CHAPTER 24
Commentary of the name as Ephran may indicate how it was pronounced by Jews in his day; although it is equally likely that it is his own device, to indicate easily to his readers the difference between the two writings of the word. Mekh. de R. Ishmael Amalek 3: 49-53 explains that Ephron lost this letter after he had taken money from Abraham, contrasting this with persons who had letters added to their names, such as Abraham (see also above, on 17: 15 and 16).
Rashi's commentary, following b. BM 87a, explains that Ephron promised much but actually did little; hence his name was deprived of the letter.' In Gen. Rab. 58: 7, R. Abba bar Judan in the name of R. Simon remarks that Ephron's shekels were in fact centenaria: he had charged Abraham overmuch, and to him is applied the verse in Prov. 28: 22 about the man of 'evil eye'. Jerome's use of this tradition to admonish those who sell burial grounds for money, even with the use of threats, owes much to these Jewish objections to Ephron's conduct.
CHAPTER 24 verse 9 PJ of this verse (cf. verse 2) says that the servant put his hand 'on the covenant (lit. cut) of the circumcision of Abraham';
TN refers to 'the covenant of Abraham', and the Negl to 'the thigh of Abraham's covenant', the two latter being euphemistic expressions of the first interpretation. There is a reference to the same procedure in Gen. Rab. 59: 8 and Sekhel Tov on this verse.! But this interpretation was known quite widely among Christian exegetes, and is found in Ephraem's Comm. in Gen. 21. 2; Theodoret, OG
75; a Catena fragment in the name of Diodore quoting 'the Syrian and the Hebrew' (Petit, ii. 204); and in the fragments of Eusebius of Emesa (Devreesse, p. 74). This last states that it is a reading of 'the Hebrew', and Kamesar suggests that Jerome's comment in this and the Syriac spell the second occurrence of the name with letter waw to indicate long 0. The name is spelled with waw in MT once in this verse, twice in verse 10, and in verses 13 and 14. It is spelled without waw once in this verse, and at 25: 93
49: 30; and 50: 13. Jerome gives as the meaning of Ephron 'dust of sorrow or unprofitable dust or their dust' in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 65).
5 See also Rahmer, Die hebriischen Traditionen, 36-7, citing Nahmanides on this vi .Se Rahmer, Die hebrdischen Traditionen, 37, and Albeck's explanation of Gen. verse is to some degree directed against Eusebius, to make clear that the exegesis.is not a reading of the Hebrew text of the Bible, but a Jewish tradition. The Hebrew Bible says nothing about the mark of circumcision: therefore Jerome feels able to ground his Christian interpretation of the verse, at least by implication, in the words of the Hebrew Bible itself. See also Adv. Jov. 1. 10. verse 22.
LXX read: 'The man took golden earrings, each of a drachma weight', thus equating the Hebrew beqa'' with the drachma; but Jerome may be following a MS of LXX of the type represented in Field, i.
39, and Wevers, p. 228, which read 'didrachma' instead of 'drachma'. The witnesses to VL reflect the same variants in reading. The Biblical bega', Jerome's BACE, was valued at half a shekel: Jerome understands this, and follows
Josephus, Ant. 3. 195, in equating the shekel with four Attic drachmae. The half-shekel bega' thus represents two drachmae, one didrachma.' There is a difficulty, however, with his conversion of the sums into Latin 'ounces'. Here he shows that one 'ounce', the whole shekel, will equal four drachmae; but in his commentary In Hiez. 1. 4: 9-12 he states that one 'ounce' equals eight drachmae.
Either he has made a mistake in this latter equation, or he may unconsciously be converting the 'ounce' into the Rabbinic currency of his day, according to which one biblical shekel is the equivalent of two Rabbinic shekels.* verse 43 Jerome's dispute with Jovinian (392) about the value of the monastic and ascetic life included further defence of the perpetual virginity of Christ's Mother which Jovinian, like Helvidius before him, had denied. Hence Jerome's interest in the precise meaning of @lmah and his reference to the Immanuel prophecy of Isa. 7: 14 are directed not only against Jewish arguments about the meaning of the word: see Adv. Jov. 1. 32, where Rebecca as 'almah, one who is truly chaste, is given as a type of the Church and brought as witness against Jovinian's position. There is in Hebrew a common root Im, 'to conceal', which Jerome presses into service
2 See Kamesar, Jerome, 153~5, who cites other Christian writers as knowing the tradition. The servant's action was understood by Christian exegetes as pointing forward to Baptism, or the union between Christ and the Church or the soul: see
Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 199.
3 See also his commentary In Hiez. on 4: 9-12, where he states unambiguously that a shekel equals four drachmae. He thus disagrees with Eusebius of Emesa, who valued the shekel at two drachmae: see Kamesar, "Thesis', 13 5~6.
* See Aberbach and Grossfeld, Targum Onkelos, 141.
Commentary here and in In Esa. 3. 7: 14, to argue that the word 'almdah means 'hidden'.' Indeed, in his comment on Isa. 7: 14, he records Aquila's translation of the word in this verse of Genesis as apokruphos,
'hidden'. His first proof text is Job 28: 20-1, where the niphial form néelmah, 'hidden', occurs: the verses are appropriate, given that the Blessed Virgin was identified with Wisdom, the subject under discussion there.® Next he quotes 2 Kgs. (LXX, 4 Reigns) 4: 27, where the form he*lim occurs in respect of the Lord's hiding information from Elisha.
The idea that an 'almdb is a hidden girl leads Jerome to argue that such a one possesses some extra quality in addition to mere physical virginity: she is virgin in spirit as well as in body. (Philo, OG 4. 99 had already interpreted the fact that Gen. 24: 16 twice refers to Rebecca as a virgin as meaning that she was a virgin both in body and in respect of her incorruptible soul). His authority is 1 Cor. 7:
34, which says of the virgin that she is 'careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit': see also Ep.
22. 38. He adds Exod. 2: 8 to show that almdh is used of Miriam, sister of Moses, and ends with a call to Jews to challenge his argument if they will.
He gives a much longer defence of his arguments in Im Esa. 3. 7:
14, where he uses as proof texts Ps. 9: 1; Gen. 24: 16, 43; and the passage from 2 Kings. He even resorts to comparative philology, suggesting that Hebrew borrowed words from other languages, like the word 'appiryon at Song 3: 9, which he explains as Greek phoreion (sedan-chair). So he declares that alma in Punic means
'virgin' and in Latin 'holy', and that Hebrew may have borrowed the word. In all this, his arguments are philological, and are based on the Hebrew text of Scripture: Jerome does not resort to what was perhaps the most famous Christian defence for understanding
'young woman' in Isa. 7: 14 as 'virgin', the claim of Fathers like Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3. 21. 1, 5) that the Jews had falsified the text.
More widespread among Christians, however, was the view that the Greek word neanis, 'young woman', could have the meaning
'virgin' in certain circumstances. The LXX of Deut. 22: 23-9, which gives the law concerning a man who in good faith marries a 5 In fact, 'almab probably derives from an homonymous root Im, 'to be mature'.
On Jerome's exposition of Isa. 7: 14, see Jay, L'Exégése de saint Jéréme, 117.
6 This is expressed clearly in the Old Roman rite, and may be traced back as far as Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto 2. 51 (PL 16: 753). young woman whom he later suspects was not a virgin at the time of marriage, is a case in point. In this Greek text 'young woman' and 'virgin' seem to be used interchangeably, and as ancient a work as the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (111) used these verses to prove the point.' But Origen, in one of the best known of his writings (Contra Celsum 1. 34ff.), had gone further and had invoked the Hebrew of Deut. 22: 23-9 to support his contention that 'almah in Isa. 7: t4 means 'virgin'. Since, however, the word 'almah nowhere appears in Deut. 22: 23-9, but only the words na*rah,
'young woman' and btilah, 'virgin', his argument could only fail.
Jerome himself (Adv. Jov. 1. 32) recognized the true meanings of the Hebrew words in Deut. 22: 23-9, and that text plays no part in his elucidation of the meaning of 'almah.' verse 59 Jerome's rendering of Hebrew ménigtah as 'nurse', which he uses also in Vg, is shared with Aquila, Symmachus, TO, and TN, deriving it from root ynq, 'to suckle'. LXX had taken it from root qnh, 'to acquire, possess', and translated with ta huparchonta. The latter encompasses as one of its possible meanings 'people', but that is not its necessary sense.' verses 62-3 On Gerar and Isaac's place of residence, see above,
21: 30-1; 22: 3-4. The Hebrew /aSaah occurs only here in Scripture, and its sense is uncertain even to modern scholars. Among the ancients, it was rendered by LXX as 'to busy himself', adoleschésai, a word with negative overtones of idle prattling and vain reasoning.
It therefore posed much the same difficulty as LXX's use of 'wise' to describe the serpent in the Garden of Eden, as noted above at 3: x. Amongst the Jews, however, it was usual to relate the word to root Syh, 'to muse', in the sense of commune with God: Philo had already understood even the LXX to have this sense, Leg. All. 3. 43,
Quod Det. 29-31, QG 4. 140. Christian exegetes were troubled by the pejorative sense of adoleschésai, and sought to explain it as meaning that Isaac prayed or meditated: see, for example, Origen,
7 See de Lange, Origen and the Jews, 99, 191, n. 61, and Kamesar, 'Thesis', 197— 202, for references to Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, Basil, and John of Jerusalem. The latter notes (p. 202) that Basil even regarded neanis as common language for 'virgin'.
8 According to Kamesar, 'Thesis', 205-6, Origen failed to verify the Hebrew text of Deut. 22, and depended simply on Greek texts which he then 'Hebraized', assuming that 'almab was the only Hebrew equivalent of Greek neanis.
° See Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 204. Indeed, Wevers, p. 237, notes that some witnesses to Symmachus read not trophon, 'nurse', but trophén, 'victuals'.