CHAPTER 35
Commentary CHAPTER 35 verse See above, comments on 28: 19. verse 8 Jerome has translated the Hebrew, which has the words
'and was buried' not found in LXX. The Hebrew for 'nurse', méneget, occurs here and in 24:
59. In the latter verse, LXX translated it as 'property': see comments above. verse 10 Jerome has not translated LXX, which does not include the final 'and He called his name Israel'. Nor does he fully translate the Hebrew, which has: 'And God said to him, Your name is Jacob.
Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name. And He called his name Israel.' In Vg, Jerome omits 'and God said to him', replacing it with 'saying', and the following 'Your name is Jacob'. The events of Gen. 32: 24-32 are regarded as a renaming of Jacob 'by anticipation', a notion already discussed in 14: 7. Here, Jerome seems to agree with those who held that the being Jacob encountered was an angel, who merely tells in advance what is now realized by God Himself. This is the view also of Leqah
Tov and Sekhel Tov on this verse; and Gen. Rab. 82: 3, R. Jose bar Haninah. verse 16 Jerome has possibly reproduced VL, which specifies the land 'of Canaan' found neither in LXX nor in the Hebrew. It has probably been introduced into this verse under the influence of Gen. 48: 7. The Hebrew kibrat ha'arez, a rare expression (only here; 48: 7; 2 Kgs. 5: 19) meaning, probably, 'a distance of land', puzzled LXX. As Jerome says, they rendered it here as the name of a place, Chabratha. In Gen. 48: 7, which says: 'Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the road, while there was still kibrat h@arez to come to Ephratha', LXX have put
'in the land of Canaan, while I was approaching the hippodrome chabratha of the land to come to Ephratha'. It would seem that 'hippodrome' is an explanation of the transliterated Hebrew word. Even odder is their apparent use of 'hippodrome' as an explanation of the Hebrew place-name Ephratha in 35: 19, where they put 'the hippodrome of Ephratha'.!
' The similarity of the two words kbrt and 'prt in Hebrew script may have encouraged LXX to interpret one in the light of the other: otherwise, LXX may have translated from Hebrew MSS with readings differing from our MT. In all cases, however, Chabratha and Ephratha are retained as place-names.
Aquila's translation seems to regard kibrat as a measure of distance, which is the view of Pesh and TO.? Jerome prefers an explanation which is paralleled in Gen. Rab. 82: 7, 'R. Eliezer ben Jacob said: When the land is hollow like a sieve (kkbrh) and the corn is found. The Rabbis said: When already the corn (kbr hbr) is found, and the rains are past, but summer heat has not yet come.' PJ also interprets the phrase as a time of year,
'the full time of the harvest of the land', as does TN, 'the time of the harvest of the land'; but FTV combines the idea that kibrat is a measure of distance with a temporal sense, rendering 'the time of a measure of land'. Vg, like QHG, has 'springtime'.
It seems probable that Jerome's exegesis owes something to Jewish understandings of the phrase still extant in Targum and Midrash; but his use of the words 'choice' and 'pick' may have come to him from other quarters. For he seems not entirely to abandon the LXX's notion that kibrat refers to a place, and considers the root bbr, 'to choose', as its root: see Lib. Heb. Nom.
64), where he gives the meaning of Chabratha as 'chosen' or 'heavy'. Jerome regards his overall understanding of the word as confirmed by the place-names Ephratha and Bethlehem. The first he derives from Hebrew root prh, 'be fruitful', as in Ep. 108. 10; and the second he translates literally as 'house of bread'. For the reference to Christ as the Bread from Heaven, see John 6: 32-58. verse 18 Jerome describes the sounds of ben '6ni and binyamin, which are similar. He renders Benoni as 'son of my sorrow', and Benjamin as 'son of the right hand' also in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 62),
Ep. 108. ro, and, for Benjamin, Lib. Heb. Nom. (pp. 79, 152, 155, 159). The right hand is, of course, a common symbol for strength, as in Exod. 15: 6. The final part of the comment disagrees with Philo, who regularly explained Benjamin as 'son of days': see De
Mut. Nom. 92-6; De Somn. 2. 36; De Mig. Abr. 203. Since Gen.
44: 20 speaks of Benjamin as a son of Jacob's old age, such an interpretation of the name might seem reasonable, and is thus found in Test. Ben. 1: 5-6 and Legab Tov on this verse; but Jerome insists that the explanation is not consonant with what he knows of 2 The sense of 'distance' may be original: see E. Vogt, 'Benjamin geboren "eine
Meile" von Ephrata', Biblica, 56 (1975), 30-6.
3 Quoted by Rahmer, Die hebréischen Traditionen, 44-5.
Commentary the Hebrew language.* Vg explains both names: 'Benoni, that is, Son of my sorrow'; and 'Beniamin, that is, Son of the right hand'.
See also Ep. 140. 16. verse 21 LXX have this verse as a preface to verse 16, and render:
'And Jacob set out from Bethel, and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Gader'. The Hebrew has: 'And Israel journeyed, and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder'. The place-name Migdal Eder is here understood as 'tower of the flock': see also Lib. Heb. Nom.
(p. 61) for Ader as 'flock'. This may be yet another instance where Jerome relates a Jewish tradition unrecorded in early sources, since nothing earlier than the MHG on this verse identifies Migdal Eder with Jerusalem. None the less, the late collections Legah Tov and Sekhel Tov do connect this verse with Micah 4: 8, quoted here by Jerome, which speaks of 'the tower of the flock [Migdal Eder], the hill of the daughter of Zion'. This prophetic verse would have encouraged an early identification of Migdal Eder with Zion-Jerusalem. Jerome repeats LXX's translation of this verse, which took
'hill', Hebrew 'apel (which itself may be a proper name Ophel) as if it were "Opel, 'gloom' (cf. Aquila), or even, perhaps, *rdpel, 'thick cloud'.
Against this, Jerome seems to set the geography of Jacob's journey: according to verse 19, he is located close to Bethlehem.
Understanding Eder as 'flock', he could link Migdal Eder to Bethlehem, where the shepherds who heard of Christ's birth from the host of angels (Luke 2: 8-14) were tending flocks, and interpret the verse as a prophecy in a mystery (see above, 14: 18) of events in the Gospel: see also Ep. 108. ro. It is noteworthy that PJ of this verse describes Migdal Eder as 'the place from where the King Messiah is destined to be revealed at the end of days'. verse 27. LXX have: 'And Jacob came .. . to Mambre, to a city of the plain, this is Hebron in the land of Canaan' for the Hebrew
'And Jacob came...to Mamre, Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron'.
Jerome had visited Hebron, and was able to speak of its position from his own experience. See also Lib. Loc. 934-5, where we are told that Hebron was once called Arbe, of which Arboc is a corrupt
* See further Kamesar, Jerome, 110-12, who contrasts Jerome's lucid correctness with the opaqueness of Greek sources dealing with this name.
> See P, Winter, 'The Cultural Background of the Narrative in Luke I and I', JOR 45 (1954), 238-40; le Déaut, La Nuit pascale, 277. On Jerome's use of vaticinium to designate the prophecy, see comments on ro: 24 and notes.