Subject: The Biblical Narrative: Noah and Abraham
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Subject: JUICE Biblical Narrative 5
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World Zionist Organization
Student and Academics Department
Jewish University in CyberspacE
juice@wzo.org.il birnbaum@wzo.org.il
http://www.wzo.org.il
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Course: Literary and Artistic Aspects of the Biblical Narrative
Lecture: 5/12
Lecturer: Yoel Duman
Important announcement: We will not be sending out lectures in our JUICE
courses next week, during Sukkot. Hag Sameach!
We will take a look at the stories of Abraham the
Patriarch, which are found in Genesis 11: 26 - 25:10. It should be
immediately obvious, on the basis of quantity alone, that we are now dealing
with a new literary pattern; here, for the first time in the Bible, we have
an extended involvement with a single character, rather than the extremely
terse treatments of the former chapters. The only case up to this point
that comes close to such an extensive involvement with one personage is the
Noah stories, Genesis 5:28 - 9:28. In fact, a number of characteristics are
common to Noah and Abraham.
"Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless (tamim) in his age, Noah walked
(hit-halech) with God." Genesis 6:9
"... the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am El Shaddai. Walk
(hit-halech) in My ways and be blameless (tamim)." Genesis 17:1
This particular combination of words is unparalleled in the Bible, except
for the present cases. The reversal in the order of the two key words is a
fine example of chiasm, a literary technique used throughout the Bible to
create closures. What is the nature of this connection between Noah and Abraham?
A third characteristic is common to Noah and Abraham - righteousness. In
addition to the verse we cited above regarding Noah, we also have the following:
"...you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation." Genesis 7:1
Note that the two verses concerning Noah are the first two uses of the
Hebrew root TseDeK (righteousness) in the Bible. The next uses of this root
appear in the Abraham stories. While the Patriarch himself is never termed
Tsadik, his faith is called Tsedaka (one of several Biblical terms for
righteousness or merit).
"And because he put his trust in the Lord, He reckoned it to his merit (or
as an act of righteousness)" Genesis 15: 6
The same root appears repeatedly in the Abraham cycle, especially in the
famous exchange regarding the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18) to
which we will return. "Righteousness" appears in only two verses in Genesis
after the Abraham stories, and never in a divine context. We are, then,
justified in seeing this term as an additional bond between Abraham and Noah.
Traditional Jewish commentary was fully aware of these linguistic
connections between the two figures and concluded that Noah's righteousness
and status was relative while Abraham's was absolute. This interpretation
rests to a great extent on the phrase "blameless in his age" (Genesis 6:9)
regarding Noah. Rabbinic commentary pointed out that this is a clear case
of apparent redundancy: could Noah be blameless in anything but his age? As
a result, the term was understood to indicate that in his age, an age of
sinners, Noah was righteous; in any other age, he would not have been
extraordinary.
The negative evaluation of Noah, compared to Abraham, is even more a result
of a comparison of their behaviors. Noah, when informed of God's intention
to destroy mankind, responded only by saving himself and his family.
Abraham, when informed of God's intention to destroy the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah, attempted to dissuade God and even berated Him for his intended
act of injustice:
"Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly!"
Genesis 18:25
This response, bordering as it does on impudence, is a clear sign of
Abraham's vocation, as delineated by God in the very same chapter:
"...I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his
posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right
(Tsedaka)..." Genesis 18:19
Regarding the first two terms common to Noah and Abraham (blameless and
"walking"), let us note, before proceeding to an examination of the Abraham
stories themselves, that Noah was described as already being such, while
Abraham is commanded by God to strive to attain these qualities. In fact,
traditional commentary often saw the Abraham cycle as a process of 10
trials, which the Patriarch underwent in order to elevate him to the
required spiritual level.
The first of these trials is found in Genesis 12:1f. Seemingly with no
prior warning, Abram ( as the Patriarch is called before his name is changed
in chapter 17) is commanded to leave his native land:
"Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land
that I will show you."
Although this JPS translation is certainly correct regarding content, its
departure from the literal is, in this case, unfortunate. The Hebrew
stresses a tripartite leaving: from your country (artsecha), your native
land (moladetcha) and from your father's house (beit avicha). This original
structure is a crucial literary element. It creates a crescendo, a rising
series of demands: each element adds to the difficulty of the trial. It is
as if we are witness to Abram's unfolding realization of the enormity of the
Divine command: step by step, Abram understands the personal significance of
the sacrifice he is about to make. And as if this is not enough, he is left
without clear knowledge of his destination-destiny. Instead he is told only
that he will be shown the intended land. Here we have the first use of the
Hebrew root RAoH (to see,to show,etc.) which serves as a leading word
throughout the Abraham cycle.
Along with the uncertainty of his destination, Abram is given a stunning
series of promised blessings. The Hebrew root Barech (bless) suddenly
becomes the leading word of the story, used repeatedly here and throughout
the Abraham cycle.
"I will make of you a great nation,
And I will BLESS you;
I will make your name great,
And you shall be a BLESSing.
I will BLESS those who BLESS you
And curse him that curses you;
And all the families of the earth
Shall BLESS themselves by you."
Genesis 12: 2-3
Even in translation, the intention of the repetitive technique comes across
clearly.
Unfortunately, the flip-side of the matter is lost in this translation. The
cursing element is phrased in a manner intended to jostle the reader. First
of all, the order of the cursing phrase reverses the order of the blessing
phrase. Literally, it reads:
I will bless your blessers (a b)
And your cursers will I curse. (b' a')
In addition, and perhaps more significantly, two different roots are used
for the term "to curse". The widely used root Kalel appears first; but
rather than using the same root for the following verb, the somewhat rarer
root Arur is employed. This unexpected variation throws the reader a bit
off balance; the intention, I believe, is to signal a sort of ancient
hyperlink: this is the same root used repeatedly in the preceding stories in
Genesis, first in the Garden of Eden, afterwards in Cain and Abel and
finally in the addendum to the Flood narrative, in which Canaan, son of Ham,
is cursed for his sexual impropriety. Thus, the Biblical author, simply by a
careful choice of vocabulary, links Abraham's life and mission with the
entire dismal course of human history up to his time - he will be
humankind's champion.
Despite all of the above, note that from a dramatic point of view, Abram has
been given no concrete assurances. This is the true focus of this first
trial. And Abram's response is stunning:
"Abram went forth as the Lord had commanded him."
No dialogue, no verbal response whatsoever is reported. In this entire first
episode of Abraham's career, the Patriarch is purely a man of action. So
totally is he fixed on his mission, that the long, perilous journey from
northern Syria to the land of Canaan is as if nothing at all:
"...and they set out for the land of Canaan. And they arrived in the land
of Canaan...."
I have purposely departed from the JPS translation here, in order to
highlight the reticence of the phrasing. There is simply no place for any
sort of description; they set off and they arrived and that is all that is
important, despite the momentous nature of this journey into the unknown.
Abram's next trial is a disturbing contrast to the depth of faith and
self-abnegation found in the preceding episode. In Genesis 12:10ff. we read
as follows:
"There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn
there, for the famine was severe in the land. As he was about to enter
Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, 'I know what a beautiful woman you are.
If the Egyptians see you, and think, 'She is his wife,' they will kill me
and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well
with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you.'"
"When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw how very beautiful the woman
was. Pharaoh's courtiers saw her and praised her to Pharaoh and the woman
was taken into Pharaoh's palace. And because of her, it went well with
Abram; he acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-asses
and camels."
"But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues on
account of Sarai, the wife of Abram. Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, 'What
is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your
wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her as my wife?
Now, here is your wife; take her and be gone!' And Pharaoh put men in
charge of him, and they sent him off with his wife and all that he possessed."
I have presented here the entire story so that we may more easily relate to
its style and wording. This story is, of course, fraught with difficulties
and has earned the attention of scholars throughout history. Several Jewish
commentators of the middle ages, including Ramban (Nachmanides), criticize
Abram's actions in this story. Regarding both the fact of the descent to
Egypt and to the peril into which the Patriarch put his wife, Ramban
declares that Abram erred because of his lack of faith in God. Other
commentators suggest ample explanations for these same actions. However, I
would like to concentrate on two literary aspects of our story, phenomena
which are found throughout the Biblical narrative.
The first matter is the use of the varying titles given Sarai in our story.
Take a look at the full text given above and note for yourselves that the
Matriarch is called: his wife Sarai; the woman; Sarai, the wife of Abram;
his/your wife. While one might suggest that this is simply a matter of
minimal stylistic variation, it is highly suggestive that we are dealing
with a story in which the very title of the character is the issue! But in
addition, a look at a number of other Biblical stories will show that this
use of different titles for the same character is a Biblical technique that
is more than simple stylistics. For example, in the story of Hagar and
Ishmael (Genesis 21: 9f.) Hagar is called Hagar or Hagar the Egyptian by the
narrator; but Sarah calls her that slave-woman or simply "that". The
narrator first calls Ishmael "the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to
Abraham"; Sarah then calls him "her son" and "the son of that slave";
Abraham calls him "his son"; and God refers to him as "the boy". It can be
easily seen from this short perusal that the different titles reflect the
variety of relationships, familial and dramatic, within the story itself.
Returning to Genesis 12, we find that Sarai is referred to by her name only
at the beginning of the story and afterwards as woman or wife. When we add
to this the fact that Sarai has no spoken part in our story, we must come to
the conclusion that the writer has intended to portray the Matriarch in this
case purely as an object. This use of dialogue and titles fits perfectly
with the content of the story and the Ramban's evaluation.
The other aspect of this story which I want to address is the fact that we
have here one version of a thrice told tale: in Genesis 20 and 26 much the
same story appears again. In each case, the Patriarch (Abraham or Isaac)
requests of the Matriarch (Sarah or Rebecca) that she present herself at a
foreign court as his sister rather than his wife, in order to save him from
possible harm. As a result and in light of the great beauty of the
Matriarch, she is taken into the harem of the local king (Pharaoh or
Abimelech of Gerar). But divine intervention eventually restores her to her
husband. Early critical scholarship saw these stories as proof of the
documentary hypothesis, each story originating in a different legendary
cycle. More recently, Y. Zakovitz and others have suggested that such
duplications are example of "inner Biblical commentary" - attempts by
Biblical authors to comment on or alter our reactions to other Biblical
tales. In other words, rather than dealing with originally independent
stories that were secondarily combined, as contended by the classic
documentary hypothesis, we have here evidence of conscious adaptation of
stories and the creation of literary history.
Although we could easily spend much more time on the Abraham cycle, I would
like to restrict my remarks this time to one final segment of the trial
process in these stories. As mentioned earlier, many commentators see these
trials as the central motif of Abraham's life. And yet, only in Genesis 22
do we encounter an overt reference to such testing:
"Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him,
'Abraham,' and he answered, 'Here I am.' And He said, 'Take your son, your
favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer
him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to
you.'"
The importance of the overt use of the word "test" is further heightened
here by the Hebrew word order. Normally, after the opening adverbial phrase,
we expect the reversal of the regular subject-predicate word order. In our
verse, however, the reversal does not appear; but instead, God is the first
word of the following phrase. This unusual word order, lost completely in
translation, presents God and Abraham on either side of the test.
Martin Buber, along with others, pointed out the striking similarities in
wording between the story of the binding of Isaac and the Abraham's first
trial. In both, and only in these two stories in all the Bible, do we find
the Hebrew phrase "lech lecha". This phrase is translated in the JPS
version of Genesis 12:1 as "go forth" and in Genesis 22:2 simply as "go"
(losing the "hyperlink"!) In addition, in both stories the Patriarch is
commanded to make a tripartite sacrifice. We have already pointed this out
above regarding Genesis 12. In Genesis 22 we find the three-part phrase
regarding Isaac himself. Finally, in both cases the destination of the
Patriarch is left undisclosed:
"to the land that I will show you"
Genesis 12
"on one of the heights that I will point out to you"
Genesis 22
In this way the Biblical author has bound together the stories of Abraham's
first and last trial. Interestingly, rather than the root RAoH, used as a
leading word throughout the Abraham stories and particularly in Genesis 22,
the verb used in this particular case is from the root OMaR (to speak),
possibly to stress the intimacy of the divine communication.
Buber's touching analysis of the bond between Genesis 12 and 22 suggests
that in the first story Abraham must sacrifice his past, while in the
second, he is challenged to sacrifice his future. So once again we have an
example of the Biblical use of words as something akin to modern hyperlinks.
Of course, it is possible to go overboard with this type of linking since
any two words can be linked according to the whim or the associations of the
commentator. What we have tried to do here, building on both traditional and
modern commentaries, is to point out a number of such links which seem to be
conscious manipulations of wording, both within specific stories and between
one story and another. We have also given several example of the use of
titles as a way of indicating viewpoint, something like the changing of
camera angles in modern cinema. For lack of space, we have not delved into
the means by which characters are described in the Abraham cycle, but we
will get to this matter in following lectures.
Bibliography
N . Leibowitz, Studies in Bereshit, pp.116-206
Suggested reading for next lecture, on Jacob
N. Sarna, Understanding Genesis, chapters 11 and 12
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