children of Leah originally preponderated in strength and in numbers, being as eight to four, or at least, as six to two and to four. First Reuben, or afterwards, Joseph-though even when the latter had obtained the precedence, Reuben and his three tribes voted first, and in other respects asserted their dignity; then either the two other tribes of Leah and the two of Zilpah, or the four inferior tribes together; lastly, the four remaining tribes, but so that Joseph and Benjamin gave the casting vote. This was probably the earliest order of voting in the general assembly; and all other national arrangements would be formed on the same model. Later events may have altered many of the details, as will be further shown below; but so firmly must this ancient constitution have endured for centuries, so deeply must it have impressed itself on the whole life and feeling of the people, that even under circumstances the most altered, twelve, as the sacred number of the nation, was somehow maintained, and where it had been lost restored if possible (as, for instance, by the division of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasseh, after the withdrawal of Levi as the priestly tribe), and in theory and hope at least never abandoned.' 3. Certainly, in the period after Solomon, such distinctions between the twelve tribes, resting on early tradition, had long lost any actual meaning; since, though the original number was still held sacred in thought and hope, the reality had in many respects greatly changed. All the more easily was this old tradition seized upon by the new prophetic spirit, whose power pervaded the centuries immediately after Solomon; and it is marvellous to see how a genealogical legend, apparently so remote from the sphere of morality, received in the hands of the Third and Fourth Narrators 2 a sense in complete harmony with the spirit of a higher religion. The connecting thread is not, however, difficult to trace. The two tribes of Rachel, and especially Joseph-Ephraim, though originally last in order, were yet regarded as the most highly privileged, and therefore the best beloved sons of the common father, and their ancestress Rachel as his dearest wife. Yet, on the other hand, there seemed no moral ground for the preference thus given to the See my Commentar zur Apocalypse, 1828, p. 164 sq. 2 The plan and substance of the entire narrative of Gen. xxix. 16-xxx. 24 come from the Third Narrator; the Fourth obviously added the second explanation of the names Zebulon and Joseph in xxx. 20, 24. These do not harmonise with the original conception of the subject as well as those put first, and appear exactly as if intended to point the significance of the names with more precision than had been done by the Third Narrator. On the other hand the name Jahve in xxix. 31–35 may have been merely substituted by the Fourth Narrator for an original Elohim. tribe of Ephraim, since the branch Joseph-Ephraim had assuredly not always maintained the lofty purity attributed by the legend to its ancestor Joseph. Rachel, too, was esteemed superior to her sister in beauty and fascination, but not in real virtue. Under these circumstances the whole life of the two mothers, and their relation to the common ancestor, might be regarded as a competition between external advantages and pretensions and undeserved neglect-a competition whose issue, under Divine guidance, can never be doubtful, if under so severe a trial patience and virtue fail not; and thus is suggested a principle of the higher religion, to which every element of the ancient legend most beautifully adapts itself. Jacob loves and wishes to have the more beautiful sister only; yet the elder, whom it is unfair to set aside at once for her inferior charms, not only becomes his wife, equal in rights and position to Rachel, but is blessed before Rachel with four sons, thus gaining honour among the people, and even securing the love of her unwilling husband. But Rachel, now becoming impatient, gets from Jacob, at least through her handmaid Bilhah, two sons for herself. Yet even here Leah is not behindhand, and by similar means also gets two sons for herself. At length Rachel, reduced to extremity, tries to obtain the certainty of offspring by bargaining with her sister for the mandrakes found by Reuben, like a little Cupid. But on the contrary, as if in punishment of Rachel's deed, Leah receives two more sons and a daughter; till at length Rachel, wholly abased and humbled, is visited by a gleam of Divine favour, and she bears the son who, both in loftiness of character and in influence with his father, is soon to surpass all the others and become their prince; and with whose birth, according to ancient tradition, the circle of twelve seemed to be completed. But after the birth of this peerless son, she is not long spared to enjoy her happiness, and at Benjamin's birth she loses her life, when just entering Canaan. The interpretations given of the personal names of the sons spring from no more ancient conception of the family history than this. That personal names were originally significant, was indeed the true feeling of antiquity (p. 19), and the twelve heads of tribes were of sufficient historic importance to make it necessary to give an explanation of the full import of their names with those of other heroes. But, on the other hand, the names of these Patriarchs belonged to a period too It is perhaps only for brevity's sake that in the Book of Origins, Gen. xxxv. 23-26, Benjamin is reckoned among those born in Mesopotamia, as vv. 16-22 appear from all indications to belong to the First Narrator. remote for their original meaning to have been retained with certainty in the tenth or ninth century before Christ. So in this as in similar cases, the great freedom with which the living language interpreted its ancient words was called into play to find in them a meaning corresponding to new ideas. Another example of the mode in which such old family legends were applied is afforded by the Book of Origins, in the case of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah,' who stands singly beside his twelve sons. That we are not to understand this literally of an individual daughter, follows from the view we have arrived at respecting the brothers, as well as from the meaning in all similar cases. For though in early genealogies we occasionally find a daughter expressly mentioned, such instances are so rare and isolated," that it is impossible to believe them intended for daughters in the mere literal sense; and as all domestic relations, in this connection, represent in fact the movements of nations and tribes, the same rule must apply here also; for if the chief of a tribe or family had in any case a daughter thus exceptionally mentioned, some important family history must formerly have entwined itself around her name; as will be shown with regard to Caleb's daughter Achsa, of whom we have so bald a mention in 1 Chron. ii. 49. Now if the son of a concubine is meant to denote the father and representative of some less privileged tribe or family, which has come in from the outside and attached itself to the main stem, so on the other hand a daughter standing alone would betoken the passing over of a portion of the nation, tribe, or family, with their possessions, to another nation, tribe, or family as the case may be. So Caleb's daughter Achsa brings to Othniel great possessions; so Aholibamah and Timna denote the absorption of the Horites. into the Idumeans; and so the marriage of Hezron, Judah's grandson, to a daughter of Machir of Gilead, plainly indicates a fusion of these two races, to form the so-called townships of Jair, in the farthest east. So also, the proposed marriage of Jacob's daughter Dinah with Shechem, son of Hamor, must indicate the commencement of an alliance of a part, or (which Gen. xxxiii. 18-xxxiv; comp. with xlvi. 15, xxx. 21. The only other examples prior to postMosaic times are, Serah the daughter of Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17, mentioned again among matters merely special to the tribe, in Num. xxvi. 46, 1 Chron. vii. 30); Aholibamah daughter of Anah and Timna among the Horites (Gen. xxxvi. 25, 22); Sherah daughter of Ephraim (1 Chron. vii. 24); Heman's three daughters, men- Havoth-Jair, ¬ ♫♫ Num. xxxii. 41. is the same thing) a tribe, of the community of Jacob with Canaanites settled in the ancient city of Shechem, under a Canaanite dynasty bearing the name of Hamor.' The Earliest Narrator had already touched on this, and blamed the cruelty with which the tribes of Simeon and Levi had punished by fire and sword the attempt of the Canaanites to ravish and subjugate a portion of Jacob; and the very fact that Levi here appears in a very different character from that which he bore after Moses" time, shows this to be a relic of very ancient legend. But the Book of Origins, after its manner, seizes the opportunity to inculcate right conduct, and to show by this example in eloquent language and the clear words of law, how Israel ought to act when brought into close contact with strangers, and how intermarriage and friendly intercourse may be possible between Israel and the heathen; but represents the old father as observing an ominous silence respecting the cruelty with which Dinah's two brothers in this unusual case avenged her wrongs upon the offender and his city. Differently, again, does the Fourth Narrator treat the undoubtedly very old family tradition of Judah's sons. This legend essentially asserted two things. First, that two of Judah's three eldest sons, Er and Onan, were lost sight of in history, even before Israel came to Egypt. But this we have every reason to understand of some early catastrophe, which swept away the two first families of the tribe of Judah so entirely, that, though appearing in the genealogies in their due place, they are described only as having died early. Indeed, every son's name which stands quite isolated and barren in these ancient genealogies may similarly be held to denote a family which has become extinct. But the downfall of an older branch generally causes the rise of a younger; and tribes and their branches always tend towards the restitution of their original numbers. And therefore, secondly, this tradition conveys the fact that, in place of these two early-lost sons of Judah, two younger branches, Zarah and Pharez, arose, of whom Pharez eventually obtained the precedence (p. 373). Now there are two ways in which the fathers and representatives of younger branches thus taking the place of elder may consistently be treated in traditionary history. First, they may be described simply as laterborn sons of the same father. Of this kind is a very ancient account of the sons of Ephraim,' apparently referring to early struggles between the Israelites and the Aboriginal inhabitants in the pre-Egyptian period,' and affording therefore the best possible illustration of the present case. Ephraim (so it is said in the Chronicles on unquestionably ancient authority) lost two of his sons, Ezer and Elad, who, in some quarrel with the native inhabitants, went to Gath3 to carry off cattle, but were themselves slain. Whereupon their old father mourned many days, visited and consoled by his brethren, like Job in his affliction, until his wife bore him another son, Beriah, as well as a daughter; the son being the same from whom the great hero Joshua descended in the tenth generation. Secondly, such branches may be represented under the form of grandsons adopted as children. Of this we have an instance in Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim: they were received into the 11 Chron. vii. 20-23. 2 This might appear doubtful, from the circumstance, that 1 Chron. viii. 13 actually tells of one Beriah, who there appears as substitute and also as avenger of those fallen in the war with Gath, how he with his brother Shema expelled the inhabitants from Gath. He is in deed said to belong to the tribe of Benjamin; but from the affinity between the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin, this difference is unimportant. But he is regarded as the head of a family of Ajalon, a city close on the post-Mosaic possessions of Benjamin; hence it might perhaps seem probable that the contests in question belonged to the very commencement of the post-Mosaic period. But in fact these are not sufficient grounds for doubting the pre-Egyptian existence of this story; and thus we have here a very remarkable tradition of extremely ancient occurrences. See my remarks in Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. vi. pp. 99-100. Respecting the warlike deeds of some of Jacob's sons and of Jacob himself, against the Canaanites and against Esau, as also respecting the fortunes of Esau himself, we have further stories and intimations in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, noticed on p. 200, especially Test. Jud. ch. iii.-vii. ix. Benj. x. end. From what sources these accounts of the kings and localities of the Patriarchal world were derived, may be inferred from the Book of Jubilees xxxiv. xxxvii. (comp. xxx.), and similar books. Such works indeed continued in constant use down to a much later period (see Zunz Gottesdienstliche Vorträge, p. 145; Jellinek's Bet ha Midrasch, iii. pp. 1-5). The earliest work not in the Canon, which our author seems from the Test. Naft. v. to have made use of, was one probably written under the Seleucidæ, which contained information on the acts of Jacob and his sons; but whether the author of that book had access to any very ancient works, we have no means of knowing. But it is impossible to work out very clear historic notions from any such late materials; and the great freedom with which earlier accounts have been here handled, is seen from the Test. Jud. viii. compared with Gen. xxxviii. 1. 3 The Avim before the Philistine conquest must therefore be here intended, as is clear from p. 243. I regard this as the correct meaning of the words 1 Chron. vii. 20-27; the arrangement of the words, taken strictly, can yield no other sense; for the before v. 21 must designate the apodosis, according to my Lehrb. § 343 c. Shuthelah's genealogy is then carried down in seven, and Resheph's in ten generations, as far as Joshua, which is quite self-consistent. |