CHAPTER 38
The position of Potiphar as high priest of Heliopolis receives further attention at 41: 45, where the Bible refers to him as priest of On; see also 41: 50; 46: 20. On is the native Egyptian name for Heliopolis, and is so understood by LXX; Jub. 34: 11; 40: 10; 44:
24; Artapanus, ap. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9. 23. 3; Demetrius ap.
Eusebius, ibid. 9. 21. 12. It was the centre of worship of the gods Re-harakhty and Atum, with whom was associated the sacred bull
Mnevis (Strabo, Geography 17. 1. 22, 27): for many years it was patronized by the Pharaohs, and offered sacral support and justification for their rule. But by classical times Heliopolis had become renowned as a centre of philosophical, scientific, and religious learning; thus Jerome is able to represent Potiphar as 'hierophant', that is, the revealer and teacher of religious mysteries, doctrines, and ceremonial actions.' Philo used this word to describe Moses
(see especially De Post. 173) and his purity of body (De Somn. 2.
109). It should be noted that Jerome does not distinguish Potiphar the owner of Joseph from Potiphar the father-in-law of Joseph as two separate individuals: Origen, Sel. in Gen. 41: 45, records this distinction, but also refers to a Jewish apocryphal work asserting that they were identical.* CHAPTER 38 verse
The Hebrew reads: 'and she called his name Selah; and he (not 'she', as LXX and VL read) was bik¢zib when she bore him'.
The root kzb means 'to lie' and, when applied to rivers or plants, 'to fail, give out': Jerome illustrates this latter sense at the end of his comment, by referring to Hab. 3: 17. Aquila takes the verse to mean that she failed to give birth to children after Selah, and Jerome follows his interpretation.
But the Rabbinic tradition pointed to Chezib as the name of a place which signifies her failure to produce children thereafter. This interpretation is found in Gen. Rab. 85: 4, PJ, and FTP of this verse. TO reads simply text of Scripture and the Jewish tradition meant that he did not have to resort to such devices.
5 For the fame of the Heliopolitan priests and their learning, see Herodotus, Hist.
2, 3, and Strabo, Geography 17. t.
29. The latter tells how philosophy and astronomy were taught there, and that Plato and Eudoxus were pupils of the priests.
6 On this apocryphon, see further de Lange, Origen and the Jews, 129.
Commentary the name as if it were a place. Jerome, too, in Lib. Loc. 935 states that Chazbi is now 'a desert place near Adullam in the regions of Eleutheropolis', adding that the matter is debated more fully in QHG.
In QHG, however, he follows Aquila and interprets Chazbi in a manner very close to TN, which reads: 'and it was the case that she ceased (i.e. having children) after she bore him', words which are found almost exactly in Pesh, and recall the two words of FTV,
'and it came to pass that she ceased'. While the Jewish sources quoted above allow for Chazbi as the name of a place, these do not; and the likelihood of Jerome's indebtedness to Targumic tradition in this instance cannot be ruled out.' Jerome follows the general drift of QHG in the Vg, 'when he was born, she ceased from bearing children any more'. verse 12 The Hebrew reads ré"éhi, 'his friend', whereas LXX and VL vocalized the same consonants rhw as rdéhi, 'his shepherd'.
Without the possessive suffixes, the words are réeh and rdeh respectively; and an unvocalized consonanta! Hebrew text could be interpreted with respect to either word. In Vg Jerome translated the word as opilio, 'shepherd'. verse 14 The Hebrew b'petah énayim, literally 'at the gate of the two eyes', could be taken in different ways. Enayim might be the name of a place, as LXX 'at the gates (plural) of Ainan', VL (cf.
Jerome's translation here) 'at the gate of Aenan', and b. Sot. 10a regard it. TO also thinks of Enayim as a place; but renders the preceding word 'gate' or 'entrance' as 'crossroads'. But PJ has: 'she sat at the crossroads, where all eyes are on the look-out . . .'; like
Jerome in his comment here and in Vg, this Targum takes énayim as 'roads', as do TN and Pesh. Although Philo, De Congr. 124, has a similar understanding of the Hebrew, he differs from Jerome and the Targums in saying that Tamar sat at a place 'where three roads met'.? verse 26 Judah had promised to give to Tamar his son Selah as husband (38: 11), but he had failed to do this. So Tamar assumed the guise of a prostitute, and seduced Judah himself. Her pregnancy
1 On this verse, see further Geiger, Urschrift, 462; Rahmer, Die hebriischen Traditionen, 48-9; C.
Peters, 'Peschitta und Targumim des Pentateuchs', Le Muséon, 48 (1935), 42; and Kamesar, Jerome, 186-7.
? Rahmer, Die hebriischen Traditionen, 49, notes that Gen. Rab. 85:7 states that Enayim is not the name of a place. See also Ginzberg, 'Die Haggada' (MGW ns 7), caused scandal, but she was able to prove that Judah was the father of the child, he himself being compelled to recognize that his failure to give Selah to Tamar was the cause of her justifiable action. LXX stresses this, reading "Tamar is justified rather than 1. . .'. Jerome's point is that what Tamar had done was not right, but was justified only when set alongside the greater evil which Judah had done to her. He thus distances himself from the allegorizing of Philo, De
Mut. Nom. 134-6. verse 29 The Hebrew here reads, literally: 'And she said, How have you burst forth? A breach be upon you!' LXX rendered her words as 'Why has the wall been cut through because of you?', and VL attributed them to a midwife; cf. Jerome, In Eph. 1; Eps. 52. 3,
123. 12. The name Parez is derived by Aquila and Symmachus from the root prz, 'to break through'. Quite what the child 'broke through' is not evident, so Jerome supplies the afterbirth as the object of the verb. However, Pharisee derives not from prz, but from root pr, 'to separate'; and the word is a transliteration not of a Hebrew, but of an Aramaic form p'ri $a' meaning 'separated one'.
Jerome's explanation of Pharez here and in Dial. contra. Lucif. 23 agrees on one level with that of Origen, who derives Pharisee from Pharez and explains it in the same way (Comm. Series in Matt. 9,
20, 27; Comm. in Joh. 1. 13). On another level, however, Origen's comments differ from Jerome's, in that they explore the nature of the Pharisees' division and segregation: they separate the spiritual meanings of the prophetic writings from the literal-historical sense, preferring the latter to the former. Jerome's exegesis is determined by the Christian use of Phares as a type of Christ, who had broken down the wall dividing Jew and Gentile (see Eph. 2: 14-16). This he also records in Ep. §2. 3. verse 30 The name Zdarah Jerome derives from root zrh, 'to rise', from which comes the noun mizrdbh, 'east'. Zerah's sons are listed in 1 Chr. 2: 6. They were renowned as men of great wisdom, and only Solomon seems to have been wiser than they, according to 1
Kgs. 4: 21. In Ep. 123. 12, however, Jerome also connects the name with Hebrew zera', 'seed'.
For Christian readers, both these explanations would have force: Christ is called anatolé, the eastern star, in Luke 1: 78 (cf. Matt. 2: 1); and is spoken of by Paul as the seed promised to Abraham, who is not Isaac, but Christ
(Gal. 3: 16). Jerome is silent about the thread of scarlet tied to Zerah's hand, which, according to Origen (Comm. Series in Matt.
Commentary 125) prefigured Christ's passion and the purple robe which he received.
CHAPTER 40 verse x The Hebrew word under consideration here is masqéh, 'butler'. VL had 'he who was over the wine' or 'he who was over the wine-pourers'. See Jerome's comments above on 15: 2~3, where, however, the Hebrew word is meSeq, translated as 'steward' in Vg. The translation 'cupbearer' he uses in Vg of this verse. Where
Jerome concentrates on the meaning of the word, Origen, Sel. in Gen. 40: 1 offers an understanding of the 'sin' of the butler and baker. Ganymede, son of Tros according to Homer, Iliad 5. 265, was famed for his outstanding beauty, and was said to have been carried off to Olympus to be the gods' cupbearer. Virgil (Aeneid 5.
255) says that he was borne aloft by an eagle; Ovid (Met. 10. 15 5— 7) that Jupiter took him, having taken the form of an eagle. See also
Horace, Odes 4. 4. 1-12. verses 9~10 Hebrew Sdrig is rare, found only here, in verse 12 of this same chapter, and in Joel 1: 7. In the two verses of Genesis,
LXX translated it as puthmenes, 'stems': VL, which Jerome partly quotes for this verse, used fundi, 'vine-clusters'. The variety of meanings which he proposes for this word correspond largely to translations known from the different Targums. Thus TO has
Sbéyn, 'branches'; PJ mzwey', 'vine-branches, tendrils'; and TN and GM &rbytyn, 'shoots, twigs, bunches'. Vg's propagines, which Jerome has used here also as his final rendering of the word,
'shoots', compares with TN and GM of this verse. Given the variety of meanings he proposes, it seems unlikely that he depended on Aquila and Symmachus, both of whom used klématides, a word commonly meaning 'brushwood', and only very rarely 'vinebranches'. Didymus the Blind, De Trin. 1. 18, referred these three shoots to the Trinity, which helps to account for Jerome's interest in the accurate translation of this particular verse. verse 16 Hebrew has 'three baskets of hari, white bread', a word found only here in the whole Hebrew Bible. Jerome translated it as 'flour' in Vg: this corresponds neither with the Targums, all of which speak of bread, nor with Philo, De Somn. 2. 158, who speaks