Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991) 1-27.
Copyright © 1991 by Westminster Theological Seminary, cited with permission.
WTJ 53
(1991) 1-27
THE NAMING OF ISAAC:
THE ROLE OF THE WIFE/SISTER EPISODES
IN THE REDACTION OF
GENESIS
JOHN RONNING
THE patriarchal
narratives of Genesis contain three accounts of a pa-
triarch
passing his wife off as his sister out of fear for his own life (Gen
12:10-20;
20:1-18; and 26:1-11). For the source critic, this is a classic ex-
ample of multiple
versions of the same original story, demonstrating a
multiplicity
of sources underlying our present book of Genesis.1 For the OT
form critic,
they provide a rare opportunity to compare three parallel
accounts and
postulate an origin and development in the oral and literary
tradition.2
For the redaction critic, they present a challenge to explain how
the accounts
function in their present contexts; i.e., not as variant versions
of one
event, but as different episodes in the lives of Abraham and Isaac.3
1 G. Spurrell, Notes
on the Text of the Book of Genesis (London: Clarendon, 1896) xvi; J.
Skinner, Genesis (ICC; New York: Scribner, 1910) vi-vii,
315; J. Barton, Reading the Old Testa-
ment: Method in Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1984) 46.
2 The work of K. Koch
(The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form Critical Method [New
York: Scribner, 1969] 115-28) will be described as an example,
though his methods and
conclusions have been criticized by other form critics. In
particular, the view that the three
incidents came to their present form due to changes in one
prototype in the process of oral
transmission has been challenged by others who see clear evidence
of literary dependence.
E.g., T. Alexander ("The Wife/Sister Incidents of Genesis:
Oral Variants?" IBS 11 [1989]
2-22), building on the more detailed work of P. Weimar (Untersuchungen
zur Redaktionsgeschichte
des Pentateuch [Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1977] 4-111), on J. Van Seters (Abraham
in History and Tradition [New Haven/London: Yale University Press,
1975] 167-91), and others,
concluded, "Unfortunately, in the past, many scholars have
jumped too quickly to the as-
sumption that the wife/sister episodes must all relate to one
original incident, and that the
differences between them are due to the process of oral
transmission. . . . The task of recon-
structing the oral and redactional history of these accounts is
much more involved than is
generally acknowledged" (p. 19). For other form critical approaches
and bibliographies, see
C. Westermann, Genesis 12-36: A Commentary (Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1985) 159-68; G.
Coates, Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983)
109-13; 149-52; 188-92; D. L. Petersen, "A Thrice-Told Tale:
Genre, Theme, and Motif," BR
18 (1973) 30-43.
3 Methods bearing some
resemblance to those of redaction criticism can be seen in the
works of defenders of the unity of authorship of the book of
Genesis. Perhaps the most detailed
and comprehensive of these (at least in English) is W. Green, The
Unity of the Book of Genesis
(New York: Scribner, 1897) 182-85, 250-62, 322-28. Both Van Seters
(Abraham, 183-91) and
Weimar (Redaktionsgeschichte, 43-55, 75-78, 95-102) discuss
the relation of the episodes to their
contexts, but their acceptance of the multiple-source hypothesis
prevents them from trying to
2 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
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For ease of
reference, K. Koch's annotation will be followed, so that the
three
accounts will be A, B, and C, referring to the first, second, and third,
respectively,
in the order in which they appear in Genesis. The names
Abraham and
Sarah will be used throughout, even when referring to pas-
sages prior
to their name change (Genesis 17).
I. Conclusions of
Source Criticism
Numerous apparent inconsistencies with
the respective narrative con-
texts, as
well as the seeming redundancy of the accounts, are explained by
source
critics as due to the redaction of three sources containing variants of
one story
during the formation of the book of Genesis. Thus in A, where
Sarah's
beauty puts Abraham in fear of his life in Egypt-a plausible theme
in the story
itself-the overall chronology imposed makes the whole episode
incongruous;
for we learn from comparing Gen 17:17 and 12:4 that Sarah
had to have
been at least 65 years old! There is a similar chronological
problem in
C, where, though we do not know Rebekah's age, she must have
been married
for at least 35 years,4 and therefore presumably not one who
would be
looked at as a great marriage prospect. Furthermore, the same
chronology
indicates that Jacob and Esau were already born,5 so how could
the parents
feign brother and sister for "a long time"? Worse yet, we have
the same king
Abimelech and his general Phicol, who appear also in B, at
least 76
years earlier!6 The most serious difficulties, however,
occur in B.
There, not
only does the context require Sarah to be 89 years old (17:11,
17),
compounding the same problem as in A and C, but two chapters earlier
Sarah has
described herself in terms that are clearly incompatible with the
situation
presumed in B. Did she not laugh, saying, "After I have become
old, shall I
have pleasure ['ahare beloti hayeta li cedna], my lord being old
also?"
(Gen 18: 12)?7 Is it plausible then, that Abraham should fear for
his
solve the apparent contradictions with respect to those contexts.
E.g., Van Seters rules out the
possibility that three such episodes as we are considering here
could come from one author
(Abraham, 154-55).
4 C takes place after
the death of Abraham (26: 18), who died at the age of 175 (25:7). Isaac
married Rebekah when Abraham was 140 (25:20; 21:5), making their
marriage 35 years old
when Abraham died, thus a minimum of 35 years old when C takes
place.
5 The twins were born
when Abraham was 160 (Gen 25:26; cf. n. 4).
6 Abraham would still
have been 99 years old in B (17: I; 21:5), and he died 76 years later
(n. 4). It is not plausible to suggest that B is a chronological
regression, since it is closely linked
with chap. 21 (20:15; 21:22) and is explicitly linked to the
chapters before it (v. 1).
7 Most interpreters
view v. 12 as indicating that sexual intimacy was out of the question,
understanding cedna (a hapax) as sexual
pleasure. In my opinion, this needs to be reexamined.
For one thing, it seems to make the connection between Sarah's
words and the Lord's rep-
etition of them a bit remote (v. 13 quotes her as scoffing,
"shall I give birth?"). A. Millard ("The
Etymology of Eden," VT 24 [1984] 103-6), arguing for
the possibility of a West Semitic origin
for ceden, from a root with "the common
idea of 'pleasure, luxury' " (p. 104) as opposed to an
Akkadian derivation with the idea of "steppe, plain,"
which he finds problematic, cites a
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 3
life because
of this old woman, or that the king would want to marry her?
Furthermore,
only a few months may be allowed between chap. 18 and the
end of B, or
else Sarah would be visibly pregnant with Isaac. But 20:18
seems to
require an extended period of time to elapse within B itself in order
to notice
the infertility of Abimelech's household since the time he took
Sarah.
Unfortunately for source analysis, the
three accounts cannot be assigned
to the three
sources of classical Wellhausenism. While B is assigned to E (on
the basis of
its use of Elohim; vv. 3, 6, 11, 13, 17 [twice]; Yhwh in v. 18 is
ascribed to
the redactor), and indeed is said to be the first extended nar-
rative of
that source,8 both A and C are assigned to separate J sources. C.
Westermann
summarizes the earlier views on whether A or C was the older
of the two,
and concludes, "the question can now be considered as settled:
Gen. 12 is
the earliest of the three variants."9
II. Conclusions of Form Criticism
Form critics accept that the difficulties
mentioned above are due to the
redaction of
different source documents; the casting of individual narratives
into
contexts originally foreign to them. They concentrate their study on
the content
and history of the stories themselves, studying the episodes in
relation to
each other, more than in relation to their respective contexts.
Since the
focus of this paper is on redaction criticism, I will outline the
approach
only of Koch as representative.
Koch discusses "The Ancestress of
Israel in Danger" under the headings,
"Defining
the Unit," "Determination of the Literary Type,"
"Transmission
History,"
"Setting in Life," and "Redaction History." He concludes
that
they were
all originally independent narratives based on the relation to
their
present contexts. For example, A is felt to be an intrusion on its
context,
since it is "odd" that Abraham would leave the promised land right
after
receiving the promise of the land.10 Gen 13:2 is really a
continuation
of 12:9,
with 13:1 being added to compensate for the intrusion. Gen 12:10
mid-ninth-century BC bilingual inscription where the Aramaic uses
a verbal form of cdn, which
corresponds to the Akkadian mutahhidu, "to enrich,
make abundant." This idea of abundance
would give a closer parallel to giving birth than would sexual
pleasure, since offspring are
associated with "fruitfulness" (Gen 1:28, etc.). M.
Jastrow cites a later Hebrew verbal usage
of the root with the idea of rejuvenation, which would thus
provide an opposite to blh, and
would have interesting implications for the thesis of this paper (A
Dictionary of the Targumim,
the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, [2
vols.; Brooklyn: Shalom, 1967]
2.1045). Such a usage, however, might seem just as remote from
"give birth" as is the concept
of sexual pleasure. The NIV ("will I now have this
pleasure?") seems to refer the pleasure to
the giving birth just promised, i.e., the joys of motherhood.
8 So E. Speiser, Genesis
(AB 1; Garden City: Doubleday, 1964) 150; Skinner, Genesis, 315.
9 Westermann, Genesis
12-36, 161. Alexander ("The Wife/Sister Incidents," 22 n. 31)
lists
10 scholars who argue the opposite.
10 K. Koch, Growth
of Biblical Tradition. 116.
4 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
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is
satisfactory as an introduction to an independent unit, and vv. 19-20 are
a fitting
conclusion since "the Hebrew often ends a tale with a speech which
is intended
to abate the suspense, and a subsequent short narrative remark
on the
future fate of the hero."11 Similar conclusions are reached for
B and
C. The
mention of famine was left out of B because "he did not want to
mention it
too often."12 In the introduction of C, a later writer inserted
"beside
the previous famine that was in the days of Abraham," as is evident
from the
fact that it "has a clumsy ring to it in the Hebrew."13
What betrays
it as clumsy
Koch does not tell us.
As for literary type, Koch assigns the
narratives to Gunkel's category
"ethnological
saga," in which
The position of the nomadic Abraham and
Isaac, including their strikingly beau-
tiful women and their people, is
contrasted with the soft, lascivious people of an
established land. . . . In such sagas the
predominant fact for the Israelite is that
his God, the God of Israel, has influence
on what happens between nations, and
reveals himself as a divine leader.14
Various
smaller component types are used, such as the simple command
from God
(26:2-3a), a divine benediction (26:3b-5), divine communication
in a dream
(20:3, 6-7), a lament of a king (20:4-5), etc.
Under "Transmission History"
Koch compares the content of the three
narratives
and seeks to reconstruct the content of the original story. A is
thought to
be the most archaic of the three. What happened to Sarah in
Pharaoh's
palace is only hinted at (he assumes she was involved in adul-
tery);
"the delicacy of the situation has been least noticed by the writer of
this
version."15 In A, it is not a bad thing that Abraham should
induce his
wife to lie.
No explanation is given as to how Pharaoh knew the plagues
were because
of Abraham's wife-Koch suggests that an account of Pha-
raoh
divining the reason by a soothsayer consulting his gods was removed
later.
Episode B is supposed to reflect views of a later period. In it, Abraham
is a chosen
man of God, a Nabi. Here, he does not lie (thanks to an editor
who
obviously inserted the explanation of the half truth in v. 12). The
account has
been modified so that Sarah has not been defiled, since v. 9
("you
have brought great sin on me") presumes that adultery took place; v.
6 of course is
a clumsy later addition to remove the offense. The description
of Sarah's
beauty has also been removed since it is contrary to the context.
The chief
difference between A and B, however, is in the long conversations
in B.
Episode C is scarcely even a story anymore, as it is broken up by
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., 117.
13 Ibid., 118.
14. Ibid., 120. D.
Petersen calls Koch's assertion that all three stories are the same type
"rather puzzling," and notes that Gunkel himself did not
identify them with the "ethnological
saga" type ("A
Thrice-Told Tale," 30).
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 5
speeches.
There is nothing dangerous in the story, no direct threat from the
king, no
need for divine intervention. "Everything points to a later stage in
the development
of the saga, where the story has lost its original form."16
The blessing
of vv. 3-5 was taken almost word for word from other J
passages. As
to who the original characters were and the original setting,
the
conclusion is that the less well known should be the original. Thus,
contrary to
the rule, C, which is supposed to be the most modified and the
latest,
retains the original characters and setting, while A, the most archaic,
which has no
later additions, has undergone modification from Isaac and
Rebekah to
Abraham and Sarah, and from Abimelech king of Gerar to
Pharaoh king
of Egypt. The original version is reconstructed as follows:
Because of famine Isaac travelled from
the desert in southern Palestine to the
nearby Canaanite city of Gerar, to live
there as a 'sojourner', i.e. to keep within
the pasturage rights on the ground
belonging to the city. He told everyone that
his wife was his sister so that his life
would not be endangered by those who
desired her. However, Rebekah's beauty
could not pass unnoticed. The king of
the city, Abimelech, took Rebekah into
his harem, amply compensating Isaac. As
a material sin was about to be committed,
God struck the people of the palace
with a mysterious illness. Through the
medium of his gods, or a soothsayer,
Abimelech recognized what had happened.
Abimelech called Isaac to account:
"What is this that you have done to
me?" He then restored him his wife and sent
him away, loaded with gifts.17
Comparing
this reconstruction with the three versions in Genesis, Koch
then
proposes a "history of the literary type of the ethnological saga."
Four
points are
observed: (1) narratives become elaborated by speeches; (2) moral
sensitivity
becomes gradually stronger; (3) God's intervention is less tan-
gible in
later versions; (4) there is a tendency to transfer the action of the
story to
more familiar people and powers.18
The setting in life of this original
story is said to be the desert of Southern
Palestine
before the conquest, told by those tracing their descent from Isaac.
"Such a
story would perhaps have been related by men before the tents,
when it was
evening, after the herds had been settled and the children
slept."19
These people felt themselves superior to those of the city, to whom
they
sometimes had to turn for permission to graze in hard times. As the
story
changed, the setting in life changed; Isaac was supplanted by Abra-
ham when the
tribe of Judah was formed by the union of Isaac's people with
16 Ibid., 124.
17 Ibid., 126. This
appears to contradict his earlier assumption that adultery did occur in
the most primitive version.
18 Ibid., 126-27. R.
Polzin (" 'The Ancestress of Israel in Danger' in Danger," Semeia
3
[1975] 82) says of Koch, "A particularly circular aspect of
his analysis consists in describing the
evolutionary development of this particular 'ethnological saga'
largely by means of general
assumptions about how such stories developed in Israel, . . . and
then using this analysis as a
basis for tracing 'a history of the literary type of the
ethnological saga.'"
6 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
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Abraham's.
Nomads became farmers (see 26:12). Narrative B is taken up
by prophetic
circles, and becomes a "legend about the prophets."20
III. Redaction Criticism
1. The
Redaction-Critical Procedure
Though Koch's conclusions have been
criticized by a number of scholars,
some of whom
we have cited in the accompanying notes, they have in
common with
him what seems to be an automatic assumption that the
object of
study is to find out how the three episodes relate to each other,
more than to
their differing contexts. Our disagreement is more funda-
mental. The
only relationship that we positively know existed among the
three
accounts is the one that now exists in the book of Genesis: a literary
one, where
they are three different episodes in the lives of the patriarchs,
separated
from each other by many years and considerable narration. Any
other
relationship among them is, and can only be, hypothetical, and the
wide
divergence of opinion as to such hypothetical relationships does not
give much
confidence in the certainty of anyone position.21 We will attempt
to
demonstrate here that the critical emphasis on studying the narratives
in relation
to each other at the expense of their relevance to their respective
contexts and
to the themes of the patriarchal narratives has obscured the
literary genius
of the one responsible for giving us the patriarchal narratives
in their
present form. Our procedure was well described by Van Seters, who
did not
carry it out to its logical conclusion because of his acceptance of
source
criticism:
The stories about the patriarch's
beautiful wife in a foreign land should not be
treated in isolation from other episodes
connected with the same dramatis per-
sonae. The reason for many doing so in
the past is the presupposition that the
stories in Genesis are virtually all
based directly on specific folktales and were put
into their present form by narrators
working quite independently of each other.
Since such a proposition has been
rejected in this study there is every reason why
they should be treated together.22
To begin, we will focus on some of the
difficulties mentioned by source
critics and
ask the question, "What would a reader presuming the unity and
integrity of
Genesis 12-26 conclude?" One difficulty that has been ade-
20 Ibid., 128.
21 Alexander lists 24
different possibilities for the dependence (or lack thereof) among the
three narratives ("The Wife/Sister Incidents," 2-3),
enough to keep scholars occupied for
several more centuries.
22 Van Seters, Abraham,
183-84.
quately
dealt with in the past is the age of Sarah in A.23 She is at least
65
years old,
yet she is so attractive that she is taken into the harem of Pharaoh
himself. This
attractiveness is certainly remarkable-but why is it felt to be
problematic?
Why should we exclude the possibility that the placement of
this account
in its chronological framework is intended to convey mean-
ing-that from
it we are to understand that Sarah, "our ancestress," was
indeed
remarkable not only for her beauty, but for the prolonging of her
beauty? The
lives of the patriarchs were long; would this fact not make
probable a
delay in the aging process, a lengthening of the time of youthful
beauty? And
such a prolongation of life would remind readers that God had
made
provision for Adam and Eve to enjoy eternal youth. The same anal-
ysis
pertains to the age of Rebekah in C.
Another source of comment by critics in A
are two things that appear to
be
"left out." Much is made of the fact that there are two major, unan-
swered
questions: (1) What happened to Sarah in Pharaoh's house-was
she defiled
or not? (2) How did Pharaoh find out that the plagues came
upon him
because Sarah was married to someone else?24 As for the first
question,
the ancients affirmed that Sarah could not have been defiled
because
righteous Abraham would not have taken her back.25 Most
moderns
presume that she was defiled, supposing that this conclusion is the
natural
implication and that we would have been told if it were otherwise.
This
disagreement reveals the obvious: the text does not say. As for the
second
question, we have already observed Koch's conclusion that the
method used
to divine the reason for the plagues was left out because it
demonstrated
efficacy of pagan methods of divination-thus revealing the
primitive
character of the prototype of A. A much simpler reason was
suggested by
H. Ewald: the author intended the reader to get the answer
to both of
these questions from B.26 The paternalism of the notion that the
ancient
Hebrews would not have cared (or even would have gloated at the
successful
trick) whether or not the wife of Abraham was involved in adul-
23 E.g., W. Green, Unity
of Genesis, 166-67: "The only point of any consequence in this
discussion is not what modern critics may think of the probability
or possibility of what is here
narrated, but whether the sacred historian credited it. On the
hypothesis of the critics, R
believed it and recorded it. What possible ground can they have
for assuming that J and E
had less faith than R in what is here told of the marvelous beauty
and attractiveness of the
ancestress of the nation?"
24 Alexander
("The Wife/Sister Incidents," 7) adds a third, "Did Abraham
actually allow
Pharaoh to take Sarah without objecting?" But Abraham's own
words in Gen 12:11-13 cer-
tainly imply that this was part of the plan.
25 M. Weinfeld cites
the Genesis Apocryphon, Philo, Josephus, and rabbinic literature to
this effect ("Sarah in Abimelech's Palace (Genesis
20)-Against the Background of Assyrian
Law and the Genesis Apocryphon," Tarbiz 52 [1982/83]
639-42; and in English in Melanges
bibliques et orientaux en l'honneur de Monsieur Mathias Delcor [ed.
A. Caquot et al.; AOAT 215;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985] 433-34).
26 H. Ewald, Die
Komposition der Genesis kritisch untersucht (1823) 228f., quoted by Green, Unity
of Genesis, 257 n. 1.
8 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
tery may
account for its popularity among moderns,27 but from a perspec-
tive of
overall unity, it cannot survive comparison with chap. 20. There we
have an
unambiguous answer in universal terms in God's words to Abime-
lech:
"Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and
I also kept
you from sinning against me; therefore I did not allow you to
touch her.
Now therefore restore the man's wife" (vv. 6- 7a). The same
circumstances
prevailed in A, since Pharaoh, too, acted in ignorant integ-
rity. Should
we not therefore conclude that God should have also kept
Pharaoh from
touching her? The logic is compelling; the same Abraham
and Sarah,
the same conditions, the same God.28 If the answer to this major
question in
A is not to be found in B, then we must conclude that it is not
answered at
all, and we would have no clue as to why such a major question
is left
unanswered.29 Additionally, to assume that adultery was committed
in Pharaoh's
palace would make the purpose of divine intervention in A
much
different than in B, i.e., the purpose of God's intervention in A would
not have
been to prevent Sarah from being defiled, as in B, but rather to
punish
Pharaoh because she was defiled. Perhaps implied also from B, then,
is that
Pharaoh found out the same way Abimelech did: in a dream. Why
narrative A
should be dependent on B like this will be explained later.30
27 S. Warner
("Primitive Saga Men," VT 29 [1979] 325-35) cites two works
that demon-
strate Gunkel's dependence on anthropological views of his time
(p. 325 n. 3) which Warner
summarizes as follows: "Modern man was not only different
from primitive man, he was
superior. Compared to modern man, primitive man was a child. And,
like a child, primitive
man was incapable of thinking complicated thoughts, of reasoning
in any great depth, or of
developing any sophisticated moral awareness" (p. 326). He
goes on to show that without this
view of "primitive" man, which no anthropologist holds today,
"Gunkel's conception of the
oral transmission process, . . . has no meaning, and should be
abandoned" (ibid.). He con-
cludes, "At present we see no reason to assume that the
narratives of Genesis bear any close
resemblance to orally transmitted data at all" (p. 335). His
comments are also applicable to
Koch's procedure.
28 J. Calvin, Commentaries
on the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis (2 vols.; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1948) 1.363: "When he was in similar danger, (Gen.
xx. I,) God did not suffer her
to be violated by the king of Gerar; shall we then suppose that
she was now exposed to
Pharaoh's lust?" As discussed later, another reason for
making it clear that adultery did not
occur in B concerns the legitimacy of Isaac's birth, which of course
was not of concern in chap.
12. This does not make Calvin's reasoning any less valid, however.
29 Van Seters (Abraham,
171-75) argues for a literary dependence of B on A, saying, "The
only way in which the cryptic character of v. 2 can be explained
is that the other story [A] is
known and can be assumed, and therefore Abraham's plan and its
execution need not be
recounted again in full" (p. 171). But methodologically it is
equally compelling to argue that
A is literarily dependent on B because of the "cryptic
character" of the former. This Van Seters
does not do. He assumes without discussion that adultery occurred
in A (p. 169), whereas the
opposite is inferred from B.
30 Polzin argues
strongly for a synchronic study of the three accounts but is immediately led
astray by the assumption that adultery occurred in A, resulting in
a moral improvement from
A to B and the blessing of God in B as opposed to A ("The
Ancestress of Israel," 81-98). There
is a strange implication here: Abraham is rewarded in chap. 20
because God intervened before
the adultery occurred, whereas in chap. 12 he is punished because
God did not intervene until
after the adultery. Abraham's behavior was the same in both cases.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 9
The setting
of B is more problematic. Here, Sarah is not 65, but 89 years
old. In
principle, the objection of her age might be dealt with in the same
way as in
A-that the preservation of Sarah's beauty is indeed even more
remarkable than
as portrayed in A. And this is how other writers have
explained
the problem.31 This resolution is excluded, however, by Sarah's
own comments
in 18:12. When Yhwh announces the coming birth of her
son, Sarah
scoffs, saying, "after I have become worn out [blh], shall I have
pleasure [cedna],
my lord being old also?" Her use of blh suggests physical
deterioration,
not just chronological advancement.32 The majority of uses
of the root blh,
which occurs 11 times in the qal and 4 times in the piel, refer
to worn-out
clothing, or something being compared to worn-out clothing,
with such
parallels as cracked wineskins and moth-eaten garments (e.g.,
Josh 9: 13;
Job 13:28; Isa 50:9). Her use of cedna suggests to most
interpreters
that she
considers herself too old for sexual intercourse (see n. 7). Either one
of these
considerations precludes the situation suggested in B, that Abim-
elech would
be attracted to Sarah and add her to his harem of beautiful
women. But
actually, we notice that in B the author does not quite come
out and say
anything about Sarah's beauty. Was it omitted, as Koch sug-
gests,
because it was too ridiculous in this context? That does not solve the
problem, for
no reason is given in its place. The redaction critic must ask
the same question
that any reader would: "Why did Abraham pass off his
wife as his
sister? What was he afraid of?" If we follow the previous estab-
lishment of
dependence of A on B, in which we allowed B to provide
answers to
questions raised in A, then perhaps we should now let A provide
the answer
to this great, unanswered question in B. The answer from A
would have
to be that Abraham feared for his life in Gerar because of the
surpassing
beauty of Sarah, his 89-year-old wife fit to be a queen: "See now,
I know that
you are a beautiful woman. . . . they will kill me, but will let
you live; so
say that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me." As
in the
former case, if we do not let A explain B, then we will have no answer
to our
question. But how can such a conclusion be reconciled with Sarah's
own self
description just two chapters previously? And why were the ac-
counts
constructed so that neither is complete or can be understood without
the other?
2. The
Naming of Isaac
As everyone knows, Isaac got his name
from his parents' laughter at the
pre-announcement
of his birth (17:17; 18:12); but the reason for their
laughter is
generally misunderstood. The apostles assure us that the reason
31 E.g., Green, Unity
of Genesis, 254.
32 Cf. BDB, 115,
"After I am worn out"; Speiser, Genesis, 128, "withered
as I am, am I still
to know enjoyment?"
was not
unbelief (Rom 4:19; Heb 11:11), but what else could it be but
unbelief, considering
their words? Let us consider their respective cases of
laughter,
one at a time. In Genesis 17, Abraham is currently laboring under
his third
incorrect interpretation of who his heir is going to be. The identity
of this heir
is important, since the promises of Gen 12: 1-3 require an heir
for their
fulfillment. The first false candidate was Lot; and the separation
of Lot from
Abraham indicated that he was not the promised heir. That he
is not the
heir is shown in the timing of the repetition of the divine promise
to
Abraham-"after Lot had separated from him" (13:14). That is, the
promise is
unaffected by his departure; its fulfillment is elsewhere.33 The
next
candidate is Eliezer of Damascus. When Abraham expresses this un-
derstanding
to the Lord, Eliezer is excluded by the additional revelation
that Abraham
will in fact have an heir "who shall come forth from your own
body"
(15:4). The next chapter narrates the birth of Ishmael by Sarah's
servant girl
Hagar. Ishmael would naturally be thought of as the fulfillment
of the
promise of an heir from Abraham's own body in 15:4, especially since
the promise
of innumerable offspring given to Abraham (Gen 13:16) is
applied to
Ishmael (16:10). And as is clear from Sarah's own words
("perhaps
I will be built from her"; 16:2) Ishmael was also considered
Sarah's son.34
When the vision of chap. 17 occurs, then, Abraham inter-
prets the
promise there received in light of his incorrect interpretation that
Ishmael is
the heir through whom the promises will be fulfilled. He would
interpret
these promises as, "I will multiply you exceedingly [through Ish-
mael]"
(v. 2), etc. In vv. 1-14 there is not the slightest hint that Ishmael is
33 This is argued at
greater length by L. Helyer, "The Separation of Abram and Lot: Its
Significance in the Patriarchal Narratives," JSOT 26
(1983) 77-88.
34 T. L. Thompson (The
Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical
Abraham [Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1974]) discusses Genesis 16, 21: 1-21, and
29:31-30:24 under the heading "Nuzi and the Patriarchal
Narratives" (pp. 252-69). In the
course of his discussion he says: "contrary to the opinion of
the commentators, the children that
are borne by the maids are not attributed to the wives. In Gen
30:20 Leah says: 'I have borne
him six (not eight) sons;' it is not until the birth of Joseph by
Rachel herself that Rachel's
disgrace is removed (Gen 30:23), and the children of Rachel are
the children she herself bore:
Joseph and Benjamin. In Gen 21:10f., Sarah could hardly be more
explicit that she did not
consider Ishmael her son" (pp. 256-57). This conclusion,
however, is based on a selective listing
of the evidence, since he does not provide an explanation for what
Sarah meant when she said,
"Perhaps I will be built from her," and since Rachel's
explicit statement at the birth of Dan
through the surrogate Bilhah ("God. . . has listened to my
voice and given me a son"; 30:6) so
clearly establishes the fact that Rachel considered Dan to be her
son. Nor does he explain in
what sense Rachel "prevailed" over Leah when Bilhah bore
Naphtali (30:8), or why other
women would count Leah blessed because of the birth of Asher by
Zilpah (30: 13). These
passages are meaningless unless we see that some type of vicarious
participation in mother-
hood was recognized by the nonbearing wives in these situations.
In this regard, Gen 21:10
constitutes a clear repudiation by Sarah of her former views.
Additionally, there is the sub-
jective argument that a much more satisfying exegesis of Genesis
17 and 18 is arrived at by
postulating that Sarah did consider Ishmael her son-not
exclusively hers, but at least to the
extent of remedying her barrenness. The validity of this inductive
argument, of course, de-
depends on the persuasiveness of the exegesis presented in this
essay.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 11
not the heir
of promise that Abraham assumes him to be; thus he is being
further
"hardened" in that interpretation. In v. 15, Sarah is mentioned for
the first
time in any of the promises: she too will have a new name. Then
God says,
"I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. I will
bless her,
and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from
her"
(v. 16). This promise of a son to be born to Sarah presents a challenge
to Abraham
to abandon his current interpretation of God's promises which
identifies
Ishmael as the promised heir. What is not clear in the translations,
however, is
that the promise leaves some room for maneuvering, allowing
Abraham to
cling to the interpretation to which he is already predisposed.
The verbs
used in the series of promises concerning Sarah are uberakti. . .
natatti. . .
uberaktiha wehayeta. . . yihyu (v. 16). We normally would expect the
imperfect to
be used in such a series when the waw is not joined to the verb
(thus yihyu,
not hayu at the end of the verse). But "I will give you a son by
her" is
translated not from 'etten, but from natatti. This usage is
really not
surprising,
since the form natatti without waw has already been used with
a future
sense in this chapter (v. 5; cf. v. 6, unetattika; also in Gen 15: 18;
23:11, 13).
But one who is inclined to interpret divine revelation according
to a certain
paradigm will try to fit any new revelation into that same old
paradigm.
Thus Abraham could seize on the word natatti and force the
promise into
fitting an "Ishmael interpretation": "I will bless her-indeed
I have
already given you a son by her [Ishmael, who was her son, according
to their way
of thinking], and I will bless her [the same way I will bless you,
by blessing
Ishmael her son]" etc. That he recognizes there is another
interpretation
is clear from his thoughts which are revealed in v. 17;
"Abraham
fell on his face and laughed, thinking, 'Shall one be born to a 100
year old
man? Or Sarah-shall a 90-year-old woman give birth?' " The
inertia of
13 years of misinterpretation, combined with the seeming im-
possibility
of the latter interpretation, cause him to cling to his identifica-
tion of
Ishmael as the heir of promise. Abraham's laughter should thus be
seen as a
rejection of what he thought was just one possible (even if more
probable)
interpretation; and his statement "May Ishmael indeed live be-
fore
you" (v. 18) should be viewed not only as the expression of his choice
of
interpretations, but also as a seeking of affirmation from God that his
interpretation
is correct. Having succeeded in getting him to laugh, the
Lord then
gives him the promise in a manner that cannot be misunder-
stood:
"Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you shall call his
name
Isaac" (v. 19). This cannot be misinterpreted; only believed or dis-
believed. We
can imagine Abraham feeling that he was "set up" to laugh.
If he had
been told outright in the beginning of the vision that the promised
heir would
be born by Sarah (literally), he would have believed-as in Gen
15:6. As it
was, however, he was led into a trap by a promise that left some
room for his
old interpretation, and he ended up laughing at God's an-
nounced
intention. But perhaps the point is, Abraham set himself up for
this
trap. If he had not resorted to the
Ishmael solution contrary to God's
standards
for man and wife, set in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:24, a man
"shall
cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh"), there would have
been no
ambiguity in the promises of chap. 17, for there would not have
been any
Ishmael to whom to refer them. They would have to refer to a son
yet to be
born to Sarah. Abraham is thus being taught to interpret God's
promises
according to God's nature, and not to laugh at their implications
in
preference to interpretations derived from pagan cultural assumptions.
Sarah learns the same lesson in chap. 18.
She, like her husband, does not
see any
conflict between her barrenness and God's promises. She has al-
ready
"solved" that problem; she has a son, Ishmael. One day, three strang-
ers happen
by, for whom Abraham and Sarah prepare a meal. The three
sit down to
eat, with Sarah at the tent door behind them, so that they
cannot see
her (v. 10). Then comes the set-up: "Where is Sarah your wife?"
This
question does two things. First, the mention of her name ensures her
complete
attention to what is about to be said. Second, the question con-
tinues the
pretense of the visitors that they are mere human beings-were
they
otherwise there would be no need to ask where Sarah was. After
Abraham
points her out, the promise comes from one stranger: "I will
surely return
to you at this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have
a son"
(v. 10). Unlike the promise to her husband, the meaning of this
promise is
not ambiguous. But she is not aware of the identity of the one
giving the
promise-it's just a stranger who happened by, as far as she
knows.
Predictably, she laughs; under such circumstances, who wouldn't?
As far as
she is concerned, the promise of an heir for Abraham has been
fulfilled,
for she already has a son. After 13 years, the correctness of the
Ishmaelite
interpretation would seem to have been validated by her pro-
gression
from barrenness to the post menstrual phase of her life. So if a man
comes by and
gives a crazy promise, why shouldn't she laugh? Only after
she laughs
does she learn that it was not a mere man who has just made this
promise. He
knows she laughed, even though she did so silently, and he can
read her
mind and tell her her thoughts (v. 13). And the one who can read
her mind
asks, "Is anything too difficult for Yhwh?" (v. 14).35
Sarah was set up to laugh in a manner
different from her husband,
appropriate
to her different position. Abraham the prophet received God's
word
directly-thus he was set up to laugh directly at God's word. Sarah
received
God's word indirectly, through a man, her husband. Consequently
she is made
to laugh at the words of a mere man (apparently). The sug-
gestion is
that she is just as much to blame for doing so, for not correctly
responding
to her barren condition by patiently waiting for the fulfillment
of the
promise. For if she had not resorted to the Ishmael solution, faith in
35 The narrator
likewise does not identify Yhwh as one of the three men until v. 13, when
he reveals himself to Sarah by reading her mind. The NIV
translators, following their occa-
sional practice of inserting the subject's name when it is not in
the original, undo this literary
device in v. 10.
God would
have led her to believe even a stranger who came by and
announced the
impending and long-expected fulfillment of the promise.
There is a
third group that receives the word of God: neither prophet
(Abraham),
nor audience of a prophet (Sarah), but those who merely read
God's word
handed down to them. They, too, will be caught laughing. The
set-up for
this group occurs in our second wife/sister episode: "Abraham
said of
Sarah his wife, 'She is my sister.' So Abimelech king of Gerar took
Sarah"
(Gen 20:2). Can anything be more worthy of laughing at than the
thought of a
king taking this withered old woman into his harem, to join
the most
beautiful women of his realm? And so multitudes have laughed (or
scoffed) at
this report down through the ages. But we should know better
by now not
to be caught laughing. For a little reflection shows that the
reader who
laughs at the idea of Sarah being desirable to Abimelech has
not laughed
at anything different from what Abraham and Sarah laughed
at. Sarah
said, "After I am old, shall I have pleasure?" for which she was
rebuked by
Yhwh, who said, "Is anything too difficult for Yhwh?" And now
we see
Abimelech anticipating the very thing Sarah laughed at. How dare
we laugh,
too? The question not answered in B would be readily supplied
to the mind
of the reader who read A: "See now, I know that you are a
beautiful
woman; and it will come about that when [they] see you, they will
say, 'This
is his wife'; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. So
say that you
are my sister, so that. . . I may live on account of you" (Gen
12: 11-13).
The paging back and forth between chap. 12 and chap. 20 which
is
necessitated by the incompleteness of each episode leads us to conclude
that Sarah
is the same in both cases. She is no longer the wrinkled old lady
of chap. 18,
but rather the exceptionally beautiful Sarah of some 24 years
earlier when
she entered the promised land. The reader of chap. 20 is to
refer back
to chap. 18 not to see what Sarah is like, but to see what she has
been changed
from. And he refers to chap. 12 and its description of her
beauty to
see what she has been restored to. Rather than stating that fact
outright,
the author has abruptly presented the reader with a seemingly
incongruous
and impossible situation; the brief statement of v. 2 would
instantly
let the reader remember the previous account and let it fill in the
details,
causing him, after sitting in judgment on Abraham and Sarah for
their
laughter, to join them in being caught laughing at the word of God.
Isaac is
indeed well named! The implication should not escape us that the
author is
teaching us to treat his written words as equivalent to God's words
spoken
directly to Abraham. Abraham is taught not to laugh at the direct
pronouncements
of God; Sarah at the word of God pronounced by man.
Then future
generations are taught not to laugh at the written word of God.
From a
redaction-critical perspective, then, the genre classifications of the
form
critics, such as "Tale told to entertain" and "Legend,"
must be re-
jected. The
one responsible for placing the accounts in their present context
wants us to
treat them as the written oracle of God. And we would do well
to remember
that there is no hard evidence that they ever existed in any
other form
or context.
Also highly dubious is the
source-critical contention that Abraham's and
Sarah's
laughter indicates two different sources' explanations for how Isaac
got his
name. For the text has been clearly so set up that not only Abraham
and Sarah
laugh, but multitudes down through the ages laugh as well.
At this
point one might wonder whether such an important matter as the
rejuvenation
of Sarah should be recognized without an explicit mention of
it in the
text. Is there anything else in the context to support this inter-
pretation
besides the mutually interdependent construction of A and B? At
least two
lines of evidence support this interpretation. First is the case of
Abraham
himself. In Gen 17:17 he regarded himself as too old to father a
child. For Isaac
to be conceived, then, what happened to Abraham? Was
he given a
one-time ability to generate offspring, or was his bodily state
rejuvenated,
as I suggested Sarah's was? The answer to this is made clear
in Gen
25:1-2, where we read that after the death of Sarah, long after
describing
himself as too old to father a child, he takes another wife and
fathers six
more children!36 Rejuvenation is thus clear in the case of Abra-
ham, and
this lends credence to the same conclusion for Sarah.
A second line of evidence comes from
proposing a test to the rejuvenation
hypothesis.
If Sarah were made 24 years younger at the age of 89, then, all
other things
being equal, she should live at least another 24 years after that
point to get
back to the same place she was when she laughed. But if she
died just a
few years after Isaac was born, that would cast doubt on the
whole
rejuvenation hypothesis. But how can we apply this test, since Scrip-
ture does
not indicate the life span of women? We know how long Adam
lived, but
not Eve; Isaac, but not Rebekah; Moses and Aaron, but not
Miriam; etc.
Never does the Bible give us the age at which a woman died.
With one
exception, that is. Sarah just happens to be the only woman in the
Bible whose
life span is recorded; she lived another 38 years after the events
of chap. 20
(Gen 23: 1). And because she is the only woman so treated, we
have a means
of testing the rejuvenation hypothesis. Perhaps, then, that is
the reason
we are told how long she lived. If one rejects this explanation,
then he
should come up with some other one in its place for why Sarah's
life span is
given, while no other woman's is.
The suggestion that Sarah was rejuvenated
was made by some of the
rabbis,
according to M. Zlotowitz.37 It has also had at least two proponents
in modern
times: J. Kurtz and G. Aalders.38 Neither offered any evidence
36 Predictably, this
has been taken as another contradiction indicating multiple sources
behind Genesis; see, e.g., Spurrell, Text of Genesis, xvi.
37 "It may be
that, as the Rabbis assert, . . . her youthfulness returned in preparation for
conception (Radak, Ramban; . . . ). . . . Cf. Bava etzia
87a: . . . her skin became smooth, her
wrinkles disappeared, and her former beauty was regained" (N.
Scherman and M. Zlotowitz,
Bereishis / Genesis: A New Translation with a Commentary
Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and
Rabbinic Sources, vol. 1(a) [The ArtScroll Tanach Series;
Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1986] 722).
38 J. Kurtz wrote,
"The matter admits of ready explanation. Since the visit of the angels in
Mamre when Sarah was set apart to become mother, and
through the creative agnecy of God
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 15
for the
view, except that it seemed like an obvious way out of the difficulty.
Kurtz's view
was rejected without explanation by Keil, who said that Abime-
lech wanted
to marry Sarah not for her beauty, but in order to make a
marriage
alliance to gain favor with the great prince (per Gen 23:6) Abra-
ham.39
But this view, which also goes back to the rabbis,40 is incredible,
since it
ignores the fact that Abraham lied because he was afraid of some-
thing.
Keil's view leads to the conclusion that he was afraid that Abimelech
would kill
him to make an alliance with him to gain his favor, which of
course is
ridiculous.
Another support for this interpretation
is that it dovetails with another
theme of
promise-fulfillment in the Abraham cycle. In addition to the
promise of
offspring, Abraham received the promise of land. The incon-
gruity of
this promise is brought out in the juxtaposition of the situation and
the promise
in Gen 12:6b-7a, "Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
And the Lord
appeared to Abram and said, 'To your offspring I will give
this land.'
" He had not been brought to inherit a vacant lot; this land was
already
inhabited. In Gen 13:15 the promise of land is both "to you. . . and
to your
offspring." In chap. 15 Abraham is again promised the land, "I am
Yhwh who
brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land
to possess
it" (15:7). Does this mean that Abraham is personally going to
inherit the
land, not just indirectly through his offspring? Since it seemed
quite
unlikely for a single nomad, powerful though he was, to dispossess an
inhabited
land, he asks, "how may I know that I will possess it?" (v. 8). He
is then
instructed to bring some animals for sacrifice. What follows is a
covenant
ceremony, with a solemn promise of the land as Yhwh passes a
flaming
torch between the carcass pieces. The references to time of day
require some
comment. The promise of v. 7 occurs while it is very dark,
rendered capable of it, her youth and beauty had returned:
this new life would manifest itself in
her appearance, and lend it fresh beauty and new charms" (History
of the Old Covenant [Ed-
inburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1870] 250). Similarly, G. Aalders:
"We believe that Sarah experienced
a physical miracle that enabled her to bear a child at an
extremely advanced age. This miracle
of physical rejuvenation could well have caused Sarah also to
retain or, if need be, to regain
her physical attractiveness to such an extent that she would draw
the attention of Abimelech"
(Genesis [2 vols.; Bible Student's Commentary; Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1981] 2.27). J.
Quarry suggested, "perhaps this story is introduced to
indicate that. . . she had acquired such
a renewal of the natural concomitant physical attributes, as would
render her childbearing a
matter of less curiosity" (Genesis and its Authorship: Two
Dissertations [London: Williams &
Norgate, 1866] 449 n. I). G. von Rad did not know the truth of
what he wrote: "Obviously
the narrator imagines Sarah to be much younger" (Genesis:
A Commentary [Philadelphia: West-
minster, 1964] 222).
39 C. Keil and F:
Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Vol. 1, The Pentateuch
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949) 239. Also note the bewildering
statement by H. Leupold
(Exposition of Genesis [2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964]
2.583): "A kind of rejuvenation in
connection with the impending birth of a son could have made no
appreciable difference."
40 "According to Ran,
Abimelech took Sarah, not because of her beauty, but because she was
Abraham's 'sister' and he wished to marry into so distinguished a
family" (Zlotowitz, Bereishis,
722.
since the
stars can be seen well (v. 5). In v. 12, however, the sun has not yet
set, and in
v. 17 it is dark again.41 What has happened, then, seems to be
that in the
early morning darkness Abraham is given the promise, then told
to bring the
animals. When he does so, nothing happens. He waits around
all day, and
nothing happens except that some vultures try to get the
animals.
Finally, the sun sets and he falls into a deep sleep. Then comes the
covenant
ceremony and a revelation of the future. The rest of Abraham's
life will be
spent just as this day has been; he will wait, and nothing will
happen as
far as inheriting the land. Then he will fall asleep (die; v. 15).42
After 400
years of exile and oppression of his descendants, they will return
and inherit
the land.
First he is told he will inherit the
land. Then when he asks how he can
know for
sure, he is told he will die before it is inherited by his offspring.
So will
Abraham inherit the land or not? Is the Lord less able to reward his
servants
than the kings of that age, who in the style of Genesis 15 gave
grants of
land to their faithful servants which were effective while they were
still living?43
Genesis 15 makes it clear that if Abraham is going to inherit
the land, it
has to be in the resurrection. If he is not going to inherit it, then
what is
God's promise worth to Abraham? To imply a resurrection from
Genesis 15
may seem like reading into the text, but some meaning must
attach to
the fact that Abraham is made to wait all day, doing nothing, and
to the
sequence of events in chap. 15. A source-critical explanation of sloppy
editing
strikes us as the lazy way out.
The two themes of son and land parallel
each other. When Abraham and
Sarah
entered the promised land with a promise of offspring they were
"alive"
with respect to being able to have children. This is shown on the one
hand by
Abraham later fathering Ishmael, and on the other by the fact that
Sarah, though
barren, did not give up hope of giving birth until 16:2 (and
her youthful
beauty surely gave her reason to hope). But while waiting for
the promise,
they both "died" with respect to being able to have children
(17:17;
18:12). After they "died" they were "brought back to life"
so that
Isaac could
be born and the promise fulfilled. This sequence forms a par-
adigm of the
promise of the land. They entered the land and received a
promise to
inherit that land. Then they wait the rest of their lives, the
promise
unfulfilled, and die without receiving it. It is only in the resurrec-
tion that
they can receive it. Rejuvenation is thus a token, or type, of
resurrection.
This link between the two was evidently on Paul's mind when
he penned
Rom 4:17-19, "in the sight of Him whom [Abraham] believed,
even God,
who gives life to the dead. . . he believed, in order that he might
41 Not surprisingly,
this is held to indicate a multiple-source background to the account. See
Speiser, Genesis, 114-15. Discrepancies in time of day are
one factor which led him to say, "the
whole is clearly not of a piece, though now intricately
blended,"
42 G, Wenham also
notes this symbolic meaning of Abraham's sleep (Genesis 1-15 [WBC 1;
Waco, TX: Word, 1987] 335).
43 M. Weinfeld.
"Covenant of Grant" JAOS 90 (1970) 184-203.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 17
become a
father. . . he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, and
the deadness
of Sarah's womb" (also see Heb 11:12-13).
Paul seems to have been preceded as a
witness to the rejuvenation in-
terpretation
by Isaiah the prophet. In Isa 51:2-3, the only OT passage
outside of
Genesis that refers to Sarah, the righteous remnant is exhorted
to consider
the example of their ancestors:
Look to Abraham your father,
And to Sarah who gave birth to you in
pain;
When he was one I called him,
Then I blessed him, and multiplied him.
Indeed the Lord will comfort Zion;
He will comfort all her waste places.
And her wilderness he will make like
Eden,
And her desert like the Garden of the
LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.
The example
of Abraham and Sarah seems especially appropriate once we
recognize a
rejuvenation, a physical transformation analogous to changing
a desert
into a paradise. Rejoicing also followed that transformation (Gen
21:6). It is
also appropriate to cite Eden [ceden], since Sarah had said,
"Shall
I have cedna?"
There is therefore no problem in viewing
chap. 20 as properly following
chaps. 18
and 19. Likewise, there are two features of chap. 21 which are
incomprehensible
without chap. 20. The first of these is the emphasis with
which Isaac
is said to be the son of Abraham in Gen 21:2-5 (four times using
the verb yld
with the preposition le; three times using the possessive suffix
with ben).
Zlotowitz explained this redundancy as follows: "The repeated
emphasis on born
to 'him' testifies against the scoffers that the child was born
of Abraham's
seed and none other."44 The "other" would obviously
be Abim-
elech, since
Sarah had just been in his harem. Zlotowitz cites Rashi to this
effect in
the latter's commentary on Gen 25:19: "Cynics of Abraham's
generation
had been saying that Sarah, who had lived so long with Abra-
ham without
bearing a child, must have become pregnant by Abime-
lech."45
This leads to the second feature of chap. 21 explained by chap. 20.
It was
clearly not "cynics" in general asserting Isaac's illegitimacy, but
Ishmael, as
is clear from the following context, where we find Ishmael
mocking
Isaac with some taunt not mentioned, but which deeply offends
Sarah and is
so serious an offense that Ishmael is disinherited by divine
44 Zlotowitz, Bereishis,
747.
45 Ibid., 1044. The
citation reads, "Tanchuma; Rashi as explained by Mizrachi."
Cf. A. Lev-
ene, trans., The Early Syrian Fathers on Genesis (London:
Taylor's Foreign Press, 1951) 92-93:
"But in the case of Abimelech, he mentions explicitly that he
did not draw near unto her,
because as she was already pregnant with Isaac, it should not be
thought that it was from
another and not from Abraham."
decree. What
could offend Sarah more than to assert that Isaac was Abim-
elech's son?
Ishmael's interest (also Hagar's) in asserting such a claim would
be obvious,
since it would involve a denial of Isaac's legitimate inheritance
rights in
favor of his own, contrary to God's revealed will. The punishment
imposed
(loss of his own inheritance) is quite appropriate to the offense.46
The more trivial contextual
"discrepancies" of B can now be dealt with.
Some critics
cite the implausibility of Abraham twice falling into the same
error. But
in whose opinion is it implausible? Certainly not the author's; to
maintain
that he was merely in the business of collecting variant traditions
would
contradict the "evidence" cited by critics to indicate that the re-
dactor has
edited the material precisely to present the accounts as two
different
episodes in the life of Abraham. Besides, we should know by now
that we
should not label what we read as "implausible," lest we be caught
laughing
again.
This is not to say that no conclusions
should be drawn from the fact that
Abraham erred
in this way twice. Though outwardly the offense appears
the same in
both cases, several considerations indicate that the second lapse
was much
more blameworthy than the first. It was suggested earlier that in
A the
promise of the heir could have been considered as being fulfilled
through Lot,
so that it did not depend on Abraham's continued existence.
Likewise no
mention had been made of Sarah's involvement in the promise.
These
factors mitigate Abraham's actions somewhat; he failed to do what
is right no
matter the consequences, which could have been death. In B,
however, the
same error indicates flat unbelief in God's explicit promise; he
had by now
received the promise that he would die "in peace" (15:15), yet
he fears
that he will be murdered. And God had just told him that in a
year's time
Sarah will bear him a son. Finally, the experience of God's
intervention
in plaguing Pharaoh's house on his behalf in a similar situation
gives him
even less excuse for unbelief. Even if he just proceeded in the same
way because
he knew God would rescue him again, then he was guilty of
testing God.
These considerations make very dubious Polzin's view that the
situation in
B is transformed into a morally better situation than A (see n. 30;
his reason
for this is the erroneous assumption that adultery occurred in A).
Another objection was that it must have
taken quite some time to dis-
cover that
"the Lord had closed fast all the wombs of the household of
Abimelech"
(v. 18), whereas only a few months could conceivably be in-
volved in
chap. 20, according to the chronological framework. But those
who presume
that a period of years was involved run into trouble in the
story
itself. We are told that Abimelech had not approached Sarah (v. 4);
but that was
obviously the purpose for which he had taken her. Would he
46 As my wife Linda
pointed out to me, John 8:41 might be a NT counterpart to this, if it
is in fact a slur on the legitimacy of the birth of Isaac.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 19
wait years to
do so? The more likely explanation is that, as in A, there were
"plagues";
here Green suggested some kind of physical affiiction preventing
intercourse,
requiring healing.47
We have shown how A and B are
interdependent, and this militates
against Koch's
treatment of them as independent units. But an even greater
dependence
on the Exodus narrative can be shown for A. It was well known
to the
ancients that Gen 12:10-20 is typologically related to the account of
the Exodus,
a fact that has not been dealt with by most moderns. If Abra-
ham went
down to Egypt because of famine; the sons of Israel went down
to Egypt
because of famine, where they became the nation of Israel. Abra-
ham
prospered in Egypt; Israel prospered in Egypt. Abraham feared that
he would be
killed, while Sarah would be spared; Pharaoh commanded
that the
Hebrew male children be killed, while the females should be
spared. Yhwh
sent plagues on Pharaoh because of Sarah; Yhwh sent
plagues on
Pharaoh because of his treatment of Israel. Pharaoh sent away
Abraham and
Sarah with much property; Pharaoh sent away Israel with
much
property. Abraham and Sarah returned to Canaan; Israel returned
to Canaan.
Additionally, though he let Abraham go to Egypt, God told
Isaac not to
go (Gen 26:2); likewise Israel was told not to return to Egypt
(Deut
17:16), thus involving C in the typology as well. It is evident, then,
that
virtually every detail of A has a typological connection with the Exodus
narrative.
That being the case, one has to wonder what is the justification
for and the
value in studying it primarily as an independent unit, as the
form critics
do. It is thoroughly dependent on the Exodus narrative and
interdependent
with Genesis 20, and its unique features are explained at
least in
part by these dependencies.
So far little has been said about C. It
certainly lacks the drama of the
other two
passages, since no one tries to take Rebekah away from Isaac, and
there is no
divine intervention to save her. It does look like it could be
another version
of B, since Abimelech (and Phicol immediately following)
reappears
here, over 76 years after B. And the line of reasoning that says
Abraham
would not make the same mistake twice, concludes likewise that
Isaac would
not make the same mistake as his father.
47 Green, Unity of
Genesis, 257. He says such a plague is implied in the fact that Abimelech
required healing as well as his wife and servant girls (20:17).
48 U. Cassuto, The
Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch (Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1961) 78-83. R. Pratt has rediscovered this
"parallelism" without calling the con-
nection typological ("Pictures, Windows, and Mirrors in Old
Testament Exegesis," WTJ 45
[1983] 156-67). Wenham notes the typological connection, and suggests
it is the basis for the
typology of Matt 2:15 (Genesis, 291-92). Cf. Gen. Rab.
40.6.1. Weimar (Redaktionsgeschichte, 18
n. 56) mentions R. Kilian as opposing the view that Gen 12:10-20
forms a parallel with the
Exodus narrative (Die vorpriesterlichen Abrahams-Oberlieferungen:
Literarkritisch und traditionsge-
schichtlich Untersucht [BBB; Bonn: Hanstein, 1966] 212-13). But
Kilian's reason for denying such
a typological connection is solely that he views the three
accounts as arising from one basic
tradition.
20 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Let us begin a redaction-critical
approach by agreeing that it is indeed
a remarkable
thing that this Abimelech should have such a long reign. The
difficulty
cannot be avoided by supposing that "Abimelech" is a dynastic
title such
as "Pharaoh" (appealing to Psalm 34, title), or that it is the same
name given
to a son or grandson. While such a solution might be plausible
for the king
himself, the same could not be maintained for his general
Phicol, who
is with the king after both accounts. The question to ask is,
what would
account for such a remarkably long reign?
Here we can again profit from a
comparison of the three accounts. In A,
Pharaoh expelled
Abraham from his country. The gifts given to Abraham
were because
of his (supposed) relation to Sarah, not because of his relation
to the Lord.
Abimelech, however, gave gifts to Abraham after God inter-
vened for
him, and he told Abraham to settle wherever he wanted in his
land (Gen
20:14-15). In the next chapter, Abimelech and Phicol say to
Abraham,
"God is with you in all that you do; now therefore swear to me
by God that
you will not deal falsely with me, or with my offspring, or with
my posterity;
but according to the kindness that I have shown to you, you
shall show
to me" (21:22b-23). Recall that God had said to Abraham, "I
will bless
those who bless you" (12:3). Would it be surprising to find re-
corded the
fulfillment of that promise? Abimelech and Phicol certainly fit
the category
of those who blessed Abraham. And in chap. 26, we find it was
not only
Abraham who honored the request "according to the kindness that
I have shown
to you, you shall show to me," but God honored it as well,
blessing
them with very long lives and reigns. This is just another example
of God
exercising his sovereignty and creative power over the aging process.
Clearly the
Abimelech of C has changed since the one of B, inconsistent
with the
notion of duplicate versions. The Abimelech of B is a harem-
building
king eager to acquire Sarah. But in C, where the whole town is
stirred over
the beauty of Rebekah, Abimelech is not interested. He seems
to spend his
time peeping through windows (v. 8), consistent with the idea
of a much
older man. The title "king of the Philistines" rather than "king
of
Gerar" may indicate some blessing of a greater kingdom as well.
Another
objection has been that C presumes that Isaac and Rebekah are
childless-for
how could they pretend to be brother and sister with their
two boys
there? Yet the chronology places the event after the death of
Abraham
(26:18), making Jacob and Esau at least 16 years old. But this
objection
assumes what is plainly false-that only the family of four entered
town, so that
the boys would have appeared conspicuously without parents.
Like his
father, Isaac had many-perhaps hundreds-of men working for
him and
travelling with him (26:14-15, 19; see 14: 14), some no doubt with
families of
their own. Surely we can credit Isaac with enough intelligence
to figure
out a way to pass off his sons (who may have been fully grown
anyway) as
someone else's. Bible scholars likewise ought to be able to figure
it out.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 21
Having shown that C suitably fits its
context, we still need to ask what
contribution
it makes to the development of the great themes of Genesis. If
the only
purpose were to show God's blessing on those who bless Abraham
it could
have been omitted, since Abimelech and Phicol are mentioned in
the
following narrative. Perhaps a clue to the importance of the story can
be obtained
from the critics' observation about the son repeating the mis-
take of his
father. Certainly any reader of C would instantly realize that
Isaac is
following in his father's footsteps, and the narrative itself points
back to A in
v. 1: "there was a famine in the land, besides the previous
famine that
had occurred in the days of Abraham," referring back to 12:10.
But the
references to Abraham's life do not stop with C. Through the rest
of chap. 26
we see Isaac doing what his father did. "Isaac dug again the
wells of
water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, . . .
and he gave
them the same names which his father had given them" (v. 18);
"The
Lord appeared to him the same night and said, 'I am the God of your
father
Abraham' " (v. 24). Also like his father he grew wealthy (vv. 12-14),
and made a
covenant with Abimelech and Phicol at Beersheba (vv. 26-33).
"Like
father, like son" is an obvious inference, and the inclusion of the
wife/sister
motif lets us know that Isaac is like his father in every respect,
including
his failings.49
The significance of this duplication can
be seen in considering the de-
velopment of
the promises of the new Adam in the book of Genesis. The
reason for
the new Adam, of course, is the failure of the first Adam. The
commission
given to Adam was to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and
subdue it as
man in the image of God. The result of Adam's sin was that
instead the
earth was filled with wickedness and then destroyed (6:11-13).
After the
flood, the commission is given anew to Noah (9:1-7), leading us
to think of
him as another Adam, the father of the race that will fulfill God's
purpose in
creation. Disappointment soon comes, however, as the sin of
Ham, the
cursing of Canaan, and the tower of Babel incidents are narrated.
It seems
that things are going to turn out just as the first time; that Noah
is not the
new Adam after all. Then the commission of Adam is given to
Abraham in
the form of a promise (the aspects of fruitfulness and dominion
can both be
seen in 17:2, 4, 6). Here there is not a command for men to
fulfill, but
God's declaration of his intention to make Abraham the new
Adam, the
father of the righteous seed (which is why Paul said that Abra-
ham received
a promise that he would inherit the world; Rom 4:13). But
here again
there is disappointment: Abraham the father of the righteous
fathered
Ishmael the wicked, who is expelled from the family and his in-
heritance
because of his persecution of Isaac, who inherits the promise of
Abraham. If
Abraham is not the new Adam, then maybe Isaac is. That
would
certainly explain all the attention given to him: his conception from
49 Green (Unity of
Genesis, 325) also noted, "Isaac's life was to such an extent an
imitation
of his father's that no surprise need be felt at his even copying
his faults." But the significance
of the repetition requires explanation.
22 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL.
his
rejuvenated parents, the stress on the covenant passing to Isaac, not
Ishmael
(17:19-21), and the expulsion of Ishmael for mocking his younger
brother
(21:9-12; see p. 17 for a suggestion as to the content of this mock-
ing). Will the
promise of the new Adam then be fulfilled through the
miracle son,
Isaac? Will he be what his father was not? The phrase "she is
my
sister" (26:7) is enough to dispel that notion, along with the previous
narrative of
Jacob and Esau, another Isaac and Ishmael pair. "Like father,
like
son" thus has an important function in the development of the mes-
sianic
promise. It continues the cycle of expectation/disappointment which
points the
faithful reader toward a future fulfillment, the coming of the true
new Adam who
will be greater than Abraham and Isaac, who only sym-
bolically
represented him. This cycle of expectation/disappointment is en-
capsulated
within C itself, which records the giving of the messianic
promise to
Isaac (vv. 3-5), followed immediately by Isaac's moral lapse (vv.
6- 7). Note
also the irony of juxtaposing v. 5, "because Abraham obeyed me
and kept my
charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws," with
vv. 6-7,
"so Isaac. . . said 'she is my sister,' for he was afraid" (the full
irony
of this
would not be present without the knowledge that Abraham who
"obeyed
me" had lapsed as Isaac did). Likewise the first lapse of Abraham
in A
occurred right after the giving of the promise (12:7).50
The interpretation of these accounts as
showing that Abraham and Isaac
were really
like the first Adam, though spoken of as the new Adam, is
corroborated
by W. Berg, who calls A "The Fall of Abraham," pointing
back to
Genesis 3.51 Among other clues is the recurrent question, "What
is
this you
have done?" in 3:13 (God to Eve), 12:18 (Pharaoh to Abraham),
and 26: 10
(Abimelech to Isaac). Berg's essay on A followed an earlier anal-
ysis of
Genesis 16 with similar conclusions.52 In both cases, Abraham's
lapse
is a
violation of the Edenic ordinance of marriage. Such an analogy with
the fall of
Adam in Genesis 3 would make the lapse in B even more sig-
nificant,
since in that case Abraham and Sarah had been restored to
"Eden"
(Isa 51:3), yet fell again. The point to observe is that their reju-
venation did
not undo the effects of the fall of Adam, and so they just grew
old again
and died. It is also noteworthy that the "Fall of David" (perhaps
another
"new Adam," for the promise of fruitfulness and dominion given to
Abraham are
also found in 2 Samuel 7) is ironically reminiscent of B (as P.
Miscall has
noted),53 since king David did to the foreigner Uriah what
50 As noted above,
Koch felt that it was "odd" that this sequence would occur. It has a
theological, not form-critical, explanation.
51 W. Berg,
"Nochmals: Ein Sundenfall Abrahams-der erste-in Gen 12,10-20," Biblische
Notizen 21 (1983) 7-15.
52 W. Berg, "Der Sundenfall Abrahams und Saras nach Gen
16,1-6," Biblische Notizen 19
(1982) 7-14.
53 P. Miscall, "Literary Unity in Old Testament Narrative,"
Semeia 15 (1979) 27-44. "What
the patriarch, the elect, fears of the foreigners because of his
wife is just what David, the elect,
the Israelite king, does to Uriah the Hittite because of his
wife" (p. 39).
Abraham was
afraid the foreign king Abimelech would do to him (2 Sa-
muel 11).
The irony is not only in the role reversal, but that Abraham's
fears were
unfounded. Abimelech the pagan protested his innocence and
rebuked
Abraham for exposing him to God's wrath by his subterfuge;
Abraham
responded that he did it because he was sure there was no fear
of God in
that (pagan) place (20:9-11). What does that say when such a
thing
actually did happen in Israel, under its greatest king, the one after
God's own
heart, the one who did more to fulfill the Adamic commission
than Abraham
or Isaac? Such a series of lapses in the "new Adams" would
certainly
create a realization that a "greater" new Adam was required to
fill the role.
When the true new Adam came, instead of exposing his bride
to
defilement to save his own life, he "gave himself up for her to make her
holy"
(Eph 5:25-26).
When Paul goes on to say, "This is a
profound mystery" (Eph 5:32),
perhaps he
means for us to make this comparison with the patriarchs. John
4, following
John the Baptist's designation of Jesus as the bridegroom (John
3:25-30),
certainly provides the basis for such a comparison, since a man
meeting a
woman at a well is the classic OT courtship scene (see Genesis
24; 29;
Exodus 2). The most detailed of these accounts, Genesis 24, finds a
number of
striking parallels in John 4. (1) A man is by a well when a woman
comes along
to draw water, and he asks her for a drink (Gen 24:33; John
4:7). (2)
The woman runs back and tells her family (Gen 24:28), or her
townspeople
(John 4:28-29). (3) The man is met and invited to the home
(Gen
24:29-32), or the town (John 4:30, 39-40). (4) The man refuses to eat
(Gen 24:33;
John 4:27, 31-32). (5) The man stays overnight (= 2 days; Gen
24:54; John
4:40). The overall theme, brought out in the conversation be-
tween the
man and woman, may also be compared: in Genesis 24 a father
is seeking a
virtuous bride for his son; in John 4 the Father seeks true
worshipers
(v. 23).54
Once the parallels are accepted, the
contrasts between the two brides are
equally
striking. Rebekah was from a good family, not a Canaanite; a
Samaritan
woman would be off-limits as a bride for a Jew. Rebekah was a
virgin; her
NT counterpart had been married five times, and was currently
living with
a man to whom she was not married. Rebekah was in every way
the model
bride, but Isaac compromised her virtue, "because I thought I
might lose
my life on account of her" (Gen 26:9), reflecting a value system
he learned
from his father. The one greater than Isaac willingly gave up his
life for his
most unworthy bride.
54 A detailed
comparison between the two accounts might yield further parallels, as might
analysis of the other OT courtship scenes. For example, J. H.
Bernard notes a "striking
parallel" with Josephus' account of Moses at the well, where
Josephus specifies the time as
noon, as in John 4:6 (J. H. Bernard, A Critical &
Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According
St. John [2 vols.; ICC; New York: Scribner, 1929] 1.136).
3. Confirmation
from Another "Contradiction"
Examination of another apparent
contradiction in Genesis, while not
directly
related to the wife/sister episodes, will aid the thesis presented here
by showing
that apparent contradiction is a means of bringing out recur-
ring themes
of the patriarchal promises. The apparent contradiction deals
with the
scene of Isaac's blessing of Jacob. In Isaac's instructions to Esau of
Gen 27:1-4,
he made it clear that he considered his death to be imminent
(as did
Rebekah and Esau; Gen 27:41-45). Yet the patriarchal chronology
indicates
that Isaac did not die soon after, but lived at least 40 more years.55
Before
rushing to the conclusion that this is a contradiction, perhaps we
should first
try the assumption that the apparent contradiction is simply
meant to
cause us to inquire as to what happened that gave Isaac a new
lease on
life. Once we ask such a question, the answer is not far away.
Something
indeed did happen which would explain such a lengthening of
life. We are
told that of his two sons, Isaac favored Esau, which was to the
detriment of
Jacob, whom God favored (Gen 25:23, 28). The Lord said to
Abraham,
"I will bless those who bless you, but the one who curses you I
will
curse" (Gen 12:5). The same thing is spoken to Isaac himself, then later
to Jacob.
While Isaac certainly does not fit into the category of a wicked
man, persecuting
Jacob, it is reasonable to infer that his favoring of (the
rejected)
Esau over Jacob would not be without penalty. And what would
be a
suitable penalty for Isaac treating Jacob like he should have treated
Esau, and
vice versa? Would it not be for God to treat Isaac as Ishmael?
That is in
fact what he did, for the patriarchal chronology indicates that
Isaac was
about 137 years old when this incident took place (see n. 55). His
older
brother Ishmael had died at the age of 137 (Gen 25:17), and it looked
as if Isaac
would do the same. Since Isaac treated Jacob like he should have
treated
Esau, God was treating Isaac like he treated Ishmael in terms of life
span. He was
going to die "young." And we would not know that unless
Ishmael's
life span were given, contrary to the pattern of Genesis, where as
a rule only
men in the line from Adam to Joseph have their life span given.
As we saw
earlier, Sarah is an exception to this pattern, and there was a
definite
reason for that. Likewise in the case of Ishmael some explanation
seems to be
called for as to why his life span should be given. The expla-
nation
offered here is that it shows how and why Isaac's life was going to
be cut
short. Isaac said to Jacob, thinking he was speaking to Esau, "Cursed
be those who
curse you, and blessed be those who bless you" (Gen 27:29).
How ironic
that he himself was under penalty for blessing the wrong one up
55 Jacob went to Egypt when he was 130 years old, when Joseph was
about 39 (compare
Gen 45:11 and 41:46; assuming that the years of plenty began
immediately after Pharaoh's
dreams). Thus Jacob was about 91 when Joseph was born, and this
was about 14 years after
he was blessed by Isaac (Gen 29:18, 30, 30:25), making Jacob about
77 years old when he left
home. This would make Isaac 137 years old at the time (Gen 25:26),
give or take a few years,
and he lived to be 180 (Gen 35:28).
to this
point. Ironic also that the physical degradation he experienced (his
blindness) was
what prevented him from recognizing that he was blessing
the
"wrong" (actually right) son. It is only now when he comes to under-
stand that
it is God's will to bless Jacob, and he willingly does so (Gen 28:3),
that he is
released from this penalty and given an extension of life. In this
episode,
then, we have reinforced several themes dealt with earlier. First,
as already
mentioned, we see the use of apparent contradiction to cause the
reader to
ask certain questions. Then, we see the answer to that contra-
diction in
terms of God's exercising control over the aging process in ful-
filling the
patriarchal promises. In connection with this, we also see the
deliberate
departure from a general pattern in terms of giving life spans to
assist in
the elucidation of the theme. All of this reinforces the conclusions
reached
earlier.
4. Structural
Considerations
G. Rendsburg has recently shown56
how our three narratives fit into the
framework of
the "Abraham cycle" and the "Jacob cycle." In the former he
builds on
the work of U. Cassuto, who identified ten trials of Abraham that
are in a
basically chiastic order of five pairs. Rendsburg combined two pairs
into one in
order to form a more perfect chiasm, then included the gene-
alogies at
the beginning and end as framing the cycle. The structure is as
follows:
A Genealogy of Terah (11:27-32)
B Start of Abraham's Spiritual Odyssey
(12: 1-9)
C Sarai in foreign palace; ordeal ends in
peace and success;
Abram and Lot part (12:10-13:18)
D
Abram comes to the rescue of Sodom and Lot (14:1-24)
E Covenant with Abraham; Annunciation of
Ishmael (15:1-16:16)
E' Covenant with Abraham; Annunciation of
Isaac (17: 1-18: 15)
D' Abraham comes to the rescue of Sodom
and Lot (18:16-19:38)
C' Sarah in foreign palace; ordeal ends
in peace and success;
Abraham and Ishmael part (20:1-21:34)
B' Climax of Abraham's Spiritual Odyssey
(22:1-19)
A' Genealogy of Nahor (22:20-24)57
This does
not leave chap. 26 as an orphan, for that is part of the Jacob cycle,
for which
Rendsburg essentially reproduces M. Fishbane's work.58 Again,
there is a
multimember chiasm, in which chap. 26 ("Interlude: Rebekah in
56 G. Rendsburg, The
Redaction of Genesis (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1986).
57 Ibid., 28-29. For
other chiastic arrangements of the Abraham cycle, see I. Kikawada and
A. Quinn, Before Abraham Was (Nashville: Press, 1985) 96
(based on E. Bullinger, Companion
Bible [part 1; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911] 18); and C.
Westermann, The Promise to
the Fathers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 58.
58 M. Fishbane, Text
and Texture (New York: Schocken,
1979) 40-62.
26 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
foreign
palace, pact with foreigners") corresponds to chap. 34 ("Interlude:
Dinah in
foreign palace, pact with foreigners").59
While not wanting to minimize the
importance of this type of analysis,
which
suggests solutions to a number of important critical problems, it
seems to me
that it is quite incorrect to conclude from it, as Rendsburg does
(quoting
Cassuto): "all this shows clearly how out of the material selected
from the
store of ancient tradition concerning Abraham a homogeneous
narrative was
created in the text before us, integrated and harmoniously
arranged in
all its parts and details."60 This seems to presume that if a
narrative
can be fit into a chiasm, then it is "harmonious." But it is clear
that the
chiasm does not solve the chronological problems identified at the
beginning of
this paper, problems which gave credence to the multiple
source
hypothesis. Such a statement also seems to imply that an ancient
Hebrew
reader would tolerate the most blatant contextual discrepancies as
long as they
were due to a chiastic order being followed. In fact, instead of
concluding
that the redactor was a genius for constructing this chiasm, we
might rather
conclude that he was so superficial, driven only by a desire to
arrange his
material into a chiasm, that he would tolerate the most illogical
and
incongruous chronological sequences. In short, the structural analysis
and the
thematic analysis must complement each other.
Two other points should be made about
Rendsburg's analysis of the
Abraham cycle.
First, the consistent chiasm is achieved only by combining
sections
which seem to be thematically distinct, but which taken separately
would not
follow the chiastic order (C/C' has three parts and E/E' has two
parts, where
the inverse order is not followed where it "should" be). This
departure
from chiasm is somewhat masked by combining the elements
under one
head, though Rendsburg does discuss the reasons for the varying
orders.
Perhaps the structure departs from chiasm precisely because Lot
and Ishmael
depart! Second, such a structural analysis puts the emphasis
on finding
parallels between members. But as we saw, a key to understand-
ing the
relationship between chaps. 12 and 20 is that one left out what is
found in the
other. Rendsburg is interested in what is common to both, i.e.,
their
redundancy. Overzealousness for parallels can perhaps also be seen in
the title,
"Rebekah in foreign palace"; Rebekah was not in a foreign palace.
As suggested
by T. Longman,61 perhaps the "parallelism" of chiasm should
be
understood along the lines suggested by Kugel for poetic writings: the A
and B lines
are not parallel in the sense of equivalent, but complementary,
supplementary,
etc.
The structure revealed by Rendsburg tends
to support the thematic
development
of this paper in one important respect. I.argued that the
59 Rendsburg, The
Redaction of Genesis, 56.
60 Ibid., 45.
61 The suggestion was
made in a "Critical Methodologies" class at Westminster Seminary,
for which this paper was originally written.
THE NAMING OF ISAAC 27
rejuvenation
of the patriarchs was due to a connection between the themes
of the
promise of Isaac and the promise of the land. Both depend on a kind
of
resurrection for their fulfillment, and the rejuvenation resulting in the
birth of
Isaac is therefore a token or type of the resurrection in which the
land will be
inherited. Significantly, in Rendsburg's analysis, the counter-
part to the
birth of Isaac is not the birth of Ishmael, but the promise of the
land.52
IV. Conclusion
The three wife/sister narratives fit in
their contexts and play a significant
role in the
development of the themes of the patriarchal narratives. Ap-
parent
contradictions, instead of leading to an exegesis that despairs of
trying to
make sense out of the narratives as they are, have been shown to
bring out
these themes. Acceptance of the source and form-critical expla-
nations for
these data tend to prevent discovery of their true role. We seem
to have reached
the point feared by the orthodox redaction critic (one who
accepts the
results of source criticism as the basis for his work). As J. Barton
noted, if
redaction criticism is too "successful," it can undermine its own
foundations:
The more impressive the critic makes the
redactor's work appear, the more he
succeeds in showing that the redactor
has, by subtle and delicate artistry, pro-
duced a simple and coherent text out of
the diverse materials before him; the
more he also reduces the evidence on
which the existence of those sources was
established in the first place. No
conjurer is required for this trick: the redaction
critic himself causes his protege to
disappear. . . . if redaction criticism plays its
hand too confidently, we end up with a
piece of writing so coherent that no
division into sources is warranted any
longer, and the sources and the redactor
vanish together in a puff of smoke,
leaving a single, freely composed narrative
with, no doubt, a single author.63
In the present case, if our understanding
of the laughter in connection
with the
birth of Isaac is correct, we have done more than simply uncover
coherency
amid apparent chaos; we have uncovered an author who has
played a
highly successful joke on readers and scholars down through the
centuries.
115 West Sixth Street
Lansdale, Pennsylvania 19446
62 Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis,
37-38.
63 Barton, Reading the Old Testament,
57.
This material is cited with gracious permission from:
Westminster Theological Seminary
2960 W. Church Rd.
Glenside , PA 19038
www.wts.edu
Please report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at: thildebrandt@gordon.edu