CHAPTER 26
read diepalaion, 'they wrestled'.!° Vg has collidebantur, 'they were hostile, at variance with one another'; see also Jerome's Ep. 125.
15, where he says that they waged war with one another. Sekhel Tov of this verse says that they pushed one another like two mighty men. verse 25 LXX describe Esau as 'first-born', prototokos; Jerome here and in Vg simply has 'first', following the Hebrew text (hari's6n). He restricts his comment to the meaning of Seir, which also comes to refer to Edom: see 36: 19. 'Hairy', pilosus, is one of the meanings he gives for the name in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 72), the other being hispidus, 'hairy, bristly', which he uses in Vg. He is silent about the ruddy (Hebrew 'adméni) appearance of Esau expressed in LXX by the rare word purrbakés, which conveys a sense of savagery and bestial character noted by Philo, OG 4. 160. Is his treatment of Esau deliberately restrained?" verse 30 In Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 65), Edom is interpreted as 'red' or 'earthen'.
CHAPTER 26 verses 12~13 The consonantal text of the Hebrew may be vocalized as $"6rim, 'barley', as LXX and Pesh have understood the word; but MT reads $"Grim, from root §7, 'to reckon, value', hence
'valuations, reckonings'. Aquila indicates the antiquity of MT, Jerome essentially agreeing in Vg with 'one hundredfold'. TO and PJ have 'one hundred times what he had estimated'; see also t. Ber.
7(6): 8, Gen. Rab. 64: 6, Sekhel Tov, and Rashi's commentary on this verse.! Jerome takes the verse as referring to an increase in Isaac's virtues, using 26: 13 as further proof of this: he may have derived the idea from Philo, De Mut. Nom. 268-9, OG 4. 189-90.
He may also be engaging with Origen, who had seen prefigured in 10 See Salvesen, Symmachus, 207. it See Feldman, 'Josephus' Portrait of Jacob', 123-4.
' See also Pes. Rab. 25; PRK 11; Tanh. Reeh 12; b. Taian. 8; Num. Rab. 12: 11.
Most of these Rabbinic sources indicate that Abraham's 'estimations' or 'valuations' were undertaken so that he might separate the correct amount of tithe or priestly offering. Jerome ignores this interpretation, even though it is strongly implied in Philo's exegesis of the number one hundred and this verse, De Mut. Nom. 189-92.
He evidently approves of Aquila's version, which he cites some thirty-two times in QHG: see further Jay, L'Exégése de saint Jéréme, 103-5.
Commentary Abraham's increasing barley stocks the miraculously multiplied barley loaves which Christ fed to the Five Thousand (Hom. in Gen.
12. 5; Comm. in Joh. 6. 9) and Christ's own growth in greatness (Comm. in Matt.
15). Again, Jerome argues that it is the Hebrew itself which properly conveys these same truths about Christ; rather than LXX, which in this case offers the pedestrian and material business of barley stock as the proposed locus of a spiritual truth about Christ. verses 17,19 The Hebrew nhl may mean both a 'torrent, seething stream' and 'wadi', the valley created by such a rushing torrent. The wadi may dry up and remain without water until a sudden violent storm of rain. Jerome thinks it fit that Isaac should live by the side of water, not in a parched land; accordingly, he quotes Ps. 110: 7 to show that ml refers to a torrent of water. In Vg he translated the word as 'torrent' in both these verses. 1 Kgs. 17: 6 also shows that Elijah drank from the nhl Cedron during a famine. This became dry
(1 Kgs. 17: 7); but Jerome recalls how, according to John 18: 1, Christ had crossed the Cedron on the night when he was handed over to his Passion. And it was during his Passion that Christ sanctified baptism, since water as well as blood flowed from his side, John r9: 34. verse 21 LXX in most witnesses has 'and he dug another well';
Jerome here and in Vg follows the Hebrew. LXX translated Hebrew Sitnah as 'enmities', which Jerome retains in Vg: see also
Philo, De Somn. 1. 40; Josephus, Ant. 1. 262; and Jub. 24: 20. His aim is to explain the meaning of the word Satan: thus he records the renderings of Aquila and Symmachus to show that Satan is properly the adversary. verse 22 Both LXX and Hebrew have 'and he dug another well, and they did not contend about it'; whereas Jerome here and in Vg puts 'and they dug... they did not contend about them'. On the meaning of Hebrew rhabat, see above, comment on ro: 11. verse 26 The Hebrew *huzzat mérééhiu could signify a name,
'Ahuzzath his companion': LXX, Vg, Pesh, and Symmachus have so understood it. R. Jehudah in Gen. Rab. 64: 9 is of the same opinion; and LXX chose to add this name to 21: 22. But both TO and TN explain the phrase as 'a company of his friends', and with them agrees R. Nehemiah in Gen. Rab. 64: 9. This is Rashi's preferred interpretation. PJ has: 'he laid hold of his friends to go with him'. All these explanations depend on the root Hebrew *bz,