• Ewald, nut. 1. 310 ST., 838, 341-344, 346, 348-350, 303, 371-374 376 S. Ct. Slade, Gtsch. i. 124-128 (who, however, does not allow that anything; pre-ilosaic is reflected in the patriarchal narratives).
t Dilhnann'sview is substantially that of Ewald : recollections of tribal movements are preser\'ed in the family histories of Genesis ; Isaac and Jacob, like Lot, Ishmael, Esau, and their sons, beinff * ideal personal names,' derived either from sub- di\isinn9 of the nation as it existed at a later time, or from historical stages of its f,'rowth, Jacob representing a new Hebrew immi;rration from Mesopotamia ; Abraham, however, beinp the personal leader of the first band of immigrants, who, according to all the Pcntateuchai narrators, was the spiritual father of the entire nation (flenfi 218, 219, 316 (Eng. tr. vol. ii. pp. 1-6. 190) ; ATTheol, 77 f.. 79-81). (Dillmann's remarks on these narratives of Genesis contain much that is suggestive and excellent, and deserve to be read in their entirety). The view of Kittel {Gesch, i. 153 [Eng. tr. i. 168 ff.]) is similar, except that he treats ths patriarchs more distinctly as personal tribal chiefs, who aftel> wards gave their names to the tribes led by them.
X Bampton Lectures, p. 109.
JACOB
JACOB'S WELL
533
chulh, Abel-mizraini, tlie custom of not eating of a particular muscle (3'J^-), the ethnolofjical rel^itions eulisisliiig between Israel and its neighbours (Isli- maelite tribes, 25'^'" ; Edora, and the racial altinities of its inhabitants, ch. 36), the characteristics of the dillerent tribes (48'" ; cli. 49). It may be doubted wliitther in all these cases we have the real his- torical explanations of the facts in question, and not rather explanations due to popular imagina- tion, or suggested by current etymologies : in some cases, it will be remembered, we find duplicate and inconsistent traditions respecting the same occur- rences. Wellhausen may be wrong in not allowing a mure substantial historical substratum for the patriarchal narratives ; but his general character- ization of them is ju.st. *
It must further be allowed that the characters of the patriarchs are coloured religiously by the feelings and beliefs of a later age. In the days of the patriarchs, religion must have been in a rudi- mentary stage : there are traces of this in the idea, for instance, of the revelations of deity being con- fined to particular spots, and in the reverence paid to sacred trees or pillars ; but at the same time the patriarchs often e.xpress themselves in terms sug- gesting much riper spiritual capacities and experi- ences. Here we cannot but trace the hands of the narrators, who were men penetrated by definite moral and religious ideiis, and who, writing with a didactic aim, idealized to a certain extent the characters of the patriarchs, and, while not strip- ping them of the distinctive featuies with which they were traditionally invested, so tilled in the outlines .supplied by tradition as to present the great figures of Hebrew antiquity as spiritual tijpcs, examples, for imitation or warning, as the case might be, for successive generations.
The patriarchs are, thirdly, idealized in another direction, in common with many of the other patriarchal figures in Genesis, by bein^ invested with the characteristics which afterwards marked the tribes descended, or reputed to be descended, from them : t indeed it is possible that sometimes even episodes of tribal life are referred back to them in the form of incidents occurring within the limits of their own families. Ishmael, for instance, in It)'- may be the personal son of Abraham ; but if he is this, he is also something more : he imper- sonates the Bedawin of the desert. So Jacob and Esau, in their contest for supremacy, are more than the twin sons of a man named Isaac : they impersonate two nations ; and the later relations subsisting between these two nations plainly colour parts of the narrator's representation (esp. the terms of the Blessings). Jacob, kee|iing Laban's sheep, may be an individual ; but when he and Laban are fixing the boundary which neither is to pa-ss, they plainly represent two peoples. The etory of Shechem and Dinah is one in which especially it may be suspected that this explanation la the correct one. Jg 9 shows how, after the con- q^uest, Israelites and Canaanites lived in Shechem side by side ; the almost complete identity of expression between Gn 3;!" ' the scms of IJamor, the father of Shechem,' and Jg 9^ ' the men of IJamor, the father of Shechem ' (where Shechem is clearly the place), t raises a legitimate doubt whether in the former passage ' Shechem ' does not mean the place as well, anil whether therefore in eh. 34 the same name is not a personification of the inhabit- ants of the place : it this view l>e correct, ch. 34 will mean that an Israelite clan (Dinah) had
• Wirt. 31&-3*27 (c(. 454 n.). The contemptuous criticlsmi of Robcrtaon {}irl. of Itr. 120-136) thow little inaight, cuid us uiytliiiii; but coDclusive.
t Cf. l!actbi,'in, ap. Ottlev, p. 111.
\ ' Vnihvr' ^fmimlrr. fillrr, u 1 Ch 2»1 a (Maclllr. ttln Mather ' of Oilciul). «*« «>" ( tho ' (atben' ol Ziph, llobrou, aiiu other towna), 4»»- " '»■ '»■ " ''.
never afterwards recovered from the bio
wT
See
gained a footin" in Shechem, and was in danger of being absorbed by the native Canaanites (the Benfl yamor) : Simeon and Levi interposed to prevent, this ;* but their action was not supported by the Israelites at large (' Jacob,' 34'°) j cf . 4l>'- •. Gn 49', it has even been conjectured, contains an allusion to the result : the Canaanites retaliated with such cU'ect that these two tribes were broken up, and never afterwards reci art. Si.MKON (Triiie).