removed from the inhabited part about the 'place' or town of Gerar, the Philistines did not interfere about it. And so it was, as we suppose, à fortiori, with respect to that at Beersheba, which was yet farther removed, though still within their territory. Of course, there exists this difference in the two accounts, that in xxi.32 (E) Abimelech and Abraham make a covenant after Abraham knew of the discovery of the well, xxi.25,32, whereas in xxvi.31(J) Abimelech and Isaac make a covenant before Isaac is told of the discovery of the well. But then it only follows that J has not exactly copied, but only imitated the story as it stood in E2.

(8) The only passage, to which this remark refers, is the statement that Isaac 'dug again the wells, which they dug in the days of his father'; and such a fact as this might certainly have been assumed by any writer, without any necessity for its having been formally mentioned in the foregoing narrative. But, in point of fact, as we have said (168), it is very probable that, though he speaks of 'wells,' E, in v.18 is really only referring to one single well-that notable one at Beersheba, about which he had written in xxi.25,—or, perhaps, to the two wells at Beersheba.

178. Upon the whole, HUPFELD, p.151,&c., assigns the entire section, v.1-33, to the Jehovist, as we also do, except that we give v.4,5, to D, and v.18 to E. BOEHMER gives v.6,13,16,17, 19-23,25-33, to E, and v.1-5,7-12,14,15,18,24,336, to the Compiler, which agrees with ours on one point where we differ from HUPFELD, viz. in giving v.4,5, to the later Compiler.

But we cannot assent to BOEHMER's view generally, which is much influenced by his original-as it seems to us, certainly erroneous-assignment of iv to D, and xiv,xv, to E,,—an error which has materially affected all his subsequent conclusions.

179. xxvi.34,35, Elohist.

This verse is referred to in subsequent Elohistic passages. xxvii.46,xxviii.8,9.

(i) 'and Esau was a son of forty years and he took as wife Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite';

comp. 'and Isaac was a son of forty years at his taking Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramæan to wife,' xxv.20.

...

(ii) date of Esau's marriage (10.vii).

180. xxvii.1-46, Jehovist.

*(i) v.1, 'his elder son,' v.15,42, 'her elder son,' 'her younger son,' (47.viii). *(ii) v.2, No♫, ‘behold I pray,' (59.xv).

(iii) v.3, 'go to the field and hunt,' v.5, 'Esau went to the field to hunt venison,' refers to xxv.27, 'Esau was a man knowing hunting, a man of the field.' (iv) v.4, 'make me a dainty-dish such as I love,' v.9, 'such as he loveth,' v.14, such as his father loved';

comp. 'Isaac loved Esau, for his venison was in his mouth,' xxv.28.

*(v) v.4,10,19,31, aya, 'for the sake of,' (4.xviii).

*(vi) v.4,33, □, 'not yet,' (3.ii).

(vii) v.4,25, 'my soul,' v.19,31, 'thy soul,' (59.xxi).

(viii) v.5, 'his son,' v.6, 'her son';

comp. and Isaac loved Esau . . . and Rebekah loved Jacob,' xxv.28.

(ix) v.8, &c. 'hearken to the voice of,' xxvii.8,13,43, xxx.6,-also E,(xxi.12), D(xxii.18,xxvi.5).

(x) v.11, ‘Esau my brother is a man of hair,' refers to xxv.25(E), which the Jehovist, as we suppose, had before him and was supplementing.

(xi) v.12,, 'perhaps,' (86.ii).

(xii) v.13, mp, 'curse,' only besides in the Pentateuch in Deuteronomy (ten times); but comp. p, 'make light=curse,' viii.21, xii.3, 4, ‘be light,' viii.8,11, xvi.4,5, and the 'curses' (4.xiv).

(xiii) v.13, 'upon me thy curse!' comp. 'upon thee my wrong!' xvi.5.

(xiv) v.15, Mi¬bŋ, ‘desires,' comp. p, ‘desire,' ii.9, iii.6.

(xv) v.15,27, 71, ‘garment,' (141.lviii).

(xvi) v.18,32,' who art thou?' comp. 'who are those?' xxxiii.5.

*(xvii) v.20, -, 'what is this?' (161.v).

*(xviii) v.20, 'hasten to find,' (141.xxxiv).

*(xix) v.20, ?, 'make-to-meet,' (141.xxii).

*(xx) v.20, 'Jehovah thy Elohim,' (47.xii).

*(xxi) v.21, -, 'if not,' (97.xxx).

*(xxii) v.21,22,25,25,26,27, v, 'come-near,' (97.xxxii).

*(xxiii) v.23, 1, 'discern,' xxvii.23, xxxi.32, xxxvii.32,33, xxxviii.25.26, xlii.7,7,8,8.

(xxiv) v.25, 1, in order to,' (59.xviii).

*(xxv) v.26, 'come-near, I pray, and kiss me,' v.27, 'and he came-near and kissed him';

comp. and Jacob kissed Rachel,' xxix.11;

'and he kissed him,' xxix.13, xxxiii.4, 1.1;
'to kiss my daughters and my sons,' xxxi.28;

'and he kissed his daughters,' xxxi.55;

'at thy mouth shall all my people kiss,' xli.40.
'and he kissed all his brethren,' xlv.15.

(xxvi) v.27, 'and he smelt the smell,' as in viii.21.

*(xxvii) v.27, îo, 'see,' in the sense of 'behold!' (63.xxi).

(xxviii) v.28, D, ELOHIM, (133.ii).

(xxix) v.29, D, folk,' as in xxv.23,23,23.

(xxx) v.29,37, 77, 'lord,' comp. n, 'mistress,' xvi.4,8,9.

(xxxi) v.29, 'thy mother's sons shall bow down to thee';

comp. 'thy father's sons shall bow down to thee,' xlix.8.

(xxxii) v.29 'those cursing thee be cursed, and those blessing thee be blessed!' comp. I will bless those blessing thee, and him cursing thee will I curse,' xii.3. *(xxxiii) v.30, ‘and it came-to-pass as Isaac had finished to bless Jacob,' (97.xlvii ̧ * *(xxxiv) v.34, 'at Esau's hearing,' (141.xlvi).

*(xxxv) v.34, 'cry (pyy) a cry,' (97.xxvii).

(xxxvi) v.36, 'my birthright (5) he took, and behold! now he has taken my blessing (')'—alliteration, as in (5.xvii).

(xxxvii) v.36, indirect derivation of the name ‘Jacob,' (3.iv), with nearly the same formula as in (55.xii), but with the question, 'is it not true that?' in place of the assertion ¡y, 'therefore.'

(xxxviii) v.36, 'these two-times,' (3.xv).

(xxxix) v.36, 'he took my birthright,' refers to xxv.33.

(xl) v.38, 'lift-up the voice and weep,' as in xxix.11, comp. xxxix. 14, 15, 18, xlv.2, -also E2(xxi.16).

(xli) v.28, 1, ‘weep,' xxvii.38, xxix.11, xxxiii.4, xxxvii.35, xlii.24, xliii.30,30, xlv.14,14,15, xlvi.29, 1.1,3,17,-also E2(xxi.16).

(xlii) v.39, pin, 'dwelling,' as in x.30.

*(xliii) v.40, 2, 'sword,' (4.xxvi).

(xliv) v.41, D, 'hate,' as in xlix.23, 1.15.

(xlv) v.41, 'said in his heart,' (45.v).

*(xlvi) v.42, 'and it was told to Rebekah,' (137.ii).

(xlvii) v.42, 'send and call,' xxvii.42, xxxi.4, xli.8,14; comp. 'send and take,' xxvii.45, xlii.16, E,(xx.2).

*(xlvin) 3.42, ông, ‘comfort,’ (11).

(xlix) v.43, Dip, ‘arise'=start, (63.xxv).

(1) v.43, -, 'flee thee,' comp. (133.v).

*(li) v.43, mp, 'flee,' (86.ix).

(lii) v.44, 'some days,' as in xxix.20.

(liii) v.46, 'I am weary of my life,' 'for what is my life to me?' comp. Rachel's passionate exclamation, 'Give me children, or else I die !' xxx.1.

(liv) v.46, 'daughters of the land,' as in xxxiv.1.

(lv) v.46, 'for what is my life to me';

comp. 'for what is this my birthright to me,' xxv.32.

N.B. v.46 is plainly a connecting link to fasten the preceding J. story to the E. in xxviii. 1-9, and is written quite in the vivid style of the Jehovist.

181. HUPFELD agrees with us in giving this chapter wholly to the Jehovist; as also does BOEHMER, except that, having assigned xxv.29-34 to the Compiler, he is obliged to ascribe to him v.36, and he gives to the Compiler also v.46.

On v.36 he writes as follows, p.219:

=

'And he (Esau) said, Have they not rightly named his name Jacob (he holds the heel, supplants)? And so has he held my heel twice!'-i.e. first at the birth, and again in taking away the paternal blessing. So meant the original (Jehovistic) author. The Compiler, however, wishes to introduce a reference to the story inserted by himself in xxv.29–34, about the earlier purchase of the birthright, and so adds here, 'My birthright he took, and behold! now he has taken my blessing!'

Ans. According to our view, xxv.26, where Jacob takes hold of Esau's heel, belongs most probably to E, and xxv.29-34 certainly to J, who refers in xxvii.36 to the two crafty acts of Jacob, in buying the birthright from him when he was exhausted and ready to die, and in taking deceitfully his father's blessing.

On v.46 he observes :

This verse exhibits a somewhat different view from xxvi.35, where we read, 'and they (the Hittite wives) were bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah.' Thus it is there said that both the father and mother of Esau were dissatisfied with the choice which their son had made. Here, however, it appears as if Rebekah was now for the first time wishing to draw Isaac into the same state of dissatisfaction as herself. It looks as if it was through her that Isaac sent Jacob to Charran in order to get a wife from thence. The Compiler, however, needed this transition, in order to connect xxvii with xxviii. That chapter, in which we find recorded the deceit prompted by Rebekah, closes with her advice to Jacob to flee to Charran from the wrath of his brother. This is the Jehovist's statement. Then follows the account of E, according to which Isaac himself sends Jacob to Laban to get a wife there. The most obvious connecting link, which the Compiler could supply, was just this, to give such a colouring to the matter by means of an interpolated verse, that Isaac should seem to have done this at the instigation of Rebekah, who wished to get Jacob away for his own safety. The phrase daughters of the land' recurs again with the Compiler in xxxiv.1.

Ans. According to our view, xxxiv.1 belongs also to the Jehovist, as does also certainly, as it seems to us, the verse before us.

182. It is generally supposed that when Jacob played this trick on Esau, they were both young men, and at any rate, as the story now stands, that they could not have been much older than forty, since Esau married at that age, xxvi.34, and his marriage was the immediate cause of Jacob's being sent to Padan-Aram to get a wife, xxviii. 1-9. For it can hardly have been meant to say that Isaac and Rebekah endured such bitterness of spirit' and 'weariness of life' on account of Esau's Hittite wives, as is described in xxvi.34,xxvii.46, for nearly

forty years, before any measures were taken to prevent Jacob taking a wife of the daughters of Canaan.'

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183. Yet this is actually the case, as the story now stands, though there is no incongruity in the old Elohistic narrative. Esau married at forty, as Isaac his father had done before him, xxv.20, and as probably Jacob also was supposed to have done, shortly after he was sent to Padan-Aram-i.e. immediately after his brother's disagreeable marriage. The Elohist, as we shall see, knew nothing about the twenty years' servitude in Charran. But he supposes Jacob to have married, and to have had his twelve children born in the order related in xxix.32-35, xxx.1-24,-to have acquired wealth there, xxxi.18, and then to have returned to his father Isaac at Hebron, xxxi.18, xxxv.27. It is very possible, however, that E may have allowed twenty years for the births of these children in Charran, so that the last of them was born when Jacob was about sixty, as Esau and Jacob were born to Isaac at sixty, xxv.26: and J may have sought to fill up in some measure this nearly blank interval of twenty years with the incidents recorded by him in xxix-xxxi.

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184. Thus Joseph would be 17, xxxvii.2a, according to E, when Jacob was 77, and therefore 70 when Jacob was 130, at the latter's going-down to Egypt, xlvii.9, and consequently about sixty years old, instead of thirty, when he stood before. Pharaoh,' xli.46, ten years previously, xlv.6. It is this Jehovistic notice in xli.46 which is the disturbing element, and throws the whole story into confusion. For, if Joseph was 30 years old then, and therefore 40 at Jacob's coming to Egypt, (when the latter was 130, xlvii.9,) Joseph must have been born when Jacob was 90, and this was 14 years after Jacob's going to Charran, comp. xxix.25-35, xxxi.41, so that he must have gone thither at the age of seventy-six-that is, thirty-six years after Esau's marriage. Thus, as the story now stands, we have

(i) Isaac and Rebekah waiting nearly forty years, though Esau's Hittite wives were a 'bitterness of spirit' to them, before Isaac thought of sending Jacob to get a wife in Charran;