CHAPTER 20
of name: according to the Hebrew, she called him ben 'Ammi. Here, as Jerome points out, we do not have an etymology, since the name
Ammon is partly derived from 'am, 'people', and the name Ammon itself partly contributes to its own meaning. See TO, where she calls him Bar-Ammi, 'son of my kin', a description of the lad rather than a proper name.' Lib. Heb. Nom. gives the meaning as 'son of my people or people of sorrow' (pp. 61, 78, 90); Jerome presumably has discarded the latter interpretation in QHG.
CHAPTER 20 verse 12 See comments on 11: 29. Jerome translated the Hebrew of this verse in Vg as he does here: it is a rendering very close to Theodotion's. The emphasis is only slightly different from what is said in 11: 29. But see PJ of this verse, which makes Sarah the daughter of Abraham's uncle, i.e. his cousin. Jerome was well aware that the words sister and brother in Hebrew may have the broader meanings of cousin, or even extended family; but he makes no use of such an excuse for Abraham in this verse. See Adv.
Helvidium 1-12. For the difference between the laws of marriage before and after the Flood, and before the giving of the Torah, see
Augustine, De Civ. Dei 15. 16.
CHAPTER 21 verse 9 Jerome notes the absence of words in the Hebrew, which none the less are retained in some MSS of Vg. The Jewish exegesis which he records is strikingly similar to the interpretation of Gen.
11, where R. Ishmael understands the word m'sahéq, 'playing', in the bad sense of idol worship, and uses the same text as Jerome (Exod. 32: 6) to prove his point. On the other hand,
R. Simeon bar Yohai refers it to Ishmael's jesting and taunting of Isaac about the inheritance, such that Sarah was determined to evict Hagar and Ishmael, the proof for which is found in the words
'Cast out this handmaid ...' (Gen, 21: 10). The Midrash explains that Ishmael was building altars and offering up 'pretend' sacri7 See Aberbach and Grossfeld, Targum Onkelos, 118. TN has the same reading.
Commentary fices.! Jerome alludes to this tradition again at In Gal. 2 on Gal. 4:
29-30. His use of Jewish tradition to explain the word 'playing' is quite different from Diodore's claim (Petit, ii. 195-6, 197) that the Hebrew word can be explained by homonymy, 'play' being used to express 'fight' or 'persecution' on the basis of LXX of 2
Reigns 2: 14. Diodore's case can only be based on LXX, since the Hebrew root used in 2 Sam. 2: 14 is Shq, not shq as in Gen.
As regards the rights of the first-born, an extended paraphrase of Gen. 22:
1 in PJ has Ishmael insist that he was destined to be Abraham's heir since he was the eldest son of his father. Other Jewish texts refer this verse to Ishmael's idolatry: so PJ, TN, FTV, and FTP; t. Sot. 6: 6-11; some witnesses to Sifre Deut. 31; Exod.
Rab. 1: 1; Tanh. Toledot 5; Shemoth 1, 14; and the MHG on this verse. The late tradition that Ishmael was trying to kill Isaac, found in PRE 30: 1, Tanh. B. Shemoth 24, does not feature in Jerome's report. verse 14 For the age of Ishmael at Isaac's birth, see Gen. 16: 16;
17: 253 21: 5. Rahmer's discussion of Jewish opinions on Ishmael's age clearly sets out the evidence of Talmud and Midrash, which indeed bears some close resemblances to Jerome's remarks.? He states first the opinion that Ishmael was banished in the fifth year of Isaac's weaning. Ishmael would then have been 18, and this is the view which Jerome approves: see also Ep. 36. ro. It effectively corresponds with the view of Yalqut Shimoni and Sekhel Tov on this verse, and with some witnesses of PRE 30: 2, that he was 17
(Yalqut and Sekhel Tov) or 18 (PRE), the former source being understood to mean that he had completed his seventeenth year. It is not in tune with Diodore's (or Eusebius of Emesa's?) view that Ishmael was 15 years old (Petit, ii. 196-7).
If Ishmael had been expelled in the twelfth year of Isaac's weaning, it would mean that Ishmael would be 25 years old, and would approximate to the view of Gen. Rab. 53: 13. There, however, his age is given as 27; the Midrash assumes that Isaac's weaning means that he has reached the age of bar mitzvah, i.e. 13, to which we add
1 See Rahmer, Die hebréischen Traditionen, 31-2, who also comments on the remarkable parallels between Jerome and the Midrash.
* See R. le Déaut, 'Traditions targumiques dans le Corpus paulinien? (Hebr 11, 4 et 12, 24; Gal 4, 29-30; II Cor 3, 16)', Biblica, 42 (1961), 37-43.
3 See Rahmer, Die hebrdischen Traditionen, 32-3.
Ishmael's age at Isaac's birth, to yield the sense that Ishmael was in his twenty-seventh year at his expulsion. These are not the only computations: for example, some witnesses of PRE 30: 2 give
Ishmael's age as 24.4
Given all this, it is evident that Ishmael was a grown child. Thus the Hebrew text, which reads literally: 'and he took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar and placed them on her shoulder and the boy, and he sent them away', cannot mean that Abraham put Ishmael on Hagar's neck or shoulder: this point is made by Gen. Rab. 53: 13. Jerome understands 'the boy' as object of the verb 'he gave', taking the latter in the sense of 'he entrusted': he translates similarly in Vg, 'he entrusted (tradidit) him to her'.
This is also the interpretation of Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Augustine, OG 53. Although Diodore (or Eusebius?) alludes to this reasoning, he prefers the suggestion that the conditions of those days, in which people married at the age of 40 or 50 years, conspired to ensure that 15-year-old people were still properly children
(Petit, ii. 197). verses 1§-17 The information which LXX fail to supply allows Jerome to point to the superiority of the Hebrew. He comes close to suggesting that the LXX version makes little sense, since it is Hagar's tears which serve to recall to God the promise He had made in Gen. 17: 20. The vicarious element, much to the fore in his comment, perhaps betrays a Christian understanding of the Hebrew text as well as concern for the latter's superiority. That LXX posed problems for Christian interpreters is evident from the lengths to which some of them went to try to justify the version: see, for example, Augustine, OG 54. verse 18 LXX have: 'Rise up and take the child, and hold him in your hand.' See comments on 21: 14, above. verse 22.
The Hebrew has: 'Then said Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army'. LXX have introduced Ochozath, Hebrew Ahuzzath, from 26: 26, where he is apparently listed along with the other two men. The word translated 'groomsman', numphagogos, is uncommon, and means either one who leads the bride from her house to the groom's, or one who acts as matchmaker for another person. See further on 26: 26.
* As Rahmer, ibid. 33, notes, the age of weaning in the narrow sense of getting a child to eat solid rather than liquid food is given in b. Gift. 75b as either eighteen months or two years (so also b. Ket. 6b).
Commentary verses 30-1 LXX state that Abraham said these words. The explanation of Beer-Sheba notes the word-play which is possible with the unvocalized Hebrew word 5b'. First, it may be articulated as Seba', 'seven', which has obvious reference to the seven sheep.
Second, it may be vocalized as §*ba#@, 'oath', an allusion to the pact sworn between Abraham and Abimelech. See also PJ of this verse:
'Therefore he called that well The Well of the Seven Young Lambs because there the two of them swore an oath.' The name BeerSheba is found earlier in this chapter at verse 14, and Jerome explains it by means of the 'principle of anticipation', on which see above, 14: 7. He gives two other examples of this: Bethel, formerly
Luz, received its name in Gen. 28: 19, but was earlier named as such at Gen. 12: 8; 13: 3; while Gilgal, formerly Gibeath Ha- 'araloth (Josh. 5: 3) received its name in Josh. 5: 9, but was so called earlier, in Josh. 4: 19-20.
Isaac's birth is recorded in Gen. 21: 2-3, and follows immediately an account of Abraham's stay in Gerar. The present chapter also ends (21: 34) with references to Abraham in the land of the Philistines.
Jerome places Gerar twenty-five miles south of Eleutheropolis, on the very southern edge of Palestine.' Beer-Sheba, in fact, traditionally marks the southern boundary of the land of Israel, and Jerome notes its existence in his day. As he will explain in his comment on 22: 3-4, this area is three days' journey from Jerusalem, as he may have known from personal experience.* There is no scriptural evidence to suppose that Abraham had changed his place of residence; the journey which he undertook to go to Mount
Moriah lasted three days (22: 3-4); and the location of Beer-Sheba is known: hence we know also that Isaac's birthplace was not the oak of Mamre. See further on 22: 3-4. Palaestina Salutaris, also known as Palaestina Tertia, is recorded in AD 429 as one of three provinces into which Roman Palestine was divided: it comprised of the Negeb and southern Transjordan.' Jerome knew of it before this time, and a law of ap 396 referring to a praesides of Hygia
Palaestina, that is, Palaestina Salutaris, may be the earliest reference to it.® 5 See Lib. Loc. 945.
6 For Jerome's journeys in the land of Israel during 385-6, see Kelly, Jerome, "y See M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews of Palestine (Oxford, 1976), 228.
8 See the note in PL 23: rorg.