Weiter zum Inhalt

Herding in Haran: A Note on Jacob's Claim in Genesis 31:39

Yael Landman


Seiten 173 - 180

DOI https://doi.org/10.13173/zeitaltobiblrech.25.2019.0173




(Brooklyn College, New York)

1 J. J. Finkelstein, “An Old Babylonian Herding Contract and Genesis 31:38f.,” JAOS 88 (1968) 30–36. Other studies addressing the ancient Near Eastern background to herding practices in the Jacob and Laban narrative (Genesis 29–31) include R. Frankena, “Some Remarks on the Semitic Background of Chapters XXIX–XXXI of the Book of Genesis,” in The Witness of Tradition: Papers Read at the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference Held at Woudschoten, 1970 (ed. M. A. Beek et al; Leiden: Brill, 1972) 53–64; M. A. Morrison, “The Jacob and Laban Narrative in Light of Near Eastern Sources,” BA 46 (1983) 155–64; Aaron Demsky, “Jacob's Herds in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Sources,” in Looking at the Ancient Near East and the Bible through the Same Eyes. Minha LeAhron: A Tribute to Aaron Skaist (ed. K. Abraham and J. Fleishman; Bethesda: CDL, 2012) 211–20. On the juridical proceedings within this narrative see Charles Mabee, “Jacob and Laban: The Structure of Judicial Proceedings (Genesis XXXI 25–42),” VT 30 (1980) 192–207.

2 Finkelstein, “An Old Babylonian Herding Contract and Genesis 31:38f.,” 30. The emphasis is Finkelstein's.

3 For discussion of the artful construction of these verses see Bernard S. Jackson, Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16 (Oxford: Oxford University, 2006) 352 n. 105; Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: Norton, 1996) 172.

4 For evidence of this practice, which was typically capped at a percentage, see, e.g., A. Leo Oppenheim, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets of the Wilberforce Eames Babylonian Collection in the New York Public Library (AOS 32; New Haven: AOS, 1948) 62; F. R. Kraus, Ein Edikt des Königs Ammi-Ṣaduqa von Babylon (Leiden: Brill, 1958) 113–14; idem., Staatliche Viehhaltung im altbabylonischen Lande Larsa (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche U.M., 1966) 14; Finkelstein, “An Old Babylonian Herding Contract and Genesis 31:38f.,” 35; J. N. Postgate, “Some Old Babylonian Shepherds and Their Flocks,” JSS 20 (1975) 1–18, here 6; M. A. Morrison, “Evidence for Herdsmen and Animal Husbandry in the Nuzi Documents,” in Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians in Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (ed. M. A. Morrison and D. I. Owen; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 257–96, here 271, 279.

5 See, e.g., Jackson, Wisdom Laws, 365 n. 159. Jackson further suggests that Jacob may have made this claim falsely, in line with the narrative's theme of deceiving the deceiver, but notes that at the very least, such a claim would have had to been plausible to the narrative's original audience.

6 Finkelstein, “Old Babylonian Herding Contract,” 35–36.

7 See, e.g., Exod 29:36; Lev 14:49; Ezek 45:18; Ps 51:9.

8 For such a translation in the versions see, e.g., LXX, Vulgate.

9 Finkelstein, “Old Babylonian Herding Contract,” 30.

10 For חט“א meaning ‘to err, to miss’ see especially Job 5:24, of counting sheep and missing none. For Akkadian nouns from the same root see CAD Ḫ, s.v. ḫītu; ḫiṭītu, and cf. LH 267 and the OB herding contract YBC 5944, cited by Finkelstein, “Old Babylonian Herding Contract,” 30-36.

11 One might construe אֲחַטֶּנָּה as a privative piel: I removed the loss (i.e., by making up for it). But privative piels typically reflect the removal of something physical from the space it previously occupied, rather than the replacement of something that was lost. See B. K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990) §24.4f.

12 Frankena, “Some Remarks on the Semitic Background of Chapters XXIX-XXXI of the Book of Genesis,” 53-64. For this meaning of בק“ש מיד and its Akkadian interdialectical equivalent, ina qāti bu”û, see Moshe Held, “Two Philological Notes on Enūma Eliš,” in Kramer Anniversary Volume: Cuneiform Studies in Honor of Samuel Noah Kramer (ed. B. L. Eichler; AOAT; Kevelaer: Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1976) 231-39, here 233 n. 23; Edward L. Greenstein, “Trans-Semitic Idiomatic Equivalency and the Derivation of Hebrew ml'kh,” UF 11 (1979) 329-36, here 329. Unlike Frankena, Jackson (Wisdom Laws, 352 n. 105) reads מִיָּדִי תְּבַקְשֶׁנָּה as disjoined from אָנֹכִי אֲחַטֶּנָּה, and instead considers it the start of a new sentence continuing with the final four words in the verse. Although this reading bypasses Frankena's difficulty, it diverges from MT's parsing of the verse, which places an ‘etnaḥtā‘ under תְּבַקְשֶׁנָּה, signifying a major pause. The punctuation of many English translations suggest a division of the verse similar to Jackson's; see, e.g., KJV, RSV, JPS.

13 Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (AOAT 204; Kevelaer; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1980) 225-27. For the connection to ḫâṭu see also Y. Y. Rabinovitz, “Bê‘ûrîm bammiqrā‘” (Hebrew), Eretz Yisrael 3 (1954) 133-34, here 133; Rabinovitz, however, maintains that the root of the Hebrew verb is final-weak.

14 See, e.g., Gen 21:13, 18; Mic 2:12; Ps 44:14,15; Lam 3:45.

15 The reading of the Peshiṭta, ܡ݁ܖܛܪ (“I would watch it”) might be related to the Akkadian ḫâṭu as well, with its meaning ‘to watch over, to take care of’ (see CAD s.v. ḫâṭu). Note, however, that no cognate of this verb is attested in Syriac with this meaning. Regardless, such an interpretation runs into the same difficulties as Loewenstamm's.

16 See, e.g., ARM V 20 1:26: “What is missing (ḫaṭi) in your house?”

17 See CAD Ḫ, s.v. ḫaṭû.

18 W. G. Lambert, “A Vizier of Ḫattuša? A Further Comment,” JCS 13 (1959) 132. The initial identification of verbs in this stem in an OB text is found in an article by Anne Draffkorn (“Was King Abba-AN of Yamḫad a Vizier for the King of Ḫattuša?” JCS 13 [1959] 94-97). However, Lambert rightly corrects Draffkorn's translation from “sin” to “do an injury to,” and further points to an MB text as a bridge between the OB and NB evidence. Note that the OB text Draffkorn cites is from Alalakh. For affinities between 2nd millennium Alalakh texts and Genesis 12-50, see Richard S. Hess, “The Bible and Alalakh,” in Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations (ed. M. W. Chavalas and K. L. Younger; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 209-21, here 210-12.

19 For damaging property in general see, e.g., ABL 530 r. 5; ABL 852:9; BIN 1 25:9. The first two citations speak of damage to nikkassu, a general term for property or assets (see CAD N2, s.v. nikkassu). While the precise parameters of what nikkassu might include are unclear, the Aramaic cognate niksîn could refer to property in general or to flocks in particular; for references see Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, s.v. “nksyn, nksy?.” For injuring a reputation see, e.g., K2617 III; ABL 301:24.

20 See Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, §16.4f. Other examples of this phenomenon, which Waltke and O'Connor cite, can be found in Gen 15:6; 24:14; 42:36; Isa 47:7. The independent pronouns היא and זאת, also feminine, share the same function; see examples in section §16.3.5c.

21 For the imperfect used with an implicitly conditional sense see examples in GKC 159b-c. Compare the English expression “you break it, you buy it”: i.e., if you break it, then you must buy it.

22 For example, such a scenario underlies JEN 335, a lawsuit from Nuzi: One man gives his cow to another to watch. The bailee is accused of having transported the cow and injuring it in the process, as a result of which it died. Of note, the plaintiff's accusation contends that the bailee himself injured the animal (ultebbiršu ‘he injured it‘), while the defendant claims that the animal simply “was injured” (ittišbirmi). The plaintiff's version accords with the scenario Jacob describes, where the bailee himself injures the animal, while the defendant's claim more closely matches the scenario underlying Exodus 22:9, where an animal is injured under the bailee's watch, but not per se by his hand. Cuneiform laws about rented oxen similarly present a scenario where a renter physically injures the animal in his care; see LL 34-37; LOx 1–4; and the broken SLHF vi 11-15, found in M. T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2nd ed.; SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 33, 40–41, 52.

23 Although the verb אֲחַטֶּנָּה may simply be an alternate means of expressing animal injury, perhaps chosen in this poetic context specifically because it is an uncommon word, it is also possible that the scope of damage that the verb envisions includes, but exceeds, that of injury alone. For example, LH 267 treats a different form of damage to the flock that a negligent shepherd may cause: allowing the spread of the disease pissatum (translated “mange” in Roth, Law Collections, 130).

24 See, e.g., Exod 21:22–25, LL d–f, SLEx 1‘–2‘, LH 209, MAL 21, HL 17–18 of striking women and causing them to miscarry; and cf. Jer 20:17, where the prophet wishes a man had killed him in his mother's womb.

25 For the Sumerian hymn see M. Stol, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting (Groningen: Styx, 2000) 27 (and see n. 4 there): “Without Enlil, the great mountain, Nintu does not let die, does not kill; the cow in the cattle pen does not ‘throw’ its calf, the ewe in the sheepfold does not deliver a malformed lamb.” Cf. also Enki and the World Order, ll. 52–60, attributing to Enki the ability to grant fertility to livestock. For a possible biblical reference to divine causation of animal miscarriage see Ps 29:9, in which the “voice of Yhwh” causes hinds either to go into labor prematurely or to miscarry (see J. H. Tigay, “The Voice of YHWH Causes Hinds to Calve [Psalm 29:9],” in Birkat Shalom: Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday [ed. Chaim Cohen et al; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008] 399–411). Psalm 144:13 similarly attributes animal fertility to Yhwh. For references to Yhwh as controller of a woman's womb (closing it, opening it, determining the fate of the fetus inside it) see, e.g., Gen 20:18; 29:31; 1 Sam 1:5–6; Jer 1:5. Yhwh also “gives” pregnancy to Ruth (Ruth 4:13). Mesopotamian literature displays a similar notion of deities controlling conception and birth; Sin, for example, is associated with birth among both humans (see, e.g., STT 1:57) and animals (see, e.g., medical-magic text relating to easing of birthing pangs, discussed in N. Veldhuis, A Cow of Sin [Library of Oriental Texts; Groningen: Styx, 1991] 1). Dumuzi/Tammuz, in particular, was thought to have power over fertility in sheep; see Thorkild Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1970) 29. I thank Aliza Schachter for sharing references to the gods' role in fertility.

26 Gen 30:26, 30; 31:9, 42.

27 Finkelstein, “Old Babylonian Herding Contract,” 30, 36. For the understanding of גְּנֻבְתִי as an inflected participle meaning “I was robbed,” see Gary A. Rendsburg, “Aramaic-Like Features in the Pentateuch,” Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 163-76, here 167. However, as Rendsburg notes (citing G. Dalman, Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinischen Aramäisch [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1905] 284), this morpheme is only attested later in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.

28 For discussion of the form of גְּנֻבְתִי see Alter, Genesis, 173.

29 The gapping that requires some of the verse to perform double duty may in fact mimic Jacob's upset, sputtering speech. I thank David E. S. Stein for this observation.

30 For the use of Mesopotamian legal documents in reconstructing legal practice in ancient Israel see especially Bruce Wells, “What Is Biblical Law? A Look at Pentateuchal Rules and Near Eastern Practice,” CBQ 70 (2008) 223-243; Pamela Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2005) 4-6. For the benefits and pitfalls of using biblical narrative toward the same end see Barmash, “The Narrative Quandary: Cases of Law in Literature,” VT 54 (2004) 1-16.

31 As a caveat, it is worth noting that the Jacob-Laban herding narrative occurs in Haran, not in Israel; however, its audience must have found the story plausible, and the similarities between the Covenant Code and this narrative mitigate concerns that its foreign setting reflects practices that would have struck Israelites as incomprehensibly foreign.

Empfehlen


Export Citation