CHAPTER 25
Commentary Sel. in Gen. 24: 62. Augustine, OG 69, clearly stated the problem, which was compounded by VL's translation of the Greek as exerceri, 'to exercise himself' physically, rather than spiritually or mentally.
Jerome invokes the Hebrew against LXX and translates it exactly as does Symmachus, whom he does not acknowledge: it is not clear that Symmachus' 'to speak' is meant to suggest prayer by Isaac.!°
But the Rabbinic interpretation of this verb is 'to pray': so, for example, TO, PJ, TN, and Mekh. de R. Ishmael Beshallah 3: 30-2.
It is entirely probable, given his words here, that Jerome reflects this Rabbinic understanding: in Vg he translated as 'to meditate'. Significant is his note that Isaac went out at the ninth hour,!! the regular time for the evening prayer which Isaac was said to have instituted: b. Ber. 26b; jer. Ber. 4: 1; b. 'AZ 7b; Gen. Rab. 60: 14;
PRE 16: 3; Tanh. Beshallab 9. Jerome's clarification of this word on the basis of the Hebrew text and Jewish tradition was possibly directed at Ambrose, who had anguished over adoleschésai, and had understood it as hallucinari, 'to talk idly, dream'; abalienari,
'to be estranged', or even 'to be driven mad'; exerceri, 'to exercise oneself? (in line with VL); or deambulare, 'to walk about' (all listed by Fischer, p. 259). Throughout his investigation, Ambrose, like
Augustine, had sought for a positive sense of adoleschésai. For Christ's prayer alone on the mountain, see Matt. 14: 23; Luke 6:
12; Jerome's description of prayer as 'spiritual victims' recalls 1 Peter 2: 5. verse 65 LXX, followed by VL, translated the Hebrew word sa'ip as theristron, 'veil', which is the explanation given in TO, PJ, TN,
FTP, and FTV. Jerome describes the garment more closely, from his own observation of Arab life: see In Esa. 2. 3: 22. He refers to it as pallium, 'mantle', both here and in Vg. It is of interest to him as symbolically representing virginal purity: see his comments on Song
I: 33 8: ro in Ep. 107. 7.
CHAPTER 25 verses 1-6 Jerome has followed the Hebrew, not LXX, for the names of these people: the latter add the names Thaima after Saba;
10 See Salvesen, Symmachus, 46. For the original Hebrew and its LXX translation, see le Déaut, Targum du Pentateuque, i. 240 and the literature cited there.
11 See Rahmer, Die hebrdischen Traditionen, 38.
Ragouel and Nabdeél after Dadan; and read Abira and Elraga for Abida and Aledea respectively. LXX also describe Isaac as 'his son', which Jerome, like the Hebrew, does not have. PJ, the second Ngl,
FTP, and FTV of 25: x identify Keturah with Hagar, the first two named Targums specifying that she was bound qtyrh or gtyr to him formerly. The same identification is found in PRE 30: 4; MHG and Yalqut Shimoni on this verse. Jerome says not that the Hebrews hand ona tradition (tradunt), only that they suppose (suspicantur) that the women are one and the same. In fact, the matter was disputed, as Gen. Rab. 61: 4 indicates: R. Jehudah accepted the identification, whereas R. Nehemiah did not.! Further, the meaning of her name as 'bound' was not espoused by all sources. PRE, for example, related it also to qtwrt, the 'incense' offered in the Temple, as did Origen, Hom. in Gen. 11. 1; and in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p.
64) Jerome himself had interpreted it as 'one offering incense or coupled or joined'. But the identification of Keturah and Hagar is probably ancient, in that Jub. 20: 13 already speaks of the descendants of Keturah and of Ishmael (Hagar's son) as having mixed together: they may, in time, have come to be regarded as identical.
For an attempt to defend Abraham from allegations of sexual incontinence, see also Augustine, QG 70.
Jerome depends on Josephus, Ant. 1. 239-40, for his remarks about the sons of Keturah 'according to the historians of the Hebrews': it is only when he begins to speak of the sons of Dadan that he leaves Josephus' record. Troglodytis was the shores of the Red Sea, both on the African and Arabian sides; Arabia Eudaimon,
Latin Arabia Felix, was the Arabian peninsula itself. Origen, Sel. in Gen. 25: 1, says that Keturah's descendants lived there, but adds a reference to the Midianites, among whom was Jethro, the father-inlaw of Moses. The story of Afer seems to derive from Alexander
Polyhistor, who was born c. to5 Bc. During the latter part of the first century Bc he wrote at great length about a number of nations, including the Jews and Samaritans. His work sometimes quotes
Jewish and Samaritan sources.* Cleodemus Malchus, about whom very little is known, is most probably the original source of the 1 See further Rahmer, ibid. 38-9, citing Yalgut Shim'oni 2. 904 to the effect that she was either a daughter or granddaughter of Japheth.
2 Jerome used not only the writings of Josephus, but was also familiar with the works of Herodotus, Xenophon, and Berossus: see Jay, L'Exégése de saint Jérome,
182-3. For Alexander's work, see J. Freudenthal, Alexander Polyhistor und die von ibm erhaltenen Reste jiidischer und samaritanischer Geschichtswerke (Hellenistische
Studien, 1-2; Breslau, 1874-5); and discussion of his writings in Schiirer, History of Commentary story, however: if Alexander Polyhistor used his work, then clearly he must have been writing some time before 50 Bc. The material is preserved also by Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9. 20. 2-4. But much obscurity surrounds Josephus' use of Alexander Polyhistor, and it is not clear from where he derived the material he attributes to him and Malchus.? Jerome seems content to follow Josephus without question.
While LXX and Josephus took the sons of Dadan in 25:
(Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim) as names of peoples, Jerome quotes unnamed Jewish authorities that they refer to occupations.
See also his Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 68) for the meaning of Laomim. In fact, FTV interprets them as merchants, craftsmen (wmnyn), and heads of peoples, which almost exactly corresponds with Jerome's information. PJ and TN are very similar, but both read mpwryn, a word whose meaning has been much debated, in the second place.
It may be a Greek loan-word emporoi, 'traders'; but in that case it would repeat the sense of the first word, and consequently other suggestions have included its identification with empeiroi, 'skilled ones', or even empuroi in the sense of 'smiths'.* It may even be the case that Jerome and FTV represent the original Palestinian Targum which has been slightly garbled by PJ and TN, possibly because they were using Greek loan-words which the compilers or scribes of those Targums have not fully understood.
Be this as it may, Jerome's words coincide in some measure with FTV; and his manner of introducing them is striking. He says that 'they think, they suppose', not defining who 'they' might be; but 'they' report something very close to information found in a known text of Targum. And Jerome says that 'they' think that the Hebrew the Jewish People, iii/t. 5ro-12. Whether Jerome knew his work or the work of pagan historians directly may be doubted: see Courcelle, Late Latin Writers, 78-86.
3 On Cleodemus Malchus, see R. Doran in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ii (London, 1985), 883-6, esp. 883 for his comments on Josephus' sources for this passage; Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, iii/1.
# On the Greek loan-words, see further Rahmer, Die hebréischen Traditionen, 39-41, and McNamara, New Testament and Palestinian Targum, 54-6, who also discusses the relationships of the various Targums to one another, and St Jerome's possible knowledge of Targums. Kamesar, 'Thesis', 93, notes that a fragment attributed to Origen, but anonymous in the manuscripts, Sel. in Gen. (PG 12: 120¢- 121B) interprets the name Letushim as sphurokopoi, 'beaters with the hammer', i.e.
'smiths'. Thus Jerome may have derived his interpretation of the names from a Greek source; although Kamesar allows that the similarities between FTV and Jerome suggest a link with Rabbinic tradition.
Commentary 19t words should be 'translated' (transferri) in a particular sense. Remarkably, R. Samuel bar Nahman is recorded in Gen. Rab. 61: 5 as having attacked the Targum: 'R. Samuel bar Nahman said: Even though they translate (mtrgmyn) and say "traders and '"pryn and heads of peoples", all of them are, in fact, heads of peoples.' That Jerome knows of an interpretation of this verse which is so very close to that found in an Aramaic Targum is important evidence in assessing his familiarity with Targumic tradition. The Targums seem to have understood Asurim on the basis of Prov. 9: 6, 'and walk ('Srw) on the road'; Latosim through Gen. 4: 22, 'he was the forger (l6té$) of all bronze and iron cutting instruments'; and Laomim as I'mym, 'peoples'.
For the view that the Syrians are named after Asurim, and that Keturah's sons went east, Jerome possibly had in mind Demetrius the Chronographer, fr. 3 in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9. 29. 1-3. It is otherwise not clear who may be meant.® verse
The Hebrew reads: 'And Abraham expired (wayyigwa') and died in a good old age, old and full; and he was gathered to his people'. LXX have not added 'grew weak', but with it have translated wayyigwa'. It may be an inappropriate rendering, although Jerome retains it in Vg. He took LXX's 'full of days' to refer to Abraham's good works: see also a similar addition in PJ, which has 'old and full of all that was good'. His comments on the apparent redundancy of the scriptural language are close to similar remarks of Philo, QG 4. 152, on the fully virtuous life of the righteous man.
The technical exegetical term anag6égé, whose Greek form Jerome almost always retains whenever he uses it, means literally 'elevated' or 'superior' and refers to the 'spiritual' sense of a word or passage of Scripture, most often as opposed to its literal sense. His understanding and use of the word may have developed over the years: in some of his writings it seems almost identical with tropologia, while in his latest work, the commentary In Hieremiam, it is applied to the moral and allegorical exegesis of Scripture almost exclusively."
Here, Jerome suggests that LXX have in reality limited the full range of possible meanings of the text with their addition 'of days':
5 See Albeck's note to Gen. Rab. 6x: 5 for these, and other possibilities.
6 See J. Hanson, 'Demetrius the Chronographer', in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ii (London, 1985), 853 (fr. 3).
7 See Jay, L'Exégése de saint Jéréme, 226-32.
Commentary the Hebrew is thus superior in that it allows for a fuller and more 'spiritual' understanding. verses 13-18 As Jerome explains later, he has not initially translated LXX, the majority of whose witnesses read: 'according to the name of his generations ... and he dwelt from Evilat. . . until one comes to the Assyrians; over against the face of all his brothers he dwelt'. The note about the location of Ishmael's sons up to the words 'it is a region of Arabia' depends on Josephus, Ant.
220-1. On the villages and 'little forts', see PJ and FTP of verse 16, which reflect closely Jerome's description of the Arab settlements.*
On Duma, see Im Esa. 5. 21: 11-12, where he identifies it as a region of Idumaea in the south, twenty miles from Eleutheropolis, near the mountains of Seir. The word for 'south' in Hebrew is téman, itself also a geographical location in Edom (Jer. 49: 7, 20); and 'east' is often expressed as gedem, hence the expression bené qedem, 'those who live in the East country'.
The comment on verse 18 begins with a quotation of LXX, against which he sets the Hebrew that he dwelt 'in the presence of'
(coram, rather than in conspectu, 'in the sight of', as he rendered Hebrew 'al p*né at the beginning of this section) his brothers. Thus he supports his contention that 'brethren' here means sons, using
Gen. 31: 36-7 in accordance with the interpretation of those verses in Gen. Rab. 74: 13. Jacob had only one brother, Esau; yet Laban spoke of his brothers, and the only possible meaning of the word here is 'sons'. Eusebius of Emesa makes a similar point commenting on Gen. 27: 37 (Devreesse, p. 76). So Jerome transferred this to Ishmael, who had no brothers, but many sons.' verses 21-2 The word used by LXX (eskirtén) would be better rendered as 'leaped'.
Aquila, according to Field, read sunethlasthésan, which means 'struggled with one another', doubtless a reference to the future rivalry and hostility of the brothers.
TO says that they 'were pushing about'; PJ and TN that they jostled one another'. The reading ascribed to Symmachus finds echoes in the MHG: 'they were going down and coming up in her womb like the waves of the sea'. But other witnesses to Symmachus
® See further Hayward, 'Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Anti-Islamic Polemic', 845. Josephus seems to be the earliest of Jewish writers to equate the Ishmaelites with the Arabs: for the implications of this, see F, Millar, 'Hagar, Ishmael, Josephus and the Origins of Islam', JJS 44 (1993), 23-45.
® See also Rahmer, Die hebriischen Traditionen, 41.