CHAPTER 19
verse 32 Abraham had used this expression in verse 30, asking God to spare the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah if righteous persons were to be found in the towns; thus, says Jerome, like all competent orators, he begins his address with a praefatio, a formula of introduction supplied with respectful and solemn terms of address to gain the hearer's favourable response. The LXX translation of the words, like the Targums, may be designed to lessen the rather anthropomorphic expression put into Abraham's mouth.
CHAPTER 19 verses 14-15 'The difficulty is inherent in Scripture, which speaks in 19: 8 of two daughters of Lot who have not known a man, then in 19: 14 of his *tandyw, sons-in-law, the Ighy of his daughters.
Two daughters are also reported in 19: 15. How many daughters were there? Gen. Rab. 49: 13 speaks of four, and four sons-in-law, which Gen. Rab. 50: 9 explains as two daughters already married
(hence the /¥tandyw of 19: 14) and two betrothed, a separate group referred to in the expression 'the Igby of his daughters'. It was natural, then, to suppose that the two married daughters had stayed in Sodom, while the unmarried had left with their father: see also
Rashi's comment on these verses. Although what 'some people think' superficially accords with this Haggadah, Jerome is really reporting something quite different: these people speak of married daughters and unmarried daughters, not daughters engaged to be married. In other words, 'some people' did not understand 'the Igby of his daughters' as a reference to betrothed persons, which is a vital part of the Midrash.
By contrast Josephus, Ant. 1. 202, carefully skates over these difficulties: he says that Lot took from Sodom his wife 'and his daughters, duo de ésan eti parthenoi', which last may mean either
'and there were two of them, still virgins', or 'and two of them were still virgins'. That is to say, Josephus may give the impression that there were only two of them, but his language allows, and perhaps even invites the conclusion that other daughters existed who may not have been virgins, and by implication therefore remained in Sodom. That the married daughters remained in Sodom is a traCommentary dition certainly found in later Midrashim, such as MHG on Gen.
19: 26 and PRE 25: 5.
Jerome may have taken his cue from Josephus, a suspicion strengthened when it is noted that the latter appears to have understood the 'sons-in-law' as 'suitors', which is very close to Jerome's description of them as sponsos, which in this setting, given what
Jerome is saying, must mean 'betrothed men'. While Josephus is the most likely Hebrew source for Jerome's interpretation of Iytanayw, the LXX translation of it as 'his sons-in-law' proved difficult. Kamesar has shown how Eusebius of Emesa appealed to biblical idiom, and John Chrysostom to the customs of ancient peoples, to show that the term 'sons-in-law' in this place refers to men who are not yet married; but their concern is solely for the LXX text.
In translating the 'Hebrew truth', however, Jerome vocalizes the word Iqby in a way approved by Gen. Rab. 50: 9, which, as we have seen, includes other traditions which he has earlier discarded.
Rather than reading /*quhé, meaning 'the ones taken by, i.e. married to' his daughters, both Jerome and the Midrash adopt the form lég*hé, 'the ones about to take' his daughters in marriage: see also
Vg. Thus the /¥tandyw cannot yet be sons-in-law: they must be engaged to the daughters, or suitors. It may be that this way of reading /qby allowed Jerome to seek in this instance another meaning for the root btn, which otherwise always refers to a relationship determined by marriage.' verse 21 The Hebrew ndé@ panim means, literally, 'lift up the face', that is 'show respect for'. LXX translated the phrase with thaumaz6, 'wonder at', which in classical Greek has also the sense of 'honour'.' For the interpretation of the Hebrew here as referring to prayer, see Sifre Num. 42, Num. Rab. 11: 7, Vg, and the general understanding of TO in this verse. But Symmachus presents a textual problem. Lagarde's reading is reproduced here, and means literally: 'in seeing, I was abashed at [later meaning: respected] your countenance'. Salvesen reads the first word as hora ei, and comments on the development of meaning of the verb dusoped from } On the meaning of tn in biblical Hebrew, see E. Kutsch, s.v. 'btn', in TDOT v.
273-6. For Eusebius's and John Chrysostom's approaches to the LXX rendering of the word as gambros, see Kamesar, Jerome, 168-9, who also correctly points out the differences between Gen. Rab. 50: 9 and Jerome's interpretation; Rahmer, Die hebriischen Traditionen, 30, overlooks their significance.
2 See Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 182.
'put out of countenance' to 'win over, respect'. The sense of the words given her reading of Symmachus would be 'Lo! Did I revere your countenance?" verse 28 The Hebrew says that git6r was going up like gitor of a kiln: Jerome translates the second occurrence of the word into Greek (here reproduced) as 'a rising of vapour, an exhalation'. In Vg, he renders the first occurrence as 'ashes', the second as 'smoke'.
The word is rare, being found twice in this verse and in Ps. 119: 83; 148:
8. Jerome's understanding is close to TO, which on both occasions here took it as t'ndnd', that is, 'smoke', 'vapour', 'reeking'. More striking still is his retention of the Hebrew word citor in transliteration: this is the procedure followed by PJ and TN, who virtually reproduce the Hebrew with qwtr and qytwr respectively.
The only Talmud passage to deal with the word, b. Menahoth 26b, seems to assume that everyone knows what qytr is, noting only that it is sent up from a furnace only when fire has kindled most of the fuel. Rashi repeats this comment, noting that such vapour is given off in furnaces where stones are burnt into lime; so also Sekhel Tov on this verse. It is most probable that Jerome is indebted to Jewish understandings of the sort found in TO for his explanation of this rare word. verse 30 On Segor and Salisa, see comments on 14: 2-3, and Philo, OG 4. 55, who says that Abraham did not think it safe to be near cities which had been burned up; and Sekhel Tov on this verse.
According to Gen. Rab. 51: 8, Lot's two daughters thought that the world had been completely destroyed, as in the Flood; see also
Aggadath Bere'shith and MHG on this verse, and Jerome, Ep. 22.
8.4 But Philo exonerates only the younger, De Ebr. 165. Lot had no such excuse, says Jerome, and thus flatly contradicts Origen, Contra Celsum 4. 45, Hom. in Gen. 5. 3-4, Comm. in Ep. ad Rom.
4. 9. Origen defended both Lot and his daughters on the grounds that they were partly to blame and partly excusable. Echoing the Stoic notion that actions may be either morally good, bad, or indifferent, he urges that the incest was morally indifferent, had been undertaken in good faith to populate a world in which they believed they were the only human beings left, and was not clearly
3 See Salvesen, Symmachus, 235, 246, 252. She has followed the reading of the majority of witnesses: see Wevers, p. 197, who himself follows Lagarde and reads horasei.
4 See Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 30.
Commentary condemned by Scripture. Lot could be excused since he did not act out of lust or concupiscence, and was the victim of his daughters' cunning; but he might be blamed for his ability to be deceived, and his drunkenness. Eusebius of Emesa (Devreesse, p. 72) excused Lot on the grounds that he became drunk with fear. Irenaeus, Adv.
Haer. 4. 48. 1, earlier had also stressed that Lot acted without lust, consent, or knowledge, and treats his two daughters as types of the two 'synagogues' of Jews and Christians. verse 35 LXX have: 'So they made their father drink wine on that night; and the younger went in and slept with her father on that night. And he did not know when she lay down, or when (she) rose up.'' The Hebrew has: 'And on that night they made their father drink wine. And the first-born went and slept with her father; and he did not know when she lay down nor when she rose up.' In the MT, a dot is written above the letter waw of whqmb, 'nor when she rose up'. Midrashically, this is to signify that while Lot did not know when she slept with him, he none the less knew when she rose up to go from him: so Gen. Rab. 51: 8; Sifre Num. 9-10; b. Nazir 23a; ARNa 34; and PJ of this verse. There are other examples of such dotted words in the Hebrew Bible, the work of scribes who may, as in cases such as this one, have preceded the Masoretes.* The Hebrew tradition which Jerome expounds in this and the preceding verse accords with the observable facts of everyday life, and is thus to be preferred: Lot must have known what was happening, and attempts to exempt him from blame are both futile and senseless. verses 36-8 Jerome has followed the Hebrew, omitting LXX's explanation of Moab as 'out of my father'; but this is essentially how he himself interprets the name here, as if it were méab, 'from the father': see also Lib. Heb. Nom. (pp. 69, 76). It bears clear hints of the incestuous union spoken of in the preceding verses: the fact that the mother names her son in this way is scandalous, according to Gen. Rab. 51: 11. The younger daughter is modest in her choice
5 There is also ambiguity in LXX, which may be reflected in the textual tradition of QHG: 'and he did not know when she slept (with him), nor when he rose up from her.' See Wevers, p. 200.
6 For Rabbinic lists of such words and phrases, see Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 30-1. There are ten instances of dotted words and phrases in the Pentateuch, according to the list in ARNa 34. The verses which ARN lists for Genesis are conveniently translated by Bowker, The Targums, 321.