CHAPTER 37
verse 33 See above on 22: 20-2. Some witnesses to VL add, after Jobab's name, the words 'who is the Patriarch Job': see also
Theodoret, OG 95, and Epiphanius, Adv. Haer. 1.
CHAPTER 37 verse 3 Joseph's 'coat of many colours' is Hebrew k'ténet passim.
The first word of this pair means 'tunic', but the second is rare and occasioned discussion. Aquila's rendering is shared essentially with TO, TN, PJ, FTP, and FTV; Pesh; and Legab Tov: the tunic was richly decorated, and reached to the ankles. Symmachus regarded it as indicating long sleeves: so also Gen. Rab. 84: 8 and Aggadath
Bere'shith. The word passim occurs also in 2 Sam. 13: 18, and in his version of the narrative which includes that verse, Josephus (Ant. 7.
171) describes it as a sleeved tunic reaching to the ankles. Both ancient translators saw here the Hebrew word pas, 'sole' of the foot or, by extension, the 'palm' of the hand. Notwithstanding his remarks here, Jerome translated it in Vg as polymitam, 'brocaded, of many threads'; see also Ep. 130.
2. Jerome's technical and philological comments here owe nothing to, and differ entirely from, the allegorical and theological lessons perceived in this tunic by (e.g.) Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 5. 53. 2-3; Origen,
Hom. in Ezech. 6. 9. verse 28 The Hebrew, Vg, and the Targums read 'silver' instead of LXX's 'gold'. Jerome sees here an instance of the 'Hebrew truth', since it was unthinkable to him that Joseph could have been sold for more money than was Christ, whom Judas betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26: 15). See Jerome, Comm. in Matt.
4; Comm. in Philemon 613¢. verse 36 LXX have used archimageiros to translate Hebrew sar hatiabbahim in this verse and at 40: 3 (Codex Alexandrinus); 41: to, 12. The Greek verb mageireuein has a primary sense of 'to be a cook; to cook meat'; secondarily, it means 'to butcher'. Hebrew root tbh means primarily 'to slaughter', and the noun tabbab from 5 See Fischer, p. 380, citing an anonymous source and Gregory of Tours, Hist.
1 LXX have probably altered the Hebrew in the light of the price of slaves at the time when the translators were working: see Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 262, and the literature there cited.
Commentary the root means 'cook' or 'guardsman'. LXX appear to have tried to find a translation which does justice to both senses of the Hebrew.
Thus while Jub. 34: 11; 39: 2, VL of this verse and of 40: 3; 41: 10, 12, and LAB 8: 9 took the expression to mean 'chief of the cooks',
Philo and Josephus kept LXX's translation (e.g. Philo, Leg. All. 3.
236, De Jos. 23; Josephus, Ant. 2. 39) with its double meaning.
But we find elsewhere the phrase rab tabbahim (e.g. 2 Kgs. 25: 8, To; Jer. 39: 9), meaning a military commander, a chief guardsman who may also act as an executioner.
It is probably with these passages in mind that TO of Gen. 37: 36 has 'chief of the killers, executioners', while TN and PJ read 'chief of the guardsmen'; and Jerome's Vg has 'chief of the army'.> See also his rendering of the phrase in Vg Gen. 40: 3; 41: ro ('chief of the soldiers'); and 41: 12
('leader of the soldiers'). Jerome's refusal to follow LXX and VL was apparently noted by Augustine, OG 127.
Potiphar is here called a eunuch; but later there are references to his notorious wife (e.g. 39: 7) and to his daughter (41: 45). The Jewish tradition which Jerome sets forth to explain Potiphar's situation is well represented in extant sources. Thus PJ of Gen. 39: r reads: 'And Potiphar bought him, because he saw that he was beautiful, with a view to committing sodomy with him; and immediately it was decreed [by God] against him that his testicles should shrivel up; and he became an eunuch.' The same account appears also in Gen. Rab. 86: 3; b. Sot. 13b; Tanh. B. ad loc.
Jerome clearly prefers this Jewish resolution of the difficulty to the efforts of Diodore (Petit, ii. 256), who presents 'the Syrian' and 'the Hebrew' as making 'eunuch' do duty for 'faithful man', since the eunuch is most often in charge of royal possessions.*
2 But see O. Wintermute, 'Jubilees', in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,i(London, 1983), 121 note b. Further to the reading of LXX,
Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 263, comments on the fact that in Gen. 40: 3 Codex Alexandrinus this same official's title is archimageiros, but Codex Vaticanus reads desmophulax, 'gaol-keeper'.
3 TN and PJ use the Latin loan-word spiculator, here translated 'guardsman', in this verse and at 40: 3, 4; 41: 10, 12; see also GMof41: 10, 12. The Latin is properly speculator, and in Rabbinic literature can have the sense of 'executioner'. See
Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, i. 371.
4 Gennadius (Petit, ii. 255), explains the description of Potiphar as a eunuch as a katachrésis, the 'abuse' of a term which might also include a quite radical adaptation of its meaning. One interpretation of the word 'eunuch' in this verse may be
'benevolent', eunoun, a sense which is clearly dependent on the Greek translation, not the Hebrew text of the Bible. For the understanding and use of katachrésis among the Fathers, see Kamesar, Jerome, 164-7. Jerome's knowledge of the Hebrew