 99 Gilders, William K. 200 n. 18 Goshen-Gottstein, A. 163 n. 5 Green, William Henry 129, 198 nn. 4–5 Greenberg, Moshe 197 n. 46 Grüneberg, Keith N. 164 n. 5, 181 n. 29 Gunkel, Hermann 29–31, 168 nn. 8–12, 180 n. 17, 181 n. 41, 183 n. 56, 193 n. 12 Haran, Menahem 177 n. 105, 179 n. 14, 182 n. 43, 193 n. 12 Hoftijzer, J. 39–41, 58, 63, 65, 172 nn. 49–54 Holzinger, H. 178 n. 5 Hupfeld, Hermann 178 n. 4, 200 n. 19 Jacob, Benno 163 n. 6 Kearney, Peter J. 201 n. 28 Kilian, Rudolf 35, 169 n. 22, 171 n. 32, 172 n. 48, 179 n. 12, 181 n. 41 Knohl, Israel 193 n. 12 Köckert, Matthias 42, 54, 172 n. 59, 173 n. 69, 175 n. 94, 177 n. 103, 181 nn. 38–39, 182 n. 45, 185 n. 64, 187 n. 76 Kuenen, Abraham 28, 35, 73, 167 n. 3, 168 n. 5, 171 n. 35, 185 n. 65 Kugel, James L. 180 n. 26, 192 n. 5

Levin, Christoph 54, 177 n. 104, 180 n. 22, 181 nn. 31, 39, 183 nn. 54, 57, 184 n. 59 Levinson, Bernard M. 198 n. 52, 200 n. 22 Loewenstamm, Samuel 170 n. 27 Lohfink, Norbert 169 n. 22, 174 n. 81, 175 n. 90, 179 n. 14 Mann, Thomas 129, 199 n. 11 McKane, William 172 n. 54 McNeile, A. H. 167 n. 4, 168 n. 12 Milgrom, Jacob 175 n. 87 Mizrahi, Noam 196 n. 32 Nicholson, Ernest 175 nn. 92–93, 188 n. 95 Nihan, Christophe 199 n. 14 Noth, Martin 37–42, 67, 93, 169 n. 22, 172 nn. 43–47, 180 n. 21, 181 n. 36 Oren, Eliezer 182 n. 47 Orlinsky, Harry 178 n. 3 Rendtorff, Rolf 41–43, 45, 48, 50, 66, 69, 84, 92–93, 131–32, 173 nn. 58–62, 64–67, 71, 174 nn. 80, 82, 175 nn. 90–91, 176 nn. 95, 97, 180 n. 15, 181 n. 32, 184 n. 62, 185 n. 67, 187 n. 76, 188 nn. 92–95, 191 nn. 102, 104, 199 nn. 12–13 Rofé, Alexander 185 n. 64, 187 n. 82 Rollston, Christopher 177 n. 105 Römer, Thomas 173 n. 75, 176 nn. 96–97 Scharbert, Josef 174 n. 83, 175 n. 91, 176 n. 98, 181 n. 34, 182 n. 45, 185 n. 63, 186 n. 68 Schmid, Hans Heinrich 174 n. 81 Schmid, Konrad 175 n. 90, 176 n. 95, 177 n. 101, 179 n. 14, 181 n. 34, 183


n. 57, 184 nn. 59–60, 188 n. 96, 195 n. 19 Schmidt, Ludwig 54, 177 n. 102 Schmitt, Hans-Christoph 170 n. 26, 176 nn. 95, 97 Schöpflin, Karin 180 n. 25 Schwartz, Baruch J. 192 n. 3 Seebass, Horst 172 n. 54, 188 n. 91 Segal, M. H. 129, 199 n. 8 Septimus, Bernard 180 n. 18 Shechter, Solomon 129, 198 n. 6 Ska, Jean-Louis 45, 51–52, 169 n. 19, 173 n. 70, 176 n. 98, 178 n. 7, 179 n. 9, 200 n. 16 Skinner, John 35, 167 nn. 2–3, 168 nn. 12–13, 169 nn. 14, 22, 171 n. 36, 180 n. 17, 183 n. 54, 185 n. 65 Sommer, Benjamin D. 200 n. 21 Speiser, E. A. 164 n. 2,195 n. 26 Stackert, Jeffrey 193 n. 12, 198 n. 52, 200 n. 22 Stewart, Alexander 198 n. 3 Sutherland, Dixon 201 n. 31 van der Toorn, Karel 177 nn. 105, 107 Van Seters, John 169 n. 15, 170 n. 23, 172 n. 48, 173 nn. 70, 74, 174 n. 77, 176 n. 96, 179 n. 13, 180 n. 23, 181

215

n. 34, 183 n. 49, 187 nn. 82–83, 188 n. 90 Vermeylen, Jacques 197 n. 45 von Rad, Gerhard 37–41, 171 nn. 40–41, 172 nn. 42, 44, 188 n. 99, 197 n. 43, 199 n. 10 Weimar, Peter 183 n. 57 Weinfeld, Moshe 68, 170 nn. 25, 27, 175 n. 86, 180 n. 24, 187 n. 74, 192 n. 4 Weisman, Z. 172 n. 57, 181 n. 33, 187 n. 80, 188 n. 89 Wellhausen, Julius 27–28, 31, 35, 127–28, 135, 167 n. 3, 168 nn. 6–7, 13, 171 nn. 30–31, 176 n. 99, 181 n. 41, 193 n. 12, 198 n. 1 Westermann, Claus 41, 64, 164 n. 6, 172 nn. 55, 57, 179 n. 10, 181 nn. 31, 39, 41, 183 nn. 49, 54, 185 n. 63, 186 n. 70, 188 n. 99 Whybray, Norman 129, 165 n. 15, 199 n. 9 Williamson, Paul R. 164 n. 5, 195 n. 25, 201 n. 31 Wolff, Hans Walter 172 n. 42, 197 n. 45 Wright, David 177 n. 108 Young, Ian 177 n. 105



Genesis

1

9, 106–7, 133, 138, 140, 146, 188 n. 89 1:1 31 1:2 31 1:3 31 1:14 107 1:14–18 107 1:16 175 n. 92 1:20–21 107 1:22 181 n. 40 1:24–25 107 1:28 106, 130, 178 n. 6, 181 n. 40, 194 n. 16 1:28–29 180 n. 19 1:29–30 192 n. 5 2:2–3 107 2:10–14 169 n. 16 2:24 181 n. 35 3 115 3:4 113 3:5 115 3:6 113 3:7 113 3:8 45 3:10 45 4:7 181 n. 37 4:26 116 6:18 193 n. 11 7:21 132 7:23 132

8:1 8:20 8:20–21 8:21 9 9:1

62 116 134 49, 174 n. 84 105, 193 n. 12 107, 178 n. 6, 180 n. 19, 181 n. 40, 194 n. 16 9:3–6 192 n. 5 9:7 107, 194 n. 16 9:8 180 n. 19, 192 n. 5 9:8–17 105, 192 n. 5 9:9 193 n. 11 9:9–17 106 9:11 193 n. 11 9:12 180 n. 19, 192 n. 6 9:17 180 n. 19 9:25–26 180 n. 19 10 10 11:1–9 102 11:4 10, 115 11:9 181 n. 35 11:28 188 n. 100 11:30 14, 64, 178 n. 7 11:31 188 n. 100 11:31–32 31, 40, 90 11:32 32 12 3, 20, 30, 80, 103, 116, 141–42, 146, 155, 186 n. 70, 188 n. 100 12–13 22–24, 78–82, 84, 89, 103, 161, 185 n. 64, 187 nn. 73, 82 12:1 8, 64, 81, 86, 112, 182 n. 42

2 18 12:1–2 12:1–3


188 n. 87 7–9, 12, 22–24, 27–31, 38, 40–42, 44–45, 54, 64, 78, 82–83, 85, 90, 103, 133, 167 n. 2, 187 n. 85, 196 n. 41 12:1–4 169 n. 19, 179 n. 12 12:2 8–10, 20, 30, 64, 80, 82, 115–16, 148, 155, 181 n. 40, 185 n. 63, 185 n. 67 12:2–3 1, 80 12:3 23, 28, 30, 34, 45, 80, 83, 85, 113, 130, 166 n. 22, 195 n. 25 12:4 31–32, 64, 179 n. 9, 191 n. 2 12:4–5 90, 179 n. 8, 186 n. 69 12:5 188 n. 100 12:6 64–65 12:6–8 179 n. 12 12:7 9, 27–28, 50, 54, 64–65, 78, 81, 83–84, 90, 185 n. 63, 187 n. 85 12:7–8 88, 134 12:8 84 12:8–9 78 12:10 17, 72, 108 12:10–20 14, 122, 168 n. 12 12:12–13 14 12:13 14, 86 12:16 14 12:17 175 n. 92 13 3 13:3 78 13:4 182 n. 42 13:6 90, 186 n. 69, 188 n. 100 13:7 187 n. 79 13:8 187 n. 79 13:10–11 65 13:11–12 90, 186 n. 69 13:12 65, 141 13:14 23, 65, 85, 113, 187 n. 81 13:14–16 187 n. 82 13:14–17 8, 22, 27–29, 35, 54, 65, 78, 83–85, 90, 112, 185 n. 65, 187 n. 85

13:15 13:16

50 45–46, 78–80, 83, 85, 185 n. 63, 186 n. 72 13:17 65 13:18 78, 134 14 188 n. 100 14:11 188 n. 100 14:12 188 n. 100 14:13 18 14:16 188 n. 100 14:19 181 n. 40 14:21 188 n. 100 14:22–26 196 n. 36 15 3, 22–24, 40, 79–83, 88–89, 103–4, 108, 120, 122–24, 130, 141–42, 146, 161, 167 n. 2, 175 n. 90, 177 n. 104, 179 n. 14, 185 n. 65, 188 n. 100, 197 n. 47 15:1 87–88, 119–20, 149, 188 n. 100 15:1–5 121 15:2 22, 142, 188 n. 100 15:2–3 78–79, 180 n. 19 15:4 79, 188 n. 100 15:5 8, 22, 27–28, 45, 65–66, 78–80, 82–83, 86, 90, 98, 167 n. 2, 180 n. 19, 186 n. 72 15:6 22, 79, 121, 188 n. 100 15:7 66, 79, 82, 188 n. 100 15:7–8 79 15:8 188 n. 100 15:9–11 88 15:9–17 134 15:12–15 168 n. 12 15:13 66, 108, 130, 188 n. 100, 197 n. 48 15:13–14 188 n. 100 15:13–15 188 n. 100 15:13–16 18, 79, 88, 121 15:14 94, 188 n. 100 15:14–16 197 n. 48 15:16 66, 188 n. 100


15:17 15:18

66, 188 n. 100 66, 82, 185 n. 65, 188 n. 100, 193 n. 11 15:18–21 8, 22, 65–66, 78–79, 82, 88, 90 16 3, 41, 59, 142, 195 n. 20 16:1 58–59 16:3 58, 186 n. 69 16:4–14 114 16:8–11 66 16:9 67 16:10 9, 27, 35, 54, 66–67, 69–70, 79, 81, 86–90, 98 16:11 67 16:13–14 181 n. 35 16:15–16 58, 186 n. 69 17 3, 22–24, 35, 40, 46–47, 58–59, 63, 67, 82, 90, 94, 102, 104–6, 109, 110, 141–42, 146, 178 n. 2, 188 n. 100, 192 n. 7, 193 n. 12 17:1 105, 188 n. 100, 191 n. 2 17:2 192 n. 7, 193 n. 11 17:3–8 67 17:4 61 17:4–5 22, 111 17:4–6 8 17:4–8 58, 105–6 17:5 61, 163 n. 2 17:6 8, 23, 46–47, 61, 91, 106, 110, 130, 174 n. 76, 178 n. 6, 195 n. 24 17:7 36, 193 n. 11 17:6–8 8 17:8 35–36, 51, 108 17:9–14 22, 59, 67 17:11 105 17:14 193 n. 9 17:15 163 n. 2 17:15–16 58, 67 17:15–21 109 17:16 8, 10, 47, 59, 61, 91, 110, 174 n. 76, 181 n. 40

17:17 17:18 17:19 17:19–21 17:20

17:21 17:25 18 18–19 18:1–2 18:1–16 18:2 18:9 18:9–10 18:10 18:10–15 18:11–12 18:12 18:16 18:16–33 18:17 18:17–18 18:17–19 18:18

18:18–19 18:19 18:20 18:20–21 18:20–22 18:20–32 18:21 18:22 18:22–32 18:23 19:4–11

219

59, 79, 165 n. 13 59 59, 193 n. 11 58–59 8, 10, 36, 46, 91, 106, 110, 174 n. 76, 181 n. 40, 185 nn. 66–67 14, 106, 193 n. 11 142 3, 12, 29–30, 41, 121 116 180 n. 26 30 187 n. 82 121 180 n. 26 11 109 165 n. 13 79 68 180 n. 25 8, 68, 180 n. 19 29, 68 11, 28, 31–32, 68–69, 169 n. 22 24, 27, 29, 35, 45, 67–68, 80–83, 90, 98, 113, 130, 166 n. 22, 181 n. 29, 185 n. 67, 191 n. 103 24, 54, 173 n. 69 30, 32, 68, 115, 119, 148, 150, 170 n. 25 31, 180 n. 19 68 68 68 181 n. 37 68 69 68 68

220 19:9 19:29 19:30–38 19:37–38 20 20:1 20:3 20:7 20:9–10 20:11 20:17 20:17–18 20:18 21 21:1 21:2 21:2–5 21:3 21:4 21:5 21:6–7 21:8 21:8–21 21:12 21:13 21:17 21:18 21:21 21:23 21:25 21:27 21:31 21:32 21:34 22 22:1–15 22:2 22:3 22:11

Index of Biblical Citations 180 n. 19 62, 141, 178 n. 2 114 181 n. 35 120, 165 n. 14, 186 n. 70 17, 108 188 n. 100 188 n. 100 180 n. 19 120, 150 188 n. 100 165 n. 13 188 n. 100 3, 59, 195 n. 20 109 59 59, 109, 178 n. 2 59 59 59 109, 180 n. 19 121 181 n. 31 69, 170 n. 27 8, 31, 69, 81, 86– 90, 180 n. 16, 181 n. 30, 185 n. 67 88, 119 8, 31, 69, 81, 86–90, 180 n. 16, 181 n. 30, 185 nn. 66–67 88 108 188 n. 100 193 n. 11 181 n. 35 184 n. 58, 193 n. 11 108 3, 7, 12, 14, 22, 97, 120, 149–50, 171 n. 30 181 n. 34 182 n. 42 182 n. 42 70

22:12 22:13 22:14 22:15 22:15–18

120 134 70 70 14, 27–29, 34–35, 70–71, 81, 97–99, 171 nn. 30, 38, 40, 175 n. 90, 177 n. 104, 181 n. 34, 188 n. 100 22:16 35, 48, 97–98, 175 n. 90 22:16–18 47–49, 54, 173 n. 69 22:17 8, 10, 35, 45, 98–99, 171 n. 36, 181 n. 40 22:18 35, 42, 44–45, 166 n. 22 22:19 182 n. 42 23 18, 90 23:4 108 24 3, 15–16, 24, 108, 114, 117, 197 n. 44 24:4 70, 182 n. 42 24:5 181 n. 36, 182 n. 42 24:7 9, 47, 49, 70–71, 81–83, 86, 90, 97, 117, 181 n. 36 24:8 71 24:10 182 n. 42 24:12–13 71 24:21 71 24:24–25 180 n. 19 24:27 70, 117 24:35 9–10, 181 n. 40 24:38 182 n. 42 24:40 71, 117 24:41 71 24:42–44 71 24:48 71 24:49 71 24:60 9, 99, 181 n. 40 25 117 25:1–4 114 25:11 72 25:12 193 n. 11 25:12–16 110, 114 25:12–17 90


25:21 25:21–26 25:34 26

14, 178 n. 7 109, 114 184 n. 58 3, 42, 82–84, 103, 114, 116–17, 165 n. 14, 168 n. 12 26:1 72, 82–83, 85, 168 n. 12, 182 nn. 42, 44 26:1–3 54, 72 26:2 71–72, 87, 182 nn. 43, 46, 48, 186 n. 71 26:2–3 181 n. 41, 187 n. 73 26:2–5 9, 42, 72, 82–85, 182 n. 43, 183 n. 49, 187 n. 85 26:2–6 72 26:3 47, 49–50, 71–72, 82, 85, 108, 114, 117, 175 n. 90, 182 nn. 46, 48, 186 n. 71 26:3–4 8, 10, 73, 112, 171 n. 40, 187 n. 73 26:3–5 27, 30, 32, 54, 71, 73, 83, 90, 99, 169 n. 22, 173 n. 69, 175 n. 90, 177 n. 104, 181 n. 41, 183 n. 49, 187 n. 73 26:4 28, 42, 44–45, 72, 83, 98, 113, 166 n. 22, 186 n. 72 26:4–5 99 26:5 32, 84, 99, 115, 148, 170 n. 27 26:6 17, 72, 182 n. 42 26:12 114 26:13–15 187 n. 78 26:15 168 n. 12 26:18 187 n. 78 26:20 187 n. 79 26:21 187 n. 79 26:22 187 n. 79 26:23 182 nn. 43, 48 26:24 9–10, 27, 30, 42, 54, 73, 84–85, 90, 98, 114, 117, 173 n. 69, 177 n. 104, 183 n. 49, 187 n. 85 26:24–25 88 26:25 84

221

26:28 114, 117, 193 n. 11 26:29 114 26:33 84, 181 n. 35 26:34 187 n. 78 27 9, 16, 113–14 27:1 113 27:8 170 n. 27 27:9 182 n. 42 27:13 170 n. 27 27:21 181 n. 37 27:27 181 n. 40 27:36 180 n. 19 27:41–45 73 27:42–45 195 n. 21 27:43 170 n. 27 28 3, 102–3, 109, 117 28:1 59–60 28:1–4 196 n. 37 28:1–5 90 28:1–9 109 28:2 36, 60, 114, 178 n. 3 28:3 8, 46–47, 60–61, 91, 106, 174 n. 76, 181 n. 40 28:3–4 8–10, 35–36, 47, 59–60, 104, 178 n. 3 28:4 35, 60, 90, 108 28:5 36, 182 n. 42 28:6 60, 196 n. 37 28:9 182 n. 42 28:10 73 28:10–22 73 28:12 73 28:12–15 178 n. 4 28:13 23, 50, 73, 85 28:13–14 8, 54, 112, 187 n. 82 28:13–15 9, 27, 54, 73, 85–87, 90 28:13–16 35 28:14 28, 42, 44–46, 85–86, 113, 166 n. 22, 175 n. 92, 183 n. 52, 187 n. 81, 196 n. 34 28:15 74, 118 28:16 73

222 28:17 28:18 28:19 28:20–21 29–30 29–31 29:13–14 29:15–28 29:15–30 29:31 29:31–30:24 30 30:6 30:15 30:25 30:27 30:27–28 30:30 30:43 31:3 31:7 31:10–13 31:17 31:17–18 31:18 31:24 31:29 31:43 31:44 31:54 32 32–33 32:3 32:4–8 32:5 32:8 32:8–9 32:9 32:9–11 32:10 32:10–12

Index of Biblical Citations 73 134 23 118 117 15–16 15 15 109 14, 178 n. 7 109 116 170 n. 27 196 n. 36 182 n. 42 9–10 180 n. 19 9–10 90 11, 86, 118, 178 n. 4, 183 n. 53, 188 n. 87 188 n. 100 178 n. 4 184 n. 58 90, 178 n. 5 60, 188 n. 100 15, 188 n. 100 15 15 193 n. 11 134 3 12, 117 181 n. 35 74 108 74 74 31, 169 n. 15 74 86 12

32:10–13 32:11 32:12 32:13 32:14 32:23 32:25–30 32:25–32 32:29 32:31 33 33:11 33:17 33:18 33:19 34 34:5 34:7 34:17 34:29 34:30 35 35:1 35:5 35:6 35:7 35:9 35:9–13 35:10 35:11 35:11–12 35:12 35:13 35:14 35:15 35:16 35:19 35:21 35:22–26

27, 31, 35, 74, 86, 169 n. 15 74 16, 74, 171 n. 36 9, 16, 45, 74, 86–87, 90, 98 31, 169 n. 16 184 n. 58 178 n. 4 196 n. 31 133 181 n. 35 114 114 181 n. 35 65, 200 n. 23 17 16, 18, 116 196 n. 36 196 n. 36 181 n. 37 175 n. 92 16, 114 3, 103, 109–11, 178 n. 4 65, 121, 178 n. 4, 183 n. 53 16 17, 182 n. 44 134 60, 181 n. 40 90 36, 60, 111, 133 8, 23, 35, 46–47, 91, 106, 110–11, 174 n. 76, 185 n. 67 8, 35–36, 60–61, 64, 90, 104, 109 35, 51 36 134 23 90 90 17 90, 178 n. 5, 195 n. 22

223


35:27 36 36:6 36:6–7 36:7 37–50 37:1 37:2 37:7 37:12–17 37:14 37:28 37:32 38 38:6–11 39:5 40–41 40:15 41:39 41:41 41:49 41:55 42:1–2 42:10 43:15 43:18 45:4–13 45:7 46 46:1 46:1–4 46:2 46:3

46:3–4

108 90, 110, 114 182 n. 42 188 n. 100 108 117 108 196 n. 36 196 n. 36 196 n. 36 182 n. 44 196 n. 42 181 n. 37 16 16 9–10 124 196 n. 42 180 n. 19 180 n. 19 46 182 n. 42 180 n. 19 72 175 n. 92 50, 175 n. 92 196 n. 42 117 3, 88, 103, 122, 124 75, 88, 134, 182 n. 44 74, 188 n. 87 87, 188 n. 100 8, 23, 74–75, 87–88, 119, 122, 185 nn. 66–67, 197 n. 50 27, 54, 87–90, 94, 121, 188 n. 87

Exodus

1 1:1 1:1–7

76, 120 111 92

46:4 46:5 46:6 46:8 46:31–34 47:3–4 47:4 47:27 48 48:3 48:3–4

50:24–25 50:24–26 50:25 50:26

94, 197 n. 50 75 188 n. 100 111 114 180 n. 19 108 63, 107, 109 3, 109 36 8, 10, 35–36, 40, 47, 61, 90, 104 109 8, 46–47, 91, 106, 174 n. 76 36, 61, 171 n. 39 61 196 n. 37 196 n. 37 9 195 n. 23 196 n. 37 200 n. 23 61 196 n. 37 61 91 3 86, 117 31, 75, 188 n. 100 9, 12, 27–28, 30, 47, 75, 94–95, 177 n. 104, 184 n. 60, 188 n. 91 31, 123, 184 n. 60 184 nn. 60–61 75, 94, 184 n. 60 31, 75, 184 n. 60

1:7 1:17 1:20 2:1–10

63, 91– 92, 107 120 86 133

48:3–7 48:4 48:5 48:5–6 48:9 48:13–16 48:15–16 48:19 48:20 48:22 49:1 49:28 49:29–32 49:33 50 50:20 50:23 50:24

22 4 2:22 2:23 2:23–25 2:24 2:25 3 3:6 3:8 3:10 3:17 3:19–20 4 4:1 4:12 4:15 4:21–23 5:1 6 6:2 6:3 6:3–4 6:3–5 6:4 6:5 6:6 6:6–7 6:7 6:8 7:3–5 7:15 9:14–16 11:9–10 12 12:14–20 13:5 13:11 13:19 14 14:11–12 14:31 15:22–25

Index of Biblical Citations 108 62 61–62 19, 52, 62, 93, 105 62 7, 133, 140, 188 n. 100 113 19, 92, 155 155 19 168 n. 12 118 170 n. 27 118 118 168 n. 12 170 n. 27 7, 104–5, 133, 192 n. 3 36, 62 62, 105 35–36, 93, 104 62 62–63, 104, 108 36 155 62 112 19, 48, 52, 62–63, 104–5, 158 19 182 n. 42 168 n. 12 168 n. 12 198 n. 52 198 n. 52 176 n. 99 175 n. 87, 176 n. 99 123, 200 n. 23 19 20, 197 n. 49 168 n. 12 19

15:26 16 16:3 16:4 16:28 16:35 17 17:1–7 17:3 17:7 17:8–16 18 18:9 18:12 18:16 18:19 18:20 18:21 18:27 19:5 19:10 19:11 20:1–14 20:2 20:15 20:17 20:18 20:23–23:33 22:20 23:9 23:15 23:21 23:22 23:32 24:3 24:3–8 24:4–8 24:7 24:8 24:10 25–31 25:8

32, 115 19, 52 197 n. 49 32 32, 115, 170 n. 27 200 n. 23 52 19 20, 197 n. 49 118 19 146 86 134 170 n. 27 170 n. 27 170 n. 27 120 182 n. 42 122, 170 n. 27 182 n. 42 113, 118 170 n. 26 188 n. 100 120 120, 149–50, 197 n. 46 188 n. 100 122 122, 130 122, 130 122 170 n. 27 170 n. 27 193 n. 11 150, 155 188 n. 100 134 150 193 n. 11 113 140 112

225


31 31:12–17 31:13–17 31:18 32 32:30–34 32–34 32:5–6 32:7–14 32:10 32:13

193 n. 12 107 193 n. 12s 140 7, 19, 33, 52 168 n. 12 140 134 33, 51, 171 n. 28 20, 185 nn. 66–67 27, 32–33, 35, 45, 47, 51, 76, 94, 98, 169 n. 22, 177 n. 104

26:3

27–28, 30, 47, 51, 76, 95, 112 118 118 113 118 193 n. 11 193 n. 11 193 n. 11 170 n. 26, 171 n. 38 175 n. 92, 193 n. 11 140 140

134 107 7, 192 nn. 3–4, 194 n. 17 192 n. 4

26:15 26:42 26:43 26:44–45

25, 176 n. 99, 192 n. 4, 194 n. 17 192 n. 4 192 n. 3, 194 n. 17 191 n. 105 25, 176 n. 99

198 n. 51 198 n. 51 182 n. 42 47 197 n. 49 47, 51, 76, 95 180 n. 20 180 n. 20 180 n. 20 191 n. 105 19 19, 52 111 200 n. 23 175 n. 92 175 n. 92, 182 n. 42 7, 118, 152, 155 20 197 n. 49 51

14:12 14:16 14:22 14:22–23 14:23 14:24 14:28 14:30 14:43 16 16:25 16:32 17:11 18 18:19 20 20:2–13 20:4 20:12 20:14–16 21:1–3

20, 185 nn. 66–67 27, 47, 51, 76, 95 170 n. 27 27 47, 51, 76, 95 191 n. 107 191 n. 105 48, 52, 63, 176 n. 99 119 52 182 n. 42 188 n. 100 19 193 n. 12 106 121, 130–31, 146 19 197 n. 49 191 n. 105 121 19

Numbers

3:13 8:17 10:30 11 11:4–6 11:12 11:16 11:16–17 11:18–20 11:20 11:33 13–14 13:21 13:22 13:23 13:26 14 14:2–4 14:3–4 14:11–23

33:3 33:16 33:23 34:9 34:10 34:12 34:15 34:17–26 34:27 34:29 35–40 26:9

Leviticus

8:22–24 11 26

33:1

226 21:3 21:6 21:20 21:21–25 21:33–35 22:6 22:13 23:13 24:3 24:4 24:15

Index of Biblical Citations 170 n. 27 19 196 nn. 33, 35 19 19 166 n. 17 182 n. 42 182 n. 42 191 n. 105 191 n. 105 191 n. 105

Deuteronomy

1 1:8 1:10 1:35 1:36 2:7 3:20 3:27 4:6 4:7 4:7–8 4:8 4:40 5:16 6:3 6:10 6:18 6:23 7:1 7:3 7:12 7:14 8:1 8:18 8:20 9 9:1 9:5 9:12–14

7 188 n. 98 46, 96 188 n. 98 191 n. 105 9 48 196 n. 35 34, 185 n. 66 185 n. 66 37 185 n. 66 86 86 86 166 n. 18, 188 n. 98 86, 188 n. 98 188 n. 98 166 n. 18 9 188 n. 98, 191 n. 107 175 n. 92 188 n. 98 188 n. 98 191 n. 107 33 166 n. 18 188 n. 98 33

24:16 25 25:9 25:12–13 26 27:4 28–29 32 32:11 35:3

191 n. 105 193 n. 12 19 106 10 11 107 21, 176 n. 99 48, 176 n. 99 188 n. 100

9:14 9:26–29 9:27–28 10:11 10:15 10:22 11:9 11:21 11:26–28 11:29 12–26 12:1 15:6 19:8 26:3 26:5

185 n. 67 33 188 n. 98 188 n. 98 48, 96 46 188 n. 98 188 n. 98 34 166 n. 18 32 134 9 188 n. 98 188 n. 98 34, 37, 108, 172 n. 44, 185 nn. 66–67 37 36 130 48, 192 n. 4 188 n. 98 46 86 105 7 105 105 36, 48, 188 n. 98 105

26:5–9 26:16 27:9 28 28:11 28:62 28:63 28:69 29 29:8 29:11 29:12 29:13

227


30:5 30:20 31 31:23 32:48

86 188 n. 98 47 47, 76, 95, 123 196 n. 33

Joshua

5:12 11:4 15:14

200 n. 23 46 200 n. 23

Judges

2:15 6:16 7:12 13 21:10

48 12 46 12 175 n. 92

174 n. 84 191 n. 107

1 Kings

3:8 4:20 5:9 8:5 11:40

187 n. 84 46 46 187 n. 84 72

166 n. 22 185 n. 66 46 175 n. 92

Ezekiel

5:11 34:8

48 40 184 n. 60, 200 n. 23

6:11 13:5 15:29 20:12–16 20:42 30:8

175 n. 92 46 174 n. 84 48 48 191 n. 106

12:10 17:11 18:18

191 n. 107 46 10

5:23 10:22 48:19 44:3 51:2 54:9

191 n. 107 46 46 164 n. 7 164 n. 7 49

33:22 40:9 43:4–7 50:41

46 175 n. 92 72 185 n. 66

Hosea

98 98

Amos

4:12

21:42 24:2–3 24:32

Isaiah

Jeremiah

4:2 6:22 15:8 27:7

138 196 n. 33 113, 196 n. 35 7, 47, 76, 95, 112

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

7:8 12:6

34 34:1 34:1–3 34:4

2:10

46

Nahum

191 n. 107

3:16

46

The Promise to the Patriarchs, 2013 - Joel S. Baden

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