CHAPTER 13
with Jewish thinking either, and may be of his own devising. But his recourse to Jewish tradition is clear and exegetically simple; and it seems that some Christian exegetes accepted Jerome's opinion: see
Augustine, De Civ. Dei. 16. 15, QG 25. verses 9-10 LXX have: 'And Abram went away, and journeyed, and encamped in the desert'. The Hebrew has, literally, 'to the Negeb', which is desert. But Hebrew often uses Negeb to refer to the south; cf. TO of this verse, and of 13: 1, 3. Hence Jerome's comment, translating as 'ad austrum'; similar is Vg, reading 'ad meridiem'.* He will use this understanding to comment on 13: 1-4, below. The effect of his translation, however, is to diminish the theological significance of the verse: Philo, De Abr. 87, perceived in Abraham's departure from the crowd a love of the desert solitude which is dear to God. Similarly, Christ went into the desert alone to pray (Matt. 14: 13). verses 15-16 LXX and Vg read:
'and they treated Abram well ...'. The Bible is speaking of Sarai, Abraham's wife, who was brought into Pharaoh's harem during Abraham's first visit to Egypt
12: ro-15). This may imply that she became Pharaoh's concubine, and Jerome seeks to defend her by suggesting that she acted under duress, and then to show that possibly she may not have had time to be taken to Pharaoh's bed. As Theodoret, OG 63, also points out, there were those who believed that Pharaoh had actually had intercourse with Sarah, and Jerome is concerned to counter this idea. In support of his second argument he brings Est.
2: 12-13; and Augustine, OG 26, makes approving mention of it.
CHAPTER 13 verses 1-4 It is customary to speak of 'going up' to the land of Israel: see Sifre Deut. 23, 37, 113. Jerome presents Abraham as now freed from Egyptian bonds, just as his descendants were to be freed later: like them, he should immediately 'go up' to the land of 11: 32 offers the classical solution, that Abraham left Haran and came to Canaan sixty years or more before his father's death. Scripture, however, recorded Thara's death before noting Abraham's departure, lest the latter should seem to have deserted his aged father. He assumes, with Gen. Rab. 39, that Thara was a wicked man, and therefore effectively dead while actually still alive. See also Ibn Ezra's comments ad loc. in Migraoth Gedoloth.
2 Jerome may be following Aquila and Symmachus, who at Gen. 13: 1, 3; Num.
2: ro render Negeb as 'south'. See Salvesen, Symmachus, 238.
Commentary Israel. See Exod. 3: 16-17, where Moses is to announce the coming Exodus with the news that God will make Israel 'go up' to the land flowing with milk and honey. Rahmer's suggestion that Jerome's comment may depend on otherwise unknown Jewish exegesis derives some support from what follows.!
Jerome sets against the perfectly proper LXX translation that Abraham was very rich (plousios) the Hebrew kabéd m*6d, literally
'very heavy'. Rashi also comments at this point that Abraham was heavily laden with burdens. So Jerome can suggest that Abraham was encumbered by the seeming riches of Egypt, a place symbolizing all that is worldly. His particular love of asceticism has evidently coloured interpretation of this verse, for which he invokes the support of the 'Hebrew truth'. Abraham is a 'holy man', the prototype of the Christian monk. But other commentators understood the riches as entirely proper for a pious man who had obeyed
13; Aggadath Bere'shith 16, 34; and Ambrose, De Abr. 2. 20, following the LXX.
The interpretation of Abraham's journey to Bethel (VL renders as 'whence he had come') uses the explanation of the Negeb, which LXX have translated 'desert', as meaning 'south': see Symmachus and above, comment on 12: 9-10. TO, PJ, and TN of this verse do likewise, even though Abraham is clearly journeying northwards from Egypt to get to Bethel.2 Jerome makes Abraham return to Bethel, here expounded as 'house of God': he had left Egypt and the desert entirely, on this view, to go at once to the place of God's presence. Again, we should recall Exod. 3: 12, saying that Israel set free from Egyptian slavery should at once 'worship God on this mountain'. PJ of Gen. 13: 3 also insists on Abraham's immediate journey to Bethel, adding to the Hebrew that he returned to the place where he had pitched his tent and had first built an altar to God. verse 13.
LXX have: 'But the men who were in Sodom...' The Hebrew describes them, literally, as 'evil, and sinners to the Lord exceedingly'. Jerome's comment is very close to TN: 'And the people of Sodom were evil one towards another, and sinners in 1 See Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 28~9.
? See further Aberbach and Grossfeld, Targum Onkelos to Genesis, 80-1.
3 Hebrew: 'And he went on his journeys from the south, even as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been..." TN, TO, and PJ have: 'to the place where he had spread, pitched, his tent .. .': Cf. Vg, 'where he had formerly made (fixerat) his tent'.