Bible Review

Tanhuma, Par. Vayira 23.

John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 193, puts it nicely: “The son to be born to her will have a destiny that will be anything but submissive and his defiance will be her ultimate vindication.” Notice again, however, that the mother’s importance derives from her son.

On point of view and for a discussion of a number of biblical women, see Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983).

See, for example, Carol Meyers, “Procreation, Production, and Protection: Male-Female Balance in Early Israel,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 51 (1983), pp. 569–593.

Cf. Job 9:20–22 where the moral and cognitive connotations of taµm alternate in the poignant complaint of Job who, like Jacob, is left in the dark about the meaning of his struggle.

Source critics often attribute Genesis 27:46–28:9 to P, the Priestly writer, rather than to the author of the rest of the cycle. I take the story here, however, in its final redacted form.

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Alter shows how the biblical narrators introduce playful and subtle articulations of the human situation. Although his reading of the Jacob stories is very sensitive and enlightening (and I approve his technique), I, nevertheless, do not believe he resolves the problems of Jacob’s “innocence.”

Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Prayers for Sabbath and Rashi’s Commentary, transl. by M. Rosenbaum and Dr. A. M. Silbermann (London: Shapire, Vallentine & Co., 1946); “Genesis,” esp. p. 116.

Lansing Hicks, “Jacob (Israel),” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 2 (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1962), pp. 782–787, esp. 784.